To the editor:

Since Trump returned to office in January 2025, wrote columnist Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times on Dec. 26, 2025, “it’s been a parade of nightmares — armed men in balaclavas on the streets, migrants sent to a torture prison in El Salvador, corruption on a scale undreamed of by even the gaudiest third-world dictators and the shocking capitulation by many leaders in business, law, media and academia,” not to mention in the Congress of the United States of America. I would add to this list of outrages, numerous violations of international law and the near destruction of the world order as we have known it since the end of World War II and the Cold War.

As we anxiously embark on a new year, America’s 250th, I have many questions for our elected officials. The one weighing on me most heavily right now, and one of many that I recently put to Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran — Moran only, because I still have some hope for his redemption –is what are you going to do about Trump’s unauthorized and unjustified military actions in Latin America, as well as the many other abhorrent actions mentioned above and more? Words are not enough. At the very least, I implore Sen. Moran and all other would-be Republican leaders, to support Sen. Rand Paul’s war powers legislation. Congress must reclaim its proper role in our government before it is too late.

Virgil W. Dean,

Lawrence