To the Editor:
The editor’s concern about fraud and non-citizens voting is a non-existent problem. The research based on data, not feelings, is quite clear on this. Non-citizens who vote already face jail time. On a federal level, the penalty is a year in jail and possible fine. At the state level, they face 5 years in jail and possible fine. This is one reason noncitizen voting is so rare. It’s an extraordinarily high-risk act for very little gain.
The reason Trump rages about this has nothing to do with reality. It’s about stirring people up. Fear is a standard tool in the authoritarian’s toolbox.
What Trump is really trying to do is make it hard for people to vote. The fewer people who vote, the better chance he has of holding onto power. The SAVE Act is about making it harder for eligible citizens to vote. Especially women.
There’s a reason why the Republican Senate wouldn’t pass the SAVE Act. Even they knew passing it was like chopping off your arm because you have a hangnail.
That’s just one trick he’s trying to pull. His whole gambit with the post office is another. He doesn’t have a constitutional leg to stand on with that one. But who knows what this shameful court will do.
Stopping as many people as possible, whether it be by law or edict, is only one scenario we’re facing. Will we see ICE at the polls in Fillmore? What other schemes will they come up with to stop mail-in voting, intimidate voters? He’s already called for his fans to pledge allegiance to him, to cheat and fight like hell. Best way to tell that Trump is telling the truth? It’s when he pretends it’s a joke.
Johnson is already promising that he won’t let Democrats take control of the House. If Trump hasn’t managed to hold onto power before then, January 3rd will be a critical day. Will Johnson carry out his threat? US Constitution lovers on both the right and the left are preparing for that day now.
Trump says he’s on the ballot. I say it’s democracy itself. Are we going to meet our moment in history?
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca
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To the Editor:
Every week the two leftist propagandists spew their regurgitated mode of discourse on this platform; hate Trump, hate Trump, hate Trump. With a convoluted distortion of the facts. Kelly Scoles complains that Trump is bringing in beef parts for hamburger meat that fast food businesses will use. Yet has she ever mentioned Smithfield pork? Smithfield is the largest pork producer in the US. Guess who owns Smithfield, China! Even after it was reported that Smithfield sends its highest grade of port back to China to feed its military and the lower grades are sold in our US markets. You didn’t hear a peep out of the Hate Trump/TDS emotionally needed propagandists.
Then there’s the spew, The Save Act is stopping people from voting garbage. That lie has been way overused. I have worked the polls in this and other counties for 30 years. Long before the “don’t need an ID” con was put into place. No one had a problem showing an ID and it made the process so much faster. Those that couldn’t speak English just showed their ID. Those who had accents that were hard to understand were not a problem, they just showed their ID. It was so much quicker to look up on the voter roster. You didn’t have to ask the information to be repeated and less mistakes resulted. But there is something most people living in Ventura County don’t know about its voting system. Just before Covid, with the last non forced mailing of ballots, I heard something during the mandatory training everyone working the polls must attend before each election. The county began promoting NGO’s/nonprofits to take over voting precincts with the guise of making money for themselves. That voting year I was covering Eldorado Mobile Home Park, but the area that was designated was still under construction. I went to the Ventura Gov. Building and spoke to the woman in charge of voting precincts and asked if the laundry room could substitute if it could meet the requirements. I then asked her why they were trying to use NGO’s to take over precincts and explained how doing so would make cheating so easy and it was a bad idea. Most people don’t have a close relationship with each other making it harder to collude, but NGO’s already have an agenda, they have to, and all know each other. She responded “No one has ever said that” and walked away. Maybe that should be of greater concern to Pat, than continuing to complain it’s too hard for minorities or they’re too stupid to know who to get an ID.
Jean McLeod,
Fillmore, Ca.
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To the Editor:
I’m not sure whether it’s concerning, or kinda adorable, the dogged way you ignore the forest and trees for the leaves on the ground. Last week’s Editorial was another master class in circumvention. Anything to avoid the fact that Our President has cut a beef deal, without consulting American ranchers, with a big campaign donor and indicted rotten meat purveyor, to provide Americans with “mystery meat” of unknown origin and unspecified quality, after having charged Musk to decimate the ranks of food and meat inspectors. You think the Republican Congress gives a river rat’s a*s about this? But don’t bet against it in your minced meat from somewhere in South America.
War Note: the WH has adopted the Art of the Squeal in blaming the Russia-Ukraine war for the global rise in diesel prices, not Trump’s war with Iran. “Mr. Zelenskyy has to do one thing. He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia,” Trump said. We will if they will stop bombing our electrical infrastructure, Zelensky countered.
The MSM went berserk on the Trumpalooza news about Trump’s promise to give “every adult American $5K if Republicans prevail” in November. Same guy who warned in 2012, “Don’t let Obama buy the election by promising to hand out free money!” Chill out; it’s just carny-barker chatter. Trump’s propensity for grandiose promises to donate his money, and legendary failure to deliver, should cool their jets.
But, once again, Trump proved he thinks his Trumpalooza base is vulnerable at best, illogical or mystified at worst. He instructed the TX Convention assembly to hold up their right hands to Pledge Allegiance, not to the flag, or the Constitution, or the country, but to HIM, “the greatest president in the history of the United States.” He urged them to join with friends and family to assert, “I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m going to try to cheat like hell….so help me God.” Trump is counting on his base failing to recognize or care that he himself is endorsing election fraud, and it’s all on campaign tape.
Trey Gowdy elicited Trump’s latest embellishment on his “valorous” reaction on 9/11. He says he went down to Ground Zero on 9/11 with “hundreds of employees” (he uses contractors), to help with the cleanup, “two big firemen…and I’m a big guy” lifted him out of the rubble to safety. Trump himself has acknowledged his phobia of germs, dirt, blood, and sacrifice. He assumes his base will buy it anyway. Heck, they bought all those virtual cards depicting Trump as Elvis, Alexander the Great, and even Jesus.
GHWBush-appointed conservative former federal judge Michael Luttig resounded the alarm for Trump’s determination to claim victory in the midterms, not necessarily on closely observed election day, but on January 3, 2027, when Congress meets to certify the 2026 election.
House Speaker Johnson has assured that he, “and the House Republicans and the president of the United States would never allow the Democrats to take over the House of Representatives,” even if they have to deny seating Democrats elected to the 120th Congress. “They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the cabinet, his donors and friends. Half of you in this room will be targeted. I run the protection program. I’ll take care of you.”
Luttig is not alone in his concern, as many American Constitution experts agree. After all, Trump’s experience trying to overthrow the results of the 2021 election, Speaker Johnson’s line in the sand, and Trump’s Pledge of Allegiance in TX to “cheat like hell,” draw the map for anyone who cares to see. Trump has no intention of accepting the will of the People should it not mirror his.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.