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This week, letters and commentary included a discussion regarding planned changes regarding postal services in the Rio Grande Valley, uncertainty surrounding Mexico’s upcoming elections, President Biden’s halt to development of liquefied natural gas facilities and the upcoming global conference on a proposed plastics use treaty. Other topics included the fate of democracy and other political issues as well as disparate sentencing and the value of voting when options all seem to be unattractive.
As always, we welcome contributions to our public forum, and thank all those who contribute to the discussions.
Trump bashed
There is no limit to what Donald Trump will do con his supporters into giving him their money.
Trump, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 20 women, is now selling bibles, using religion to fleece his cult members of money. He has also sold shoes, bottled water, steaks, collectible cards, even pieces of the suit he wore in his mug shot.
He needs money to pay his legal fees on charges that he paid off a porn star to keep quiet about an affair. He has also been found guilty of sexual assault in a civil case. He is the biggest religious hypocrite in the history of mankind. Trump, the world-class grifter has no respect and is mocking Christianity for personal profit.
MAGA Trump cult followers believe he is always right. Criticism of Trump or questioning him is considered persecution. Anything Trump does is justified no matter how harmful it may be to the rule of law, our election process and the Constitution. Trump is the only source of the truth, everybody else is lying.
Followers must be blindly devoted to Trump and never, ever question him. Trump supporters don’t recognize they belong to a cult.
Trump has turned the Republican Party into the MAGA party. You are not an independent if you want Trump for president. Our founding fathers didn’t want a one-man dictatorship.
Beto Conde
Rancho Viejo
Comments over letter
In his letter to the editor on April 2, Jamey Homaker tells us that liberals are “useful idiot water carriers” who “furiously” defend “flimsy” narratives — like the one claiming that Republicans are in bed with Vladimir Putin. Hmm — not quite true, but judging by how Donald Trump acts around Putin, there’s reason to believe the Donald might just be doing that. It’s scary!
But even scarier is that a majority of Republican legislators, who supposedly represent a great number of American patriots, are absolutely OK with this. It’s no big deal!
Liberals, on the other hand, don’t think it’s OK. An American president bedding with the president of a country that wants to destroy our Constitution and our democracy is not only treasonous, it’s a big deal!
Homaker, however, wants us to believe that Putin likes Biden best, not Trump. Wow! Whoever sold him on this idea must have been smoking some pretty pricey stuff!
Judging from what I’ve seen and heard, I believe that nowadays the only way liberals and MAGA GOPers can get along together is to force liberals to swallow and to like the junk Faux News dishes out every day. After all, to Faux News it’s worth a whopping $780 million (the fine they had to pay for dishing out lies and disinformation)! And MAGA GOPers? well, they absolutely love it and they believe liberals should, too.
So, why not? Conservatives and liberals, finally living together in harmony, happily ever after. Problem is, we’d be living in an autocracy. To some, this might sound like a good idea, but nah, they’d be dreaming.
But how about if conservatives broaden their horizons and listen to the “real” news on MSNBC? Might this improve our situation? Nah, we’d be dreaming too. Hoo-boy!
Italo J. Zarate
Brownsville
Editor’s note: Vladimir Putin is on record, most recently Feb. 15, as saying that he finds Joe Biden more knowledgeable and predictable than Donald Trump, and would prefer to see Biden win the November election.
Hate speech
Various anti-hate campaigns in the media today fail to mention a brand-new kind of hate movement, the one currently sponsored by far-right Republicans against Democrats.
Republicans have incited hate crimes against Democrats with offices in Congress and private homes in California and have encouraged hate against judges and election workers.
Do Republicans really get a free pass to hate just because many go to evangelical churches and many Democrats go elsewhere?
In Utah, U.S. Senate candidate Brad Wilson has a TV ad where he promises to “risk it all” and fires a rifle as he talks about “fighting” Joe Biden. This is outrageous incitement to violence against Democrats, especially in view of Trump’s promise of a “bloodbath” if he loses.
MAGA candidates in this election cycle need to be held accountable for both religious and political hate speech before their partisans actualize their candidates’ violent fantasies.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah
No plans to vote
As an American voter I have never felt without a good choice when I went to vote until this year.
