I went through Army basic training in April 1972 at Fort Dix in New Jersey, which was after My Lai, when American soldiers, following orders, murdered unarmed, helpless women and children and the elderly. Those orders were not lawful, and “just following orders,” as the defendants at Nuremberg said to justify their behavior, was not a valid excuse.
As soldiers, we were taught that we had a duty to question — and even resist — unlawful and unconstitutional orders. At a time when our service members are following orders to kill unknown people in boats with no due process, and at the same time the military is being used in our cities to intimidate and punish political enemies, there are, and need to be, limits.
John W. Haigis,Darby
. . .
The Nazi war criminals, after World War II, invalidated the so-called Nuremberg defense of “just following orders.” Courts held that following illegal orders is a crime.
My basic training as an Army officer clearly delineated a spectrum of legal and illegal orders. It was emphasized, in unambiguous terms, that not only is it permissible to disobey illegal orders, it is an unequivocal duty to do so. Officers are particularly obligated to protect their subordinates from illegal orders.
Orders to commit murder, torture, theft, rape, overthrow the U.S. government, oppress U.S. citizens, violate the Constitution, or conspire with enemies of our nation are illegal and prohibited by the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Today, civilian and military leaders ignorant or disdainful of the U.S. military’s constitutional duty are ascendant. American military personnel deserve to be reminded that members of the U.S. armed forces are obligated to conduct themselves in legal ways at all times. Violations of this standard put them at risk for prosecution and punishment.
Finally, there is no duty of loyalty to any commander, military or civilian. Legal orders must be followed, of course, but U.S. military personnel swear loyalty to the Constitution only. Leaders who confuse or coerce subordinates on this issue violate their oath.
Mike Shivers,Altoona
Missed opportunity
We’ve grown accustomed to the president’s hubris and insulting rhetoric. This was evident again last week when he showed clear disdain toward a female journalist with the dismissive “Quiet, piggy!” comment. While such behavior has, regrettably, come to be expected from him, the lack of response from the surrounding journalists is far more troubling.
Not one of them defended their colleague or, more forcefully, repeated the question that provoked his outburst. Instead, they simply “moved on” to their own priorities, seemingly focused on maintaining access rather than demonstrating solidarity.
When journalists turn a blind eye to this kind of misogynistic bullying, they are, in effect, capitulating to the bully. Their silence creates a dangerous precedent: It signals that such conduct is tolerable and carries no immediate professional consequence. This inaction undermines the core mission of the press — to hold power accountable — and normalizes personalized attacks over policy engagement.
The press corps has a collective duty. Moving forward, fellow journalists must step up to defend “one of their own.” Only a unified, vocal response can reaffirm the dignity of their profession and uphold the standards the public deserves.
David Rendell,Haddon Heights
Join the conversation: Send letters to letters@inquirer.com. Limit length to 150 words and include home address and day and evening phone number. Letters run in The Inquirer six days a week on the editorial pages and online.
Apparently, time really does heal all wounds — even those caused by the bone saw of a murderous prince and his personal goon squad after they hacked an intrepid Washington Post opinion journalist into pieces for speaking the truth about a corrupt and contented regime.
It’s hard to believe now, but there was actually a very brief time — in 2018, to be exact — when corporate America and even some political leaders pretended to have enough morals to resist this stone-cold killer with bags of money: Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS.
It wasn’t just Oval Office-bound candidate Joe Biden who’d promised (falsely) to make MBS “a global pariah” after the CIA stated the obvious: that the crown prince was behind the barbaric murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Six years ago, some of the nation’s top business leaders — like the CEOs of J.P. Morgan Chase, Ford, and Uber, and Donald Trump’s billionaire pal, Stephen Schwarzman — abruptly ditched a high-profile Saudi investment forum, and a few businesses totally cut ties with the oil dictatorship.
In 2025, any pretense of “corporate social responsibility,” let alone shame, in America’s C-suites is as outdated as dial-up internet. Schwarzman — who canceled his 2019 flight to Riyadh but not his Blackstone Group’s lucrative ties to the Saudi wealth fund — toasted MBS at a White House dinner Tuesday night, as did Ford CEO William Clay Ford Jr.
But then it would probably take less time to list which high-profile captains of American industry didn’t show up to fete MBS on his first official visit to Washington since that brief unpleasantness of — in the infamous words of Monty Python — bickering and arguing over who killed whom.
Trump fawned over Ronaldo while hosting Saudi Crown Prince MBS at the White House—a celebrity-studded dinner masking an alliance with authoritarianism and oil money. pic.twitter.com/78SFAaiUBh
The world’s sometimes richest human and Trump’s best frenemy Elon Musk, CEO of $5 trillion corporation Nvidia, Jensen Huang, GM head honcho Mary Barra, computer mogul Michael Dell, Big Oil titan Mike Wirth of Chevron, and many others all donned tuxedos or glitzy gowns to hoist a glass for the butcher of Istanbul and his host, the Unabomber of Caribbean fishing boats.
They gorged themselves on pistachio-crusted rack of lamb (a defenseless sacrificial sheep presumably also carved up with a bone saw), flecked with green nuts in some kind of communal transubstantiation with the blood-stained petrodollars they were really there to devour.
The ravenous CEOs included Tim Cook of Apple, apparently suffering from a bout of amnesia after his 2019 post-Khashoggi promise to look into Apple’s hosting of a Saudi app that allows men to track the movements of their wives and daughters (it’s still there), and apparently also unburdened, as the nation’s most prominent LGBTQ business leader, by the Saudis’ occasional executions of gay men.
The candlelight of the gilded East Room also revealed budding media mogul David Ellison, whose toasting of Khashoggi’s killer told us a lot more than any Beltway punditry about the moral fiber of the journalism that the Paramount Global boss plans for his new plaything, CBS News.
It felt more than fitting that the biggest buzz in a room larded with the billionaire men (and they were mostly men) — all so aggrieved by the short-lived #MeToo push — was for soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, who during the 2017 peak of that movement fought off charges he sexually assaulted a woman in a Las Vegas hotel room. Ronaldo — who abandoned the hallowed pitches of European football to make billions on an obscure Saudi squad — was in many ways the essence of a room doing ethical backflips for the almighty petrodollar.
