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Who would invest in
money-losing HSR?
Re: “Train agency looks at Gilroy” (Page A1, Aug. 23).
It’s delusional in the extreme to think that investors, even in magical-thinking Silicon Valley, would be willing to put money into a project with absolutely no possibility of being profitable.
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Public projects are for public benefit, not profits. The central question respecting the high-speed rail now is whether, short of making all the money in the world available to build it, it can be built at all in the current century.
Carolyn Schuk
Santa Clara
Republicans were silent
on Texas redistricting
State Republicans are railing against Gov. Newsom and Proposition 50, including asking the California Supreme Court to remove the redistricting initiative from the November ballot, arguing Democrats violated the law when they rushed the measure through to redraw congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm election.
Yet can anybody name me two Republican lawmakers who have condemned Donald Trump for initiating this fiasco in Texas? How about one lawmaker? I will wait.
Harvey Tran
San Jose
Munger is selective on
protecting democracy
Re: “Political ads over map fight heating up” (Page A1, Aug. 29).
Republican donor Charles Munger Jr. is using his money to say, “We cannot save democracy by burning it down in California.”
Just one question, Mr Munger: What did you do to extinguish the Republican bonfire in Texas?
Sandi Spires
Sunnyvale
Stakes are too high
not to pass Prop. 50
Re: “Gerrymandering issue to be decided by voters” (Page A1, Aug. 22).
Gerrymandering is a cruel reality of our election system.
While most of us agree that we should play by the rules and follow the law, there are times when we must make exceptions. Would you break the speed limit or push through a red light to rush your critically ill child to the emergency room? How about giving up a little democracy to save the rest of it?
While there could likely be unforeseen consequences from doing this, the consequences of not doing it are pretty clear.
Barry Bronson
Saratoga
California could learn
from low-crime states
Instead of a focus on those states with the highest crime statistics, why don’t we learn something from those states with the lowest crime rates?
Maine, New Hampshire, Idaho, Utah, Connecticut, Wyoming and Rhode Island are doing something right. I suspect that these states have more fathers at home, more high school graduates, more decent jobs and less poverty per capita than the high-crime states.
Good educational and mental health care systems offer many opportunities for future healthy, productive citizens and lessen the attraction to crime.
Patricia Marquez Rutt
Redwood City
When will Republicans
wake up to Trump?
Due to the course of recent events, I am left to wonder what and how much it will take for Americans, specifically my Republican friends, to conclude that they may have been led astray by the current occupant of the Oval Office.
It appears that there is an amnesia of morality and common decency in this administration. Where are those “Christian values” that are so heavily touted? The oxygen is being sucked right out of our democracy, while the robber barons prosper and the rest of the citizenry scrambles for what is left.
It is time for all Americans to rise up and fight for the return of our democracy.
Angela Boles King
Los Gatos
Trump’s judiciary attacks
threaten US justice
With Grandparents Day approaching on Sept. 7, Grandparents For Grandkids calls on President Trump to stop attacking judges, law firms and our system of justice. These institutions are the backbone of the rule of law — the very system that safeguards habeas corpus, freedom of speech and the right to peacefully protest, for example.
It doesn’t matter if you are a retired veteran or a member of the Raging Grannies — whether you live locally or in another state — Grandparents For Grandkids welcomes grandmothers and grandfathers from all walks of life. Our only request is that you agree with the group’s guiding principle, which is: “Grandpa Trump” must step back and consider the long-term consequences his attacks on the judiciary will have on his own grandchildren, and ours, long after we are all gone.
Gratia Rankin
San Jose
Trump’s justification for
flag rule is hypocrisy
Re: “Trump seeks to jail people who burn flag” (Page A1, Aug. 26).
So let me get this straight: President Trump signed a new executive order that instructs the DOJ to prosecute and jail, for one year, people who burn the flag (a Constitutionally-protected act) if it is “likely to incite imminent lawless action” or amounts to “fighting words.”
Apparently, the irony of his responsibility for fomenting thousands of his supporters in the violent and deadly Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol in order to subvert the results of a presidential election, and then pardoning all of them, is entirely lost on him.
Bob Young
San Jose