Letters: Death penalty for federal inmates in Indiana should appall Hoosiers

I understand that the federal government wants to begin again executing federal prisoners. They plan to do this in the state of Indiana because we have a federal prison in Terre Haute and we still have the death penalty. I believe the residents of Indiana should be appalled.

I spent eight years visiting death row prisoners in the state prison in Michigan City. I was chaplain in the St. Joseph County Jail in South Bend.

I do not believe in the death penalty. As one death row inmate in Arkansas declared, “I executed the man I was long ago, the state only takes me out of the cage.”

Why is the federal government planning this action? What is the motive of those responsible for this effort? It smells foul to me.

Hank Mascotte

South Bend

Democracy

Individual One denounced America and his intel community in favor of Vladimir Putin in Helsinki for his help in getting elected.

Kim Jong Un can shoot off all the rockets he wants. Individual One doesn’t care as long as it doesn’t hit mainland USA. Never mind our friends and allies, South Korea and Japan, and our own military bases and military families that are living under the threat that any day one of those rockets may contain a nuclear warhead.

Xi Jinping is threatening to repeat history — Tiananmen Square in 1989 may become Hong Kong in 2019. Individual One doesn’t want to rock the boat with Xi when these tariff talks are ongoing (badly) and Ivanka’s boatload of Chinese trademarks on her clothing line are at stake, including five new ones just this year. So he said he hopes everything goes OK and no one dies.

Some of those Hong Kong protesters were proudly waving American flags, symbolizing democracy, freedom (of speech, press, religion, etc.) human rights, honor, integrity, trust, unity.

I suspect when Individual One is hugging the cloth of Stars and Stripes, he is not thinking of democracy, human rights, freedom of speech, press, religion and so on. It’s quite clear democracy is only something that gets in his way.

Where is Congress? Don’t they stand up for democracy anymore? Who will stand up for democracy?

Pati Darby

Mishawaka