For one appalling night, the East Room became a capitalism megachurch where the donation plate was filled with the paper-thin pledge card of MBS’s vague promise to invest $1 trillion (we’ll see about that) on United States soil. But the Scriptures didn’t mention the record number of executions carried out by the Saudi regime, including the June death of journalist Turki al-Jasser, who tweeted criticism of his nation’s rulers and was reported to have been beheaded by a sword, MBS’s preferred method of (literally!) capital punishment.
Trump today on MBS and the killing of Khashoggi: "Things happen. But he knew nothing about it."
US intel under Trump in 2018: "The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi." https://t.co/2jDm9Fh0eJ
The MBS banquet was such a depraved and decadent ritual that it wouldn’t have been surprising if the Fortune 500 executives had broken out in satanic chants as if they were characters in a wretched Dan Brown sequel to The Da Vinci Code.
This was an orgiastic celebration of death — not just the literal state murders of Khashoggi, al-Jasser, and other journalists and dissidents hacked to death so the Saudis can keep their fossil fuels flowing, but also the death of press freedom, the death of the make-believe era of “woke corporations,” the death of democracy, and — worst of all — the death of a planet.
It didn’t seem an accident of timing that the American president and our elite ruling class was sharing their couverture mousse pear dessert with the world’s other top oil producer at the very moment the efforts of the global community — albeit without serious support from the United States, Saudi Arabia, or Trump’s other blood brother, Russia — to fight climate change were imploding at the failed COP30 summit in Brazil.
Even the amoral MBS and his Saudi regime — which is actually investing heavily in solar and other forms of clean energy — is taking the already-here crisis of global warming more seriously than Trump’s America, where his MAGA government is racing to cancel large-scale wind and solar projects and drill for oil off our endangered shores. This is what corporate America blessed when it broke bread at Trump’s White House.
In a New York Times essay, foreign policy expert Noah Shachtman wrote that “instead of trying to separate from the Persian Gulf petrostates, Mr. Trump is reshaping America to look more like them: top-down, iron-fisted, resource-rich and more than willing to flash those resources as weapons.” The leaders of Apple, Nvidia, GM, and Citibank have embraced this. This is what modern fascism looks like.
And yet, in bowing down to the petrostate mentality and all the grotesque corruption that comes with that, corporate America is also celebrating yet another kind of death: their own. The Saudi mindset, now fully embraced by the Trump regime and its billionaire obeyers, is a race to cash in — because oil, like life itself, is finite.
Rep. Vindman calls on Trump to release post-Khashoggi murder call with MBS
“The American people and the Khashoggi family deserve to know what was said on that call. If history is any guide, the receipts will be shocking,” Vindman said on the House floor. https://t.co/4Ob7WGDDQl
Tuesday’s pagan feast was ultimately a celebration of denial — denial that their guest of honor was a murderer, denial that the never-ending pasta bowl of petrodollars won’t last, denial that they’ve given up on saving the world from drought and floods and probably mass death. And denial that their 21st-century gilded age is about to crash down on them faster than the rubble of the East Wing outside their window.
Deep down in the queasy, lamb-fed pit of their stomachs, America’s CEOs know it. So does Trump. The most corrupt president in U.S. history and his family have fully embraced the grafty zeitgeist of the Saudi gold rush, from his son-in-law’s $2 billion investment windfall to a planned Trump Organization real estate development.
The art of the crooked deal was partly behind the president’s Oval Office crude dismissal of a reporter’s Khashoggi question. “Things happen,” he said, implying it was a shame what happened to the Post columnist who must have fallen off the back of a truck — an answer that reeked of organized crime boss bravado that was actually masking real fear.
Because Lordy, there are transcripts. Virginia U.S. Rep. Eugene Vindman, who was a White House aide at the time of Khashoggi’s 2018 murder, joined with the journalist’s widow to urge the release of the text from what the now-congressman called a “shocking and disturbing” phone call between the first-term Trump and MBS in the immediate aftermath.
Indeed, it seemed all too appropriate that the Oval Office questions for Trump and MBS blurred between those about the Khashoggi butchery and about the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking scandal, because in so many ways, they are the exact same story. It is the story of America’s rich and powerful and their narcissistic avatar at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. pursuing their innermost desires — whether that’s oil-tainted riches or 14-year-old girls — before the wrecking ball comes for them.
This wasn’t a state dinner, but it was a state funeral for a billionaire class whose gusher is rapidly running dry.
How do Ukrainians fight on when the front line is so painful, the Russian bombing of civilians so brutal, and pro-Putin President Donald Trump so eager to stab Kyiv in the back?
I put that question to Associated Press journalist and filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, whose 20 Days in Mariupol won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2024. His new masterpiece, 2000 Meters to Andriivka, will premiere on PBS’s Frontline and also begin streaming on Tuesday, Nov. 25.
The film follows a unit of military volunteers in Ukraine’s fabled 3rd Assault Brigade who come from all walks of life, from young to middle-aged. They are trying to advance a little more than a mile along a narrow, mostly destroyed tree line between heavily mined fields,in order to liberate a small village in eastern Ukraine and help cut a Russian supply line to the then-besieged city of Bakhmut.
This is a raw film, shot from the soldiers’ point of view, not only by Chernov and his AP colleague, videographer Alex Babenko, but by the video cameras many fighters wear on their helmets.
“I wanted to be as realistic as possible,” Chernov told me. “Showing courage and sacrifice, but also how horrifying and disgusting war is at the core. We try to keep this paradox in the film.”
What Chernov also achieves, through his voice-over and brief interviews during downtime, is a portrait of why these men won’t stop fighting, no matter the odds, until the Russian aggressor is forced to recognize the sovereignty of the Ukrainian state.
Mstyslav Chernov speaks at the premiere of “2000 Meters to Andriivka” during the Sundance Film Festival at the Ray Theatre in Park City, Utah, in January.
