The Jan. 6 congressional committee not only hit a historic political home run with its public televised hearings in June, but demoralized Donald Trump — who is clearly 100% guilty — has only further incriminated himself since then. Trump can forget about running in 2024.
If there’s one thing that we all can agree upon about that tangerine traitor is that dimwitted Donald Trump cannot keep his stupid mouth shut for more than a few seconds. Trump is a blithering idiot!
Witness tampering and witness intimidation, for example, is just another series of felony crimes that the Department of Justice will be able to charge Trump with (along with Trump’s partner in capital crimes, Mark Meadows) after the Jan. 6 hearings conclude.
Lock these conservative cop killers up and throw away the keys! These traitors must pay, no matter how hard their cult members cry. The GOP is Jonestown, and Donald Trump is just a fat, old, orange version of Jim Jones.
JAKE PICKERING, Arcata, Calif.
Previous elections were about “It’s the economy, Stupid.” Now, “It’s the democracy” is most important. With a democracy that represents the will of the people, our government can respond effectively to our economic, as well as environmental, health, safety and security needs.
But Republicans are passing laws in Red States that enable them to reverse the outcome of future elections even if they don’t win a majority of votes. Unresponsive to the will of the people, they will serve only their own desires for power and ideology, instead of fixing our economy.
We’ve seen this already as Republican-appointed Supreme Court Justices removed women’s rights to privacy and bodily autonomy — forcing unwanted births. SCOTUS also prohibited states from regulating gun use to prevent mass murders.
Electing Democrats will stop Republican subversion of our power to choosegovernment leaders who can protect our democracy, restore our rights and fix the economy.
BRUCE JOFFE, Piedmont, Calif.
A recent TPP is devoted to the expression of outrage over recent mass shootings but there are few concrete suggestions as to how to handle the problem. It seems to be assumed that universal controls to weapon access is the only approach but this, of course, makes many gun owners – the great majority of whom seem to be responsible – unhappy. Another approach would be to make punishment of mass shooters so repellant that they would refrain. What, you might ask, could be more repellant than life imprisonment? Here’s one answer: castration plus life imprisonment.
The imprisoned castrati would likely be looked down upon by their fellow prisoners, since they would be “less than men.” They might also be seen by some fellow inmates as sexually desirable. Surely images of prison gang rape would make any just-out-of-adolescence potential shooter think twice. Images of animal castration might go viral on the internet, graphically bringing home the ghastly reality of potential testicular loss.
This solution also has the possibility of real bipartisan support. Some Republicans seem to be rather violence tolerant and revenge oriented, and so would support this. Of those who have written to TPP, some might be squeamish, but those who consider shooters vile beyond words might be more open-minded. Let us remember that the argument that these shooters are insane is circular; obviously these shooters are not completely divorced from reality. Since every (presumably rare) castration would surely, by dint of their grisly images, prevent other shootings, this approach cannot be summarily dismissed.
Unfortunately the hyperbolic response to small-scale mass murder has driven out consideration of a more important topic. The Ukrainian-Russian war features more death in a week than the USA has suffered annually from occasional mass killings. And even this huge level of mass killing would be dwarfed if nuclear ICBMs are launched. Every day of this grinding war brings us incrementally closer to the use of nukes — if not immediate use of ICBMs than at least smaller scale tactical nuclear weapons. These smaller scale weapons, fearsome in their own right, might be stepping stones to use of their larger brethren which rest in land based silos and on large submarine ships.
You don’t want to think about mega-deaths and planetary destruction? Neither do I. But as Pooh would say: “There It Is.”
JOHN D. PALMER, Huntington, W.V.
Editor Replies: We’ll stick with the constitutional ban on “cruel and unusual punishment.” But there’s no telling what the new right-wing Supreme Court majority would sign off on.
The Constitution is working exactly as it was intended to. The House of Representatives represents the people. The Senate represents the aristocracy (the wealthy, which is the aristocracy from the colonial period). The courts act as a safety valve to stop the activity that the Senate let slide through.
