Letters to the editor: LaLota’s vote is not enough

CALVERTON

LaLota’s vote is not enough

I, too, appreciate that Congressman Nick LaLota finally spoke up to support much needed aid to Ukraine as you indicated in last week’s editorial (“Rep. Nick LaLota split from the pack to vote for Ukraine,” April 28). Unfortunately, it is because Long Island voted for four Republican congressmen on Lee Zeldin’s coattails (including George Santos) that we ended up with Speaker Mike Johnson. If it wasn’t for Johnson, LaLota and the gang, Ukraine would have had this desperately needed aid six months earlier and many brave Ukrainians wouldn’t have had to die for lack of weapons and ammunition. 

In addition, if we had a Democratic speaker, the House would have passed the Senate’s bipartisan border bill. That bill would have stopped much of the chaos at our Southern border. Instead they listened to their guy, Donald Trump, who said out loud that he wanted immigration as an issue to campaign on in November and they should kill the bill. It is essential that we defeat Congressman LaLota in November despite his last minute conversion to support Ukraine.

Jerry Silverstein

AQUEBOGUE

This isn’t about free speech on campus

Fifty years ago, I began my journey through Columbia — first at the college where Alexander Hamilton and John Jay studied — and then at the law school where Ruth Bader Ginsburg taught. Although our First Amendment guarantees free speech and the right to protest, it should not protect antisemitic hate and interference with the rights of Jewish students and faculty at this once-hallowed institution. President Shafik must immediately expel the cadre of Hamas supporters that have disrupted life at the university — without prejudice to the entitlement of all concerned to peacefully voice their views.

Ron Hariri

GREENPORT

We are all living through history

Thank you to Mr. Ammirati and everyone involved with taking the Mattituck students to the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum. It is a difficult place to visit because it provides an immersive experience of that most awful day. The exhibits are carefully curated and there are many artifacts to see.

There are 9/11 deniers, just as there are Holocaust deniers. But now that the students have gone to ground zero they know the event and the heartaches are all too real. They cannot be manipulated by charlatans such as Alex Jones. The students have also learned that history is not something consigned to dusty old books. It is something that we are living through.

Last but not least, I was late for work on 9/11 because I voted in a local election. I was supposed to be on the 103rd floor of the South Tower. Please don’t forget to vote!

Hilary North

CUTCHOGUE

The media circus is the real problem

Well, the media’s at it again, which brings two quips to mind. “There’s a sucker born every minute” – P.T. Barnum, and “I don’t care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right” – George M. Cohan.

Leading up to the 2016 presidential election, the media, it seems, couldn’t help itself. Donald Trump was just too much of a clown to ignore. So they entertained the public and sold papers and prime time by devoting 24/7 to reporting about, and laughing at, his sexual escapades, his reputation as a deadbeat, his bankruptcies, his payments to porn stars and Playboy bunnies for their silence, even his creepy claim that if he would date his own daughter, Ivanka, and more. The media managed to get his guy elected President of the United States. And now they’re up to it again. 

This time it’s no longer Trump feeding the news, it’s Trump the alleged criminal. If you’re willing to suspend your belief in hard facts and choose to disbelieve video evidence of a Trump-inspired insurrection on Jan. 6, or Trump’s recorded conversation with the Georgia Secretary of State begging him to invent 11,780 votes to change the election outcome, or Trump’s refusal to return to the government highly sensitive national security documents that he took illegally to Mar-a-Lago, then the media is once again going to give Trump’s campaign legs by reporting everything Trump, 24 hours a day, until they may put him back in the Oval Office.

If that happens, two things will be true. First, Trump was prescient when he declared the media to be the enemy of the people. Second, they spelled his name right both times. 

Michael Levy