Not so easy
Kate Stewart writes in her Trump love-fest that he "won his race fair and square and with considerable ease".
Trump did win, but certainly not "with ease".
FBI chief James Comey tilted the scales with his dishonest announcement of Hillary Clinton's email investigation, so that the poll numbers fell as much as 8 per cent just prior to the election.
After Trump lost the popular vote to Clinton by a percentage greater than six previous presidents, the archaic institution of the Electoral College put him into power.
Stewart should remember that this 1787 undemocratic constitutional mechanism was installed in order to placate slave-owning states. Constitutional scholars tell us that the "three-fifths compromise", where black slaves with no vote "were counted as three-fifths of a person, instead of a whole", added votes to the slave-holding South.
See - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/electoral-college-slavery-constitution/
Additionally, many pundits still consider Trump's election illegitimate.
Former Secretary of Labour Professor Robert Reich contends that the evidence according to the Senate Intelligence Committee points to Russian oligarchs fixing the election - albeit making peace with Russia would be a good thing ... until we see "the sable lining of the beam of sunshine".
The motive is to allow ExxonMobil to exploit vast Siberian oil fields and so to accelerate "the race to disaster", as Chomsky says.
Additionally Reich states that Trump's unreleased tax returns could well prove malfeasance - and he refuses to put his assets into a blind trust, possibly an impeachable offence.
Trump's cabinet and policies continue to be the most right-wing in modern history. And incredibly, Trump's unhinged spiteful demeanour has caused even the centre-right US media to turn on him.
BRIT BUNKLEY, Whanganui
Don't use the bags
I couldn't believe my eyes - a Department of Conservation employee accepted plastic bags at the checkout in the supermarket. How is that for conserving the environment?
Plastic bags take hundreds of years to disintegrate. They don't break down, they just disintegrate into tiny little pieces, which end up in the environment.
Come on DoC employee, be an example. And come on supermarkets - ban plastic bags, or at least charge a whopper for them.
It is our future we are wrecking, and that of our children. We need nature to survive, not the other way round - think about it.
ANNE MOHRDIECK, Whanganui
Ethnic divide
We are all equal in New Zealand, but some are more equal than others.
Once again we have our day of nationhood despoiled. It's just a day off work with nothing but the cringe factor.
What government changed it from New Zealand Day and used culture to embarrass us in front of the world? The prime minister represents all New Zealanders and this ethnic divide stops now.
Maori are not "victims" - they have been given every opportunity.
Up to the 1950s, you had to have half-Maori blood to be called Maori. Now it is "tick the box" at census time for anything but "New Zealander". Why is this?
What do you say to exclusive non-Maori Parliamentary seats? I know it would be called "racist".
Adding 140,000 words to an unwritten language shows disrespect to all other ethnicities.
Bring on a republic, then we can celebrate a truly multi-cultural society - that's what nationhood really is.
KEN CRAFAR, Whanganui
Off the grid
The "Welcome to Whanganui 2017" publication, circulated recently with the Chronicle, is a brilliant bit of publicity for our city.
But local people, please don't give your out-of-town guests that quality magazine and expect them to find their way around using the map grid references.
Every one I checked is wrong (try looking up grid references for Purnell St, Puriri St, Boydfield St, St George's Gate, Bedford Ave ... the list goes on).
Great publication; map a bit crook - I give it seven out of 10. Needs to try harder.
STAN HOOD, Aramoho
'English first'
A false picture of the past can lead to unnecessary complaint and dispute - thus Potonga Neilson wrote (January 19) that an insistence on the use of English in all schools in the 1920s is "evidence indeed that ethnic cleansing was government policy in those days".
That policy was decided by Maori from discussions among chiefs and community leaders and their MPs. One such MP and government minister was the great Maori champion Sir Apirana Ngata who was acting on that consensus.
The policy was the result of a desire to advance in a modern economy.
By the 1930s, the need for an opposite approach - for the protection of Maori culture - was increasingly recognised. That change was led, argued for and supported by people of every ethnicity, by scholars such as Keesing and Dale and by the NZ Federation of Teachers.
The consensus then changed. In 1936, Ngata, who reflected much of Maori opinion, had said that if he were allowed to devise a curriculum for the schools, he would make "English first, second, third, fourth and all the rest of the subjects fifth".
Three years later in 1939 he told a conference of young Maori leaders that he had formerly opposed the teaching of Maori in schools because he had believed there was not sufficient time for pupils to learn both Maori and English. But he had come to believe "nothing was worse than for one to be with Maori features but without his own language".
Far from "ethnic cleansing", the government was listening to Maori leaders who were themselves setting the policy direction.
JOHN ROBINSON, Waikanae
He lost an arm and a leg in a crash that killed three friends.