For Long Island
Amityville
August 2, 2024
To the Editor,
A recent and anonymous editorial attempted to criticize me on climate issues without accurately acknowledging my views and important work in Congress on the issue. Kindly allow me to fill in some rather wide gaps: Climate change is a pressing issue that requires a balanced approach, and as a member of Congress who represents one of the most coastal districts in the entire nation, I am committed to addressing it through pragmatic and economically sound policies.
While incomplete in many parts and inaccurate in some, the editorial correctly notes rising global temperatures and severe consequences. Preserving our local environment, including wildlife, water quality, and waterways, is a top priority for me. As a father of three young girls, I understand that we owe it to future generations to maintain a thriving Long Island. Moreover, I discussed these issues in an interview with The East Hampton Star earlier this year.
In my first term in Congress, I have taken significant steps to protect our environment, including (1) passing an amendment to prohibit offshore drilling off Long Island’s coast; (2) introducing and earning bipartisan support for legislation to designate Plum Island as a national monument, and (3) leading the charge to successfully pass the Long Island Sound Restoration and Stewardship Reauthorization Program out of the House. In this term and hopefully at least a future one, I will continue fighting for a cleaner environment for all of Long Island.
Contrary to the editorial’s portrayal, the Conservative Climate Caucus is actively promoting environmental stewardship through practical measures that avoid extreme policies harmful to our economy and workers. To lower costs, achieve energy independence, and improve our economy, we must support advancements in carbon capture and storage technologies, nuclear energy, and renewable sources like wind and solar while maximizing our natural resources. These initiatives can reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and provide reliable, cost-effective energy.
Energy policy and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive. Elected officials from both major parties can pursue sustainability while ensuring economic stability and growth. Addressing climate change effectively requires bipartisan cooperation, leveraging strengths and ideas from all sides. As someone who is ranked one of the most bipartisan members of Congress, I welcome constructive dialogue with colleagues, environmental groups, and constituents to develop policies for a healthier, more sustainable planet.
The recent and anonymous editorial was either accidentally incomplete or intentionally misleading. This is why, during the days and weeks preceding an election especially, we should all pause to get complete and accurate information and look beyond partisan rhetoric. Those who do so will recognize that I am working for a more balanced and comprehensive approach to a sustainable and prosperous future for America and Long Island.
REP. NICK LALOTA
Momentum Is Real
Amagansett
July 29, 2014
Dear David,
Recent events have made it clear that Trump and LaLota are too afraid to debate their opponents. Donald Trump had already agreed to a debate with Biden on Sept. 10 but his campaign will not commit to attending that debate now that Harris is the presumptive nominee. Trump is backpedaling, making various excuses to dodge what will be a certain loss. Similarly, when John Avlon challenged Nick LaLota to six debates during the month of July, LaLota declined, saying, “We’ll agree to a series of debates in line with the timing and format typical of NY-01’s elections.”
Donald Trump and Nick LaLota like to portray themselves as tough guys. They try to convey strength by staying on offense and deflecting from questions about their own records. They are masters of misdirection and have come to rely on this to control the narrative around their elections. Here’s the thing, though: Their policies are wildly unpopular and their accomplishments are few and far between. This makes debating formidable opponents like Kamala Harris and John Avlon very problematic. Because while they may talk a good game, at the end of the day, Trump and LaLota are all bluster and bravado. Harris and Avlon, on the other hand, are all substance and smarts. For all of the talk about a Trump landslide and another red wave on Long Island, there are strong signs that the tide is turning and avoiding debates is just one small piece of the puzzle.
There is tremendous enthusiasm in the Democratic Party right now. John Avlon won the Democratic primary in June with a stunning 70 percent of the vote. Joe Biden’s selfless and patriotic decision to pass the torch to Kamala Harris and her flawless campaign rollout have created an organic grassroots energy that the party has not seen since Obama’s 2008 campaign. Kamala Harris has raised more than $200 million in the week since she announced her candidacy. Fox News released new poll results on July 29 that showed Harris’s favorability ratings ahead of Trump’s in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Michigan. More than 170,000 people have signed up to volunteer for the Harris campaign and every local Democratic leader I speak with says that they, too, are being inundated with new volunteers. The momentum is real.
