Reasonable ground

The law authorizing the secretary of state to deport those for whom he has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is not obscure. It is codified in Title 8 U.S. Code, §1227, which can easily be found online and in some public libraries.

Kahlil Mahmoud acted as a mediator on behalf of Columbia students who illegally built an encampment on the campus, occupied buildings at Columbia’s Hamilton Hall and a building at Barnard College.

Someone who in effect says to the administrators of Columbia, “Nice campus you have here. To maintain this, simply agree to our demands.” That is not free speech, that is extortion.

— Stuart Makagon, Whittier

Newsom’s audacity

Reading Steve Greenhut’s article about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new podcast and his attempts at repositioning himself for a run for the presidency, I am appalled by Newsom’s audacity. After Newsom’s terrible job as governor of California it shocks me that he would even remotely consider a run for the presidency.

Then I read Susan Shelley’s article about the runaway costs and deceit of Medi-Cal. Newsom’s administration initially budgeted $2-4 billion for Medi-Cal. By mid-2024, the estimate reached $6 billion. Yet, the Department of Finance admitted in a hearing that it was closer to $9.5 billion. And why has this grown so much? California, under Newsom’s leadership, has extended Medi-Cal to undocumented immigrants since 2015. So now the Department of Finance has to borrow $3.4 billion to pay for these expenses.

These undocumented immigrants have access to healthcare benefits from prenatal through long-term care. Two things to be concerned about. We as taxpayers are paying for other people’s expenses, at an extremely high cost. Two, what poor kind of fiscal management does Newsom practice?

He can’t handle the state of California; he would do a disastrous job running the country.

Newsom, you are being closely watched. Stop your insane actions now.

He won’t get my vote. I hope he does not get yours, and I pray he does not get the nomination of the devastated Democratic Party.

— Ellie S. MacMullin, Pasadena

The king and his oligarchs

I agree that, as in “King Trump and his oligarchs vs. the press” by Larry Wilson, this administration should be funnier than hell. It’s about a goofy orange man-child, elevated to toddler-in-chief, adored by millions of fellow goofs who only get their news from Fox and Facebook. King Baby gets mad at a lot of things, many trivial in nature, and acts out in ways such as his “banning reporters from the Associated Press news agency from Air Force One and pool coverage because their editors decline to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America on a whim.”

Reading this stuff, which is actually comedy gold, should prompt a belly laugh, a much-needed, prolonged, belly laugh. But, like Larry said, “It’s just no fun anymore, trying to laugh at the current president when his completely insane economic policies are crashing the equities markets ... and your 401(k) is in the tank.”

Larry, I say we don’t let this oligarch-loving baboon take our joy from us, we keep laughing, we hold on until the mid-terms, when sanity and our 401(k)s can return.

Decent Americans will always get the last laugh!

— William Stremel, South Pasadena

Contributions of immigrants

By focusing on implementing an anti-DEI (Diversity, Equality and Inclusion) policy, Trump has brought attention to the contributions of immigrants since the inception of this republic. We are all immigrants, and as citizens of this great racially diverse republic, our ancestors, patriots all of them, served in wars to defend our democracy and the ethnic diversity of our nation, which has become the racial tapestry of cultures that has made this great country.

To deny the contributions made by individuals from such a diverse racial background is to deny our multiethnic history. Both Trump, Musk and many elected Republicans who wish to erase our heritage and replace it with a false narrative not based on historical facts, will only promote racism and prejudice that once existed in our republic’s past, a past filled with the murder of children, the brutal hanging of innocent men, and the delaying and repression of the American dream to countless generations of people of color.

We cannot and should not allow Trump, Musk and elected Republicans to return our republic to a dark and immoral era of American history.

— Larry Naritomi, Monterey Park