Michael Cohen and rats | Letters to the editor, Sept. 1, 2018

Michael Cohen and talk of rats

They brought down the heads of the five families of the Mafia in the 1980s with the following tactics: Guliani’s federal investigators got informants (who were guilty of crimes themselves) to flip and reveal who and what they should really be looking at. This lead to wiretaps and that lead to the paper trail exposing the criminal conspiracy. Those taped conversations could not be refuted by the mob’s lawyers, and they went to jail for life. To quote one of those mob lawyers, “How to you deny it’s your client, when it’s his voice on tape directing criminal activities?” Mueller got Gotti the same way in the early ‘90’s with Sammy “The Bull’s” testimony, backed by wiretaps and paper trails. They may be “rats,” but it doesn’t make the leader of the criminal activity any less guilty, Mr. President.

Government is not an auto shop

I was reading a letter to the editor that compares the running the government to running of an auto parts store. The writer could not have been more wrong. Our founders created our government with three overlapping branches so that no one could become a dictator. All branches have to pay heed to the other branches. Many of the problems coming out of the White House have to deal with someone who acts like a dictator because of his experience in private business. In private industry we have a lot of dictators, people who control what their employees wear, what kind of medicines they can take, to forcing people to attend the political rallies of their favored politician. That is not how government works. The president tells the congressman to jump and then the congressman tells the president that “I do not work for you, I work for the people of my district. If you want something done, then do something for them.” Compromise is the life’s blood of government work. We made a mistake in voting in a person with no experience in government. The goal of good government is that everyone gets a voice, not just one person.

Immigrants helped make America

The Trump administration has repeatedly seized on crimes committed by undocumented immigrants as a way to push immigration policies and Trump’s wall. Tweet from U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa said, “Every victim would be alive today if we enforced our immigration laws.” Mollie Tibbett’s aunt, Billie Jo Caldewood, speaking for herself, said, “Her death shouldn’t be used for political leverage.” She also said that “Evil comes in every color.” Research has found that violent crimes appear to fall when more immigrants are living in a community illegally. The vast majority of people that move illegally into the U.S. are not bad people. The immigrants contribute to the U.S. They work hard for our families and their families. We need to remember that our nation was built on the people of all race, religions, ethnic backgrounds and nationalities.

Trump loses latest labor fight

The president has lost another executive order court case. The latest was an attempt to deunionize federal employees. The ruling, by U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in Washington, states: “While the president has the authority to issue executive orders that carry the force of law with respect to federal labor relations, no such orders can operate to eviscerate the right to bargain collectively as envisioned” in the federal labor-management relations statute. Under the statute, she added, “the collective bargaining process is not a cutthroat death match.” Under the proposed orders, for example, a grievant being sexually harassed would have to wait until after work to meet with a shop steward, or an employee upon discovering a shortage in pay on Friday would have to wait until Monday to file a grievance. Another part of the executive order would have limited the types of workplace issues that the union can negotiate. Unions typically bargain over wages, health benefits, pensions and workplace conditions. The right to bargain collectively with an employer is a fundamental right under federal law. Caesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta ensured that farm workers have it, nurses, safety officers and federal employees have it, too.

This story was originally published September 1, 2018 at 6:30 AM.