Bag fee is good for your health

Havelock, Ontario: I live in a small rural town in Canada and visited New York last October. It would be wonderful to see your streets free of disposable plastic bags. I congratulate the City Council for striving to be proactive with a 5-cent bag fee — a concept that is working very well in other large U.S. cities such as Chicago. Researchers at Belgium’s University of Ghent revealed that every year seafood eaters ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic. Lead researcher Dr. Colin Janssen wonders if toxic chemicals will eventually be leaching out into parts of our bodies. He states, “We don’t know and actually we do need to know.” These scientists warn that this problem will only get worse as pollution in the oceans increases. Without a doubt New Yorkers need to tackle ocean pollution, especially when much of their shoreline borders the Atlantic. It is ironic that these state legislators who killed the bag fee law are most likely now debating the growing costs of health care. Larraine Roulston

Child’s play

Jamaica: I still can’t believe that he’s our President because I didn’t realize that you only require a fifth-grade education to become President. I will have my 10-year-old grandchild throw her hat in the ring in 2020.

Diane Keller

Playing into his tiny hands

Philadelphia: As the media feed into the hands of Trump trying desperately to prove that they do not report fake news, it expands his ego even more. Now it’s OK to be a liar because you can back up all of the lies as “alternative facts.” The more the media report on him insulting others, it displays him in a glorious light. So I see how Trump is using the media to his advantage and I see how he’s playing most of you guys like fools because as long as he can distract the media with other nonsense it will lessen the seriousness of things that need to be properly addressed. So continue to be a sidekick for Trump and report the fake news as he says. It’s funny that you the media hold so much power over him, but yet you give him so much power over you. After all, the show must go on.

Kathryn Hickson Tampa.: In 56 years of voting, I’ve always been a Republican, and as a law enforcement officer with 35 years at the federal level and another 20 years at the state level, I read a broad range of domestic and international news and work at staying abreast of political goings-on in Washington. I’ve crossed over to vote for Democrats from time to time in the last 56 years. Against this background, I watched, with great interest, President Trump’s press conference last week. I’ve come to the ineluctable conclusion that he displays all the actions and mannerisms of a mentally unstable person. He strikes me as a totally self-centered, bullying, amoral person, devoid of any humility who is delusional about reality and the real world. I’m at a loss to understand how honorable men and woman with self-respect agree to serve in his administration. Is there no one, in Congress, the press or elsewhere to confront him in a very public way? I wish Gen. Mattis could have a totally private one-on-one prayer meeting with him and explain reality once and for all. Ah, but not likely. Chuck Hudson

In fashion

Rockaway Park: If Tiffany Trump wasn’t her father’s daughter, would she even have been a guest at Fashion Week shows? While I think all the President’s kids should be off-limits, I’m not shedding tears for Ms. Trump. Tiffany can miss Fashion Week if it’s too upsetting, like most of us mere mortals. Elyse Rubin

Out of fashion

Bronx: Voicer Wendy Dayton wrote a heartfelt letter saying that Nordstrom’s dropping of Ivanka’s line of clothing was not politically motivated. I have always believed that a company’s policy is financially motivated. It is their job to make money, so no argument there. However, toward the end of the letter, Dayton implies that the reason that sales have flattened for this line is poor quality or poor value. Did the clothes suddenly become inferior? I haven’t a doubt in my mind that the reason for a reduction in sales is that their customers are politically motivated. Anita Mulé

The joke’s on U.S.

Keyport, N.J.: Re Voicer Dee Klein’s letter suggesting that “meanspirited jokes are no longer fair game”: May I offer a brief look at the history of political satire. For as long as politics has existed in this country, there have been people making fun of politicians. George Washington was attacked by newspaper editors who didn’t care for his domestic and foreign policies. Abraham Lincoln was often vilified in the press, being accused of becoming a tyrant. FDR was harshly criticized for what conservatives thought were infringements on the rights of the individual. Frequently such editorials would be accompanied by unflattering cartoons depicting these Presidents in the most grotesque (and often hilarious) manner. Now we have TV. Instead of pen and ink, we have pixels and sound. The medium has changed, not the message. Regardless of one’s political affiliations, I hope we all can take a joke! Fran DiPalma

Trump is the joke

Manhattan: Contrary to what Voicer Dee Klein writes, Donald Trump was not elected President. He was chosen by the unelected Electoral College elites. Furthermore, Hillary clobbered him in the popular vote by 3 million votes. Hillary was elected President, not the Trump bum. The presidency was stolen for him by that criminal degenerate trio of Comey, Putin and Assange. Because of the fraudulent way Trump became President, he has no legitimacy as President. Trump has to earn respect, which he has not done. He has earned a place in hell, the sooner the better. As for comedians like Colbert, Meyers, Oliver and Noah, they are the ones who deserve our respect for having the courage to tell it like it is about the Trump bum. Reba Shimansky

No public meal ticket

Lincoln Park, N.J.: To Voicer Joe Ametrano: You show your ignorance when you stated that “President Obama’s mother-inlaw scarfed down plenty of juicy steaks in her eight years of White House freeloading at taxpayer expense.” Unless you were referring to any state dinners she may have attended, it is well known that irrespective of who is the President and what party is in the White House, the First Family pays for their own food and for that of their personal guests.

Maria Glander

Russian roulette

Great Neck, L.I.: With the numerous illicit contacts by officials in the Trump administration to Russia, along with Stephen Miller acting like some KGB agent in stating that nobody shall dare question the decisions and orders of this White House, it appears that we have elected a czar and not a President. So far, the name of this czar is “Donald the Terrible.” Eliot Gonshorek

Fear itself

Arlington, Tex.: Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated on March 4, 1933, and gave a stirring and memorable speech. The moment was critical. Banks were closing and people were losing their life savings. A quarter of the workforce was unemployed and some were beginning to doubt the capacity of a democratic government to cope with the economic situation. Immediately, FDR Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Daily News launched legislative and executive programs that would become known as the Hundred Days. In three months, the federal government passed more legislation with wider impacts than had ever been accomplished in such a short period. Chad S. Lowman

Where does she go?

St. Petersburg, Fla.: I am a 70-year-old Caucasian woman born and raised in Massachusetts. So far, so good. But, hey, Mr. Trump, my DNA is 23% Hispanic. So now what? Jeannie Reed

Spy vs. spy

Staten Island: Voicer Karen Silver is concerned over a Russian vessel off Connecticut. This has been going on for years such as Francis Gary Powers and his U-2 being shot down over Russia and the USS Pueblo being captured off North Korea and the Navy EP-3 having a forced landing on Hainan. When I was in the Navy in the early 1970s, we tracked Russian boomers (missile subs) all the way back to Murmansk. It goes on today and will not change. We cannot blame Trump for everything. He wants to make America great and safe.

Lee Heydolph

Liar’s poker

Little Egg Harbor, N.J.: If Trump really fired Gen. Flynn for lying, he is going to run out of pink slips fast if somebody doesn’t tell him that he is President, not on “The Apprentice.” Everyone in Washington lies; how does Trump not know that? William Cook