Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.
With A’s out, Oakland
can focus on needs
Re: “Oakland A’s: ‘We have a land deal in Las Vegas’” (Page A1, April 21).
To the A’s ownership group, thank you for helping me understand that it is baseball, not your greed-shaped caricature of a Major League Baseball team, that I love.
To the elected leaders of Oakland, you have pronounced that our city has needs and priorities other than professional sports teams. Fair enough. Those sports teams that you said were competing for precious public dollars are gone or soon to be gone. It is now your turn to stand and deliver on what you proclaimed to be the highest priorities of our city — housing, safety, schools, parks, libraries, the arts, thriving commercial areas, etc.
Pastor Jim Hopkins
Oakland
Republicans make sure
that guns are plentiful
Re: “Didn’t get your mail in Oakland? Your letter carrier may have been robbed” (Page A1, April 18).
Welcome to the Wild, Wild West. Are you happy now, members of the NRA?
Our beleaguered Postal Service, already under fire from within thanks to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s attempts to sabotage mail-in voting, is now under fire from real bullets. Criminals are robbing mail trucks at gunpoint here in Alameda County, much like stagecoaches of the Old West. Dedicated employees’ lives are at stake because weapons are so widely available.
What’s next? Amazon, UPS and Fed Ex delivery trucks being robbed? Our society will suffer when basic home delivery is compromised. The GOP refuses to stop the gun violence epidemic in our country, but they will do anything to protect gun profiteers.
Movie gunfights at the O.K. Corral are great, but they’re not OK at our schools, churches and front doors. If we want to stop gun deaths, we need to stop electing Republicans.
Andrew Wise
Fremont
Alameda County needs
DA who will enforce law
Re: “Don’t let ideological attacks derail DA” (Page A6, April 20).
“Ideological” is an adjective that describes political, cultural or religious beliefs. Sandy White’s suggestion in her letter to the editor that voters should ignore their beliefs when District Attorney Pamela Price downgrades felonies and demands assistant district attorneys not charge enhancements such as gang and firearm charges, is beyond understanding.
I believe most people hold beliefs that suspects should be properly charged with whatever laws they break and be properly punished as set by a judge. Real punishment is what keeps them from doing more crimes.
Alameda County deserves accountability, and Price is trying to let criminals avoid punishment. I gladly support a recall. The cost is worth it to keep us safe from these career criminals.
Chris Wood
Pleasanton
Abortion restrictions
violate 8th Amendment
Re: “Abortion bans raise fears inside GOP about backlash in 2024” (Page A5, April 16).
Amendment VIII to the Constitution: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
Those opposed to abortion after six weeks claim to be protecting the potential life of a fertilized egg. The woman (or girl) who aborts a pregnancy must be punished. In some states, a woman getting an abortion after six weeks can be charged with a felony. In South Carolina Republican lawmakers proposed making a woman who gets an abortion eligible for the death penalty.
The male fertilizer suffers no punishment whatsoever. Nothing.
In light of our Eighth Amendment rights, and our Founding Fathers’ wisdom, one wonders how our courts could rule as constitutional that such cruel and unusual punishments be inflicted on a woman and her doctor.
Jeanne Kinkella
San Leandro