We’ve seen the pattern countless times: He projects his nasty character onto others. The man who called Ted Cruz “Lying Ted” has told more than 20,000 lies while in office. The president who doesn’t start working until lunchtime calls Joe Biden “Lazy.” Now, he’s saying the election will be rigged, and just to make sure, he is telling his followers to vote twice, by mail and in person.
His shameful advocacy is illegal; he is inciting voters to commit a felony. It creates the very rigging that he will claim when disparaging the election results. He is anti-democracy.
Our health, safety, and democracy are on the ballot this November. Will the perpetrator who blames problems he has created on others be re-elected, or will Americans reclaim our democracy and our decency? A landslide repudiation of this trumpery can rescue our future.
Let every voter’s ballot count, but only once.
BRUCE JOFFE, Piedmont, Calif.
I can’t believe what I’m hearing from our delusional president. nnLook, all of the rioting, looting, murders, escalation of racial tensions, questionable shootings and deaths at the hands of the police, loss of jobs and the economic meltdown, 180,000 deaths [and counting] due to COVID-19, voter suppression, fear mongering about the suburbs, political division, hatred and distrust, increased drug use in America, Q-Anon, lack of health care, loss of environmental protections, deregulation of the financial industry, William Barr and the so-called Justice Department, Mexico will pay for the wall but hasn’t, the debacle at the post office, the dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, immigration policies, drink bleach, MAGA loves Black people, if you’re rich you can do whatever you want with women, including grabbing them by what Trump truly is, I inherited a terrible economy, Kim Jung Un and I “fell in love,” Putin is a good guy, President Xi was transparent about the virus but now I”m blaming him for the whole thing, I won’t have time to golf like Obama did, Saudi Arabia did nothing wrong in the murder of an America-based journalist, the rise of radicalism and white supremacy, the McCloskeys and blaming Obama for all of the problems that Trump can’t handle due to his own incompetence have occurred, ironically, under Trump’s watch, but, as usual, Trump fails to take any responsibility whatsoever for a country in chaos because of him!
Look, Trump once stated about the problems in America that “Only I can fix it.” I guess he’s going to “fix” things in his next four years the same way he failed to “fix” the exact same things in his first four years!
I can’t believe what I’m hearing from our delusional president.
And what’s up with Davy Crockett, Buffalo Bill, Wyatt Earp, Annie Oakley and Wild Bill Hickock? Man, I feel like I should be watching TV shows on Saturday morning as a 10-year-old kid instead of facing reality as an adult.
MIKE EKLUND, Mercer, Wis.
Re: “Choosing when to giv a s**t: Controversial language and the Trader Joe’s boycott” by David Schmidt [9/1/20 TPP]: During the ‘60s and ‘70s when Blacks were clamoring for their civil rights, we Mexicans also turned to protests and rallies to increase our political strength.
At that same time, a snack food company launched a new tortilla chip product under the name “Frito Bandito.” And an aquarium named one of their whales “Lupe” — which to Mexicans is short for their patron saint Guadalupe, and was therefore condemned by them.
Well, the time and energy to correct those “insults” to Mexican sensitivities turned into epic battles, until “Frito Bandito” disappeared from the shelves, and “Lupe’s” keepers gave her another name.
Also In those days, Mexican farm workers were among the most exploited laborers in the land, until Cesar Chavez galvanized them into a formidable labor union. How I wished then that my fellow Mexicans had just overlooked “Frito Bandito,” and “Lupe” the whale — and instead concentrated their angry energy towards helping their exploited brothers and sisters.
Bottom line: Let’s not create problems that don’t exist, but recognize and correct the ones that do.
DAVID QUINTERO, Monrovia, Calif.
When I was a kid, my family spent the summers at Conneaut Lake Park which was 90-plus miles north of our home in Pittsburgh. My sisters worked at “Joe the Jap”‘s ice cream stand, until the start of World War II, whence Joe and his family were forced out and imprisoned on the West Coast for the duration. They had done nothing but sell ice cream cones.
After the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (vaporizing children on their way to school ), the Japanese surrendered.
General Douglas MacArthur said in a speech aboard a cruiser in Tokyo Bay, “Today the guns are silent. The sea bears only commerce. Men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The whole world lies quietly at peace.”
The US never stood down after that “victory” and has only had 16 years of “peace.” Since 2001, we have spent over $6 trillion on military operations and wars, and the joint Congress has once again approved a bloated military budget. With the US on the prowl everywhere — except perhaps after the corona virus, and with the idiot in the Blight House, we await the next pandemic.
BERNARD J. BERG, Easton, Pa.
