I am a longtime reader of the Tribune and have been following the ongoing coverage of Operation Midway Blitz the past few months. I found the lengthy Sunday article to have a surprisingly biased angle, even relative to the prior coverage of Midway Blitz (“64 days in Chicago”) .
I will provide a few examples. I found it quite overheated to suggest that people are being “disappeared” by federal agents. The term “disappeared” (desaparecidos) has a particular meaning in the context of Latin American countries. Is the Tribune meaning to suggest that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has killed people and buried them out in the woods or in the desert? I agree that conditions seem to have been bad at the Broadview facility, but we should be careful about using such hyperbolic language. Arresting people who entered the country illegally is nothing like what happened to the “disappeared” of Latin America under those governments.
Another example is the discussion of the Laugh Factory manager’s actions, which reporters describe seemingly uncritically as a “moment of resistance.” Surely, someone who slams a door on the leg of a law enforcement officer is committing a crime. Is the Tribune endorsing vigilante violence against law enforcement?
I opposed Operation Midway Blitz, to be clear, and I think many centrist types are concerned about things such as warrantless arrests, citizens being held in error and the poor conditions of some facilities. I agree the point of the operation is to be mean, anger liberals and give President Donald Trump voters what they wanted, and I do think it is a big waste of federal resources that raises many humanitarian concerns.
However, ICE agents are also federal law enforcement acting on the orders of a duly elected president, and they are within their statutory authority to arrest people who entered the country illegally.
This article makes a moderate such as me who voted against Trump wonder whether I can trust the Tribune newsroom to present me with evidence that bolsters ICE’s position and pushes back against the liberal view. I am not asking for a Reuters-like recitation of fact, but the paper should strive in its coverage to provide both the pros and cons of various policies in its coverage and leave the editorializing to the editorials!
If I can’t trust the Tribune to do this for me, whom can I trust?
— Adam Chambers, Batavia
Intolerant worldly power
Thank you for the thorough, heartbreaking report on Operation Midway Blitz. Fittingly, it was published on Dec. 28, Holy Innocents Day. This date in the Christian calendar commemorates King Herod’s massacre of innocent children in an effort to destroy the newborn Jesus.
Worldly power can never tolerate the God who comes to us in the guise of the most vulnerable.
— Barbara Newman, Evanston
Desire for global society
While reflecting on the current Immigration and Customs Enforcement occupation here in Chicago, I am filled with hope for a future in which globalist ideas are accepted and championed. I imagine a world where people, their culture and their ideas are respected no matter where they are from. I imagine a world where we rely on our international allies and neighbors to better our domestic situation instead of assuming those relationships hinder it.
During my time as an intern at The Borgen Project, via congressional outreach efforts I have been introduced to people who understand the value in human connection across borders. This community wants our government to honor our desire for a global society, a sentiment that so many Chicagoans understand.
I would encourage all Chicagoans to donate to nonprofits like the Borgen Project to make sure that the world we want to see comes to fruition.
— Shania Franklin, Chicago
Ideology over children
Our children are our future. This is not just a cliché. We need to work to ensure that all children can reach their potential because they must inherit and run our country and our world after us. We have an obligation to work toward all children having the healthiest start in life they can possibly have. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has terminated grants to the American Academy of Pediatrics that in the words of HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon “no longer align with the Department’s mission or priorities.” One of the issues apparently was the language in at least one grant that mentioned “pregnant people.”
Earlier this year, cuts affected federal lead poisoning prevention efforts by eliminating staff of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program and cutting potential funding for water infrastructure. The recently terminated grants included efforts to reduce sudden infant death, improve rural access to health care, address mental health, target early identification of autism and prevent fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.
We know now that hardships and adverse occurrences suffered during childhood can actually affect a child’s physical health as an adult, in addition to their mental health. We know that elevated lead affects children’s brain development. We know that vaccines prevent disease. And even in this day and age, all women do not have access to prenatal care, a situation that not only affects their health but also the health of their child.
The government is willing to risk children’s future and our future as a country to embrace ideological priorities instead of focusing on factors that we already know can improve children’s lives.
How can the physical and mental health of children not be within the mission and priorities of this administration?
— Icy Cade-Bell, Tinley Park
Donald Trump’s sagacity
The most remarkable, historic and meaningful news conference was held Dec. 19 on dramatically lower drug pricing. Indeed, it was carried live on Fox, Newsmax and One America News. However, unsurprisingly, CNN and MS NOW ignored it.
President Donald Trump spoke, with additional remarks by the CEOs of Merck, Sanofi, Novartis, Roche, Genentech, Boehringer Ingelheim, Gilead Sciences, Bristol Myers Squibb, GSK and Amgen.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Director Dr. Mehmet Oz and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick emphasized the landmark achievement, which eluded previous administrations. It includes awarding most favored nation pricing, which will cut many drug prices in the U.S., thereby ending global freeloading on the backs of American pharmaceutical research.
Investing in America means hundreds of billions of dollars invested here with new drug manufacturing and research facilities and high-paying jobs. Many of the new drug prices will be available to patients on TrumpRx.gov.
And Trump came out with a really good idea at the end of the news conference. He asked the large health insurance companies to meet him and his team with the goal of lowering insurance premiums, just like what he did with the drug companies.
That is sagacity, with knowledge and understanding.
— David N. Simon, Chicago
Decisions causing harm
President Donald Trump chose Christmas to bomb Islamic State terrorists in Nigeria out of revenge for killing Christians. Doesn’t Christianity teach forgiveness and tolerance? Isn’t the Trump administration guilty of imprisoning tens of thousands of immigrants this year? Haven’t at least 30 people died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities?
Do the countries whose citizens have died in ICE custody have the right to bomb us for these injustices? Trump’s immoral decisions are causing harm to our country and across the globe.
— Mary Maronek, Racine, Wisconsin
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