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Instead of hysterics,
let’s focus on migrants
Re: “Let’s open our eyes to Trump’s power grab” (Page A6, July 11).
The writer likens the recent actions by ICE to those of the Nazis in 1938. But the target of the wrath of the SS in the Germany of 1938 was extermination, not deportation. Any protesters would have been dealt with by way of summary execution, and most of the writer’s concerns, such as identifications, would have been irrelevant.
To the extent the writer wants to drag Donald Trump and his views of racial hatred into the picture, I think it is worth noting that Trump has a far kinder view of Jews than the one who was in control of the SS.
Rather than entertain Nazi fantasies, why not suggest some way in which folks for and against deportation can get together and talk about developing a scheme for dealing with the problem that everyone can live with?
Daniel Mauthe
Livermore
Laws exist; they
should be enforced
I returned home from a short vacation to cold water and a gas stove that did not work. My neighbors and I who live in Oakland’s Glenview neighborhood made a choice a few years ago to install automatic “earthquake” shut-off valves on our gas lines. We did this to protect our homes and our community.
I reset this line at least once per month. The primary reasons for the need to reset the valve are illegal fireworks, illegal sideshows and illegally loud cars with a bass that shakes our windows. The operative word here is “illegal.”
When a law is in place, there is an expectation that there will be negative consequences for violating the law, just as there are positive consequences for abiding by the law. Good character should matter to all.
Debora Rinehart
Oakland
Money for foreign bases
should return home
A new report published by the global peace group World BEYOND War on July 14 exposes the harm and scale of military bases worldwide. Of 1,247 foreign military bases in the world, the United States operates 877 bases across 95 countries, and is rapidly adding more, not a single one of them asked for by the U.S. public or the “host” population.
Military bases fuel the war machine, heightening tensions and provoking war-making. Bases occupy stolen indigenous lands, cause massive environmental damage and make locations into targets for attack. Instead of spending billions on bases that serve as launchpads for wars, our tax dollars should be redirected toward our communities’ real needs — housing, health care, green energy and education.
We need to halt new construction on military base infrastructure that facilitates disastrous war-making and invest in a livable future instead.
Lucymarie Ruth
Oakland
Trump’s new law will
be felt first with ICE
The full, devastating impact of Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” will not be felt for years, but some of the impact will be felt very soon.
The drastic Medicaid and food stamp cuts largely don’t take effect until after the midterms. It’s no coincidence this is happening after the midterms. Tax cuts for billionaires and corporations will be largely invisible to the public.
However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is funded right now. The ICE budget balloons to $37.5 billion. This gives ICE the largest federal law enforcement budget in the history of the republic.
Kathy DeFabio
El Sobrante
Justices set table
for imperial president
I understand the seductive nature of greed, hatred and delusion.
I understand the power of fear and the desire for power.
I understand ignorance, cowardice and cruelty.
But I don’t understand the willingness of the current Supreme Court to discover new powers of the presidency that no one in the last 2½ U.S. centuries had even suspected might exist. With the help of this court, we are creating an all-powerful presidency, something I learned in childhood was to be avoided at all costs. What is happening to our country?
Michael Steinberg
Berkeley