To the Editor:
Watching the news this past weekend I couldn’t stop thinking about the little girls. The little girls in Iran. The little girls in the Epstein saga. Different countries, different circumstances, one common bond — powerful men who believe girls don’t matter.
Six Americans dead. “Pre-emptively defensive,” they say. And Trump wants to talk about the White House’s gold drapes.
How many more will it take?
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca
***
To the Editor:
It is not possible in this space to address all that should be said about the international events of last week. All that I can do is ask questions, and not even all of them. Please excuse the length.
Why did Trump plan and conduct, in consultations with Israel and Saudi Arabia but without constitutionally required Congressional “advise and consent,” a massive, unprovoked, military attack on tinderbox Iran?
No one is sorry that Totalitarian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is no longer in power in Iran. No one would be sorry if Kim Jong Un were no longer in power in North Korea. Both have long-hated America. I will not bother to quote the wildly contradictory statements of our government on Iran’s nuclear capabilities. This is a War of Aggression and Choice, and it is Trump’s War.
Contrary to Trump’s campaign promises that there would be no “regime change wars,” we are there. We are compelled to ask, “why?”
Trump’s actions violate the US Constitution which requires Congress to declare War. Internationally, no imminent, realistic threat to America’s security existed. We appear to have begun a War on behalf of Israel’s Netanyahu and the Arab States who are reliably reported to have lobbied Trump to attack for their own purposes.
This is likely both an act of hubris on Trump’s part, and a debt or favor owed to Israel and the Arab States. Why risk yet another dangerous political power vacuum in the Mideast, as we have done so infamously and detrimentally before? Trump’s claim that his heart bled for Iranian oppression was morbidly preposterous. Trump has offered no substantial support for regime-change. I hear the desperate siren of failure to learn past lessons, and unintended consequences
Trump did not consult, either, with other free-world powers before the destabilizing attack and went “commando.” After years-long threats to weaken free-world alliances, teasing abandoning European partners, “Tilt-A-Whirl tariffs,” openly embracing dictators, stealing Venezuelan oil, and threatening to invade Greenland, the respect for, and value of, diplomacy with America has significantly depreciated - in 14 months. Foreign leaders reasonably question Trump’s motives and failure to recognize likely regional instability. Still, his outraged Republican minions castigate the EU for their lack of automatic, unambiguous support for Trump’s War.
Who benefits from this War? Israel’s Netanyahu, of course, who has begged for such action for years. Saudi Arabia and Qatar consider Iran to be their greatest enemy, and they, too, urged the US to attack Iran again.
It is well-known that Trump, the Trump Organization and Family, have extensive financial ties to many Mideast countries, and have acquired billions of dollars during the Trump presidencies: the Board of Peace grift in Gaza; Qatar’s airport facility in the Midwest, and gift of a fantastic “free” airplane; Saudi Arabia’s Trump crypto-currency ventures, real estate, AI chip deals, and the 2020 $2 billion handout to Jared Kushner (who was also the conflict-driven latest US “negotiator” with Iran).
This War was not an emergency American national security action or even a democratic challenge to a Totalitarian government. It isn’t just a monumental distraction (albeit temporarily successful) from the Epstein Files. It’s about Trump’s sole lifetime interest: his personal business interests. And at the moment, they are in the Mideast.
Trump doesn’t have the attention span to conduct a long, costly, and harrowing War. He just needs a couple of weeks to divert attention from the Epstein Files and show off “his” military might to the world, accommodate a few friends in the Mideast, and bail out, “having done everything he could for peace.” Then he can move on to wooing American’s partially indifferent electorate to institute more voter suppression and control of the US mid-term election as a “war president,” and focus on building a ballroom.
He’s playing Russian Roulette with world peace, our republic, and our lives and futures, for personal power and profit.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.

To the Editor:
Ms. McLeod is right about one thing: public pressure around the Epstein files did not come out of nowhere. For years, this was a big issue for MAGA — remember “Pizzagate.” Donald Trump himself said repeatedly that his administration would pursue full disclosure. It was a campaign promise.
Once in office, somehow, for the administration, the issue faded away. Key records remain sealed. Requests for broader document releases stall. Officials who could push disclosure did not. Despite his supporters’ loud and insistent demands. Crickets.
Recently, the issue re-emerged in a rare bipartisan effort. Representatives Thomas Massie (R) and Ro Khanna (D) jointly supported measures aimed at forcing greater transparency around Epstein-related records. The more revealed, the more Democrats came onboard. Eventually the House and the Senate joined.
Trump signed the bill to release the documents because it was veto proof. Clearly, his heart wasn’t in it. Instead of following the law he signed, perpetrators names were redacted while victims were exposed. This renewed scrutiny has revealed concerning financial connections and institutional failures have surfaced, and the story grows larger.
Move on, Trump has repeatedly declared, which has only reinforced public distrust. Most people seem to agree: Accountability must apply consistently, whether the people involved are Republicans, Democrats, donors, officials, or elites of any stripe.
We have not heard the last of this. No matter how badly Trump wants it to end. When someone fights this hard to keep something hidden, there’s a reason.
Today, a report that at least 53 pages of Trump-related documents have been withheld. The beat goes on. What new distractions can he pull out of his hat?
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca.
***
To the Editor:
Knowing it was a lie, but telling our citizens the attack on our Consulate in Benghazi was a result of “a video” wasn’t enough to discredit Obama’s mouthpiece, Susan Rice. Today she is threatening retaliation to anyone who cooperated with the present administration. Rice stated, “.....it’s not going to end well...when (Democrats) come back in power... (playing) by the old rules....they’ve got another thing coming...This is not going to be an instance of forgive and forget” These threats were just hours from another assignation attempt on President Trump at his home Mar-a-:Lago.
With hate for our country, too many suffer from a ‘self fulfilling prophecy’. Convinced they see it everywhere (racism, xenophobia, faschim, oppression, etc.) they hear it constantly, feel it continuously, so they tell themselves it exists and is true. They believe the impossible and some to the point that the ‘other’ must be killed. TDS is real and encouraged by the left with a constant cry of “Hate Trump”. Is anyone held accountable for their actions or held responsible for their failures? Riots, assassinations, crime! Simply ignoring it or playing the victim seems to pass for justice.
Results matter much more than intent or feelings. It seems the Marxist are more comfortable with the ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’ attitude than respect for our own citizens and culture. They weakened the laws that a civil society needs and respects, while giving the criminal more consideration than the victims. Is the goal anarchy and a take down of this country? The cost of the failures, corruption and fraud is a debt now said to be unsustainable.
