To the Editor:
Here’s the link to the article about the 29 orders for the National Guard (https://www.rawstory.com/trump-infuriating-29-day-orders/). I also checked it on Snopes, which has no information on it.
Digging a little deeper, I found an interesting thread on Reddit. A writer from Snopes was looking for collaboration of the story. In the replies that follow, no one refutes that Trump is doing this. They do say that, in their experience, this is a common practice, done during all administrations. Frankly, they all should be condemned for it.
I personally am not inclined to assume that the author of the article was lying. He’s got decent credentials. I suspect instead that the grumbling was coming from new National Guard members who had no experience with other administrations. It’s undeniable. The National Guard has never been used the way Trump is using it, and there is clearly some discomfort among many troops deployed against their own cities.
It is certainly in line with Trump’s well-known modus operandi when it comes to paying the people who have worked for him over the years. How anyone can believe he has the American worker at heart is beyond me. How’s he been for the farmers around here?
There is huge threat to the American worker that’s already growing—and that is what AI is going to do to the labor market. It’s already impacting people who write and do artwork for things like store circulars and catalogs. Those jobs are disappearing fast. As are many clerical and entry level jobs. What’s the plan for that? All I see is programs like SNAP, Medicaid and other health programs being destroyed. What are we going to do about all the people who will be out of work as AI creeps into the economy? Surely, if he’s the friend of the worker, he’s got a plan for that?
Or, maybe, when Joni Ernst said, “Well, we all are going to die!” Maybe she was articulating the Republican plan.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
Commenting on another’s looks, as my sainted mother, Dorothy Clifford Collins, reminded her 12 children, is only acceptable if it is linked to an emergency for the other person. Like jaundiced eyes, blue lips, or a peculiar color of the visage. So, with her permission, I call your attention to Trump’s increasing molten hue. Is it a health concern that he has gone beyond makeup and bronzer and resorted to trowel and melted orange crayon, a kind of Oompa-Loompa with the white eyebrows but Jabba the Hutt eyes? Or is it his idea of a “refresh”?
Something is unusually amiss, even for Trump. Beyond physical issues, his hunger games for the Nobel Peace Prize include soliciting nominations (from Vietnam, Netanyahu, Pakistan, etc.), though some declined (Modi of India). Meanwhile, Trump is almost maniacally engaged in overtures of war in opposition to his campaign promises.
To change the news cycle and restore his equilibrium after the meeting with Putin in AK, Trump threatened American cities and blew up a Venezuelan boat without having any proof of contraband, and dispatching a nuclear sub and other military vessels to the Caribbean. For a suspicion. Why did Trump’s “Lord Voldemort”, Stephen Miller, ruminate about the “riches and resources” available In Venezuela? Why has Trump just renamed the DOD the “Department of War”?
On last week’s Truth Social, Trump posted a picture of himself as “Apocalypse Now” Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall), saying, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.” “Chicoalypse Now” has Chicago in flames, captioned, …”Chicago is about to find out why we [now] call it [the DOD] the “Department of War!” Trump later denied he threatened war and whined that it was “fake news.” I found it on Fox.
Our US President is threatening blue American cities with federal military invasion because he rejects the politics of their democratically elected leaders, wants to invalidate states’ rights against federal military intervention, and is establishing military policing of civilians as a precedent. This is divisive and unconstitutional. This is not American. Trump appears to be encouraging civil war, a need for martial law, and a dissolution of our society, just as the rest of the world grows stronger against us. This is not meant to “fight crime,” but to subdue. And many of us are asleep.
So, Trump slaps on more warpaint to hide who he really is and what he intends, confident that his base will believe him for just a little while longer until he completes his plans., and distracts by attacking or threatening Americans cities, other countries, prosecuting his enemies, or tarting up the WH so it looks like a potentate’s palace.
Last Monday, the lewd cartoon in Epstein’s birthday book that Trump denied was his, but was “fake and nonexistent,” and a “Democratic hoax,” was released with his unmistakable scrawl, and refers to “wonderful secrets.” The WH operatives exclaimed that it was a “forgery” and “clearly NOT Trump’s signature.” That’s laughable. Typical Trump Victimization Syndrome.
Why is it that some Americans are comfortable that our president is a chronic, self-absorbed liar and amoral man, to the point that he has been held civilly liable for sex abuse and defamation?
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
Martin urged prayers for the Minneapolis children and others killed and injured in church by a gunman last Wednesday, Trump lowered the flags to half-mast, and others on both sides of the aisle urged thoughts and prayers for the victims and the community. What do we call repeating, over and over, the same “remedy,” hoping for a different outcome, when it never works?
How many school-shootings have we had over the last 20 years, after which we thought and prayed?
These are self-inflicted assaults on our children which this country refuses to recognize and confront. The assailant had a rifle, shotgun, and pistol. The two fatalities were 8 and 10 years old. You talk about “saving the precious babies,” Martin, yet you have said that guns are just a “part of life.” In your mind, at what age do living children stop being “precious” and worthy of “saving”? You advocate for the unborn, but as against gun rights, your passion dissipates for little kids.
From ancient times, prayer and sacrifice have consoled and reassured people who invoked their gods for relief and better outcomes. It’s often a comfort to parents, relatives, and those left behind, for prayers for acceptance and strength to go on. If prayer is effective in consoling human pain, if it assuages fear or despair, if it brings spiritual peace, it is doing its job. Do we think God is looking for human direction to decide what to do next, to interfere or not, or to intervene on behalf of one person and not another? How do you explain the Jewish, Armenian, Gazan, and Rwandan holocausts? Those events were either God’s Will or they represent our corrupt exercise of Free Will. Humans were given intelligence and are designed to figure out how to solve our problems. We are making this God’s problem and not our own.
Some Americans, often Republicans, have decided it’s acceptable to trade their Wild West gun rights for the fact that America is the only country on the planet where the leading cause of death and injury to “our precious children”, is bullets. The Republican answer is police in schools or arming teachers, which doubles as early-education for children, parents, and the populace, in accepting gun-based authority in our daily lives (which has already begun). The Second Amendment of the Constitution mentions firearms, but the Founding Fathers had never experienced technology like our modern weapons. Yet, the Trump SCOTUS finds this one exception to their “Originalist” doctrine, so that Americans have access to deadly force on our streets and in our schools, for use at whatever provocation. “Thoughts and prayers” will not solve this.