When he started this film in 2023, Chernov said, he wanted to make a documentary “about fighting back.” That was a hopeful year, in which Ukrainians were mounting a large counteroffensive against Russia.
“I searched for hope as much as any Ukrainian,” he recounted. “Raising the flag as a symbol of victory.” He also sought to honor the sacrifice of 3rd Assault Brigade fighters who were liberating the area surrounding his hometown of Kharkiv.
By the time the film was completed, though, the counteroffensive had failed. Bakhmut had fallen, and Ukrainian forces were weary and undermanned.
Today, technology has shifted the battlefront into a war of attrition dominated by drones, which can inflict terrible casualties on anything that moves. The Russians are making small advances, and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky is fending off a corruption scandal.
Yet, says Chernov, what you see in 2023 is similar to now.
The reason Ukrainians keep fighting remains the same, even though many Americans don’t grasp it. “It is a fight for survival, not for a piece of land, but a fight for your life,” he told me. “Stop and you are dead, or fight and you have a chance to survive as a country and with your family.”
These are the basic truths President Trump and real estate mogul-turned-peace negotiator Steve Witkoff are far too blinkered to grasp.
President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff (foreground), Russian President Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev (second left), and Russian Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov (left) arrive to attend the talks with Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow in April.
Russia’s war is not about real estate deals or land swaps. VladimirPutin has insisted publicly for years that Ukraine has no right to exist as a state, and that it must be returned to the Russian empire as a subordinate province.
Any peace plan that hands territory to Russia and fails to provide ironclad military guarantees to Ukraine will only encourage Putin to restart the war. Yet, Witkoff secretly devised a 28-point draft plan with Putin pal Kirill Dmitriev, without consulting Kyiv or our European allies — a plan that leaves Ukraine virtually defenseless.
This capitulation plan would hand Russia parts of Ukraine that aren’t occupied, while shrinking and largely disarming Kyiv’s forces — and banning the purchase of new Western weapons. It would also ban Ukraine’s future membership in NATO or any peacekeeping troops from NATO members.
Of course, Putin has endorsed Trump’s plan, which could have and may indeed have been, written in the Kremlin. This shameful document virtually invites the Russian dictator to rebuild his depleted forces and try to end Ukrainian sovereignty for good.
We already know what has happened in Ukrainian territory that Russia has occupied: the Ukrainian language is banned in schools and from official use, and Ukrainian books are burned. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is banned, and its priests arrested.
Ukrainian children in areas under Russian rule are taught that Kyiv is the enemy. They are sent to military camps in Crimea or Russia, and then drafted to fight against fellow Ukrainians. Many younger children have been kidnapped and adopted by Russian families.
Kobzar, a Ukrainian serviceman, practices shooting in preparation for the next military operation of the 3rd Assault Brigade. Five months later, he would be killed.
“If Ukrainians lose,” said Chernov, “not only will Ukraine cease to exist, but it means millions of Ukrainian children will be taken, their Ukrainian identities stolen, and they will be trained to fight for Russia against Europeans. It creates the opportunities for Russia to get more people to fight.”
“Many people in the U.S. don’t grasp how destructive the Russian narrative is,” the filmmaker added, “how they say the U.S. is the archenemy. Reality can be seen in the Russian media. They laugh at the United States and love the idea of civil war in your country.
“Russian existence [under Putin] is based on an anti-American narrative. What you see is that they are already at war with the United States and Europe.”
Indeed, if Ukraine ultimately falls to Russian control — with Trump’s help — the Russian border will move westward, and many NATO countries will be in danger.
Trump doesn’t care.
Wooed by visions of U.S.-Russian business deals that have been dangled by Dmitriev, Trump and Witkoff are focused on dollar signs. Like a mafia don, Trump is blackmailing Zelensky to sign this surrender by Thanksgiving, or lose all U.S. support for the war.
Yet, unlike Trump, Ukrainian soldiers on the front don’t have the luxury of denying the harsh realities they face if Russia isn’t pushed back by force.
Every soldier I’ve met knows full well that if Russia wins, they and their families have no future. The Kremlin calls brave Ukrainian fighters “Nazis,” and regularly tortures and murders POWs. Under Kremlin rule, any veteran or army member would almost certainly be targeted for prison or death.
Ukrainian servicemen from the 3rd Assault Brigade at frontline positions near Andriivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine, in 2023.
So, as Chernov explained, the question of future international aid for Ukraine’s defense “is rarely discussed on the battlefield, because there were so many words of support but so little action. They know they have to fight for survival.”
After the first meeting of Zelensky and Trump, when the president scolded the Ukrainian leader before the cameras, all illusions were gone, said the filmmaker. “We know the truth of our situation. The only person you can rely on is right next to you or with your unit.”
The changing nature of the war means the future depends on which country — Ukraine or Russia — can beat the other in the race for technological advantage. “Until Russia feels it can lose they will not want peace, Chernov stated. ”We are bracing for a very long winter.”
And yet, despite his depiction of the brutality of an unending war in a film that left me in tears, Chernov retains a core of optimism. Drawing strength from the men whose steadfastness he captures with his camera.
“Seeing those guys, fellow students, policemen, workers being there, making that choice to fight back against all odds. When I watch them …” He paused. “Whenever I lose hope, I go to the front, and I get my hope back.”
Mellisa Wilson had been working hard — so, so hard — to change the trajectory of violence that marked her life and the lives of her five children when she saw something that broke her heart.
Her youngest daughter was putting her baby doll to bed, “and she was hitting it,” Wilson said, choking back tears. “That’s when I knew it was really bad. That’s when I knew that wasn’t what I wanted them to take from me,” as a parent.
And so, Wilson did what she had done many times before.
She turned to the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center (CCTC) for help.
In schools, homes, and community centers in Philadelphia, Montgomery County, and Camden, CCTC provides trauma-informed care annually to over 3,500 children, up to age 18, suffering from behavioral issues, depression, and trauma, helping their families in the process.
“I knew I had to do something different,” Wilson said.
Wilson, a CCTC volunteer and a member of the center’s parent advisory council, had been bringing her children to CCTC, a nonprofit children’s mental health agency, for 20 years.