It has been said that this election will be the nastiest political election in the history of America. And do you know why? Because the voter has no good choice to pick from. Either vote will send America into a downfall spiral into self-destruction. Neither candidate is fit for the job.
Is this how the most powerful nation in history will end its reign as a nation to look up to and strive to be like? Sadly, yes.
In the 1960s my history teacher in Junior high said no nation can invade America, we are too powerful to be invaded. But there would be a time in the future when America would be given away because people would not care and would give this nation away for whoever wants it.
Today is the day.
I will decline to vote this November and wash my hands of the decline of America by those who don’t care to save it from its destruction. I am not wasting my vote by protesting on the injustice to the American people by our reckless politicians in power.
Rafael Madrigal
Pharr
Different sentences
A few years ago a guy from south Texas received a 50-year prison sentence for stealing beef fajitas from a county. Now this ostentatious, big-time crypto criminal Sam Bankman-Fried gets 25 years for stealing billions and billions! Is this justice for all? Give me a break!
Victor Rubalcava
Raymondville
Religious offenses
Joe Biden declares Transgender Visibility Day on Easter Sunday!
Biden bans religious art on Easter eggs at the White House yearly Easter egg hunt!
Is this not an attack on our religion?
Ernest Gorena
Brownsville
Editor’s note: Transgender Visibility Day has been observed every March 31 since 2009; it is not a government commemoration, although the Biden administration has endorsed it, like other commemorative days, throughout his presidency. The fact that it fell on Easter Sunday this year is a coincidence.
Guidelines for the White House Easter egg art contest are set by the American Egg Board, which sponsors the event; they have not changed in 45 years. The board states that it asks religious symbols not be used to comply with federal laws prohibiting religious discrimination.
City services draw praise
How do we put a price tag on the value of our city’s services? We pay monthly for collection of our garbage and brush as well as city taxes yearly, but how do we evaluate the cost of wellness spent in and by our community for senior citizens?
The city of Edinburg opened El Tule Recreational Center late last year, and I had the opportunity to sign up and attend several morning sessions in March for seniors there. I was impressed with the program as well as the excellent facilities. According to U,S. Census Bureau QuickFacts, the percentage of Edinburg population 65 years and over is 9.5%.
I’m a senior and occasionally I need physical therapy for my back. I was referred by my physician to a local clinic where I attended several sessions to increase my core strength. I received the bill for these sessions recently.
For one hour of my physical therapy, which granted is supervised by a licensed physical therapist on a padded massage table, I was charged over $700 for each visit — so I’m truly glad to have Medicare and secondary insurance.
As a contrast, available at the El Tule Center is a full morning of free supervised activities of different types and mobilities, which makes me wonder how many of the seniors I saw at the local PT clinic could have used a facility like El Tule sooner in their lives — and today be in better physical as well as mental condition.
Kudos to the city of Edinburg for promoting wellness in their city’s older population.
Diane Teter
Edinburg
Trump has no morals
America has no king, nor should it ever. This, of course, is the main reason Donald Trump is headed for yet another landslide loss in November, which will take the entire Republican Party down with him nationwide, not just in Washington, D.C.
Only a fascist fool like Trump, the Russia-loving traitor would actually run for president advertising himself as a future dictator, not to mention the second coming of Christ for those especially stupid voters. So other than most of the openly racist, sexist states of the former Confederacy, which states can Trump actually win, GOP?
Idaho? Alaska? Nebraska? South Dakota? North Dakota? Sure, why not? Just add up all those electoral votes from the tiny-population “red states” and see what that gets you this year, Republicans — nothing but another loss.
Whatever you do after your upcoming drubbing at the polls, please don’t whine and cry like a bunch of big babies this time, because no matter how hilarious watching grown men cry can be, it’s awfully unbecoming for you wannabe tough guys to publicly wallow in your toothless hillbilly tears for all other Americans to see. Show some self-respect this time around!
And as a partially Palestinian person, pulling the lever in the voting booth for President Joe Biden once again is not going to be a pleasant experience, but considering the asinine alternative a vote for Biden is easy (perhaps that’s because I’m also Irish-American).
Jake Pickering
Arcata, Calif.
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].