Reagan’s endorsement of the NRA gun lobby, repeal of reasonable restrictions on waiting periods for gun ownership and use, his endorsement of firearms as symbols of “freedom,” (NRA’s Heston, “from my cold, dead hands”) unfettered a flood of guns into American society in an explosion of gun violence, often on the most innocent among us.
Thoughts and prayers for the slaughter of innocents are performative, and perhaps consoling, but clearly have changed nothing. Action and legislation, the innate American response to threat and injustice is required. But we continue, as if school-shootings are an Act of God.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, CA
To the Editor:
Every now and then a story hits the news that tells us exactly who Donald Trump is. On Sunday, there was a perfect example of the Donald Trump I heard so much about when I did contract work back east in the ‘80’s. Back when he called himself a Democrat. Back when he was pro-choice. Before he needed right wing votes.
Trump is famous for stiffing workers. Puts them through the ringer, using the courts to make it more expensive to be paid than to just walk away. And don’t even get me started on his reputation with women. A complete dawg. Before Mark Burnett plucked him back from multiple bankruptcies and invented The Apprentice character you may believe is real today.
Trump militarized the National Guard and Army to take over cities that he doesn’t want voting in the mid-terms. If he truly was interested in crime, he’d go for the Southern red states with staggeringly higher crime rates than we have. But then, those cities vote for him. Even Ray Charles can see it.
Here’s the story that caught my attention. Trump’s been calling up the national guard for 29 day stretches. Then he waits a few days and calls them up for another 29 days. That means he gets to pay them less. 30 days would mean full pay. At 29 days, they only qualify for reduced benefits while the impact on their lives isn’t reduced one bit. On their wives and children. On their employers. It isn’t even Trump’s money. It’s about giving someone less. A little turn of the knife. Because he can. What are they going to do about it, anyway?
I know it may be very hard for some to hear. He cheats his employees. He cheats on his wives. He cheats at golf. I’ve been watching him for some 45 years. I’m sorry to tell you, there isn’t anyone or anything he won’t cheat. Leopards don’t change their spots.
He is a genius con man. Got to give him that.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, CA
To the Editor:
In light of the recent stabbing in the Fillmore riverbed, I’m wondering how the homeless encampment grant, received by Fillmore, is being spent, the $1.5 million grant received by the town this past March to combat homelessness. How is that being handled? I haven’t seen much change except for the occasional purge of homeless people by the sheriff’s department. I’ve been told by officers there is a town-by-town competition for who has the least amount of homeless. How is that helpful? And where are they purged to--jail? Also not helpful. I’m told that the waiting list for the Many Mansions low income property at Mountain View is well over 1300 applications and they take applications from outside Fillmore; again not helpful.
I truly hope something constructive and tangible comes with the use of the homeless encampment grant, not just words. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Name withheld by request
To the Editor:
Martin, I will temporarily refrain from mentioning women’s self-determination, human rights, and “precious babies,” because that will obviously produce another hysterical defense of your version of men’s purpose and authority. Men and women respecting and promoting each other’s well-being, freedom, and happiness, and protecting their families in the best way each can, is a commendable human experience. But men like you, who insist that women are assigned to “venerated” chattel status, completely miss the point and defy rehabilitation. Perhaps you were imprinted in the 1930’s by, “Me Tarzan, you Jane.”
Whatever your inspiration, how about explaining why you and the Republican Congress are determined to control pregnancies, but once the “precious babies” pass the birth canal, they become invisible, as in the “big, beautiful bill” of which you apparently approve, which reduces nutritional and health support to poor families. Let’s move on to avoid another triggered reaction.
Are you offended by Trump’s statement about the inhumane tragedy in Gaza, “Netanyahu is a war hero…and I guess I am, too”? Trump claimed ownership of that disaster for America, along with Israel. It is not anti-Semitism to criticize Israel’s governance, or anti-American to criticize Trump’s leadership. And it’s hardly “cynical” to point to the truth.
Apparently, no bells ring for you in the fact that Trump is demonstrating here the same undemocratic controls that he so admires in the world’s worst dictators. Trump has Invaded areas on false pretenses to signal power and control of populations, ignored the written lawful rights of people against the government (Bill of Rights and subsequent Amendments), has attempted to pervert law enforcement and the Court System, restructured history to minimize inconvenient truths (reframing the Smithsonian exhibit to advertise slavery as on-the-job training), forbade any criticism of the dictator’s schizophrenic tariffs, defunded world-recognized medical research and health agencies, dumbed down universities so they won’t promote dissident ideas, threatened the Free Press with possible prosecution, and planned and executed revenge on those who have criticized or disagreed with him. Just yesterday, Trump executed an EO attempting to ban mail-return ballots on the advice of - Putin. And Trump II is only 8 months in.
Now the window on Trump’s soul is opening on the Epstein Matter. The question: If he is innocent and no incriminating documents exist, why is Trump making such underhanded, unrelenting, ferocious attempts to conceal the Epstein List and other hidden information on potential high-flying rapists, and giving convicted rapist Ghislaine Maxwell incredibly special and legally unsupported favors in her new “country club prison” closer to her family, with a “work release” exception for which she is ineligible as a sex-offender? Perhaps because in a DOJ interview, she “spontaneously” praised “the president” as “always a gentleman” who never did anything untoward with women. She knew what she had to say.
Trump demands his way by lies and roaring. Putin, with a whisper of a smile, says, “Nyet,” and sends Russian tanks into Ukraine carrying our American flag.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, CA
To the Editor:
Obviously, women will forever be unwilling objects of your paterfamilias veneration and “protection.” Please, keep your pedestal; you may need it when the waters rise. Aside from your lack of respect for women’s self-determination, like many people you morally posture about preserving the lives of “precious babies,” but when it comes to taxpayer support for poor babies and families needing Medicaid, prenatal and post-natal care, nutrition assistance and education, you’ll take those Trumpian cuts, thanks, and those “precious babies” can fend for themselves. Hypocritical, and a colossal “bush biscuit.”
