To the Editor:
You wrote that “the Democratic Party escorted 20-million illegal aliens into our country never to be escorted out.”
That number came from Trump’s campaign, not Customs and Border Protection or any other government count. By July 2024, CBP recorded about 10.25 million nationwide encounters during the Biden administration—not 20 million people admitted. Encounters included repeat attempts by the same people, as well as millions who were expelled or removed. Immigration is a serious issue. That does not make Trump’s figure true.
Nor was it simply a problem Democrats refused to address. In 2024, conservative Republican Senator James Lankford spent four months negotiating a bipartisan border-security bill with Democrats and the Biden administration. It had substantial Republican support until Trump demanded its rejection. Support collapsed, and only four Republican senators voted to advance it. Trump welcomed responsibility: “Please blame it on me.” He helped kill an attempt to address the crisis he continues to blame on Democrats.
The claim that noncitizens are determining our elections is equally unsupported. Voting by noncitizens in federal elections is already illegal. A study covering 23.5 million votes found approximately 30 suspected cases—0.0001 percent. Michigan found only 15 possible cases among more than 5.7 million ballots cast in 2024. Illegal votes should be investigated, but isolated cases are not an invading electorate.
What is happening in the name of stopping those imaginary millions should alarm every citizen. Trump ordered documentary proof of citizenship added to the federal registration form, although millions of eligible Americans lack a passport or ready access to an acceptable birth certificate. He put women at risk of disenfranchisement if they changed names when they married. Courts blocked that provision, ruling that a president cannot rewrite election procedures belonging to Congress and the states.
The Constitution gives a president no power to nationalize elections, create his own voter lists or decide which citizens may receive ballots.
Despite that, Trump is trying to require states to give the Postal Service federally approved voter lists—and to prevent ballots from being mailed to voters or states that do not meet his requirements. That plan remains in court as the 2026 election approaches.
Trump has also called for Republicans to “nationalize” and “take over” voting in at least 15 places. After losing in 2020, he was directly involved in efforts to have federal agencies seize voting machines. The proposed orders were never signed, but the attempt was real.
Invented noncitizen voters are being used to justify federal control over how American citizens register, receive ballots and vote.
That—not an imaginary horde—is the threat to free and fair elections.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca.
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To the Editor:
Preliminary to addressing some of the illogic and inconsistencies of last week’s Realities, just a couple of illustrative activities undertaken last week by our wartime president.
SCOTUS made another obsequious bow to lawless Trump, in an again-unsigned opinion, to allow continuing progress on the Bawlroom until a final decision is made for his unauthorized, illegal demolition of the East Wing and destruction of public property (but for which the Olympic canoeist is still being prosecuted for merely touching floating Reflecting Pool liner). The DOJ argued the structure was “65% complete,” which a drive past would prove false, and from the air looks like a meth colony inhabits the WH.
More facts: Trump proposed selling off pieces of Yosemite to developers. He will not disclose the source of South American “mystery meat” introduced to compete with costs of American farmers’ beef, and food/meat inspector ranks have been decimated. Trump warned that if he can’t have his name on the Kennedy Center sandbox, he will figuratively defecate in it so no one else can use it. The Pentagon fired the editors of Stars and Stripes for “insubordination” in telling the truth about conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Back to last week’s Realities:
-Of the “Devil’s closest friends” you enumerated, the leaders of three of them (China, NKorea, Russia) are dictators at whom Trump bats his eyes.
-Initially, you said, “That topic [a “just war”] is certainly not my ‘sole interest’ these days”, yet a few paragraphs later said, “As I’ve mentioned several times before, I have little interest in domestic politics while the Devil is at the gate.” FYI: same guy who invited the Devil to the gate is conducting our domestic policies.
-Only the Far Right thinks that Trump’s Iran War is “just.” Four previous presidents, including Trump One, concluded it wasn’t advantageous to attack, especially because it would risk closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and likelihood of increasing tensions in the Middle East. It is only a “just war” for those who demand it be that
-Even Trump’s former National Intelligence Director (Gabbard) maintained pre-war that there were NO credible reports of Iranian military nuclear objectives, and the generals advised against war for several reasons, the threat to Hormuz chief among them.
-You criticize Democrats for picking on “easy target,” self-immolating Trump, though you, too, “disagree with much of his foreign policy,” especially his terrible, US-compromising treatment of allies (Canada, NATO, Greenland, etc., and SKorea in favor of NKorea’s political sensitivities. Kim Jong Un reportedly thought Trump was nuts for falling for his obvious manipulation).
-You celebrate Ukraine’s possible victory over Russia, but fail to acknowledge that, after the Trump Two inauguration, the US has canceled Biden’s support for ally Ukraine but now sells American armaments - at retail - to NATO to “help Ukraine,” a cause for which you formerly staunchly advocated significant American backing.
Some people see what Trump is but cannot revisit their allegiance to now-disfigured political “conservatism,” or Trump’s anything-but-Christian behavior and decisions because, particularly on the shorter end of life, they can’t accept having been misled, duped, or just wrong in misjudging a garish carny barker/snake oil salesman for a decent, competent, and well-intentioned man and president. Some feel the same way about their commitment to “Old Testament Christianity,” a concept which is spiritually inconsistent.
It is folly to try to change the late-in-life mind of someone with an overwhelming need for unbroken, immutable beliefs and assurances in matters of spiritual and political self-identity. If such a closed mind didn’t threaten the rest of us, I wouldn’t mention it at all; to each his own.
All I can do is keep delivering factual information regarding Trump’s true intent for our endangered country, for the world, and mostly for himself. Though it’s as obvious as Trump’s “tan,” his canary-crested coiffure, sticky little fingers, and some sort of bulky mechanism or article lurking under his pants.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.