To the Editor:
Having learn The Instances’s reporting on the Supreme Court docket’s choice on affirmative motion and one other primarily authorizing discrimination beneath the guise of spiritual liberty, I’ve a message for Chief Justice John Roberts.
I’ve been a member of the Supreme Court docket Bar for 25 years. I joined the Bar as a result of I used to be appointed to symbolize a prisoner searching for to deal with the court docket. It was a proud second, as a result of I used to be doing my obligation, and had reverence for the establishment.
Nonetheless, the latest actions and selections of the present majority are merely appalling. It’s clear that almost all will not be performing as a court docket, however as an unelected political physique ignoring each rule of legislation it was sworn to uphold. That is an affront to all who preceded you, to your colleagues within the minority and to members of the federal judiciary upholding their oath.
I’m embarrassed to be related to this court docket in any method. I’ve labored too long and hard to be sullied by an affiliation with such disregard for the legislation and ethics. I’m resigning.
Kelly Dahl
Linden Grove Township, Minn.
To the Editor:
Right here I used to be pondering that the justices had been making an attempt to resuscitate their tarnished reputations after their egregious ruling final 12 months reversing Roe v. Wade, going in opposition to the needs of the overwhelming majority of the American folks.
I used to be hopeful as a result of there have been some very affordable rulings this session. I used to be notably relieved that they dominated in opposition to state legislatures that needed full management over elections, which may have ended our democracy.
However I used to be improper, as grew to become apparent once they took away a 40-year precedent in overturning affirmative motion.
Girls, minorities — their wants are dispensable. Ah, however not spiritual Christians! The justices additionally dominated that an internet designer may refuse to serve L.G.B.T.Q. folks due to spiritual beliefs.
The Supreme Court docket, made up of unelected justices, appears to be essentially the most highly effective department of presidency proper now, and the justices are busy making over this nation in their very own conservative political picture. They’re utterly out of contact with what the vast majority of the American folks need. And so they reply to nobody.
Ellen Sussman
Brooklyn
To the Editor:
In a response to criticism by Justice Elena Kagan and clearly as an try and self-discipline and intimidate the opposite liberal justices as nicely, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote within the scholar mortgage choice: “It has change into a disturbing function of some latest opinions to criticize the choices with which they disagree as going past the correct position of the judiciary.” He added: “It will be significant that the general public not be misled both. Any such misperception can be dangerous to this establishment and our nation.”
With out the fashion and disgust of the liberal judges there wouldn’t even be a sliver of respect left for an establishment whose majority is pushed by bullying vanity, logic-chopping heartless literal-mindedness and a reactionary rage rising extra unhinged by the day.
Robert Roth
New York
To the Editor:
Today, the three scariest phrases within the English language are “6 to three.”
Harry Nussdorf
Queens
The author is a retired assistant district legal professional.
Pumping Groundwater and the Earth’s Wobble
To the Editor:
Re “The Earth’s Axis Is Shifting, and We’re the Cause” (entrance web page, June 29):
Wow! Even after 30 years of labor on groundwater, I used to be startled to be taught that our extraction charge is contributing to the Earth’s rising wobble. I instantly envision the tens of millions of wells supplying small desert communities, sprawling cities and big agricultural complexes. After which I consider the billions of individuals relying on water from these wells, and the crops grown from them, for his or her nourishment.
It’s these individuals who make the groundwater query so essential and so knotted: Billions of lives now depend upon a system of extraction that’s fairly actually spinning uncontrolled. We will’t merely cease the pumps. What we will do is shift our relationship with aquifers, see them much less as sources of limitless water and extra as infrastructure, close to magical, that deserves and wishes proactive care.
This implies empowering native managers with data-rich instruments to steer their very own groundwater futures, opening up avenues to viable cutbacks in use (reminiscent of land repurposing), and enabling elevated, secure recharge.
Regardless of the Earth-wobbling impression of our over-extraction, I’ve hope. That is an pressing however not inconceivable downside to unravel. The checklist of instruments at our disposal and the desire for change is rising. Let’s not let this warning signal go to waste.
Maurice Corridor
Santa Fe, N.M.
The author is senior adviser to the Local weather Resilient Water Methods program on the Environmental Protection Fund.
To the Editor:
The measurable impact of groundwater pumping on Earth’s spin is one other piece of compelling proof that we have now entered the Anthropocene Epoch. Including Anthropocene to the geological time scale helps acknowledge the profound results of human actions on our planet’s local weather and atmosphere.
Guohua Li
Montebello, N.Y.
Treating Politicians as Messiahs
To the Editor:
Re “The Coalition of the Distrustful,” by Michelle Goldberg (column, July 2):
By citing “an virtually religious perception” that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “may heal the hatred and suspicions that make Individuals wish to shut each other down,” Ms. Goldberg demonstrates how some Democrats can fall into the identical type of messianic pondering that Republicans have fallen into for Donald Trump.
So the issue goes deeper than political events. It goes to the self-sabotaging and customary human perception that another person has the solutions — the antithesis of self-rule.
Mr. Trump is notorious for spouting recommendation based mostly on “what I’ve heard,” not on information. He rides on conspiracy theories, and his base rides proper together with him.
Now, it appears, the society at massive has hitched onto that trip. We go with out pondering, into the darkish, and into infinite battle.
Peter Gerler
Newtonville, Mass.
How Libraries Can Assist Homeless Folks
To the Editor:
Re “Metropolis Hits Milestone With 100,000 in Shelters” (information article, June 30):
The information that New York Metropolis’s homeless inhabitants has reached 100,000, with migrants the vast majority of these in shelters, ought to fill us all with despair. As a lifelong New Yorker, I discover the abundance of homeless people and households on the streets heartbreaking.
How will all these people get the companies they want? Social service companies and social employees are sometimes overextended and unable to satisfy the various wants of so many individuals who, as well as, might really feel petrified of searching for institutional assist. Because the article factors out, they haven’t any sources.
Enter the general public libraries, a few of which now have social employees or social work interns at their branches. The libraries are among the many final free, accessible and welcoming-to-all public areas and might present among the help that’s wanted.
One main profit accessible is the usage of computer systems, which offer the gateway to advantages, together with entry to housing, ID playing cards, well being care referrals, job functions, and so forth. Most homeless folks, particularly latest arrivals, are unaware of the assist that our public library methods can present.
Please make this priceless useful resource identified to all constituents; it’s a supply of free, destigmatized and little-known-about assist. Library social employees are a rising work drive nationally and are prepared to help.
Peggy Morton
New York
The author is a medical affiliate professor, Silver Faculty of Social Work, New York College.
