Great, now a gun advocacy group is suing the Minnesota State Fair to allow permit-holding visitors to carry firearms onto its grounds ("Group sues to let in guns at State Fair," Aug. 11). What's next? Glock on a stick?

Doug Williams, Robbinsdale

•••

I have always enjoyed attending the Minnesota State Fair, and I was looking forward to attending this year after its cancellation last year due to COVID. I will not attend, however, if gun permit-holders are allowed on the grounds while armed. I will not risk being caught in the crossfire between trigger-happy cowboys claiming self-defense.

Karen S. Lee, Cambridge

•••

I don't recall ever hearing about an incident at the Minnesota State Fair for which a citizen would need to fire a gun at any of the 2 million or so annual attendees.

Bob Worrall, Roseville

Working for the county is not just a job — you are a vital part of the community ("Hennepin officials living in California," front page, Aug. 11). Salaries flow back into the local environment with sales of everything from groceries to gasoline, health care to Girl Scout cookies. We might as well outsource management to China or India. These outstate executives are a perfect and stereotypic example of those receiving the most giving the least. Of course it represents "no problem" for the executives. An aloof and superior attitude is easy to maintain at a distance of thousands of miles, even when you are in your pajamas. I wonder, when it's minus 20 windchill and the executives are in sunny California, if they still have a prime parking spot reserved for them.

John Crivits, St. Paul

Thank you, Star Tribune, for the crucial story on 2,800-resident Caledonia, Minn., losing approximately 80 jobs due to a major employer, Miken Sports, closing a factory and sending jobs out of state and to China ("This Minnesota town has a few choice words for MLB," Aug. 10). Sen. Tina Smith deserves praise for her outraged response. Our senators are elected and well compensated for championing U.S. workers.

Therefore, it is difficult to understand Smith's and Sen. Amy Klobuchar's Aug. 4 votes against the Lankford Amendment, which would have made E-Verify mandatory for employers benefiting from the $1 trillion infrastructure bill now working its way through Congress. E-Verify is a free federal database electronic program that helps employers verify all their hires have a legal right to work in the U.S.

So, what is the difference, Sens. Smith and Klobuchar, between U.S. jobs going overseas and foreign workers illegally present who take U.S. jobs? Let's be honest, senators, do the Democrats care about U.S. workers and taxpayers or not?

Linda Huhn, Minneapolis

•••

Would this story have made the front page if a few of the jobs being moved had not been destined for China? Buried in the middle of the story is the explanation that most of the jobs being moved out of Caledonia — about 70 of 80 — are actually going to Missouri. Fewer than 10 are going to China, the company spokesman said. So, why the constant references to China as if that country deserved to be blamed rather than the American company that made the decision to move the jobs from Minnesota? Sen. Smith has it right: "This type of transaction, in which wealthy private equity investors buy longstanding U.S. companies only to shut down American plants and move jobs overseas, has left countless Midwest communities devastated while wealthy private equity investors ... reap a larger and larger share of our country's income and wealth."

Let's put the blame where it is deserved: American capitalists doing what they now do best, pursuing profit and ignoring all other stakeholders. The reporter mentioned Communist China and allowed an interviewee to make it sound as though all the jobs were being sent to China. Perhaps a more careful reading by an editor would have detected the bias on display here? Republican politicians like Rep. Greg Davids would like to have people think it is Communist China that is stealing jobs from Americans, as opposed to good old American capitalists maximizing their profits by moving jobs to a lower-cost state (Missouri) and a lower-cost country (China).

In the front page article "Senate approves $1T infrastructure bill," I added the amounts listed for the infrastructure needs such as road and bridges, railways, etc. These items added up to $432.5 billion. One trillion equals 1,000 billion. That leaves $567.5 billion in taxpayer money unaccounted for! I agree that the infrastructure of this country is badly in need of repair, but why is the $567.5 billion, the greater part of the amount, not accounted for in the infrastructure needs list? How is it being spent?

Please write an article about where the additional hundreds of billions are going. Then feature it on the front page along with the pictures of the president and the leaders of the House and Senate who crafted and pushed agreement for this expenditure. Then please also explain why these politicians shame the only people paying taxes in this country for not paying enough taxes!

Helen Knutzen, Deephaven

Thank heavens that the repulsive bully and seriously creepy Andrew Cuomo has finally seen the handwriting on the wall and resigned the governorship of the state of New York ("Cuomo bows to growing scandal," front page, Aug. 11). We can all breathe a collective sigh of relief that someone of his moral degeneracy has been driven from public office. However, it is painful to acknowledge that it took the allegations of 11 women of sexual harassment that resulted in the man's removal. Of course, there should be no room whatsoever for any man's harassment of any woman. We must applaud those courageous women for speaking truth to unbridled and unprincipled power. Yet, Cuomo's disastrous mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis, when he ordered nursing homes to admit COVID-positive patients, is any number of times more egregious. More than 15,000 elderly people died in New York nursing homes.

When the Biden administration's Department of Justice announced only recently that it would refuse to investigate whether the civil rights of nursing home residents were violated as a consequence of Cuomo's directive, it appears that political partisanship, rather than a search for justice, has prevailed. What a terrible shame for the families of those who lost loved ones and for a country that once practiced equal justice for all.

•••

It is good to see that Cuomo got the message and will step down as governor of New York. Now, if only current Minnesota state Rep. John Thompson would get the same message.

William Cory Labovitch, South St. Paul