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Regarding Urban Journal's "Trump, Mueller, and the Response to the Report": I find the following to be the report's two most important take-aways:
1) Trump's fitness for office is not as much a question of legality as it has become an increasingly acute case of conduct unbecoming at the highest level of government;
2) Therefore, the question is whether we, as a people of these United States, have it in us to summon the socio-political will to correct this malfeasance.
As you put it so well in your piece: "Donald Trump is the duly elected president of the country. Voters gave him his office... [W]hat's best for the country is for American voters to remove him, if we're up to the task."
Indeed, only such an outcome would comprehensively pass the acid test of a government of, by, and for the people. It would ultimately demonstrate how this representative democracy, this republic, is capable of correcting itself while maintaining rule of its own spirit (a wee nod to JQ Adams' warning to us long ago).
ALEXANDER CHOUKAIRI, BRIGHTON
Three years ago, I was shocked to learn that not all workers in New York State have all the rights, protections, and safety nets that I've enjoyed and, quite frankly, taken for granted throughout my 46-year working career. Providing you're not a farmworker, here are some of the rights, protections, and safety nets we enjoy and may take for granted:
• An 8-hour work day;
• Overtime pay of at least time and one half, after we work 8 hours;
• A day of rest each week;
• Unemployment Insurance when we are laid off from work or when we are terminated;
• Employers paying for Workers' Compensation benefits to cover those of us injured during the course of our employment;
• Disability benefits when we are unable to work due to nonjob related sickness or injuries;
• The right to organize and bargain collectively for the purposes of representing and protecting our interests.
Why were farmworkers excluded from these? The current New York State labor law is a relic of the Jim Crow era, when farmworkers of color were excluded from these basic rights.
Please join me by advocating for equality, justice, and the above basic labor-law protections that are included in the New York State Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act. Please email and call your New York Assembly member and senator. To find your Assembly representative and senator and their contact information, visit these websites:
https://nyassembly.gov/mem/search/
https://www.nysenate.gov/find-my-senator
MIKE CLANCY
Regarding Urban Journal's "Still Waiting for Action on the Call to Action": During my years as a city resident, I have rarely met a person who was not acting rationally. My conclusion is that most Rochester adults are acting in what appears to be their best interest.
Then why are Rochester students failing? To me, it is because children are not valued for their education, and their parents are not rewarded by society for forming two-parent families with the encouragement of education as one of their goals.
Monroe County would benefit if we were to agree to serve as a test case for a revised Earned Income Tax Credit – improved to reward two-parent households, to encourage rehab of "the house next door," to discourage babies from having babies and to raise the worth of boys.
JOHN D. FOOTE, ROCHESTER
A few observations regarding the article "A Matter of Trust" and City Council's consideration of a Police Accountability Board:
• Life imposes all sorts of conditions and requirements to maintain a civil society. The Rochester Police Department is being made a scapegoat using the undeserved halo of social-justice rhetoric.
• From my observation, the Rochester Police Department is more reactive than proactive. It responds mostly to calls for service. What to the casual observer might appear to be over-policing is actually policing in the locales where crimes are a daily occurrence, so police respond accordingly.
• The list of organizations in the Police Accountability Board Alliance includes about 12 that are religious in nature. Where in the Bible does it approve resisting a lawful order of the Rochester Police Department?
• Taxpayers should not have to be perennially defensive because parents are not willing or able to control the children they bring into the world.
DAVID HENNELLY, ROCHESTER