Awe, Gee
I am in awe of the Bohemian’s in-depth reporting on critical Sonoma County issues like this one (“Road Home Redux,” Aug. 28). You are not an alternative, but an exemplary and transcendent publication!
Steve Wax
Via Bohemian.com
Sweet Leaf
Thank you, Kellie, for fighting to save the trees. And thank you Tom Gogola and the Bohemian for a great article (“Out on a Limb,” Aug. 21).
Don Scott
Via Bohemian.com
Tax Dodge
This is in reply to Tom Gogola’s “Deplorable Dems” (Open Mic, Aug. 21). He practically states that the reason California has required presidential candidates release their tax returns is simply to stop Donald Trump from putting his name on the ballot. That is and never was the reason.
Trump kept saying he was thinking of releasing his tax returns all the way up to the actual 2016 election, but never did and has fought all attempts since his election.
Sure, he is not legally obliged to release them, but all the other candidates had no legal requirements either, yet they did! We were then able to see just how wealthy—or not—they were. It appeared quite easily that Trump had something to hide. If he didn’t, then why not release them?
How, then, were the voters to know for certain that he was as successful as he claimed?
The New York Times printed Trump’s tax returns for an earlier period and showed that Trump had multiple bankruptcies, and didn’t pay any taxes due to them.
Many books have shown Trump was not a self-made man, as he claimed, as it was his father that bankrolled his success.
Mr. Gogola states that this requirement is to target a candidate, it makes it so that voters will be denied a choice if the candidate decides not to release their tax returns, but it is the candidate that is denying the voter a choice, as it gives the voter a chance to see that they are not hiding anything. That is the correct way to see that this requirement is needed. It has nothing to do with Trump being called a racist, though his very actions and words have shown his true colors.
It has to do with him profiting from his position, which is against all the requirements for being in that office. It is suspicious to many people that his children appear to profit as well. Trump has never been open and honest about his business connections since being elected—that is at the heart of people’s distrust of him.
To call the Californian bill a “candidate-suppression law” is playing in to the hands of Republicans who say that this bill suppresses the “deplorables” votes. That to me is ironic. Has Mr. Gogola seen all the voter-suppression laws that are being implemented in Republican-held states? This is a law that makes it possible to see if a candidate is as truthful as they say.
Impeachment is a separate issue. Again, the bill is not because Trump got elected. It is to see whether a candidate is as successful as they claim.
Tony Galloway
Via Bohemian.com
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