The Fox interview

The Fox interview with Harris probably didn’t change many minds, but did bring out some questions that had never been put to her, and her response was to immediately talk about Trump, losing her opportunity to sell her vision of “turning the page.” The part that most would agree was damaging is when Harris avoided an apology to parents of murdered children and women by border crossers, all with extensive records. The best Harris could do on two occasions was to say how sorry she was, without an apology, very telling.

— Dennis Cito, Arcadia

The top six problems

I would dearly like to see an interview of Kamala Harris in which she is asked one question: “Telll us what you believe to be the top six problems currently affecting our country (in your order of priority) and what would you do (or attempt to do) to address these problems?” The only constraint would be that she could not mention or refer to the past. That means no Trump, no Biden, no mention of her prior life or experience, etc. And I don’t want to be sent to a website, I want to hear her response in her own words.

— Ray Becker, Arcadia

Finance courses

It is wonderful to see that our state Legislature has passed a law requiring finance courses for those in high school.

When will the same Legislature pass a law requiring finance courses for our elected officials? It is apparent many of them do not understand debt, deficits, interest rates and budgets.

— Gary Velasco, Glendora

Animal shelters

Re: “Animal shelter overcrowding is addressed by officials,” by Anusha Shankar, Oct. 10:

I must say, I was shocked and disappointed that Supervisor Kathryn Barger talked about the overcrowding in county animal shelters without ever mentioning the offer that the Best Friends Animal Society (which also helped launch NKLA) made to Los Angeles Animal Services. The offer was $3 million in staffing grants, placement of trained staff in shelters and other services for the purpose of creating lasting change. Yet, even though the offer would have started saving lives immediately, the offer received absolutely no response! This lack of response is so typical.

So many of us in the animal rescue world have written letters to the supervisors with suggestions and offers of help. If we get any response at all, it’s just a generic “thank you.” Finally, after over 10 weeks, Best Friends withdrew their offer. Julie Castle, CEO of Best Friends, published an open letter to the elected leadership of Los Angeles. Instead, they are reaching out with monetary incentives to animal rescue organizations. I feel that Best Friends’ offer should have been accepted immediately! The animals deserve better! There has been so much written, and studied, and suggested about the problems in the county shelter system. Why did Best Friends’ offer go unanswered??

— Darlene Papa, Sierra Madre

Back in Charlottesville

I appreciate Mr. Mason’s measured, reflective letter of Oct. 13. Taking his advice, I went to Snopes.com. They do make a strong argument that the Democrats are wrong about the Charlottesville quote. If the Democrats are wrong, that’s their bad! My letter did not exempt them from possible error. Calling them purveyors of a monstrous lie, however, also requires proof of intent. Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. I reject the Republican rush to brand Harris and all as brazen liars.

Snopes.com also states that the Unite the Right debacle was a parade ground set up by White supremacists. It was their show! Many Democrats might easily have seen those people as “the other side.” Note that some Republicans also criticized Trump’s statement while some extremists praised it, giving the Democratic interpretation human plausibility. People have jumped to honest conclusions on far less evidence!

If you wish to call Harris a brazen liar, then prove intent. Should you succeed then score yourself a point, but don’t compare it to Trump’s baseless 2020 election whopper and his claim that Springfield’s recent influx of legal Haitian immigrants dine on cats and dogs — two huge lies that have caused major harm.

— Dave E. Matson, Pasadena