The meeting between Trump and Putin in AK was a humiliating display of subservience. Trump actually applauded the murderous tyrant on a red carpet and under a military fly-over, extending status to an ICC-accused war criminal. All Trump’s puerile threats that he wouldn’t let Putin “mess with me,” and promises of “very severe consequences” without an immediate ceasefire, at the end dissolved into uneasy purring. Trump has placed a steaming, fetid bowl of appeasement before Zelensky and urged him and Europe to swallow.
Monday morning swiftly brought European leaders to the WH, concerned about the extent to which Trump is committed to satisfying Putin. The ceasefire Trump said was essential is off the table, and all Russian demands are front and center. After a lot of nervous free-world happy talk, on a hot mic Trump said, “I think he [Putin] is trying to do a deal for me.” My God, Trump is “twirling his hair” and sighing out the window after Putin. There is no policy at work here. It’s just a resurrected Neville Chamberlain with a crush. Putin is playing for time while he batters Ukraine and toys with a mesmerized American President. It’s unbelievably dangerous, and heartbreaking.
Martin, you can’t recognize or accept that Trump is framing his authoritarian government structure and will succeed if “We, the People” allow it. He has repeatedly expressed admiration for the unfettered powers of Putin, Orban, Erdogan, Kim Jong-un, and Xi. Already, Trump is modeling their dictatorial use of military police power here, against civilians in LA and DC under false assertion of crime spree “emergencies” (everything Trump wants is an “emergency”). If he and his malignant elves can just engender enough fear – of anything – many will suspend analysis and consent to his authoritarian lust. Worked before.
It’s time to familiarize yourself with P2025 and the “big, beautiful bill,” Martin. Listen to the Trump Cabinet’s condescending refusals to answer in congressional hearings, or the reporting on the leaked DOD/DHS militarization memo I mentioned last week. Same guy.
In addition to his growing physical and mental health problems and “wonder of the world” level narcissism, Trump has a Shakespearean lack of introspection, humility, and wisdom to recognize when and what he doesn’t know, and that makes him a prime target for any vicious, steely-eyed, disciplined, cunning predator who is not self-delusional. And the world was watching. This is beyond politics.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, CA
To the Editor:
President Trump has brought peace to six wars to date with one more possible, secured the border, addressed the out of control crime in DC, deported millions here illegally, repair our failing education system, restored faith in our military, dealing with tariffs and so much more. He continues to work harder for us and the world than any president in my lifetime. Yet, the broken leftists are foaming at the mouth with their hair on fire. They couldn’t take a second breath before they regurgitated Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. Yelling “It’s a cover up”. While feeding off the rot their cohorts created and left this administration to repair. Using a tactic so often used by the left; repeat a lie over and over again and it will eventually become real to some listener as they work at overthrowing the president we elected. The evidence and documented truth of who these people really are is now coming forward. Large cities riddled with crime turned into citizen war zones, felonies were lowered to misdemeanors or ignored altogether with no cash bail and socially engineered groups, gangs to hate police creating riots and destruction. That’s who they are. The leftist/marxist claimed to be the protectors against what they themselves created using crime, race, children, sex, class, gang culture, victimhood, open borders, paid and funded rioters/anarchists to grow hate. A view of society they want helped by activist judges and lawfare, NGO’s, our government institutions and every corrupt tactic available to destroy everyone who could expose them. We now know how corrupt a system can become: Clintons, Obama, Bidens, Brennon,, Clapper, Schiff, Rice etc. The list is growing by the day. They fooled and conned millions.
Society listened to elites with their university degrees and ill-gotten wealth for years as they lectured them how the underclass should be handled, organized and directed. But those same elites have never spent one minute of their own life in actual poverty or need, they just regurgitate what they’ve been told and the next fool uses what they’ve been told and stated it as fact because it was by then documented; but most of it was never the truth in the first place. Their goal; to push hate and a boorish attitude against whom the marxist points as the enemy. That’s what passes for being “informed” today. An abundance of emotional wants but a lack of understanding human nature and the balance it requires; especially with an over-stimulated yet bored society groping to be part of anything. The elites are not societies better, not even close.
The marxist/communist/socialists can’t accept that their dirt is being exposed. Not one peep out of them of the hundreds of thousands of missing young children or the hundreds of thousands dead due to fentanyl from years of an open border they created. Or an apology for Russiagate or now Obamagate. All they can do is blather an Epstein coverup in an effort to ignore their hidden crimes while crying “Save our democracy”. It’s shameful. Epstein is their only thread left to sow discontent. Rules no longer pertain to them. Political resistance. raw political power, call everyone a fascist, bigot, racist, xenophobic, Nazi, etc to shut them up. The globalists, who control most of the media, won’t even report on what many are now calling treason. Why is that? The facts are so egregious and probably treason, that it can’t be kept silent in spite of the leftists emotional needs and screaming for an uprising and Bolshevist coup.
Some believe we are already in a civil war. I hope it hasn’t gotten that far. Pay attention to the wording used today by the marxist/leftists and their mouthpieces.
Listen carefully and you will hear their calling for violence. They’re not hiding it anymore. Democrats are losing popularity and the respect of our country’s citizenry. With two assassination attempts on President Trump and the evidence of exactly what was done and by whom still being uncovered, they’ll do more than foaming at the mouth. What they did should never happen again. That’s what everyone should care about.
Russia, Ukraine are a corrupt dog fight Biden started. Gaza elected Hamas to lead them. Hamas was given millions in aid to build schools but instead used the concrete to build tunnels to kill. Now they’re paying the price. Elections have consequences. This country has a far greater enemy, China. And that enemy is already on our soil waiting to move against us. That is our real problem.
Jean McLeod,
Fillmore, CA
To the Editor:
Martin, in your religious argument for ignoring the Epstein matter and deflection of interest in the subject, not once did you express concern for the young women who were sexually victimized. You have already absurdly claimed that you hold women in such high regard that you advocate denying them their humanity in the control of their own bodies. Here, you would deny them justice as mere collateral damage to protecting political bigshots and sexual perverts.
