


Mitchell will put children first in 3rd District

The 3rd Congressional District of Tennessee stretches northward from the busy riverfront city of Chattanooga toward the far reaches that kiss the Kentucky border. Eleven counties map this inkblot coverage, which encompasses smaller municipalities, including rural expanses of farmlands, mountain villages and waterfront communities. Its socio-economic climate depends on whom the people elect and what policies they adopt to improve their communities. 

The children are the next generation that will become the caretakers of our wonderfully diverse communities. They are the future, but are our public school systems providing them with a wide and worthy curriculum? Beyond the basic high school graduation requirements, advanced academics and career-learning studies are limited or nonexistent, as are extracurricular activities beyond the focus of the football field.   

Concerned parents have attempted to rally community support for an improved secondary public education, but repeatedly the majority fell prey to the fear of increased taxation, voting against our children’s future. To many, such efforts are a conundrum, an impossible fix.  

But all is not lost, as there are leaders in our midst who are motivated to formulate cost-effective ways to improve our public schools. Danielle Mitchell is one such person. She has the drive to get things done, and she has her eye on our public schools. Let our tax dollars say we care about our communities and our children. 

Vote for Mitchell to be our next Congressional District 3 representative. It is time to put our children first. 

Jil Smith, Rockwood

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McCain was an American hero

President Donald Trump, in reference to U.S. Sen. John McCain's Vietnam War record as a naval pilot, once stated that he liked people who didn't get captured. This statement was made after a newspaper article about McCain being shot down and spending more than five years as a prisoner of war. He spent five years being brutalized and tortured. He had severe wounds and was afforded little or no medical treatment during those years of confinement. Those years were spent having his captors telling him of the discontent of draft dodgers parading in the streets of America burning the American flag and protesting American involvement in Vietnam. To make matters worse, McCain was exposed to anti-American rhetoric from Americans like Jane Fonda. Throughout those torturous years, McCain refused to give our enemies any military information concerning the ongoing conduct of wartime operations.


Mr. President, where were you during those years that McCain was being held as a prisoner of war? You put in five years dodging the draft to keep you out of Vietnam. Furthermore, I do not believe that you have any right to give those wimpy salutes of yours to any American in uniform.

As a veteran, I firmly believe that McCain was an American hero at the highest level.

Billy F. Stephens, Knoxville


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