Closer to home, the East Hampton Democratic Committee will be kicking off our 2024 campaign with a party on Wednesday at the Clubhouse. This is a free event. Please join us, meet our candidates, and learn about how you can get involved. Then let’s get to work and win this!
ANNA SKRENTA
East Hampton Democratic Committee
Toads and Turtles
Montauk
August 4, 2024
To the Editor,
The Silence of the Toads. Just as Ernest Hemingway wondered what the snow leopard was doing at a certain elevation on Mount Kilimanjaro, I could never figure out why toads chose to live at the top of the hill between Duryea’s and the Montauket. Up until the last seven or eight years, the hill would be covered by at least 30 toads hopping in all directions. No more. The toads have been squashed and flattened, wiped out by toads in Rage Rovers.
Last week I drove past a box turtle crossing Industrial Road by the railroad tracks. I pulled over but before I could get out of my car an elevated truck either knowingly or unwittingly crushed it. As far as I’m concerned a person who cannot see a turtle shouldn’t be driving.
The next morning I saw two red ear slider turtles run over on the same road.
Sincerely,
GEORGE WATSON
Speed the Flow
Wainscott
August 5, 2024
Dear David,
Every summer, the traffic on the East End is worse. I have noted this since I began to drive in 1968. There are no such things as “back roads” now. Vehicles pile up anywhere and everywhere. The amount of air pollution from these vehicles is toxic as hell. Aggravation abounds.
Determining how long it will take to go from A to B is impossible and, often, means including C, D, E, and F in the route. The root of this evil is Route 27, of course. As we have mindlessly welcomed excessive commerce, development, and tourism, we have reaped the results: gridlock from Quogue to Amagansett routinely. A trip of 20 miles may take two hours or more. And it is as hard to get out of the East End as it is to get in. Combine this with the laughable Long Island Rail Road with its 1890s capacity and speed and most people are stuck. The overlords use jets, seaplanes, and helicopters, only making life on the ground more intolerable while further poisoning us.
There is little indication that anyone is actually in charge of managing traffic out here. Perhaps some majordomo in Hauppauge sits in an air-conditioned room and shuffles through data provided by rubber traffic-sensor cords scattered on asphalt surfaces hither and thither. Likely not. The major adjustments are adding traffic lights and stop signs. These sacrifice time for safety, often with horrendous consequences. (See the Wainscott light and the Water Mill light as woeful examples.)
And might I mention the total absence of safe, dedicated bike and jogging lanes, with physical barriers to vehicles.
There are few attempts at speeding flow and easing congestion, though roundabouts in North Haven, East Hampton Village, and on Scuttlehole Road in Bridgehampton work precisely as one would hope. Modifications occur in a vacuum, with little connection to one another. There is no evidence of a master plan. After all, who would want to take responsibility for this mess?
For me, the most upsetting aspect is that solutions do exist, yet are not implemented. (I don’t want to hear, “It’s terrible, but there is nothing we can do.”) When driving on local roads, it is apparent that a host of improvements is available. If only someone were tasked with making them.
Traffic solutions: roundabouts, marked turn lanes and through lanes, wider shoulders, wider roadways, flashing yellow lights instead of red in some places, no left turn permitted in lots of intersections, variable lane directions based on rush-hour volume, no stop signs on roads where most people are moving in the same direction, managing the timing of lights so that drivers don’t sit there on red when there is no one even coming through the intersection, and so on and so on. We need intelligent engineering types to analyze every main intersection with the idea of improving traffic flow. What is more important out here these days? If our elected officials are going to continue enabling more people to use the same limited space, they ought to do more to address the horrific results.
BARRY RAEBECK
Monstrous Screw-Up
North Haven
August 5, 2024
Dear David:
This Friday, the South Fork of Long Island suffered a monstrous planned screw-up of virtually all traffic at the most inopportune time of the day and week. Friday on the South Fork after 4 p.m. is critical for essential and recreational travel. Wage earners travel in both directions away from their jobs during the well-established “trade parade.” School buses are everywhere. Weekend visitors and homeowners return. Emergency vehicles still need to travel. Philanthropic events have been carefully planned at great expense.
