Letters to the Editor | Aug. 4, 2025

President Donald Trump’s new executive order targeting unhoused people is a grotesque assault on civil liberties and an unmistakable echo of history’s darkest chapters. By green-lighting mass institutionalization and criminalizing poverty, addiction, and mental illness, Trump is dusting off the fascist playbook. This policy dehumanizes society’s most vulnerable and uses “public safety” as cover for authoritarian control. Civil commitment without consent? Crackdowns on outdoor sleeping and “urban loitering”? This is not compassion, it’s calculated cruelty. Homeless people are not criminals. They are neighbors, veterans, seniors, disabled citizens failed by a rigged system. If we do not speak now, this government-sanctioned purge of the poor will expand into something even more sinister. This is not “law and order.” It’s state terror disguised as policy. And history will damn the silence of those who let it happen again.

Christopher Larkin, Latrobe

On July 30, not a single Republican senator voted to prohibit the $675 million sale of various weapons, mainly bombs, to Israel, financed by U.S. taxpayers. However, 27 Democratic senators voted on either or both resolutions blocking yet more arms to that country, which has killed more than 60,000 people in Gaza and flattened 90% of that tiny, besieged enclave. To Pennsylvania’s shame, Sen. John Fetterman was not among them. This implies he supports continuing the slaughter and hindering relief for a starving population.

Joan Hazbun, Media

The Inquirer ran a story about a New Jersey gun shop accused of selling ammunition to people without checking whether the buyers could legally possess firearms. Of course, the New Jersey NRA representative’s response was to bemoan the court’s injunction against the gun store. That spokesperson, Evan Nappen, said, “They’re picking on small fry … Where is it going to end? They should be focusing on criminals, not inanimate objects like ammunition.” Is Nappen so dense that he does not realize that if criminals cannot get ammunition, then they cannot use their weapons to commit crimes? Would Nappen also argue that drug stores should be free to sell opioids to people without checking that they were legally entitled to buy them?

Michael Walsh, Elkins Park

I just finished reading the op-ed by Hayim Leiter advocating that Benjamin Netanyahu belongs in Cheltenham High School’s Hall of Fame. Leiter’s comments were written in response to a student petition that the Israeli prime minister and Cheltenham grad be removed from the hall of fame. The writer provides details about the personal connection between his family and the Netanyahu family and the challenges the Leiter family face in Israel, where they currently live. Leiter concluded by saying, “I’m certain the prime minister is doing everything in his power to protect us and the entire free world.” As someone who has personal contacts and experiences in Israel, I strongly disagree with the writer’s conclusions. In fact, I believe that Netanyahu is responsible for starving, injuring, and killing more than 60,000 men, women, and children in Gaza. Netanyahu belongs in a Hall of Shame and should be arrested and convicted of his crimes against humanity. I am disappointed in The Inquirer for giving half of an opinion page to Leiter’s bragging about his family’s connections with the Netanyahu family.

The Rev. Nancy M. Stroh, Newtown

Alexander Milone’s op-ed call to end funding for horse racing and breeding ignores racing’s benefits for the state’s agriculture industry and open space preservation. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, horse racing and breeding deliver a $1.6 billion annual economic impact, generate $68 million in taxes, and employ over half of the state’s 41,000 equine workers. Our industry also serves as a critical pipeline for other equine sectors with thoroughbreds — both those retired from racing and those who never reached the track — launching careers as hunter/jumpers, trail horses, steeplechasers, polo ponies, and even police and therapy horses.

Horse racing and breeding also serve as the cornerstone of the state’s agriculture industry, supporting hay and grain farms and supplying manure to our mushroom farms. According to Karyn Malinowski of Rutgers University, without horse racing, 1.3 million acres of farmland in Pennsylvania would be vulnerable to development, leading to sprawl, increased congestion, and loss of open space. Pitting mass transit against horse racing and breeding is a false choice, particularly when they both provide important environmental and economic benefits to Pennsylvanians.

Deanna Manfredi, president, Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association

Michael R. Dimino argues that Pennsylvania should not adopt open primaries or semi-open primaries, using the analogy that if you don’t belong to the club, you should not be permitted to choose its candidates for leader. He carefully avoids the other side of the argument: If you choose not to join the club — Republican or Democrat — it should not have the right to charge you dues. In this case, all taxpayers pay for primary elections, whether they can participate or not. County election boards pay substantial sums for workers to carry out those elections and poll workers to run them. Taxpayers pay for printing the ballots and buying and safeguarding the machines. It’s taxation without representation at the behest of two powerful nongovernmental organizations that collude to keep governmental power between themselves. At least when we join a right-to-life organization or the ACLU, we know what we are joining, and we pay our own dues. Everybody pays, so let everybody play or abolish the primary system altogether.

Jodine Mayberry, Brookhaven, jodinemayberry@comcast.net

Immigration reform. Two words that have been a long time coming and something I believe our country needs. However, this administration hides behind — as it does with every policy — lies and deceit. What this administration is doing is not immigration reform, nor is it rounding up criminal and violent offenders. Reports coming out of the prison camp in Florida describe unthinkable human rights violations and even worse conditions in the prison in El Salvador. This is not what our country is about.

I am all for immigration reform, but instead of locking up someone who is here illegally, maybe we should show them a path to citizenship. Many of the people picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement are hardworking, taxpaying immigrants who just want a better life. Isn’t that how most of us got here? Aren’t most of us immigrants or descended from immigrants? Our ancestors wanted better for their families than they had. And so do the many people coming here. Why not put policies in place that will do just that instead of rounding up people who don’t look like they belong? It’s a shame what this country has become.

Cathi McCormack, Scranton

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