Closings were ‘wrong’

Dear Editor,

This is in response to the recent editorial about re-electing Mary Passinger to the school board. One huge problem is that she and her supporters don’t realize they are wrong. The support for closing schools was not unanimous. These communities did not deserve this.

Your opinion says we should not look at the past but focus on the future. I say how can we confidently vote for Passinger? She has been on the board for so long and her and her buddies’ record lead to the school closings. They did nothing to avoid this even when they said it was a long time coming. They had no preventative measures whatsoever.

I believe she will be quite surprised coming Election Day to find that her terrible decision making with the school closing. Frankly, anyone who voted yes on closing the schools should never be granted any power on that board again.

Like I said, for as long as they have been on the board, they did nothing to prevent these communities losing their schools. They just simply sat back and watched it fall apart, all the while saying it was a long time coming anyways.

Roger Johnson,

Sheffield

What a wreck

Dear Editor,

President Trump’s decision to raze and replace the White House’s East Wing with an expensive, huge, ballroom is consistent with his Unitary Executive Branch Theory. It is also a perfect analogy of his presidency’s tearing down the institutional pillars of democracy to create an all powerful head of government.

The East Wing was the entrance for millions of White House tourists but no longer. Thomas Jefferson first opened the East Wing door to the public in 1805 following his inauguration.

It is highly doubtful if ordinary people will ever attend the gilded ball room’s formal gala gatherings and mingle with the super rich contributors. The “People’s House” has become Mar-a-Lago north.

Trump’s devastation and corruption of our democratic unwritten norms and the abuse of authority is far reaching and extremely dangerous. The, thus far, utter collapse of our three separate and equal branches of government is shocking. Trump’s continual disregard of the Constitution is unbelievable – Emolument Clause: Article I, Section 9, Clause 8. Never has the “swamp” been so wide and so deep.

The abuse of authority is unprecedented. Trump ordered the DOJ to prosecute individuals who challenged him. Trump calls such “retribution.” Federal judges call such frivolous and throw the cases out of court but the damage is done. Similarly, Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” allotted vast resources to ICE to organize “fascist like” gangs to round up suspicious looking individuals, ignoring due process. Trump has dispatched unsolicited National Guard troops to cities to quell non-existent insurrections.

Project 2025 continues to be implemented. History gets rewritten: “two hundred forty one years of slavery was good; One hundred years of Jim Crow was better; Fourteen years of Reconstruction was bad.”

Less government transparency and more government censorship and more control of information are Project 2025 goals as is rejection of our pluralistic ethnic, racial and religious society.

Special interests’ political donations to obtain favorable regulation exceptions and to promote monopolies contradict capitalism. Such is a form of socialism for the wealthy and powerful, not as flagrant as recent bank bailouts but ’tis the use of tax money to benefit the heavy contributors. This corporate socialism is on going while national health care for the majority is condemned as intolerable socialism.

Meanwhile, we are experiencing a federal government shut-down whereby our military and civil service employees may not get paid or have a job.

Trump’s “America First” policies end up helping his authoritarian friends and hurting American crop growers and beef producers and our traditional foreign allies.

Food and shelter costs continue going up. Working folks struggle to pay for more expensive foreign made goods

Trump couldn’t contain himself after getting the Gaza prisoner/hostage exchange by declaring “I brought peace to the middle east,” talk about spiking the football before reaching the goal line.

I long for traditional values. We cannot control change as we get further engulfed in the revolutionary AI world but we can remain civil to one another and build on the good things of our common past.

May we remain true to our founding ideals and remember what sets America apart from other countries.

Some of the Democrat Party policies, though well intended, are questionable.

However, they are superior to the Trump controlled Republican Party Project 2025. Trump and his enablers pose a clear and present danger.

I am glad I had my tour of the White House.

Don Scott,

North Warren