Readers comments: October 24, 2025

The Twilight Zone revisited

Dear editor:

For those too young to remember classic TV shows, there’s good reason to check out “The Twilight Zone,” creator-narrator Rod Serling’s black-and-white series of 156 30-minute episodes that ran from 1959 to 1964. In his intro to these quirky, creepy, weird episodes, Serling says that “there is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man,” and that the Twilight Zone “lies somewhere between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge.”

I believe Serling, who died in 1975, somehow predicted the current situation in Washington. I felt I was in that zone when I learned the president had commuted the seven-year sentence of disgraced Republican Congressman George Santos, who served only a year in 2023 before being expelled from Congress. He apparently made up most of his biographical info, misused campaign funds, committed wire fraud and identity theft, among other things. Perhaps his skill at deceiving so many voters in New York is a quality that can be of value in present-day Washington. Maybe he will be asked to hold training seminars for upcoming politicians in his party.

I also felt I was in the Twilight Zone when the president, in January 2025, pardoned over 1,500 individuals convicted for their participation in the January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol. In contrast to the brutal ICE activities against people whose skin tone is a bit darker than the majority of the insurrectionists, those 1,500 got mercy whereas the mostly hard-working people ICE has picked up are, to use a technical term, screwed. After all, those 1,500 were just tourists visiting the Capitol that day.

Almost daily something pops up in the news that makes me hear in my head Rod Serling saying those introductory comments. Perhaps all of us are now officially in the Twilight Zone.

Don Linde

La Verne, CA

King Trump or Diarrhea Don?

Dear editor:

Last Saturday was a splendid day for democracy here in Claremont. The day was festive with a warm spirit of community infusing the air with love of country. Signs were creative, costumes zany and the crowd was, as Bernie Sanders would say, “Yuge.”

On the other end of the country the Dog in the Manger at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. could only disparage what he didn’t understand. Late that night he released an AI-generated video with himself wearing a crown, posing as the pilot bombing No Kings demonstrators with fecal matter from a fighter jet labeled “King Trump.” How infantile.

And his classy Republican stooges fall all over themselves to applaud and excuse. Yeah, Speaker Johnson is just fine with such antics. Great laughs for the socially stunted jr. high boys’ locker room towel-snapping crowd. And this is the head of state of our illustrious republic? Give me a break!

For the full story, check out Huffington Post, on October 20th. He who likes to assign demeaning nicknames to his opponents, is now known in some quarters by the moniker, “Diarrhea Don.”

Right after the No Kings Day festivities, like an impulsive toddler, he sets about destroying the White House, ripping off the East Wing to build his ballroom — a demented dream of the Palace of Versailles. Who does he think he is, Louis XIV?

It’s now up to the voters to return the compliment on November, 2026. Yes, we need “Yuge.” Bring your thoughts and prayers to the polling booth.

By the way, instead of pressuring President Zelenskyy to give up eastern Ukraine to the Russians, why not offer to trade Florida for the land the Russians now occupy in the Donbas. Slava Ukraini!

John Forney
Claremont