Marc A. Thiessen’s Jan. 30 op-ed, “The left is badly misreading the politics of illegal immigration,” was 100 percent on point. As a staunchly Democratic voter, it horrifies me to start hearing the “defund ICE” chant resonating within my party.
Americans crave law and order. Under President Joe Biden, we were deprived of it through policies that seemed to let criminals do as they pleased. Now, Americans are also seeing a lack of respect for law and order through President Donald Trump’s own actions. Democrats should embrace the true, fair application of law for everyone if they want to start winning elections.
Jeremy Siegel, Brentwood
I’m conservative at heart and believe that we, the people, have not focused enough on immigration policy over the past few decades. The Trump administration is trying to make up for that lack of focus in one year, by making crossing our borders harder and gathering up those who have not entered our country legally and sending them back where they came from.
The execution of deportation policy, however, has been absolutely horrible across the board. This is from a national public relations standpoint as well as because of the tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in local communities.
Marc Thiessen’s op-ed exemplified the PR problem. He “misread the politics of illegal immigration” when he blamed Minnesota’s leaders and their sanctuary policies for causing the circumstances for the deaths of protesters Renée Good and Alex Pretti. Our immigration system needs reform, but the Trump administration’s decisions in Minnesota are not the way to do it.
James East, Springfield
New IACC presents an opportunity
The Jan. 30 news article “RFK Jr. picks promoters of debunked vaccine-autism claims for key panel” overlooked the substantive accomplishments and qualifications of Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee appointees and the serious failures of autism policy over the past quarter-century.
Since its creation in 2000, the IACC has presided over a period in which autism prevalence has risen from 1 in 150 children to 1 in 31 — yet core scientific gaps remain largely unaddressed. The article focused primarily on some members’ beliefs about vaccines, but it omitted any acknowledgment that for 24 years, autism research and policy have failed to meaningfully explain rising rates, develop effective treatments for core symptoms or address the urgent needs of those most severely affected.
Several critics cited in the article have served on the IACC for years, during a period in which consensus approaches delivered limited measurable progress for families.
Also absent from the article was serious discussion of co-occurring medical conditions — seizures, immune dysfunction, gastrointestinal disease, sleep disorders — that disproportionately affect individuals with severe autism and drive excess illness and early death. These are not fringe concerns; they are common, clinically disabling conditions that remain poorly integrated into autism research, policy and care.
Both the article and previous IACC strategic plans have been notably silent on the topic of neurodevelopmental regression, which can be a devastating occurrence for individuals and families. About 30 to 40 percent of parents report a loss of previously acquired language, social or motor skills in their autistic children, yet regression has received virtually no sustained research attention.
The current IACC represents an opportunity — not a threat — to confront long-standing blind spots. Recognizing past failures is not anti-science; it is the necessary starting point for progress.
Sylvia Fogel, Wellesley, Massachusetts
The writer is chair of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee.
Crypto isn’t doomed
Paul Winfree warned of the risk of a financial bubble linked to cryptocurrencies in his Jan. 22 op-ed, “Washington, stop pretending crypto is something it isn’t.” Inflating it, Winfree argued, are forces long familiar to market history: easy credit and rampant speculation. The real anomaly is the political environment. Winfree contended that the Trump administration made a serious misjudgment in elevating cryptocurrencies to the status of a strategic priority, culminating in their federal legitimization through the Genius Act.
The debate around cryptocurrencies has for years been driven by rhetorical autopilot. We speak of a “bubble” much as we once spoke of “gambling,” then of “fraud,” and finally of “imminent collapse.”
As early as 2014, Bitcoin was commonly dismissed as a speculative bubble bound to burst. Alongside such invective came solemn editorials ritually pronouncing its impending demise. Bitcoin has been declared dead 457 times. Each time, unfailingly, wrongly.
Today it trades at about $75,000 and has become a fixture in the portfolios of institutional investors, pension funds and asset managers. If there is a bubble, it has endured for more than a decade.
Comparing it to the early internet is not a nostalgic stretch. In the 1990s, there was no shortage of analyses predicting the internet’s collapse. Something similar is happening with cryptocurrencies compounded by a new factor: political intervention.
When the state legitimizes what was born to exist at its margins, the risk is not the bubble. It is the illusion that everything is, at last, under control.
Gaspare Jucan Sicignano, Naples, Italy
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