Marxist prefer the drug cartel culture of ‘it’s who you know, not what you know’. Today due to four years of an open border the cartels run more than Mexico, there are thousands of transnational gangs and narco terrorists with sleeper cells already here that will kill anyone who gets in their way.
The one person who stood up and told us the truth, our President, is vilified for exposing what these useful idiots created. Like the little boy who stated, “The Emperor has no clothes” President Trump told the truth and they hate him for it. I don’t care how big his ego is, or how much he boasts. I care about results and President Trump, more than any president in my lifetime, has done more to fix what has been broken for years. Our southern border is closed, thousands of children given a life of servitude with the cartels have been rescued, drug boats destroyed, just to name a few of DJT’s successes. Results matter!!!
Jean McLeod,
Fillmore, Ca.
***
To the Editor:
Trump’s insistence that he can initiate any tariff by invoking “national emergency powers” has been explicitly denied by SCOTUS. Last Friday, in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, SCOTUS struck down most of Trump’s tariffs imposed in a series of executive orders that relied on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Other tariff imposition options remain, but they require Congressional cooperation, and Authoritarians don’t ask anyone for “no stinkin’ approvals.”
By a vote of 6-3, in a decision written by CJ Roberts, SCOTUS ruled on three major issues: (1) that a tariff is indeed a tax on the consumer, (2) that the power of taxation resides in Congress, “The Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch,” and (3) that Trump “exceeded the powers given to the president” by Congress under a 1977 law giving him authority to regulate commerce during national emergencies created by foreign threats. In other words, his claim of imminent economic threat from a foreign power was unsupported by the facts and were illegal.
Dissents included the worried observation that the world is now confronted with uncertainty about trade agreements, and what to do with an illegally obtained $290 billion tariff fund, an issue SCOTUS did not resolve because it is a (self-inflicted) legislative problem. All Trump needed to do was get prior approval from Congress. But that’s the point. Trump and his condescending money guys, Ludnik and Bessant, were so arrogant or ignorant, they reflected Trump’s reply to a reporter who asked why he didn’t just “work with Congress.” “Because I don’t have to,” he said. The Constitution says he does. And that’s the point. Trump wants to operate with impunity, without consultation with any other co-equal branch of government.
Angry Ol’ Paw-Paw’s response was typical “cue the rage.” Beyond accusing the SCOTUS majority as “unpatriotic,” and “fools and lapdogs,” he declared his remarkable opinion, “that the Court has been swayed by foreign interests.” Then, “I understand the Court…how they are very easily swayed.” Ignoring his repeated public warnings to SCOTUS to rule in his favor, he faux-sniveled, “I want[ed] to be a good boy.”
Republicans defensively pouted that the Republican Congress could just “back up” the president with legislation and foil SCOTUS, something they should have done when Trump had his initial tariff tantrums. Trump claimed that he used the IEEPA because, “I thought I’d make things simple, but they didn’t let us do that.” Trump must think “gullible” is a national disease, not just a Republican Congressional affliction.
An even more momentous matter has arisen. For weeks, Trump has toyed with attacking Iran. In July, he claimed that he had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear power in a massive attack, now his special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, says that Iran is “days away” from obtaining full nuclear power. General Dan Kaine, Chair of the Joint Chiefs, is warning that the objective is undecided (regime change v. further military site hits), though there is already a massive US buidup in the area, what nuclear potential threat really exists, and no “Plan B” once the attack occurs. He is concerned that we face a potential major conflict without assurance that the Allies will be eager to support us after Trump’s NATO and UN insults and threats.
Why would Trump risk war and further instability in an already volatile part of the world with contradictory statements of justification? This “peace president” has something to gain from all this. Distraction from the growing world Epstein outrage? Pressure from Congress to release all the DOJ retained and heavily redacted Epstein documents?
Since he has publicly abandoned “peace as a primary interest,” does the idea of being a “wartime president” during a midterm election (just in case the Republican Congressional voter suppression plan [SAVE] doesn’t work as planned?) motivate Trump?
We are in the hands of a man whose only interest is his own survival, wealth, and power. He has said that his “limits are his “own morality. It’s all that can stop me.” This gives you confidence that Trump is “manning the guns,” Martin?
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.

To the Editor:
Thank you for answering the question I’ve been asking. I genuinely want to understand how good people can see what I see and still support President Trump.
By your own admission, ninety percent of what I describe is real — the petty tweets, the name-calling, the chaos, the grift. You’re not denying it — you’re arguing it’s the price of having someone willing to pull the trigger when missiles fall.
If we see it, the world sees it too.
Our adversaries see volatility. Deterrence depends on credibility and stable coalitions. When policy shifts with mood, grievance or flattery, predictability disappears — and unpredictability is not strength.
As farmers know, when the barn burns down, friends matter.
You say when missiles drop, I’ll be glad he’s manning the guns. I’m saying behavior that isolates us makes it more likely we’ll be manning them alone. That doesn’t increase safety. It increases risk.
Sadly, the assassination of Lincoln wasn’t as unique as we’d all like it to be. But surviving an attack is not the same as providing steady leadership.
The real question for all of us is this: at what point does accepting instability as the price of protection become the very thing that makes us more vulnerable?
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca.
***
To the Editor:
The push for the Epstein files by the Democrats drawing attention away from their corruption has really backfired. The latest to fall in disgrace is Kathryn Ruemmler. Known as “Obama’s Fixer” and his White House Counsel. Two of her best known dirty deeds included Solyndra, a taxpayer loan of $535 million that benefited a campaign donor; a year later Solyndra filed for bankruptcy, paying back some investors’ losses. But not a penny to the taxpayer. And the questionable emails involving Benghazi and the coverup (remember HRC was Secretary of State, but used Susan Rice to lie “It was a video”). Ruemmler resigned Feb.12th from Goldman Sachs as Chief Legal Officer over her very close ties with Jeffrey Epstein AFTER he was convicted of child sex offenses. During 2014-2019 contact included dozens of personal meetings, emails, correspondence and gifts. At one time she was executor of his will. Yes, a very close friendship. When Epstein was arrested, she was the first person he called. Then there’s Epstein’s numerous dealings with Reid Hoffman, Brad Karp, Morgan McSweeney, Peter Manadelson and the list is growing. But the one whistleblower who tried to warn authorities of both Maxwell and Epstien BEFORE they were arrested was Donald Trump. How much of that have you heard on the MSM?