Why would our town officials, charged with granting mass-gathering permits, not have realized that Friday’s political fund-raising event would wreak unnecessary and costly havoc?
East Hampton weathered a presidential visit by old Joe Biden on a Saturday at the end of June with little disruption to community activities.
This Friday’s personal presence of the faltering convict, ex-President Trump, was planned carefully and deliberately and would require massive police and Secret Service burdens, as well as a complete shutdown of travel through and across the South Fork at this critical time.
Oops, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that? Nonsense! This smells of deliberate retribution by the orange menace and his greedy self-serving hosts! We know Trump hates New York, because New York long ago learned what a scoundrel he is, and because New York courts convicted him of 34 felony counts.
Consider the Wall Street power-hosts of this fund-raising disaster. The lead host was Howard Lutnick, the chief executive officer of Cantor Fitzgerald, a firm that suffered the most fatalities of any company during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, with 658 employees and 46 contractors and visitors, including his brother. One might think he would think of avoiding a chaotic crisis of travel as we approach the 23rd anniversary of that event. The co-hosts included Wall Street royalty, and our old nemesis Lee Zeldin! These people could easily adjust their schedule to a less invasive time. These people care only for themselves!
Let’s do better next time. Think of the community.
ANTHONY CORON
It Ain’t Working
Gardners, Pa.
July 27, 2024
Dear Editor:
A couple of weeks ago, you published a letter from Biddle Duke. I’ve met Mr. Duke and spoken to him on a few occasions and found him to be an advocate for East Hampton and outspoken in his concern for the environment. Indeed, he may be the only person left who is a true environmentalist. Have you noticed there are no letters in your newspaper using the word “environment” unless it’s linked to some personal want?
Saving the environment is more than only not using plastic straws. “I’ve done all I have to do now. After all, I’m here for pleasure and profit so don’t inconvenience me by making me think of anything else,” they might say. That and the willingness to let others do the real work while denying any culpability. As Mr. Duke pointed out, 70 percent of pollution of our waters comes from residential properties, but as he also said, he saw scant evidence anybody’s doing much about it, and Mr. Duke was saying we’ve had ample warnings that were ignored. And I agree.
I’m not going to repeat his letter but he makes very good sense; however, he doesn’t emphasize enough who’s really responsible. It’s those who were elected to be responsible. We can’t expect people to not prioritize their own self-interest over the environment or really anything else, so it’s necessary for our leaders to set priorities for them. Our elected officials should know what is most important for the town, not only now, but should have enough imagination to see what may happen tomorrow and see the obvious. They need to recognize it’s our environment that makes us different. For the last 100 or more years, we’ve had celebrities, art, theater, schools, and everything a modern society has and we’ve thrived. Whether it’s fishing in Montauk, farms in Wainscott, clean air and light for painters, pristine clamming in Three Mile Harbor, or open and shared beaches everywhere, it’s the environment that made us. And all our leaders, whether town board, trustees, or village officials, are doing is plunging us into a clone of Nassau County.
Our ancestors must be spinning in their graves just as anyone who is able is spinning themselves out of town. It ain’t working, guys, and you’re wrong. Take it from a person who lived, worked, and loved East Hampton all his life and was forced to leave my home. You’re wrong.
BRAD LOEWEN
Smile for Me
East Hampton
August 5, 2024
Dear Editor,
I would like to thank the organizers, volunteers, umpires, players, sponsors, fans, and supporters for another incredible Travis Field Memorial Softball Tournament. There are too many names to list, but everyone involved in the planning of this event should be so proud of what they have built.
The tournament has become an institution in the local community and if you have never attended, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is a truly special event born out of terrible circumstances. I will never forget the morning when I first learned of Travis’s tragic passing all those years ago. To lose Travis at such a young age was a devastating loss. Travis’s family and friends took that terrible loss and turned it into a joyful occasion, and they deserve commendation for that work.