You once accused me of not giving Trump credit for anything good. Trump is a master at recognizing and manipulating people’s anger, fears, and resentments, and attaching them to “elites” whom he warns are trying to “impose communism” on the country. An epic oxymoron since “elites” are unlikely purveyors of socialism or communism. Trump creates threats and anxieties, then proclaims that “I alone can fix it,” lulling the faithful into ignoring or excusing his authoritarian power grabs. An alarming example:
1. Those familiar with P2025 know that Trump planned to create a federal military police state, unconstitutionally and in defiance of the Posse Comitatus Law and states’ rights, a police first-responder at the will of the president. One political weapon of every dictator who plans to smother democratic impulses. Any excuse will do.
1a. Following the power grab in Los Angeles in July, against the will and refusal of permission by the California governor, and under false emergency pretenses of “invasion by migrants” in LA (then Ventura County), Trump vowed he would “use military power anywhere [he thinks] it is needed.”
1b. Because a DOGE interloper was assaulted by a car-jacker, Trump has committed to federalizing troops to take over police functions in DC, even though it has the largest police force per capita of any municipal force in America, and crime is at a 30-year low. “If DC doesn’t get its act together…we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City,” Trump wrote on social media.
1c. A written memo widely circulated at high levels of the DHS and DOD was obtained by The New Republic. It indicates plans to normalize and expand the use of the military on our own soil, against our own people, and against the Constitution. It calls for expansion of the LA deployment for “years to come” in American cities. It equates First Amendment protest rights with threats from terrorists. It effectively makes the military the private army of the Commander-in-Chief. Meanwhile, the Republican Congress sucks its thumb. What’s it going to take for people to wake up?
On another subject, tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets last weekend to protest Netanyahu’s plan to occupy Gaza and “finish the job.” “Not in our names. We are not our government!” What is happening, right in front of our eyes, is another holocaust. Netanyahu, and those politicians who facilitated this genocide, are war criminals.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, CA
To the Editor:
Let me get this straight. First there was a cabal of baby eating, satanic Democrats operating out of a basement in a Pizza Parlor. Then it was Democrats on a plane going to Epstein’s island for sex with minors. Trump, of course, was not involved. Despite the treasure trove of photos with him buddying up to Jeffrey and Ghislaine for over a decade. Or the photos and recorded sexual statements from Trump about his own daughter—and as if that wasn’t bad enough, she was underage. He even made sexual comments about his newborn daughter. But it was all Democrats on that plane and worshipping Satan, and if we just elect Trump, he’d sort it all out and put it right? There was a list and he and he alone would make sure we saw it all.
Now that he’s president, the list has disappeared. Trump tried to distract us and get us to believe it was all about transparency—so he sends his own personal lawyer, now supposedly representing the people, to talk to Ghislaine to get to the bottom of it and find out just who was involved in the horror show. No need to talk to the victims. After all, they were just kids. What do they know?
Next thing we know, Ghislaine’s moved to a minimum-security prison—that she wasn’t eligible for according to the rules. Of course, we, the citizens, are going to have to pick up the extra costs of her security there. And now, she’s on work release? Lordy.
Who’s he protecting? The Dems? Or himself?
It’s time to realize that TDS doesn’t stand for Trump Derangement Syndrome, it stands for Trump Delusion Syndrome.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, CA
To the Editor:
I’m a big fan of computers—made my living with them. I love it when they do tedious work for me, when they calculate
numbers. When they do what I tell them. I was in the driver’s seat.
Not so much anymore. I still love them. I’m not a complete naysayer on AI, but I recognize how much the game has changed.
For those who haven’t been as deeply immersed in technology as I have, I want to spread the word.
As most already know, AI doesn’t just do what it’s told—it learns from data, recognizes patterns, and makes decisions on
its own. It writes essays, fires workers, selects job applicants. It analyzes satellite images for military targets—
deciding who lives and who dies. And it does all this with limited human oversight, at a speed none of us can match.
This is more than just a faster calculator. It’s a new kind of decision-maker—one built by a handful of powerful companies,
trained on data we didn’t always agree to give.
That means AI is being used to decide who qualifies for a loan, whose job gets cut, or when emergency services respond.
It’s important to be aware that this is happening.
Here are three concerns we should all be paying attention to:
1. Lack of transparency. We often don’t know when AI is making decisions—or what data it’s using.
2. Loss of control. AI is increasingly built into systems we rely on, from hospitals to schools to farms.
3. Concentration of power. A small group of companies and governments now control systems that affect billions of lives.
So how do we respond?
Stay informed. Ask hard questions of our local and federal leaders. How is it being implemented in our schools? By the
city? By law enforcement? Push for laws that ensure AI is used transparently, ethically, and in the public’s interest—not
just for profit or control.
The data that’s been collected by our government has already been exposed to known hackers through DOGE. Google Edward
Coristine aka “Big Balls.” None of Musk’s DOGE workers were vetted. Our data, in the wrong hands, turns us from citizens into a marketable product.
The industry needs guardrails, now. Not 10 years unregulated and unconstrained.
Pay attention. Ask questions. Use your voice. Call your representatives. This has enormous implications.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
Martin, first you attributed to me statements I did not make, and then you said that we have a lot in common. I was
positively verklempt! Then, mercifully, I read that you only meant our common educational ties at the hands of the Jesuits,
who did what they do, introduce differing opinions, and raise a lot of questions on God and the human condition.
Apparently, USF was heavily into Inquisition theology and the alarming view of Christ as a vengeful Old Testament Deity.
Many Santa Clara Jebs were not so inclined but believed that human life is ours to experience with the help of faith, hope,
and charity. Just one question, was Constitutional Law included in your law school curriculum?
It is our business as humans to confront our challenges. If God were deeply involved in our day-to-day issues, how do you
explain the Armenian and Gazan genocides, the Holocaust, even the Crusades, Epstein? The creation of the human animal armed
with intelligence and free will was a curiously risky venture, and sometimes people make really bad decisions.
Unfortunately, ignorance is not a defense.
The reason that my accusations against Trump are serial is that his offenses are serial. Like an unloved and disgruntled
child with Big Bird lodged on his head and a nutrition pyramid with one word: “McDonalds,” he visits revenge on little
insults, legitimate questions, every slight he suffers and accusation he faces. These are “national threats,” “treason,”
“enemies of the people,” if they disagree with him, and all are “hoaxes,” “fake news,” and “persecution.” Most adults have
to be big girls and boys. Everything Trump does is “perfect,” which must surprise the Almighty.
