Letters: With Trump’s tax law signed, protest is even more critical
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With law signed, protest
is even more critical
With the passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” immigration enforcement now dwarfs all other federal law enforcement, and is bigger than most militaries in the world. Its masked agents without identifications detain, deport and disappear people without due process. The courts have seemingly removed any guardrails.
“Alligator Alcatraz” was built in eight days with many more to follow. Donald Trump has said “bad people,” “many of them were born in our country,” need to be placed there. What we have seen so far from ICE has been the warm-up act for what is coming. Stephen Miller’s daily quotas will rise.
What’s it going to take to get more people off their couches and away from their devices? Maybe it’s the ICE detainment of bad Americans. Maybe it’s the canceling of the mid-terms. Both are possible.
Nationwide protests will continue to occur. If you care about this country, find one and protest loudly and peacefully.
Barry Brynjulson
Pleasanton
Rallies coming to
denounce food aid cuts
The largest cut to food assistance programs ever just passed with the signing of Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” The Alameda County Community Food Bank issued a statement saying that, “Hunger is about to get worse. Way worse.” And this is coming at a time when demand for food assistance is at its highest.
In Alameda County, 1 in 4 residents experience food insecurity; 10% of the county, or 175,000 people, receive benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known in California as CalFresh, which helps families put food on the table. Many of these people will lose their benefits.
Ward Kanowsky
Pleasanton
Loan forgiveness cuts
threaten community
Re: “Student loan cancellation program could become Trump retribution tool, some advocates fear” (July 7).
Without community care, how will people have equitable access to public services? The answer? They won’t.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program has given marginalized students the support they need to break the cycle of poverty within their families and communities. In addition to helping students throughout their academic careers, it directly supports jobs that benefit the community.
Donald Trump is purposely closing the pipeline for survival. Without schools and hospitals, there will be no way for the middle and lower classes to access resources and any chance of climbing the economic ladder. Instead of taking away the futures of many, we need to expand funding for financial aid.
Education is power that sustains our communities.
Marlenne Perez
Berkeley
Administration credibility
ruined by Trump’s lies
Donald Trump lies constantly. That’s just the way it is. He lies about small things like stories about fictitious people he knows and crowd sizes, and comical things like migrants eating pets. Yet, highly educated people are amazed by his superior intellect.
He also lies about critically important things, like Iran is weeks away from an atomic bomb, and, the queen mother of all the whoppers, the 2020 election was stolen from him. Saying that the election was stolen is a prerequisite for his government appointments. In other words, if you are not willing to lie for him, you’re disqualified.
Any news we get from our government about national security, military action, environment, public health, etc., must be filtered through Trump, and therefore, credibility is an open question.
Wake me when it’s over.
Jim Peterson
Walnut Creek
When will West speak
out against Israel’s war
The victims have become the perpetrators: Nazis gunned down Jews as they dropped into their graves. Now Jews are shooting Palestinians in Gaza bread lines, and we keep shipping them the bullets.
About 40 Palestinians were killed again July 4. When will U.S. and Western politicians speak up to end this horror?
Jim Mehner
Oakland