Venture out in public, but at your own risk
The demonstrations at the capitol on April 22 show a growing concern among the populace
If an employer wants to open his business, let him. Any employee who wants to return to work has that right.
However, if an employee doesn’t feel safe to return, he or she should be allowed to stay home with no repercussions.
Once Gov. Cuomo opens up the state, that employee’s job will still be there waiting for him. Any employer who deprives someone of their job would have to face the Attorney General’s office. Those workers who contract the virus will have to self-quarantine for 14 days. If they bring it to their families, that’s unfortunate, but they decided that before they took the job. If they die at home, it will at least be in the company of their remaining loved ones.
However, the influx of workers won’t be as large as one may think.
Bars, restaurants, bowling alleys and movie theaters won’t do the business they used to do. I doubt the public will immediately feel safe. It’s a no-win situation either way.
Pete Pidgeon
Scotia
Obama prepared Trump for outbreak
During the Ebola crisis in Africa, 2014-2016, President Obama sent equipment and planners to help end the crisis. He realized America could also have a pandemic and created a task force in the National Security Council to prepare for it.
In January 2017, President Trump had a meeting with Obama staff to acquaint him with the pandemic response team and its purpose to plan for and prepare for an outbreak of unknown diseases in the United States.
Under President Trump’s National Security Council, Tom Bossert was head of the group preparing for a pandemic and Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer was head of the biodefense team.
They were both fired in January 2020. A position of epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency was eliminated in July 2019.
On February 7, 2020, Trump shipped 18 tons of medical equipment: masks, gowns, respirators, etc. to China. When asked recently about this decision at a press conference, Trump said it was a “nasty” question and he knew nothing about it. These facts can be checked on the web.
Joan Ham
Rexford
Pray to your God and thank him for Trump
It seems that day after day a letter to the editor appears hating, condemning and advocating that President Trump be removed or voted out of office. Now I understand their feelings.
For eight years we felt the severe dislike for President Barry Obama.
He went across the globe and apologized for the United States. He claimed that the United States was no longer a Christian nation.
He decided that all bathrooms should be genderless. Imagine that men could now enter a woman’s restroom, no harm in that is there?
I believe he said that no jobs would come back to America so get used to it. What a joke he is and was.
We took it for eight years, prayed to our Lord that someone would run for the presidency, take a stand and Make America Great Again.
Lo and behold, the good Lord gave us Donald J. Trump. A true patriot putting America first.
You bleeding heart liberal left Democrats should get on your knees and pray to your God whoever that might be and thank him from the bottom of your heart for President Trump.
He will get us past this pandemic and Keep America Great.
Stephen R. Heiser
Fort Plain
If nothing to fear, why the masks?
I get a kick out of the protesters at the capital wanting to open up for business.
Tell me then, why the face masks? What are they afraid of? Maybe dying?
Peter J. Grippo
Schenectady
Remember there are many ways to pray
Recently during my mandated time at home, during which I have had extra time for reading, I came across a quote from Billy Graham (a man who most people admired):
“To get nations back on their feet, we must first get down on our knees.”
This was before certain sports people used it for another purpose.
To “get down on our knees” simply means to pray and worship God. But prayer is also from the mind and heart, and can be done in many other ways.
Prayer is not just asking God for something. Prayer has four parts, and asking God for something is the last part.
The parts can be remembered by the acronym ACTS: Adoration (praising God for who He is), Contrition (expressing sorrow for our wrongdoing), Thanksgiving (Thanking Him for all things), then Supplication (asking Him for His divine help).
Just a reminder for those who may have forgotten.
Beverly Means
Niskayuna
Radical left deprives us all of our rights
First the radical left attacked the Second Amendment. A lot of people misuse guns, so nobody should be allowed to have them. Then it was free speech. Anybody who disagreed with the radical left was at best a racist, a bigot and certainly deplorable. They shouldn’t be allowed to speak on college campuses or even be allowed near people who are beating drums while chanting left stream mantra.