I doubt that the sexual victims of Epstein’s elites will ever get the human justice they deserve. You, who justify
retribution genocide in Gaza, dispatch God to take care of the Epstein atrocities without investigation because…?
WH management of the Epstein coverup is textbook Trump. Every “shiny thing” sufficiently dazzling to distract MAGA is being
waved. Now, Obama, Biden and Jill, Kamala Harris, Jack Smith, every civil servant involved in the civil and criminal cases
against him, the juries that convicted him of sexual assault and fraud, the “rogue courts” that defy his legal arguments
(though SCOTUS is in his pocket), his treatment of foreign dignitaries, his incredibly long learning curve with Putin, his
firing of the head of labor statistics because she brought accurate but unwelcome news about July’s unemployment numbers,
the big beautiful bill, the increasing evidence of his dementia. Do you think Trump has the slightest interest in the
welfare of ordinary Americans? No, really, do you?
My reluctant sense is that, until the economy crashes and Trump blames Obama and Biden, and digs up Jimmy Carter to answer
for himself, people will continue to ignore flashing signs like Project 2025 and the Trumpian march to authoritarianism, past the opportunity to object. But good news! That will give you time to fully decipher God’s Will for the rest of us,
ignore the impending damage to the Republic, and polish up your eternal merit badge.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
What the media and Progressives are trying to do, like Kelly Scoles, is to weaponize the Epstein case against President
Trump. They want everyone to ignore the horrors progressives created without taking one bit of responsibility for what is
now being exposed. With statements like “What is Trump’s real reason for paving over the Epstein crimes and protecting
pedophiles.....” she completely ignores, on purpose, the real issues still happening TODAY.
Last week the House Committee on Homeland Security held a hearing revealing the Biden-Harris Administration (BHA) working
with Democrat officials and open border advocates pushed a pro-illegal immigration agenda and placed political aims above
the welfare and safety of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC). A child trafficking industry prospered for four years with
open border policies and young victims still hiding in plain sight.
The Center for Immigration Studies calculated that BHA gave $6 billion in grants to 15 United Nations (UN) Agencies and 230
Nonprofit/NGOs that turned the border into a welcome center with a travel service of planes and Uber drivers to ship
migrants throughout the US interior. Recent reports have upgraded the numbers of missing UACs to 450,000 in the last days
of the BHA.
Through cooperation of Dept. Homeland Security (DHS), Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS), BHA, UN and Nonprofits/NGOs
a child trafficking ring was created.. The UN and NGOs were placed along the border and worked as the middleman in a
pipeline of tender-age children into sex trafficking and slave labor. As the UAC crossed the border, they were primarily
handed over to the NGOs by the Border Patrol. They were then delivered to poorly vetted sponsors with little oversight and
failed to ensure proper follow-up or communications for the UACs’ well-being.
Their speed of removing the migrants was important to avoid the bad optics of the thousand walking and sleeping on the
streets due to the volume of overcrowding in certain sectors which still happened due to the overwhelming numbers. BHA
stopped the use of DNA biometric screening of children leaving no way to check who the UAC belonged with, while 70% of the
documentation turned in by sponsors was fraudulent or incomplete.
It was reported these NGOs did little if any background checks on their own employees and if one complained of problems or
raised concerns they were fired; while the executives received substantial revenue, salary increases and bonuses.
In February 2023 the Office of Refugee Resettlement reported 85,000 UAC could not be located. A Notice of Concern hotline
was set up for the UAC to report problems and get help. BUT get this; it had ONE PERSON HIRED TO OPERATE IT. Yes, One
person!!! As a result between Aug. 2023 thru Jan. 2025, 65,000 calls for help went unanswered. Later, in August 2024, ICE
reported they could not monitor all the UACs released from DHS custody. All this open border horror was done for power
(more house Representatives) and monetary gain through cheap labor.
Today the Trump Administration, DHS, ICE, FBI, local and state law enforcement are working to locate the children using the
65,000 recorded unanswered calls and rescue the trafficked children which are mostly girls 14 yrs. or younger. So far
13,061 of the 35,000 located, some working in factory farms, had their captors/sponsors arrested. The Trump Administration
has stated locating those children is a priority adding, “We know some of these kids are in forced labor and sex
trafficking and we found some, unfortunately in those conditions”. Progressives like Kelly Scoles claim “shiny things” will
“divert attention” from Epstein. Are children working in sex trade and slave labor just “shiny things”?
Jean McLeod,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
Martin, after reading last week’s Editorial, I have concluded that it would be best, in the future, that I avoid your
statements about religion. However, I want to clarify one point.
I often use Catholicism as a religious exemplar because it is the source of my entire education, except law school, and
is my religious ancestral home. True, I have relocated since childhood, but I still revere “home” in the message of Christ.
I offered my view of what any religion, at a minimum, should have as its mission. When a religion fails to promote benign,
if not charitable, treatment of others as fellow human beings or as God’s children, I’m not sure what purpose it serves.
The last couple of editions found you blind-vaulting over substantial political issues – which you’ll recall were the
objective of our discourse from the beginning. There is so much happening in this country and the world that will shape our
lives and succeeding generations, so I am surprised and a little disheartened.
A couple of things that deserve attention: The UN and other organizations report Gaza is starving to death. Children and
babies are dying, their parents too weak to tend to them. There is no clean water, no medicines, and very little food.
Israel and their partners in this genocide, including the US, are, in Netanyahu’s recent words, obliged “to allow the entry
of minimal humanitarian supplies” (emph. mine). Trump sniffed that, “we didn’t even get a ‘thank you’ for our contribution”
for those inadequate supplies. That is what he values. This has happened before in history, but this time it’s ours.
Meanwhile, food destined for aid distribution was destroyed at the docks last week, rather than being distributed before
expiration, because poor countries could not buy it from us for even thirty pieces of silver, on Trump’s orders. What
resides in a person’s heart and soul that they would do such a thing? And it was done in our names.
