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Contributors to our public forum continue to offer their thoughts on our political parties, positions and the fitness of major candidates. Other topics included religion in politics, possible cruelty of rattlesnake roundups and efforts to reduce poverty.
As always, we welcome your contributions to our discussions, and thank those who have done so.
Response to comments
I am going to address Mr. Gorena’s letter of June 20. Yes, I agree that the Democrats are and always have been “the party of compassion;” as an Independent I feel sometimes a little too much so. However, is that so bad compared to the New Republicans’ bias, racism and my-way-or-the-highway thinking that all take priority over humanity?
I am retired, have no mortgage and don’t have a car payment. I hope you don’t hold the 10-hour days, six-day weeks and years without vacations that I used to get here against me or our kind. Yes, it appears you and I may both be members of the 95% who contribute to this forum. I am glad to hear you are “enjoying a happy retirement like the rest of us,” so I hope you don’t consider us anti-American.
I will disagree with you that only the compassionate Democrats are causing the “destruction of our legal system.” How about Gov. Greg Abbott, who recently pardoned Mr. Daniel Perry, a convicted murderer? How about Justice Clarence Thomas’ at the very least unethical “pay for my vote” vacations? Or the more than 140 pardons Mr. Trump issued while he was in office for those followers convicted of everything from, to name a few, willful destruction, fraud, murder and selling government secrets? Check out the Justice Department for the disgusting details on that one.
Finally, please consider that it was not the intent of the liberals sponsoring equal treatment for all sexual inclinations to titillate the overly sensitive conservative libido with over-exposure, it was just to promote equality — you know, that very American thing.
Ned Sheats
Mission
Concerned about Biden
After watching the presidential debate, I was reminded of the movie The Wizard of Oz. America finally had the curtain pulled back on Joe Biden. He stuttered and stammered his way through the debate and frankly it was no surprise. A few months ago I was in the company of a medical professional and Joe Biden was the topic. Based on what he had seen in videos and news reports, his informal diagnosis, Biden is in decline and his mental capacity has diminished as well. He said Biden had suffered a stroke in 1988 and underwent surgery at Walter Reed, and made a full recovery, but his brain did suffer damage.
I feel sorry for Biden, his handlers are pushing him well past his limitations, he is 81 years old and even though I am not a supporter, he is a man with a family, and my hope is that one of them will step up and tell him to retire and enjoy his remaining years.
On the other hand, sympathy and politics aside, he is the leader of the free world, our enemies are watching and for the sake of our country’s security, I have emailed our representatives in Washington, that after what happened in the debate if has become abundantly clear that it may be time to invoke the 25th Amendment, hopefully the speaker of the House will get enough feedback from constituents that they will move forward on this for our country’s sake.
Jake Longoria
Mission
Editor’s note: Joe Biden suffered a brain aneurism in 1988.
Sustainable farm methods
American farmers don’t need much to be successful. All we need is people who love the land and are willing to work hard, fertile land and a reliable climate. But these days, climate change is putting even that at risk. It’s fueling extreme weather conditions, which cause crop loss and land degradation and also create unhealthy working conditions.
But there’s good news: When Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, they provided farmers with more tools to protect their ability to produce food both now and in the future. The law set aside $19.5 billion to fund more efficient and sustainable agriculture practices. These investments will allow farmers to conserve land, adopt new technologies and use more sustainable farming systems and techniques. It will give us the tools we need to mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis.
Unfortunately, some members of Congress want to cut funding for these investments, even though there’s a tremendous need for them. Keep in mind: It was just last year that the IRA gave these programs a boost. This was done based on the recognition that climate change has created — and will continue to create — many new challenges for farmers in South Texas and across the country. Keeping these programs intact is essential if we’re going to continue to meet those challenges.
My husband and I started our farm from scratch, but we wouldn’t have been able to do so without support from the kinds of programs that are now in jeopardy. Through our nonprofit — HOPE for Small Farm Sustainability — we recently received a grant to help others get started in farming by purchasing land and educating them on best agricultural practices. The need is so great that since receiving this grant, we’ve fielded more than 200 inquiries from South Texans who want to produce locally grown food. It’s proof that these investments are needed now more than ever before.
That’s what Congress should keep in mind, because the future of farming in America is at stake with this Farm Bill. If Congress cuts these IRA-funded agriculture programs, we’ll see farms shut down, more family farmers forced to sell their land to developers, and the continued weakening of rural communities across America. Let’s hope that it doesn’t come to that. Let’s hope that Congress continues to fund these vital programs.
