To the Editor:
Re “When Catastrophe Hits, Trump Is the Blamer in Chief” (On Politics e-newsletter, nytimes.com, Jan. 10):
Confronted with probably the most devastating wildfires in U.S. historical past — after tens of 1000’s of Individuals have misplaced their properties and full communities have been diminished to ash — the president-elect’s response is to assault and blame with false accusations: “No water within the hearth hydrants, no cash in FEMA. That is what Joe Biden is leaving me. Thanks Joe!”
The place is the compassion? The place is even the faintest recognition of human struggling? As an alternative of uniting the nation within the face of this tragedy, we get callous deflection and divisive rhetoric. Disasters demand solidarity, not scapegoating.
What sort of authorities, devoid of empathy, decency and even a shred of ethical integrity, is poised to take the reins and imperil not simply disaster-stricken Individuals however the very soul of our nation?
David Sanders
New York
To the Editor:
The unprecedented firestorm that rages in Los Angeles isn’t just a fireplace. It’s a full-fledged pure catastrophe. It has struck with hurricane-force winds and already consumed 60 sq. miles of the county. With no less than two dozen lifeless and 1000’s of properties, enterprise and buildings destroyed, its value will exceed that of many hurricanes.
But our newly elected federal officers select to play petty political blame video games as a substitute of addressing the existential menace of the worldwide local weather disaster. Thus, for the subsequent 4 years the burden of preserving a livable local weather falls on our states, communities and also you.
States and communities should cut back climate-altering air pollution and supply the infrastructure to weatherproof our communities. We residents can cut back our carbon footprint by shopping for hybrid and electrical autos, switching home equipment from fuel to electrical, and putting in photo voltaic panels to cut back the price of electrical energy and the demand for big polluting mills.
Residents, the newly elected officers have already failed you. The duty to cross a livable setting on to your heirs now rests in your arms.
Clyde Physician
Palm Springs, Calif.
To the Editor:
As I survey the images of fireplace injury in Los Angeles, I instantly started to consider the work power it might take to rebuild. One factor is for certain: Building jobs will likely be in nice demand as owners and companies begin to rebuild.
If I have been President-elect Donald Trump, I might put a direct halt to his deportation plans apart from essentially the most excessive circumstances. California contractors will want each carpenter, electrician and stone mason that they’ll discover. Deporting immigrant staff is the worst factor that Mr. Trump might do.
Andrew L. Norton
Dallas
To the Editor:
Re “As L.A.’s Inferno Started, Its Mayor Was Not in City” (entrance web page, Jan. 13):
I’m shocked to see The Instances becoming a member of within the stampede to level the finger at elected leaders like our mayor, Karen Bass, for the devastating fires that also burn within the hills close to my residence.
Listed below are the information on the bottom in Los Angeles: 2024 was the most popular 12 months on document. We dwell on land that’s nearly a desert. And it has barely rained since February.
None of that is the fault of anyone individual. It’s simply the truth earlier than us. Our planet will get hotter by the 12 months and wildfires, together with different excessive climate occasions, will proceed to develop extra harmful till we discover a technique to dwell in larger concord with the world round us.
Whereas it could really feel safer to search for scapegoats than to acknowledge simply how weak all of us are to the forces of nature, any accounting of the fires that doesn’t start and finish with local weather change as the first trigger will merely go away the door large open to extra of the identical.
Ian Cooper
Los Angeles
To the Editor:
If a overseas adversary or terrorist group bombed and destroyed what the Los Angeles fires have wrought, what can be our response? Absolutely a monumentally costly and big technique to try to conquer the foe and its future harmful energy.
Now, local weather change is the enemy intensifying limitlessly, whereas there’s blithe denial about it. In the meantime our army consumes an enormous share of our nationwide wealth — for “simply in case” assaults. And we refuse to allocate vital assets to fight the all-too-real enemy destroying us in entrance of our eyes. How is that this absurdity fathomable?
Anya Cordell
Evanston, In poor health.
Teflon Don
To the Editor:
Re “With Sentence, Trump Will Now Be First Felon to Occupy Oval Workplace” (entrance web page, Jan. 11):
Donald Trump is the luckiest individual on the earth. Whereas John Gotti was the Teflon Don, he ultimately went to jail.
Mr. Trump is really Teflon Don. No jail, no something for his felony conviction. Dismissal of his federal circumstances. Supreme Courtroom immunity. Infinite funds, primarily from gullible followers, to attraction, and attraction, and attraction.
Nobody cares about any outrageous feedback he could make, whereas comparable feedback by others might derail their political careers. And regardless of his immature whining, his followers contemplate him to be powerful. What a fortunate man.
To the Editor:
I hope individuals received’t learn the transferring article “Retaining Schizophrenia at Bay” (Science Instances, Dec. 31) and assume that early intervention by some means modifies the arc of this lifelong neurological dysfunction, though the article acknowledges that some research solid doubt about its long-term advantages.
There is no such thing as a outrunning schizophrenia. The previous few paragraphs make clear how life goes within the absence of intensive, lifelong social and medicine monitoring companies.
Within the U.S., with our pathetically backward views of mind problems, our feeble medical care system and our idiotic “pull your self up by your bootstraps” Puritanism, I genuinely worry for the younger man profiled within the article. In another international locations, the wants of disabled persons are addressed extra thoughtfully.
The U.S. mannequin for assisted residing might be used to offer care, as we do for aged individuals who produce other neurological problems. It’s a damaged mannequin as a result of it’s profit-based and out there solely to rich seniors.
But when we actually assess what taxpayers pay for the unscientific, fragmented and legally constrained techniques we now use to handle psychosis problems, together with the enormously costly prices for police interventions, psychiatric groups usually made impotent by authorized constraints, emergency room visits, long-term psychiatric hospitalizations, homelessness and incarceration, publicly funded assisted residing is likely to be an actual discount.
Catherine Moné
Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.
