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On your ballot, you will find the option to recall Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price. I will vote no.
Why? DA Price won an injunction to halt a Livermore company from selling tobacco to kids. She secured a guilty plea of felony fraud from the former Fremont city manager, returning $300,000 to the city. And she worked with 24 other DAs to win a $1.5 million settlement from Tesla for improperly disposing of hazardous waste. In short, she’s doing a fine job.
A recall should be reserved for the exceptionally corrupt. Unfortunately, the tool has been commandeered to corrupt our democracy, wielded by the exceptionally rich. For them, it’s a simple matter of paying signature harvesters to lie, lie and lie until they have enough names to foist another recall onto the ballot. In the process, they waste citizens’ time and taxpayer dollars.
Alan MarlingLivermore
I am writing this letter because I want to sleep at night. I had a severe undercurrent of stress and anxiety every day after Donald Trump was elected in 2016. It was hard for me to sleep. I felt powerless and defeated and so afraid of some kind of apocalypse at every moment.
We are confronting the threat of that kind of chaos again. Didn’t we all learn the first time? What would be different if he won this time? A lot. His supporters are using him to push their Project 2025 agenda and change the nature of this country for their own purposes. We have got to stop them.
Trump is their puppet, and if he wins, they will steamroll their extremist policies. We have seen this before, but now it would even be worse for our democracy.
Kim ClarkDanville
Re: “Ethnic studies bill opposition delays its implementation” (Page A1, Aug. 28).
As a Jewish parent of two small children, I’m relieved that AB 2918 will not be voted on this year.
Molly Gibbs cites in her article Assemblymember Zbur’s claim of many instances of “curriculum that is just clearly inappropriate.” Without knowing the substance of these supposedly anti-Semitic lessons, readers have no basis to decide whether they agree they are problematic.
Are we really supposed to believe that curriculum designed to highlight the history and culture of oppressed racial and ethnic groups somehow harms Jewish communities?
Given the pro-Israel bias of the bill’s supporters, it’s likely the lessons in question aren’t anti-Jewish, but rather critical of Israel, and the bill is designed to quiet dissent during the U.S.-funded genocide in Gaza.
I find the view that Jews require special oversight of ethnic studies curriculum both anti-Semitic and racist.
Stevie SchwartzBerkeley
Re: “Trump tries to tie Harris to the Afghanistan withdrawal” (Page A3, Aug. 27).
As a Vietnam War-era veteran, I have friends buried at Arlington National Cemetery. More so, I have been a pallbearer for funerals in that dignified and hallowed ground.
The first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, considered national cemeteries such as Gettysburg to have been consecrated by the soldiers who died fighting for democracy during the Civil War.
I cannot fathom why any veteran or current service member would not be outraged at the low moral standard our current Republican presidential candidate has shown by using the graves of fallen heroes to make political photo-ops for his campaign.
Donald Trump is not fit to ever be called commander-in-chief again.
Bob FishDanville