The slogan for the entire weekend is “Smile for Me,” which is a perfect fit. The organizers have created an event that gives so many people so many reasons to smile. Travis is surely smiling as well.
Thank you again and see you all at Terry King next summer,
CHARLIE COLLINS
Credit to Frazer
East Hampton Village
August 2, 2024
To the Editor:
LTV is 40. Yes, let’s say “Lordy, lordy,” yet wonder how this birthday can be celebrated in your pages without any mention of Frazer Dougherty, without whose dogged persistence LTV would simply not exist.
I admit the piece was mostly concerned with selling the events of the celebration, but certainly some credit to Frazer’s determination ought to be acknowledged. Without that, LTV would surely not exist at all today.
FRED KOLO
No One Reads
Springs
August 4, 2024
To the Editor,
In 2013, Geoff Gehman, being a local author and having been published by a legitimate, albeit modest, publisher in 2013 — a time when, at least some people actually read and finished books — boldly asked the powers that be at the East Hampton Library to be showcased at the tony Hamptons book fair. An event that is now only a sad ceremonial anachronism from a time when a portion of the population was well read. (John Irving, Jonathan Franzen, etc., were household names.) In his entertaining and informative “Guestwords” piece (his 11th, but who’s counting), Gehman wittily and elegantly documents his experience as a B-level writer surrounded by celebrities and accomplished wordsmiths.
He’s a good writer, at least better than me . . . I was never asked to the fair, and should not have been, even though I wrote a book about the local fishing industry that was published by Simon & Schuster, a “Big Five” house whose name alone would get agents shaking in their boots (like dropping “M.I.T.” at a cocktail party). Further, my memoir was made into a film released by Lionsgate. While never in the book fair, the film was a Spotlight presentation at the 2007 Hamptons International Film Festival. So put that in your pipe and smoke it!
All downhill from there, though. Hoping to be the next literary toast of the town, I tried to strike another six-figure deal — but no luck this time. My first book and film sucked so bad, and sold so little, that no publishers bit, so, like so many other “writers,” I self-published — four more books. None of them sold. Desperate to make my last book, “And Then They All Puked,” an Amazon best seller, I started to buy cases of my own books and warehouse them in my friend’s shack. There they still sit, all mildewed. I bought so many that I actually hit number five in “Fishing, Hunting, and Outdoor Appliances” on Amazon (greater Ronkonkoma Lakes region).
Self-publishing is a ridiculous, vain epidemic; there are far too many titles, in a time where nobody reads even good books. Look around you: Who is reading? No one.
Book clubs have dissolved and the ones that still exist do not require members to read the f-ing book! My girlfriend attends one where a few mention the book in passing then start throwing back sauvignon blanc and talking about Netflix series they binge-watch. Barf.
JEFF NICHOLS
American Values
East Hampton
August 5, 2024
Dear David:
Kamala Harris’s ascendancy as the Democratic presidential candidate in 2024 has completely flustered the G.O.P. Unable to launch an effective campaign challenging either her or the Biden administration’s policies, the party has resorted to what is in its DNA: race. Straight from the G.O.P. playbook, Ms. Harris is now being denigrated as the “D.E.I. hire,” “D.E.I. vice president,” or the “D.E.I. candidate.”
In doing so, the G.O.P. resorts to the simplistic narrative that people of color and women achieve positions of power or authority not because of their education, qualifications, training, or experience. No, the G.O.P. playbook decrees that such success could only be achieved because of quotas, preferential treatment, and unfair advantage given to them based on their social identities.
Attacking the credibility of people of color, women, people with disabilities, and from historically marginalized groups is nothing new in America. The only thing new is the misuse of the term “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (D.E.I.) to do it. D.E.I. is now the G.O.P.’s talisman for people who feel threatened by the racial diversification of America; the success of women in the workplace; the increased embrace of L.G.B.T.Q.+ people and their families within the American social fabric. The G.O.P. needs these people to feel that these threats pose an existential crisis.
So, the G.O.P. (and its Project 2025 in particular) now hews to the view that the best, and potentially only, people qualified to lead America are white men. Attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion are designed to achieve that goal.
