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Profits for greedy
PG&E are no surprise
Re: “Profits at PG&E spark outrage” (Page A1, Feb. 23).
Outrage at PG&E profits? No one saw this coming? That’s hilarious.
The California Public Utilities Commission board is appointed by the governor. The governor and other lawmakers get PG&E campaign contributions. Every PG&E rate request is approved. Solar reimbursement was reduced to a quarter of what it was. How could this combination not result in sky-high profits?
Now there is outrage? Where was the outrage when the board was appointed? Where was the outrage when each rate hike was approved? Do you even think PG&E will reduce rates? Not a chance. There will be more increases coming. Everyone in California needs to pressure their representatives.
Tony Weir
Hollister
Prop. 1 pays for beds
but what of practitioners?
Re: “Newsom’s Prop. 1 for mental health deserves support” (Page A8, Feb. 18).
Proposition 1 is an attempt to manage the state’s mental health crisis and is very costly.
While I applaud its intention, it fails to acknowledge the severe shortage of qualified mental health practitioners in the state. Just ask anyone who’s tried to find a therapist on their own. They cannot be manufactured overnight. Educational subsidies are needed and should be included in this type of proposition to encourage people to enter the profession.
Without increasing mental health providers, any attempt to widen mental health services will be an abject failure.
Carol Peterson
Saratoga
Republicans should
follow their mantra
Re: “Ideology bisects Golden State” (Page A1, Feb. 21).
I’m old enough to remember a time when Republicans enthusiastically challenged their political opponents with the phrase “America, love it or leave it.” I believe that the time is nigh for Republicans to listen to themselves and heed their own advice.
The platform of the Republican Party, aka Donald Trump, criticizes everything, proposes nothing of substance, and enables a man proud to claim he’ll be a dictator whose first priority is to exact revenge on his detractors based on a pack of lies that no court in the land has deemed to be even remotely believable.
Republicans have repeatedly demanded that their political opponents respect them for their views. With the kind of track record they’ve established, why would anyone think they’re deserving of such respect?
Eugene Ely
San Jose
IVF ruling opens door
to all kinds of problems
Re: “Hospital puts pause on IVF after ruling stating that frozen embryos are children” (Page A4, Feb. 22).
Is Alabama about to break its income tax collection system and ruin its state budget?
If embryos are “children” then, presumably, Alabama taxpayers can claim them as dependents on their state income tax returns. People with no children might suddenly have five, 10, 15 or more and might amend earlier years’ returns to correct the errors on those returns, now revealed by Alabama’s Supreme Court.
Of course, dates of birth and Social Security numbers will have to be disclosed as “To Be Determined,” but Alabama’s Supreme Court — and, they believe, God — have spoken. Who can argue against that?
Howard Thomas
Los Gatos
Republicans have
ducked Ukraine issue
It is obscene. Congress is in recess for weeks on the orders of Donald Trump through his sycophant speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is trying to maintain its existence against an assault from Russia.
How can Congress recess and avoid addressing the most significant geopolitical situation since 1939?
Kevin Goodwin
Lakeport
Hamas gains by
suffering in Gaza
Re: “Isolationist wing of GOP ignores lessons of history” (Page A9, Feb. 18).
In his op-ed, Bret Stephens fails to make his case. He can think of no moral or strategic argument in which hunger and disease among Gaza’s civilians serves anyone’s interests.
He doesn’t understand the very basis of the war. Hamas, by design, benefits strategically and, in their ideology, morally with the ongoing suffering. Each civilian death, each homeless refugee and especially each child killed by IDF neutralizing of hospital tunnels is a propaganda victory relished by Hamas. Propaganda victory is much more important to Hamas than the condition of lives in Gaza.
Stephens and sympathetic letter-writers don’t realize that each such letter lends support to Hamas, extending rather than shortening the invasion, tending to worsen rather than alleviate conditions in Gaza.
This specious argument against GOP intransigence is an embarrassment for democracy-minded voters.
Fred Gutmann
Cupertino
