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Comments this week included thoughts on Cesar Chavez’s legacy, over-the-counter birth control medication, states’ rights, the Rio Grande Valley’s water needs and inflation, in addition to continued debate regarding major parties’ presidential candidates and positions.
As always, we welcome contributions to your public forum, and thank those who have their thoughts with their fellow readers.
Bills cited
We elect our representatives to be our voices in Wahington, D.C. So when a representative neglects the cries and the needs of his community, are we supposed to reelect them to continue the same behavior?
The U.S. House of Representatives considered two very important bills in the early months of 2023. H.R. 164 would close all loopholes on the border and return to regular order the process of legal immigration. The other bill, H.R. 734, would keep biologically born males from participating in all women sports!
You would think that both bills, especially H.R. 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 H.R. 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 and 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 the Laredo district 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
South Texas simpletons
The late Rush Limbaugh of talk radio fame used to make fun of a town in California, Rio Linda, because its inhabitants were economically disadvantaged simpletons incapable of understanding simple things.
Here in the RGV, we are a Democratic stronghold and at the same time an economically disadvantaged area of poverty in South Texas. Democrats in RGV are happy with Biden and Bidenomics.
Thanks to Bidenomics, mortgage rates are at a 40-year high, grocery prices for milk, eggs and meats are up more than 15%, gasoline when Trump left office was $1.89 and we were not dependent on foreign oil. Yet our inhabitants of the RGV are happy with Bidenomics, and I find that amusing, they believe in the gospel of Biden, that inflation is and will be transitory.
When I see people at the grocery store paying for food with a credit card, or a full-size truck gassing up at the pump and only buying $12 worth of gas, I can only say inflation is in a way a tax that causes the low- to middle-income suffer the most, yet they are the same group that embrace Bidenomics, so it begs the question: Do we have our own Rio Linda simpletons in the RGV or is it just plain apathy?
I guess we will find out this November at the ballot box, and I’ll simplify it for our own Rio Lindan’s, if you like the aforementioned benefits of Bidenomics then by all means vote blue.
Jake Longoria
Mission
Trump’s acts not mentioned
According to Mr. Sherwood Uhrmacher, the Trump he knows, in spite of spending most of his time on the golf course and defending himself in the courts, did a lot of good things for America (Letters, March 11 19).
So why did the majority of voters make Trump a one-term president? Was it because the majority of voters are not wise like Sherwood is? Or was it because of the bad things Trump did that Mr. Uhrmacher conveniently failed to mention?
Like Trump’s idiotic attempt to stay in power by overthrowing a legitimate election. Lying to his supporters that the election was stolen and encouraging them to savagely attack the Capitol and, yeah! hang Mike Pence!
Hoo-boy — I could go on and on, but, no, I’ll spare you the agony.
Italo J. Zarate
Brownsville
States’ rights
All 50 states are being held hostage by the federal government on immigration issues. The federal government claims that the Constitution gives it the power to rule over all 50 states and the states have to stand down because our federal government is above them all. I agree to disagree on this issue.
Our forefathers did put protections against this takeover, but our courts for decades have been chipping away, piece by piece, to remove those protections that are supposed to keep the federal government from overreaching power over the states. We fell asleep at the wheel as the government became more powerful and, worst of all, we allowed it to happen.
The federal government allowed illegal aliens in this nation without accountability. Expect the states to absorb the problem. Pretty much like a teenager buying a new car and expecting his parents to make the payments while he enjoys driving the new car.
The states need to unite and question the role of our government and set new rules to keep it under control of the states and not the other way around. A socialist America is no future for America. This is the time to stand united to make a better America and If we don’t, we are looking at a Third World America in our future.
Rafael Madrigal
Pharr
Island perch and liberals
At South Padre Island, piggy perches are easy to hook. Undiscerning, they’ll go for anything. Thusly, our ignoble leftist friends bn here, the low information, gullible, sound byte-skimming barking seals in the service of America’s subjugators. These useful idiot water carriers furiously defend flimsy narratives. One: that the Republicans are in bed with Vladimir Putin, never mind that the Russian twice stated explicitly in ‘21 and ‘23 that Joe Biden to Donald Trump.
Trump derangement sufferers are a fiercely devoted cult. While Christians or Jews will band together in fellowship and reverence to their God, leftist lunatics unite in the spirit and culture of hatred. One writer here claims Trump “probably” shared classified documents with Russia. In a baseless strawman construct, why stop there? Heck, he probably stomps on cute little puppies and screams in the faces of peacefully sleeping babies. Get it?
You’ve been browbeat into a professional hater/useful idiot reactionaries. Like the Star Trek Börg, you are a programmed being being wielded as a tool. All the infotainment and media panic porn gives you faux political awareness, but you are all naive stooges.
Jamey Homaker
Combs
Life without agriculture
This is in reference to your March 29 editorial, “Valley agriculture is in crisis; need for economic diversity becoming more important.”
With the Rio Grande Valley becoming more urbanized each day, many open lots are being sold off to buyers who convert them to business establishments such as restaurants, grocery stores and clothing stores in this region.
It makes me think those lots had previously served as either fields or groves that yielded various sources of food such as citrus fruit, sugar cane, corn, onions and so on.
I’d like to list a few ways that life would be like if the agriculture industry were to go “extinct” from the Valley:
No cattle ranches, no beef and meat products to consume.
No dairy farms, no milk and dairy products to consume.
No fields, no vegetables to eat and no cotton to use for clothing material.
No groves, vineyards and berry farms, no fruit to eat.
No agriculture industry: no economic prosperity and no employment for farmers and ranchers.
Without the presence of agriculture in the Rio Grande Valley, how can we survive without food, clothing and water? Think about it.
Roberto Lopez
McAllen
Border wall gets support
The four state senators representing the Valley have a stacked deck being all Democrats, a political party unfriendly to the U.S. Constitution they allegedly support. Consequently, their support of changes to the management of legal immigration should be read with a definitely critical eye. Their support was published in a March 26 commentary in this paper.
First off, they are deathly wrong that our border “cannot and will not be secured with a wall or fence that stretches from Brownsville to El Paso.” It is understood that there are some places where other physical barriers make it unnecessary to continue the wall. We have been advised countless times by the men and women on the border that a wall will help. It is helping where it has been installed. Ignore the fact that methods can be devised to surmount the wall. Those places can be covered with personnel who will quickly plug the hole. Countries all over the world have used walls to keep people out. They work. They direct illegals to places where they can be apprehended.
The senators’ comments on more roads and electronic tools goes without saying. Similarly, clearing away vegetation that hinders operations of the Border Patrol are obvious. Truck viewing X-ray equipment should be mandatory. X-rays may help in observation of smaller vehicles as well. All thoughts now should go to stopping the flow. Like the old story, “We have to put our thumb in the dike to stop the water.”
These Democrats, as all Democrats, refuse to recognize former President Donald Trump’s methods in stopping the flow. All that Joe Biden has to do is cancel his cancellation of Trump’s policies to correct most of the problem. He refuses to do that. That tells us Biden and these four senators really want the illegals to enter, to be a load on our society, to add to our debts and to be another group of slaves ready to work for us at any wages and no healthy conditions. The Democrats do not want to solve the problem of illegals. They want to enhance the problems.
If you really want the illegal flow to stop, elect the Republican candidates at every level to see the results we all need.
Duane A. Rasmussen
Laguna Vista
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].