With all the counseling she and her children have received, she could easily give the same talking points as CCTC’s chief executive officer, Antonio Valdés.
And she did.
It may take years, she said, but when a child experiences trauma, at some point, sooner or later, there will likely be a behavioral issue.
Wilson said she grew up in a home where she was regularly beaten with a broom handle or an extension cord. “Those were my grandmother’s favorites.” The trauma repeated itself across the generations when she became a mother.
Mellisa Wilson, who now volunteers at the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center, said the group helped her realize she needed to end a generational legacy of corporal punishment as a parent.
Always angry, she yelled at her children and spanked them, but only with her hands — at least she could give them that safety.
But all of it had to end — for her own good, and for theirs. So she turned to CCTC for help.
It’s a typical pattern, said Valdés.
CCTC treats children who have experienced every kind of trauma and adversity — death of a parent, witnessing a parent be killed or beaten, attacks from dogs, sexual abuse, neighborhood violence.
“We treat kids no matter what trauma they have,” he said. “For the vast majority, we’re talking about domestic violence, toward them or a family member, or maybe shootings they have witnessed.”
But what’s just as significant, he said, is how CCTC treats everyone in its care. “It’s the lens we use,” he said, describing trauma-informed care. “We don’t ask what’s wrong with a child. We asked what happened.”
For example, Valdés said, a young boy, maybe 5, sees his mother regularly beaten by her drunken boyfriend. “The kid may even try to intervene, but he’s only 5. What can he do?”
Eventually, the mother gets rid of the drunken boyfriend. All seems normal until months or even years later, when she gets calls from school. Her child is fighting, destroying school property.
“He’s still reacting to what he witnessed, and the behavior he developed at that time,” when he understood, as only a little child can, that his mother, the person who was supposed to be protecting him, couldn’t keep him, or herself, safe, Valdés said.
Says Antonio Valdés, chief executive officer of the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center: “We don’t ask what’s wrong with a child. We asked what happened.”
“Any moment he might feel even a little threatened evokes that response,” he said.
“There’s a mistaken belief that young children, when they experience trauma, they’ll get over it,” Valdés said. “When trauma and adversity happen, there are normal consequences. It’s not normal for the kid to be OK.”
Some parents bring their children to CCTC for counseling, or they get referrals from schools. More help, including a summer camp, is available at satellite community centers.
At its headquarters on Delaware Avenue in Fishtown, CCTC runs a day treatment program for preschool-age children who have been kicked out of their preschools. There are day programs for children who have been discharged from psychiatric hospitals to help them reacclimate before returning to their schools.
CCTC also provides behavioral health help at over 40 middle and elementary schools, where CCTC staffers work with teachers and students.
Valdés remembered one little boy, about 10 or 11, who had been an average student — no trouble in school. His mother worked two jobs to make ends meet, and his grandfather took care of him, fed him dinner, helped with homework, and even put him to bed when his mom worked late.
One Monday, the boy didn’t come to school — and it was so unusual that counselors reached out. On Tuesday, he did show up and, within hours, was fighting with kids and teachers. “They had already written up detention slips,” and it was so bad that harsher punishments were on the table.
But then a counselor who had been trained by CCTC recalled what she had learned and asked the boy what happened. His grandfather had passed away on Saturday, and his mother had to go to work so she could pay the rent, leaving him to fend for himself.
“In five minutes, they tore up the detention slips and had a different kind of conversation. It could have turned into something really bad for that boy. It’s those little moments that are critical,” Valdés said.
In Philadelphia, he said, children in Kensington are suffering from the opioid crisis. When children leave the house, they see people shooting up and have to step carefully to avoid human feces or used needles. It’s not safe to play on the sidewalks or in the parks.
“All of these things add up to a stressful environment,” he said. “There’s an impact of trauma and adversity on the way people start treating each other. It’s a behavior that’s adaptive to the trauma, the crisis, the ugliness,” but may not show up until later.
“It’s highly contagious. Certain kinds of maladaptive behaviors may find themselves in families, in communities, in workplaces, or the way you might treat your girlfriend or wife,” Valdés said. “These behaviors were critical in surviving the moment,” but aren’t useful or appropriate in other situations.
Healing comes from reframing — acknowledging realities but assuring the children that what happened was not normal and not their fault, then giving them techniques to cope positively when disturbing feelings arise, he said.
“We’re treating kids and families, and we’re helping them heal,” he said. “Then they start to support their siblings or neighbors who have been through trauma. We see this as the counter to adversity and trauma.”
Parenting skills Wilson learned at CCTC helped her help her children and regain control of her family, even as she was struggling to manage five youngsters under 5, including a set of twins.
One child was inappropriately touched. Another child pushed Wilson against a wall and accused her of driving their father away. Another child, always her father’s favorite, said her father hated her. Another child hit a kitten.
Tears filled Wilson’s eyes. “That was the trauma I put on them by hitting them and yelling at them.”
Chaos and fatigue were constant, as was anger, yelling, and spanking. At CCTC, her kids got help, and so did she, learning new parenting techniques that led to a peaceful home with five children, now in their 20s and heading into professions to help others.
Valdés said people should support CCTC because that healing is contagious, mending families and neighborhoods.
Wilson agrees. “What I’ve learned, I’ve put into practice,” she said.
Her story is so compelling, she said, that people at her overnight warehouse packing job turn to her for help. And she’s always ready to give it.
“My favorite place is on the bus,” she said, where she’ll say hello and ask her fellow passengers about their day. “People will start talking to me. People are very honest when they think they are never going to see you again.”
When Wilson wears her CCTC T-shirt as she often does, she wants to serve as a walking billboard for a nonprofit that has made a real difference in herself and her family. She vows to support the organization and its mission for the rest of her life.
“We shouldn’t keep good things to ourselves.”
This article is part of a series about Philly Gives — a community fund to support nonprofits through end-of-year giving. To learn more about Philly Gives, including how to donate, visit phillygives.org.
For more information about Philly Gives, including how to donate, visit phillygives.org.