Diana Padilla
Harlingen
Scoreboards aren’t working
Is there anytime soon that the Brownsville Parks and Recreation Department is going to heed the need to fix the scoreboards at the softball fields? All five of the scoreboards are not working right. And the worst of it, this did not start happening just yesterday. Its going on two years — yes, two years that the scoreboards are not completely working the way the are supposed too.
The city’s excuse: They have to pay city employees to maintain the fields. Those two city employees must be making pretty good salaries. And people ask, why don’t we attract more people from out of town to come play at the Brownsville Sports Park? Need I say more?
Of course, they also have a concession stand out there, adding more money the city already makes from the teams.
Someone, anyone, please look into this. Does the city of Brownsville not have employees who have the experience and knowledge to fix electrical problems? Something is not right.
Abel R. Moreno
Brownsville
Joe Biden should quit
Enough foolishness already. President Joe Biden needs to go ahead now and give his own version of LBJ’s March 31, 1968, televised address declining to accept the nomination of the Democratic Party for another term as your President. Biden needs to retire.
At 81 years old, Biden is obviously too infirm to ask the American public to simply trust that he’s going to be OK in the most stressful job on Planet Earth (unless you’re able to hide out from your presidential job duties every other week at one of your KKK-loving country clubs like pretend pro golfer and insane liar Donald Trump) for another four years.
Speaking of four years, that’s what 78-year-old convicted fascist felon Trump should be doing in an oversized, orange jumpsuit at Rikers Island Penitentiary soon enough. Lock Trump up, and throw away the key!
After that June 27 debate debacle, the following day Biden read these words loudly from a teleprompter at an enthusiastic rally in the swing state of North Carolina: “I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth! … When you get knocked down, you get back up!”
President Chumbawamba Joe should be commended for his resilience. However, according to Biden’s long-time friend Congressman James Clyburn, D-S.C., “Joe Biden’s not a show horse. Joe Biden is a workhorse.” Too bad campaigns are a show. People like Congressman Clyburn, who is 83 years old himself, need to get real already. I realize being a resident of South Carolina (the first state of the Confederacy) is a social handicap for the well-respected Congressman Clyburn, but continuing to hide your head in the sand like some sort of frightened ostrich is unacceptable for any so-called Democratic leader in 2024. Failure is not an option, folks.
America’s best years are most definitely not ahead of us if we continue to allow this bipartisan gerontocracy to keep younger generations from their natural right to rule. You can’t even blame baby boomers for this one, since President Biden is older than any member of the post-World War II baby boomer generation, which is the problem after all. There’s no shame whatsoever in retirement, President Biden. Historians and average Americans will recognize your many laudable accomplishments while in office for one term, if you decide to retire instead of continuing your flagging campaign. Quit while ahead.
Jake Pickering
Arcata, Calif.
American messiah
Here is something you probably haven’t thought much about. Sooner or later every society needs a messiah, a savior, to help it overcome an immense obstacle. Citizens of a nation don’t realize this until they hit a wall and can’t figure out how to climb over it.
We have minor messiahs in our lives from the get-go, folks we rely on heavily — parents, teachers, friends, employers, healthcare providers, therapists, media personalities and other celebrities. Often a spouse capably steps into that role.
However, all these folks are quite fallible. At some point we realize we need an infallible personage, whether real or imagined, to guide our path, to give advice and counsel, to save us from our fears, our adversaries, our weaknesses and especially the impending internal collapse of the nation.
Pastors, priests and politicians are traditionally the ones we place our confidence in when the going gets tough. When attacked from abroad, people look to a gallant and capable military commander to save them. All these would-be leaders promise us the moon. They are good-looking and successful, well-spoken and popular. They tell us our lives will be wonderful and in good hands if we follow them or elect them.
Unfortunately, democracies die when citizens give up their own innate ability to deliver families and communities out of difficulty and turn over that responsibility to someone who asks for blind faith in their ability to lead.
When life gets very scary and extremely overwhelming, human beings often give over their faith and devotion to a last resort-type religious or political messiah — either a prophet or a king. Both of these kinds of historical saviors unhesitatingly declare that they are blessed by heaven to deliver people from their predicaments and failures.
