Your movie critic missed the mark about Eastwood’s ‘Mule’

This isn’t promoting general welfare

Let’s see if I have this right: Instead of shoring up and fixing Obamacare, Republicans gave a tax break to corporations and the wealthy even though the stock market has been steadily rising for the past 10 years, so the rich were already raking in the big bucks.

And now Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton may have successfully killed Obamacare and taken affordable health care away from millions of low-income Americans. (Dec. 17, 7A, “Fort Worth judge has ruled before against key provisions of Obamacare”)

Merry Christmas.

Way off base about ‘The Mule’

I totally disagree with film critic Katie Walsh about the new movie “The Mule.” (Dec. 14, 4C, “’The Mule’ is a boring, racist melodrama”) Clint Eastwood has never made a bad movie.

I don’t know where Walsh is from, but I grew up in a border town, and this movie portrays how it was — how whites and Mexicans talked to each other, without concern about being politically correct. No one ever worried about it.

Now everything anyone does is in some way wrong. Millennials are ruining our country. It’s totally ridiculous. Maybe Walsh should have interviewed fellow patrons exiting the theater to ask their opinions.

Multiple ways to modernize the state

Howard A. Hickman’s op-ed about abolishing the Texas DMV struck a chord. (Dec. 16, 5B, “Texas DMV is a costly failure; time to abolish it, move it back to DOT”) Millions of taxpayer dollars are wasted on services that can and should be done in a more productive manner.

Now consider this: In the 1800s, more than 200 Texas counties were created when the fastest mode of long-distance communication was by horse. More than 1,000 school districts exist for the same reason. Today, millions of taxpayer dollars support all these county governments, some of which are so small they are hard to find on a map. Every county has its government personnel, and every independent school district has its administrative personnel.

I wonder how many hundreds of millions could be saved by reorganizing the state according to modern actualities. Isn’t it time to bring Texas into the 21st century?

O’Rourke is trying to muddy the water

Another “Beto-phile” letter writer put in his two cents Sunday, saying that because Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s nickname was “from day one” and common for Roberto and other namesin El Paso, it has nothing to do with trying to “Hispanicize” himself to get more votes. (4B)

O’Rourke isn’t Hispanic. As to his having the nickname from day one, my husband was called “Mikey-boy” at birth, but he didn’t use that nickname beyond preschool. O’Rourke used only his nickname on his campaign signs, so it’s pretty clear he was trying to get extra mileage out of his Hispanic-sounding nickname and suppressing O’Rourke.

Also, nobody said winning statewide elective office is mandatory for presidential candidates. It’s just customary. Most presidential candidates who never won statewide office achieved other prominence — high-level appointments, business prominence, etc.

And when I Google “Beto O’Rourke,” all I see for his record is serving as U.S. congressman, serving as El Paso city councilman and being arrested jumping a fence at the University of Texas at El Paso in 1995 and for DWI in 1998.