Today’s ‘ignore it and it will go away’ is to spotlight the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie or discredit the SAVE Act. Citizens on both sides approve of having an ID to vote. But the Democrat Politicians and media are again gaslighting using race/victimhood declaring minorities are oppressed and too stupid to acquire an ID. How much have you heard about inflation being down to 2.4%? January’s was way lower at .3% instead of the 2.5% expected. Both housing and food inflation has slowed to .2% and energy prices saw the largest drop, falling to 1.5% or crime at its lowest on record?
Pay attention to China and Islam/Sharia Law creeping in all around us funded by foreign money. Schools/universities, nonprofits/NGO’s, government officials and politicians have for decades welcomed that funding. Color Revolutions creep in slowly.with plans already perfected.
If you think you’re too smart/woke to be fooled. Ask yourself how the schools were able to hide how badly they had become. For three generations! Obama (Mr. Change himself) pushed Common Core State Standards using our tax dollars to push an agenda of climate change, race victimhood, sex changes are normal. Dangling more of our tax dollars, to install computers with content from a woke agenda that went straight to the government with the students’ results.
Back in the 80’s, around the time of President Reagon’s amnesty, employers were told they could not restrict employees from speaking a language at work other than English along with a push for foreign born to keep their culture, NOT to assimilate. The divide and conquer by the leftist. Schools loved it, they received more tax dollars for new special ed. classes like English as a Second Language (ESL). Areas grew where children heard very little English. When the NEXT generation started school, their English was so poor the schools added English Language Learners (ELL) in addition to ESL.Schools received billions more in tax dollars. As the numbers grew the students who couldn’t read academic English used in the textbooks, became farther and farther behind at younger ages and failing became acceptable. So they just made lessons easier and reported better grades to the parents. The schools claimed they were trying so hard to fix it but they needed more money. While the powers that be continue to push ‘don’t assimilate, keep your culture’. Many of those who are bilingual prefer not speak English in a show of solidarity with the nonEnglish speakers. The children pay a price for that.
Three generations have become victims of this woke agenda. Learning a language isn’t hard, you just have to HEAR IT and the more articulate the parents, the better a student understands the textbooks. High and low IQ or learning issues learn to speak a language, but they won’t if they don’t hear it.
If you can not define what a female/woman is, I have a suggestion. Buy a bull. Cut off his horns. Cut off his testicles. Sew on an udder. Then try to milk the Frankenstein bull’s teats. They are called mammary glands. Millions of years ago mammals became warm blooded, with hair/fur and females having mammary glands to feed their offspring.. Males are larger for protection. Dolly the sheep was a female and couldn’t be turned into a male after being created in a petri dish.
It is shameful that a significant portion of society has been indoctrinated/socially engineered into actually believing the impossible, while hating the “other” that recognizes reality. Emotions and feelings of sympathy have their place but not to the extent that we should ignore our laws, common sense, responsibility of the individual and childrens’ academic needs. Far too many in ‘woke’ society today think it’s okay to commit a crime because they ‘feel’ others are oppressed. What they don’t realize is who actually made them ‘feel’ that way.
Jean McLeod,
Fillmore, Ca.
***
To the Editor:
The fact that Trump has openly and repeatedly called for nationalizing federal elections to be monitored by Republicans to ensure “voting honesty,” is apparently not meaningful to you. But, because Rittenhouse was acquitted 6 years ago, it’s important that we “let it rest.” Please note that Mr. Pretti did not live long enough for trial, and Trump still whines that he was robbed in the 2020 election, even six years later (and you agree), without evidence or “letting it rest.”
Trump has publicly warned SCOTUS that dire consequences will follow, “if these Corrupt and Deranged Democrats ever gain power.” Secretary of HS, Kristi Noem, recently said, “When it gets to Election Day, we’ve been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country.” Republican voter suppression is rampant, especially in blue states. Do you doubt Trump’s disdain for our Republic and what he plans to do about it?”
You rely on elected presidents to have “trustworthy character.” Never mind that Trump’s history of trustworthy character is non-existent, is littered with stiffed contractors and bankruptcies, that he is an adjudicated sex abuser who is using federal power to protect wealthy, high-ranking pedophiles, and a felon convicted of fraud.
Slowly, surely, pro-democracy awareness is rising to recognize the threat this administration poses to our Republic. The obvious objective of the Trump administration is Authoritarianism marching towards (Google it), “Totalitarianism.” Trump advocates extreme Nationalism, a Unitary Executive and obedient minions, one political party, control of voting options, demonization of citizens who dissent, a paramilitary force at his command, fear and resentment of the ethnic “other,” persecution of personal foes and the free press as “enemies of the state,” and censorship of criticism and uncomfortable national history.
Trump says he wants the best for America, but he means, as always, that he wants it for himself. As with all totalitarians, convincing the base that any dissent, any opposition, is an existential threat justifying extreme freedom-threatening escalation to “save the country,” is key. It’s up to the People to see the truth, and demand it or, as history has repeatedly shown, succumb to large-government control.
Be warned that, as doubts of Trump’s full Epstein disclosure and constitutional commitment rise, the danger will amplify. Trump cannot even accept the adjudicated, clear defeat in 2020 (nor can you, Martin), and he is perfectly willing to light a massive fire as the lights begin to go out on his “strongman” identity. He and his administration will not reexamine their policies. He will use his powers, wildly amplified by the Roberts Court, to double-down, as his ego and character have always demanded. There’s every indication that Republican Congressionals will warm their hands at the conflagration.
Countries in the EU have been repeatedly denigrated and insulted by Trump’s mood-swing tariffs and disrespect for their “loser” governments. They see the bribes and pathetic fealty to Trump shown by the Silicon Valley and network billionaires, grift of the Board of Peace, Trump Organization businesses in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, his admiration for despots. They know where Trump’s real interests lie, and do not trust him. They worry that America is indifferent to the forfeit of free-world esteem.
If Republican Congressionals and the Roberts Court continue to value their careers over country, if pro-democracy voters do not rise in defense of the Constitution, and Trumpism prevails, it will not be necessary to attack America to bring it down, Martin. Democracy will crumble from within, as the Russians have long predicted, and the free world now fears.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.

To the Editor:
Aren’t you sick of it?
The late-night rage tweeting. The petty whining about the damned Nobel Peace Prize. Calling female reporters names like a schoolyard bully. Mocking the disabled.
Are there any public buildings safe from having his name plastered across them? Proposing monuments to himself with our tax dollars—while tearing down historic buildings that belong to us, not him. Let’s not forget the massively gaudy ballroom no one needs, funded by ethically questionable donor dollars. Guess who’ll pay for maintenance.
