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Improve public transit,
improve climate fight
If public transportation in America was better, the overall quality of life would improve.
The gas prices have climbed so high that driving isn’t appealing, but it’s difficult to get to where I need to be without a car. More pedestrian-friendly roads and infrastructure would also solve a lot of our transportation problems in big cities.
I would love to travel via train or bus everywhere.
Shauna Howard
Sacramento
Street vendors vexing
problem in Lamorinda
We have seen a growing trend of fruit vendors placing their stands at both St. Stephen’s exits from Highway 24. I reported this to our police department primarily because of basic hygiene reasons and because we have plenty of options in produce stores and farmer’s markets in Lamorinda.
I was told by our police department that they cannot do anything because of SB 946 signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown.
San Francisco has been cracking down on unlicensed food vendors.
I have elevated my concerns to Assemblywoman Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, state Sen. Steve Glazer and the Orinda City Council. asking for an explanation of why the safety of the majority has been sacrificed in the interest of a small minority.
Jorge Escobar
Orinda
Ban TV ads to reform
campaign finance
I see more and more politicians become superheroes with their TV ads for office.
The way to implement campaign finance reform is to ban all political TV ads. Politics should be a dialogue with the voters rather than a cleverly scripted monologue.
We don’t need actors in office to solve our country’s problems.
Bob Bean
Hayward
U.S. should embrace
nuclear weapons treaty
I’m increasingly concerned about the possibility of nuclear war. That risk is heightened by Russian nuclear saber-rattling and its war on Ukraine.
But, in actuality, the possibility that a nuclear weapon could be launched deliberately — or by accident or miscalculation — is with us every day. There are nine nuclear-armed countries; this means any one of nine fallible leaders could end life as we know it.
Therefore, I am calling on the United States to join the Treaty of Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which was adopted by 122 countries. It entered into force in 2021 and is now part of international law.
The United States boycotted the proceedings, but that was a shortsighted move by the Trump administration. It is time for us to realize that our long-term security depends on the global abolition of nuclear weapons.
Please, President Biden, consider a future free of nuclear weapons.
Raiza Marciscano-Bettis
Livermore
Please bring thoughtful
conservatives to paper
I agree with letter-writer Jim Boots, who wrote that the East Bay Times would do better by printing essays by “conservative writers who do research and rely on facts and science.” (“Thiessen column relies on discredited book,” Page A6, June 14)
News purveyors have long depended on stirring up emotions in readers to sell their products and sadly, our newspaper is no exception. Marc Thiessen and Victor Davis Hanson are irrational Trump apologists and liberal-haters. I’m a “liberal,” but I do want to read intelligent, mature conservatives – George Will, for example – to understand their arguments.
Printing jingoistic essays by extreme conservatives does not help us hear each other; it doesn’t heal the divisions in our nation. But it does sell newspapers.
Kathe Jordan
Berkeley
Trump had to be
detached for lie to work
Donald Trump, “detached from reality”? Yes, intentionally.
A snake oil salesman makes grandiose claims of being a “doctor” with “miracle” cures, but actually he’s a fraud who lives in fear of being exposed. He loves “the uneducated,” those in pain, the gullible. He attacks skeptics and always has a diversionary plan to escape with the cash.
Trump’s favorite adjective is “unbelievable!” His “successes,” intelligence, superiority – all “unbelievable”. Exactly! His gold-plated toilet is the perfect metaphor.
Trump sells a grandiose, false image of himself. Sadly, he found it “unbelievably” easy to con voters. He got in over his head. Fearing loss, he sowed fears of election fraud as a diversion, a cover-up. The presidency was his protection from exposure and prosecution. The Big Lie was his backup plan if he lost.
Trump depends on us being detached from reality. His supporters clearly are.
Democracy requires facts and justice.
Victor Ortiz
Walnut Creek
Source: www.mercurynews.com