- Leave Well Enough Alone
- Trump’s ‘Cotton Candy’ State Of The Union Speech
- Trump Talk
- Why Are Affluent People Fighting Public Transit Tax?
- Does Trump Understand Tariffs?
- Why Are They Stranded
- Cuba’s Next
- Dump Thompson
LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE
Dear Editor,
I am writing to establish my opposition to the recently introduced Assembly Bill 2494 targeting self-sufficiency of California State Forests. As a California Registered Professional Forester who lives and recreates in proximity to the Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF), I feel obligated to share that I believe the JDSF has been a success story under its current mandate. JDSF provides unique opportunities for the public. The revenue from timber management supports the forest staff and environmentally important road maintenance. The wood products generated from timber harvests are truly renewable building materials. The State Forest, under its current management, has successfully supported environmental research and restoration projects. In my personal and professional opinion, the potential environmental cost of supporting this assembly bill will be greater than many realize.
I also worry that the working-class demographic that supports current management of JDSF has been underrepresented. I have attended public JDSF meetings and sincerely believe the forest staff have made impressive strides to correct the issues that brought JDSF under public scrutiny.
I do not wish to alter the current management of the State Forests. AB 2494 seeks to fix something that is not broken. The Jackson Demonstration State Forest has some of the tallest and most contiguous stands of timber in the county. JDSF is not over-logged, nor at risk environmentally under current management. It would be a tragedy to lose what the State Demonstration Forests currently provide.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Brunner, RPF #3213
Fort Bragg
TRUMP’S ‘COTTON CANDY’ STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH
Editor:
Some described President Donald Trump’s hair during the State of the Union Address as looking like cotton candy; and the address was like cotton candy — a lot of air and no substance. The speech was a great show but did not specifically address the state of affairs in the U.S., not only its domestic problems, but its reputation worldwide.
Trump boasts of American successes internationally but consorts with strong men like Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. He says he is the “apple of Putin’s eye.” He has not displayed his “Art of the Deal” skills so far with Vladimir Putin, standing by while Putin murders thousands of Ukrainians, as well as killing hundreds of thousands of his own citizens, in the four years since he unlawfully invaded Ukraine.
Trump can bully Venezuela, Cuba and Iran, but for some reason he has given Putin a free hand in the destruction of Ukraine. He made no mention of this sorry state of affairs in his speech.
Greg Jacobs
Sebastopol
TRUMP TALK
Editor:
I see a verbal similarity between answers given by two disparate presidents. When Bill Clinton was being interrogated about the Monica Lewinsky affair, his answer to the allegations was, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” Donald Trump, in defending initiating a war against Iran, asserted that an attack from that Asian country was “imminent.” I think that this misuse of a word’s meaning has a far more serious consequence.
Phil Weil
Santa Rosa
WHY ARE AFFLUENT PEOPLE FIGHTING PUBLIC TRANSIT TAX?
Editor:
Is it not very late in the day to still complain about the quarter-cent sales tax that helps fund the SMART train? Ken Richter decried SMART as a “liability." Public services improve our quality of life and must be funded. Should we refuse to pay our household electric and water bills because they are “liabilities” on some dubious ledger in some ideologue’s imagination? I have not owned a car since 1992 due to the grotesque burden of financial liability that auto ownership places on the backs of the working poor. The abysmally low wages paid by my employers necessitated that I embrace this stoic discipline for decades. I actually rather liked it.
In retirement I depend on SMART to take me to Cotati to busk, playing guitar for tip jar money at Oliver’s Market. These tips pay for my groceries. SMART is my lifeline.
That a teeny cohort of well-off, insular folks cannot stop kvetching about a modest funding source for SMART, a much-beloved public amenity that immeasurably improves life here in Sonoma County (especially for the impoverished) is beyond laughable.
John Trubee
Santa Rosa
DOES TRUMP UNDERSTAND TARIFFS?
Editor:
So Donald Trump loses at the Supreme Court on his idiotic tariff scheme and says the judges he appointed are going to “destroy our economy,” which is exactly what he seems to have been doing all along. I wonder if anyone has ever asked him if he actually knows what a tariff is. He first says he’s protecting American business, but he has to bail out farmers and steel manufacturers because their businesses are in the toilet. And, of course, the biggest bunch of milquetoast senators in history continue as they always have with Trump and do nothing. I have to wonder what makes Republicans hate our country so much.
Chris Wilbur
Santa Rosa
WHY ARE THEY STRANDED
Editor:
Many of you may have heard reports of stranded Americans in the war zone. As a retired foreign service officer, maybe I can shed some light on why that might be. Of the 195 ambassadorial positions worldwide, currently 115 are vacant, nine of them in the Middle East: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the United Arab Emirates. (Also Ukraine.) At the State Department in Washington, all senior positions are staffed by political appointees.
On Jan. 16, President Donald Trump summarily dismissed 30 career ambassadors without a reason or any prior notification. Their sin: they had been appointed during the Biden administration.
The professional foreign service has been systematically decimated, leaving inexperienced political appointees in charge. So my advice to you future travelers is to restrict your travel to nice, safe European capitals, which all have ambassadors who are friends of the president. If something happens there, maybe you can catch a ride out on their private jets.
Kate Schertz
Sonoma
CUBA’S NEXT
Editor:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has described Cuba as a “brutal dictatorship,” but Rubio’s family fled Cuba during the truly brutal U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, not after the Cuban revolution.
Two things give the lie to the Trump administration’s crocodile tears about the Cuban people. First, you can’t starve a population and care about it. Second, the demand that oil going to Cuba pass through private hands, with their demand for profit, makes the U.S. goal crystal clear. Both Republicans and Democrats want corporations to take over Cuba just as they have the U.S.
The U.S. claims that Cuba’s socialist economic model is unsustainable, yet despite decades of harsh sanctions and blockades, it still exists. Imagine what it might do if Cuba were left alone. It might actually thrive. And that’s exactly what U.S. capitalists don’t want: a successful, socialist economic model, when we’ve been told our entire lives that there is only one option, the one that provides the greatest monetary return to the wealthiest. As you watch our income gap continue to widen, you might begin to question the propaganda.
And, finally, the corporate media report as though we have the right to determine Cuba’s future. We do not.
Susan Collier Lamont
Santa Rosa
DUMP THOMPSON
Editor:
I have long identified as a Democrat, which is why I was disheartened to see the California Democratic Party endorse Mike Thompson for a 15th term in the 4th Congressional District. His endorsement is difficult to reconcile with his vote for H.R. 7006, the Financial Services and General Government and National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2026. The administration made clear the bill would fund efforts to repatriate undocumented immigrants to their home countries and partner nations. This was not a symbolic or procedural vote; it directly supported an aggressive federal immigration enforcement agenda.
The timing made the decision even more troubling. By the time the bill reached the House, the death of Renee Good during a federal immigration enforcement operation had heightened public concern about Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement practices. Voting to expand repatriation funding at that moment signaled indifference to mounting questions about accountability and human rights.
Within Sonoma County, the contrast is clear. Rep. Jared Huffman voted against the measure, reflecting a more cautious approach. Thompson may have the party’s endorsement, but his vote on H.R. 7006 cost him mine.
Ben Ruffner
Sonoma
Be First to Comment