Demanding military parades in his honor, à la China. Trashing allies. Trampling treaties. Insulting allied nations and casually talking about annexing their land. Watching Gaza discussed as a future redevelopment opportunity—floated by his son-in-law like a beachfront deal. All while hawking luxury cars on the White House lawn, turned Big Donny’s Elite Motors.
Telling us he’d show us his taxes—then telling us we don’t want them. And now, because someone leaked them, Trump is suing the government he leads for $10 billion over his tax records—money that would, of course, be paid by us. He says he’ll donate it to charity, perhaps one close to home. The grift feels endless.
Then he complains that he’s the most abused president we’ve ever had. Someone should tell him about Abraham Lincoln.
And I haven’t even mentioned Epstein. Or 2020—with 60 court cases that went against him. 60. All of them. Plus two recounts. Epstein, warrantless searches, smashing windows, babies in detention camps, crypto scams …
I’m too tired to list all the drama. It makes me nostalgic for the good old days—when all I had to worry about was Joe Biden getting lost trying to leave a room.
Don’t you just want to wake up to a little peace and quiet—food prices easing, housing costs going down, not up—and no new dumpster fire before breakfast?
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca.
***
To the Editor:
It’s sometimes painful to have an “opponent” prove your case. Your retreat to characterizing our political differences as “semantics” is unworthy of you.
I have referred to Trump’s determination to turn our constitutional republic into an autocratic regime, but “silly kingship” has been embraced numerous times in Trump’s own virtual cards and reposted pictures of himself as a potentate, including one with a crowned Trump spreading his voluminous feces from a plane onto protestors below.
Trump has said that there is only one restraint on him, “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” How about the Constitution? Trump has also called for “nationalization” of federal elections, overseen by Republicans to ensure “honesty.” Compare statements of Republican congressionals just after January 6 and those three weeks later, and you will see that “honesty” went to the highest bidder. Last week, Trump’s Truth Social site posted a video again claiming the 2020 election was “stolen,” that included the heads of former president Barack Obama and Michelle atop gorillas “born” in the jungle. The WH blamed “a staffer” (likely Voldemort Miller) for the racist message, but Trump would not apologize and did not try to call it a “joke,” though he was finally pressured to take it down. These are not just “inexplicably ignorant and petty” acts and remarks, Martin. They are who Trump is.
Often overlooked is the conservative acceptance of Trump’s betrayal of the Second Amendment in the Good and Pretti murders. “You can’t walk in with guns. You just can’t,” he said. Decades of defending shooting massacres to win gun owners’ votes, yet the sacredness of gun ownership was easily discarded when Trump needed justification for his storm troopers’ actions. Not a peep from Republicans, who apparently agree that only liberal protestors have no Second Amendment rights, unlike a Kyle Rittenhouse.
The Epstein Files are still not fully disclosed. Two million more have been designated as “privileged”, a defense unknown in the Documents Law. The information divulged is bone-chilling and heartbreaking. Many victims’ names, driver’s licenses, and photos, were left unredacted, though the perpetrators were all protected.
Trump has called for the country “to move on,” without justice for the victims, without accountability for the perpetrators, in a brazen betrayal of the Rule of Law, Trump’s oath of office, and promises to his own base. Trump knows the truth, and he is doing everything in his power to make sure that the country never does. It’s a fair question: “How bad is it, really?”
You are remarkably sanguine that Trump, “holds global security in his hands.” A man who drips self-congratulation, wraps himself in victimization, forever absolves himself of blame and ridicules others, openly admires dictators, takes another’s Nobel Prize as his own, treats immigrants inhumanely, is building an outlandish ballroom and massive Arc d’Trump in a time of economic uncertainty, and collects personal tribute from foreign nations (with permission from the Republican Congress). Every country in the world knows his vast vulnerabilities.
Like an old yellow dog lifting his leg on everything around him, Trump demands renaming the Kennedy Center, Penn Station, and Dulles Airport, for himself, as quid pro quo for unfreezing $16 billion in designated federal funds for two vital infrastructure projects in NYC..
Trump is not operating for the country’s security. He’d sell it for parts if it were to his advantage.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca

To the Editor:
Using the word Nazi or Gestapo to describe political opponents is profoundly offensive to millions of people. Obviously, the people who are inclined to use these words have no idea about the history surrounding their meaning.
The Nazis were brutal murderers responsible for killing millions of Jews and other individuals. They terrorized and starved populations of the countries they invaded. Being born in France I spent the first five years of my life under their control, and my mom and I (my dad was a prisoner of war for five years) suffered from the lack of food and freedom.
These professional agitators have been trained and paid to impede the work of duly authorized government personnel in order to protect criminals and illegal aliens so the Democrat Party will have more voters.
These agitators are so naive they have no concept of what being an American citizen offers them, and how fortunate they are to live in this country.
Huguette Johnson,
Fillmore, Ca.
****
To the Editor:
I noticed that four letters were published last week, though only three were addressed in the editor’s response. I hope at some point there will be room to engage the questions raised in the fourth.
In the meantime, I’d like to respond to a remark made in one of the published letters that mocked “liberal Supreme Court justices who can’t say what a woman is.”
For most of history, people assumed sex and gender were simple, fixed categories. That assumption made sense when our tools for understanding human biology and development were limited. But over the past several decades, advances in genetics, endocrinology, neuroscience, and psychology have painted a more complex picture.
Science has shown us that biological sex itself is not a strict binary. Variations in chromosomes, hormones, and physical development are well documented in medical literature. Gender identity—the internal sense of oneself as male, female, both, neither, or somewhere in between—appears to arise from a complex interaction of biology and development, not from ideology or fashion. For many people, sex and gender align neatly. For others, they do not. For some, it’s very difficult to accept the science since it challenges their fundamental assumptions.
This is not abstract theory. It shows up in real families and real classrooms, including our own. Some adolescents experience gender not as a rigid wall but as a spectrum. They are not broken or indulging a trend—and confusion, when it exists, is often part of a thoughtful process of self-understanding.
Mockery does not help them do that. Neither does pretending that scientific inquiry stopped decades ago.
We can disagree about policy, law, or language without denying what research has uncovered or what families experience. People have always experienced questioning and confusion, but in our culture were forced to hide or suppress. Now, with the backing of science, they are able to be open about their true selves.
Understanding has always expanded as knowledge grows. That is not a threat to society—any more than it was when we learned that the earth revolves around the sun. It simply challenges us to grow with it.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca.
****
To the Editor:
Martin, have you ever noticed the common denominator of Trumpian political issues that “tire” or “bore” you? They’re all things you don’t want to know or can’t defend.
