TRIB TALK [Columbia Daily Tribune (MO)]

Jim Robertson, managing editor

"It's really true Obama listens to everybody. I've never seen such a violation of constitutional rights and privacy rights. All this information and texting and everybody's emails being watched -- he's listening to everybody."

"OK, folks, here is why the post office is in trouble: In 2006, the Republican-led Congress passed a bill that requires the post office to prefund their retirement account 75 years into the future and gave them a 10-year window to do it. So, basically, every year, right off the top, the post office has to pay $5 billion to this fund out of its operating expenses that it gets solely from mail and the sale of stamps. The post office does not get one red dime from the taxpayers, and it has not contributed one red penny to the debt. So, it's not bad for the economy. Get your facts straight before you listen to Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter, Fox News and all those other people."

"I was looking in the new edition of Our Town in the Tribune and noticed the ads for State Farm and Shelter Insurance. Man, the insurance business in this town looks like it's run by a bunch of old white guys. Not a lot of diversity in gender or ethnicity."

"I'm calling in reference to the June 9 article 'In-town retreat has pros/cons.' It says some of the council members preferred leaving town for retreats because, as one council member said, the option presented less potential for city leaders to get pulled away from the retreat by distractions of home, felt more focused because they were stuck there at the retreat and that, in the past, retreats offered participants a few hours in the evening to tackle more business. Then another council member agreed evening rounds of discussion had helped city leaders cover a lot of ground in the past. Why don't they just keep the retreats in town because it saves a lot of money out of our tax dollars, tell their families they are unavailable during the retreat time and schedule evening sessions, if needed, to talk about more business?"

" 'Columbia City Council to allocate surplus funds of $126,741 to assist the homeless.' Just think how much more good the $326,000 that will be wasted on the Blind Boone building could do if combined with that for humanitarian projects. That's a total of $452,741. Think about it."

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