America has long placed faith in ancient religious prophets, both Judaic and Chistian and more recently Muslim. But for the first time we are faced with a living savior who would be king. He promises to banish all enemies, rectify every imbalance in nature and society, and save every citizen and family from whatever ails them. That man is Donald J. Trump.
Many folks in America want wealth, fame, power, safety, beauty and strength, but just don’t know how to obtain all these things. Trump has a great abundance of all that is needed and has the will and power to share it with everyone who will devote themselves to his rule and his kingdom.
The British turn out to admire or worship every word, deed and public appearance of the royal family. A similar phenomenon happens in America when former President Trump comes to town.
Every untended democracy ends up in autocracy or kingship. America’s first iteration of this kind of messiahship is available for us to either choose or deny on Nov. 5.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah
Excess power
On Jan. 6, 2021, then-President Donald Trump sent a force against the Congress of the United States for his own personal benefit. Not a single scrap of evidence has been presented to support his excuse that the election of November 2020 was invalid, as he has repeatedly claimed. Neither President-elect Joe Biden nor the Congress that was attacked have made any efforts to hold former President Trump accountable for this assault. The Supreme Court of the United States seems poised to grant not just Trump, but Biden and every future president, immunity for taking this action.
Therefore, the powers of the presidency have been permanently expanded by both Houses of Congress, the administration of President Biden, and likely the Supreme Court to include the military assault of a misbehaving Congress based solely on the unsupported opinion of s single person, the president of the United States.
This seems more than simply unwise to me. However, every member of Congress, President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the majority of the Supreme Court are in complete agreement that this expansion of the powers of the presidency is what is best for this nation. I must be, unquestionably, wrong to think it unwise.
Nonetheless, this November I intend to exercise, as I hope every American will, the only power I have to disagree with all of the above people and with this expansion of the powers of the presidency.
Chris LaFleur
Laguna Vista
Biden backed
So, they say Donald Trump won the debate, and he did so by doing what he does best — lie. And President Joe Biden? Well, he was totally out of it, as if drugged or something. Regardless, he still managed to call out most of the lies Trump dished out. Hmm — was Russia listening when someone asked them to, you know, somehow sabotage the president? Did these guys manage to spike Joe Biden’s coke? Just wondering.
Biden knows he did not perform well, and he blames no one but himself. He knows he lacks the oratory skills of a Barack Obama or a Bill Clinton, but so does Donald Trump. Without moving his hands incessantly, as if waxing his car, the Donald wouldn’t be able to communicate. Nor would he be able to pat himself on the back for the good stuff he thinks he accomplished.
President Biden is a family man, truthfully religious and his love for America is real. Unlike Trump, Biden respects our Constitution, our democracy and the rule of law. He is an honest, patriotic and wise 81-year-old gentleman, the commander in chief of the United States of America!
MAGA Republicans abhor this so they want to do away with the “United” part and “We the People” part. The once-respected law-and-order GOP of years past seems to have faded away. So, if you wish to save our cherished democracy, vote for the Democrat, Joe Biden. The times we are in, demand it! Yes, President Biden is old, but think about this very carefully: The other guy is a convicted felon and only three years his junior.
If you give the reins of our government to a convicted felon who, according to him, wants to be a dictator on Day One, who knows what else he’ll want? A golden throne, maybe?
Italo J. Zarate
Brownsville
Letter sent to governor
Here is a letter I sent to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Mr. Abbott:
First, let me introduce myself before you start calling me names like libtard or Democrat. I am an 80-year-old angry American Independent voter who became such after your party elected scum like Trump to the presidency. It was in fact the last straw after my witnessing and alibiing 30 years of your party’s decline to its present separatist, seditionist, biased, dishonest, immoral, anti-American, MAGA controlled, hateful aligarchy. Mr. Abbott, king Trump does not exist, yet I am commenting on your “It’s not over yet” threat/promise.
Your erecting razor wire and buoys on our border illustrates both your contempt for the lives of immigrants who out of desperation have had to violate our border. Mr. Abbott, this is not an invasion. You have not provided any evidence of an increase in violent border crime, nor can you point to any negative effect to any Texan and it has now been proven in court to be without a lawful basis.
Instead, you tell us “This isn’t over,” a threat? Mr. Abbott, we real Texans do not authorize you to go on bending, breaking or redefining federal and state laws or making them up if none exist. We want you and your cohorts like Trump, Santos, Cruz, DeSantis, O’Connell, etc., to stop trying to make it a home for your radical, violent, separatist fringe.
