SAVE Act seeks to undermine our rights
Women won the right to vote in 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The suffragist movement, which fought for voting rights for more than 70 years, continued its work by forming the League of Women Voters. Our local League was born five years later.
For more than 100 years, the League’s mission has been to encourage, inform and assist citizens in registering to vote and exercising their right to vote; and bring voters nonpartisan, factual, information so they can make informed choices.
Now, there is a concerted effort to undermine the rights we fought for so hard and for so long.
The so-called SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) would make it more difficult to register to vote, make it harder for voters to access nonpartisan, fact-based information, and create roadblocks to the act of voting.
Among the act’s proposals are voter ID requirements that make it difficult for married women who took their spouse’s name to register to vote because their last names would not match the one on their birth certificates.
As Congress debates the act, we must tell our representatives that obstacles to exercising our right to vote are unacceptable.
Because whether the act passes in its entirety, in pieces, or not at all, the threat to voting rights is clear: The act’s proposals are now part of the conversation, a step toward normalizing the erosion of citizens’ right to vote.
Joan Fucillo
Glenville
The writer is Voter Services Chair LWV, Schenectady.
Special interests are co-opting Christianity
This moderate independent can’t help but admire the deft management of the president by his public relations team.
His appearances at a prize fight, Super Bowl and Daytona 500 were brilliant strategies to strengthen his connection with grassroots Americans. Can you imagine Harris, Hochul, Schumer and Warren being in attendance?
Democrats douse themselves with haughtiness and perfume before mingling with the masses and fret over their inability to appeal to people on the street.
That being said, I’m appalled by the prominent display of the Christian cross adorning the bosoms of polished self-righteous models of the Aryan race occupying high-profile positions.
I’m dismayed that Christians don’t appreciate the flagrant manipulations of their religion by cynical predatory special interests.
The Republicans appear fixated upon reviving the Christian customs of plundering riches, spreading disease and eradicating and subjugating indigenous peoples, while giving free rein to The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse.
I challenge every self-proclaimed Christian to swallow their vitriol and cast their eyes upon the pews as they bear silent witness to the future of Christianity in America.
I advise Jew and Muslim alike to refrain from exalting in smug validation of your beliefs and practices. Demons afflicting mortals know no theological boundaries.
Please explain Mother Natures’ unrelenting assault on the Bible Belt. Is it payback for mortals usurping His (Her) power?
Mark Rahn
Scotia
Thoughts on how to improve government
My thoughts:
All elected officials should lose the party designation upon election. They should become American officials, not Democrat or Republican officials.
All elected officials should vote in the way that would be best for their constituents. There should be no party-line votes.
All elected officials should be limited to two terms.
All items should be voted on individually. There should be no attached items, as they take away one’s ability to vote each item separately.
All votes should be private so officials can truly vote for what they believe is best for all the constituents they represent.
All votes should be decided by simple majority.
We should do away with the Electoral College. There should be no gerrymandering allowed.
We should do away with the filibuster.
All signed executive orders should be approved by Congress before being put into action.
No one holding an American job should be able to be fired by anyone other than their immediate boss.
No one should be allowed to restrict entrance to any public building that they were not given authority to do by the elected official in charge of said building.
No one should be allowed access to any government data or programs without the signed approval of the immediate elected official responsible for those data or programs.
Richard J. Van Patten, Sr.
Schenectady
Library has reduced access to materials
Once again, the Schenectady County Public Library’s foolish decision to “go-it-alone” has caused the residents of Schenectady County to have less access to reading and listening resources.
Leaving the Joint Automation (JA) project reduced our access to millions of books in surrounding libraries.
Now our access to ebooks and audiobooks has been restricted.
The Schenectady Library has chosen to develop its own collection of Overdrive/Libby ebooks and audiobooks.
This collection of 2,000 titles is dwarfed by e-resources available through a cooperative arrangement among several of area library systems: Mohawk Valley Library System (MVLS), Southern Adirondack Library System (SALS), Upper Hudson Library System and Mid-Hudson Library System.
Together these four library systems include nearly 100,000 titles.
Fortunately, users with an existing Schenectady library card borrow ebooks and audiobooks from these four library systems.
However, new Schenectady Library borrowers cannot borrow these e-materials. They must visit an MVLS or participating SALS library and get a library card from one of those libraries.