Nearly 60,000 men, women, and children are now detained by ICE in the US, El Salvador, Guatemala and other countries where
there’s little or no control over their conditions. Those detainees who are not citizens may have entered the country
illegally, but the vast majority are not “the worst of the worst” as Trump promised. Whatever their immigration status,
detainees are human beings, and this immigration terror plan is devoid of any consideration of their humanity. This is not
“God’s Will.” We alone own this.
Our President is once again crooning his Greatest Hits on Epstein, including “fake news,” “somebody framed me,” “witch
hunt,” “hoax,” and “I don’t know that guy” or sexually- assaulted woman, or lewd sketch. Having demanded revelation of the
Files during the 2024 election, now it’s apparently in Trump’s interest to protect the perpetrators, pardon at least one if
she coughs up what he wants to hear and ignore the victimized girls and women. If we are still by any chance a Nation of
Laws, the perpetrators, whoever they are, will face identification and prosecution.
Trump delivered a lecture to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in a bizarre stream-of-
consciousness and childish self-congratulatory monologue. This is how America presents to the world. (YouTube.com, then
choose duckduckgo.com, “Trump meets with president of European Commission”).
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
Martin, you and I can have fun sometime arguing the history of the Catholic Church, its profound effect on Western Civilization, its positive and negative contributions to the world and the faithful, and divine mysteries, but I don’t see the audience for that here.
Commitment to religious beliefs can only be measured by how we treat each other. You are attached to a version of Catholicism that is a mix of medieval mysticism and ardor for political inquisition which I do not share. We all struggle against making ourselves and our own needs and beliefs the center of the universe, or lulling ourselves with, “we good, they bad.”
If religious practice helps people to become the best version of themselves, it will also remind them that we are all human beings just trying to figure out why we exist and recognize and honor the pilgrimage of others. There are many religious people who unequivocally support our human experience, and many who don’t but invoke “God’s will” as if theirs are the ears into which the Almighty would choose to whisper.
Last week, you declined in deep weariness to respond to any of the raised real-world issues but were re-animated by mystical matters which can be a refuge from reality. We all exist here on Planet Earth, trying to experience and survive what it is to be human as best we can, but Marian prophecies are not, I think, a significant resource for most people.
I’d give Trump credit for any “good things” he has done, if they weren’t wildly outnumbered by the critical damage he is doing to America, average Americans, and our status in the eyes of other countries; by cozying up to Putin (“he fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden, but he didn’t fool me!!” a statement so ridiculous no other comment is needed; by handing a drug-addled, billionaire megalomaniac a license to destroy the government; by toying spasmodically with tariffs; and vilification of anyone who does not do his bidding in the Epstein coverup, including his own MAGA followers.
Trump whined that MAGA who won’t “let it go” are “stupid” and “weaklings,” and sneered that he “doesn’t want their support anymore.” What is Trump’s real reason for paving over the Epstein crimes and protecting pedophiles when he is willing to pay such a huge price for it?
Trump has believed since 2015 that he can sell MAGA anything, and has, but this Epstein matter was such a 2024 bonfire MAGA issue, so filled with political venom, perverted rumors, and avenging promises of “transparency,” that it can’t be ignored. More than one political writer has recalled deviant politician “Lonesome Rhodes” in the film, “A Face in the Crowd, “ who bragged about his constituents, “I can take chicken fertilizer and sell it to ’em for caviar.” Or Bibles, sneakers, steaks, or virtual cards depicting Trump as Atlas, Elvis, and Jesus. The 1950’s film is preternaturally prescient of our own time.
Now will come accusations against past Democratic operatives, the emergence of shiny things “over there,” and Trump insinuating himself into high profile issues to divert attention from Epstein. It’s his MO, and we’ll see if it still works when the issue is protecting pedophiles.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
There are a couple of writers to this LTTE that should be hanging their heads in shame. Last week Pat Collins protested that "This is Trump doing what Trump does best---fooling some of the people all the time." While Kelly Scoles claims "...Trump's personal prejudices, Constitutional indifference, lust for power, personal demons, or human insensibilities." This week DNI Telsi Gabbard exposed the seditious conspiracy, and probably acts of treason by Obama, Brennon, Clapper, Rice, Karry, Newland, McCab, Lynch. McCord, Johnson, Choseman, Rhodes and other corrupt cohorts who concocted Russiagate and went after President Trump as soon as he won in 2016. They removed the intelligence findings, got together to create a lie, leaked it to the press using the fake Steele Dossier, then corrupted the courts to destroy General Flynn and others. Gabbard brought the evidence and receipts with more to come. Now the party of "I take the 5th" with three so far, refuses to answer any questions. Expect cries and a quibble from their corrupt inside players and media, "It's a conspiracy or they're misrepresenting the facts, we're victims of the Orange Man". But Gabbard has it in hand. Remember, at that time Susan Rice, for a CYA, sent HERSELF an email stating "Everything should be done by the book". That in itself was a dead give away something wasn't right. Worse is that their corruption could have brought us to war with Russia.
Next up, the media's focus on Epstein. So just ignore the treason and corruption, that's so yesterday. Or maybe ICE and a continued threat that our fruit and produce will rot in the fields with no one to harvest. Fear works. But did you know that farm labor uses LESS than 1% of the agricultural work force and has for many decades? Everything else is getting automated, but there's not a word about the machines available today that can supply most of the farm labor. What? Isn't AI and technology already here? Yes, it is, but the agricultural business doesn't want to eat the cost of machines and maintenance. Cheaper for them to have the taxpayer subsidized human labor. That will change soon.
For four decades around 35 million legal and illegal immigrants entered this country. Many through temporary visa overstays or our open borders. Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) estimates 14 million entered in Biden's first three years in office. Most lower educated immigrants, which are mostly illegal, concentrate in specific metropolitan locations like the incorporated town of Compton, which in the past was overwhelmingly home to the Black community of all economic classes. But today is less than 26% Black and over 52% illegals. Watts, South Central, San Fernando Valley and communities throughout the country have seen the impact of dislocated lower class citizens forced to move to find homes or jobs and access to the first rung up the ladder to middle class.
