What planet does David Rubenstein live on?

First, let me say that I am delighted that David Rubenstein purchased the Orioles in 2024. His enthusiasm and desire for a World Series championship in Baltimore is very encouraging and appreciated. I welcome his ownership.

However, in a recent Baltimore Sun article (“Orioles owner David Rubenstein: Many people felt it wasn’t a good idea to indict Trump,” Dec. 29), he suggests that for the U.S. Department of Justice and other jurisdictions “ … that it wasn’t a good idea to indict the president of the United States.” However, Trump wasn’t the president when he was criminally indicted. That got my attention.

But it was the last paragraph that left me completely flummoxed. Rubenstein stated on CBS’s “Face the Nation”: “So I think in the case of President Trump, clearly he has some resentments, but I think overall he’s going to rise above that in the second term.”

Really, Mr. Rubenstein? Where have you been for the last nine years?

— Stephen Milmoe, Pasadena

Armstrong Williams holds high opinion of low-character Trump

Armstrong Williams disappoints men. In his recent column, “2024 was the year Donald Trump shocked us” (Dec. 28), he doesn’t say it outright, but his tone gloats at President-elect Trump’s win. Yes, Trump was Time’s “Person of the Year” but so were Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Putin before him. Personally, I thought Russian dissident and martyr Alexei Navalny was more entitled to Time’s 2024 pick, for all the right reasons, but Time had other criteria.

Williams is evidently so much taken by Trump’s comeback victory that he claims the former president “outfoxed and steamrollered past four felony prosecutions.” Further, he highlights Trump’s “engineering” of the U.S. Supreme Court’s “pioneering decision” that bestowed “constitutional criminal justice immunity” on himself for any presidential acts — a situation clearly outside the letter and spirit of our Constitution.

Williams points out, too, that thanks to Trump’s “coattails,” for the next few years this nation will have one-party government. Whether he would actually advocate for these malign effects of Trump is ambiguous, but it’s clear that Williams admires his strong-arm methods — and luck.

Finally, I must correct his claim that Trump “crushed” Vice President Kamala Harris in the election. Only in the outmoded and undemocratic Electoral College count will there be a crush. The nation’s popular vote was close, as had been anticipated all along. Google states that out of 155,211,283 votes cast for president, just 2,284,371 separated them — a 1.5% difference and certainly not the huge mandate that Trump insists it to be.

— Bruce Knauff, Towson

Hey, Baltimore County, trash the QR codes

For 2025, Baltimore County has sent out a mailer with a QR code to get your trash pickup days. It’s supposed to be easier to use. First, you scan the QR code, then you put in your address, then a general guideline comes up (“Trash company accuses Baltimore County of ‘arbitrarily and capriciously’ awarding $1.2B contract to rival,” Sept. 12).

In the past, we were sent a calendar format schedule that clearly showed trash pickup, yard waste and recycling pickup, plus bulk trash days. It was visual and so easy to use! We need that back. This new system is “a solution in search of a problem.”

— Denise Lutz, White Marsh

Maryland’s rising housing costs need context

Allow me to be critical of the selective use of statistics regarding the discussion of the “Housing Expansion and Affordability Act of 2024” in the article, “New laws coming to Maryland in 2025: A week before the next General Assembly session, some of last year’s laws take effect” (Dec. 30).

There was, for example, a statement that “Maryland housing costs are 15% more than the national average.” Indeed, this is true. However, the article does not mention that the average household income in Maryland is 30% above the national average nor that the percent of household income spent on housing is 17% below the national average.

The “15% more” claim doesn’t fully address the housing cost issue. It doesn’t tell me anything about Baltimore versus Annapolis or Frederick. Comparing the entire state to other states as a basis for presenting the need for affordable housing simply misses the mark. The need for affordable housing may be very real, but the statistic quoted is only a portion of the information that we deserve to have presented.

— Larry Williams, Towson