Trump deserves a ‘fair and expedient’ trial

Every American, including the president of the United States, must be afforded the right to a fair and expedient trial.

The House of Representatives voted and passed two articles of impeachment. Speaker Nancy Pelosi does not have the right to decide whether the Republican-led Senate stands as an impartial jury for the president, as those senators were sent to the world’s greatest deliberative body by the people themselves.

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We have already been through subsequent decades of dither and delay by both parties. We saw Senate Majority Leader McConnell prevent giving President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee the simple and constitutional courtesy of a vote. Now, our feckless leaders are back, in the quicksand, toying again with our precious democratic republic.

We must break this sinister cycle of political obstruction, fueled by polarization and corrupt campaign financing, once and for all. The House must send the articles of impeachment, and the Senate must vote — and then we must move on, toward a brighter horizon, as one nation.

Henry Wilson, Barrington

More police means more traffic stops

I am a white man living in a white suburb. I rarely see a police car yet alone get stopped by one, though I am extra careful driving through the white suburb just north of me. Half the tickets in my life have come from that one little town.

I’ll bet that if I were driving in a black neighborhood, I would be seeing the police constantly and getting a lot more tickets.

If you’re going to compare the number of minority traffic stops compared to white traffic stops, you need to compare by police districts and take into consideration the number of officers on the street in those districts — and not look at the entire city as a whole. There are far more police officers in minority areas because the crime rate is higher. And the use of guns is far greater in minority areas, so the need for interaction with the police is greater as well.

Stop trying to look for race as the explanation for every problem. It’s like picking at a scab, only prolonging the healing process. Everybody keeps expecting to see bias everywhere, and it only exacerbates distrust between the different groups.

Larry Craig, Wilmette