Opinion

Thank you for your service, Iowa and New Hampshire. But it’s time to end the prominent, influential perch you two small rural states have long enjoyed in winnowing the list of presidential contenders.

Restaurants and small businesses lucky enough to survive pandemic restrictions have had to innovate and reimagine how we can best serve our customers. Now inflation is driving up costs, making it even tougher on small businesses like mine.

One of the few issues most Americans can agree on regarding the thorny topic of immigration is that longtime residents who were brought into the United States illegally as children should be granted permanent status. Congress should seize the opportunity during the lame-duck session to pass such legislation before the end of the year.

Larry Pearce, Independence To the editor: My mother-in-law always said, “Paper lets anyone write on it.” This year the politicians have changed the word “paper” to the word “television.” For months now we’ve heard that “Television lets anyone say anything about anybody if it’s true or not.” In Missouri, a candidate was accused of being in cahoots with the communists because he OK’d the sale of some farmland. His opponent said she would never sell any farmland to China.

President Joe Biden had already generated considerable controversy with his hat-in-hand visit to Saudi Arabia during the summer to plead for more oil production to ease pressure on oil prices. The valid question at the time was whether Biden was doing it in a sincere effort to help American motorists or to deprive his Republican critics of a major point of attack heading into the fall election season.