A duty to remove leaders who betray our values

Manhattan: I’m a quintessentially ordinary American. I was born on a farm in Iowa. My ancestors arrived in New England and Virginia in the very early 1600s from England. My forbears fought for American values in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, on the side of the Union in the Civil War, in the Spanish-American War, in World Wars I and II and the Korean War. They held fast to traditional American values: respect for the Constitution and the rule of law, a belief in the equality of all peoples, the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

When the nation is split because American values are in question or disregarded, strife ensues. The Civil War and the McCarthy era are two cases in point. Public figures who are long on political expedience and short on American values do violence to the fabric of our country, and it’s in danger today because of this.

President Trump continuously eschews American values in favor of expediency in obtaining his desires. He flouts well-established presidential, governmental, judicial and humanitarian norms, values and laws with impunity. His outrageous attacks on the citizens of Minnesota are as egregious as anything the British Redcoats did to provoke American colonists into revolution, that started with the Battle of Lexington (painting). Trump and his administration are anti-American in spirit and in deed. The unpatriotic Republican members of the House and Senate who refuse to stand up to this do not deserve to be in the offices they hold. Sheri Clemons

Manhattan: Beware your repairman and food delivery person, utility workers who linger on the street and construction workers who show up........

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