Adding 20 million, where 90% of illegals are renters, drives up the cost of rentals for everyone. CIS analysis indicates a 5% migrant increase is associated with a 12% increase in overall rent when associated with income. Illegal immigration undercuts wages and undermines the incentive to work. sometimes leading to a "death of despair" with drugs, alcohol and a cascading series of harmful consequences. It has displaced our own citizens in janitorial cleaning, maintenance, food preparation and processing, groundskeeping, retail sales and many other industries. But all you hear is lettuce will be $5 a head without illegals. The jobs taken and lost by our citizens are never spoken of and thus treated as though they don't exist. These are the original victims of unfettered immigration. We're told they are jobs Americans won't do. That's NOT TRUE. But the media won't tell you or show when a business gets an illegal immigration raid it often results in long lines of people applying for those jobs. Yes, it happens.
A Federation for American Immigration (FAIR) 2023 study found the cost of illegals is $182 billion annually offset by $31 billion paid in taxes from 15.5 million illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants do add $321 billion to the GDP but not as tax contributions or benefits to our citizens. Almost all goes to the illegal immigrants themselves in wages spent or sent home as remittances. The illegal households more often than not, use one or more welfare assistance programs, creating over $42 billion in cost. Add $70 billion in education along with $18.5 billion emergency medical and the $11.2 billion in federal medical funding, it becomes apparent the illegals cost much more than they provide in earnings to our country.
Many displaced people became homeless as the problem impacted more towns and neighborhoods. Ask a simple question; were more homes built in those lower income areas which were already built out? No. Grants went to hundreds of nonprofit/NGO's who wasted billions realizing if they fixed the problem, they'd be out of a job. So the powers that be placate the people with "we're trying", look how much we've spent on it.
Who profited? The globalist, politician, the wealthy, greedy business owners, nonprofits/NGO's and anyone who wanted cheaper labor at the expense of others. Social engineers convinced society to believe, 'I'm too smart to be fooled, these poor migrants are the victims of conservatives and we must help' with an attack list in hand of xenophobic, racist, bigoted, nazi, fascist or whatever chosen name for that day. Just keep people in their place.
Remember the cry for boycotts because China used slave labor to make Niki and Addias sneakers. Nothing changed. China is still using slave labor. Do you hear a peep about Chinese slave labor today? No. Instead you hear the claim of 'victimhood' while gangs riot and rob the shoe stores. Then we're told it's the poor needing shoes. Shoes that now cost hundreds of dollars a pair. The con of social engineering by some very evil people, yet so many admire those same people as virtuous and caring.
When your needs are met and you still feel entitled, be thankful that you live in a country that allows you the opportunity to go for it and work harder to achieve what you want by merit. Today we have far too many living off the sacrifices of past generations while borrowing from future generations through bonds and credit cards to keep a lifestyle they've become accustomed to. Who's willing to sacrifice anything or grateful for what they've been given? Are we living in the final stages of the Tytler Cycle? History does repeat itself. Remember we are $37 trillion in debt.
Jean McLeod
Fillmore
To the Editor:
After years and years of righteous demands for transparency and accountability in the Epstein scandal. After telling you only
Trump would give us that transparency and accountability. When given the chance to finally do it, Trump says no, Bondi says
no. Republicans in the House say no. Who are they protecting? The Democrats? Come on, people. Get real. This is Trump doing
what Trump does best—fooling some of the people all the time.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, CA
To the Editor:
In a lurid manifestation of lack of character and consideration of constituent needs, the Republican House adopted the
Senate Budget Bill, which caused some admitted Repo Congressional opponents to snivel that there was “nothing else they
could do” because Trump insisted on a completely fabricated signing deadline of July 4. The Republican Congress couldn’t say
“no” to the little guy squalling for his aery boom-booms.
Republican conservative and moderate legislators, who had expressed dire warnings about the big, beautiful bill, calling it
a “travesty, ““broken,” and “mortgaging our future, “cowed under the pressure of a primary challenge threat, and voted for
their jobs instead of their constituents’ non-billionaire interests. There were some crumbs for the Middle Class, but the
real object was services for food support for families, Medicaid and other health insurance, veterans’ services,
environmental safety and consumer protections. But tax breaks for the most wealthy were the one essential cause. The
Republican budget just put another notch in the income-inequality gunbelt.
We await the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assessing on-site the damage to Iran’s nuclear sites
but, even if it was as overwhelming as Trump declares, our global status as a peace broker is as tarnished as our 7-month
reputation for clear, coherent, disciplined tariff negotiations. Especially measured against Trump’s cancellation of
committed shipments of weapons to Ukraine. The WH deputy press secretary explained, “This decision was made to put America’s
interests first [Iran?] following a DOD review of our nation’s military support and assistance to other countries across the
globe.”
So, a peremptory attack on Iran is justified, but promised military assistance to defend embattled, free-world Ukraine must
be balanced against the interests of nameless other countries, though Trump has insisted that Europe and NATO are not major
“America First” concerns? How can this be seen as anything but a deceptive excuse for capitulation to Putin? This is
happening in plain sight in front of the entire world, and makes a mockery of Trump’s “peace through strength” motto.
Last week in a July 4 celebration in Des Moines, IA, advertised as “a bi-partisan celebration to bring America together,”
Trump choked the stated objective to blackout. He poutily declared that Democrats refused to vote for [the bill] “only
because they hate Trump. But I hate them too, you know?” This sad and artless self-pity is yet another example of Trump’s
wounded psyche which often translates to cruelty.
To wit: Trump visited “Alligator Alcatraz” the new pop-up, swampy, open-air immigrant detention center in the FL Everglades.
Trump gushed about the 8-day construction, located in a High Hurricane Potential Area (which has already flooded), financed
by select donors and some FEMA funds: plastic tents over cages, in a very hot and humid location, surrounded by alligators,
snakes, horrendous mosquitos and other dangers. It’s location makes access extremely difficult for families, lawyers, or
state congressional oversight. Trump whisperer, Laura Loomer, extolled the facility. “Alligator lives matter. The good news
is alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we get started now.” Only the insentient could deny that cruelty
is the point.
Is this who we have become in Trump II? No US Christian or person of conscience can criticize foreign treatment of US
captives, or this administration’s treatment of any of us when we trigger Trump’s personal prejudices, Constitutional
indifference, lust for power, personal demons, or human insensibilities. We have been warned. Repeatedly.
