Letters to the Editor | March 24, 2025

I’m curious about the new U.S. attorney general’s decision to charge three people who vandalized Tesla dealerships and label them as domestic terrorists. Did these people assault police officers or guards to get into the car dealerships? Did they threaten to kill the workers at the dealerships or any Tesla executives? Did they conspire against the company? The folks who stormed the U.S. Capitol sure did. I guess when she announced that “the days of committing crimes without consequences have ended,” she meant the days after Donald Trump pardoned the Capitol rioters.

Stefan Keller, Huntingdon Valley

The prolonged conflict between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas is very sad and very tragic. The United Nations and most countries have been urging a nonviolent resolution to this crisis. As an American, the extended tragedy for me is the U.S. response by Joe Biden, and now Donald Trump, to continue to supply offensive weapons to Israel and to acquiesce to the killing of civilians. The U.S. is complicit in the violence and the killing. Their blood is on our hands. We are not helping the situation and are contributing to great harm. We are in the wrong.

Bill (William) Mattia, Pennsauken

A recent article exposed the persistent gap in reading proficiency scores across the state. While the pandemic surely disrupted instruction, the U.S. was behind other countries in literacy even before that. And you know why? It’s because an essential tool that facilitates learning has been minimized or eliminated from the curriculum. I’m talking about handwriting instruction.

MRI images of the brain in the process of putting pencil to paper show huge spikes in the reading network. There is also significant evidence of cross-hemispheric communication when kids are writing. That’s the genesis of learning — memory, problem-solving, creativity. That same electrical activity is not present when looking at letters or using a keyboard. While kids are writing, their brains are talking to themselves. And unless you practice writing, that process doesn’t reach the point of automaticity. There must be instruction in both manuscript and cursive writing so children are not thinking about how to drive their pencils, but rather what they want to write about.

The pendulum has swung so far to the side of technology that it has overlooked basic developmental skills children need. Kids in our earliest grades are learning how to learn. We need to defer to neuroscience when deciding the best ways to educate them. And the neuroscience evidence is clear. Time to return to basics. There will always be time to teach computer skills. However, if we want to close that proficiency gap and help our students become literate, we must teach them how to handwrite first.

Beverly Moskowitz, Philadelphia

President Donald Trump took an oath to the Constitution. It seems two equal branches may soon clash if he refuses to follow a court order. If the order is appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and is upheld, and Trump continues to defy it, then what? That would be a constitutional crisis. If the judiciary is defied, it doesn’t control the purse or the sword, and has no means of enforcement, then what? The enforcement measure must come from the third branch, the legislative branch. Those people also took the same oath to the Constitution. They must obey their oath and set aside their loyalty to party or individual in order to save the Constitution and remove the ongoing threat to our founder’s experiment in democracy through impeachment. If the citizenry can’t rally around the Constitution, the experiment is over, and Benjamin Franklin’s warning — “A republic, if you can keep it” — will come true just short of 250 years later.

Roy Lehman, Woolwich Township

Donald Trump and his allies often claim the election gave him an overwhelming mandate for his actions. To the contrary, he got about 49.8% of the vote, and 50.2% voted against him. When you add those who did not vote, only 32% of the registered electorate voted for him. His voters may want tougher immigration policies, but surely not all of them voted for deportation of people without due process, or deportation of people merely for expressing their opinions. Many of his voters may believe the government should be smaller, but surely not all voted for unilateral elimination by a shadow president of agencies created and funded by Congress in accordance with its power under Article I of the Constitution.

Surely many of his voters do not believe Trump has the power to ignore court orders, threaten judges, and undermine the First Amendment by threatening the press and everyone else who disagrees with him. Finally, even if every single voter in this country supported these and other illegal actions, they do not have the power to authorize the president to take them — not until the states ratify a new Constitution providing for a dictator, no Congress, and no Bill of Rights.

Samuel Mason, Bryn Mawr

Kudos to Freddie Nole, the founder of Meeting at the Door, whose story was recently featured in The Inquirer (”He gives recently incarcerated people support and free rides home because he was once in their shoes”). As an experienced criminal defense and civil rights attorney, I know firsthand the challenges my clients experience inside and outside the prison doors. Criminal justice agencies lack the resources and personnel to prioritize the much-needed support these people need to ensure their success in the community. My clients are given so many rules and negative reinforcements from their probation and parole agents that it often leads them to failure, relapse, and recidivism. Nole, who genuinely cares about his fellow human beings, offers compassion, friendship, and positivity — exactly what is needed to give these recently released people the opportunity to thrive.

Laurie Jubelirer, laurie@jubelirerlaw.com, Ambler

While unelected copresident Elon Musk takes his chain saw to the federal workforce in the name of efficiency, I thought I would give him a little help — given the obvious stress he is under with Tesla stock dropping 45% since January, cars sitting in inventory, his dealers being picketed, and his rockets blowing up with regularity — by identifying an obvious wasteful expense. One that should be easy for him to shut it down. Every Friday afternoon, Donald Trump climbs aboard Marine One and heads out to Joint Base Andrews, where he boards Air Force One and heads home to Mar-a-Lago in West Palm Beach, Fla., so he can play golf. Adding it all up, the 1,000-mile flights cost $1.1 million each way. This happens every Friday, and then every Sunday night in return. The bill is already over $11 million. There you go, Elon, obvious government waste. Easy target. Go get it.

Steve Erlichman, Elkins Park

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