To the Editor:
Re “When Disaster Hits, Trump Is the Blamer in Chief” (On Politics e-newsletter, nytimes.com, Jan. 10):
Confronted with one of the vital devastating wildfires in U.S. historical past — after tens of 1000’s of Individuals have misplaced their houses and full communities have been lowered to ash — the president-elect’s response is to assault and blame with false accusations: “No water within the fireplace hydrants, no cash in FEMA. That is what Joe Biden is leaving me. Thanks Joe!”
The place is the compassion? The place is even the faintest recognition of human struggling? As a substitute of uniting the nation within the face of this tragedy, we get callous deflection and divisive rhetoric. Disasters demand solidarity, not scapegoating.
What sort of authorities, devoid of empathy, decency and even a shred of ethical integrity, is poised to take the reins and imperil not simply disaster-stricken Individuals however the very soul of our nation?
David Sanders
New York
To the Editor:
The unprecedented firestorm that rages in Los Angeles is not only a fireplace. It’s a full-fledged pure catastrophe. It has struck with hurricane-force winds and already consumed 60 sq. miles of the county. With a minimum of two dozen useless and 1000’s of houses, enterprise and buildings destroyed, its price will exceed that of many hurricanes.
But our newly elected federal officers select to play petty political blame video games as a substitute of addressing the existential risk of the worldwide local weather disaster. Thus, for the subsequent 4 years the burden of preserving a livable local weather falls on our states, communities and also you.
States and communities should scale back climate-altering air pollution and supply the infrastructure to weatherproof our communities. We residents can scale back our carbon footprint by shopping for hybrid and electrical automobiles, switching home equipment from gasoline to electrical, and putting in photo voltaic panels to cut back the price of electrical energy and the demand for giant polluting turbines.
Residents, the federal authorities has failed you. The duty to move a livable setting on to your heirs now rests in your palms.
Clyde Physician
Palm Springs, Calif.
To the Editor:
As I survey the pictures of fireside injury in Los Angeles, I instantly started to consider the work power it might take to rebuild. One factor is for certain: Development jobs will likely be in nice demand as householders and companies begin to rebuild.
If I had been President-elect Donald Trump, I might put a direct halt to his deportation plans apart from essentially the most excessive circumstances. California contractors will want each carpenter, electrician and stone mason that they’ll discover. Deporting immigrant staff is the worst factor that Mr. Trump might do.
Andrew L. Norton
Dallas
To the Editor:
If a overseas adversary or terrorist group bombed and destroyed what the Los Angeles fires have wrought, what can be our response? Certainly a monumentally costly and big technique to aim to conquer the foe and its future damaging energy.
Now, local weather change is the enemy intensifying limitlessly, whereas there’s blithe denial about it. In the meantime our army consumes an enormous proportion of our nationwide wealth — for “simply in case” assaults. And we refuse to allocate obligatory assets to fight the all-too-real enemy destroying us in entrance of our eyes. How is that this absurdity fathomable?
Anya Cordell
Evanston, Ailing.
Teflon Don
To the Editor:
Re “With Sentence, Trump Will Now Be First Felon to Occupy Oval Office” (entrance web page, Jan. 11):
Donald Trump is the luckiest individual on the planet. Whereas John Gotti was the Teflon Don, he finally went to jail.
Mr. Trump is really Teflon Don. No jail, no something for his felony conviction. Dismissal of his federal circumstances. Supreme Courtroom immunity. Limitless funds, primarily from gullible followers, to attraction, and attraction, and attraction.
Nobody cares about any outrageous feedback he might make, whereas related feedback by others might derail their political careers. And regardless of his immature whining, his followers take into account him to be robust. What a fortunate man.
Alan M. Goldberg
Brooklyn
The Gulf of Irony
To the Editor:
I hope individuals received’t learn the transferring article “Keeping Schizophrenia at Bay” (Science Occasions, Dec. 31) and assume that early intervention in some way modifies the arc of this lifelong neurological dysfunction, regardless that the article acknowledges that some research forged doubt about its long-term advantages.
There isn’t a outrunning schizophrenia. The previous few paragraphs make clear how life goes within the absence of intensive, lifelong social and medicine monitoring providers.
Within the U.S., with our pathetically backward views of mind issues, our feeble medical care system and our idiotic “pull your self up by your bootstraps” Puritanism, I genuinely worry for the younger man profiled within the article. In another international locations, the wants of disabled individuals are addressed extra thoughtfully.
The U.S. mannequin for assisted residing may very well be used to supply care, as we do for aged individuals who produce other neurological issues. It’s a damaged mannequin as a result of it’s profit-based and obtainable solely to rich seniors.
But when we truthfully assess what taxpayers pay for the unscientific, fragmented and legally constrained techniques we now use to handle psychosis issues, together with the enormously costly prices for police interventions, psychiatric groups typically made impotent by authorized constraints, emergency room visits, long-term psychiatric hospitalizations, homelessness and incarceration, publicly funded assisted residing is perhaps an actual cut price.
Catherine Moné
Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.
