Readers’ comments: December 5, 2025

Laughing through the tears
Dear editor:
There have been some wild weeks recently. Among other things, you can imagine that something like the following necessarily went out to Coast Guard Commissaries just before Thanksgiving.
“To All Employees:
New Policy Announcement from the Commander of the Commissary:
Please ignore the announcement I sent you on November 20, which appears below. The Coast Guard reversed its policy on November 21.
As you know, the U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas or nooses as hate symbols. The military service, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, has drafted a new policy that classifies such items ‘potentially divisive.’
In anticipation of this new Coast Guard policy, announced Nov. 20 to be enacted soon after Thanksgiving, we will immediately begin our own new policy so we have time to prepare for the holidays, specifically Christmas, Hannukah, and Kwanzaa.
Swastikas are no longer under the counter. They are on aisle five next to the pineapple pizzas.
Nooses are a new item, hand-crafted from South Africa and sent here by special plane. While some appear used, they are guaranteed new. They will be on aisle nine between the regular Cheerios and the Honey Nut Cheerios.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Dick Johnson
Pomona

Let’s be clear
Dear editor:
Thank you for your column, “Hope in the hothouse?” [November 28] about the meeting you had with Alex Pilz and me. I am delighted that Alex and I can meet and amicably discuss various issues without animosity.
I want to clarify one entry in the column; when I stated the need for the Trump administration to properly and compassionately deal with immigration enforcement, in no way did I want to suggest that Trump could be doing a good job. I vehemently disagree with how he is handling the immigration problem.
Opanyi Nasiali 
Claremont

Trump’s crew should ‘rot in infamy’
Dear editor:
Trump’s proposed peace plan is abject cowardice. It sells out an ally and rewards a brutal war monger. That Witkoff should confer with Putin on the best way to sell this folly to Trump is nothing short of treasonous.
Hegseth should be hauled up before the International Criminal Court, dead or alive, for murder. Ordering the killing of survivors after a first attack on a Venezuelan boat is a war crime. It’s against the Law of the Sea imperative to rescue survivors.
True red, white and blue Americans believe in supporting Ukraine to the hilt and have no truck with Trump and his MAGA Epstein/Maxwell sex crimes cover-up. May this entire crew rot in ignominy and take their Republican apologists down with them, the sooner the better — like in November 2026 for instance.
Bring it on!
John C. Forney
Claremont