Missing Peoples Pharmacy

Could you please publish the Peoples Pharmacy column again? I’ve gotten much important medical information from it.

Paul Ganglehoff
Two Harbors, Minnesota

Editor’s note: We have received several questions from readers regarding why that column no longer appears. It was obviously well read. However Peoples Pharmacy, Dr. Oz, Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now, Heloise and several other columns were from a syndicated service that we decided not to continue paying for when our revenue so drastically dropped during the pandemic, which is still with us. When, and if, advertisers return, we might consider buying the service again. In the meantime, thanks for reading!

The Real Elephant in the Room

As we solemnly observe the anniversary of Jan. 6th, 2021, I had hoped that the Capitol riot would serve as an inflection point on the road back to sanity, and that Donald Trump’s legacy would be relegated to the “dustbin of history” where it belongs. But as he continues to hold sway over the G.O.P. and his base, I’m struck by the strange dynamic that’s been in play throughout the Trump era, where he says outrageous, insulting things, even occasionally incriminating things, and then, because he says them out loud, to the whole world, he gets away with it.

During the infamous Lester Holt interview in 2017, on national TV, he admitted he fired F.B.I. director James Comey “because of the Russia thing.” In other words, he said, “I fired the man who was investigating me......because he was investigating me.” How in the world was that not ‘obstruction of justice’? If he had said this privately, and it was secretly taped and then leaked to the press, there would have been a firestorm of protest. But because he said it to whole world, he gets a pass?

This same dynamic was never more evident than on the morning of Jan. 6th, 2021, when, in front of the whole world, he incited his followers to violence, urging them to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” (even as he was trying to bully his vice president, and various other election officials, into disregarding the Constitution, in a criminal attempt to overturn the most secure election in history).

The Webster dictionary’s definition of “treason” is “attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government to which the offender owes allegiance.” The Oxford dictionary version simply says “betrayal of one’s country.” Accusations against Trump for “instigating an insurrection” or “sedition” have been thrown about freely the past year, but the powers-that-be need to stop dancing around the issue and call it what it really was: out-and-out treason. That’s really the “elephant in the room” that no one wants to talk about: former President Donald Trump is guilty of treason, pure and simple, and should be charged and prosecuted accordingly. And the fact that he has incriminated himself publicly, and pressured others into going along with his delusional madness, should have made it an easy call.

William L. Scott
Soudan, Minnesota