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LETTERS for the Oct. 7 issue

By Staff | Oct 8, 2021

Support the Freedom to Vote Act

Aloha, I am a Maui County voting resident.

Our senators must do everything they can to pass the Freedom to Vote Act. The Freedom to Vote Act sets national standards for us to safely and freely cast our ballots, ensure every vote is counted and elect people who will deliver for us.

Our senators need to deliver the Freedom to Vote Act to the American people, and to do that, they need to fix the Jim Crow filibuster that is blocking progress of this overwhelmingly popular and urgently needed legislation.

Our senators must do everything they can to pass the Freedom to Vote Act, including fixing the filibuster, to realize the promise of democracy for all.

LISA SEIKAI DARCY

Why is the EPA releasing genetically engineered mosquitos?

I’m local and wanted you to see this, as it’s an issue I care about.

These are the final days for citizens to weigh in with the Environmental Protection Agency on a release of genetically engineered (GE) mosquitoes, which can pave the way for a national rollout.

The first release was in the Florida Keys in May this year. But before releasing the test results, the biotech firm Oxitec has petitioned for a two-year extension there and further releases in 12 unnamed California counties.

There has been a strong public outcry, and rightly so. Previous trials in Brazil and Cayman Islands raised serious questions.

Oxitec failed to provide any data to demonstrate that their GE mosquitoes reduce mosquito-borne Zika, dengue, and Chikungunya diseases, as intended.

Past releases permanently altered the insect’s gene pool, creating hybrid GE/native mosquitoes with unknown consequences. There has been insufficient consideration to the potential impact of GE mosquitoes on human health and the food chain.

The Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT) believes that the potential risks and benefits have not been thoroughly evaluated.

Previous Oxitec trials raised serious issues. The most recent trial in the Cayman Islands was discontinued after the first year; the government cited cost-benefit issues but freedom of information requests showed that the release was a failure.

For more information, please go to https://protectnaturenow.com/pdfviewer/press-release-controversial-genetically-engineered-mosquitoes-gear-up-for-wider-u-s-release/.

JOANNA WEBER, Hawaii County

Trump can’t keep his mouth shut

“What an embarrassment we are suffering because we don’t have the genius of a Robert E. Lee!” – Donald J. Trump (Sept. 8, 2021)

As an expert on being a blithering idiotic embarrassment, the self-declared “very stable genius” and former social media influencer Donald Trump loves slavery and the lost cause of Robert E. Lee’s defeated Confederacy so much, he just can’t keep his filthy, ignorant mouth shut for once! Best of luck running for president in 2024, fool.

And as a notoriously corrupt and bankrupted businessman and legendary tax cheat — who is infamous not only for his unparalleled incompetence but also for repeatedly refusing to pay his employees the wages they are legally entitled to — the Tangerine Tyrant Trump knows a thing or two about forcing contractors and laborers to work for him without being paid for their labor.

It’s time to make traitor Trump pay for his crimes. Does any American who is not currently in a medically-induced COVID-19 coma on a ventilator in a Republican-controlled state have any doubt whatsoever that diabolical Donald Trump is a neo-Confederate numbskull career criminal who belongs in Rikers Island Prison, instead of in his truly tacky country club in Palm Beach, Florida?

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland needs to get a move on and slap the cuffs on Trump — ASAP!

JAKE PICKERING, Arcata, California

Close the tax loophole

The multi-trillion-dollar budget reconciliation bill moving through Congress represents an enormous opportunity to invest in unmet human and environmental needs. It’s also the best chance we have to close loopholes that help the wealthy avoid their fair share of taxes.

One of the most extreme is the so-called “carried interest” loophole. This allows wealthy private equity, real estate and hedge fund managers to claim the fees they receive for their services as capital gains, which are taxed at a rate of just 23.8 percent, instead of the top marginal income tax rate of 37 percent.

This perverse tax break for the rich is particularly galling for workers whose lives have been devastated by private equity pillaging.

Private equity pillaging has only escalated under the pandemic, according to Ricardo Valadez of Americans for Financial Reform. “In sector after sector, private equity owned companies have been responsible for some of the most harmful business practices in the country,” Valadez said. And while they pushed up rents and slashed jobs, private equity firms pocketed $5 billion in federal COVID-19 relief, he pointed out.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren has introduced a bill, the Stop Wall Street Looting Act, aimed at reining in private equity abuses. Its provisions include making private equity executives legally liable for the damage they cause to workers and communities and protecting workers’ rights to severance pay if their employer goes bankrupt.

The current budget negotiations offer the opportunity to enact one piece of the Stop Wall Street Looting Act: closing the carried interest loophole.

With enough public pressure, this proposal, which would generate an estimated $63 billion over a decade, could make it into the final bill.

BRIAN WAKAMO, Otherwords.org