Trumpian reign of ‘lawlessness’ soon to start

As Trump prepares to pardon Jan. 6 convicts on his first day in office, his acts redefine criminal. Criminals are those who oppose him, disagree with him, try to hold him accountable, or anyone he just doesn’t like. He has often said they should be rounded up, prosecuted, tried and even executed. Think General Milley, what he calls “the Biden crime family,” the Jan. 6th committee members; and Cash Patel’s list of 60 of Trump’s Enemies.

Immigrants are another class of criminals he promises to go after,with gusto, also on the very first day.

Now for Trump, you are no longer a criminal if you broke laws on his behalf, if you lied, cheated, defamed others, or if you stormed the Capitol, assaulted police officers, defaced and destroyed the Capitol. Of course it is a given that any crime he was charged with, sexual abuse, fraud, tax evasion, stealing federal documents, obstruction of justice, and election interference are no longer considered criminal acts, unless you are on his enemies list. Let the lawlessness begin.

— Christine DeLapp, Aptos

Many J6 ‘hostages’ told court they were wrong

The article in Monday’s paper (Jan. 6) regarding Trump’s promise to pardon the “J6 hostages” (as he refers to them), failed to mention that a number of the rioters told their judges how sorry they were for their actions and how they were wrong to follow Trump’s commands.

To think a convicted felon is going to set other convicted felons free ... what a laugh!

— Martha Dolciamore, Soquel

Carter’s dubious foreign policy accomplishments

Former Santa Cruz Mayor Mike Rotkin’s effusive panegyric (Jan. 2) to President Carter left out two of his foreign policy accomplishments which deserve mention. By granting the Canal to Panama, he increased the economy of that needy country by billions of dollars. In 2023, their GDP was over $80 billion U.S., a triumph of diplomacy! Secondly, in his consideration of Canada, he pardoned 100,000 Americans who fled to Canada to avoid the draft. Once they realized they were not liable for prison time, 50,000 of them returned to the States, much to the gratification of Canada. Were it not for the objections of American war veterans who served honorably, he could have given the draft dodgers some sort of status, but at that point, for us vets, the joke had gone far enough.

— Dennis Case, Aptos

Reality: Carter’s legacy was not ‘quite so great’

Nobody can say the peanut farmer wasn’t a decent human being, however the reality is his legacy isn’t quite so great. His foreign policy wasn’t much of a success in giving away the Panama canal after we built which has allowed China to now to dominate traffic control there, the Carter Administration’s hesitant and embarrassing response to the Iranian crisis led to the Iranian fall to theocracy, his creation of the Department of Education as a new Cabinet-level agency was never intended in the Constitution and let’s honestly say educational achievement has never been the same.

From personal experience volunteering at Habitat with Humanity I can say most of the work is done by convicts levied with community service, and the word there was Carter charged a lot to be with on any project he personally worked on. All that and the weekend warrior volunteer work goes to support another non-profit, non taxpaying class benefiting the very few lucky lotto winners.

— Garrett Philipp, Santa Cruz

‘The Haven’ not exactly that for SLV residents

I attended the neighborhood meeting on Dec. 4 conducted by Tate Development of Del Mar. It was unnerving to see the scope of the project dubbed “The Haven” planned for the 40 acres of undisturbed land on Graham Hill Road. The developer is using a loophole called “Builders Remedy” to bypass the county and cram 157 homes and 600 parking places onto the site.

What alarmed me more was his plan to have SLV Water annex the site into the SLV Water District, thus siphoning off a precious resource from the people of the San Lorenzo Valley. The arrogance of this Southern California developer thinking that he is entitled to SLV Water, when there are CZU fire victims that still don’t have water, should ring alarm bells for everyone living in the valley.

SLV Water District has not yet voted to annex the development into the district. Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond and Felton residents must let SLV water board members know how they feel about this project.

— Rosemarie Slawinski, Scotts Valley