God bless the flood victims in TX.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, CA
To the Editor:
In a lurid manifestation of lack of character and consideration of constituent needs, the Republican House adopted the Senate Budget Bill, which caused some admitted Repo Congressional opponents to snivel that there was “nothing else they could do” because Trump insisted on a completely fabricated signing deadline of July 4. The Republican Congress couldn’t say “no” to the little guy squalling for his aery boom-booms.
Republican conservative and moderate legislators, who had expressed dire warnings about the big, beautiful bill, calling it a “travesty, ““broken,” and “mortgaging our future, “cowed under the pressure of a primary challenge threat, and voted for their jobs instead of their constituents’ non-billionaire interests. There were some crumbs for the Middle Class, but the real object was services for food support for families, Medicaid and other health insurance, veterans’ services, environmental safety and consumer protections. But tax breaks for the most wealthy were the one essential cause. The Republican budget just put another notch in the income-inequality gunbelt.
We await the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assessing on-site the damage to Iran’s nuclear sites but, even if it was as overwhelming as Trump declares, our global status as a peace broker is as tarnished as our 7-month reputation for clear, coherent, disciplined tariff negotiations. Especially measured against Trump’s cancellation of committed shipments of weapons to Ukraine. The WH deputy press secretary explained, “This decision was made to put America’s interests first [Iran?] following a DOD review of our nation’s military support and assistance to other countries across the globe.”
So, a peremptory attack on Iran is justified, but promised military assistance to defend embattled, free-world Ukraine must be balanced against the interests of nameless other countries, though Trump has insisted that Europe and NATO are not major “America First” concerns? How can this be seen as anything but a deceptive excuse for capitulation to Putin? This is happening in plain sight in front of the entire world, and makes a mockery of Trump’s “peace through strength” motto.
Last week in a July 4 celebration in Des Moines, IA, advertised as “a bi-partisan celebration to bring America together,” Trump choked the stated objective to blackout. He poutily declared that Democrats refused to vote for [the bill] “only because they hate Trump. But I hate them too, you know?” This sad and artless self-pity is yet another example of Trump’s wounded psyche which often translates to cruelty.
To wit: Trump visited “Alligator Alcatraz” the new pop-up, swampy, open-air immigrant detention center in the FL Everglades. Trump gushed about the 8-day construction, located in a High Hurricane Potential Area (which has already flooded), financed by select donors and some FEMA funds: plastic tents over cages, in a very hot and humid location, surrounded by alligators, snakes, horrendous mosquitos and other dangers. It’s location makes access extremely difficult for families, lawyers, or state congressional oversight. Trump whisperer, Laura Loomer, extolled the facility. “Alligator lives matter. The good news is alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we get started now.” Only the insentient could deny that cruelty is the point.
Is this who we have become in Trump II? No US Christian or person of conscience can criticize foreign treatment of US captives, or this administration’s treatment of any of us when we trigger Trump’s personal prejudices, Constitutional indifference, lust for power, personal demons, or human insensibilities. We have been warned. Repeatedly.
God bless the flood victims in TX.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
The “world” has not chosen war, Martin. Israel and the US have unilaterally chosen to attack Iran without a verified, imminent provocatory threat, according to international and American intelligence agencies. It’s conceded that Iran is a nation of hateful ill will toward the West, Israel, and non-Muslims, yet Iran, Israel, and the US had been negotiating an agreement to monitor and control Iran’s uranium enrichment for nuclear power (Obama’s agreement which Trump invalidated), when Israel peremptorily attacked Iran. Like Japan’s peremptory attack on Pearl Harbor, a dishonorable chicken-feculent act that the free world despised.
A few days later, the US struck three nuclear sites in Iran, exactly what Trump denied he would do under “America First,” and “No New Wars.” Trump insisted that Iran’s nuclear sites were “completely and fully obliterated.” However, neither American intelligence agencies nor international sources would substantiate that claim without an on-site damage assessment.
Netanyahu pretend-groveled to congratulate Trump on the strikes, saying that, “the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history.” Bibi finally achieved his 30-year dream to involve the US in an attack on Iran. Trump avoids his betrayal of “America First” by accusing protestors of degrading the US military flying the mission. When that foolishness fails, it will be “sedition” to question Trump’s decision. Iran will go quiet for a while, Trump will declare his “military negotiation” a brilliant success but, tragically, this is not over.
When pushed to explain the lead-up to and results of the strikes, Trump II won’t explain and can’t justify his actions, because there was no imminent threat to Israel or the US. But (once again) why a military attack now? How did Trump get so influenced by Bibi? Why not attack Russia, as Putin continues the unfettered rape of Ukraine?
The Senate has adopted Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” It includes spending reductions for people in need, including children (SNAP, and other food support for children and infants), provides massive cuts to Medicaid insurance and hospitals, establishes a 10-year moratorium on state oversight of AI, all but eliminates federal FEMA assistance to states, approves sale of public lands, reverses governmental support for clean water, clean air, and clean energy incentives in favor of new fossil fuel coal subsidies (“Make America 1850 again!”).
To conceal the $5.5 trillion-dollar deficit for the billionaire tax cut (which will soon jeopardize Medicare and Social Security), Republicans will use “current policy” accounting to treat the 2017 Trump I tax cuts, expiring this year, as a base, and not a new MegaBill budget item. This falsely makes the Republican Budget and national debt look far less onerous. The 20-year Senate Parliamentarian’s determination that the Republican accounting method violated Senate Rules was ignored, and Trump called for her firing. Nobody can disagree with Trump.
The House now must now accept the Senate amendments, and they will, to get on a plane to celebrate, ironically, our Declaration of Independence from a King
Republicans have assured their congressionals, “Don’t worry about your constituencies fighting us on this Bill. They’ll get over it.” You have to ask why Republicans are so furiously committed to the welfare of the obscenely wealthy, and willing to do it at the expense millions of ordinary Americans and their families who are falling further into poverty and below Middle Class. It’s as if Republicans legislators believe that their constituents don’t fully understand what is happening or will, in fact, “get over it.”
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.