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DOGE ditches efficiencyfor lawlessness
We are having the wrong public conversation about federal government “efficiency” and spending cuts. It’s not about efficiency at all. It’s about lawlessness.
I offer the following analogy: If you are concerned about crime in your neighborhood, and you show up at the police station and open your trunk to show them the “suspects” you’ve apprehended, they’re not going to praise your industriousness. They’re going to throw you in jail because vigilantism is very bad. It leads to bodies hanging in trees and mobs with pitchforks and outlaws in the sheriff’s office.
Right now, we shouldn’t be asking whether any of the bodies in trees (DOGE cuts) are really horse thieves (wasteful spending), we should be asking how the outlaws got into the sheriff’s office and how we get them out.
John BiundoWalnut Creek
Voters bought Trump’sline about cost of eggs
One of the main reasons people voted for Donald Trump was the price of groceries, specifically, eggs.
Despite inflation being tamed by President Biden, eggs were still a bit higher last November than before the COVID pandemic, which killed over 180,000 needlessly during Trump’s first presidency. A slim majority voted Republican, for cheaper eggs.
How’s that working for us? Ummm, not so good. Eggs are now twice the price they were when Democrats lost the election. Some blame bird influenza; some blame inflation. Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is unlikely to control the bird flu since he is anti-vax. If bird flu jumps into the human population, thousands more people will die. You can thank Republican senators who confirmed RFK’s nomination, along with the other incompetent Cabinet secretaries, whose only qualification is to follow Trump down to oblivion.
Republicans’ policies bring cheaper eggs? You’ve been fooled again.
Bruce JoffePiedmont
Trump merely enforcinglaw on immigrants
Re: “Trump’s orders are a reminder of WWII Japanese internment” (Page A8, Feb. 16).
President Trump has not declared war on immigrants. It is war upon illegal entries, a crucial distinction. As a legal immigrant and proud American citizen, I deplore illegal entry to our country, while applicants who do it the correct way wait for their quotas to come up.
The president is America’s protector-in-chief. He has a congressional mandate. That “people suffer” is abjectly horrific but of no pertinence to this process. One breaks our laws, one risks capture and prosecution. Criminals break our laws, they suffer, hence innocent families suffer. People suffer.
The comparison to the illegal incarceration of Japanese Americans is irrelevant, albeit a crime to humanity we will long regret.
Robin HallWalnut Creek
We must sound alarmon Musk-Trump ‘coup’
As an 82-year-old elder, I’ve lived through many political crises in this country — but I have never seen an attack on our democracy like this.
In the past, there was bipartisan opposition to lawlessness. Today, the guardrails are being dismantled before our eyes, and we must sound the alarm to defeat the Elon Musk-Donald Trump coup.
Martha BreedWalnut Creek
GOP senators’ silenceis wake-up call to U.S.
Watching the current administration’s dismantling of our democracy is gut-wrenching. Governing by presidential decree, threatening our allies and neighbors, making a mockery of our existing laws and Constitution are not democracy. These actions strongly contradict the oath of office, to uphold and protect the Constitution. The illusion of reducing government bureaucracy, “saving the country,” is in reality consolidating all power to one man. Simply, his ball, his game, his rules, the majority of Americans be damned.
Our Constitution deliberately separates power between three coequal branches of government to prevent this kind of takeover, or it did. Republican congressional members are willfully complicit by their inaction and silence. Case in point, Trump’s cabinet appointments, mostly a collection of disgracefully unqualified puppets, all receiving Senate approval. The degree of head-in-the-sand capitulation by Republican senators should serve as a wake-up call to all Americans.
James MillsWalnut Creek