A duty to remove leaders who betray our values
Manhattan: I’m a quintessentially ordinary American. I was born on a farm in Iowa. My ancestors arrived in New England and Virginia in the very early 1600s from England. My forbears fought for American values in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, on the side of the Union in the Civil War, in the Spanish-American War, in World Wars I and II and the Korean War. They held fast to traditional American values: respect for the Constitution and the rule of law, a belief in the equality of all peoples, the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
When the nation is split because American values are in question or disregarded, strife ensues. The Civil War and the McCarthy era are two cases in point. Public figures who are long on political expedience and short on American values do violence to the fabric of our country, and it’s in danger today because of this.
President Trump continuously eschews American values in favor of expediency in obtaining his desires. He flouts well-established presidential, governmental, judicial and humanitarian norms, values and laws with impunity. His outrageous attacks on the citizens of Minnesota are as egregious as anything the British Redcoats did to provoke American colonists into revolution, that started with the Battle of Lexington (painting). Trump and his administration are anti-American in spirit and in deed. The unpatriotic Republican members of the House and Senate who refuse to stand up to this do not deserve to be in the offices they hold. Sheri Clemons
Secret police
Manhattan: Beware your repairman and food delivery person, utility workers who linger on the street and construction workers who show up at job sites. They may be ICE agents in disguise ready to batter down your door or arrest you for the color of your skin. At least they won’t be wearing masks like their Ku Klux Klan predecessors did, but the military hardware bulging under their costumes will be a dead giveaway. Democrats have maximum leverage to make maximum demands to rein in ICE abuses, but they’re asking for only a minimum of reform. NYPD officers show their faces and don’t whine about being doxxed. But ICE killer culture, with its agents recruited from neo-Nazi sites, can’t be reformed. It has to be shut down entirely as the threat to democracy it is. Paula Walzer
Per capita
Bronx: To Voicer Richard Warren: The statistics of illegal immigrants constituting 14% of incarcerated individuals in New York while making up 4% of the state’s population are from John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. The overwhelming number of rapes and murders are committed by people who are born here because they constitute the overwhelming number of the population. What’s relevant is a comparison of the percentage of each group’s crimes to their percentage of the population. Michael Abbey
Rest in power
Manhattan: Re “Rights leader, prez hopeful Jesse Jackson is dead at 84” (Feb. 18): Kudos to the Daily News for your great cover photo and detailed history of the life of this true patriot. Rev. Jackson changed the lives of all Americans. His lifelong energy was spent not only improving civil rights in this country, but saving the lives of hostages worldwide. We’ll miss his dedication and love of this country. Chris Santoro
Still stings
Staten Island: Jesse Jackson was called a great icon of civil rights up until he canceled my Jewish tribe by branding us as “Hymie” from “Hymietown.” I do not forget, nor do I forgive. Gary Perl
Silent partners
Carle Place, L.I.: Not long ago, the Koch family bought 10% of the Giants for $1 billion. My thought was something was up because no one gives that kind of money for no say in the business. And now co-owner Steve Tisch is found to be mentioned 400-plus times in the Epstein files. Mere coincidence? I think not. Rudy Rosenberg
Disincentives
Brooklyn: Mayor Mamdani is setting up the new city budget. He knows there are billions of dollars in deficit, so he wants to raise taxes on homeowners and big corporations 10%. Meanwhile, Gov. Hochul hasn’t really said if she’ll OK it. If there is an increase of this amount, many homeowners will pack up and leave. Worst of all, big corporations will leave. Wall Street could become a ghost town. The middle class or big corporations don’t want to become the mayor’s whipping boy. These socialist ideas will ruin the city. Trying to push them wouldn’t be in either the mayor’s or governor’s best interest. Remember, the entire nation is watching this unfold. So is Washington, D.C. Joseph Comperchio
Tax the rich
Bayside: If Mamdani is seeking to cover shortfalls in NYC’s budget through a rise in property taxes, he can start by looking at all the undertaxed properties. For example, former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $1.5 million home in Park Slope is assessed at 1.5%, while mine is assessed at 6%. Start looking at all the properties with ridiculously low assessments, and let them pay their fair share. We’re already paying ours. Margaret Dabraccio
Speed up staffing
Brooklyn: Low-income New Yorkers continue to experience significant delays in receiving essential benefits — specifically, SNAP/food stamps and cash assistance — due to chronic staffing shortages, high vacancy rates and increased caseloads within NYC’s Human Resources Administration. There are 1,500 vacancies at HRA. This is unacceptable. The agency has struggled to meet federal and state deadlines, with over one-third of cash assistance cases still facing delays as of late 2024 and throughout 2025. NYC’s civil service exam process adds months or years to government hiring, and could constrain Mamdani’s ability to rebuild staffing at key agencies. Much of the rest of the state has sidestepped that bottleneck by using NY HELPS, a state program that lets agencies fill many positions without exams. However, this program has been opposed by the municipal unions. The mayor must fill these vacancies soon and should consider doing so by hiring hundreds of provisionals. Robert Mascali
Unresponsive
Manhattan: The Social Security Administration no longer picks up its phones. There are people without computers. It will ruin things for people who need letters for housing, HUD and NYCHA. Helen Murphy
Let’s get out of the way
Manhattan: Diligently, Voicer Ebere Osu has tallied 187 condemnations of Israel by the UN General Assembly during the past decade. Confident that the U.S. will block any action by the UN Security Council, Israel has continued to violate international law and the UN Charter. Because there are other bad actors participating in the UN’s functions, Osu suggests that we “discontinue funding this immoral cesspool.” Since the U.S. is the biggest turd in that fecal pool, better it simply withdraw from the Security Council, allowing at least the Israel issue to be dealt with. Michele P. Brown
