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PG&E profits built on
ratepayers’ backs
Re: “PG&E reports profit of $2B-plus” (Page A1, Feb. 14).
How can PG&E be allowed to post billions of dollars in profit year after year to pay shareholders yet have rate increases repeatedly approved by the PUC? Over the last few years the price of energy in all of our homes and businesses has continually risen, yet PG&E shareholders continue to be paid excessive dividends.
What is wrong with the PUC? PG&E is a monopoly that profits on the backs of the public, yet rate increase after rate increase is approved. Can someone stop the bleeding?
Geoffrey Wright
San Jose
Trump and Musk are
working for themselves
The Mercury News editorial cartoon said it all on Feb. 14. Donald Trump is shown engorging himself with the three branches of government, shredding them into pieces and spewing them back out, with no thought of order or replacement.
One can only surmise that Trump and Elon Musk together are destroying legitimate departments for their personal gain in order to reduce their taxes and those of other billionaires. Who knows what other plans they envision? They show no thought of the serious consequences faced by the hundreds of thousands of citizens who benefited from these departments or the thousands who lost their jobs and will struggle without them.
Susan Dillon
Morgan Hill
We must speak up in
presence of bigotry
When we just shake our heads and walk away from bigotry and extremism, we condone it and empower those who promote it.
Such acts cannot be tolerated. They must be met with equal and resounding words and acts of condemnation. Everyone must stand up and speak out against such behaviors. Every false statement must be confronted with the truth. That’s our responsibility, a requirement of the citizenry as provided in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We must gather and defy a growing movement of zealotry that threatens credibility, our democracy and our fate as a country.
To walk away and do nothing is to give away our hard-won freedom and liberty. Our forefathers never shook their heads or walked away nor can we.
Mark Grzan
Morgan Hill
Faith remains a light
in dark times
These are dark days on either side of the political aisle. However, there are some rays of hope.
Look around you at the beautiful gifts of nature. Write down each day something you are thankful for. Look up.
My faith means more to me than anything. The world is not just the news. It is so much more.
Jane Parks-McKay
Santa Cruz
Transgender deletion
shows short memory
Re: “Protesters rally against deletion of ‘Transgender’ on Stonewall website” (Page A10, Feb. 16).
I found the New York Times article in the Feb. 16 Mercury News to be an example of a lack of historical memory.
Nowhere was it indicated that the Stonewall Bar patrons who led the protest against police repression were drag queens, many of whom today would be considered transgender.
Who says that irony is dead?
Jonathan Karpf
San Jose
Technology isn’t there
for U.S. ‘Iron Dome’
Re: “‘Iron Dome’ must succeed where ‘Star Wars’ failed” (Page A9, Feb. 16).
This article is baloney. I worked on the Star Wars missile defense system for years. I worked on high-powered missile defense lasers for years. The author has no idea of the technical problems with using high-power lasers to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.
This is not the magic of a ray gun to zap an incoming missile in a fraction of a second, with the ability to engage large numbers of targets in a few seconds. This technology doesn’t exist. The Israeli Iron Dome works but was recently overcome through a very simple tactic, permitting missile strikes on sites in Israel, a far smaller area to protect than the United States.
The cost of a U.S. system like Iron Dome would be enormous, at least hundreds of billions of dollars, and would not work, but would provide enormous profits to the defense contractors on the project.
Dr. David Lewis
Mountain View