“Fascism doesn’t arrive with jackboots.” It arrives inch-by-inch with voter fatigue or indifference, elevation of hatred for an “enemy within”: the racial or religious “other,” or dissenters. Assaults on the Free Press. Government-concocted claims of “national emergency” or “national security threats” to encourage fear and “patriotic” compliance, including a willingness to disbelieve their own eyes.
Trump has often and publicly expressed admiration for, and connection with, dictators Orban, Erdogan, Kim Jong Un, and Xi. Trump proudly displays a picture in the WH of himself with Putin at the disastrous meeting in AK last summer. The pattern is unmistakable, for open eyes. But, “some do not see it, any more than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing.” Until one day, it is suddenly over his head. The FBI, and Director of National Intelligence Gabbard, joined in a search of the Fulton County, GA, Secretary of State’s office, and seizure of voting materials including ballots from the 2020 election. Meanwhile, the DOJ has demanded that states submit their voter rolls to the feds, and some red states have obediently complied, though multiple election audits revealed no significant voting errors anywhere in 2020. Minority voter rolls have been purged in many blue and purple states. Trump frequently tests the public reaction by “joking” that there is no need to have another national election in 2026 or 2028. It’s no secret; Trump intends to manipulate the midterms. MAGA seems fine with it, as the corn grows over their heads.
One of last week’s other LTTEs lauded Trump’s unique success in “bringing peace to the world.” I wish it were true, but Trump’s reckless foreign adventures in Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, and threats to Iran and Greenland are hardly “peaceful.” Buckle up, because Trump’s recent letter to the Norwegian Prime Minister informed that, because Sweden snubbed him for the Nobel Peace Prize, “I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.”
Trump’s “Board of Peace” is not, as you assume, committed to “world peace.” It is committed to a “piece of the action” in Gaza. Kushner’s plans for luxury resorts and high rises are already in progress.
Martin, last week you said, “The people who live there [Gazan Palestinians] love to shed blood” (while you are merely indifferent to it). The West created this tragedy by displacing Palestinians from their homeland to assuage our consciences after the horrors of WWII, and by allowing Israel to systematically deny Palestinian rights and herd them to one small Gazan patch for final expulsion.
Now, the world’s billionaires have been invited to cash in on the genocide. And our president is the lifetime Chairman of the Board.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.

To the Editor:
If the 2020 election had not been stolen from Trump Ukraine would not have been invaded, and I would not be writing this letter. With that said, I want you to know that I have read your letters faithfully every week. While sometimes I have questioned your reasoning regarding Ukraine, overall I have agreed with you.
Lately, your attacks of Trump regarding his international policies are quite concerning. No other president has had Trump’s success in bringing peace to our world. Your comments imply you want the war to continue until Ukraine has pushed Russa back to the original boarders. How many deaths, refugees, and human suffering are you willing to accept to achieve that outcome, and who is going to pay Ukraine to keep fighting?
Trumps new Peace Commission is being formed to apply economic pressure on Putin to force him to bargain for peace. Why not allow President Trump to do what he believes is best for America and Ukraine.
Sincerely
Huguette Johnson
Fillmore, Ca.
***
To the Editor:
You’ve written forcefully about the dangers you see in Donald Trump’s conduct on the world stage—particularly the risks to alliances, global stability, and America’s standing abroad. On those concerns, we largely agree.
What I’m struggling with this week is how cleanly those dangers are being separated from the domestic agenda you continue to support.
Recent events at home—most notably the killing of a man during federal immigration operations in Minnesota—make that separation harder to sustain. Whatever one’s views on immigration enforcement, the use of lethal force followed by official accounts that are difficult to reconcile with widely viewed video footage raises questions that go well beyond a single incident.
This leads to a broader question many readers may be asking. When you weigh the domestic benefits you see in this administration’s agenda, how do you balance them against not only the international costs you’ve described, but the domestic risks now becoming visible as well—erosion of trust, aggressive federal enforcement, and an increasing reliance on narrative management rather than transparency?
And then there are the shifting goals offered to justify these actions—from targeting “the worst of the worst,” to welfare fraud, and now even to demands for access to a state’s voter records in exchange for pulling the troops out of Minnesota. In light of these evolving justifications, how do you understand what this is really about?
There is one additional dimension I’d like to raise. You and I share a Catholic upbringing and education, shaped by teachings about moral responsibility, restraint in the use of power, truth-telling, and concern for the vulnerable. I find it increasingly difficult to reconcile that moral framework with much of what we see from this administration. I’m interested in how you think about that reconciliation.
These questions seem central to the moment we’re in, and to the choices Americans are being asked to live with—here at home as well as on the world stage.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca.
***
To the Editor:
Well, insurrectionists keep pushing for the civil war they want. Fake nonprofits, funded by foreign money, get a boost for the “cause”. An artificial hate gathering of counterfeit social justice warriors attacking ICE. These paid grievance gangs are just phony revolutionaries. They’re rioting for a foreign occupation of this country, yet they’re too ignorant to realize it. People die in wars and that number will grow if this continues. These brainwashed anarchists think it’s fun until they pay a price and get hurt, then claim they’re victims of fascists. If asked why they’re rioting, they spew talking points they’ve been told yet have no idea it is a foreign globalist takeover or even what a fascist is. I faced them down many years back. Get one alone and they actually start shaking. It’s a gang/group mentality.
How many more assassinations are ahead? They laughed and joked after killing Charlie Kirk. Now there’s a tranny mocking his widow. How would they deal with joking and mocking the rioters that were shot? My take; FAFO explains it!!!
These domestic terrorists are what Lenin called “useful idiots”. It’s a Color Revolution; a criminal conspiracy against this country started many years back with globalists and China funding. Foreign money given to schools, media, nonprofits, politicians and others to bring hate for this country in the minds of fools, turn them into a cancer culture and spread it.
This cancer culture started long before President Trump entered the political arena. Today’s TDS; social engineering of the clueless.
Mass migration is a political tool. Moving populations to destabilize a country is a tactic used by globalists around the world for many years. Mexico has for generations been telling its citizens the US “stole” their land and using migration to accomplish their ‘Reconquista’. That’s why our Democrat/Socialist/Communist/Marxist controlled education system put MeChA in all the western state schools starting around 1965 at UCLA, then State Colleges starting with CSUN on down to high schools throughout the west. One huge lie to give generations of youth a feeling of entitlement for the cause of Reconquista (taking over/back the west). That’s the garbage in-garbage out taught in schools.