And although anybody with any sense should know that maintaining social distance is the right thing to do to mitigate a pandemic, the radical left is now using the current pandemic as an excuse to arbitrarily curb the right to assemble peaceably and to worship as one chooses, all in the name of public safety.
And of course the left stream media always seems to be in league with the radical left. That’s what they learned in their journalism classes at left stream colleges where dissenters were not allowed to speak. But mark my word, if the radical left is successful in these attacks on the rights of the people, eventually it will be strong enough to curb the media when that media dares to disagree with it or even report on it.
Because that’s what the radical left does when it comes into power. Look at China, the USSR, North Korea and Ethiopia.
Jim Moorhead
Scotia
Direct state funds where most needed
It seems impossible for elected officials not to make COVID-19 response political.
President Trump first wants to take the lead, then let the states lead. King Cuomo wants to do things his way, but wants the federal government to fund him.
Now he blames the federal government for our budget woes. The state came into this $8 billion in the red, which isn’t the fault of the federal government but our own poor leadership. Trump gives forgivable loans to places like Harvard and Ruth’s Chris, and Cuomo tells hospitals, schools and local governments to expect 20% reductions in funding and delays raises to employees.
Instead of the actual working class taxpayers footing the bill for poor government, let’s make it political. Let’s sell the state plane and helicopter, not fund trips outside of New York state for any elected officials. Instead of localities, start with a 20% reduction in salary for all elected and appointed officials at the state level. Do this until the state is adequately funded. Maybe for one year, remove all earmarked grants to legislators for their districts. Fund the workers, schools, hospitals and local government so they can do their job in the COVID-19 fight.
Bill McCullough
Schenectady
Baseball favors rich over low-wage staff
Two April 22 Gazette sports articles have similar themes.
We learn owners and managers of Major League Baseball wish to save money by cutting 40 affiliated minor league teams, down 25%. I don’t know the economics of the minor leagues, but in a sport where two part-time workers, pitchers Cloe and Strasburg (part-time since they only perform in about one in four games and never nine full innings), have a combined income of $71 million per year, it seems MLB could come up with a couple of bucks to upgrade and keep minor league ball running.
Those two salaries alone could probably keep a score of minor league franchises running fine.
Story 2 discusses lower player salaries if games cannot have fans in the stadiums. Owners propose cuts due to losses from totally empty seats. Meanwhile, the players noted that savings from furloughed and laid -off ushers, concessionaires and other stadium workers means the players would not need to have so much of their big salaries reduced. A win-win?
Both sides of the richest in MLB propose cutting off the lowest-paid stadium workers and minor league teams to preserve their sometimes outlandishly high incomes. Of course, the coronavirus is cited as one of the reasons for the necessity of cutting back. Let the top tier preserve their critical income in these trying times while lower-wage scale workers in the sports world may manage without any jobs at all. Way to go MLB, owners and players.
Kenneth Fisher
Schenectady
Trump, GOP put self over citizens’ lives
There is only one thing Donald Trump cares about: himself. And the most important thing about himself is to be reelected. He will do or say anything, even put thousands of lives at risk, to avoid losing in 2020.
The most recent evidence is his response to the mobs who are pushing to reopen the economy.
Playing to his base, he stoked anti-government fervor by tweeting, “Liberate Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia.” From his bullying pulpit, he said of the placard-toting mobs, “They seem to be responsible people.” This echoes his tweets about the white supremacists in Charleston being “good people.”
Trump views this pandemic not as a threat to human life but to his political future.
His administration undercut public health long before the pandemic, causing nearly 700 vacancies in the Center for Disease Control and disbanding the White House’s pandemic office, both responsible for responding to threats like COVID-19.
In his daily campaign briefings, he touts his popularity and stock exchange figures rather than the numbers of affected and dying.
This pathological egomaniac and the sycophantic Mitch McConnell-led Repugnant Party have elevated self-interest above life itself, infecting our democracy. Our vote will be the vaccine.
Richard W. Lewis, Jr.
Glenville
Categories: Letters to the Editor, Opinion