The truth about D.E.I. is that it promotes American values that are necessary for a healthy, functional, and thriving democracy. It is consistent with ideals such as liberty and justice for all people. That is not a zero-sum game where one group’s gain is another’s loss. Instead, it is America making good on its promise to create a society where everyone can flourish and contribute their talents and skills to the collective good while having a fair chance to succeed. These ideals are woven into the complex fabric of who we are as a nation, and we cannot afford to regress to darker times.
So, this November, we should vote for candidates who would move America further toward that societal promise. And those candidates are the Democrats — for us, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, John Avlon, and Susan Anker. Go vote!
Sincerely,
BRUCE COLBATH
Vote Won’t Matter?
Springs
August 5, 2024
To the Editor,
My two oldest grandsons are eligible to vote, but will they? The older one asks rhetorically, “What’s the point?” echoing a cry that has always informed an adolescent cynicism that’s played out in the huge numbers of 18 to 25-year-olds who stay away from voting booths. But the “my vote won’t matter” mantra has never been so fallacious — and dangerous — as now.
At the risk of evoking impotent clichés about American democracy, older folk can draw on their family’s own immigrant experience and suggest that throwing away a hard-won constitutional right is an affront to their heritage, an insult that is also unpatriotic.
Senior citizens can also take an active interest in how their community high schools and colleges are educating youngsters about the coming national election, including understanding propositions on local and statewide issues often expressed in convoluted language. In addition to newspapers and libraries publishing interpretations and partisan recommendations, English teachers should be urged to include grammar lessons in parsing unintelligible ballot prose. A side benefit is a better educated electorate all around. Cynicism need not be pessimism.
JOAN BAUM
Do Us a Favor
Amagansett
August 4, 2024
To the Editor,
The school board in Amagansett is at it again. As they neglected to read my public comment out loud at the last meeting, I’m sure they will do so again this week. Even though the interim stated at the June meeting that “community comment sent in . . . by a parent” must be read. Not the rules for the new (in my opinion illegitimate) superintendent.
Why weren’t they removed from the search?, I know you were asked. One can now say you’re accomplices and complicit in those actions. When did he become an assistant superintendent? No resolution passed would mean a falsified résumé, no?
They are now looking to hire two gym teachers, losing the school psychologist to East Hampton (read all school resolutions), and continually are in violation of their own adopted policies, New York State Department of Education policies, New York school board policies, state comptroller policies, open-meeting laws, obscuring Freedom of Information Law requests with false information or omission all together.
In Montauk, they are adding what you had. East Hampton is scooping up any of the professionals you let go or cut time to. Springs School shows in its own policies the board makes you one of five members. It’s not just one lurking around the school halls as if this were their paid job. You are not a hired administrator and should remove yourself from the board immediately. In fact, you all should do us a favor and resign. I’ve asked before, and only Kevin Warren showed the intellectual capability to see the writing on the wall. Laws, policies, and rules aren’t suggestions. Only if you are in Amagansett.
Still here,
JOE KARPINSKI
Be a Smarty
Montauk
August 2, 2024
Dear David,
I read recently on X that the Trump campaign is seriously considering using a line from the show and movie “The Producers.” Specifically, the campaign thinks that a slightly modified line from the song “Springtime for Hitler” would greatly energize their supporters.
The new ad would feature the following: “Don’t be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the real Nazi Party.”
If the post that I read on X is true, this is really weird.
And I doubt that Mel Brooks would approve.
BRIAN POPE
A Better Man
East Hampton
August 5, 2024
To the Editor,
After our hostages were returned, Americans celebrated, but not Trump. A better man would have sent congratulations; a wiser man would have kept his grumbling to himself.
Have we ever had a former president who so rooted against our country?
TOM MACKEY
What I’d Call It
North Haven
August 4, 2024
To the Editor,
One should tread carefully with a critique of a Jonathan Wallace letter (Letters to the Editor, Aug. 1), since he has let us all in on the fact that he has been educated at such rarified and elite institutions as Columbia College and Harvard Law School. Not having the totality of such elite academic institutions on my curriculum vitae, I will simply have to rely on common sense and the facts especially as they concern antisemitism at Columbia College.
