Letters to the Editor | Aug. 6, 2025

The Democratic state legislators in Texas who have broken quorum are putting their freedom, their finances, and their jobs on the line to protect the U.S. Congress. Their actions do absolutely nothing to help them personally. Nothing. The districts they are trying to protect are in the House of Representatives in Washington. Truly, in every way, they are heroes.

Republicans, at the urging of President Donald Trump, want to create more Republican-leaning districts to solidify control of the U.S. House in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections. The fact that Texas Republicans are proposing a redistricting plan outside the usual redistricting that occurs following the 10-year census surveys makes clear the hyper-partisan nature of this power grab. Republicans in Texas currently hold 25 of the state’s 38 congressional seats. They want new maps to raise that number to 30. Based on the results of the last presidential election, if districts were fair, the Republicans should hold 21 or 22 seats. Elected officials and community leaders all around the country are supporting these brave Texans. I am hopeful my congresswoman, Chrissy Houlahan, will join this chorus. Texas Democrats are fighting for the place where she works. They are fighting for all of us.

Lynn Strauss, West Chester

Why didn’t The Inquirer publish the recently released shocking pictures of the emaciated Israeli hostages still enslaved in Gaza tunnels? Some people don’t even realize the hostages are still there. Why? Because there is no news about them in mainstream media. The Inquirer’s portrayal of this terrible war has become so one-sided that it looks less like journalism and more like Hamas propaganda designed to fuel hatred against Jews and Israel. Twenty-three thousand tons of humanitarian aid on 1,200 trucks entered Gaza this week. No pictures. Thousands of tons of food and baby formula awaiting collection and distribution inside the Kerem Shalom Crossing in Gaza, still queued for U.N. pickup. No pictures. Dying hostages deprived of food and water. No pictures. Fifty hostages are still being held by Hamas. Some are still alive. Stop ignoring this reality. Show their pictures. They are the ones who are starving.

Wendy Cacacie, Langhorne

A thank you to The Inquirer for the recent editorial calling for United States action to stop the starvation and war in Gaza. However, it feels like too little, too late. Too little because international human rights groups and two Israeli organizations (Physicians for Human Rights — Israel and B’Tselem) have concluded that Israeli actions constitute genocide and war crimes. Philadelphia residents reached similar conclusions through the Philadelphia People’s Tribunal. Inquirer readers were on the streets every day last week, banging pots and pans to call attention to this crisis.

The editorial accurately notes that both the Biden and Trump administrations have shown complicity by supporting Israeli actions. This wouldn’t be possible without U.S. weapons, even as the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif. Supplying weapons to states violating international human rights laws violates both U.S. law and international conventions.

It’s too late because the world now recognizes Israel’s complaints against UNRWA and U.N. food sites as disingenuous. The recent escalation of starvation affecting civilians and children is immoral. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation appears to be a way for Americans to profit while soldiers lure targets. The editorial asks a good question: “To what end?” Israel becomes more isolated, children starve, and the taboo of labeling the victims of the Holocaust as oppressors cracks.

Tina Shelton, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Greater Philadelphia Branch

A turf war between Israel and the Palestinians should be of no concern to the U.S. The morality of the dispute is mute, considering turf wars have been fought between human beings since time immemorial. It really is all about survival. Europeans fought a turf war with the Native Americans. There are those who say it was immoral for Europeans to have “stolen” North America away from the Native Americans, but are any of those who are crying foul about that turf war willing to give their home to any Native American tribes as a means of reparations? I suspect not. So it is with this nearly 80-year-old turf war in the Middle East. Let them have at it. But the U.S. should not take sides by giving billions of dollars in aid to Israel, incurring the wrath of the Arab world and acts of terror against our military personnel and homeland.

Fred Hearn, Turnersville

A weak jobs report caused the White House resident genius to call for the termination of the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, as if the decline in labor market conditions is her fault. Donald Trump adheres to the philosophy that only good news is fit to print and bad news is someone else’s fault. But the fault, dear Donald, lies not in the methodology, but in your haphazard tariff “strategy.” The BLS uses the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey to measure job growth or loss. The CES collects data from many businesses and government agencies. The BLS then estimates monthly job growth or loss. Its methodology has remained basically unchanged since the late 1970s. Firing the commissioner for a weak jobs report is akin to firing a mathematician for using pi to calculate the area of a circle. A male version of the Queen of Hearts makes for a bad president.

Stewart Speck, Ardmore, speckstewart@gmail.com

While columnist Solomon Jones and I both agree that gambling disproportionately affects those least able to afford it, I am also aware that gambling money in the form of Pennsylvania state lottery revenue already benefits senior citizens. Seniors ride SEPTA and other transit for free thanks to the lottery. Jones asserts that skill game revenue principally targets Black people in Philadelphia. I find that the games are everywhere in the Lehigh Valley, generally in gas stations and vape shops, and more arrive weekly. They are ubiquitous in the state, available in every county.

SEPTA is not the only public transit agency in the state. We have public transit in the Lehigh Valley, as well, and our system, LANta, the third largest in Pennsylvania, desperately needs funding to avoid similar drastic service cuts. Skill games appear to be the best way to assert some sort of control over tens of millions of dollars disappearing into private pockets. Shouldn’t a fair share serve the public good? The promised property tax relief from privately operated casinos never benefited me, but senior services and free public transportation throughout the state, funded by the lottery (founded in 1971), do. I hope the General Assembly finds a way quickly to regulate and tax skill game revenue, ensuring transparency and public benefit as well as less profit for the games’ distributors. Taxing skill games could save mobility in Pennsylvania’s 67 counties. And that could finalize this late budget.

John Marquette, Bethlehem

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