Letters to the Editor | April 3, 2025

This is a big “thanks!” to Sen. Cory Booker for his monumental and courageous speech Tuesday, which expressed what so many of us are feeling. He explained what a democracy is and should be doing. Instead, our president and his DOGE boys are doing everything they can to destroy our country and our nation’s standing in the world. We are indeed in a crisis, as Booker stated, not “of right or left,” but of right vs. wrong. How can anyone deny that serious harm is being done to our own people, and the people around the world, with the loss of health and food support where they are desperately needed? Perhaps China will take up the slack since the U.S. has left the field. China has already begun to cultivate areas in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Maybe it will be the leader of the later 21st century. Meanwhile, the rich will become richer, and the poor … well, the poor will become the rest of us.

Margaret A. Zanoni, Edgewater Park

Democrats have been sorely lacking a real leader to stand up to Donald Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional actions. I love ground-level citizen action, and yes, I will be in the streets Saturday for the “Hands Off!” rally. But where are our Democratic leaders? From sitting tepidly through Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech (I don’t count raising hand paddles with sassy sayings on them as political action) to voting for Trump’s continuing resolution to block a government shutdown (John Fetterman, I’m looking at you), Democratic leaders are MIA — with one shining exception

New Jersey’s own Sen. Cory Booker broke the record with a 25-hour marathon speech on the floor of the Senate Tuesday to “disrupt Senate business” because “our nation is in crisis.” He rightly observes: “These are not normal times in our nation. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.” Finally, someone who gets it.

Will Booker turn out to be our Winston Churchill? Churchill was a member of Parliament, in and out of favor, before his steadfast commitment to freedom and willingness to speak out made him Britain’s prime minister, and the one who kept England from falling to Hitler for the long years it took the U.S. to get into the war. We need our own Churchill right now. I’m reading history, and asking Democratic politicians: Will that be you?

Linda Falcao, North Wales

Columnist Will Bunch did a great job of describing the travesty of the arrest and disappearance of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student in the U.S. on a student visa. This was essentially a kidnapping by the government in broad daylight of a person with legal documents, something more fittingly seen in an authoritarian dictatorship. I can’t begin to describe how furious I was to hear this story, as we all should be. We have a long tradition in the United States of a fair legal system with due process, whereby one is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Ozturk apparently participated in writing an opinion piece in the student newspaper regarding the war in Gaza, and that seems to be her alleged crime. I hope we all can speak out loud and clear against this type of illegal activity on the part of our government. Raise your voice against the cruel and improper actions of the Trump administration now.

Carla Campbell, Glenside, [email protected]

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