The House is the only body that reflects the will of the people, as it represents the all people proportional to the population. The Senate represents all the people, but it represents the states equally, without regard to the number of people residing in each state. The Senate also has the role or approving the actions of the Executive branch in their appointments to Executive offices. And validating the appropriate credential of the Supreme Court.
So there is a direct relationship between the Senate, which is the least representative legislative organization and the Supreme Court which reviews (on request) legislation previously passed.
Currently, we have second thoughts about the Electoral College and whether we shouldn’t just use the popular vote to determine the incoming President. And, the latest minority president has “stacked” the Supreme Court with the majority of its members, with the cooperation of the Senate.
What can we do? I understand there are more than 30 states currently calling for a Constitutional Convention. Check if your state is one of them and, if not, encourage it to join the call. I understand that two-thirds of the states (34) are the number required. This seems to be the only way to correct the problem or minority rule and also could address the issue of gerrymandering.
BARRIE EICHHORN, West Chester, Pa.
Editor Replies: An Article V Constitutional Convention is a dangerous way to go about reforming the Constitution. Common Cause, the public interest group, warns that a handful of wealthy special interest groups, including the Koch organization and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), are behind the push for a new constitutional convention, which “puts all of our cherished rights, civil liberties, and freedoms at risk … there is nothing stopping a new convention from rolling back our constitutional rights and civil liberties. Our right to vote, our right to free speech, our reproductive rights, our citizenship rules, and more could all be up for grabs.” Maybe we could start promoting an amendment to replace the Electoral College with a popular election, and see how that goes.
The recent trifecta of far right-wing decisions from the Supreme Court delivered to an unwilling majority of Americans from strange bedfellows McConnell and Trump do not exactly meet the criteria of love, hope and charity cherished by their fundamentalist base. Now, 10-year old pregnant rape victims must dodge bullets at school or church while gasping for air through the carbon-polluted atmosphere. And with the unapologetic Donald preparing to announce his candidacy for 2024, the only cheek that seems to be turned is the half moon of his ample derriere. How many will line up to kiss it?
And let’s face it, as long as Republicans jam up Congress, we will never get needed gun safety legislation. Since a forward trajectory or progress is impossible with this crew, we might as well look back for a solution. In days of yore, most involuntary celibate dweebs found some way to blow off steam without resorting to gun massacres. Charles Whitman was an exception. Nowadays, too many are glued to their laptops watching porn and studying 4Chan. Naturally, they are bound to crack up. Here are a couple solutions that GOP leaders might find palatable: 1) Bring back military conscription; and 2) Legalize prostitution. Some discipline will be restored, tensions relieved across the board and Republican nostalgia for 1950s proto-Americana satisfied.
STEVEN Z. ROSENZWEIG, Brooklyn, N.Y.
In the 1990s, we had an assault weapons ban that enjoyed bipartisan support. [A ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines was in effect from 1994 to 2004.] No private citizen needs a machine gun.
We need a single-issue bill that enumerates which high-capacity weapons will be outlawed. Congress critters can shove their empty “thoughts and prayers.” Vote for or against this simple bill. Is it more important to protect the lives of innocent people or is it more important to attract the vast sums of cash from the NRA and gun manufacturers?
Remember this vote in November. The life you save may be your own!
So simple.
BOB OSTRANDER, West Palm Beach, Fla.
From where this 87-year-old girl sits, it looks like it’s high time to remove all the religious bigots on the Supreme Court, three of them heaved at us via the “Orange” criminal recently under congressional investigation, and the connivance of Mitch McConnell in the Senate during the Obama presidency.
These 12th-century dinosaurs ignore justice and humanity in favor of public persecutions.
Ugh!
JUDITH M. REDDING, Bellevue, Wash.
Teamwork vs. Socialism
You know, is there any Republican out there in America who can explain the difference between teamwork and socialism?
MIKE EKLUND, Mercer, Wis.
From The Progressive Populist, August 15, 2022
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