I have been struggling with the problems of police violence and militarization, the dilemma of racial minorities and the unfairness of the prison and bail systems. Jim Hightower provided the wedge to start addressing these issues. He said essentially to focus on providing assistance to the underserved through social programs and allow police to focus only on actual crime and not people in crisis.
Giving excess Defense Department weapons to the local police forces was a mistake. They are not necessary and encourage usage when, in fact, they represent excessive force. Disposition of those weapons will need to be decided.
The “war against drugs “ and the “war against crime” tend to target minorities. We need to transition to drug treatment and rehabilitation instead of prison. And this can be done by transitioning social workers to help with these kind of 911 calls.
The “war against crime” has resulted in excessive mandatory sentences and the three-strikes-and-you’re out sentencing. It was a mistake. Discretion in sentencing must be returned to the judges who are “on the scene” and can consider extenuating circumstances. (There needs to be a human side to sentencing and the judge can evaluate both sides of each case). The entire prison population needs to have their sentences and cases reviewed with a view to reduction, commutation or parole.
Bail is a cash payment that will be returned when the person appears for their trial. It is purely to assure that they will return for the trial. Those arrested awaiting trial must be assigned reasonable bail amounts if they are not likely to flee. For example, a $10,000 bail is unreasonable for a minor traffic offense. Crowded prisons are not a good place to be during a pandemic. To die of COVID-19 while awaiting trial would be unconscionable because someone couldn’t post bail and they were not a risk of flight.
There will be protesters using their constitutional right to protest. There needs to be trained crowd control specialists for these situations. And if there are counter-protesters, conflicts between the two groups must be stopped immediately by the crowd control specialists and the conflicting individuals arrested immediately. There will need to be police on the scene only to handle looters, if they appear.
BARRIE EICHHORN, West Chester, Pa.
Re: “The ACLU’s fight for Constitutional Rights” by Ed Rampell [9/1/20 TPP], I was a member of the ACLU from 1964 until 2010, and was their speaker for western Colorado for the last 10 years of my membership. The western portion of Colorado is quite right-leaning and many of my talks were rather heated and sometimes scary, especially those concerning the Second Amendment and separation of church and state. I am also Jewish and have to admit that during the Skokie period my emotions and convictions did not always line up, but I fully supported the ACLU’s position in defense of free speech for the Nazis [who paraded in Skokie, Ill.]. But when the ACLU supported the Citizens United case in 2010, I had to resign.
I can follow the “free speech” argument that they used to justify their position (money is speech, persons spend unlimited money on politics, corporations are persons; thus corporations can spend unlimited money on politics). This was one of the worst decisions made by the Supreme Court, and the worst decision ever made by the ACLU. It has ruined our so-called democracy, possibly forever.
Although corporations are somewhat questionably legally defined as legal persons, they do not (or should not) have the exact same rights as natural persons or citizens. For instance, at least until now, they cannot vote. Corporations also have many advantages citizens do not have: limited liability, the ability to accumulate immense financial resources, immortality and immunity from serving in prison, to name a few.
The ACLU had other avenues open to them other than First Amendment rights. The ACLU could have chosen to expound on the 14th Amendment’s equality provisions to prevent the perversion of electoral justice, but they didn’t; thereby becoming a neo-liberal organization, and losing my support.
BOB BOGNER, Aspen, Colo.
Not everyone uses a computer, but small local newspapers are everywhere in small towns, and even within big cities, like New York City. Letters to the editor of such newspapers would reach people not into computers. And that’s a lot of people, if one takes into account all these small newspapers across the nation.
Call radio talk shows. Maybe the host is a Donald Trump Stooge, who would not let anyone telling the truth about Trump get a word in. That’s OK. If lots of people do this, a certain number of people are going to get the message, and that’s what we want.
Remember these on the left who tell us that there is no real difference between Democrats and Republicans to encourage people not to vote and ask yourself whose side they are really on?
Do a search for Republicans funding Green Party Candidates in close elections and ask yourself why?
Democrats usually tell us where they got their information. We should demand the same of Republicans. What does the term “Liberal Press” really mean? Or to attack someone for being a member of the ACLU? Don’t let them get away with sound bites like this. Demand checkable facts to back up what they say.
Watch out for scams like the so called Walk Away Movement, met to get Democrats to stray home and not vote.
Watch out for issues that, dealing with now, may hurt Democrats, like the same-sex bathroom issue. Think about it. How many votes did that issue cost Hillary?
If you vote by mail, check carefully before mailing.
DAVID RAISMAN, Brooklyn, N.Y.
From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2020
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