About Children’s Crisis Treatment Center
Mission: To support children and families by helping them heal from abuse, violence, and trauma by bringing mental health services to them where they are — at home, in schools, and in their communities.
Children served: 3,500
Point of pride: Started as a demonstration project in the basement of the Franklin Institute and is now in over 40 schools, up from 14 last year.
Annual spending: Over $31 million in fiscal year 2024.
You can help: Volunteers are needed to help with special events, the Holiday Toy Drive, or group day-of-service activities.
The recent government shutdown was initiated by a Democratic Party trying to protect the 22 million Affordable Care Act participants from the financial impact of ending government subsidies that would more than double insurance premiums. Conversely, Republicans are intent on sunsetting COVID-era ACA subsidies that cost $30 billion per year. What both parties will acknowledge is that the cost of healthcare coverage continues to accelerate at a rate that is unsustainable.
When President Barack Obama crafted the ACA, he envisioned a public option. A public option is healthcare provided by the government. That means government hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses, technicians, and administrators. During the incubation of the ACA, the Obama administration realized a public option was far too controversial to be passed by Congress. So it birthed an insurance-based ACA that would use the existing U.S. healthcare structure. The problem is that medical costs and insurance premiums have far outstripped inflation since the passage of the ACA. The ACA has little control over these costs, and therefore, government subsidies are the only option to mitigate the impact on those among us who are most vulnerable to price increases. We cannot depend on the private sector to control the costs of healthcare. ACA government subsidies are a short-term solution. Donald Trump’s direct payments will do nothing to mitigate healthcare’s accelerating costs. Like it or not, the United States will have to implement a public option to control costs and provide a healthcare safety net. The current course and speed are simply unaffordable and will contribute to bankrupting the country.
Here’s the good news: We can use the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs healthcare infrastructure as the base on which we can make the public option a reality. The VA currently provides service to over nine million vets at a cost of $68 billion a year. There are over 170 VA medical centers, 1,300 outpatient clinics, and other sites. This is a start. Compare that with ACA subsidies of $138 billion in 2025 before factoring in the average individual annual cost of $7,428 (in 2025). Yes, this is a national health system where the government can control healthcare costs. Yes, this will reduce one’s healthcare choices. Yes, this will be an affordable healthcare safety net alternative to the current unsustainable and unaffordable healthcare system.
William F. Spang Jr., Philadelphia
Art of deflection
After the horrific attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration announced that Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq, had weapons of mass destruction and needed to be removed. Thus, the ensuing Iraq War, the removal of Hussein, the loss of over 100,000 civilian lives, and 4,400 American troops, only to discover there were no such weapons of mass destruction. Further investigation determined George W. Bush had plans to attack Iraq even before the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Why? Iraq contained massive reserves of oil.
Fast-forward to 2025, and the Trump administration is beating the war drums against Nicolás Maduro and Venezuela. Claiming it is responsible for the flow of fentanyl, the president has launched dozens of airstrikes against supposed drug boat smugglers without evidence or with congressional input. New measures are being planned for possible attacks within Venezuela and perhaps boots on the ground. “I have not ruled out using troops,” Donald Trump recently asserted. Our largest aircraft carrier has been stationed just off the Venezuelan coast. Venezuela happens to have the largest oil reserves in South America. There is scant evidence that Venezuela is involved in drug smuggling, unlike neighboring Colombia and its infamous drug cartels. Why no military actions against it? As the Epstein files near release and flagging poll approval numbers, Trump desperately needs a diversion. Venezuela could be just the ticket. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Let’s not be fooled again.
Angus Love,Narberth
Join the conversation: Send letters to letters@inquirer.com. Limit length to 150 words and include home address and day and evening phone number. Letters run in The Inquirer six days a week on the editorial pages and online.
The longest shutdown of the federal government in this nation’s history ended after Republicans finally agreed to consider Democrats’ appeal for an extension of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies that help families buy health insurance.
What action Republicans will ultimately take is anyone’s guess before the subsidies expire in January. As for President Donald Trump, he treats healthcare like every other issue: mostly making nebulous, politically calculated statements that are counterproductive when leadership from the White House is needed.
For years,Trump has derisively called “Obamacare” bad legislation that never should have been passed, but he has never offered a better alternative.
“My first day in office, I am going to ask Congress to put a bill on my desk getting rid of this disastrous law and replacing it with reforms that expand choice, freedom, affordability,” Trump said on the campaign trail in 2016. Several proposed replacements to the ACA were subsequently introduced after his election, but each was defeated in the Senate, with even some Republicans voting against the inadequate alternatives.
Trump never produced anything better than Obamacare during his first administration, but that didn’t stop him from again making the healthcare law a major talking point during his reelection campaign. “We’re signing a healthcare plan within two weeks, a full and complete healthcare plan,” Trump said in July 2020. “We’re going to be doing a very inclusive healthcare plan. I’ll be signing it sometime very soon.”
But the plan never came, and Trump lost the election.
He stewed during Joe Biden’s four years as president, but promised voters during his 2024 campaign that he was ready to replace Obamacare. Pressed by reporters to reveal his alternative, Trump had to admit he had only “concepts of a plan.” Nearly a year has passed since his second inauguration, but Trump’s concepts of a better plan to make sure health insurance is affordable are still a mystery.
Unless that changes before the increased ACA subsidies expire, Congress should vote to extend them.
The subsidies help Americans who earn up to 400% of the federal poverty level — $15,650 annually for an individual and $32,150 for a family of four — pay for insurance. Without those subsidies, a person now paying $325 a year for health insurance might have to pay as much as $1,562 annually.
Many whose insurance costs will go up may decide to rejoin the ranks of the uninsured. That would be a travesty. The medically uninsured rate in America almost halved from 17.8% when the ACA became law in 2010 to 9.5% in 2023. Studies show uninsured adults have less access to medical care, receive poorer quality of care, and experience worse health outcomes than insured adults.
President Barack Obama is applauded after signing the Affordable Care Act into law in the East Room of the White House in 2010.
