To the Editor:

Briefly, to Jean McLeod. Your distaste for all things Democratic Party is clear, though it gave you Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the 40-hour work week, FEMA, worker safety protections, the right of labor to organize, Family & Medical Leave Act, Consumer Product Safety Commission, Americans with Disabilities Act, Freedom of Information Act, bank fraud protection, etc. All designed to help people, financially and otherwise. The evil bastards.

True, Lyndon Johnson was a crude, profane, brilliant, and racist legislator but he also shepherded the passage of the Civil Rights Act (“CRA”), convincing many Republicans, like Everett Dirksen, to encourage his caucus to join the legislative fight for racial equality.

I had planned to detail the path of our present gross economic imbalance, but at a recent Foreign Relations Committee hearing for “advise and consent” of various Trump ambassadorship nominees, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) asked a direct question on behalf of his constituents. Did any nominee believe that that President Trump’s recent actions indicate he may be a “Russian asset?” All nominees evaded the question, but did go into defensive reveries of flattery for the president. It is a question that many free nations are now asking themselves.

Merkley cited 5 instances where the possibility became a legitimate question:

1. In the WH Oval Office, Trump repeated several Russian talking points, including falsely claiming that Ukraine had started the war, Zelensky is a dictator, WWIII will be Zelensky’s fault, etc.

2. Gave away key negotiating points to the Russians, including excluding Ukraine from NATO in the future, thereby advancing Putin’s decades-old objective to weaken free nations. Russian land occupied by Ukraine will be returned, and Ukrainian-occupied Russian land will also be returned to Russia. Trump has left Zelensky out of peace negotiations and demanded that he resign before any treaty is effective.

3. Effectively cut off all funding to Ukraine, terminated Ukraine’s receipt of all US intelligence-gathering and reinstating it under pressure, including of Russian troop movements, and cut their satellite capabilities. He has also “banned” the UK from sharing any US military intelligence with Ukraine.

4. Further undermined NATO by denigrating other free nations (a JD Vance specialty), such as Canada, UK, France, and Poland. Trump is essentially abandoning Europe to Putin. Trump refuses to consider that Putin may violate any peace-keeping terms, despite his history.

5. Given the world a taste of what happens if you disagree with him in his brutish treatment of Zelensky and consequent withholding of funding, materials, and intelligence from Ukraine, which can only benefit Russia and hurt Ukraine and other free nations.

Meanwhile, Putin wisely says nothing, letting Trump do his dirty work for him, with no corresponding advantage to the United States. Our allies have traditionally defended the US, often excusing our failures, because our powerful nation stood for democracy against despots, provided world-wide stability and security, and advocated free-market capitalism, all of which we appear to be abandoning.

Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.