When a criminal prez criminalizes a prosecutor
Brooklyn: To Voicer Gene O’Brien: If you look up the words “cruel” and “vindictive” in the dictionary, you will see President Trump’s mugshot. I wish to take exception to your gleeful, self-righteous and smug letter full of platitudes to New York Attorney General Letitia James that celebrates her being targeted by Trump for contrived wrongdoing.
James is in good company. We can now add her name to the list of courageous, distinguished, brilliant, accomplished, faithful, honorable public servants like Barack Obama, Jack Smith, Adam Kinzinger, James Comey, John Brennan, Gen. Mark Milley, Kamala Harris, Liz Cheney and Adam Schiff, among so many others who honored their oaths of office and attempted to restrain an unqualified, ignorant and erratic Trump and/or hold him accountable for his felonious behaviors.
Trump is reaching and attempting to find fault with one of James’ real estate transactions? How can that be? What did the appraisal say? Mortgage contracts are notoriously exacting, rigid and nitpicky. Lenders typically want to know everything about the property and about the applicant. James is a successful attorney and an attorney general. I’ll argue that she has more integrity than Frump will ever have. Where can I make a donation to her defense fund?
Trump is the poster boy for everything wrong with America: He doesn’t do what is right, his patriotism is fake (anybody can hug and kiss a flag, dodge the draft and avoid paying taxes), he’s not a president who cares about Americans and he doesn’t represent America’s true values. He continues to use his prostitute mob-ocracy only to enrich himself and his family. Taplow Vincennes
Deprived of food
Medford, L.I.: Mr. President, my church has a food pantry that feeds an average of 10 families each week. We are subsidized by Long Island Cares along with private donations. Your recent cuts to this program are hurting people who are hungry. Long Island Cares and Island Harvest have lost $2.6 million dollars in grants, which means they have less food to help those in need. Not everyone who goes to our food pantry is an illegal immigrant, which seems to be who you’re targeting. Shame on you! How do you sleep at night? Betty Miserendino
Quick turnaround
Upper Nyack, N.Y.: “One-man rule,” your Aug. 12 editorial on Trump’s purpose-built attempt at authoritarianism by taking control of the Washington, D.C., police force, was not only right-on in describing it as a “power grab,” but it made deadline, printed just hours after the president’s move. How refreshing to see a major city newspaper quickly respond to this threat against democracy. You could have waited until a day or two later, as the other big-time New York City sheet is apparently doing, but you obviously recognize that, along with letters, community viewpoints, columns and editorial cartoons, it is necessary to state the newspaper’s opinion. You speak from a special perch, and so inform and enlighten. Democracy dies in darkness. Thanks for the light. Art Gunther
Preferred crime
Woodstock, N.Y.: When interviewed on the New Yorker Radio Hour, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass described L.A. as a petri dish: “The administration wanted to show that they could come in and do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and however they wanted. They were putting every other city in America on notice: ‘Mess with us, we’ll come for you.’ ” Well, here it is, Trump and company laying the groundwork to impose martial law wherever and whenever they want. Now Trump is using the National Guard to apparently round up the homeless in D.C. — and do what with them? We saw, live on television, violent Trump supporters ransack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. If Trump truly cared about crime, he would never have pardoned and commuted violent protesters who attacked the police on that sad day. First L.A., then D.C. — NYC can’t be far from his mind. Michael Patrick Kelly
Targeting truth
Brooklyn: What a great idea putting the National Guard on the streets of Washington. We know how it escalated at Kent State: four dead, nine wounded. All unarmed students. No one was held accountable. In California, a police officer shot a journalist intentionally with a rubber bullet. The journalist was not armed. No one was held accountable. Sounds like what’s happening to journalists in Gaza. More journalists have been killed during the Gaza war than all other American wars in total. Truth has a big target on its back. Greg Ahl
Radical renovation
Bronx: So, here we are. The National Guard remains in California and now the Guard is in D.C. Trump is creating Mar-a-Lago on the Potomac River and destroying what the White House has represented for generations. He has already destroyed the Rose Garden and created a patio similar to the one in Florida. Our taxpayer dollars are funding all of this. And all the money that has been paid by universities and broadcast companies is going to who? When does this stop?! Claudette Mobley
Prices rising
Queens Village: This is the reality of tariffs. I just bought a Christmas ornament/decoration, and instead of paying $150, I paid $165. Now all of the other ornaments are going up by a few dollars. Is this the economy getting better for me? Where is all this tariff money going? Not in my pocket! The Trump government needs to pay off two wars and what, kill more people? Joan Silaco
Need a fighter
Philadelphia: Sorry to say, Sen. Chuck Schumer, but the best days of your run as leader of the Democratic Party have sadly disappeared in the rearview mirror. We Democrats understand that an intellectual gentleman leader like you being up to the task of dealing with the opposition MAGA party is no longer a viable option. We need a no-holds-barred street-fighting firebrand to lead the way forward in the fight to save democracy and restore the worldwide prestige America has lost under the current presidential administration. Thanks for your dedicated service, Sen. Schumer, however, the American people need Mike Tyson in the ring fighting MAGA, not Pee-wee Herman. Duane Doberman
Writer’s progeny
Brooklyn: Matthew Fischetti wrote an article in the New York Post on Sunday on the five-year anniversary of his uncle Pete Hamill’s death. Pete was not only a reporter but a published author. He wrote from the heart, words on a page that would be forever remembered. Matthew spoke of his uncle with the love and respect of a nephew. Sharon Cesario
Punished from above?
Manhattan: Pondering the dual unexpected collapse in the standings of both the Yankees and Mets, it occurred to me that it just might be a warning from the Good Lord to us about the communist Zohran Mamdani running for mayor. Should he win, may we then expect the modern equivalent of the 10 plagues of Egypt? Would rather not risk it. Paul Weiss
Higher hypocrisy
East Meadow, L.I.: Voicer Edward Drossman talks about mayoral candidate Mamdani’s wedding and honeymoon, and wonders how he could have such a lavish lifestyle and still call for socialism. I wonder how people can call themselves Christians when they support a president who is a convicted felon, fraudster, sexual abuser, philanderer, racist, liar and is allegedly in the Epstein files, as well as supporting the MAGA politicians who enable him. Richard Skibins
Not their problem
Flushing: Why are people so blind and foolish? Hamas started this war. Hamas chose where the war would be fought and Hamas willingly put the people of Gaza in the way of the bombs and bullets. During World War II, did the Allied countries have a greater moral responsibility to care for the suffering German and Japanese people while the war was still raging? Is what’s happening in Gaza today any different from what is happening to any people that finds itself in the middle of a war? This is Hamas’ war to end. If they don’t want to do that, the people calling for Israel to end the suffering of the people of Gaza should ask themselves why. Bernard Caine