Our enemies have an unwavering thirst for power and wealth. Foreign Color Revolutions use phony nonprofit/NGOs through USAID, Tides Foundation, Arabella Advisors to spread a cancer culture of destruction. The Clintons, Obamas, Bidens, and Bushes benefited with their own foundations and foreign bank accounts and many more sucked up billions of our tax dollars with their global New World Order agenda. The Davos crowd are now admitting the foreign globalists are the puppet masters behind the curtain. Their greed is the ugliest in our lifetime with a large population of TDS useful idiots becoming domestic terrorists who think rioting is their idea. Clueless!
TDS reminds me of the kid in high school that was so jealous of the popular, smart students, those who were better looking and got all the attention. They hate it that life in this country is improving. because they do not get the admiration for all their phony “caring” about whatever is popular that day. Life is not a popularity contest. We need the truth and sometimes it’s hard to hear. Remember, the best thieves are always nice to your face.
Global religious nonprofits today are not much different than globalists. They expect trust of the faithful and do what benefits them while hiding what they don’t want you to see. It takes great effort to have faith, and it shouldn’t be exploited. NGO’s have laundered foreign cash, given kickbacks to politicians that do what their donors want, but tell our citizens ‘Nothing to see here, it’s a conspiracy, we’re here to help’. This destruction is well funded and well organized. Create a problem and pretend to help. Discontent, homeless, emotional corners with playdough and coloring books in schools to socially engineered youth and soothe the mental issues before encouraging them to create riots, now an insurrection they claim to be just protests. USEFUL IDIOTS!!!
Just the thought that the border is locked down, entitlement fraud is being addressed, illegals are being removed, drugs and cartels are hitting a roadblock, prescription drugs cost less, chemical food dyes are gone, gas is down by half in most states, crime is down 20%, the lowest decline on record and so much more [is ignored]. But the media is so hush, hush on all of that and has the TDS useful idiots screaming. Are they losing hold of their ill-gotten gains? Will they try to shut down the government again?
It’s been reported that Minnesota’s billions of dollars in entitlement fraud are nothing compared to the corruption here in California. It’s common knowledge millions of SNAP gets sold for cash or drugs. They don’t even hide it or try to stop it. If you report it you’ll be told by the county workers, they don’t have the resources to investigate. That is what I was told when I tried to report it.
Biden got lost trying to find the White House front door or slept at the beach while a spy balloon floated by. Marxist were so proud when he checked his wristwatch as the dead bodies of our soldiers were returned. Maybe a Russiagate or BLM (George Floid died of an overdose as the first autopsy stated) riot would be entertaining or the sucking sound of our future is music to their ears?
Pat Collins wrote last week, “any system that can no longer distinguish fact from assertion, law from personal will, or accountability from loyalty is still functioning as a safeguard to all”. Well Pat, here’s a fact, not opinion or assertion. Who put in a SCOTUS justice that can’t tell you what a woman is? K.B.J. is an embarrassment! Take responsibility for that failure, it’s a big one.
A ‘Rules for Radicals’ tool I heard over 40 years ago and remember to this day; I was a Democrat and member of a women’s club in college and whenever I brought up a problem that didn’t support the left’s propaganda of perpetual victimhood I was told “Do not give it any attention, just ignore it and it will go away”. Refusing to acknowledge removes responsibility to fix it; like billions in fraud EBT/food stamps, an invasion at our borders, cartels, drugs, child sex slaves. Democratic Socialists coverup, spotlight a new shiny object, or create a crisis to play the victim. Jeffrey Epstein was regurgitated to turn away from the Somali fraud, but that may have backfired, so they started a riot. Cover up HRC’s illegal email server with BLM riots. Even when there’s proof right in front of all of us that something happened, we’re told it’s a conspiracy or it was done by White Supremacists. Use emotional guilt, claim a child won’t get an ice cream without food stamps and we’re like monkeys that see, hear and speak no evil. Take the easy choice and no responsibility. No matter how egregious and corrupt, just don’t acknowledge it happened or exists. Keep pointing at ‘the other’ as the problem grows.
It’s so much easier to trust and do nothing than take personal responsibility. We trusted there was oversight. We trusted schools were teaching skills society needed. We trusted tax dollars were going for an honest use. We trusted being represented by those we voted for. We trusted nonprofits to improve society with our generosity. We trusted the media to inform us of the truth. We trusted a safe homeland. And we were called names if we didn’t go along or questioned anything. We were lied to and deceived for decades.
Name calling isn’t working anymore. We now have a President that’s awake, not Woke. We elected President Trump and he’s keeping his promises. He exposed what was hidden and a chance to stop the Marxist/Communists. Far too many politicians on both sides promoted the lies and corruption or did nothing to stop it. Our enemies exploited our ignorance for years; U.N, globalists, deceitful NGO’s.
Those we trusted gained more money and power using race, sex, corrupt foundations/nonprofits (Clinton Foundation?), entitlements, illegal immigration, media, schools, social engineering and their favorite tool, to just ignore it and our problems would go away. What do you want to bet the Clintons will use the 5th like Lois Learner and others when cornered. Don’t believe a word they say. Yes, there are many useful idiots whose problem is ‘what they don’t know that they really don’t know’.
Jean McLeod,
Fillmore, Ca.
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To the Editor:
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, world leaders from politics, business and finance, academia, and civil society met to address global issues and solutions. They jostled to attend Trump’s speech to hear his message since threatening to annex Greenland, having captured Venezuela, and creating a self-enriching plan for Gaza. An unnamed British executive who found a seat remarked that he wanted to be present, “because seeing Trump in the wild is like a zoological experience.
Trump’s speech was predictably about himself, and the world as it revolves around him. He delivered meandering, dubious self-proclaimed victories, and demanded ownership of Greenland (“they love me. They call me “Daddy,” he boasted), He addressed the assembly by insult and intimidation, asserting that Might must control. It explained why the US is considered a hegemonic disruptor rather than a reliable ally.
Mark Carney of Canada received a standing ovation following a speech calling out the US and Trump for instigating the rupture of Post-WWII free-world alliances. In retaliation, the “revenge king” withdrew the invitation to Canada to join his “Board of Peace” for Gaza.
The “Board of Peace” is a new Trumpian invitational, international group designed by Jared Kushner (using the Mar-a-Lago social club model), whereby nations that join to develop Gaza, “a beautiful piece of property,” (without Gazans), will upfront one billion dollars each, with Trump as Chair for Life. Perhaps he will deposit those funds in the same Qatar account in which he has deposited funds from Venezuelan oil. It would be wise to ascertain the access to that account.
I had one brief, dark, laugh over Greenland. A WWII agreement with Denmark gave America the right to place military facilities wherever we wish in Greenland. The minerals could have been negotiated, but Trump preferred to chest-beat, threatening invasion, and pout-doubting that NATO would answer an attack on the US. In fact, NATO’s Article V has been invoked only once, by us, after 9/11. Trump’s “deal” got us what we already had.
