Up until now, I have believed that the best way to defeat Donald Trump in 2020 has been to focus on advocating for the federal government to do more to help the lower and middle classes with their economic and financial struggles to survive and to pay their bills. So, I have largely ignored his hateful, dumb, stupid, and ignorant remarks in which he demeans, insults, bullies, and disrespects all minority groups, women, and immigrants. I have done this partly because I have believed from day one that this has all been a big ACT and that he is a master manipulator and con-man who really doesn’t believe the ridiculous, idiotic, and moronic things that he says, but that he cleverly figured out that he could win the presidency by PRETENDING that he actually believes in what he thinks that 51% of the American people believe in-HATE. But his hate-talk has now become too dangerous. He is playing with fire.
This big ACT and GAME has to stop.
I call on all of the good-hearted conservative-Republicans in the USA who have a conscience to join Nikki Haley and to call out Trump on his hate-talk. The people who he has insulted and disrespected don’t deserve to hear any more of his nonsense. He might have already damaged our country beyond repair because sometimes there are things that can never be made right. I hope it is not too late.
STEWART B. EPSTEIN, Rochester, N.Y.
Each time I read another of Connie Schultz’s columns [such as “In the absence of Republican courage, more children will die,” 8/1/19 TPP], I’m newly smitten by her noble sentiments and the style of her presentation.
She makes no bones about it: Jesus is her foremost inspiration in generosity and compassion. “If you’re a Christian,” she asks, “and think there’s nothing wrong with the abuse of innocent children, please imagine trying to explain yourself to Jesus.”
Nevertheless, she must acknowledge that Jesus is not the only one who, by word and deed, taught humanity the beauty of universal love and brotherhood.
Buddhists, for example, consider loving kindness the highest virtue which their founder taught. Islam also, in its purest form, teaches that justice is what all humans should seek for others. And of course, millions of nonbelievers don’t need religion to love, to be compassionate, and to condemn the abuse of innocent children.
I only wish Connie had been more inclusive about the traits of good people — which, after all, describes the characteristics of others besides Christians.
DAVID QUINTERO, Monrovia, Calif.
Political pundits on both sides are saying that Robert Mueller’s testimony “didn’t move the needle” because he neither indicted nor exonerated the President any more clearly than stated in his 448-page report. Trump and his supporters claim victory, as predictably they would no matter what transpired. But let us ask, victory over what?
Mueller didn’t draw indictment conclusions because he was prohibited from doing so. The copious, damning facts that he documented about Trump’s lieutenants collaborating with Russia to influence our election, and about Trump’s subsequent obstruction of the investigation, those facts are reason enough to initiate impeachment hearings to bring the president to just accountability.
What is an appropriate response to the serious Russian attacks on our democracy and on the integrity of our self-governance? Republicans should stop playing partisan games and cooperate with Democrats to defend the rule of law and our electoral sovereignty.
BRUCE JOFFE, Piedmont, Calif.
A little more than a century ago, poet Wilfred Owen wrote of “the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle.” The carnage was wrought on European battlefields during the First World War.
Our plight in these days entails far more sophisticated firearms, sometimes legally acquired, used by insane citizens against their fellow-citizens, here in the United States. It’s labeled “domestic terrorism” and thought difficult to counteract.
Fervent gun enthusiasts cleave to their Second Amendment prerogative to tote and use very lethal weaponry. They seem oblivious to the vast differences between the slow-to-load, single-shot, muzzle-loaders of yore and our contemporary menace of assault rifles in the hands of madmen.
WILLIAM DAUENHAUER, Willowick, Ohio
For those amongst us with minimal longevity or subjective/objective life experiences to relate to, or the specific knowledge of our human existence and our historical evolutional path thus far must do so expeditiously in order to exact counter actions to our present status as the most Westernized corrupted nation in the world. Our nation post-World War II, when our entire nation’s populace benefited from the advances of technology and modernization that “lifted all boats equally” ended with the collusionary pursuits of corporations to buy and influence our politicians so as to negate the policies and regulations that enhanced the lives of the “working men and women” throughout the nation/world.
Our nation’s present status (2019) is a reflection of the pillaging and corruption that is the causation of a majority of our citizenry’s fears, insecurity and instabilities pertaining to their and their families’ futures. This nation’s forthcoming potential pernicious outcome has been in the works for generations by the same arrogant, ignorant segment of our “male population” that seeks the continuation of “power and control” over all the entities inclusive the religious, cultural lies and propaganda perpetuating that “power and control” via our Romanesque strategy of “divide and conquer” with the utilization of fear and hate.
