Left in election denial
Re “Does Trump owe victory to Russia?” Jan. 8
The two months since the election have been hilarious. There have been recount demands, popular vote angst, elector intimidation, secession threats, Russian hacking woes — the list is endless, and comical.
Hillary Clinton’s supporters are in such a state of denial and confusion. The Democrats are resolved to confront, contest and obstruct the new administration at every possible turn. It should provide more hilarity and chuckles as the attempt is doomed to fail.
Liberals are faced with a stark reality: Donald Trump as president. I cannot help but chuckle every time I think about it. Oh, and there’s a capper to the whole standup routine: The U.S. Supreme Court will be firmly aligned with the conservative movement for at least the next 25 years.
Life is good, and laughter is the best medicine. Michael Murphy San Pedro
Of course Trump owes his victory to Russia. When an election is tight, every little thing contributes to the outcome.
Russia did more than one little thing: It hacked the Democratic National Committee and, according to U.S. intelligence agencies, gave WikiLeaks information designed to damage only Clinton. It paid for and produced an onslaught of lies disguised as news, also with the purpose of damaging Clinton only, then flooded Facebook with anti-Clinton posts.
No one expected Trump to win, not even Moscow. But now, Trump is the most illegitimate president-elect in the history of the United States. That illegitimacy along with his other flaws bode ill for his presidency, the nation and the world. Bella Silverstein
Santa Clarita
That the GOP, Democrats and talking heads are uber-exerting themselves to avoid saying the election was illegitimate leaves the public with Trump’s legitimacy as president being the lingering question.
Their avoidance trains the mind to focus on that as the big question. Maybe the politicians and the media need to avoid asking it, but we regular folks don’t.
The question of Trump’s legitimacy has the effect of injecting permanent doubt into the very DNA of this presidency. For the duration of Trump’s presidency, the electorate will have, as a fixed feature of its collective psychology, this: “Well sure, he’s our president, but not really.” Gregory K. Herr
Brea
The pundits acknowledge, more or less reluctantly, that we cannot prove Russian hackers persuaded undecided voters to favor Trump over Clinton through the use of WikiLeaks and fake news stories.
They didn’t have to; they served a different purpose: Voter participation was 55% because, I think, borderline voters were turned off, potential Trump voters by Trump himself and Clinton voters by the hacking (and the FBI’s unprecedented final-week intrusions).
Clinton suffered by far the worst. Even though she received nearly 3 million more votes than Trump, she got fewer votes than President Obama in 2012, even with a larger electorate.
In effect, Trump was elected by disgruntled non-voters. Rick Dunn
San Diego
No, Trump doesn’t owe his victory to Russian involvement. He owes it to
FBI Director James B. Comey for pushing voters who were on the fence and undecided over the edge with his last-minute announcement that he possibly had new information regarding Clinton’s emails. Karla H. Edwards
Santa Clarita
Marines for free speech
Re “Artwork ignites backlash,” Jan. 7
In the fall of 1970, I was in Officer Candidate School at Marine Corps Base Quantico when our drill instructors took us on a long run to the front entrance of the base adjacent to its full-sized copy of the Iwo Jima memorial. There, they put us at ease allowing us to see and hear a large Vietnam war protest on the other side. Some our 200 officer candidates grew increasingly agitated over the demonstration and we were quickly called to attention.
In colorful, Marine Corps language, our commanding officer, a major, spoke eloquently about the 1st Amendment to the Constitution and reminded us that it was our duty to defend even protests against us.
Perhaps someone should remind Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine), a former Marine, that all not all Marines agree with him and that his removal of painting found offensive from Capitol Hill is potentially dangerous in a democracy. Richard J. Follett
Van Nuys
A winning piece of art gets pulled. I will not get into the quality of the work or take sides in the controversy, but I will criticize the reaction to it.
Our big, brave Marine, together with the police groups that found the work offensive, haven’t got the guts to face a serious problems they have. And the picture should hang on the wall right where it was to remind them of the work they must do to resolve them. W.R. Frederick
Tarzana
Help for Planned Parenthood
Re “Save Planned Parenthood,” editorial, Jan. 8
The political power in Washington has shifted, but Planned Parenthood can take action to protect itself.
The Times stated that only 3% of about 2.5 million Planned Parenthood patient visits in 2014 were for abortion services. Planned Parenthood should conduct a cost-benefit analysis considering whether a loss of millions of patient visits is worth the 75,000 abortion visits, especially if an alternative is available.
A new independent charity could be established. Planned Parenthood would contribute all of its abortion services to the new organization and cease all of its abortion activities. The new organization would be funded only by charitable donations, some of which might otherwise go to Planned Parenthood. The new organization would not receive any public funds.
This presumes there are enough reasonable Republicans in Congress who would not vote to defund Planned Parenthood in this case. Peter R. Pancione
Thousand Oaks
Grandstanding like the fuss over Planned Parenthood gets more headlines for lawmakers, which leads to knee-jerk campaign contributions from moralizing zealots, which lead to reelection. Solving the real problems of the country is hard work and could even require negotiation and actual compromise, and it gets fewer headlines.
Planned Parenthood is a 501(c)(3) organization, meaning that one’s voluntary contributions to it may be tax deductible. Why not let the zealots subsidize your charitable choices through the tax code the same way we ordinary citizens do for the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson now in other ways?
Let’s step up here and pick up some of the slack and send a statement to the moralizing zealots. Richard Schmittdiel
Glendale
Airport shooting exposes flaw
Re “5 die in Florida airport shooting; suspect is held,” Jan. 7
What is striking, and unreported, is that this relatively small and contained crime scene (the shooter did not even try to move around or escape), located in the open public area outside of the security area for the terminal at Fort Lauderdale - Hollywood International Airport, morphed into an airport-wide shutdown because of a serious flaw in basic security checkpoint design.
The exit lanes from the terminal gates that lead to the baggage claim areas have no physical barriers and only limited unarmed security. Terrified passengers fleeing the baggage area can simply turn around and run back through the exit corridor, ignoring all those ominous warnings, and in seconds destroy hours’ worth of security screening as they surge back into the gate area, rendering the entire terminal and airfield unsecure and at risk.
This type of event was foreseeable. Such a lack of foresight and imagination by our airport security professionals is inexcusable. Mike Post
Winnetka
Once again, there’s carnage.
I travel the world to countries where people have no guns but have universal health coverage. How do I explain to them that in my country we let people have semiautomatic weapons but we take away their health coverage?
So proud. Barbara Rosen
Fullerton
Why not have luggage that contains guns available for pick-up at a location other than the airport? Travelers in the U.S. have a right to feel safe. Priscilla Lazzara
Chula Vista