San Diego has not bought into transit

Re “MTS expansion, high-rise near transit center” (Dec. 24): The article about looking to expand the MTS transit services in the East Village area seems to be missing the point.

I live Downtown and the current transit center across from the train station never has more than a handful of people waiting. Besides that, the buses that run through Downtown are empty most of the day including at rush hour. At most I have seen a handful of people riding the large double buses, but most run empty at all times of the day.

I am sure expensive studies were conducted to forecast bus use. The notion that if you build it, they will come is not working. I would expect most people take Uber or Lyft. Even the Supershuttle is going out of business.

Why is the city continuing to pay to operate mostly empty buses that contribute to air pollution and cost taxpayers money to operate? And it wants to expand this unused service? with the non-generators subsidizing the generators through the use of the electrical grid.

We are in a fight for our lives against global warming. Carbon-free electrical generation should be pursued in any and all variations. If the fees from the utilities get high enough, we will simple buy battery backup and disconnect completely. Then the grid will not receive any of my peak time generation and San Diego Gas & Electric will receive no compensation. A lose/lose.

Re “Wildfires release more than half Australia's annual CO2” (Dec. 25): Australia is experiencing catastrophic fires due to record-setting heat waves brought about by our everwarming climate. In the U.S., each region of our country is seeing more numerous, more intense weather patterns of varying sorts. No part of the Earth will remain unscathed.

We have already waited too long to make a gradual transition to an economy that uses much less carbon. Now is the time for all citizens to demand that our government implement programs to radically lower carbon emissions. We cannot continue to bury our heads in the sand and do little or nothing.

If we do not take dramatic action, such as that taken to win World War II, our future will be consumed by wars related to scarcity as people fight for resources.

The U.S. can and should lead the way in a global effort to maintain Earth as a livable planet. Our currently fractured citizenry can come together as we take on this common threat to life itself.

Don’t hook kids on dangerous products

I am writing about the e-cigarette youth epidemic and how the e-cigarette/ tobacco industries are responsible because marketing targets youth using flavored products.

It is alarming to know that youth in middle and high school are using Juul, which can harm their lungs and their brain development. Youth in this grade level are experimenting with Juul, which could potentially lead to other harming substances. Learning that Juul comes in different flavors such as mango, mint and cereal flavors is alarming. Flavors hook youth and therefore all flavored Juul products should not continue to be sold.

This tactic angers me since I have younger siblings who are in middle and high school who I hope do not become victims of this marketing. I want my siblings and other children to grow healthy. Juul should not exist in the lives of children or adults.

Sanders won’t find the money for his projects

Re “Sanders discusses issues pertinent to San Diego” (Dec. 23): Bernie

Sanders said that the lack of affordable housing would be solved by legislation to add as many as 10 million affordable houses.

What he didn’t say is how this would be enabled. My suspicion is that the legislation would be in the form of a government subsidy. Since Sanders thinks big, this might be to provide federal funds at $100,000 per house. Running these numbers out would yield a total federal subsidy of $1 trillion for this project.

Where would these funds come from? Probably by taxing the rich. But doubling the taxes on the top 1% only yields $500 billion. And how will we also pay for the cancellation of student debt, free college and free universal health care?

It’s not enough to throw shade on opponents

Re “Liberal politics are ruining city and nation” (Dec. 22): I am always interested in reading well-developed points of view from both sides of an issue, but what is this writer trying to say?

Perhaps a subject, a purpose and some supporting evidence would help get his point across.

Call out Democrats for Senate trial demands

In the interest of fairness, I am waiting for The San Diego Union-tribune Editorial Board to call out Democrats, who are waving around our Constitution like it was their Bible.

The House impeaches and the Senate tries. Read it. The U-T turned a totally deaf ear to the way I think the House broke nearly every rule of decorum, fairness and propriety in its mad rush to impeach Trump. Now that rewrite of the rules is being pushed onto the Senate in that Democrats want to investigate and write new articles of impeachment in the Senate.

That is not how it is done. The House impeaches and the Senate tries the president against those articles. New articles means new impeachment ... or not.

Republicans are happy to ignore the truth

Nancy Pelosi won’t send the impeachment articles over to the Senate because many Republicans don’t want to summon administration witnesses because they hate hearing the actual truth as to what transpired with the Trump communication with the Ukraine president. They especially hate someone telling them they were wrong in their deeds.

They can rant, rave, complain, whine and snivel, but it doesn’t change the

truth. Pelosi is correct to insist on fairness and justice before proceeding. Otherwise, this blockage by the Republicans in the Senate amounts to a repeat of blocking Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court before the national election. Corruption is rampant in the U.S. Senate and Mitch Mcconnell is leading the corruption.

It’s time for moderates to step forward again

Over the years, I usually vote equally for both parties’ candidates based on their policies, but it’s getting more difficult to vote for Republicans because they’ve gone too far right.

Most of us independent voters are moderates. We don’t like to vote for extreme right or left policies. There used to be candidates in both parties who were moderates. That’s not happening much anymore.

At least half of us are not going to vote against the poor, women or minorities. It’s up to each party to provide a candidate we can support or at least half of us are going to go with the Democratic candidate.