The ACA was this country’s alternative to installing a “single-payer” healthcare system, such as Canada’s, where most funding and payments for medical treatment come directly from the government via taxes paid by the public. The ACA system in America instead retains the third-party role of private medical insurance companies such as Blue Cross, Aetna, and Cigna, whose revenue has increased greatly under Obamacare.
Most Canadians also have private insurance to pay costs not included in their government coverage, so even they don’t consider a taxpayer-funded, single-payer system the best way to provide healthcare. In fact, a survey of 11 healthcare systems provided by the world’s highest-income nations ranked Canada 10th and the United States last.
Despite spending far more of our gross domestic product on healthcare, America is at the bottom in terms of access to patient care, administrative efficiency, equity, and healthcare outcomes. In other words, we’re spending a lot of money and getting sicker in return.
The study by the Commonwealth Fund said the highest-ranked nations, including Norway and the Netherlands, which topped the list, shared four distinguishing features:
They provide universal coverage and remove cost barriers.
They invest in primary care systems that provide high-value services to all people in all communities.
They reduce administrative burdens that divert time and spending from health improvement efforts.
They invest in social services, especially for children and working-age adults.
That last point brings up another issue regarding healthcare and Trump. The omnibus legislation passed in July, which he dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” made drastic cuts to Medicaid to help pay for tax cuts expected to reduce federal revenue by $4 trillion between 2025 and 2034. Why should Medicaid, which helps cover medical costs for low-income families, older adults, and people with disabilities, be sacrificed so that Trump can boast he cut taxes?
Why is this president always finding some perceived wrong among the most vulnerable Americans while lavishing praise and largess on the wealthy? Certainly, he’s more familiar with the latter, having grown up rich and being more comfortable among his people. But so many less fortunate Americans voted for him, including more than a few who depend on Medicaid.
Shouldn’t he at least occasionally seem to care for their health?
News item: The NBA asked several teams to hand over cellphones, documents and other property as part of its investigation into illegal sports gambling.
The latest investigation into sports gambling is not the first and won’t be the last. Nor is it a shock since the heedless race into legalized sports gambling is ruining the games — and some lives — all in the name of money.
Betting on sports has become so pervasive that the integrity of the games can no longer be trusted.
Just last month, 34 people — including an NBA Hall of Famer, a current star, and a former player — were indicted as part of an elaborate betting scheme that included one player who pleaded guilty in July to faking injuries to leave games early so gamblers could win prop bets on his performances.
The same gambling ring was also tied to suspicious wagers on college basketball, including games played by Temple University. A gambling watchdog flagged suspicious betting activity in a game last year between Temple and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where UAB went from a two-point favorite to an eight-point favorite in a matter of hours. UAB ended up winning 100-72.
Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, who was indicted in a federal sports betting investigation, leaves a federal courthouse in Portland, Ore., after an appearance last month.
Separately, three college basketball players from Fresno State were banned last month for betting on their own games and “manipulating” their performances to alter outcomes, according to the NCAA.
Gambling is not just undermining basketball games.
The NFL suspended 10 players in 2023 for violating its league gambling policy. The same year, the NHL suspended Ottawa Senators forward Shane Pinto for 41 games, making him the first modern-day hockey player banned for sports gambling.
Two Cleveland Guardians pitchers, Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz, were indicted last week for rigging pitches in certain situations to benefit tipped-off bettors.
For the uninitiated, bettors can wager on just about anything during games, including whether the batter will make an out or hit a home run, or whether the next shot in a basketball game will be for two points or three. These micro-bets create opportunities for players to do what is called “spot fixing.” The in-game betting also explains why sports announcers give updated odds during games.
The Guardians pitchers are not the first to raise concerns about betting on baseball. Last year, San Diego Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano was banned for life, and four others received one-year suspensions for gambling, including Phillies minor league infielder José Rodríguez.
Cleveland Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase was indicted earlier this month on charges that he tipped off bettors to some of his pitches.
Baseball has battled past betting scandals, from the 1919 World Series to Pete Rose betting on games he managed. Last week, a Senate committee sent a letter to Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred raising concern over a “new integrity crisis” in American sports.
Fans are losing trust. Six in 10 now worry about games being fixed.
Many celebrities and former athletes, including former Sixers greats Allen Iverson and Charles Barkley, appear in commercials that make gambling seem cool. All the incessant advertising helps normalize something that is addictive. One study found that during broadcasts of the Stanley Cup finals, hockey fans were exposed to gambling logos and ads an average of 3.5 times per minute.
The upshot: Many young men and boys are getting addicted to sports gambling, upending their lives and their families.
At a Phillies game last year, my son and I listened to three young guys behind us talk nonstop about in-game bets while they tried to complete a challenge of drinking nine beers in nine innings.
An ad for the sports betting site Draft Kings appears courtside at an NBA game at the TD Garden in Boston in November 2022. One study found that hockey fans were exposed to gambling logos and ads an average of 3.5 times per minute during broadcasts of the Stanley Cup finals.
For some, the addiction comes quickly. Rob Minnick started betting on Philadelphia sports teams at age 18. Within days, he was placing bets on the West Coast games using a pair of online sports betting sites, FanDuel and DraftKings.
Then Minnick got hooked on playing slots on his phone. Eventually, the South Jersey native told me he was gambling for up to eight hours a day, running up credit card debt and borrowing money from friends and family to maintain his habit.
Minnick went in and out of debt over six years. After a gambling binge that ended at a casino, he decided to seek treatment. He now helps others recover from gambling addiction.
“It was all fueled by seeing the commercials for FanDuel and other sports betting apps,” Minnick said.
Minnick is not alone. There has been a surge in people seeking help for gambling addiction, especially in states like New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where sports betting is legal.
Gambling results in other social ills. Gambling addiction has long been associated with increased risk of depression and suicide. Some early research has found an increase in debt and bankruptcy in states with legalized sports betting.
An undated photo of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, of the Chicago White Sox, who admitted accepting $5,000 to throw the 1919 World Series in one of baseball’s past betting scandals.
Illegal sports gambling has long operated in the shadows. Yes, it was unregulated and untaxed, but it was not ubiquitous.
