U.S. must justify Ukraine spending
Sens. Schumer and McConnell are complaining about Sen. Rand Paul delaying passage of additional aid to Ukraine.
Total U.S. spending is $40 billion, the latest installment is $4 billion; the neighboring European Union is spending $500 million to aid Ukraine in their fight.
The following questions have not been answered by the president or Congress since the war in Ukraine began:
First, what are our goals? Do we seek to defeat Russia militarily? Second, what methods will we employ to accomplish these goals? Are we willing to use tactical nuclear weapons? Third, how will we know when our goals have been achieved? Will it be by counting the number of dead Russians? Fourth, what price are we willing to pay, whether with our checkbooks, or with body bags?
The president has not explained his Ukraine policy, nor has he asked Congress for a declaration of war. The framers of the Constitution gave Congress — not the president — the power to declare war.
The framers’ wisdom is apparent when you study the disastrous “undeclared wars” we have fought in recent memory, which include Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
We should not be shocked by the trashing of our Constitution’s framework for waging war. After all, there is nothing like a good foreign distraction to move our focus away from our domestic failures.
Richard A. Evans
Burnt Hills
What’s the point if we’re dying anyway
Does this make anyone else shake their head – regarding the article in the May 18 Gazette (“Study: Global pollution kills 9M people a year.”)
Yet we are still being asked by the powers that be to get vaccinated against covid and to wear masks. We better stop listening to them and get spiritual and in tune with a Higher Power! None of us are getting out of here alive.
Barbara McBride
Schenectady
Grateful for work on disabilities program
I want to thank Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara for his commitment to helping people with disabilities. I am so excited to partner with him on the new college experience program we’re spearheading at SUNY Schenectady.
This partnership for “Inclusive Entrepreneurship and Employment” is an invaluable opportunity for people with disabilities. The program helps individuals prepare for entrepreneurial and employment pursuits.
The college is slated to begin offering training for persons with disabilities this fall and will assist disabled individuals to make empowered decisions to become entrepreneurs or to pursue employment, and then support them as they pursue that choice with education, trainings, skills, and access to resources needed for success.
I believe everyone should be able to follow their dreams, and this program will allow more students to do just . It’s a prime example of how we can provide access for students of all abilities.
Truly we can all do more to achieve that goal, but at the State Capitol Assemblyman Santabarbara is leading the way.
He was instrumental in ensuring that funding was provided in the state budget so we could launch this program in Schenectady County, the first of its kind in the entire state.
John Robinson
Glenmont
The writer is CEO of Our Ability, Inc.
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Categories: Letters to the Editor, Opinion
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I guess when Democrat President Harry Truman said “The buck stops here” doesn’t resonate with Joe Biden. Although gas prices, inflation, illegal crossings and all of the other woes that we have today began on day one, if you dont believe me take a look at the timeline. With Biden and company it’s everyones fault except his own, it’s oil company profits then its Putin’s price hike when in reality it’s Bidens policies. Baby formula is the manufacturers fault even though they knew there was an issue more than a year ago, where are those people running the FDA? I could go on and on but you get the drift. Please don’t respond with Biden does not have control of oil prices, he stopped Keystone XL, he stopped leases, he added dozens more costly regulations on drilling and he made it so it is not feasable to Frack. Instead we buy dirty oil from Venenzuala with it’s illegal president. God help us, I love the warm weather but I can’t wait for winter and the new Coingress.
Gas prices are up in every other country as well, so I guess that’s Biden’s fault too lol. What exactly are you implying the FDA should be doing? They shut down a plant because the formula being produced there was killing babies. Arguably they took too long to do that. But do you think they should have let it remain open? Or that the government should now be in the business of producing baby formula?
Actually yes it is Bidens fault, if we were still energy independent and the world leader of oil and gas the prices around the world would be much lower. Trust me, Americans are not the only ones chanting “Lets Go Brandon” Normally the 18-24 year olds are overwelming supporters of democrats, not with Biden, he’s in the 27% range with them.
As for baby formula, I’m more concerned with the fact that there are really only a couple major producers of formula in this country. Why wasn’t this seen as some kind of virtual monopoly, especially with a fairly critical product such as this? If the FDA were not even involved in a shutdown, and there was simply an accident at one large plant, the remaining other companies apparently can’t even step in quickly to bridge the shortfall? Most of our food supply is controlled by just a few major corporations. Simple outbreaks of listeria, e-coli, etc., at a couple processing plants owned by these corporations wreak havoc on the food supply chain. It’s not a (pick a president to blame) problem, it’s been happening for decades.
Mon Dieu. This is the kind of contribution that only serves to provoke. There’s no truth to the comment (the Facebook-sourced Keystone connection has been disproven down many times, mass immigrations are not uniquely American but a global phenonmenon) and has no place in public debate.
I get that we have the right to speak our minds but don’t the forums who enable that have a responsibility to filter out the malice? Do public forums have a responsibility to police what is clearly disinformation?
Sorry that you think so but everything I said is 100% true, you are not the leader of the Ministry of Truth, that was shut down before it started. Nobody said mass immigrations are unique to America but as I said we have a president and an administration that has an open door policy and the facts are there to prove it and since it is one of the top three issues in America it absolutely has a place in a public forum, I know you would prefer to shut down the truth but you can’t. The only malice is you trying to attack the truth. As D Wayne used to say, I hope you like it, I hope you don’t