Re: “Coming to grips with the Insurrection” by Bob Burnett (2/15/22 TPP). Many of the big Rambos and little Rambos, all with big egos and little brains, who believed their “heroic” actions of Jan. 6, 2021 secured them an elevated place in history, have instead secured sentences commensurate with their crimes against the Capitol.
However, that doesn’t console me — nor does it console millions of other Americans, I’m sure. Only when the biggest Rambo of them all, the overweight orange Rambo (who led his followers from the rear) is punished for his disgraceful crime, will our country bring closure to that shameful episode in our history.
If Donald Trump is not punished for treason against the USA, which he perpetrated on Jan. 6, 2021, then all Americans (as well as all the world) will have ample proof that it’s only a myth that no one in this country is above the law, and that our system of justice is nothing but a lackey of the rich and powerful.
DAVID QUINTERO, Monrovia, Calif.
We have heard that our US Senate is the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body. But we need to deliberate that idea.
The filibuster used to be part of that, as it required a senator to actually stand and say words to debate and go on and on until he collapsed — or something to that idea. Now, all a senator has to do is to say he filibusters something and all discussion the body stops debating and the issue dies.
How is that making the Senate this great deliberating forum? And why can’t that just end? Who made this the “go to” solution for any senator who wants his way on anything that comes before the Senate?
There are things one person can decide that won’t even be discussed!? A “minority” of one controls the whole Senate. If the Senate can’t even vote to change that, why don’t they all just quit? Let the real Deliberative Body — the House — legislate. It’ll save us a lot of time and money. The President can still be heard from — but even he is not a majority — and can get in on the “debate.”
Proverbs 14-16 has a lot to offer these days. It wouldn’t hurt anyone to read it right now. All citizens. See if you don’t agree.
CHERYL LOVELY, Presque Isle, Maine
After six successful seasons of television entertainment on the Fox Network, the producers of the hit show “The Masked Singer” have taken the concept of “jumping the shark” to a whole ’nother level by including (of all people) the soon-to-be indicted enemy of the people and star of the movie “Borat 2,” Rudy Giuliani, in the show’s season seven cast.
“The Masked Singer” season seven premiere episode will not air until March 9, in which [spoiler alert!] right-wing Republican reprobate Rudy Giuliani is the first costumed singing contestant voted off the show by the studio audience and the panelists, including Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy, Nicole Scherzinger and Robin Thicke. Two of the panelists — Jeong and Thicke — reportedly walked off the set in protest of Giuliani’s performance.
The only TV show characters that should be unmasking an old, greedy, dishonest, crazy crook like Rudy Giuliani are Fred, Velma, Daphne, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo! (Rudy Giuliani is every bit as ridiculous and transparently guilty as your classic Scooby-Doo cartoon criminal, after all.)
And I thought half-term Alaska Governor and failed Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s previous appearance in a pink and blue bear suit in season three singing Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back,” accompanied by the show’s host Nick Cannon as her hype man, was awful enough already, but “The Masked Singer” truly has “jumped the shark” with janky Giuliani’s inexplicable inclusion on the show. Perhaps Henry Winkler as Fonzie from “Happy Days” would be proud? Probably not. Just saying.
JAKE PICKERING, Arcata, Calif.
The very foundation and formalization of our secular democratic republic had the elements of male/man “power and control” that preceded that mindset for centuries prior our inception as a nation.
We’ve witnessed this power of the few over “the will of the many” (entire citizenry) from the imputed influences of the Puritans, Federalists, DAR, Gilded Era Capitalists, Lobbyists, to Alt-Right Birchers and Birthers via the poisoning of our fragile democracy continue after the seditious insurrection of the aligned monied autocrats, religious zealots and corrupted reprobates among us.
While there are a multitude of ways our democracy has been corrupted within every realm of our governance, the most recent and outrageous example in my mind was “Moscow Mitch’s” denial of former President Obama’s appointment to the Supreme Court, when he had the authority to declare war up to his last day in office. That illustrated injustice has possibly allowed our new Supreme Court, with three Trump-appointed shills, to overturn the rights of women to obtain an abortion in Roe vs. Wade that has been in existence for almost half a century to satisfy the bogus interests of the “poisoners of our Democratic freedoms.”
The state of our union for our very salvation requires that “we the people” unify, organize and fulfill Alexander Hamilton’s and Frederick Douglass’s fears regarding the undermining of our democracy, which we are assuredly at today (2022) after our 1/6/21 physical attack on our Capitol and democracy. Gender parity shall be our nation’s first step toward providence and that egalitarian society.
FRANK C. ROHRIG, Milford, Conn.
You know if all of these concerned parents don’t want their kids educated at home via virtual learning and also don’t want them to learn the “wrong things” at public school, such as actual American history, and also want to determine what curriculum won’t harm their kids’ intellectual growth, why don’t they just home-school their kids and indoctrinate them the way they want? That will surely “Make America Great Again” for their kids, until they have to face the reality and truth of actual life.
MIKE EKLUND, Mercer, Wis.
Andrew Yang has started a new political party called “The Forward Party.” He sent me an email titled “American Men,” in which he cites many statistics and studies which convince me that boys and men have indeed fallen behind girls and women in many ways. He wrote, “I’ve long felt that these struggles are being overlooked and underreported in America today, partly because men and boys are not generally framed as sympathetic figures.” But he does not take the next logical step and tell us WHY they are not seen as “sympathetic figures.”
Let me take a shot at it.
Andrew, could this have something to do with the fact that men commit about 90% of all Sexual Harassment?
Could it have something to do with the fact that men commit about 90% of sexual assaults, including rape?
Could it be because men commit well over 50% of all domestic violence and abuse?
And, could it be because men commit well over 50% of incest?
Yes, I agree that the overall relationship between women and men is far from being good.
Yes, I do not enjoy listening to man-hating talk and male-bashing talk.
But, too many of us men “don’t get it.”
Women are sick and tired of this evil behavior, and they won’t take it anymore.
Women were not put on this Earth to be abused and traumatized.
STEWART B. EPSTEIN, Rochester, N.Y.
From The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2022
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