Letters: Expand grid | Trump’s capacity | Carbon dividend | Path to Putin | GOP roots
Mercury News Letters to the Editor for June 21, 2023
Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.
Forget EV power;expand the grid
Re: “State should require EVs to power homes, businesses” (Page A6, June 14).
State Sen. Nancy Skinner’s suggestion that we could use EV car batteries as backup power for homes in a blackout doesn’t consider you’d have no way to recharge the car battery for emergencies or other necessities during the uncertain length of a blackout.
It would be far better if our state government prioritized money from our taxes to expand the grid to prevent blackouts.
Ed KahlWoodside
Questions raised aboutTrump’s capacity
Re: “Trump arraigned, pleads not guilty” (Page A1, June 14).
The attraction of Donald Trump to his stubborn followers — despite his grossly aberrant behavior — is no mystery to mental health professionals.
Several professional psychiatric analyses are available (e.g., at the Scientific American website) that call into question Trump’s mental qualifications for public office. The experts also offer clear insight into why — despite his overt disregard for accepted norms of civil behavior — his followers have become loyal and remain so. Thus far, expert analysis of Trump’s mental and behavioral history has received little notice in the political debate. The prosecution in Florida seems to offer a good opportunity to publicly examine Trump’s competency, in the legal context. Specifically, competency examinations would expose his lack of capacity to acknowledge responsibility for his own past behavior — not excluding overtly criminal activities.
Expert testimony of that incapacity could fatally undermine his wishful 2024 White House ambitions.
Jerry MeyerSan Jose
Augment climate effortswith carbon dividend
Re: “Youth group brings climate case to trial after 12 years, seeking to set precedent” (Page A8, June 13).
I was heartened to read the article in The Mercury News about 16 teenage plaintiffs in Montana bringing a lawsuit against their state. They are asserting a provision in their state Constitution that requires officials to maintain a “clean and healthful environment.” Way to think outside the box, kids.
Young people, such as Greta Thunberg, can see that it is up to them to carry the standard in the fight for a livable planet. They are getting creative in their efforts to call attention to the fact that we are not doing enough to mitigate the effects of climate change.
One way to help accomplish this is through a carbon fee and dividend. That simply means a fee is applied wherever fossil fuels enter the economy. Money collected from fossil fuel companies is given as a dividend to every American to spend with no restrictions.
Now that’s something we can live with.
Renee HinsonMountain View
Keep our nation offpath to a new Putin
YouTube is filled with videos of Russian tanks being blown to smithereens in a mighty and powerful explosion. For an instant, it seems like a video game, but then I remind myself and almost have to pinch myself back to reality and note with great sadness there were likely three young men in there. They were sons and brothers vaporized by no decision of their own but of only one man — one single man: Vladimir Putin.
That brings me back to our own issues and our rule of law, where no man is above the law. Should we ever forget that, put it aside, or waive it in some manner, I believe we follow a path, a dangerous path and the rise of another Putin. This is not an unreasonable fear.
Mark GrzanMorgan Hill
GOP should returnto its proud roots
Sometimes I wonder if I am truly living in the United States. Banning books, calling elections fake, and accusing prosecutors of conducting witch-hunts? These are things one hears of in nondemocratic nations, but to hear them in the United States and to see people actually believing them makes me wonder if this is still the nation that the Founding Fathers had envisioned.
The damage done to democracy by this cult-like worship of a man deeply flawed is slowly but surely leading this country down a path of no return. The fact that this man is currently the front-runner for his party’s nomination as a presidential candidate speaks volumes about the state of the Republican Party.
Hopefully, sanity will prevail, and this once proud party will return to its roots as a party known for imposing law and order and conservative values, and ditch the man leading it toward self-implosion and destruction.
Myo Kyaw MyintSan Jose