Letters: SJSU settlements | Truth for voters | Ukraine neutrality | Pushing propaganda | Fraudulent GOP | Balm of laughter

Mercury News Letters to the Editor for Jan. 30, 2022

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Taxpayers shouldn’t
pay SJSU settlements

Re. “SJSU to pay fired official $560,000,” Page A1, Jan. 27:

Who should really pay swim coach Sage Hopkins who tried for years to stop the sexual abuse of women athletes by athletic trainer Scott Shaw? Certainly not SJSU, because those funds come from us, the taxpayers.

How about making former President Mary Papazian and former athletic Director Marie Tuite pay the deserved settlement? After all, they were the ones who failed to stop Shaw. They knew what was going on yet did nothing.

And why hasn’t Scott Shaw been made to pay for the settlement given to the female athletes he abused? Unlike abuser Dr. Larry Nasser he hasn’t even been prosecuted by the District Attorney.

Ken Colson
San Jose

Shouldn’t truth be counted
among voters’ rights?

Daniel Borenstein’s commentary “Tricks local officials use to deceive voters” (Page A6, Jan. 21) summarized the inaccurate, partial and dishonest ways voters are misled. These “bait-and-switch” tactics have been well-honed through decades of use.

It is curious that when voters’ rights are getting much attention, little is said about providing voters with truthful information about what they are voting on. Lawmakers want you to be able to easily vote, but then use every trick in the book to get you to vote in a particular way. They obviously have a limited view of voters’ rights.

Tom Darby
San Jose

A neutral Ukraine
might defuse conflict

Ukraine has a slim chance at avoiding war with Russia. But if it declares neutrality and explicitly assert they intend to be a neutral country like Switzerland and will align neither with NATO nor Russia, they can claim the high ground.

Putin would have no reason to attack because NATO would not be on his border. NATO cannot acquiesce to preventing them from joining. That would be appeasement of a dictator and we know how that goes.

But a self-proclaimed independent state can be supported by the EU, United States or anyone else. Would we not support Switzerland if they were attacked by Russia?

Ukraine needs to think about this. I feel bad for them. Germany wants a secure source of fossil fuels more than they want to do what is right,

Philip Arnold
Redwood City

Letter parrots Russia’s
Ukraine propaganda

Fred Gutmann showed us an example of pro-Putin propaganda that now dominates Fox News and parts of the GOP (“Biden’s Cold War take on Russia-Ukraine,” Letters to the Editor, Page A6, Jan. 27). Neville Chamberlain would be proud of such appeasement.

My friends in Ukraine would tell Gutmann that they would rather fight a bloody war against superior Russian forces than have the West stab them in the back, as Gutmann suggests.

Vladimir Putin has no more right to extend influence within former USSR territory than English royals to tell American people how to live their lives.

I am grateful to Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, and the Biden administration for appropriating money and delivering vital help to Ukrainian people who have been in the state of war for eight years now and represent the bulwark against Putin’s expansionistic thuggery.

Alex Rozovsky
Sunnyvale

Fraud ingrained
in today’s GOP

The Brennan Center has found statistically zero fraud in the last election.

It is hard to believe with all the Republicans that were elected in the last election that it was technically possible to single out Donald Trump.

The Republicans ask, ad nauseam, that the fraud be looked into all the while maintaining they were legitimately elected.

Republican electors fraudulently submitted electoral college certificates for Trump (“Trump allies created fake Electoral College certificates,” Jan. 12). Florida over many elections has purged tens of thousands of legitimate voters. Gerrymandering has made it possible for the minority to win an elections

Trump was helped by Russia in 2016 and tried for Ukrainian help in 2020. The Trump White House corrupted the Census (“Memo cites ‘unprecedented’ interference from Trump,” Page A7, Jan. 16).

The Republican Party is the party of significant and far-reaching fraud.

Alan Taikeff
San Jose

Comic gives chance
to heal with laughter

I have to disagree with Kenneth Brown’s letter on the comic Mallard Fillmore (“Comic crosses line into COVID-19 misinformation,” Page A6, Jan. 27) on several counts.

First, I think it is a newspaper’s job to show varying points of view in the proper context. I read it, even though it usually makes me cringe.

Second, as the comic specifically mentions cloth masks, perhaps it is spreading the information that cloth masks are inferior. The CDC has published articles on this subject.

Third, I would like to see the divisions in our country heal. If we can learn to laugh together, healing will not be far behind.

Cliff Gold
Fremont