What about county roads?

Great to see a safer road program instituted (“City adopts traffic calming program,” Feb. 23), but what about the county islands in the city center? I live off MacDonald Way south of Stockdale Highway. It has become a racetrack because it’s a detour route now to get to the apartments on Belle Terrace.

We’ve got a hop-up mechanic on MacDonald Way that tunes vehicles two to three afternoons and evenings that test the results along it at 50 to 70 mph.

Stockdale is even worse between New Stine and Real Road. Posted 45 mph and you get passed by 50- to 60-mph flyers who aren’t looking out for all the homeless people camping along it.

The worst trouble with any plan is the lack of police enforcement. Maybe we should reduce all these six-lane racetracks to four lanes so they would have a place to pull them over. — Robert Smith, Bakersfield

I BELIEVE FOX AND TUCKER

Tucker Carlson and Fox news are usually spot on with their reporting.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Carlson interviewed scientists who stated that COVID had likely come from a Wuhan lab, not from a wet market. They were taken off social media and spurned by mainstream media.

When Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti was being interviewed on all the TV stations and praised for the way he was going after Trump, Tucker called him a sleazy porn lawyer and said he couldn’t be trusted. Avenatti has since pleaded guilty to fraud.

In October 2020, Miranda Devine of the New York Post tried to expose the Hunter Biden laptop. She was taken off Twitter and was shut down on social media. Fifty government officials signed a letter stating the laptop was likely Russian disinformation, which was a benefit to Joe Biden. Tucker had Devine on his show numerous times, but the mainstream media never acknowledged until after the 2020 presidential election that the laptop was real and had been in the possession of the FBI for nearly two years.

Fox News daily shows illegal immigrants pouring into our country while regular news outlets only seem to show the migrants when they are bused to Martha’s Vineyard or New York City. For more than two years, Tucker and others on Fox were running stories on the fentanyl crisis and human trafficking, while the mainstream media was hoping to get more dirt on Trump. I believe Fox and Tucker.

— Diane Hoffman, Bakersfield

FOOTAGE RELEASE IMPERILS SECURITY

So, Kevin McCarthy has promised to release 44,000 hours of Jan. 6 footage to Tucker Carlson of Fox Entertainment Channel. Additionally, McCarthy previously appointed Marjorie Taylor Greene to the Homeland Security Committee.

McCarthy made these moves, he says, because he doled out “promises” to rightwing extremists in order to purchase their votes and thereby to be elected speaker.

Release of the Jan. 6 footage will allow Carlson, Fox, China, Russia and the world to diagram the architectural layout of the Capitol building and any previously secret pathways of security therein by which Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi and many others were able to escape to safety from the wrath on Jan. 6 of Trump’s insurrectionist lynch mob. This increases the future risk of danger to our congresspersons from foreign interests and in the event of a repeat insurrection the next time Trump loses.

Would McCarthy ever release to Carlson or anybody the codes for the security system of McCarthy’s own private residence in Bakersfield?

Releasing the footage to anyone at all would constitute a serious lack of substantive judgment. But McCarthy’s choice of Carlson shows that McCarthy is also a poor judge of character, given Carlson’s recent emails showing he and other Fox hosts lied to their viewing public while harboring contradictory personal views about Trump’s election-denying. Carlson and Fox will cherry-pick the tapes to spread more lies to their viewing audience for the sake of improved ratings.

McCarthy’s poor judgment of character also applies to MTG’s committee appointment. Homeland Security is the last place for such an unstable, blabbering person as MTG. McCarthy might as well appoint George Santos to the Ethics Committee.

In the coming days, what additional ill-conceived McCarthy “promises” will come to light? Is the devil in the details of the price McCarthy paid to be elected speaker? Stay tuned.

— J. Craig Jenkins, Bakersfield

MCCARTHY HAS A GREENE PROBLEM

Like the frustrated parent of a wayward teenager, Rep. Kevin McCarthy has a Marjorie Taylor Greene problem. And what is he doing about? The Georgia representative’s behavior and imbecilic comments reflect poorly on her party, and on Rep. McCarthy, whose weakness and lacking leadership qualities are on display.

— Michael Seltzer, Pacific Grove

BURYING THE TRUTH

After Kevin McCarthy sold his soul to get the coveted gavel, he has now climbed in bed with Fox News, the network now proved to have lied to America about its knowledge that Biden was elected fairly. McCarthy continued to follow the still-wet slime trail left by Trump while ignoring all he was taught by the Honorable Bill Thomas. What did Fox promise McCarthy for access to the Jan. 6 tapes and bury the truth?

— Rex Wanlass, Bakersfield

CHINA NOW KNOWS

I have questions for Mark Perttula (“Country is divided by misinformation,” Feb. 23). I doubt The Californian will print this opinion because the other side is rarely printed. Here are my questions in regard to “the stolen election.”

Are you a computer programmer? Have you written programs? Can a program be written to achieve certain results? Is China the world’s leader in supercomputer technology?

And to your question: Yes, I do believe the elections were programmed to yield certain results. I believe China and Biden’s family conspired to do exactly that. One last observation: Why hasn’t Biden been impeached due to all the recent discoveries of he and his son’s “in the bed relationship” with China?

It is my opinion that paper ballots are the most accurate and can’t be impeded by a foreign supercomputer programmed to achieve a certain result. There are millions of people in the U.S. that now believe the same exact thing. Finally, China now knows since they have traversed our country in a balloon. They can drop a bomb at 60,000 feet from a balloon.

— Raymond Reed, Bakersfield