Letter: Project 2025 Is an Urgent Threat to Democracy

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To the Editor:

I have watched the recent resurgence of the Democratic Party with growing optimism for America's future. Kamala Harris offers America a sane, intelligent candidate who clearly understands the critical importance of American democracy, domestically, and for world stability.

Harris' pro democracy stance contrasts dramatically with Project 2025, the de facto policy platform of Donald Trump and his Republican Party. An urgent threat to American democracy, Project 2025 creates a step-by-step playbook for a second Trump administration, blatantly laying out an authoritarian master plan for the replacement of American Democracy with autocracy.

Project 2025 abolishes constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms for all Americans. The plan's anti-American highlights include a nationwide ban on abortion, imposition of Christian Nationalism on America's public institutions, elimination of the Department of Education, criminalization of LGBTQ-plus individuals, rejection of the scientific reality of climate change, censorship banning teaching about slavery and black history, and the forced roundup and imprisonment of millions of immigrants in internment "camps."


Project 2025 abolishes American constitutional democracy by eliminating the Department of Justice. Stating "the rule of law must be consistent with the President's agenda," 2025 replaces the rule of law with the rule of the President.

Although Donald Trump has recently attempted to downplay his support, Project 2025 was written at his behest, largely by former Trump administration staffers.

Project 2025 constitutes an authoritarian assault on our democracy, a written promise to all Americans that, should Trump be reelected, our 250-year-old experiment in democracy will abruptly end.

Sally Filkins
Pittsfield, Mass.

 

 

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Lanesborough OKs Open Space Plan, Short-Term Rental Forms

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The Select Board on Monday set fees for short-term rentals and adopted an Open Space and Recreation Plan.
 
Town Administrator Gina Dario discussed the draft for STR registration and certificate of inspection since the new bylaws were passed at the annual town meeting.
 
The draft shows the process to file for inspection through Permit Eyes, the town's online permitting system that includes the state building code and safety requirements. Dario said members of the Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals and the building commissioner looked at other town models to come up with the best process for registration.
 
Inspections will be annually for non-owner occupied units and five years for owner-occupied. The inspection fee is a flat $50. The last suggestion discussed was the posting requirements for key information.
 
Dario said they looked at about four other communities on how they used non-sensitive information on owner contacts. Chair Deborah Maynard motioned to have the information posted both inside and out to help with law enforcement if needed.
 
"I'm going to make a motion that we put that relevant information not only on the inside of the short-term rental but on the outside, so if the police need to respond, ambulance needs to respond, fire especially needs to respond, all that information is there, nobody has to go searching for it," she said. "If push comes to shove, and it's a matter of minutes, that's going to make a big, a big difference in the outcome of the incident."
 
The board then heard a presentation from Berkshire Regional Planning Commission's community planner Andrew McKeever and Open Space and Recreation Committee Vice Chair Mark Hawthorne.
 
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