I read Len Mansky’s Letter to this newspaper titled “Truth is Trump scores big on trade deals” and I couldn’t agree less with what he was saying. He pointed out how well Trump did on international trade, how he cracked down on Chinese unfair export practices, stealing our technology yet he still “reached historic and enforceable agreement on a Phase-One trade deal that require structural reforms and other changes to China’s economic and trade regime in the area of intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, financial services and currency and foreign exchange”.
On the domestic side, he pointed out that Trump’s policies “generated 6 million new jobs, the unemployment rate fell to its lowest point in 50 years, and wages grew at over 3 percent for 10 months in a row.” He went on to say that the manufacturing industry created nearly half a million new jobs, 625,00 new construction jobs were created and Hispanic, Asian and African unemployment rates all reached record lows. He also pointed out that the GDP growth in Trump’s first three years was better than in President Obama’s final year. Trump also “faulted” the Obama administration and rival Joe Biden for leaving the United States unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic.
Let’s start with the last item, the Obama administration was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic. Here’s a fact. “The Obama administration had a document titled “Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents.” It was a 69-page National Security Council guidebook developed in 2016 with the goal of assisting leaders “in coordinating a complex U.S. government response to a high-consequence emerging disease threat anywhere in the world.” It outlined questions to ask, who should be asked to get the answers and what key decisions should be made.”
Here’s another fact. Trump not only ignored it but disbanded and fired the entire pandemic response team and we know the results of his handling the epidemic with almost 7 million cases and 200,000 dead,
Regarding the economy, I won’t go into the specific details but we all know about the massive job losses and unemployment, loss of homes, people starving, business bankruptcies, reduced consumer spending and reduced industrial production. It could lead to a depression. It’s not funny, but Mr. Mansky points out how wonderful things were before the coronavirus struck. But that’s not reality. It’s like saying that Herbert Hoover was a great president with a great economy, that is until the Depression hit. And we know or should know how many years it took for the country to recover.
But let me get to the real fake news or to the source it came from. Mr. Mansky claims to be the former Democrat committeeman and president of the Greater Roslyn Democratic Club. First of all, with those credentials, it’s surprising that he should write such a letter praising Trump that at the very least would bring a smile to Trump’s face. In doing some research, I tried to find some information about the Greater Roslyn Democratic Club, but I could not. Then I googled the name of Len Mansky and found that this was not the first letter he had written to a newspaper. In your newspaper’s Feb. 6, 2014 submitted letters, Mr. Mansky writes about the bogus claims on global warming. He also praises the Koch brothers. He sure sounds like a conservative to me.
On Oct. 10, 2018, Mr. Mansky provided Newsday with a letter that chastised those who opposed Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court. I guess that Mr. Mansky thought it was OK for Mr. McConnell to block the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.
But here’s the kicker. I’m sure that most of your newspaper’s readers know about Joan Swirsky and her support of conservative positions that many of us consider extreme. In the recent July 20, 2020 issue, Mansky calls her letters “equitable, astute and patriotic”. This from a Democrat? There leaves no doubt that Mr. Mansky’s misleading opinions should be disregarded.
Alvin Goldberg
Great Neck
