Trump must pay for dismal end to presidency

IN Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898, there was a successful coup against a Reconstruction Government of blacks and whites, and mass murder and lynching followed.

There has always been a violent, white supremacist underbelly in America.

Trump knows this and he was happy to stoke the racism, the hatred for democracy and bigotry of the mob to, in his deluded mind, save his presidency.

He fomented insurrection in the Capitol but his idiotic and deadly coup failed.

In my view, he should be tried for this and his innumerable other crimes and jailed for the rest of his dismal life.

Ewan McDougall

Broad Bay

Weeds

MOVE over, Dunedin City Council — the Otago Regional Council has bigger and brighter weeds than you beside the Brethren Church (Green Island) along the Kaikorai Stream at the bridge under Brighton Rd.

Over a metre in height and about to seed is a large amount of hemlock, extremely poisonous to animals and humans.

I am surprised that nobody has reported this, given the amount of traffic and walkers passing by.

Brian Cashmere

Waldronville

Drug testing

REGARDING the article on festival drug reactions (ODT, 9.1.21) — do these people want sympathy?

I’m sorry, but they live in a society where there is ample information and explicit warnings about illicit drugs and the ingredients in them.

It’s your choice to take them — don’t expect ‘‘the grownups’’ to pick up the pieces, and don’t expect an already overextended hospital system and mental health system to try to make your obviously limited intelligence into one piece again.

Growup time.

Kay Hannan

Oamaru