To the editor: Grown men and women who behave like 3-year-olds are singularly unattractive ... they are babies disguised as adults who mistakenly believe that infantile behavior is acceptable, even laudable, and are shoddy examples of humans. The disrespectful conduct indulged in by the Congress of the U.S.A. would be tolerated in no other workplace on earth.
First prize for most bizarre remark by a legislator goes to Republican Representative Andrew Clyde from Georgia, who compared the January 6 tragically violent, criminal insurrectionist assault on our Capitol building to “a normal tourist visit”???? Check the video.
Dark money definition: Dark money is political spending meant to influence voters' decisions where the donor is not disclosed and the source of the money unknown.
Donations may be made to non-profit entities.
As rewards for ego-stroking, childish behavior, for example, Josh Hawley received approximately $41,169, 601; Rick Scott, $35,142,565; the dangerous gun evangelist Lauren Boebert received $4,970,827. This fails to include money collected by their official campaigns — amounts not publicized until long after the election.
Right-wing billionaires donated $67 million to Kevin McCarthy’s leadership fund to support the 147 House members who voted against the legal presidential election results. Could this be the reason for McCarthy’s firm move to Trump sycophancy? These figures, I believe, are documented by the Center for Media and Democracy.
The root of this evil is the 2010 SCOTUS decision titled Citizens United, which accorded money equal status with people in the law of the land. Relentlessly urged by all social and news media, citizens lacking financial security are encouraged to forego tax accountability, civic responsibility, and to engage in acts of hate, even murder, easily victimized by both government and huge corporations. Victimization results from the fact that current wages are frozen at around the 1980 level. Minimum wage should be $44 per hour if wages had kept pace with growth. Federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Two people working full time cannot sustain a safe, comfortable existence on such an income.
Ask yourselves, who in Congress objects to a livable wage, affordable health care for all, advanced education for all, decent low-cost housing for citizens? The answers are knowable. And who benefits outrageously from our present tax laws? The answers lie in arithmetic.
Then there is the deeply serious matter of threats to physically harm, even to execute and imprison members of Congress and state governors, uttered in public by Margorie Taylor Greene, Republican representative from Georgia, and others of her ilk (check attempted plot to overthrow the Michigan state government). Such conduct is surely illegal and actionable.
These threats to human existence must not be glossed over, but must be met and corrected.
Lynda Copeland
Halifax, May 18
