Biden’s first task
President-elect Joe Biden signaled his intent to prioritize the COVID-19 pandemic in America on Day One of his presidency. Wrong move!
I’m shocked that Biden, a veteran of Washington, D.C., politics, is unaware of a more pressing issue facing this country.
Instead of COVID-19, the focus for Biden should be in prompting Congress to craft legislation to increase the minimum age requirement to become president of the United States.
The bullying, intimidation, name calling, lying and multitude of other transgressions by the current occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue the past four years is, in my opinion, are ample evidence that no young adolescent should ever run this country again.
Kerry Meyer
Hilo
Hate from the left
In response to Dennis Chaquette’s sadly uneducated viewpoint of President Trump’s track record (Your Views, Tribune-Herald) I must boldly but civilly disagree.
The anti-Trump mainstream media narrative has really taken its toll on the American public. Ignorance about Trump’s achievements is the weirdest thing to me. There are several online sites one can visit if one wishes to see the great things the Trump administration accomplished during the past four years.
Instead of writing at length, I like to allow people to figure things out for themselves. Spoon-feeding important information is not what I do. So much unbridled and haughty hate from the left still permeates through the soul of America. It is shameful and wrong-minded.
Instead of complaining about my leaders and not doing anything about it, I chose to serve the nation and community and live very well under any administration. I am staying on message (wink). Are you?
Allen Russell
Hilo
‘True colors’
There is a class war going on in America, and the Republicans represent the capitalist class (billionaires, multinational corporations, weapons manufacturers, polluting industries, Wall Street) and the Trump cult.
In the 40 years since Ronald Reagan, the Republican policies of trickle-down economics have made the rich richer and left the middle class workforce with less and less. Republicans give tax cuts to the rich but fight against raising wages, getting food to the hungry, health care for the sick, housing for the homeless, income support for the unemployed, help for struggling small businesses and most important — efforts to stop climate change.
Before the pandemic, 80% of the working middle class lived paycheck to paycheck. Today many are in crisis. The stock market might be doing OK, but 8 million more Americans have slipped into poverty in the past seven months. More than 20% of children younger than 12 go to bed hungry in the United States.
Other nations demonstrated that it didn’t have to turn out like this. It is because of the failure of our nation’s Republican leadership that today more and more of us are falling ill with COVID and more and more of us are dying.
The Democratic House of Representatives passed a second major stimulus and COVID-relief bill in May. But month after month, the Republican-led Senate has refused to act on it.
Today we are facing many crises under Republican rule. It’s about our health, and it’s about our economic survival — but it’s also about the shameless Republican efforts at voter suppression and the rejection of America’s democratic norms.
The many attempts to subvert Biden’s clear win have shown Republicans’ true colors: They are even willing to risk subverting our democracy — all to maintain the power of the privileged class that funds them.
Noelie Rodriguez
Hilo