Restore Decency and Justice

Letter to the LNP Editor; text as submitted January 3, 2026

As the new year begins, let us consider the year just past and begin to plan a way forward. For those watching closely, the chaos and cruelty of the Trump administration was evident from day one. Lawlessness and corruption increased as the months went on. The compliant Senate approved a host of Trump sycophants for top-level positions, creating a leadership noteworthy for both incompetence and ignorance.

As the atrocities grew, so did the resistance. We are now at a place which in some ways echoes the situation of our country’s founders 250 years ago. And like them, we must rally to reject authoritarian rule, to declare that all are created equal, and to demand a government that respects our rights.

Unlike our 18th century founders, we have a constitution and established laws that provide for the good of the country. But as historian Heather Cox Richardson recently wrote, “It’s not simply that [Trump and his cronies] have broken the laws. They have acted as if the laws, and the Constitution that underpins them, don’t exist.” We must insist that this behavior is totally unacceptable and un-American. It must cease immediately.

Our task in the coming months is to define clearly the kind of governance that we desire, then vote in the November elections for those candidates who demonstrate the skills and determination to restore decency and justice to our nation. Those who are undermining our community and destroying our democracy must be held accountable. Let it not be said that our generation surrendered to dictatorship and evil all that our ancestors bequeathed to us.

Much Damage Needs Correction

Letter to the LNP Editor; text as submitted November 17, 2025

Human survival on our planet requires air, water, food, and shelter. To flourish beyond these basics, we also need effective health care, adequate education, meaningful occupation, and time enough for rest and sleep. A functioning government should assure that all these needs are met for their entire population.

To the contrary, in July Republican lawmakers enacted legislation which granted perpetual tax breaks to the wealthiest while omitting extension beyond the end of 2025 of health insurance subsidies for the non-wealthy. More recently those same Republicans withheld cash support for food purchases as a political cudgel to compel Democrats to abandon their attempts to restore health insurance assistance for 2026.

Equally disturbing, though gaining far less public attention, are policies that degrade the safety and quality of our air and water. Soon after taking office Trump began making significant cuts in staff and funding for the EPA. This includes closing the office which monitored pollution and contamination in our environment and eliminating funding grants for scientific research.

Even as global conditions make the growing threat of climate change unmistakable, the Trump administration remains in denial. They promote coal mining and oil and gas drilling while opposing clean energy efforts. Calling the science of climate change “a hoax,” Trump has withdrawn the U.S. from the 2015 Paris Agreement and failed to send a high-level delegation to the United Nations annual climate summit, happening now in Brazil.

We need to be aware of the damage to earth and to future generations that the current regime is doing, and dedicate our energy to correcting it.

Awake to Threats; Opposed to Fascism

Letter to the LNP Editor; text as submitted October 15, 2025

Communications these days are filled with code words and abbreviations. For instance the simple verb “woke” now means being aware, alert, and educated, especially about issues of justice, equality before the law, and civil and human rights. ANTIFA is simply an abbreviation of “anti-fascist,” coined by persons who actively protest against the increasingly dangerous fascist trends in our government.

Sadly, the current administration uses both of these terms as pejoratives. In doing so they clearly expose their own opposition to justice, democracy, and the rule of law. They seem to want a compliant population, unaware of and indifferent to the dangers of authoritarianism.

Noted German theologian Dorothee Sölle (1929 – 2003) spent a number of years in the U.S. lecturing, leading workshops, and teaching at Union Theological Seminary. She often warned about the signs of what she termed Christofascism – a narrow, rigid pseudo-Christian dogma mixed with authoritarian politics – that she saw in our country.

In 1991 I was privileged to attend a weekend workshop/retreat with Dr. Sölle. Her presentation was a faith-filled and eye-opening urgent warning. I was awakened to threats to our Constitutional republic about which I had until then been unaware. In subsequent years those threats have grown tremendously into the present reality.

As a consequence of her urging and others I stand firmly against the cruelty, lawlessness, and corruption of the current regime. If that means they consider me to be an “enemy,” so be it. I invite others who care about our nation’s well-being to join me.

Trump Defies Constitution and Christ

Letter to the LNP Editor; text as submitted September 15, 2025

Since his inauguration President Trump has issued Executive Orders which, in his view, eliminate perceived anti-Christian bias in government regulations and support Christian values. Most recently he reversed the long-standing IRS rule which penalized religious institutions that make political endorsements. These orders, along with his other actions, are both a direct defiance of our Constitution, and a complete contradiction of the values taught by Jesus Christ.

The First Amendment to our Constitution clearly protects us from government imposition of any religion. The lie that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation is easily refuted by Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli, ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1797. It begins “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion …” To claim otherwise is to misrepresent actual history.