They’ve partially succeeded with our divided Red state/Blue state ideological detrimental separation of the United States of America, and now their generational spewing of horrific lies and hatred if we allow the “societal scum” amongst us; to divide our multi-cultural, secular society further into the nationalistic apartheid promoted division of a “Black and White world.” The salvation of our very humanity and civilization itself requires “human decency” to prevail urgently.
FRANK C. ROHRIG, Milford, Conn.
What part of “charging” are we dealing with? Hopefully, not having to riot in the streets of D.C., braving tear gas, rubber bullets and wearing the wrong shoes. Less chaotic is “charging” in the legal sense, because so far we have been tolerating:
Bullying, bluffing, cheating, lying, dishonoring, dividing, insulting, lying, blaming and lying.
If these actions were done by a family member, we would call an intervention or an EMT.
If these actions were overlorded by an employer, we would strike or quit.
If school teachers did this, we’d send them back to school or to detention.
If this was a pet, we’d drop them off for a fix.
It’s possible that intervening, higher education and obedience school won’t always work, because those who agree with that behavior most likely indulge in it. Check Y or N.
We have to individually respond to whatever we can do regarding all aspects of current Homeland Insecurity and getting the country back on its feet.
In good shoes. No heels next time.
FLORA ORMSBY SMITH, Marblehead, Mass.
During the second Democratic Party Presidential Candidate debate July 31, Joe Biden admitted that as president he would make the US join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
During the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election, many millions of American voters recognized that if the US joined the TPP, that would subject all three levels of our government to becoming economically controlled by greedy international billionaires supported by no-god-but-money corporate tribunals. That’s why Hillary Clinton changed her mind and came out AGAINST the TPP. But President Obama (and evidently Vice President Joe Biden) continued efforts to get the US into the TPP throughout the summer leading up to the 2016 presidential election. That pissed off millions of American voters, many of whom either voted for Donald Trump (because he adamantly campaigned AGAINST the TPP) or decided not to vote at all. And that, in turn, was one of the major reasons that enabled Trump to win that presidential election. Keeping the US out of the TPP is one of the very few campaign promises that Donald Trump has kept so far, but his proposed “NAFTA 2.0” is even worse than the present massive-US/Mexican-job-killing NAFTA Program which Donald Trump promised to terminate.
Following that debate July 31, one the group of CNN analysts who were summarizing the debate mentioned that Joe Biden supported the TPP as if that were a “good thing,” and none of the other CNN analysts disagreed or at least pointed out that Biden’s promise would subordinate the authority of all three levels of our government to no-god-but-money corporate tribunals. Nor did they point out that Biden’s career has been that of a “corporatist” in general (which is the opposite of what Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, most or all of the other Democratic candidates for president have been advocating) Those CNN news “analysts” really failed us in this regard!
Please do whatever you can to fix this problem.
CHRISTOPHER C. CURRIE, Pascoag, R.I.
I would implore you to run articles on one solution to our national gridlock: Blue State Secession. Let’s give it a name: AMEREXIT.
We are no longeer the United States of America. We are deeply divided. We all know the issues that have fractured our nation: immigration, abortion, women’s rights, climate change, gay rights, voting rights, public education, separation of church and state, and the list goes on and on.
A “small” Amerexit would include New England, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. Split this way, Democrats would govern in the Blue States, and Republicans in the Red States. It might loosen things up so that each new country would have new and viable second and third parties.
Triggering events for this could be Trump’s reelection, Roe v. Wade overturned, continued climate change inaction, and more egregious Supreme Court rulings, like Citizens United and this week’s gerrymandering decision.
I recognize that this would be a 20-30 year project. Questions that would need to be answered include: is secession Constitutional; How to split up Social Security and Medicare funds; foreign wars; would counties be able to secede from the Blue States. For example I could see Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington joining Idaho.
Amerexit is actually one step of a two step process. The second step would be that the Blue States would merge with Canada.
JAMES FREDA, Portland, Ore.
Editor Notes: You might want to wait and see how Britain does with “Brexit” before you pursue a similar course for “Blue States.” But the precedent for dealing with secession in the US, and the predicament secession would put Red State minorities in, is not encouraging.
As Jesus once said (paraphrased) “Before deploring the speck in your neighbor’s eye, tend to the beam in your own eye.”
Eternal advice!
Before Donald Trump savages the US economy by disrupting the productively organized job market, let him answer to the charge of breach of the oath we all saw him swear at his Inauguration: “… I will … preserve, protect and defend the Constitution … “
JEAN G. BRAUN, Cleveland, Ohio
From The Progressive Populist, September 1, 2019
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