Since the Schenectady Library is not part of the cooperative agreement among these library systems, Schenectady Library users may be denied access to their e-materials sometime in the future.
New York state residents can also borrow ebooks and audiobooks with Libby/Overdrive from these libraries: New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library and Queens Public Library.
The number of available titles range from 150,000 to over 300,000 at these libraries.
It is easy to get a library card from these libraries by registering online at one or all the libraries.
David Gosda
Niskayuna
Can’t run government like a business. It’s not
In business, the bottom line is everything. Profit and loss determine success or failure, and the obligation is to shareholders.
But government is not a business, and applying a corporate mindset to governance is not only misguided, it’s dangerous.
Donald Trump is trying to run the government like a business. His wrecking-ball approach prioritizes short-term financial gains over long-term national stability; it treats public services as cost centers to be slashed rather than as essential functions of a healthy democracy.
In business, cutting jobs and reducing expenses can boost profits. In government, it weakens the very foundation of society. Infrastructure, healthcare, national defense — these are not revenue-generating enterprises. Their value cannot be measured in dollars alone.
A government’s role is to serve its people, not to turn a profit. Unlike a business, which can abandon unprofitable ventures, a government cannot ignore its duty to education, public safety or disaster relief simply because they are costly.
Treating the country like a corporation leads to policies that prioritize tax cuts for the wealthy while neglecting the needs of the working class. It promotes the idea that those who can’t “pay their way” are expendable.
Running a nation requires a commitment to people over profits. The measure of success should not be a balance sheet, but the well-being of its citizens. The government’s job is not to make money, it’s to protect and uplift its people. That is the bottom line we should care about.
James Gonda
Schenectady
A two-state solution is not the only option
People keep advocating the “two-state solution” as the only option for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Do these individuals not understand that Palestinian leaders have rejected the two-state solution since 1947?
In 1947, after the British withdrew from the region, UN Resolution 181 proposed to divide Palestine into an Arab state and Jewish state.
The Resolution was accepted by the Jewish side but rejected by the Arab side. Then, in 1948, after the UN voted to grant Israel statehood, Israel was attacked by units of the Arab Liberation Army composed of volunteers from Palestine and neighboring Arab countries.
The Jewish forces prevailed and captured land that would have been part of the proposed Arab State. Arab Palestinians have continued their hostilities toward Israel ever since.
The United States has attempted to broker a two-state solution several times during the intervening years, however Palestinian leaders refused to endorse such a solution on every occasion.
In spite of the continued attacks by Palestinian forces, Israelis favored a two-state solution for many years. A Gallup poll in 2012, showed that the two-state solution had 61% support among Israelis, with only 30% opposed. However, a Gallup poll conducted soon after the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, indicated that only 25% of Israelis supported the solution while 65% were opposed to it.
Unfortunately, the “two-state solution” became a chimera when Hamas demonstrated that it preferred the destruction of Gaza to peace with Israel.
Don Steiner
Silver Spring, MD
(formerly of Niskayuna)
Government isn’t to serve only the rich
Did anybody vote for Elon Musk?
The world’s richest man is laying waste to our government, ousting federal employees and collecting your personal financial information.
Whatever your political leanings, pay attention to what Trump and Musk are doing. It impacts us all.
If you eat fruits and vegetables, put gas in your car or need lumber, Trump’s tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada will raise those prices. The deportation of migrant workers spells disaster for American agriculture. Who will pick the crops? Egg prices are skyrocketing, and the spread of bird flu will make that worse.
Tens of thousands of federal employees have been fired without cause. We are losing the people who safeguard our food, air and water, our bank accounts, air travel, and nuclear weapons.
We are losing those who fight forest fires, develop new cancer treatments, maintain national parks and help veterans with PTSD. Veterans! Nearly 30% of the federal workforce is veterans. But out they go, 1,000 of them from the Department of Veterans Affairs alone.
If they cut Medicaid, perhaps you or someone dear to you will face a disastrous loss of health care.
And who knows what will happen now that Musk has our Social Security records.
What is the point of these heartless, draconian cuts? To ensure that the rich can make more money, unfettered by regulations, and pay little or no tax. It’s government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.
Is this what you voted for?
Kathryn Gallien
Saratoga Springs
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