Then, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie challenged the federal ban on sports betting in most states in an effort to help the still-struggling casinos in Atlantic City. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the ban, opening the floodgates to betting on sports.
States rushed to open sportsbooks, including Pennsylvania and Delaware. Online gambling apps made it easy for anyone with a mobile phone to gamble anytime and anywhere.
Last year, Americans bet nearly $150 billion on sports, according to the American Gaming Association.
Today, more than one in five Americans bet on sports. More alarmingly, nearly half of men between the ages of 18 and 49 have an active online sports betting account.
More gambling has translated into more debt. One quarter of sports gamblers said they have been unable to pay a bill — including their rent — because of debts from wagers. And 15% said they have taken out a loan to fund their sports gambling habit.
Most elected officials ignore the social costs of problem gambling because of the easy tax revenues that roll in.
Harrisburg lawmakers may be the worst gambling addicts.
Since 2004, Pennsylvania has legalized slots, table games, sports gambling, and online betting, while adding pricier lottery games with little concern for the economic harm and increased addiction. The influential gambling lobby successfully blocked efforts in Harrisburg this year to increase the tax on sports betting.
The sports leagues once opposed legalized gambling. But now, the leagues are partners with the major online betting sites.
Not long ago, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell opposed legalized gambling before going all in. In 2017, he said, “The integrity of our game is No. 1.”
This week’s Shackamaxon asks: Who should pay for public safety, and why didn’t Philadelphia’s big employers do more to save SEPTA?
Bills for thee, unlimited OT for me
My intrepid newsroom colleagues Ryan W. Briggs and Max Marin have shed light on another frustrating phenomenon in local government: the city’s haphazard and uneven policy on security for events.
While some independent community and cultural groups have been hit with bills as high as $40,000 for their festivals, others haven’t been asked to contribute a dime. This includes events hosted by local politicians, who get their costs added to the city’s $150 million police overtime bill.
Instead of forcing communities to end or curtail long-standing and successful events over security costs, the city should focus on finding ways to lower the cost. This should start by taking away the decision-making process from individual police captains and making these calls at the Managing Director’s Office.
The city should also invest in security options that don’t require personnel, like the portable vehicle barricades used by the Center City District for its Open Streets events. This would eliminate or reduce the need for police presence. Lowering the overall amount the city pays for events will make it easier to take on the cost for all of them and eliminate the need for the current, inequitable status quo.
Some of Pennsylvania’s towns and villages do not spend on their own police force, instead relying on the Pennsylvania State Police.
More blue for less green
City Council members and some favored community groups aren’t the only ones benefiting from an uneven cost structure for public safety.
While Philadelphia spends almost $900 million per year on policing, at a cost of over $550 per resident, some of Pennsylvania’s towns and villages are getting an absolute bargain — they don’t pay for police at all.
It’s a growing phenomenon in which rural and exurban communities, most of them Republican-led, are essentially defunding the police — it isn’t just hamlets in Forest County that are benefiting from the dollar savings either. Sizable towns like Lower Macungie, the second-largest population center in Lehigh County, rely solely on the Pennsylvania State Police to keep order.
State Rep. Justin Fleming has proposed a solution. His bill would create a fee structure for towns that forgo local police coverage, with the aim of growing and strengthening the state police. Fleming, who represents a small town outside Harrisburg that pays for its own police force, presents his plan as a fair way to cover the cost of public safety across the commonwealth. It is long overdue.
An automated speed enforcement camera is mounted on North Broad Street at Arch Street in September.
The truth about the PPA
No one likes getting a ticket, but many Philadelphia motorists harbor a special resentment for the Philadelphia Parking Authority. The recent implementation of (PPA-administered) speed cameras on Broad Street has led to an outbreak of often-conspiratorial claims about the agency.
Some critics have gone so far as to claim the PPA is a “private company,” or that “all the money goes to Harrisburg.” Even City Council President Kenyatta Johnson claimed ignorance when asked about some aspects of the PPA on a local podcast, saying he needed to look into it.
In reality, the PPA is a state agency, governed by a board that’s appointed by the governor and legislative leaders. In a typical year, it directs more than $50 million to local needs, and Executive Director Rich Lazer has moved away from the opaque and patronage-heavy policies the agency was once known for.
The speed cameras, far from being a way to raise revenue, are aimed at changing behavior. When implemented on Roosevelt Boulevard, speeding decreased — as did fines. You can’t make money from speedsters if they stop speeding.
Of course, there’s an easy way to avoid ever getting a ticket: park legally and don’t speed. If anything, the city would be better off if its other enforcement agencies were as effective as the dreaded PPA.
SEPTA commuters at 11th and Market Streets.
Transit failure
It is no secret that Gov. Josh Shapiro and Harrisburg Democrats folded on mass transit funding this year. Despite claiming a sustainable solution was their “top priority,” they agreed to subject riders to two more years of uncertainty, with no guarantee of a future solution.
But there’s another set of regional power brokers who failed to adequately address the public transportation system’s needs: our biggest employers.
Thomas Jefferson University, Comcast, Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Chamber of Commerce will gladly say they support transit funding. Just don’t ask them to spend a dime on it.
While the lobbies for casinos, sports gambling, so-called skill games, and marijuana all have plenty of cash to splash, transit has next to nothing. That lack of money made it hard to win over Senate Republicans, who mostly represent districts without many mass transit riders, leaving them immune to grassroots pressure to fund the system. This meant that a last-minute effort to fund transportation off taxing sports betting failed, with gambling companies and their social media influencer allies scaring legislators off.
According to local transit advocate Jon Geeting, Philadelphia’s major institutions have contributed next to nothing to the yearslong effort to forge a sustainable solution in Harrisburg. Geeting told me, “It’s really disappointing and sad that for three years in a row, it fell to out-of-state philanthropy to support the entirety of state transit funding advocacy.”
Despite the collective billions at their disposal, efforts by local industry and institutions to support mass transit funding have mostly consisted of sending in op-eds and occasionally speaking at rallies. If we are to save public transit in Philadelphia, Comcast and Penn should not be content to have the same reach as determined high school students.
