|
Only have a minute? Listen instead
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Protecting presidency
We need new laws to deal with presidential abuse of sacred judicial procedures.
Firstly, there is too much liberty granted to make endless appeals of matters in the dangerous category of high crimes and misdemeanors. Abuse of trust on the national level does not threaten the stability merely of a town or a county, but of the states and nation. Time is of the essence.
We also need a law that prohibits the use of campaign money to finance legal appeals of decisions related to crimes committed while in office. This is like encouraging people to donate matches and gasoline to an arsonist. It allows citizens who benefit mightily from democratic freedoms to participate in destroying them.
In addition, we need laws denying felons, business fraudsters, and sexual predators from running for office. That is only common sense. Furthermore, we need more exacting definition and limitation of the Presidential pardon power and in particular a law prohibiting the president from pardoning himself.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross
Comments criticized
Re: your opinion page of Feb. 7: The editorial by The Washington Post, followed by two commentaries, display full control and censure from the liberal left, suggesting a full panic rush to bury any opposing views that differ from their increasing autocracy.
The articles remind us of the Soviet Union’s media efforts to suppress the voice of its powerless citizens. Do these comments meet any standards of “fighting for democracy,” as is so falsely promoted? It’s laughable, but smart Americans are not falling for one-sided propaganda.
A. False accusations by The Washington Post, such as, “Trump has already created a more dangerous world,” are desperate deflections from the fact that this current administration is abjectly failing, making appeasements with enemy countries that have us in great potential war conflicts that Americans don’t deserve nor agreed to. Case in point: The United States spent an estimated $860 billion on defense. This makes our defense budget, by far, the biggest out of all the NATO members. Germany had the second highest-defense expenditure at 68 billion U.S Dollars, with the UK third.
Who is benefiting? Not American taxpayers.
B. The commentary that “Trump is no Messiah,” including the cartoon above it, displays divisive rage, self-imagined misconfigurations and hyperbole. Not in the best interest of unity and real democracy.
C. The last commentary reveals a one-sided story about undocumented students being weaned by the University of Texas at Austin from scholarships. American-born students courageously pursue an education and some don’t qualify for government-paid educations. Their only help is through their struggling parents’ hard work and their own, paid with measly wages. Where is this writer’s empathy for these struggling students? Do they matter at all to him? I guess not in the liberal, leftist America.
Imelda Coronado
Mission
Editor’s note: NATO members are asked to contribute amounts equal to 2% of their gross domestic product. The United States’ contribution is the largest because it has the largest economy.
Democrats draw attack
We elect our representatives to be our voices in D.C.! So when a representative neglects the cries and needs of his community, are we supposed to reelect them to continue the same behavior?
The U.S. House of Representatives passed two very important bills in the early months of 2023. House Resolution 164 would close all loopholes on the border and return to regular order the process of legal immigration. The other bill, HR 734, would keep biologically born males from participating in all women sports! You would think that both bills, especially HR 164, would be something our entire state is in dire need of. Though we have not heard of or witnessed any issues here in South Texas that HR 734 addresses, it is a nationwide concern, especially with those of us with solid American Christian values!
Elections are coming up and all of a sudden Donald Trump is at fault for the border crisis and nothing has changed with the issue of men exposing themselves to young girls in the girl’s locker room!
Put your boots on and get prepared for all the boloney you are going to hear from our local representatives about all the things they claim they have accomplished.
Truth be told, not a single Democrat representative from the Valley voted in favor of these two bills. Women should be outraged! All of us should be furious that Henry Cuellar from Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez from our home turf did not support these two very important bills! Do these guys go to D.C. to represent us?
That is the reason we need to vote these guys out! Come on, ladies! This is another bra-burning issue that protects you and your female children!
We need representation in D.C., not a bunch of yes-men for the Democratic Party!
Ernest Gorena
Brownsville
Question on immigration
Neither political party has done anything constructive to address the seriousness of legal and illegal immigration in many many years. Yes, we we already have laws on the books addressing the issues, but they are not being followed.
I emailed the following question to my then-U.S. Representative Vicente Gonzales in December 2018:
“In 2009 and 2010 the Democrats had complete control of the U.S. House Representatives, Senate and presidency. They had a filibuster-proof Senate with 60 Senate members for all of 2009 and a part of 2010. That meant the Democrats could have passed any legislation they wanted to and the Republicans couldn’t do anything to stop them.