Equally troubling is the display of gross ignorance of the teachings of Jesus. For example, true Christians know that the first laws are “love God and love your neighbor.” Sending masked, armed operatives to disappear neighbors and terrorize neighborhoods is not love.

Christ preached that one cannot serve both God and wealth. Plastering every visible surface with gold, dealing fraudulently with banks, and privileging billionaires in business and political transactions demonstrate clearly where Trump’s loyalty lies.

Jesus taught “feed the hungry; heal the sick; comfort the afflicted” – administration actions are doing just the opposite. Anti-Christian bias is rampant in the White House. If the president sincerely wants to change that, he needs first to look in the mirror.

We Need True Conservatism

Letter to the LNP Editor; text as submitted August 12, 2025

General understanding seems to be that the Democrats comprise the liberal party, and Republicans are conservative. This designation raises a multitude of questions.

To “conserve” is to preserve, to protect, and to save. How does allowing $800,000 worth of emergency food aid to rot in a warehouse rather than distributing it to starving children preserve life? What is conservative about the proposed rejection of the “endangerment finding,” which has underpinned environmental protection efforts since 2009? Will cancelling critical research projects and terminating the positions of thousands of medical professionals save our lives?

The repeated violations of and threats to the provisions of our Constitution demonstrate clearly that the current Republican regime is anything but conservative. The President usurps Congressional powers of taxation, while a supine Republican majority offers no protest. His on-going attempts to limit the definition of citizenship are the subject of several current court cases. He lies about conditions in our cities to justify sending in federal troops. His rapidly escalating grabs for dictatorial power, and the cadre that supports him, pose a dire threat to our democratic republic.

Our country needs an honest, legitimate conservative political party – one that takes a cautious, carefully researched and vetted approach to making changes in laws and policies; one that promotes highly skilled, scrupulously honest leadership in government departments and agencies; one that values strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law.

In the 1850s the Republican party emerged as a reformist movement. Now it needs itself to be reformed or replaced. We must all work together to stop these authoritarian threats and preserve the nation we love.

Non-violent Resistance Is Necessary

Letter to the LNP Editor; text as submitted July 10, 2025

The cruelty of the Trump regime is heartbreaking. They began on day one with the termination of USAID and severe limitation of PEPFAR (U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), actions which are estimated to have caused nearly 300,000 deaths so far. They have moved on to captures and disappearances, to masked and armed individuals invading public spaces and spreading terror, to parents being ripped from crying spouses and frightened children.

A brutal concentration camp has been opened in the Florida Everglades, located in an isolated area infested with disease-carrying insects and dangerous reptiles. Elected state representatives desiring to inspect sanitation facilities have been denied access. It has been dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” and one prominent influencer close to the administration has contemptuously joked of feeding incarcerated migrants to the alligators. Trump himself has brushed off any concern for the dreadful conditions in the camp.

While the primary targets have up until now been immigrants and internationals, the recently-passed budget reconciliation bill extends the cruelty to the millions of U.S. citizens who rely on government assistance for basic needs. Drafters of the bill cunningly scheduled the worst of the cuts to take effect after the 2026 mid-term elections, hoping to obscure GOP responsibility for the suffering to come.

The current regime is intent on authoritarian control. They ignore the Constitution and disdain the rule of law. Razor-thin majorities in Congress are cowed into submission. A corrupt Supreme Court has granted immunity to the lawless president. To preserve our republic, we must resist with every non-violent tool at our command.

Attacks on Medicine and Research

Letter to the LNP Editor; text as submitted June 8, 2025

I was born in a United States at war. Massive amounts of resources and millions of lives were being dedicated to battling brutal, deadly dictatorships. Everything else was secondary.

Within a year peace had come, and possibilities blossomed. Among them were great expansions in medical and scientific innovation. Universities and teaching hospitals tackled diseases that have plagued humankind for millennia. They welcomed skilled researchers; progress was heartening.

Vaccines nearly eliminated polio and other diseases that ravaged childhood. Failing organs were strengthened and replaced. As new viruses emerged, they too were subdued by the dedicated work of brilliant scientists and their assistants.

Medical procedures that were unthinkable when I was young have become commonplace. And U.S. institutions have been in the forefront of scientific progress for virtually all of my life … until January 20, 2025. In less than five months healing has been turned to suffering, nourishment to starvation, purpose-filled life to agonizing death.

Our foremost educational and research institutions are under vicious attack. Extraordinary doctors and eager international students are being expelled. Years of study and experiment that were close to major discoveries have been summarily ended, their results destroyed. The conscienceless billionaires who have seized control of our government don’t care. They think they’ll be fine. The rest of the world will suffer the results of their cruelty.

This is not the country we are intended to be. There is still hope. With every breath remaining in our bodies, we must resist the chaos and the inhumanity. Lives depend on it.