Mr. Wallace has ignored the fact that antisemitism has been alive and well at Columbia (1) under the watchful eyes of a group of college administrators who batted around emails containing antisemitic tropes; (2) as a result of groups of left-wing pro-Hamas student goons who have made it their business to intimidate Jewish students, assault them in certain cases, and drive them away from parts of the campus on which they had established “Gaza in New York” encampments. Along with this was a group of lefty professors who brought their intimidation of Jewish students into the classroom.
Not surprisingly, Jewish students were advised at one point to leave the campus because their physical safety could not be guaranteed.
Somehow, Mr. Wallace skips over this. Is this his “protected criticism of a nation-state?” From where I stand, what existed on the campus was pure intimidation of Jewish students, threats of physical violence, actual physical violence in some cases, and exclusion by threat — a toxic stew in which Jewish students found themselves marinated. I know what I would call it; how about you, Mr. Wallace?
DAVID B. SAXE
Whatever He Does
Amagansett
August 3, 2024
To the Editor:
Jim Vrettos’s observations (Letters, Aug. 1) are offensive not only to me but to the other individuals who assisted me in putting together this historic rally.
I think, as the organizer of this rally, I had the absolute right to set the parameters as to the topics to be addressed by the speakers — return of the hostages and continuing security for Israel. If he believes that another sort of discussion was warranted, he should go set it up himself. He obviously sees himself as a one-man United Nations ready to meet all comers and solve a 1,000-year-old problem for all of us. As far as I am concerned, I have no idea what his qualifications are in this regard, but I will go on using my energy to help beleaguered Israelis and he can go on doing whatever it is he does.
Sincerely,
MITCHEL AGOOS
Meshuggeneh
East Hampton
August 4, 2024
Dear David,
There is a clear and present danger in our midst: Trump brigades across our nation and in our towns, which might as well be Nazi Germany circa 1934. The year President Paul von Hindenburg died, Hitler stomped in, declaring himself fuhrer. The crazy talk from Trump: “Don’t worry, you’ll only have to vote once,” as in, “I’m staying in office until I drop dead.” Really, meshuggeneh? If that’s not Hitler’s doppelgänger, I’ll eat my hat.
Hitler would have admired Trump. “He envied the West and our history of killing the ‘redskins,’ “ as Alex Ross aptly put it in his New Yorker article “How American Racism Influenced Hitler”:
“For dismantlers of democracy there is no better exemplar.”
“[W]hat mattered was [Hitler’s] gift for injecting [that] rhetoric into mainstream discourse.”
The similarities are uncanny. “[Hitler] was an extreme narcissist lacking in empathy. Much has been made of his love of dogs, but he was cruel to them.”
Take note that Trump has no pets. Not a one. Hmmm. . . . Hitler, like Trump, feared and hated the other. Women were to be controlled, never equal; having sex with them isn’t necessarily liking or respecting them, as we know. Hitler hated non-Germans, i.e., you had to be Aryan-looking, blond and blue-eyed; he despised any darker races, Italians, Spanish, Blacks, Indians, gays, and, in Hitler’s case, Polish people, too. You get the picture? Trump would have loved him some Hitler. Licked his jackboots.
In the Katyn Forest massacre, the Soviet secret police killed more than 20,000 Poles. Not all Polish Jews, either. Policemen, everyday people.
The fuhrer wanted allegiance and he destroyed whoever didn’t kiss the ring. We’re in a similar climate, as we speak. The heat is on and the hate is pouring out like a five-alarm fire. We need peace water, cooling it down. Never mind raining men, we need it to rain soaking-wet sense.
We need Vice President Kamala Harris to calm things down and bring peace to our land and afar. We are the example, in our United States, not the follower. Our country leads with its people being respected and listened to, having a voice, protecting its freedoms, not removing them one by one and keeping its children and families safe and sound and thriving. We want a president with a reputable résumé, like the one our V.P. has. Read her memoir if you’re unschooled and misguided. Turn off Fox Knows-Nothing Not News. Learn the actual facts.
