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Bradley Anderson (letters September 13, 2015) offers a different take on the Obama legacy, but in his recap, omitted the most egregious of Obama’s many faults. Upon his original election, Obama was handed the ball on the mortgage crisis whereupon he dropped it with a resounding thud and never recovered, as evidenced by the midterms. In 2008, millions of Americans were under actual financial attack by the country’s banks. Financial institutions that had peddled millions of subprime mortgages and then profited greatly by packaging them as securities, were now foreclosing on those very homeowners who were caught short by the housing meltdown. Obama, through his power of presidential fiat, plus the Fed’s influence over the commercial banks, could have engineered a total moratorium on foreclosures, saving millions of ordinary Americans from financial ruin. The financial industry, meanwhile, should have been left to work out a solution to the problems they, themselves, had caused. Obama could have done something meaningful and timely for the country, but he did not. We will never know how the recession would have shaped up if there had been a moratorium. We’ll never know, but neither will we forget.

Bradley Anderson (letters September 13, 2015) offers a different take on the Obama legacy, but in his recap, omitted the most egregious of Obama’s many faults. Upon his original election, Obama was handed the ball on the mortgage crisis whereupon he dropped it with a resounding thud and never recovered, as evidenced by the midterms. In 2008, millions of Americans were under actual financial attack by the country’s banks. Financial institutions that had peddled millions of subprime mortgages and then profited greatly by packaging them as securities, were now foreclosing on those very homeowners who were caught short by the housing meltdown. Obama, through his power of presidential fiat, plus the Fed’s influence over the commercial banks, could have engineered a total moratorium on foreclosures, saving millions of ordinary Americans from financial ruin. The financial industry, meanwhile, should have been left to work out a solution to the problems they, themselves, had caused. Obama could have done something meaningful and timely for the country, but he did not. We will never know how the recession would have shaped up if there had been a moratorium. We’ll never know, but neither will we forget.

Hate is not natural. Love is, but not hate . That Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples was not only refusing to do her job, the one she is paid for. She was also officially expressing the hate she was most likely taught from childhood. And, since it is no longer fashionable to express these strongly-held feelings through Jim Crow, she used her power as a government official to target same-sex couples. But government officials, specifically those in a position to express their religious beliefs officially, should not be allowed to to do so. They should be required to agree in advance of employment, that they will not allow their personal beliefs to interfere with the conduct of their official duties. Any violation should result in immediate termination.

Hate is not natural. Love is, but not hate . That Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples was not only refusing to do her job, the one she is paid for. She was also officially expressing the hate she was most likely taught from childhood. And, since it is no longer fashionable to express these strongly-held feelings through Jim Crow, she used her power as a government official to target same-sex couples. But government officials, specifically those in a position to express their religious beliefs officially, should not be allowed to to do so. They should be required to agree in advance of employment, that they will not allow their personal beliefs to interfere with the conduct of their official duties. Any violation should result in immediate termination.

Ronald Reagan was elected on a platform with two planks: 1. Government is bad, even evil, and 2. That taxes are way too high. Republicans, in their adoration for all things Reagan, have been doing their best to prove him right on the first plank. The leaders of both houses of Congress, McConnell and Boehner, have done their level best to see to it that government, indeed, is bad. Under Republican control, government has been about as bad as you can get. It doesn’t do anything! Taxes, the dues we pay as citizens to finance the function of government were never “too high”, they have merely been poorly targeted and, if anything, way too low to generate the kind of revenue necessary to allow the government to do much of anything. We had a pretty good system working before Reagan came along. Since then the Reagan/ Bush tax cuts have caused the national debt to balloon out of all proportion to what it would be if Reagan and Bush had targeted the income tax toward those who can most easily afford to pay. Republicans, in their constant bemoaning about the debt we are passing on to our grandchildren, never, ever, mention the origin of a major chunk of that debt, nor do they give any hint at the way to start whittling it down, which is simply to get rid of Reaganism, once and for all, restore a progressive tax structure, and allow the government to do what we elect it to do.

It is about time we recognize the gorilla in the room with Obama whenever and wherever Republicans are involved. The first thing out of Mitch McConnell’s mouth after the Obama election 2008 was “We are going to make him a one term president.” Question: Why did McConnell find it necessary or appropriate to utter such a declaration? Previous presidential elections have never seen such sour grapes. Why, also, the total and unrelenting obstruction of everything Obama attempts to accomplish throughout both of his terms in office. This has never been done before to any president, not to FDR, not LBJ, and certainly not to any Republican president. Examine every factor you can dream up relating to Obama’s presidency and none explains the level of hate generated from day one: the same kind of hate underlying the sorry Jim Crow practices of the South.

In case anyone was wondering what the Republicans have in mind if they win in 2016, Hillary Cholden laid it out in her “three reasons” letter of July 2, 2015: 1. Repeal Obamacare without a replacement, 2. A military offensive in the Middle East against ISIS, and 3. Jobs. In other words, we go back to the pre-Obama health insurance system, launch another Middle East war, and turn the economy around by creating jobs. We know how Republicans love the insurance industry and military adventures from bitter experience, but job creation? That is another story altogether. Have Republicans ever lifted a finger since Obama’s election to stimulate the economy in any way, anything at all?

John James and Dale Olsen were both very unhappy with the Supreme Court decisions of the last couple of days. James provided a litany of America’s troubles (blaming them on Obama of course) without even mentioning the Reagan/Bush tax cuts, the Iraq war, or seven years of Congressional obstruction. Olsen lamented the “damage. . . to our souls”. Both hinted at the election of 2016 being a kind of Armageddon for conservatism. Actually, the conservatism represented by these opinions doesn’t even have a soul. It has survived on a “them against us” ideology for decades, which has vigorously resisted every positive initiative and fostered nothing but negative obstructionism, prolonging the recession and putting America even further behind. The election of 2016 does, indeed, represent one last critical hope to avoid conservative control of all three branches of government: Congress, Supreme Court, and the presidency. Our next president will determine either the intensified polarization of the court, or a return to its Constitutionally-mandated impartiality for decades to come.

“Race made Reaganism possible”. So said Paul Krugman in a June 25, 2015, commentary. Previously, probably in 1962, when the country was finally waking up to the scourge of racism that had plagued the southern states since Reconstruction, southern whites needed a symbol to identify their resistance to the very notion of equality of the races, so they chose the Confederate battle flag. Previously, the flag had not been widely displayed except in museums. Then LBJ’s great Society was enacted and desegregation became the law of the land, but this “Great Society” was a set of laws that were never accepted by Southern whites. So, when Ronald Reagan came along with his anti-government message, here was the perfect champion for the cause of bigotry throughout the South. States that had been Democratic for generations suddenly became Republican and have remained so ever since, with “the flag” as a symbol of their determination to resist everything “federal”, and Ronald Reagan as their cheerleader. So the scourge of racism begat the scourge of Reaganism.

For Carly Fiorina to target the “female vote” assumes that women will vote for her because she is a woman. This assumption is probably no more valid in her case than it is for Hillary Clinton. The presidential election is not a gender war, and gender is certainly no assurance of fitness for this most high office. Fiorina’s belief that “American women are better served by conservative ideals” fails to account for the slim chance, extremely slim, that conservative politicians are likely ever to do anything of benefit to women. It is just not in their DNA.