Why didn’t the Democrats pass immigration reform legislation when they had filibuster-proof control?”
I called his local office to verify they had received my letter. They said they had.
I never received a response.
Darrell Williams Sr.
McAllen
Editor’s note: Immigration reform did not have a filibuster-proof majority during those years. The DREAM Act, which would have legalized the status of residents brought to this country as children, was introduced on March 26, 2009 for a third time, after two unsuccessful attempts in previous years. After many amendments, a reworked bill passed the House but was killed in a Senate filibuster on Sept. 10, 2010. A new DREAM Act was introduced and passed the House on Dec. 8, but without a filibuster-proof majority it was never brought to a vote in the Senate.
Frustrating lawmakers
The headline to your Feb. 10 editorial, “Congress blows opportunity to start work on reasonable border, immigration reform,” said it all. The current majority in Congress, mainly all but three courageous House Republicans, had the chance to work on border and immigration reform but they focused their attention on trying to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas instead.
The majority’s failed attempt to have Mayorkas ousted landed right in their faces.
After all was said and done, what did House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., have to say about this fiasco? “Frustrated,” he said. Exactly who is frustrated here, our representatives like Mr., Green, or the constituents who vote them into office?
It is a shame that the current majority in Congress continue to drag their feet on immigration and border reform but actually found the time to take personal shots at a member of the Biden Cabinet. It’s no surprise to me that the same majority was doing this in an effort to pay allegiance to Biden’s predecessor all along.
Certainly a waste of time and a waste of taxpayer money altogether.
Frustrating, isn’t it?
Roberto Lopez
McAllen
Isolation draws fire
With Donald Trump’s latest pronouncement about NATO, I hope people realize a few things. If Trump becomes president again, I fully believe he will withdraw from NATO. That will cause Ukraine to be overcome and leave the road wide open for Vladimir Putin to invade the rest of East Europe and possibly the Scandinavian countries, especially Finland. Putin has already stated as much. Without American’s help, the other European countries will be in a fight for their lives.
But more than that, it will give the red light for China to invade Taiwan. You might think, so what? It is just a tiny island in the South China Sea. Aside from the subjugation of a Democratic country and the freedom-loving people, Taiwan has the most advanced microchip factory in the world that produces one-third of the most important chips in the world. The U.S. could not even come close to replacing those chips.
Trump’s default would also encourage North Korea to invade the South; we have bases there, which means we would be involved in another Korean War and China would probably become involved again.
“America first” would actually mean, “America last.” Our allies would not trust us. They would not come to our aide. Other countries of the world would not trust us.
“America first” means we would no longer be the leader of the free world. There would also be the possibility that other nations would not buy our technology and products. I don’t know for certain that all of this would come to pass, but I think it is possible.
History shows us that in World War I we remained neutral with the deaths of millions of Europeans before we entered the war in 1917 and broke the stalemate. In World War II, Germany invaded Poland and the rest of Europe while we remained neutral until after Pearl Harbor.
Isolationism does not protect us. It just isolates us.
Gerard Pahl
Edinburg
Restoring rule of law
Our election in November is fast approaching, with court fights left and right dealing with all sorts of issues.
One subject is retribution and we are seeing the evolving results applied in gigantic portions. Donald Trump all his adult life has used the legal system to enrich himself and his family.
One example is his use of subcontractors in the building trade. When the bills come due, instead of paying what was agreed to some time ago, he has told the contractor to reduce the invoice substantially or he would take the matter to court. With court costs reaching into the hundreds of thousands dollars, the poor working contractor is left with no recourse but to take a beating over his work and investment in materials.
With the deep pockets of state and federal governments and the IRS, Trump is facing retribution for all or some of his wrongdoing during his business career. He doesn’t seem to care about the fallout along the way, which is disrupting lives and in some cases ending those lives!
The airing of Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis’ love life, trying to get her and her staff thrown out of prosecuting him and his minions, is a good example.
The rule of law is sacrosanct and no one is immune!
Billions of dollars in fines is a good start to restoring the rule of law.
Bill Williams
Palmview
Editor’s note: We welcome your letters and commentary. Submissions must include the writer’s full name, address and daytime telephone number for verification. Letters of 200 words or fewer will be given preference. Submissions may be edited for length, grammar and clarity. Letters may be mailed to P.O Box 3267, McAllen, Texas 78502-3267, or emailed to [email protected].
