Letters to the Editor – Rate hikes, Fauci, hunger, colleges, Medicare, Paxton

Re: “Fauci invokes the Fifth at contentious hearing,” Thursday news story. 

Politics aside, reasonable people might wonder why President Joe Biden’s unconditional pardon of Anthony Fauci dates to Jan. 1, 2014. Fauci was named director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases back in 1984. He wrote a scientific paper defending the substantial risks of so-called gain-of-function research in 2012.  

However, according to public records, NIAID first granted federal funds to EcoHealth Alliance for coronavirus research in Wuhan, China, in 2014.   

One is free to believe that COVID-19 originated in a market in Wuhan. There are scientists and journalists to support that theory. However, that theory renders purely coincidental the fact that the market was in the same city as the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That Institute, by pure coincidence, was doing research into bat coronaviruses.  

Said research, by coincidence, was at least partially funded by the NIAID. Furthermore, according to Wall Street Journal reporting, three of the first known patients to exhibit COVID symptoms were researchers from the Wuhan Institute. What are the odds? 

Marvin H. Lett, Dallas/Oak Cliff 

Re: “State leads nation in hunger,” Thursday Metro news story. 

Texas again leads the nation in hunger, with more than 6 million Texans experiencing food insecurity in 2024, according to Feeding America’s latest report. Nearly 1.4 million people in North Texas — including more than 500,000 children — struggle to put enough food on the table. As this story noted, the majority of those seeking help are working families, and more than half earn too much to qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. 

This is precisely the wrong time to weaken our nation’s largest anti-hunger program. Last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act made the largest cuts to SNAP in its history and, beginning in 2028, will require states to pay a share of benefit costs for the first time in the program’s nearly 90-year history. 

Leaders of both the North Texas Food Bank and the Tarrant Area Food Bank are urging Congress to delay these changes. Congress should listen. As it completes work on this year’s Farm Bill, it should repeal, or at least delay, the SNAP cost-sharing requirement before it takes effect. No one in a state as prosperous as Texas should go hungry. 

Margaret Smith, Dallas/Turtle Creek 

Re: “College oversight law divides Texas — GOP lawmakers praise SB 37; critics allege censorship,” Wednesday news story. 

I just realized the underlying basis for restrictions like SB 37. The legislators and administrators who wrote and voted for this believe that college is just an extension of high school.  

It is not. College is a place of learning, where minds go to be opened and enlarged, not compressed.  

Those who believe in SB 37 measure its success by today’s enrollment levels. I continue to believe that in the long term, not only will enrollment suffer, but so will the overall quality of the minds that are still enrolled — just another near-bottom statistic for Texas. 

Daniel Siculan, Royse City 

Re: “The civil rights victories we often forget” by Peter Johnson, Wednesday Opinion. 

I just finished reading Johnson’s essay on Medicare and Medicaid, and I was immediately reminded of my mother’s nearly tearful words of relief when Medicare went into effect.  

She had been sending money to her parents every month, hard-earned money my parents needed to save for their own retirement. It was never enough. I know she worried about them. With Medicare, that burden was lightened for her and her siblings.  

Thank you to all who worked for those benefits that enabled so many ordinary folks like my grandparents in rural east Texas to have a bit of dignity as they aged.

Kay Huggins, Arlington 

Re: “Paxton launches MAHA probe into feminine products,” Wednesday Metro story. 

My first reaction was that Attorney General Ken Paxton must not be trending well with female voters in his Senate race and that’s the reason for this frivolous lawsuit — to show women he cares. 

The cynic looked at the data. Recent polling shows that women in Texas favor James Talarico, according to the Texas Tribune, by margins between six points and 18 points, depending on the statewide sample taken. My first inclination seems on target —  sad. 

Perri Brackett, Lewisville 

Re: “Trump and DOJ ask Supreme Court to toss defamation verdict,” Thursday news story. 

Donald Trump and the Justice Department  are asking the Supreme Court to throw out his conviction for defaming E. Jean Carroll in connection to his sexual abuse of her in a department store dressing room. An earlier court ruling has awarded her $83 million in defamation damages.  

I noticed in the article that Trump is now not denying he did it. Rather, he is saying he cannot be held liable because he defamed her while he was president in his first term and is therefore immune from prosecution.  

When I was in school, I remember studying the duties of the different offices in the federal government. Not once did we read about a presidential duty to defame women.  This cannot be called a duty of a president. I hope all women, particularly Republican women, are paying attention. 

Thomas Kelly, Lantana