Sound Off: December 14, 2025
Sun Herald readers weigh in on local and national topics.
Not Amtrak’s fault
Of course there is a problem if even one person is killed by one of the new Amtrak trains. And while there is surely blame to go around, you can’t blame the train or the engineer.
How not to get hit
There seems to be a relatively easy way to avoid getting hit by a train: Stop when the lights are flashing and don’t try to go around the gates if they are down.
Tragedy
Any death is tragic. But Amtrak is certainly not at fault when someone is hit by one of its trains.
A people problem
Grade-crossing accidents are almost always caused by drivers ignoring the flashing lights and trying to beat the train or going around lowered guard gates. It’s extremely rare when a vehicle dies or gets stuck on the crossing.
Accidents
Once again, someone is trying to blame accidents on inspection stickers. Why did we have so many when we had inspection stickers? We have accidents because we have too much traffic for our road structure and every person I see is not looking at the road.
Bad drivers
Should we have vehicle inspections? Yes. Is not having vehicle inspections the reason we have so many crashes? No.
Solution
Instead of going back to vehicle inspections, how about we increase the amount of driver inspection. Because, goodness, we’ve got some really bad drivers out there.
An embarrassment
Just watched Rep. Bennie Thompson question the Secretary of Homeland Security about the two national guardsman being shot. He has proven to be constantly uniformed, and totally biased. This person is the most embarrassing political figure in the state of Mississippi. Come on, voters of north Mississippi. You should know better.
Rep. Thompson
Every time I see a national story about the improvements being made in Mississippi, I am proud. Then I see Rep. Bennie Thompson on national TV and I understand why I have to work so hard to convince people how wonderful Mississippi really is.
Typical
Republican governor touts the jobs generated and improvements to roads and highways in Mississippi. Of course, he failed to mention that the money comes from Sleepy Joe Biden’s $3.8B billion infrastructure bill for Mississippi, which Republicans voted against.
Capitol foreclosure
It’s bad enough that President Trump granted clemency to nearly 400 people connected with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Now those same folks are seeking millions in payouts from the federal government. At this rate, the next time a mob storms the Capitol, instead of defending it, we might as well just hand over the title and the keys—save everyone the trouble and avoid the foreclosure proceedings.
It’s the oil
It is astonishing that anyone defends the strategy of blowing up boats that aren’t even headed to America, and taking over ocean vessels and keeping the oil (I believe that is piracy) in the name of curtailing drug smuggling, when a man who was convicted of attempting to bring 400 tons of cocaine into this country is set free.
Misplaced anger
The lady who harassed a Somali couple with racial slurs is misplacing her anger. She’s working at a Cinnabon store making low wages and having to serve people she believes are inferior to her.
Congratulations
How nice that President Trump received the Temu Peace Prize from FIFA, that paragon of virtue.
Send your Sound Offs to soundoff@sunherald.com.