Letters for July 19, 2018

Heritage celebrated

Hey, Trump voters. Don’t wet yer pants! You do not need to be afraid of Guatemalan babies. They will not hurt you, nor will their mothers, who are frantic because your government took their children. And the stunning thing is: Trump’s continued support from you and the cowardly congressional Republicans. Any of those guys got any guts? They are dismantling our country. They are denigrating the press, truth, facts, the courts, the FBI, CIA, Trump’s own appointees (that’s pretty funny).

We are on the path to becoming a s---hole country. Oh, by the way, the Mueller investigation has got one of Trump’s pals in jail, three guilty pleas from big shots in his election team and at least 12 indictments. Sounds like a banana republic to me.

Don McKechnie

Sparks

Heritage denied

Re “Adam Laxalt and the law” (cover story, July 5):

Great article on Adam Laxalt. As University of Nevada, Reno poli sci students in the late ’60s we commonly referred to Sen. Paul Laxalt as “Pouty Paul.”

What disturbs me most about Adam Laxalt, given his legacy as the grandkid of an immigrant family from the Basque country, is his vicious attacks on immigrants now as witnessed by his opposition to DACA and the DAPA program as well. They would have protected parents of U.S. citizens from imminent deportation and allowed them to work here legally to support their American families. He joined the two lawsuits with 16 other white supremacist state attorneys general to prevent these programs from becoming law.

By the stroke of his pen, Obama saved almost 800,000 children from deportation, most of whom can now support themselves and their families, go to school, get a degree, etc.

I am proud of the fact most of my fellow graduates at UNR remain opposed to Pouty Paul and his grandchild’s efforts to deprive current immigrants of the same rights that he and his family found when they arrived in our country.

Hopefully, the voters will send this latest version of the Laxalt family to the ash heap of history in Nevada.

John Carrico

Reno

Musky dispute

A couple of months ago, you published my long missive regarding my skepticism of EV technology being the panacea for a carbon-free future, and in that missive I prefaced by saying that Elon Musk is one of my technological icons.

Well, I’m probably as horrified as any rational and mature person would be in the wake of Musk calling one of the Brits who was instrumental in rescuing those boys from that flooded cave in Thailand last week a “pedophile.” I’m stunned that Musk could be so childish because his “submarine” was rejected on valid grounds in the course of that rescue operation. It wasn’t personal. Nobody had a grudge against Musk. It was simply of matter of what would work and what wouldn’t work in the subterranean landscape.

As a prolific inventor myself (who has actually done all the design and engineering work myself before getting other experts involved), I’ve had some of my “babies” rejected by various industries, and it doesn’t feel good, especially when I think they just don’t “get it,” but as a rational and mature man I don’t go on a tirade and start maligning people because my inventor’s ego has been tweaked. In private, I’ve said things like, “Well, they are idiots,” but to call a man who was trying to rescue a bunch of trapped kids a “pedophile” because that man rejected your submarine is monstrous.

Now the Brit is threatening to sue Musk for defamation, and I hope he does. In the meantime, Musk’s stock holders and board members should remove him from his CEO position just as others have been booted out of the companies they founded for making racist or sexist comments.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander! Musk has fallen from the pedestal I had him on, and I will never buy any Musk product.

Jeffrey Middlebrook

Truckee