Letters: GOP may achieve its ends without repealing ACA

Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.

GOP may achieve ends without ACA repeal

Re: “GOP can gripe about ACA after offering plan” (Page A6, Jan. 6).

Jim Boots is exactly right that conservatives constantly complain about Obamacare but can’t put forth an alternative — either on an individual basis or as a unified position for legislation. By default, then, their many efforts to repeal it would put the U.S. health care system back to its pre-Obama status quo. Has any conservatives ever specifically advocated that? Would anybody want that?

However, although every effort to repeal Obamacare has failed, the current Congress may have succeeded in making it so expensive that few eligible people can afford it. That would achieve the objective of repeal and leave us in a situation that nobody really wants.

Merlin Dorfman
Livermore

DOJ concerned more with orders than justice

If it’s possible to bring a class-action lawsuit against the Department of Justice on behalf of the statutes, Constitution, internal rules, courts, Congress and residents of the United States of America, count me in.

Renee Good is far from the first person the department has publicly proclaimed guilty without conducting any investigation into the matter beyond the president’s social media posts about it.

The Department of Justice has become the Department of Just Following Orders.

Linda Thorlakson
Castro Valley

Shooting protests leave out nonviolent notion

Re: “Fatal ICE shooting echoes local cases” (Page A1, Jan. 9).

Yes, it is a tragedy that a woman was shot, a mother of three.

However, protests by people on the left are hypocritical. They celebrated Charlie Kirk’s death. Is Erika Kirk not a mother also?

Also, I did not see violent protests after Kirk’s death. Either we are for nonviolence, or we are not.

Marianne Haas
Berkeley

Protesters should follow law to avoid violence

Re: “ICE officer shoots Minneapolis driver during latest crackdown” (Page A3, Jan. 8).

The fatal incident in Minneapolis is truly a tragedy — one that didn’t need to happen.

For any democracy or republic to survive, there needs to be both law and order. Laws need to be consistently applied to preserve order. Without that, there will be chaos, anarchy.

Every law enforcement officer, governor, mayor and president takes an oath to uphold our laws. Some have chosen not to honor that oath. If you don’t like the laws, change them; as long as they are the law, they should be enforced consistently.

That is exactly what the officers in Minneapolis were doing — enforcing the laws for people who broke our laws to enter our country and perpetrate other crimes while here.

This incident was a result of people trying to prevent officers from performing their duties. If you don’t want to get shot, don’t drive at a sworn officer.

John Griggs
Danville

Trump’s real target is dissolving NATO

Re: “Trump threatens to take Greenland ‘the hard way’” (Page A3, Jan. 10).

Donald Trump’s incursion in Venezuela is only the prelude to his real target: Greenland. But what is his real goal? He wants to destroy NATO.

Despite the long-standing NATO treaty that says all NATO countries will defend an attack on any one of them, Trump says of Greenland, he would defend it only if we own it. That violates NATO, just as a U.S. attack on Greenland would disintegrate NATO.

Despite copious evidence ever since he dismissed the counsel of our intelligence agencies in favor of Vladimir Putin (Helsinki, 2018), it should now be clear to even the most obtuse Republican that Trump is working in Putin’s interest. He is a traitor. Congress must impeach and convict Trump before he launches a military action that permanently destroys the U.S.-initiated world order, which has prevented world war for 80 years.

Bruce Joffe
Piedmont

Christmas strike was a gift to Christians

Re: “Where is the outrage over Christmas strikes?” (Page A6, Jan. 2).

Morris Soublet complained that Christians were not upset about a Christmas strike in Nigeria. Are you kidding me? Maybe we should tell the police not to arrest anyone on Christmas Day.

I think Christians were elated at the strikes, considering them Christmas gifts to those who are most deserving, Boko Haram. And just perhaps, the strikes saved some lives that day and the next.

Douglas Abbott
Union City