We need her now, and her choice of V.P. in two days, who will together save our democracy and our livelihoods, keep us all safe, quell the incessant rhetoric, so we can actually hear the truth again. Kamala isn’t an actress or a carny potions huckster selling you a bunch of lies bottled and corked. She’s a breath of fresh air. Smart as they come and sensible. Tough when needed and no pushover. She’ll roar like any good woman does when they mess with the children. Don’t even. And she won’t let them starve, either. For food or clean water or an education. Breathe deeply, exhale. Kamala’s got you, mama.
The shysters in Nazi Germany stole a Sanskrit word and bastardized its meaning for their filthy Nazi symbol. “Svastica” is the proper word in the ancient language of Hinduism and used in Buddhism. It means “to elevate.” So, no to your continued use of it today to hate Jews and everyone not like you. No race is purely one thing or another, we’re all immigrants. Wake up and smell the sage burning. We’re done with your hate. It’s a new dawn. President Kamala Harris to the White House. Hail to the chief!
Namaste,
NANCI LAGARENNE
Total Gibberish
Montauk
August 4, 2024
Dear David,
After Kamala Harris hid and lied for three and a half years about Joe Biden’s cognitive condition, one has to wonder: What kind of deal was made? Kamala’s percentage for likability was far lower than Joe’s, panic set in. All of a sudden, Kamala is a heroine, she’s raising money faster than any other political person alive.
Kamala can’t put a sentence together, she talks total gibberish. Kamala is at the helm and the feminizing trend is on the run. Be careful, the Dems are heading into certain electoral oblivion with an obvious caveat for election fraud.
Her cackle is ear-piercing, her speeches — “the significance of the passage of time” is one of her favorite clichés, repeats this over and over again — make you wonder what the hell is she talking about. That’s only one of many of her out-in-space conversations.
Kamala Harris has with extraordinary incompetence refused to do her job, barked about everything that President Biden asked her to handle. She refused to enforce the country’s immigration law, along with Biden. Both should be held accountable for the illegals, not vetted, just given the “come on in, do as you please, America is open.” We cannot handle the millions that came here, bringing with them way too much crime.
There are tapes galore proving Kamala was made border czar in 2021. She didn’t like that job.
Let’s not right now go into her California past, as she was a critical supporter of California law that increased crime. There’s plenty to discuss about this left-wing V.P.
In God and country,
BEA DERRICO
Dawn of Hope
East Hampton
August 2, 2024
Dear David,
I’m feeling a palpable shift! Finally, America is headed in the right direction! A divisive election between two old white men for the highest office in the land (and the most powerful political leader in the world) has been transformed into the dawn of hope!
Two weeks ago we were witnessing the bleak vision of a dying democracy creaking at the seams and being swept by a tsunami of stupidity and unchecked lies intended to drown our well-meaning but hapless president, whose political achievements were not being properly valued. Joe Biden did the noble thing, putting his country over personal pride, and so he recognized that the time was right for a transformative change. The enthusiasm — both online and in person — for Kamala Harris as the new Democratic candidate gives reasonable people hope for the future.
What is next? The upcoming Democratic Party Convention will provide a wide national stage for Kamala to persuade those voters in the middle that her vision for the future is one all Americans can rally around. She is the only candidate who can carry on the so-called “liberal consensus” of Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower, J.F.K., L.B.J. (in his finer moments), through Barack Obama and Joe Biden. These presidents understood that helping the poor, the dispossessed, the uneducated, the marginalized, and the needy would realize and affirm the American promise of political and social equality for persons of all races, religions, genders, and economic conditions.
Also, they were totally committed to the fight against the forces of fascism, Nazism, Stalinism, of tinhorn dictators like the Kims in Korea, Khomeini in Iran, and Donald Trump’s buddy Putin, and of expansive totalitarian regimes like Soviet Russia and Communist China. Treaties, international alliances like NATO, and sometimes even going to war were the necessary obligations of a democratic regime to ensure a peaceful world, as well as our survival in a rapidly changing economic and climatic environment. All of these aims were pretty much repudiated in Trump’s presidency and in fact the system itself was nearly destroyed by his attempted coup of Jan. 6, 2021.