When you see Trump’s unconstitutional assault on MN, you see reflected the same president as in Davos. Trump invaded MN against the expressed wishes of the governor, mayor of Minneapolis, and against states’ rights, creating a storm of resistance to federally contrived “emergencies” The feds systematically refuse any state police access or oversight of their actions, lie about facts, and have arrested and killed witnesses to their brutality.
Last Friday, Minneapolis ICU nurse Alex Prettti, on his way to work at VA, was carrying a holstered gun in an open-carry state. HLS accused him of brandishing the gun and threating agents. Video of the incident clearly shows that Pretti was holding a phone, not a gun. He was pepper-sprayed directly in his face and beaten by masked agents, shot repeatedly, and murdered on the ground after an agent had removed the gun from Petti’s holster. Then they tried to make us distrust what was perfectly obvious.
AG Bondi sent a “strong letter” to MN Governor Tim Walz, brazenly demanding that DOJ be given access to MN’s voter database, in return for toning down HSL activities there. She proved that HLS is not just about immigration or safety. In MN, it’s also about citizen intimidation and blatant planned interference with future elections. Many other states have also had demands for voter rolls.
Trump’s indignant crocodile promise for “a full investigation” of the incident was immediately refuted by administration officials, one of whom replied, “Hell, no!!” Trump’s promises are unreliable, and he’ll say anything in the moment to save himself. He may temporarily cool it, but he has no intention of withdrawing his plans for vast federal control under the Unitary Executive. Nothing that Trump is doing supports “small government.”
Our only remedy is that “We, the People” demand our common Constitutional rights. When those rights are forcibly taken from some of us, it is only a matter of time before they are forcefully taken from all of us.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.

To the Editor:
In a desperate attempt to avoid the demise of NATO and the inevitable re-conquest of Eastern Europe by Russia, the Nobel Peace Committee in Norway has awarded the President of the United States the first ever Nobel Pacifier Prize. Delivered in a deluxe Happy Meal (complete with cheeseburger, fries, and a Diet Coke), the 24-karat gold pacifier is inscribed: “Congratulations, Mr. President. Suck on this.”
Art Sandford,
Fillmore, Ca.
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To the Editor:
A recent letter attributed to Trump concerning Denmark, Greenland, and the Nobel Peace Prize deserves attention not because it is shocking, but because it is revealing.
The letter contains basic factual errors. Denmark does not award the Nobel Peace Prize; it is decided by a Norwegian committee. The claim that Trump “stopped 8 wars” is unsupported by any record of wars formally ended during his presidency. He asserts there are “no written documents” supporting Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland, despite centuries of treaties and international recognition. He then concludes that the world is “not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland,” a claim untethered from reality or established security analysis.
These are not minor slips. Together, they reflect a pattern in which personal grievance replaces fact, international law is dismissed, and national power is spoken of as if it belongs to one man rather than a constitutional system. That raises a serious question of fitness for office. Especially when Greenland has worked well the US for decades and is very accommodating. They just aren’t for sale.
The cost of this does not stop at our borders. When allies and trading partners watch American leadership drift from fact, law, and restraint, they do not wait for elections—they quietly adjust, forming new trade agreements, shifting supply chains, and making security decisions that leave the United States with fewer partners, higher costs, and less influence.
What makes this moment especially dangerous is that the usual correctives failed. After January 6, Republican leaders declined to confront the reality of what occurred. The civil payment to Ashli Babbitt’s family, issued by executive edict rather than through a jury trial, short-circuited the public testing of evidence. The Supreme Court’s repeated interventions shielding Trump from ordinary legal scrutiny have reinforced the message that truth and accountability no longer apply.
Those who believe “this can’t really happen here” should ask themselves whether any system that can no longer distinguish fact from assertion, law from personal will, or accountability from loyalty is still functioning as a safeguard at all.
In any functioning republic, leadership is constrained by reality, law, and witness. When those constraints erode, warning signs are no longer rhetorical. They are moral. And ignoring them does not preserve order; it invites its loss.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca.
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To the Editor:
You insist that 2025 abuses by the Trump II Administration are in the rear-view mirror, and we should look to more recent events. Still, you discard new subjects in favor of arguing the same old MAGA insurrection talking points on January 6. Even as a Law-N-Order guy, you defend a violent, forcible entry into the Capitol building (even manly Gym Jordan was terrified), and an attack on police defenders who were nearly overcome by the rioters, in order to overthrow a duly conducted federal election (SCOTUS so ruled). Renee Good committed no such offense. As I have noted before, you are quite facile for an octogenarian. You pivot seamlessly, ignoring or overhauling anything that doesn’t serve your political necessity.
Fact: The Babbitt family was not awarded $5 million dollars by a jury. After the DOJ found Babbitt’s death consistent with police protocols for Capitol defense, Trump, in a middle-finger salute to Biden’s DOJ (his digital prowess again demonstrated last week at Ford), ordered “his DOJ” to pay $5 million tax dollars to the family, without a verdict.
Facts: Trump wailed that agent Ross experienced “internal bleeding,” in this case a slight bruise, from charging a moving vehicle from the front, drawn gun and phone in his hands. A video you haven’t bothered with shows agent Ross walking around just fine after the Good homicide. He is now in hiding, the DOJ has declared his “absolute immunity” (a lie) and, within 2 days, the FBI closed the investigation and refuses to provide any evidence to MN police. Another coverup.
Calling the victim of your own homicidal act a “f**king bitch” arises from a grossly intemperate consciousness, one which should be denied official power and a gun. Even Joe Rogan thinks HLS is acting like the “Gestapo.”
Many thought Trump was having momentary imperialistic reveries about Greenland. Instead, he is using “mob extortion tactics” against our ally to seize their land. Trump has placed additional tariffs on Scandinavian and other countries who participate in NATO defense and promises to increase them incrementally until Denmark sells. Never underestimate the combined vacuity and imperiousness of Trump’s character and alarmingly degraded mental state.
Remember that Trump envisions his national or international powers to be limited only by his “own morality. It’s the only thing that stops me.” Not the Constitution, the human rights of others, international treaties or law, or Judaeo-Christian principles. He is so craven that he accepted Maria Corina Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize as his own, and again “joked” about canceling midterm elections.
He is escalating the Minneapolis protests so that he can justify invoking the Insurrection Act. We are in the hands of a thoroughly atrophied conscience with personal power lust.
