Letters to the Editor | Dec. 22, 2024

The United States Postal Service’s struggle to remain solvent is a blatant example of the failure to have fair play and true competition in the marketplace. For-profit companies have swept up the lucrative delivery routes throughout the nation. USPS is left to deliver ordinary mail: postcards, Christmas cards, catalogs, and payment checks to and from rural and remote areas of the country, in addition to every house on every block in every city. A wonderful service, but not very profitable. As a young boy working on my uncle’s farm in South Jersey, I still remember anxiously awaiting the arrival of the mail truck wending its way through Belle Plaine State Forest on an unpaved path called Snake Road. No profit there for the delivery of newspaper clippings and a box of Tastykakes. Yes, Virginia, there is a Grinch.

Bud Bretschneider, Philadelphia, bud.bretschneider@gmail.com

Trudy Rubin was right on point with her recent Worldview column. As she observes, starving Palestinians in Gaza and destroying their medical facilities is a war crime and a bad strategy for the nation of Israel. As a retired pediatrician, I am horrified to hear about the destruction of Gazan medical facilities, the lack of medical supplies and medicines, the extreme injuries inflicted upon many of the children, and the infectious diseases exacerbated by widespread malnutrition. We need a cease-fire to this senseless war and killing now.

Carla Campbell, Glenside, carlacampbell520@yahoo.com

Regarding the commutation of the prison sentence for Michael T. Conahan, the judge who was convicted in the “kids-for-cash” scandal, any pardon or clemency proposed by the president of the United States should require the advice and consent of both the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives. Logical, simple, easy. Let’s amend the Constitution to put this in place. Our president should not have king-like powers.

Matthew Reilly, Mount Laurel

To those of you who voted for Donald Trump in the hope he would deliver on lowering food prices, don’t hold your breath. Trump is not yet in office, yet he is already walking back that assurance. As he told NBC’s Meet the Press, “they” — meaning Joe Biden and Kamala Harris — “got them [prices] up” and “it’s hard to bring things down once they’re up … it’s very hard.” And with that, Trump took himself off the hook as he pursues tariffs north, east, south, and west while vowing to decimate the workforce through mass deportations.

Trump tapped into people’s unhappiness with the cost of groceries and won their vote. Now he’s placing blame elsewhere and insisting he can’t guarantee anything. Were Trump voters aware he has a history of breaking contracts? In Trump World, a promise made is not always a promise kept (unless you’re a billionaire). Trump’s pledge to lower our grocery costs is simply the first to be kicked to the curb. For us, the common American, Trump’s gilded promises may be little more than dross.

Deborah DiMicco, Newtown

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