Letters to the Editor | Oct. 28, 2026

How can President Donald Trump aid and abet Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Russia is the greatest threat to the freedom and safety of Europe since the Soviet Union occupied Eastern Europe. Russia is sabotaging European defense plants, railroads, and communications infrastructure.

The danger to U.S. national security isn’t the press, as Trump contends, but his Russia-Ukraine policy. The president views the war as an opportunity for our country to make a profit, not to defend European democracy and to protect defenseless civilian populations targeted by Russia. Russia will not stop at Ukraine if it wins this war.

Gerry Koren, Exton

While I appreciate all of your opinions in your recent series of essays calling for impeachment, I disagree. Would it be deserved? Absolutely. Even within the — thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court — narrow definition of crimes a president is not allowed to commit, this one may have committed most of them. He should be arrested immediately — as in right now. But impeaching the president would be a waste of time — and a failed conviction would only further undermine the rule of law.

Catherine Freimiller, Philadelphia

In response to the guest essay about how all lung cancer patients deserve the same support Pope Leo XIV has received: I agree that there should be more awareness about the struggles facing people who are battling cancer, especially those of us who are not regularly in the headlines.

It’s great to see people with colored ribbons or a sports team wearing pink accessories. But sometimes simply spreading the word isn’t enough. Stories similar to Pope Leo’s can be most effective if they are used to help people learn more about the different organizations that assist those battling cancer, and how they can be supported. That’s a way to combine awareness with action.

Charley Mahar, Warrington

Each time we have an election, ridiculous amounts of money pour into the coffers of candidates — and the winners start campaigning for the next race the day after they are elected. Why can’t we have a system like in the United Kingdom, in which the government supplies modest subsidies and limits the spending by campaigns? The size of our country certainly mandates a longer but still limited period for voters to assess candidates — and Congress needs to act to pass the laws that will enable reason to rule our campaigns instead of dollar signs.

Gail M. Harp, Philadelphia

Donald Trump recently said with regard to the profits being made by the oil and gas companies, and I quote: “I don’t give a damn, I’m going to say it, we’re making a freaking fortune.”

Who is the “we” he is talking about? It certainly isn’t the American people, who are paying 40% more at the pump since the start of the Iran war, or who are paying higher prices for everything that relies on gas and diesel in the supply chain. It is a revealing declaration that Trump is pleased the oil companies are “making a freaking fortune” on the backs of the American public, and that he is comfortable using the word we in this regard.

We should all remember this on Nov. 3.

Bill Maginnis, North Wales

The latest effort by the weaponized U.S. Department of Justice to cast doubt on the certification of the Alaska U.S. Senate race based on the potential confusion by voters of two Dan Sullivans on the ballot is a pathetic yet predictable assault on the rule of law. The Alaska Supreme Court already decided the issue, in which the sitting Republican senator is clearly identified as the incumbent on the ballot, reflecting the fact that the Constitution stipulates the states, not the federal government, administer elections.

To disabuse any legitimate good-faith measure in this futile effort, the president himself proudly admitted that he was behind the decision to file the lawsuit, transforming the longtime independence of the department into an utter myth. Coupled with the department’s attacks on mail voting and legislative proposals by the president’s allies to simply make it harder to vote, these actions represent a perfect storm of voter intimidation efforts. This is all meant to sow distrust in elections at a time when most independent polls indicate that the popularity of the president and his party is sagging.

We have almost become numb to the shock value of these unlawful attempts to undermine our elections, especially after the president’s unrelenting efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 election. We should not normalize the injustice of this behavior.

Anthony Arnaud, Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Alaska voters, especially Republicans, selected Lisa Murkowski for their U.S. senator in 2010 — by the 101,000 write-in votes she received, surpassing the votes cast for a different Republican whose name was on the ballot, and without Murkowski’s name on the ballot. Every vote that was counted for her in that election was a ballot on which the voter took the time to legibly write her name in its proper space. It was an unprecedented write-in victory in the history of U.S. elections. However, with the faltering support within the Republican Party for the current administration’s policies, Donald Trump has no confidence that Alaska’s majority of GOP voters will carry the day for his choice for U.S. senator. He insinuates that the shrewd Alaskan voters do not have the chops to cope with two very similar names on this year’s election ballot for U.S. Senate. Those two candidates are listed one immediately below the other for easy comparison, respectively, as “Sullivan, Dan S. (Registered Republican) Incumbent” and “Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr. (Registered Republican).”

President Trump is making a federal case of this — literally — by suing to block certification of Alaska’s U.S. Senate​ vote — but only if the incumbent Republican loses, not if he wins. When I was a kid, we called it “heads I win, tails you lose.” Citizens who live with six months of darkness, and who may suddenly face travel through deep snow to get a loaf of bread, the mail, or to see a friend, know too much about being prepared to be flummoxed by which name to check on a ballot.

Wayne Williams, Malvern