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Podcast shows Newsom
is out of step with state
Re: “Newsom opposes trans athletes in women’s sports” (Page A1, March 7).
While MAGA believers sabotage government services and steal our data, Gov. Newsom hosted one of them on his podcast. Worse, he demonized our trans siblings by agreeing to the nonexistent link between trans athletes and problems in women’s sports.
For shame, Gov. Newsom. Stop spending your time pandering to known bad actors and positioning yourself for the 2028 race. Instead, do your job protecting us from MAGA.
Baby Djojonegoro
Oakland
Newsom exposes
his lack of substance
Re: “Newsom opposes trans athletes in women’s sports” (Page A1, March 7).
The action by Gavin Newsom criticizing trans athletes in women’s sports just confirms that he is nothing more than a smooth-talking pretty boy who has no substance.
He showed that previously with his disdain for his own COVID mask-mandate order by going maskless and being around a large, maskless crowd of his rich buddies at The French Laundry, with his kids going maskless at school, and with his mandate for selling only electric cars by 2035, even though there is almost no infrastructure for charging EVs in our state. Not to mention his not caring that this EV order will close every new car dealership in the state.
A thoughtless, self-centered person with no substance: That is Gavin Newsom in a nutshell.
Rocky Fort
San Lorenzo
Newsom is talking
his way out of politics
Re: “Newsom opposes trans athletes in women’s sports” (Page A1, March 7).
Gov. Newsom immersed himself in the MAGA world of Charlie Kirk, where he stated that he is against transgender sports. Kirk was just thrilled.
Newsom just shot the LGBTQ+ community in the heart — a massive betrayal to many Californians. This is unless he is playing head games with the opposition. Perhaps he hasn’t sold his soul but is infiltrating the “party.”
Either way, Newsom is on his way out, and that’s a good thing.
Marlene Lerner-Bigley
Martinez
California’s recycling
program falling apart
Anyone can tell that California’s bottle and can recycling deposit program is a massive failure. According to one reliable source, the amount of unclaimed money sitting in the state’s beverage container fund is more than $800 million as of 2023.
Now, it is getting an order of magnitude worse. Until recently, many stores (in Pleasant Hill, for example) that collect beverage container deposits on sales had to accept returns and pay back the deposit.
Now, your only local option in most cases will be an unattended reverse vending machine from Olyns. These ad-infested machines often fill up, they require a smartphone app to track you, and your refund can only go to a PayPal account or credit card.
How many more bottles and cans will end up in the landfill or gutter now?
Mark Bole
Walnut Creek
Trump fails character
test; GOP shrugs
Donald Trump is mendacious (a liar), adulterous (a serial womanizer), and a convicted felon. Yet, nearly half the country thinks he’s OK.
So much for valuing the content of one’s character, since he clearly has none.
Richard Ackerman
Castro Valley
Voters will be heard
in 2026 midterms
Do you want the special education needs of your child neglected because the Department of Education is being eliminated?
Do you want the Department of Veterans Affairs dismantled so that servicemen and women who gave their lives and limbs to preserve America and democracy are overlooked?
Do you want to fear that your Social Security benefits may cease because DOGE is gutting the Social Security Administration?
You are the answer. Only you can preserve America for everyone, not just the few. Prepare for the mid-term elections in November 2026 and make your voice heard.
Joanie Shicoff
Martinez
Cut off aid to Israel’s
slaughter in Gaza
Re: “Supply cutoff to Gaza sends prices soaring, aid groups scrambling” (Page A4, March 6).
It’s hard to see Israel as a victim or as playing defense when it is Israel that controls all food, medical supplies and commerce into Gaza and cuts them off. Or when Israel has killed nearly 50,000 Palestinians, mostly innocent women and children. Or knowing Israel holds over 9,000 Palestinians hostage (per B’Tselem) mostly without charge.
Why do we effusively fund this offense, invasion, decimation and killing of innocents without conditions, not even to follow the law, while we demand Ukraine pay us back for their actual defense?
It’s time to cut off weapons to Israel and for Israel to pay us back and fund the reconstruction of the sovereign land it illegally occupied, then destroyed and is now starving to death.
Elizabeth Fisher
Pleasant Hill