Your shameful actions resulting in separation of children from their parents at the border and the subsequent moving families without a law authorizing it to northern cities during one of history’s coldest winters is not only inhuman, it is immoral.
You have spread your unconcern for humanity to us Texans by, even after 30 years of mismanagement, deregulation and unconcern of the Republican Party, failed to demand the Texas power grid be repaired then brought up to 21st century standards. This lack of concern has cost us hundreds of lost lives and billions in dollars of lost business.
Your most recent efforts to subsidize charter schools clearly indicate your intent to divide Texans in their childhood Rather than fix problems created by the legislature’s insufficient funding you prefer to make it a political agenda based on wealth, ethnicity, position, political or religious and social agendas. Again, Mr. Abbott, your efforts only benefit you and the radical fringe of the Republican Party. You think it would be much easier to control a few small entities rather than a united Texas, don’t you?
Finally, Mr. Abbott, please remember the Texas state motto: “Friendship.” There is no cruelty, bias, derision, hate, division or separation in that word.
Ned Sheats
Mission
Letter attacked
Some comments in response to recent letter by Javier Barrera (June 21).
Early on, the writer makes a ridiculous and unsubstantiated claim that a large segment of American citizens embrace Nazi ideology and fly or display Nazi flags with pride. I am curious to know where exactly the writer has come across so many Nazis or seen so many Nazi flags on display.
The writer than states that Republicans employ Nazi-style propaganda to advance their agenda. The writer is trying to somehow link Republican ideology to Nazi ideology. He fails to provide any evidence to delineate any similarities between the two. But then again, facts or evidence are never necessary when spewing anti-Republican propaganda.
Ben Castillo
Harlingen
Reducing poverty
Global poverty is a pressing issue that calls for everyone’s attention and work. We see everyday news of how much poverty is in many communities, big or small and how vulnerable it can be for them.
It is important to try out continuous solutions to help reduce poverty. Congressman Vicente Gonzales has greatly demonstrated his commitment to this cause through initiatives like the Global Fragility Act that helps address the causes of instability and the conflicts in many fragile states and will help significantly in reducing global poverty.
Organizations like the Borgen Project, for example, have advocated for different policies that target global poverty and help improve millions of people’s lives. The efforts they have made show how much action needs to be done regarding poverty.
Leaders need to prioritize and support the bills that align with these goals making certain that reducing poverty is at the top of our national agenda. By standing together through advocacy and policy making we can help make a significant stride toward a much better future for us all.
Alan Soto
Brownsville
Comments addressed
Let me start with a couple of quotes! Your editorial: “Party registration isn’t a state issue and we trust it never will be. Government never should become involved in partisan matters.” Kimball Shinkoskey: “Now MAGA Republicans have thrown all caution to the wind and are promoting violence and a radically altered version of current events to undergird their strategic objective, which is to destroy the Democratic Party.” Wow and wow!
I will start with your editorial of June 26 addressing the response by Republicans to push party registration or do away with or closing off primaries! It’s a reactive response!
The investment of millions of dollars by the Democratic National Convention in Republican primaries and the flood of Democrat voters in Republican primaries is what caused this move to close primaries! Duh! Getting the weakest candidate (Republican) elected to face their strongest (Democrat) candidate was the reason for this move! Never!
Never until now had we seen this in American politics! Why did the DNC close the primary process to Kennedy and others? Was it to keep their puppet in the race for president?
Now on the same date Mr. Shinkoskey, just like a loyal comrade, writes about many things that really are happening but gives responsibility to the wrong party! Don’t believe your lying eyes, ears and confused brain!
All the violence, destruction and loss of life we have seen during this administration was caused by MAGA Republicans! What a pile of baloney! The minor intrusion by Russia into Ukraine, withdrawing from Afghanistan, the rampant lawlessness in blue states and cities, and we must not forget the “generally peaceful” riots and protest we saw supporting Black Lives Matter and Jew-hating American terrorists more recently! All this done in the name of and by MAGA citizens!
We are not dumb here in South Texas! I want to make that clear and at the same time, we all have the right to get published without major redactions by you or your staff, profanities edited out of course. On many occasions you add an “editor’s” note if data quoted are off in either direction. Clarifying who does what should call for your intervention! Oh well, after all, this is an opinion forum!
Ernest Gorena
Brownsville
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].
