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Send immigrants back to their home
Regarding immigrants in the country illegally: Gov. Kathy Hochul, if we are at capacity and can’t find housing for these people (a) stop taking them in and forcing the taxpayers to carry their burden, and (b) put them on a bus or plane and send them home, Enough is enough. Your Democratic Party is killing this country.
Scott Anderson
Scotia
NY HEAT act will help with utilities
In The Gazette April 29 edition, in the front page article, (“Bill dictates electric utilities for new housing”), Ashley Hupfl points out that many New Yorkers are concerned about a potential increase in their annual energy bill as a result of the recently passed All-Electric Building Act.
That is a valid concern, especially for low-income residents.
State legislators have wisely proposed the New York Home Energy Affordable Transition (NY HEAT) Act to meet these concerns for climate justice.
Currently, 55% of New York voters are “very concerned” about the cost of their home energy bills and the average low- and middle- income household in New York already spends 9.3% of their annual income on energy. The NY HEAT Act places a 6% of income cap on utility bills for low- and middle-income families, which will save them an average of $75 per month on their energy bills.
Don Porter
Schenectady
Extend compassion to the homeless
The former senior center in Saratoga Springs has been proposed as a possible location for a shelter, but it is controversial because it borders 200 feet of the Catholic school’s athletic field.
I drove by to see this field. I’m not sure what is played there, as it’s a sorry patch of dirt and grass. Further, I doubt any child would be there without other classmates, a gym teacher or coach. If still afraid of peeping eyes, put up a solid 6-foot tall fence. So I’m not seeing a problem here.
The homeless are people made by your god who commands you to house the homeless, feed the hungry, heal the sick, and I might add portable toilets while they are unhoused in the downtown parking garage.
To put this problem in perspective, priests and other clergy have sexually harmed children. There are articles in this paper about sex offenses committed against children by the very people they know.
Mass shootings at schools have killed children. When was the last time you learned from the news that a homeless person shot and killed children?
Cops beat or suffocate people to death; active and ex-military storm the U.S. Capitol and, in this upside down phenomena, Catholic parents are afraid of the unhoused.
Hoping Divine Providence steps in? Only if you find the goodness, fairness and strength within yourself to acknowledge you may be the problem and you can solve it. Our children have loving homes to go to; let’s extend some compassion for those who do not.
Sandra J. Natale
Saratoga Springs
Give voters choice on vital matters
I’ve raised this issue before. Let the American people vote on different issues on Election Day.
We can’t have nine people dictating what is right or wrong for the people. We have politicians who can’t stick to a budget (like we do) or even decide on one. If the people actually had a say, we would have universal health care, the government wouldn’t be deciding what procedures you are allowed to have on your own body, and they wouldn’t be deciding what books you can and can’t read. Maybe it’s a dumb idea but, it’s got my vote.
Kenneth Kimball
Schenectady
McDonald served Schenectady well
Congratulations to Jeff McDonald, who recently resigned from the Schenectady County Legislature to focus on his successful business.
Jeff’s contributions to the community go well beyond his distinguished service as a county lawmaker and political leader. He and his family invested — in every sense of the word — in Schenectady years before Metroplex and local elected officials began the city’s resurgence. They saw Schenectady’s great potential when others had given up. They bet on the city’s future and, as a result, we are all winners.
Thanks, Jeff, and good luck.
Frank Maurizio, Jr.
Chattanooga, Tenn.
The writer served on the Schenectady City Council from 2000-2007.
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Categories: Letters to the Editor, Opinion, Opinion, Saratoga Springs, Schenectady, Scotia Glenville
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The Democrats have offered to freeze spending at last year’s level. The Freedom Caucus controlling Speaker McCarthy insists we spend less than we did last year and refrain from any tax increases while keeping defense and veteran spending intact. This would preserve Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy while necessitating cuts in programs that help lower and middle income Americans.
Can someone explain why so many lower and middle income Americans continue to support the MAGA movement, Trump, DeSantis, Haley, Hutchinson and other MAGA stars? I hate to think it is because of the increasingly obvious appeals to racism, bigotry, and one party rule coming from the GOP but when threats to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA and other programs fail to awaken MAGA enthusiasts to the truth, what other explanation is there?
The Republican rationale for the budget standoff is based on a claim that the nation is on an “unsustainable” spending path. But the spending cuts they propose, according to the Times, will have no effect on the trajectory.
“Yet in talks with Mr. Biden, Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his lieutenants have focused almost entirely on cutting a small corner of the budget — known as nondefense discretionary spending — that includes funding for education, environmental protection, national parks, domestic law enforcement and other areas. That budget line accounts for less than 15 percent of the $6.3 trillion the government is expected to spend this year. It is not outsized, by historical standards. It is already projected to shrink, as a share of the economy, over the next decade.
And it has nothing to do with the big drivers of projected spending growth in the coming years: the safety-net programs Social Security and Medicare, which are facing increasingly large payouts as the American population ages.”
