The foreign enemies of America are well known. But for the average American the greatest threat to life is much closer to home and far more insidious. Our deadliest enemy is hiding in plain view – in the White House, the chambers of Congress and the EPA.
Donald Trump and the Republicans have done everything they can to destroy the Affordable Care Act. Each scheme they propose will take health care away from 15 million to 30 million Americans, and prevent millions more from ever having health care coverage. If they succeed, Americans will suffer, Americans will die.
EPA head Pruitt is gutting regulations that protect us from cancer-causing chemicals and fossil fuel pollution. If he is not stopped, more Americans will get sick, more Americans will die.
To put things in perspective, 3,000-plus Americans died on 9/11. This pales in comparison to the collective actions by Trump and the Republicans, which will result in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Americans.
What is lacking in the souls of Trump, the Republicans in Congress and Pruitt that leads them to believe that tax breaks for billionaires and fatter profits for corporations justify killing us, our children and our grandchildren?
It is time to push political rhetoric aside and state what should be obvious to any decent person. An ISIS bomb killing an innocent American is murder. Knowingly taking health care away from cancer and cardiac patients is also murder. Allowing chemicals and pollution to poison our air, land, waters and bodies is murder, too.
Deceptively named legislation and presidential acts are far more deadly than any al-Qaida bullet or bomb.
STEVE METZGER
Concord