However, if Trump is elected this year, the chaotic disorder of his first term will surely be replaced by the highly organized, intentionally disruptive program outlined in Project 2025, and it will most likely be the beginning of the end. I once thought we were in the process of repeating the decline and fall of the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, but after an even casual perusal of the Project 2025 handbook and closely listening to “Christian nationalist” Republicans talk, it seems more likely that we will get the world of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
What is to be done? Here’s a common sense assignment for those responsible for the program of the Democratic Party convention. They must focus on the historical crisis that Trump’s candidacy presently represents. The convention must dramatically demonstrate all of the contrasts, conflicts, contradictions, and hypocrisies involved in any future Trump regime — starting with his promise to be a “dictator on day one.” With all of his future acts as president already cleansed of responsibility by the Supreme Court’s decision that the president is immune to prosecution for anything done when exercising “core powers” (whatever that means), we must all unite against this arguably “deranged and vicious old man” (as identified and diagnosed by his estranged niece, Mary L. Trump, a psychologist).
Convention organizers must hit this theme in everything the public sees in the four-day convention — videos, blogs, zooms, documentary film excerpts, TikToks, and live speeches from a variety of perspectives. The American people must understand that a dictatorship is a deeply realistic possibility and a vote for Kamala is a vote for common sense and sanity. Democrats should use Trump’s own words, previous criticisms by his fellow Republicans, including many once never-Trumpers’ who now are faithful acolytes in his temple, and the thousands of false claims and lies made in his first term (as outlined in “The Assault on the Truth” by journalists of The Washington Post). Indeed, as pointed out by Pete Buttigieg in his Sunday Fox News interview, Trump has continually lied about the successes of his first administration — but he accomplished only two — to give an expensive tax break for the rich and to destroy the right to choose for women.
Here are some other horrors that must be addressed: the speech that incited the January 6 assault on Congress, the demand to hang Mike Pence, the failed legal attempts to reverse the election, the years of repeating the Big Lie of a” stolen” election, the civil cases of rape and slander and the subsequent penalties and fines he has yet to pay, the 34 felony convictions related to paying off porn actress Stormy Daniels, the smothering of the federal classified documents case against him by a prejudiced judge whom he appointed, and all the misogynistic, racist, intolerant, and ignorant tweets and statements made by both Trump and J.D. Vance to date. Indeed, the sum total of all of Trump’s noisome official and unofficial statements since descending on his famous escalator in 2015, nine years ago, should be seriously considered as his “Mein Kampf” — his plan for what he intends to do.
Kamala’s public relations team and her fund-raising in the past two weeks have been terrifically impressive, and her people have already established Kamala as the authentically American alternative to Trump’s arguably tyrannical future regime. Her speeches and fund-raising appeals reveal her as a tough, smart, no-nonsense person. So at the convention, we need to hear from all the usual suspects (Pelosi, Schumer, etc.) joined by young Democrats — especially moderates and thoughtful Christians — to appeal to the center. We also need people like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders to remind us that we cannot forget the basic principle that “It’s the economy, stupid.” Democrats can never forget their working class and middle class constituencies! However, we also need to see new faces representing much younger and more diverse constituencies — you know who they are!
And how about some Republicans who have demonstrated that they value country over party (Liz Chaney, Cindy McCain, even Mitt Romney)? Or bloggers and Instagram stars, young and old, like Jack Schlossberg, Marina Rust, Harry J. Sisson, David Hogg, etc., who speak to varied audiences? And let’s not ignore authentic Christians like John Pavlovitz and Tim Alberta (and many others), who deeply resent that Jesus Christ has been co-opted and weaponized by their extremist co-religionists who are breaking the Third Commandment (“taking the name of the Lord thy God in vain”) and are bold enough to shatter the First Amendment (in the words of Thomas Jefferson, “the wall of separation between church and state”).
Oh, and let’s don’t forget J.D. Vance’s “childless cat ladies.” Like Taylor Swift?
Yours truly,
DAVID SWICKARD