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Trump shouldn’t be GOP candidate
On May 10, former President Trump had what he called a town meeting, which ended up being a Trump rally.
What scares me more is not the former president lying about just everything, it is the crowd there cheering for every lie, every piece of misinformation.
They clapped and laughed when he referenced the results of a fair and legal trial accusing him of sexual abuse and defamation of character. He referenced the Jan. 6th insurrection and claims he will pardon those convicted; he still maintains the election was rigged. He did not think Pence was in any danger that day. Each time, they applauded and cheered.
This man should not be the Republican choice for re-election. Why he has never been accused of causing the insurrection, I will never understand. When seeing the video of Jan. 6, I, along with many, could not believe this was happening in our country. How he can even be thought of as a candidate for the president is beyond me.
Hopefully, history will prove that his election was our biggest mistake. Hopefully, now, his own words will continue to incriminate him, and prove he is not fit to run for president.
Hopefully, the Republican Party will endorse a more positive influenced candidate and return to my father’s Republican Party. Only then will we return to a more unified country.
Vincent F. Carelli
Amsterdam
Dems want to take hard-earned money
Biden is setting up the ‘greatest wealth transfer in history’ — a warning of the ugliness to come. “The greatest wealth transfer in history is here, with familiar (rich) winners.”
That’s the New York Times, the Bible of the left, laying the groundwork for the seizure of your money.
They don’t think it’s fair that older people are rich. Baby Boomers, 60-80 years old, have accumulated $78 trillion, mostly in real estate and stocks. Don’t kid yourself. You didn’t make it by hard work, drive, brains and good judgment.
No, as the Times says, you made it in part because of “years of housing discrimination and a lack of access to financial tools and advice for people of color.
“Since the vast majority of Baby Boomers with money are white, their white children and white grandchildren will inherit the money, thus continuing racial inequality.
It’s a setup for a wealth tax. The socialist wing of the Democrat Party demands that you add up the value of all your stocks, bonds, houses, businesses and even artwork. Then, you will have to fork over a portion of that wealth every year to the government. It doesn’t matter whether your investments are up or down. Just having money is the excuse to take it off you. They don’t respect success.
Think about this. You’ve saved and invested. Done the right thing. Worked hard and plan to pass along what you’ve made. You’re a successful American. Stand up and demand the respect you deserve.
Michela Dicaprio
Schenectady
Why note gender of Twitter CEO?
The title of the article, “Musk says he’s found a woman to lead Twitter as new CEO,” in the May 12 Gazette caught my eye.
I am not a fan of Elon Musk, and this misogyny is just one more reason to support my disdain. In 2023, should it be noteworthy that a woman is a CEO?
If the person selected was a man, I guarantee that the title would simply have been “Musk finds new CEO for Twitter” and not, “Musk says he’s found a man to lead Twitter as new CEO.”
Why? Because in his mind, CEOs are men, and this is a novel situation. Further into the article is a tweet from Musk in December saying, “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job.” So I guess the takeaway here is that Musk, in announcing a woman, thinks a man isn’t foolish enough to take the job.
Barbara Mancuso
Niskayuna
Categories: Letters to the Editor, Opinion, Opinion, Schenectady, Your Niskayuna
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Michala Dicaprio no one wants to steal your money. Everyone needs to pay their fair share of taxes. It Must have been a slow night on Fox. Oh wait the writers strike got it .
Biden’s wealth tax proposal would apply solely to people with at least $1 billion in assets or $100 million in income for three straight years. According to the Associated Press, just 700 taxpayers would face the additional tax on increases to their wealth. It would not affect average, middle-income people at all.
The administration focused on this tiny group, .0005% of all taxpayers, because the bulk of their income comes from stock dividends, the sale of valuable assets, like beachfront mansions, rare art and antiques. So, unless Mr. DiCaprio – or his audience of Gazette readers – falls into that category, the IRS won’t be coming for them.
One big take-away from how the Republicans are bollixing up the debt ceiling issue, and displayed in Ms. DiCaprio’s whine as a derivative of it, is the very strong desire not to strengthen the IRS.
They’ve managed to again, harness the paranoia and insecurity of their base to fight any attempt to hold tax-payers (especially well-off and corporate ones) to their responsibilities. Responsibilities that fund all the services and benefits that we all enjoy.
H. L. Mencken said, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” Let’s see if I have the latest G.O.P.’s hobgoblins right: the F.B.I, Joe Biden, The NY Times, A.O.C., Hillary Clinton (though she’s fading from the scene) WAPO, and the I.R.S. Did I leave any out?
