Letters to the Editor: Feb. 14, 2025

Call to action

We tell our kids, “Use your words.” No stomping, no piercing screams, when experiencing upset.

Now is the time to follow our own advice. We need to pay attention to the destruction that is going on in our country and use our words to tell about it.

The decrees of the Musk/Trump presidency have been met with dozens of lawsuits, so judicial rulings are limiting their actions.

Why? Because they are using extra-legal, extra-constitutional orders to deny citizens their privacy protections, to fire people without due cause, to illegally withhold federal dollars, and to dismantle agencies approved by our Congress — among other examples.

An analogy could work here.

Assume you are aware that your house has a leaky roof, there is mold in the basement and boards on the deck are rotting. To put your house in order, you arrange to fix the roof, remove the mold, and replace the deck.

But in this case, a large crane with a swinging wrecking ball shows up at your front door instead and proceeds to demolish your house while you are still inside.

That’s what’s happening to our government. No corner of our collective American household is being spared or respected.

Reports say the chaotic rapid-fire decrees are intended to cow an overwhelmed public into a numbed sense of disbelief and paralysis.

Indeed, many are feeling a need to retreat. But inaction becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that allows the continued dismantling of our civil order.

Instead, we need to tell our stories and describe the harm that is happening to families, ours and others.

Call or email your elected representatives; show up at town halls; write to this newspaper and others; use social media; support legal actions to slow down or stop the Musk/Trump wrecking ball. Pick the issues you care about, join forces with others and push back.

Linda Budan

Newberg

Lovely surprise

Thank you to the generous anonymous stranger who bought a $300 gift card at Serendipity Ice Cream on Feb. 6, to be used for subsequent customers that evening.

It was a lovely surprise for my family and the others in the shop — a wonderful way to cap off my birthday and a beautiful example of why I love this community so much.

Christine Bader

McMinnville

Flouting Constitution

The new presidential administration has ordered and made so many changes in the past couple of weeks that I’m concerned many of us — in McMinnville, in Oregon and in the nation — aren’t well-placed to see the big picture. Here’s one thing that, in my opinion, all of us should know and think about.

Remember “checks and balances” from middle school social studies?

The president, via Elon Musk and the DOGE team, is violating the separation of powers set out in our Constitution. He is attempting to close entire government agencies and cut programs without the permission of Congress.

Congress has discussed and approved this funding. If the president wants to make steep cuts, he can, but only by passing a budget through Congress. He’s ignoring that basic requirement of the Constitution.

Not only that, but when our elected representatives in Congress go to federal buildings like USAID or the Treasury or the Department of Education to investigate these illegal activities, Trump/Musk lock them out. That is also illegal, as these are, by law, public buildings.

Since Trump controls the Department of Justice, members of Congress cannot call on the DOJ to send U.S. marshals to enforce the law. In this way, we voters are being flagrantly denied our right to know what’s being done.

As a citizen and a patriot, I can’t help but wonder: If a president begins his term with such lawlessness, such disregard for the most basic elements of American law, where will he end it?

In fact, will he end it at all? Or will he disregard other parts of the Constitution, like the two-term limit for the presidency, and make himself a monarch?

Anna Keesey

McMinnville

An easy meal

I used to live in a mountain community west of Denver. When new people moved into the neighborhood, we would offer friendly advice about “mountain living,” and high on the list was information about bears.

The bears caused no problem to anyone unless they became “garbage bears” — that is, learned to love the taste of human food, usually through rummaging through garbage. Then they would graduate to breaking into houses and destroying kitchens in search of tasty pizza, steak and spaghetti leftovers.

This wasn’t good for either bears or people, so our advice was simple: Keep your trash cans in a closed garage. Don’t put them out until the morning of trash pickup.

One recent arrival listened attentively and thanked me for the advice. About a month later, he called me, shouting about bears having ravaged his garbage cans, leaving trash strewn all over his property

It turned out he had put his overflowing trash cans out the day before the pickup.

When I reminded him we had talked about what would happen if he did this, there was a long silence. He finally blurted out, “But I didn’t think you meant ME!”

Elon Musk and Donald Trump are shredding the Constitution, ignoring our legal system, dismantling our international alliances and neutering Congress.

Prospects for a stable economy are dim. Like the bears, they know an easy meal when they see one.

Like my hapless neighbor, voters were warned, but chose to ignore the advice. I suspect many are going to be saying, “But I didn’t think you meant ME!”

Regrettably, all of us have to to live with the wreckage.

Musk and Trump, like the garbage bears, are greedy, voracious and completely indifferent to the damage they cause. They may be trashing someone else this week, but eventually they’ll be trashing you.

Margaret Cross

McMinnville

Nation of laws?

I was born and raised in America, and have voted in every election since I turned 18. I love this country and believe strongly in our constitutional republic.

Unfortunately, our new president does not. In his first weeks in office, he has threatened to invade friendly nations, to imprison teachers for respecting their students and to start trade wars without cause.

Most dangerously of all, he has issued executive orders attempting to nullify parts of the Constitution. This in itself is in direct defiance of Article V.

He has empowered officers to government agencies without the consent of the Senate, in defiance of Article II. He has also signed orders into law in defiance of Article I. And of course, his businesses continue to collect billions from foreign governments and oligarchs, in defiance of the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause.

I remember when Clinton was impeached 1998.

I watched every Republican in the Senate stand up and declare ours a nation of laws. They said every American, regardless of their wealth, creed or rank, is protected by and bound by the Constitution of the Unites States of America.

Now, with the cowardice of their silence, they have turned their backs on the Constitution and surrendered their power and responsibilities. It is as heartbreaking as it is dangerous.

I ask my neighbors to think hard about what kind of nation we want:

Do we want a nation run on the whims of a single man empowered to ignore our Constitution, or do we want a nation built on constitutional law that protects and binds every one of us? We can’t have both.

Tyler Crook

Willamina

No to dictatorship

News flash: Our president has no plans to lower grocery prices, make healthcare more accessible and affordable, expand affordable housing, secure the border, improve our economy or solve the wars in Ukraine or Gaza in ways that respect the people who are under attack.

So what does this man do to attract attention? Threaten Canada with an American takeover, spark an economy-killing trade war and unleash Musk and his minions to destroy the federal government, providing Elon with access to YOUR private information, including your address, social security number, bank account information and more.

Though federal judges are ruling against this blatant executive overreach, the administration is ignoring their rulings.

I don’t believe this is what most people want, even many Americans who voted for this president. We are nothing without the rule of law.

Unfortunately, the Republicans in the Congress are quietly letting this happen, ignoring their oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Let me be clear: We are now led by an enemy of our Constitution.

This might be very good for his super-rich backers, but will prove terrible for more than 90% of Americans, as well as our trusted friends and allies around the world. There will be a reckoning someday.

Some 249 years ago, we went to war to overthrow a king. Americans want self-rule, not a dictatorship.

Phil Forve

McMinnville