To the Editor:
Re “Schumer Defends Stance on Staving Off Shutdown” (information article, March 15):
Your article highlights the selection confronted by the Senate minority chief, Chuck Schumer, relating to the stopgap spending invoice to go off a authorities shutdown.
Vote in opposition to the persevering with decision and please nearly all of your progressive coalition on Capitol Hill, at the same time as Democrats are blamed for a shutdown; vote for it and forestall Donald Trump and Elon Musk from gaining absolute energy throughout a governmental vacuum.
Senator Schumer did the fitting factor. The implications of a shutdown would have transcended partisan politics, whereas essentially the most susceptible residents (those Democrats profess to talk for) would have suffered essentially the most. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi ought to have recognized higher.
Robert Lockwood Mills
Solar Metropolis Heart, Fla.
To the Editor:
In spite of everything his years on Capitol Hill, you’ll assume that Senator Chuck Schumer would perceive that you’ve got leverage in an influence battle provided that the opposite facet believes you’ll use it.
The senator and his Democratic management abysmally failed that check with the vote on the price range persevering with decision.
President Trump, Elon Musk and the remainder of the MAGA crowd now know that when the going will get robust Mr. Schumer will pack it in.
The federal government stays open; Democratic affect in public affairs is diminished.
Robert S. Carroll
Staten Island
To the Editor:
Senator Chuck Schumer swallowed the bitter tablet for all of us. We lose with the invoice, however we lose larger with a authorities shutdown.
Peggy Davis
Atlanta
To the Editor:
Senator Chuck Schumer’s motion, in a nutshell, is why we Democrats are shedding elections. Once we don’t get up in opposition to bullying, we actually don’t stand for something.
Gilson Riecken
San Antonio
To the Editor:
Re “Upstart Democrats’ Anger Rises Over Old Guard’s Grip on Party” (entrance web page, March 16):
I sympathize with that anger and agree that we want new blood in Congress and in our state legislatures. We additionally want new targets.
I don’t need to return to the place we had been below Joe Biden or Barack Obama — once we thought the ability of billionaires was below some management, once we thought we had been confronting local weather change, homelessness and the myriad issues now threatening to overwhelm us as a result of so lots of our representatives have given up.
Our democracy might be renewed solely with a dedication to a extra radical agenda that calls for respectable housing and well being look after all, calls for clear air and water, and calls for an electoral system through which every vote counts and there are not any gerrymandered districts. One through which, sure, polluters pay and billionaires too pay their justifiable share.
Pat Rathbone
Watertown, Mass.
To the Editor:
It’s not simply younger Democrats who’re shedding religion in politicians afraid to take dangers. I’m 78 years previous, and I spent many hours final week spreading the phrase to my listing of political allies (most over 70), urging them to name their senators concerning the vote on the spending invoice.
I’m betting that hundreds of us — who’ve been protesting, gathering signatures, marching and sure, voting, because the ’60s — referred to as Senator Chuck Schumer and demanded that he vote “no.”
And, sure: Regardless of the reference in your article, we do know what a podcast is. Many people even create them.
Liza Ketchum
Watertown, Mass.
A Trump Risk to Regulation Companies
To the Editor:
Re “Out for Revenge, Trump Chills Law Firms and the People They Defend” (information evaluation, March 14):
The manager order punishing legislation corporations for representing presidentially disapproved shoppers threatens a core worth of our authorized system: assuring the supply {of professional} service to all.
That is straightforward to see within the case of extremely unpopular shoppers (the rapist, the serial killer), the place conflating shopper and lawyer could make legal professionals reluctant to supply even constitutionally required skilled companies out of concern that the lawyer’s different shoppers will take their enterprise elsewhere.
We must always deal with a lawyer’s selection of shoppers as we deal with a health care provider’s selection of sufferers — as a matter {of professional} judgment unaffected by the political beliefs of the particular person being served.
William Andersen
Seattle
The author is an emeritus professor on the College of Washington Regulation College.
The Threat of TB
To the Editor:
Re “Amid Trump Freeze, Tuberculosis Is Posing Grave Threat in Africa” (information article, March 13):
This text vividly, precisely and alarmingly outlines the impact that the shortsighted motion by the Trump administration can have on the African continent. One sentence must be emphasised: “If TB begins to unfold unchecked, people throughout the world could become at risk.”
A lot has been written about how the decimation of america Company for Worldwide Growth has tragically affected and can have an effect on the sufferers and communities depending on its help for his or her therapies and cures. However U.S.A.I.D., benevolent as it’s (was), additionally has (had) a self-serving factor, which is commonly forgotten or ignored.
Management of an airborne illness in high-incidence areas controls the airborne illness right here at dwelling. This was a tragic lesson from Covid! And it’s not unreasonable to concern that the present historic lows in home TB and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis charges are in extreme hazard of reversing, fed by instances from high-incidence areas across the globe now not aided by U.S.A.I.D. efforts.
Lee B. Reichman
Maplewood, N.J.
The author is a retired professor of drugs and the founder and former government director of the International Tuberculosis Institute at Rutgers College. He’s a co-author of “Timebomb: The International Epidemic of Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis.”
Theaters in Peril
To the Editor:
I run a small theater firm that depends on funding from the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts. For many years, the N.E.A. has sustained organizations like mine, guaranteeing that theater belongs to everybody — not simply these with the means to fund it themselves. The N.E.A. has stood for inventive freedom. Right this moment, it’s being held hostage.
Beneath federal directives, the N.E.A. has imposed restrictions. Theaters could now not need to disavow range, fairness and inclusion of their mission statements, however their initiatives nonetheless do. Productions specializing in racial justice, transgender narratives or systemic critiques will not be eligible.
Small theaters can’t afford to reject N.E.A. funding. However the largest theaters in America can. Establishments with multi-million-dollar budgets and main endowments have the ability to take a stand. If even one refuses funding below these restrictions, it could ship a strong message: Public arts funding should serve the entire public.
Main theaters should act earlier than April 7, the N.E.A. deadline for Grants for Arts Projects proposals.
Historical past is watching.
Jeanmarie Simpson
Glendale, Ariz.
The author is the founding inventive director of Arizona Theater Issues.
