Honor women veterans with Equal Rights Amendment
On Feb. 26, 2024, Gov. Joe Lombardo issued a proclamation that March is Women’s Military History Month in Nevada. Our current administration in Washington, D.C., does not acknowledge the inequities that women and minorities experience. In particular, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has old-fashioned views about women serving in the military, despite significant contributions of women like Rear Adm. Grace Murray Hopper and Nevada’s own service women and women veterans.
This is why we need the Equal Rights Amendment in the Constitution, right now. According to Congressman Mark Amodei, the National Archive should not publish the ERA, since states failed to ratify it by the imposed deadline. He suggested that if we want the ERA, then Congress has to start all over again. Fine, then, let’s start over. I can’t think of a more apt member of the House than Congressman Amodei to re-initiate the process to add the ERA to our Constitution, because Nevada and Nevada’s women who serve and have served are crucial in the U.S. military. According to Gov. Lombardo’s 2023 proclamation of Women’s Military History Month, there were upwards of 24,000 women veterans in Nevada as of 2023.
Celebrate this year’s Women’s Military History Month in Nevada by contacting Rep. Amodei (amodei.house.gov) and urging him to introduce a new bill to add the ERA to the Constitution.
Cynthia Cooper, Reno
‘Negative coverage’ of Trump was deserved
Bruce Horn is outraged that “liberal media” puts out more negative coverage of Trump than he likes (Letters, RN&R, February 2025), but has nothing to say about right-wing media and their work to spin and propagandize for Trump. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but I would have liked to see some balance in Mr. Horn’s complaint. And Mr. Horn ignores the fact that Trump, on an hour-by-hour basis, does whatever he can to be the top headline in all media, even if it means doing or saying something he knows to be outlandish.
Mr. Horn says he is outraged that the media sometimes used the term “rape” when Trump was only found (liable for) “sexual assault.” But I wonder where Mr. Horn’s outrage is regarding the assault itself. Labels, it seems, are more important than the crime.
As for his claims about our justice system being weaponized against Trump, Mr. Horn ignores the role played by grand juries and juries of peers which our forefathers cleverly built into our judicial system.
There are a lot of reasons to be outraged by the media, and I share some of that outrage, but what I heard from Mr. Horn appalls (and frightens) me more, because his one-sided outrage seems to have been shared by enough people that we now have a convicted felon as president who has openly boasted about doing appalling things to women. And we’re currently seeing executive orders and statements by Mr. Trump that display an absolute contempt for the rule of law and our Constitution while his party and followers not only aren’t outraged; they’re celebrating. I don’t understand the country I live in anymore.
Michel Rottmann, Via RenoNR.com
Thanks for discussing discrimination
Excellent article (“Not a thing of the past: Lonnie Feemster on the long, slow process of overturning housing discrimination,” RN&R, February 2025). When I lived in Reno years ago, I worked with Lonnie on discrimination issues, since I fall in that pile. I am American Indian, French Basque and Mexican. At 70, I saw the most prejudice in Fallon. I grew up with two fountains in the park: one for whites, and one for Black/Indians. I drank from the white fountain that looked cleaner! Great story; keep educating.
Cynthia Oseguera, Via RenoNR.com