Letters: Trump is right — America is not always great. What if we give him a chance to fix it?
Yes, President Donald Trump (and others) are asking for changes, some of them needed, others that may seem odd. I do wish the Trump administration would focus immigration raids on deporting criminals.
Not everything in our country has gone right in the past 50 years.
We have grown complacent about giving our money to anyone who asks or appears to think they need something. I think accountability is a good thing; we need to know where our money is going and how it's going to be spent.
Not every research project at every college is worth researching — many are absurd and unnecessary. And I think funding institutions that are biased is wrong.
It would be nice if people saved their hatred and biases against the Trump administration until we see the results. I think most people will find that many or most of these changes are not bad and probably needed.
Kathleen McGrath Crabbe, San Francisco
Not based on facts
Regarding 'California's resistance to Trump: This could be our finest hour' (Open Forum, SFChronicle.com, July 6): Joe Mathews describes President Donald Trump as a dictator, like Vladimir Putin. The irony must have escaped Mathews because he felt free to write a hypercritical column of Trump without fear of repercussions and the 'secret police.'
Somehow, millions showed up recently to protest at No Kings rallies and without Trump trying to intervene. Can anyone imagine Putin putting up with those protests?
Mathews further claims that Trump 'lawlessly seized control of our California National Guard,' yet there is a link to a story about a federal appeals court ruling saying the president acted legally.
Another wild claim is that Trump is out to 'destroy our economy,' however, the linked story says nothing about specifically targeting California.
If Mathews believes resistance to Trump is a necessary noble cause for Californians, utilizing facts would work better than hyperbole.
Michael Singer, Santa Rosa
Universities fuel U.S.
Amidst the chaos of America, the Fourth of July was a difficult holiday this year. As a nation, we are moving away from shared values and the slow, but steady progress that have been pillars in my 37-year lifetime.
A glimmer of solace over the weekend was the American flags hanging from the cranes that are building UCSF's expanded Parnassus campus. Signs that, despite the darkness and the baseless attacks on American higher education, here in San Francisco and California, we recognize the power and opportunity of world-class research universities and medical innovation.
Our universities play a distinct role in generating economic growth, making future-altering discoveries and training the next generation of America's workforce and health care providers.
Brendan O'Callaghan, San Francisco
Deadly consequences
The death toll from flooding on the Guadalupe River in Texas is rising, and many girls are still missing from a Christian summer camp.
The linkages between greenhouse gas emissions, climate warming and extreme rainfall and flooding are well-established in the scientific literature.
Yet President Donald Trump has called climate change a 'hoax' and is dismantling former President Joe Biden's program to reduce emissions and has taken an axe to the agencies — the National Weather Service and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration — charged with tracking and modeling extreme weather events.
It is a bitter and tragic irony that many of the parents of those poor girls swept away in the flood are most likely ardent supporters of President Trump.
Robert Coats, Berkeley
Criticism is right
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Washington Post
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- Washington Post
Democrats demand U.S. investigation of American's death in West Bank
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Chicago Tribune
10 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Donald Trump's onetime friendship with Jeffrey Epstein is well-known — and also documented in records
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The Hill
10 minutes ago
- The Hill
Graham, Cornyn call for special counsel in Obama case
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