The staggeringly vile actions of Donald Trump continue to pour out of his administration. Two recent articles highlight that.
The ruler of Saudi Arabia, a country that supports terrorism, denies human rights, beheads its enemies in public, and has others brutally murdered on foreign soil, is welcomed by this president with open arms. Trump brushes off Mohammed bin Salman’s crimes with a wave of the hand, saying “things happen,” then considers selling him F-35s, the most advanced fighter jet in the world, in a deal that could land the plane’s technology in the hands of bin Salman’s close ally, China.
And on Air Force One last week, Trump, who has stalled the release of the Jefferey Epstein files until it became clear even his allies in Congress were going to force his hand, responded to Bloomberg News correspondent Catherine Lucey with, “Quiet, quiet, piggy,” when she asked him about the files. It is just one in a long list of examples of Trump’s antipathy toward strong women.
But I guess we should expect nothing less from a man who admires dictators and is a convicted sexual abuser. These are just two examples of what so saddens me, that so many in my country can support him. A common refrain from my friends who do support him is that they don’t like the man, but they like his policies. Is there no one out there among Republicans who is not amoral and lacks honor, and who can implement the same policies they support?
Steven Barrer,Huntingdon Valley
Pardonpalooza
The recent editorial on Donald Trump’s abuse of presidential pardon power is so important. Everyone should read it. Trump’s Department of Injustice, under Pam Bondi, is a travesty. Trump talks about “weaponizing” the Justice Department, and that’s exactly what he has done. The Justice Department is supposed to be independent of the executive branch, not subservient to it. Bondi does whatever Trump tells her to do, whether it’s legal or not. The Injustice Department was just caught using Trump’s signature, with or without his permission, to pardon criminals.
In a recent letter to the editor, Terry Hansen wrote about Daniel Rodriguez, one of the insurrectionists on Jan. 6, 2021, who received a pardon from Trump. He repeatedly drove a stun gun into the skull of a police officer, Michael Fanone, causing him to lose consciousness and suffer a heart attack. Rodriguez was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Trump pardoned him.
Trump has pardoned all 1,500 of the insurrectionists from Jan. 6. Trump issued two pardons for Daniel Edwin Wilson — the first for the invasion of the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6 and the second recently for gun charges. He pardoned Suzanne Kaye, who was sentenced to 18 months for threatening an FBI agent. Trump has also pardoned numerous convicted criminals for all sorts of violent crimes, fraud, embezzlement, extortion, and other felonies — all in just his first 10 months in office.
The big question is, why? Trump never does anything that does not benefit Trump or the Trump family’s fortunes. Is he setting a new precedent? Or is he sending a message to his loyal followers: No matter what you do on my behalf, I will pardon you. Don’t you worry.
Most presidents don’t hand out pardons until their last year in office. We have three more Trump years to go. What more can we expect?
Patrick Thompson, Media
Hope on the horizon
Unexpectedly, I long for the days of George H.W. Bush’s call for “a kinder, gentler nation” and Richard Nixon’s creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and focus on energy efficiency. After decades of increasing respect for the rights of all, regardless of race, gender, and social status, we have entered a period of degradation, incivility, greed, and violent threats toward others. Earth is threatened by strident demands to stop renewable energy projects. Immigrants, even American citizens, are being ruthlessly and indiscriminately torn from families. As noted in a recent Inquirer editorial, drug runner suspects have been summarily executed without due process. The government shutdown caused needless hardship for furloughed federal employees and for the hardworking poor who rely on SNAP and affordable healthcare. This month’s election offered a glimmer of hope, but the greed of a few continues to oppress the many. Let’s hope our course changes with next year’s midterm election, if we have one.
John Groch,West Chester
Fatal illusion
Trudy Rubin’s recent column correctly identifies the fundamental flaw in Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan: its failure to address Palestinian political aspirations.
Peace is indeed achievable, as Rubin suggests, but it requires more than clever diplomacy or economic incentives. It demands one basic ingredient that has been consistently missing: genuine recognition of Palestinian aspirations to live free from occupation.
Rubin describes how Trump’s plan “regurgitates ideas that have previously failed” by offering economic benefits without political sovereignty. But this pattern extends far beyond the current administration. For decades, Israel has pursued a strategy of dividing the Palestinian people — separating Gaza from the West Bank, Fatah from Hamas, and creating internal rivalries — to maintain the occupation while claiming there is “no partner for peace.”
As long as Israel continues this division strategy, violence will persist. The occupation itself breeds resistance, and Israel seems to exploit Palestinian disunity as justification for maintaining control.
Real peace requires moral clarity: the recognition that Palestinians have the right to live free from military occupation, just as Israelis have the right to security. These rights are not mutually exclusive, but the current approach — attempting to offer economic development under permanent military control — is fundamentally wrong and will never succeed.
Sam Kuttab, cofounder, Prayers for Peace Alliance, Philadelphia
. . .
“If you will it, it is no dream” was a core belief of those who defied the odds and built the great country of Israel.
I am appalled at the treatment of Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, Israel’s top military prosecutor, by her own government, after she shone a light on the brutal abuse of Palestinian prisoners. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling her a traitor, as well as his apparent indifference to violent attacks by settlers in the West Bank, further undermines his legitimate authority.
I agree with Trudy Rubin that the only path to long-term peace is a two-state solution. I hope responsible leaders in Israel will rise and will this dream to come true.
Citing the 70,000 number without explaining expected class sizes, estimated special education programs, and specialists’ needs (or maybe even a library one day!) creates an exaggerated sense of urgency that manipulates the public into supporting closures.
At my child’s school, the district claims we are not at capacity, but our special education teachers are sharing classrooms, autistic students have no sensory room, there is no storage for excess materials, and if we ever got funding for a library, there would be no place to put it.
If I have two pairs of pants, you could technically say I have a surplus of pants, but we all know two pairs of pants is still not many pants. Claiming everything beyond the bare minimum is a surplus sends a message that we have no right to expect more for our students.
Tamara Sepe,Philadelphia
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