Editor, Manteca Bulletin,

This is my first letter to the Editor.  I can and have overlooked a lot of things about the Manteca Bulletin, such as the daily misspellings and silly editorial mistakes.  The fact that you put someone like Pat Buchanan, who is clearly a racist, front and center on your editorial page.  The fact that last week you printed a cartoon that compared the distress of separation of children from parents at the border to the ban on plastic drinking straws.  (Silly liberals, caring about the damage that plastic drinking straws are doing to the environment.)

 What I can’t overlook is this:  I opened my paper today to see a cartoon on the editorial page that blames “left wing forest management policies for the fires in California.”  How dare you.  As the fires continue to burn, the fact that you chose to print this cartoon shows that you align yourself with Donald Trump and his dismissive comments about our state as people are losing everything and the numbers of dead are increasing every day.  I looked at the cartoon and thought, surely I am taking this the wrong way. I’m not.

Lately I am noticing a more right-wing slant to the Bulletin.  I’m sensing more of a sense of desperation, of backing into a corner, much the way I believe Trump may be feeling as the walls start to close in on him.  Foolish me to think you were in any way unbiased.  You’re choosing to be inflammatory. You have the choice on which cartoons to publish on your editorial page.  I get it.  I sense bitterness. Change is coming and you would be wise to realize it. The Manteca Bulletin is not the paper for me anymore, I’m sorry to say.  My alternative will be to subscribe to the Stockton Record or Modesto Bee.  I can’t in good faith pay $15 a month for something that goes so clearly against my core values any more.

 Debbie Burke

Manteca