Letter to Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown 11 February 2025

 

Dear Attorney General Brown,

The Trump Administration has allowed the extra-governmental “Department of Government Efficiency” to access my private records, both through Social Security and Medicare. This is a blatant violation of not only HIPAA regulations, but of my right to personal privacy.

Of course, I am not unique in suffering this violation; all Marylanders are affected. I urge you to join with other state Attorneys General in their class action suits against the administration, Elon Musk, and whoever else is involved, to not only stop this breach but to take action to make it right.

Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely

Dana King’

Laurel MD

Letter Sent to Senate Majority Leader John Thune 9 February 2025

 

Dear (Senator Thune and Speaker Johnson),

I am a veteran of the US Army who, until the past ten years or so, took pride in  caring less about which party a candidate belonged to than what their record said they’d do. Recent Republican politics have shown the party to be less interested in governing than it is in taking over, which has altered my voting pattern.

Republicans have long taken pride in referring to themselves as the party of law and order, yet seem perfectly willing to stand by while the current administration runs roughshod over not only established law, but Constitutional principles. Indeed, many of your peers encourage this behavior.

While Elon Musk and his unauthorized Department of Government Efficiency try to cut not only the federal workforce but the levers of government itself, where is your outrage? You appear to be, at best, indifferent to a situation where silence indicates complicity.

What is your end game? Appearances indicate it is to gut the democratic principles to create at best an autocracy and at worst a dictatorship. If so, I, and millions of others, will use everything at our disposal to fight you. I did not serve this country – nor did my father and uncles in World War II – so you could walk away from the principles so many you claim to honor died for. I will join any effort to relegate the Republican party to the same historical footnotes as the Whigs and the Anti-Masonic party.

It’s already past time for you to honor your oaths to the Constitution. If you ever intended to.

 

Dana King

Laurel MD

My Letter to Congress

As luck would have it, my representative is House Majority Leader. He just received the following email, and will get a similar phone call later today.


Dear Majority Leader Hoyer,

The sounds of dismay coming from Democratic members of Congress in the aftermath of the Massachusetts special election are disturbing. True, that seat was the 60th vote against a filibuster. Democrats still have sizable majorities in both houses, and the nation needs this bill. Now is the time for our elected officials to show the leadership implied by their positions, not wring their hands.

Republicans have more or less had their way for over twenty years, in large part because they have shown will. I truly believe their goals are misguided and selfish, but they have shown the will to get their way. Now it’s time for the Democrats to show they, too, have will.

I understand the political realities. The bills that have been passed, especially by the Senate, do not, in my opinion, go far enough. They are still great improvements in the system that exists now. Go to your peers and ask which of them would be willing to tell a parent his child will die because the parents can’t afford insurance, or tell a child he will soon be orphaned because a nation with our wealth refuses to take care of its less fortunate. Health care is not an abstract concept. People die from its lack every day.

Many Democrats say the Massachusetts loss means it’s time to dial back their legislative ambitions. I would remind them the nation gave Democrats their substantial majorities precisely because of those ambitions. To abandon them now would be to repudiate the mandate handed you in 2008, and leave the field open for the Republicans, who are at least willing to act forcefully for what they want to do.

This can be the Democrats’ finest moment, as I truly believe health care reforms will become as popular as Social Security and Medicare, both of which Democrats enacted over Republican opposition. Speak out. Twist some arms. Use the legislative power available to the majority. Not to continue on the course we were promised is to abdicate your responsibilities, making the party not worthy of re-election. History remembers fondly those who dare.

Sincerely,
Dana King
Laurel MD