Aiding our veterans

Prairie Lakes Transit, Faribault and Martin counties’ joint transit service, is working to get the word out to veterans with a disability connected to their service. Namely, Prairie Lakes will provide them with free rides, as long as they follow all the applicable rules, such as making reservations.

The new service, an obligation in urban areas, was adopted by the transit board earlier this year, and is being implemented.

We extend kudos to those who organized and approved this meaningful service for deserving veterans.

Help out the Elf Shop

It is getting to be the time of year when many people’s thoughts turn to Christmas, the meaning of the season and good will toward man. We cannot think of a nicer way for people to show their Christmas spirit than by giving to the Elf Shop at Fairmont Elementary School.

The shop offers a place where children in grades K-3 can get gently used or new gifts at no cost for their immediate family members. Donations of gifts or cash can be dropped off at the elementary school. Amy Becker oversees the effort.

We hope area residents will consider lending a hand to the children this year.

Rights don’t matter?

We cannot believe that in a country founded on principles of personal and religious freedom that health care workers who object to participating in abortions or other services on moral grounds cannot do so. A judge ruled just that this week in a case involving a proposed federal rule that would have allowed those workers to exercise their rights.

The rule, apparently, was viewed as discriminatory toward patients. As if some other provider could not be made available to them? As if provision of a service is more important than human rights?

Both, neither wrong?

President Trump is facing possible impeachment in the U.S. House because he allegedly told Ukraine’s leader he wanted Ukraine to investigate the Russia hoax, along with Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. The alleged troubling quid pro quo is that Trump threatened to withhold U.S. aid to Ukraine.

So, in other words, the allegation is that Trump did what Vice President Biden did when Biden told Ukraine to fire a prosecutor looking into a firm in Ukraine where Biden’s son served on the board. Biden’s leverage was $1 billion in aid to Ukraine.

So, are both Trump and Biden guilty of something? Neither? It can’t be just one.