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Who cares about
‘No Kings’? Millions

Donald Trump’s response to the No Kings 2.0 protests on Oct. 18 was “who cares?” We, the people, nearly 7 million of us here in the U.S., care. We care about all aspects of Trump’s retribution agenda that are taking us quickly into a fascist dictatorship that will harm everyone except Trump’s MAGA followers from his cabinet on down.

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Americans say they’re “scared,” but are they scared enough? Are they scared enough to publicly protest courageously and peacefully, or accompany immigrants to buy groceries who are afraid to go out of the house, or phone their D.C. elected officials to express their fears and outrage, or speak up publicly instead of being silent, or cancel Facebook, or use Android instead of an iPhone (Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook bent their knees and are now two of Trump’s biggest supporters), or boycott Target and Walmart (both scaled back their DEI initiatives on orders from Trump)? When will Americans be “scared enough before it’s too late”?

Ramona Krausnick
Dublin

Support state effort
to restore CEQA rules

Re: “Chamber pushing initiative to revise CEQA, permitting rules” (Page A6, Oct. 24).

Dan Walter’s review of the Chamber of Commerce’s proposed ballot initiative mischaracterizes a new law overhauling CEQA, California’s landmark environmental protection law. Walters claims SB 131 applies “particularly to high-density, multi-family projects.” In reality, it encompasses a broad category of construction unrelated to housing, exempting “advanced manufacturing” projects from public disclosure, environmental review and mitigation of environmental and health harms.

Thirty-five concerned legislators — including East Bay state Senators Jesse Arreguín and Christopher Cabaldon and Assemblymembers Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, Mia Bonta and Liz Ortega — signed onto a letter urging fixes. In response, Assemblymember Damon Connolly introduced AB 1083 to restore vital environmental protections. I urge state Senators Arreguín, Cabaldon, Tim Grayson, Jerry McNerney and Aisha Wahab and Assemblymembers Bauer-Kahan, Bonta and Ortega to join Assemblymember Connolly as co-authors. We’re counting on you to protect us from industrial pollution and not allow the need to boost housing to be used as cover for giving industry a free pass to pollute and undermine our bedrock environmental protections.

Kate Zimmerman
Berkeley

GOP, Democrats milking

shutdown crisis for votes

“Never let a crisis go to waste” — words every politician lives by and why both Democrats and Republicans, especially the lifers who run the Senate and House, are willing to let their shutdown fester a few more weeks. After all, their next “I’m fighting for you every day to save our democracy” election is only 12 months away. They need someone to blame for all the chaos and suffering their incompetence and unwillingness even to try to improve our failing health care system has caused.

Solving problems is not what politicians do for a living. Winning their next election is all that matters, so if a few thousand kids go hungry or eventually there are fewer nurses, doctors and hospitals, so be it — there’s an election to win and they all need someone else to blame.

Bill Behan
Brentwood

US should engage
with Russia on SALT

Re: “Putin tests nuclear weapons as talks with U.S. falter” (Page A14, Nov. 2).

The New York Times article that you published on Nov. 2 was generally dismissive of any negotiations with the Russians, but at least it acknowledged that Vladimir Putin proposed last September to extend the sole remaining nuclear arms limitation agreement between the U.S. and Russia for an additional year to prevent its expiration this February. This extension would forestall an accelerated nuclear arms race and provide time for negotiations. Unfortunately, there has been no response from the Trump administration other than vague threats to resume nuclear test explosions.

Despite the perverse suggestions of some commentators cited in this article that negotiations with the Russians would only give them leverage over us, preventing a new nuclear arms race is vital to our security and humanity’s.

At a time when many experts are alarmed that the danger of nuclear war is at an all-time high, we must not allow START to expire.

Michael Dunlap
Oakland