Trump meeting Putin, need for a centrist party, right vs left

Trump meeting Putin was a waste

President Donald Trump wasted millions of taxpayer dollars traveling to and meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday in Alaska [“Trump reverses on need for a ceasefire,” News, Aug. 17]. Did any preliminary meetings take place with career professionals to advise Trump about meeting with a trained KGB operative?

After nearly three hours of a closed-door meeting, there was no announcement of even the slightest principles that might lead to a more detailed agreement to end the war in Ukraine.

If Trump indeed had a degree of respect for our troops, he would have asked the commanding officer of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson: I’d like to have dinner with the troops. At least the trip would have not been a total loss.

— James P. Kelly, Huntington

What planet am I on? The U.S. president stood beside a war criminal on our home soil. Vladimir Putin should have been arrested and turned over to The Hague for war crimes. Nothing of substance apparently was said about the Ukraine war.

It seemed like a great photo op for Putin, a pariah greeted by Donald Trump. If Trump is so interested in a Nobel Peace Prize, he should have shackled Putin the minute he got off his plane. This was an embarrassing disgrace for our once great country.

— Mary Alice Samboy, East Meadow

Donald Trump puts down a red carpet for Vladimir Putin, a war criminal, and gets walked all over. He doesn’t take a single question from the media and doesn’t follow through on any sanction threats that he had made. Call it Helsinki 2.0 but worse.

— Richard J. Brenner, Miller Place

Alaska? Washington? They are so out of touch. If they want to really get a ceasefire, meet on the battlefield. See the devastation both sides are suffering. See how unproductive war is. They’re spinning their wheels.

— Steve Birkeland, Bayport

I am a Donald Trump supporter, but once again his summit meeting with Vladimir Putin ended with little if anything accomplished. It seems to me that Putin again played Trump like a fiddle.

— Wayne Mortak, West Babylon

Vladimir Putin claims he wants “peace.” However, in his language it is spelled P-I-E-C-E — of Ukraine. Putin kept bombing Ukraine after his Friday meeting with Donald Trump and bombing again after Monday’s meeting of Trump with European leaders at the White House.

Sure, Putin wants peace. He has a strange way of showing it.

— Bruce L. Hecht, New Hyde Park

It’s time to create a centrist party

The people spoke and elected a man who, up to now, is the most immediate threat to democracy, humane treatment of people, and is vindictive. Before the word “liberal” hits readers’ minds, I am not. Some of his ideas I agree with; it’s the deployment and approach that many people, regardless of politics, should vehemently disagree with.

It is time to move on from the MAGA far right and woke far left. It is time for a centrist party that combines the good things from the prior Democratic and Republican parties that will unite our country, apply an equitable rule of law, and help those people who cannot help themselves. We have to consider humanity in our application of policies and laws.

America first, of course. Building it here in America is fine, but build the factories quickly and hire qualified or trained people to make products at a fair market price. Get rid of the unqualified people who run our government and bring in qualified people to run agencies, committees and administer programs.

Do read “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” — we are headed in that direction.

— Joel Moskowitz, Plainview

Right doesn’t hate left — just look closer

A reader accuses the right of “hatred” for the left by seeming to misinterpret what the right proposes for America [“2 parties hate each other’s vision for U.S.,” Letters, Aug. 15]. He wrote that the overturning of Roe v. Wade “means” the right hates that women have control over their bodies. The right, to the contrary, is much in favor of that but hates the killing of the innocent.

The outlawing of diversity, equity and inclusion is so that all ethnicities have a fair opportunity, without favoring one ethnicity over another, as in the left’s identity politics. The right does not hate the civil and criminal justice system by calling out a “hoax” like the Russia investigation.

New York, controlled by Democrats, has tied the hands of law enforcement making this state unsafe via the cashless bail system.

Deporting immigrants who entered this country without legal permission is far from reckless. The acts of violence do not contribute to our society. Redistricting electoral maps? Both political parties engage in that. That is not owned by the right.

— Charles Shields, Freeport