Wizard, I think BLM, immigrants, social democrats, drag queens, climatologists, gays, transgender individuals and the doctors who treat them, and many others are imaginary hobgoblins of the far right. They will come up with new ones as needed for their cause, an autocratic White Christian Nationalist Amerika.
Add to the list, anyone who dares criticize their abominable cult leader, Donald. J. Trump.
Well there’s the one you guys should have foremost on the list: formal education.
It’s the one boogyman they fear the most, i think.
One boogyman to rule them all, eh?
Yes, Chuck D. They hate universities, professors, experts in any field, scientists. So sad.
I have to confess to a major oversight on my part. Educated people, people expert in their fields, for example Dr. Anthony Fauci and Michael G. Oppenheimer, are regular targets of the new far right American lunatic fringe.
And look who they idolize along with Trump! Their heroes are people like former Florida Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo, former HHS Secretary Tom Price, radio show and political scientist Sam Clovis, Dr. Robert Karas of ivermectin fame, lying reprehensible fake journalists like Carlson, Jones, and Bannon. WOW! What a list of retrobates!
And lest we forget their political heroes, there is lower than a snake’s belly and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, sniveling coward and political hack Senator Lindsey Graham, the buffoonish and profoundly sick Rudy Giulani, turncoat Elise Stefanik, totally off the wall Mike Lindell and Sydney Powell, and white nationalist traitor to everything decent Mike Flynn. Of course the entire House Freedom Caucus including such certifiably insane representatives like Paul Gosar, MTG, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, and Andrew Clyde will go down in history as the most incompetent and corrupt member ever elected to Congress. I forgot Senator Josh Hawlings but my typing finger is getting sore.
I hate to sink to this level, but after watching all of five minutes of the Trump rally and reading the list of Republican hobgoblins you folks named, it’s impossible to resist.
How many Republicans does it take to change a lightbulb?
None. Trump just says it’s fixed and the rest of them sit in the dark and applaud.
And Change? Why that’s socialism.
There were times in America’s past when political discourse was as rancorous as it is now – or worse – but, with the exception of the McCarthy era at its lowest ebb, I can’t think of a time when one side persisted in clinging to an ideology that the sane among us found laughable. Sooner or later Americans usually wise up and the demagogues who once successfully pandered to their passions and prejudices, rather than their reason, disappear into the historical dustbin – Father Coughlin, Huey long, and the aforementioned Joseph McCarthy, to name a few. But Donald Trump – the supreme demagogue – maintains his stranglehold on the Republican Party and a significant portion of the American populace.
Just look at Ms. DiCaprio’s letter to the editor. She obviously doesn’t know what she’s talking about. In fact, it’s a joke. I know we are all susceptible to confirmation bias – the tendency to search for information that shores up our predetermined beliefs. But, after a while, people will come to their senses, especially when they realize that the demagogue is lying and sweet-talking them into supporting policies contrary to their own interests. It may take time, as when the Church dragged its holy slippers for centuries before finally accepting Galileo’s proof that the earth revolved around the sun, rather than the other way around.
Sooner or later, however, “The truth will out,” as Lancelot says in “The Merchant of Venice.” Yet Trump continues to hold sway over the likes of Ms. DiCaprio. She, like millions of others, including Harvard graduate Elise Stefanik and some of the commenters on this page, maintain their allegiance to the world heavyweight champion of lying and the idiotic conspiracies fomented by his followers. By the time their ilk will see the light — as history shows they will — we’ll all be dead.
Is it worth our time and energy, folks, to refute their irrational arguments, or is it better to ignore them?
The resistance to the truth by Trump supporters is well beyond any rational explanation. But, I believe we must continue to confront them with facts and truth. There are people not interested in politics who think all politicians are the same; these are the people who are beginning to reject Trump and the MAGA movement. We must continue to point out how malevolent and contrary to morality this phony brand of “Christian nationalism” is and what con men Trump and his political allies are. If, through our efforts, one mind is changed, it will have been worth all the research and typing.
We’ve been through all this, and not that long ago:
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“Sitting members of Congress aiding and abetting a plot to overthrow the government. Insurrectionists criminally charged with plotting to end American democracy for good. Justice Department prosecutors under crushing political pressure. Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra is the all-but-forgotten true story of good, old-fashioned American extremism getting supercharged by proximity to power. When extremist elected officials get caught plotting against America with the violent ultra right, this is the story of the lengths they will go to… to cover their tracks.”
This is some seriously engaging, and for us, enraging history from 1940. And amazingly researched, as Maddow is famous for.
www msnbc com/rachel-maddow-presents-ultra