It seems like a stupid political stunt to me. Republicans want to “appear” fiscally responsible by cutting programs that will have no impact on future spending deficits. It sounds like something former speaker Ryan would propose to sound like he was a serious wonk, which was all a show. He was a lightweight on economic matters. McCarthy is just a political hack.
Mr Anderson I’m sure once the proposed republican solution for immigration problem is implemented all your misgivings will float away. Just like they did with trumps Healthcare plan . oh wait as usual they don’t have one
maybe Hunter Biden will make them and you feel better.
“A Florida school has banned elementary students from reading “The Hill We Climb,” the poem written and recited by Amanda Gorman at Joe Biden’s inauguration as president.
The powerful poem, which was been internationally praised, was one of several works banned at the Miami-Dade County school library after a parent complained they referenced critical race theory, gender ideology, “indirect hate messages,” according to the Miami Herald.”
Watching Amanda Gorman recite her poem at Biden’s inauguration was one of the most inspiring and moving things I’ve ever witnessed.
The racist behavior of these self anointed “children of God” is an embarrassment to America and a bruise to the harmony of humanity. – Pathetic!
And it was only ONE parent who complained!
Not all schools are good some actually hide things from parents.
When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.
We braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.
And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true.
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped.
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it.
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption.
We feared at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour.
But within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So, while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain.
If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the golden hills of the West.
We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.
We will rise from the sun-baked South.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
I thought I saw you at Upstate Canna yesterday!
Sounds like you went for the hard stuff!
ActuallyI was three rows behind home plate in the Legends Suite for the Yankees V Baltimore game.
While you were dipping your toes in your Trans sister’s Olympic size swimming pool, along with your Black grandchildren I presume.
Marincic: I appreciate your posting this important work of poetry. However without Posting the title and the poet it seems somewhat performative. For those who haven’t googled the poem it is The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman. This poem was banned in Miami because a snowflake was offended by its truth.
The poem was not banned by anyone,
A parent of a student at Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes, Fla., filed a complaint with the school, saying the poem is “not educational” and has indirect “hate messages.” The parent suggested the poem would “cause confusion and indoctrinate students,” according to documents obtained by the Florida Freedom to Read Project.
The parent also voiced similar concerns about Love to Langston and The ABCs of Black History, as well as two books about Cuba, according to the documents.
Staff members on the school’s materials review committee ultimately decided four of the five books would be “more appropriate” for middle school-aged children and thus moved the books to the middle-school section of the library. A fifth book that also underwent review, Countries in the News: Cuba, was found to be “balanced and age appropriate” and was kept in place.
National Review… Facts matter.
You’re right, and I’ve been watching for the retractions over the use of the word “banned”. Politico already has.
Now tell us how in God’s green earth a single parent can meddle in the curriculum (regardless the knee-jerk reaction of the board) of a school by whining that such an inspirational poem, written for a Presidential inauguration, could POSSIBLY be construed as too hateful for young readers?
So get off your high horse over the misuse of a word and defend this single parent’s actions. That is what’s pissing people off.
Further, Snopes has done their usual due diligence and investigated this and provides very detailed coverage of what actually happened:
www snopes com/news/2023/05/24/amanda-gorman-book-florida-school-ban/
BM: You reproduced the poem so I assume you understand its message. Please tell us passages in the poem would “cause confusion and indoctrinate students?” And while you’re at it, would you kindly tell us which words send indirect “hate messages.”
If the parent’s depiction is accurate, I would also like to know why, given her objections, it’s permissible for middle school students to read the poem, but not those in elementary grades.
In case you’re reading Mr. Anderson, who said the immigrants are “illegal?” Last I knew they were seeking asylum in the U.S. to escape the dreadful economic and social conditions in their home countries. Our policy of providing asylum to such people has been legally permissible for decades. Furthermore, Gov. Hochul recognizes the outsized burden they will have on our state’s housing shortage and social service programs. That’s why she’s begging for Washington’s help. Oh, and by the way, we need thousands of low-skilled workers in our state to fill the low paying jobs in hospitals, nursing homes and agriculture.
No amount of sending asylum seekers back to their country will fill the empty void in your own life. So sad to see how hateful people are to folks they don’t even know. But I’m sure Mr. Anderson also refers to himself as a good Christian lol.
Washington Post:
“Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison Thursday in the first punishment to be handed down for seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The sentence is the longest given to any of the hundreds of people found guilty of involvement in the pro-Trump riot.
“You sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country, to the republic and the very fabric of our democracy,” Judge Amit P. Mehta told Rhodes. “The moment you are released you will be prepared to take up arms against your government.”….
Sounds to me like Judge Mehta could have been talking to donald trump.
If Rhodes got 18 years trump deserves life. – No big deal, he could still run for president, plenty of mob bosses run their corruption from jail.
Mr restifo great to see yet another Jan 6th criminal being sent to jail. It’s probably especially heartbreaking for the likes of Mr Anderson who have to admit the jury process works,
I’m betting 18 years knocks the seditionist out of little Stewie Rhodes.