Our allies now recognize our condescension and disdain for them in “America First” and renewed imperialism, destructive tariffs, miasma of authoritarianism, and loss of once-reliable American Free World commitment. They know now they can’t trust us.
Last Fact: Your comment to Pat Collins’ LTTE, that 4 hours is insufficient time for the act of “insurrection,” attempting to physically prevent a Constitutional process and overthrow a valid election.
Recommendation: First, consult a dictionary to discover that time has nothing to do with “insurrection.” Second, consider that the planes on 9/11 hit within a less than 2-hour period. The Titanic sunk in only 2 hours and 40 minutes after collision with an iceberg. Lincoln was killed with a one-second shot. Christ was on the cross for just three hours. The event clock is not the point. Your “duration” argument is immaterial.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.

To the Editor:
Thank you, Ventura Forward for your support! You really care about the people!! Our neighbors have created the Grand Avenue/Goodenough Road Fillmore Coalition to join together in seeking assistance for the continued erosion, sediment build up and debris in the Sespe Creek that causes the water to overflow which pushes against the sides of the Creek and Bridges. It’s tearing the banks away and we are loosing our properties. We are applying together for the emergency permit with the County of Ventura. We are asking the Board of Supervisors to waive the fee and deposit it requires. We are also asking them to seek long term solutions for maintenance so we don’t loose our homes as well as getting the Old Telegraph Rd bridge fixed right. It has been a constant struggle for this maintenance due to most of the creek bed being both County owned and private property however, it is the responsibility of local City, Counties and private property owners to protect infrastructure as well as maintaining the creeks to avoid flooding and erosion. The private property owners blame the County, the County says there are not enough homes on this side of the Sespe to spend money on and blames the Environmentalists for making it difficult too to tackle with, however from my experience .. they have not given me a difficult time. Each one has been kind and cooperative in dealing with this problem (Environmentalists). The real problem is that it very expensive to fix right and hire heavy equipment to push the rocks up against the banks so nothing ever gets done. We are asking that our Ventura County Leadership taps into Federal and Grant recourses/funds created for these kind of projects and assist the owners along the Sespe Creek. Again…. There is WAY too much build up in the creek and nowhere for the water to go but to the sides ripping out anything it its path!! Once we can obtain the emergency permit then each owner can have the opportunity to save their property/homes. Of course this is at their own expense. So, if you are concerned please sign the petition that Erika Morales has (DM her) and or show up at the Ventura County Board of Supervisors meeting this month January 27, 2026 at 9:00am at the Government Center 800 S. Victoria Avenue, Ventura to speak your mind. Your voice matters.
Cindy Jackson,
Fillmore, Ca.
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To the Editor:
I know there were serious events this past week that deserve attention. But your description of January 6 in your recent editorial cannot be left unchallenged.
An insurrection is not defined by its duration but by its purpose. On January 6, a mob forcibly breached the U.S. Capitol after being instigated to stop Congress from certifying a lawful presidential election. That is why federal juries later convicted leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers of seditious conspiracy—a charge that requires proof of intent to oppose the authority of the United States. Convicted by juries of their peers, including Trump supporters who, seeing the evidence, saw it for what it was.
Selective video clips showing calm moments inside the Capitol do not erase the violence that preceded and followed them. Officers sometimes moved with crowds because they were overwhelmed—not because entry was authorized or “tourist-like.”
It is true that the only gunshot death that day was Ashli Babbitt, shot by a Capitol Police officer. It is also essential to note what she was doing. Babbitt ignored repeated warnings and attempted to climb through a shattered window beside a barricaded door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby, with a mob pressing behind her. The Department of Justice investigated and declined to bring criminal charges against the officer.
What you omit is that approximately 140 police officers were assaulted that day. Officers suffered traumatic brain injuries, spinal and neck injuries, crushed discs, broken ribs, eye injuries, chemical burns, and lasting psychological trauma; several later reported suicidal ideation. Officer Brian Sicknick collapsed after defending the Capitol and died the next day, a death officially recognized as occurring in the line of duty.
Now contrast that with Minneapolis. Renee Nicole Good was killed during an ICE operation while attempting to leave a civilian street. She was not breaching a government building, not attacking Congress, and not attempting to halt a constitutional process. She didn’t obey the order of an officer? Neither did Ashli—or anyone else at the Capitol on January 6th.
January 6 was instigated to halt a constitutional transfer of power by force and intimidation. That is what distinguishes it. That’s why it was an insurrection. Truth matters.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca.
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To the Editor:
You want “new issues.” The Trump Gang is on it.
You, have undoubtedly seen the videos, including one from agent Jonathan Ross’ camera, in the tragic shooting death of Renee Good in MN. I see nothing that could warrant a point-blank multiple-shot fatality at the hands of a trained professional. VPVance immediately mobilized to create a preemptive gaslit narrative. Good, he asserted as truth, was a “domestic terrorist” who had tried to murder an immigration agent, and lectured the Press for failing to report supposedly exculpatory information of the agent’s prior experience, being dragged by a car, to justify the shooting. It may be an explanation; it is not a defense.
If PTSD were an issue, impaired judgment and control in the experience of certain stimuli, the Homeland Security Administration (HSA) was grossly negligent in placing Ross in the field, compromising his safety and that of others. But we know from earlier reports and videos that the HSA trains its agents to be brutal. Our tax dollars support this abuse, which will only get worse if the Republican Congress’ “big, beautiful bill” continues to increase funding for it.
Good had just left her 6-year-old off at school, so had not been disruptive earlier at the site, as HSA claimed. She waved and smiled at agent Ross filming the scene saying, “Don’t worry, dude. I’m not mad at you,” backed up, and turned her car wheels to the right, to disburse to the right after traffic cleared. An agent gave an order to exit the vehicle and tried to drag Good through the window. Ross approached from the right of her moving vehicle, gun drawn while holding his camera/phone. He fired once at the approaching vehicle, and twice more as Good passed by. He was not actually “hit.” After the shooting, Ross remarked, “F*cking Bitch,” sharing his agitated lack of professional control. If Ms. Good disobeyed the order to exit her vehicle, her judgment can be questioned, but it did not merit a death sentence. This is becoming our America at the command of the President.
Before Trump illegally invaded Venezuela and kidnapped Maduro, before he informed Congress, Trump contacted oil companies to notify them of the pending opportunity. For the good of Venezuelans, he said. On Sunday, Trump posted a picture of himself with the caption, “Acting President of Venezuela.”
Putin has volunteered to “help Trump” if he decides to invade Greenland. The two could finally share a cooperative project. Trump has already stated that Rubio should be viceroy of Cuba. As if it’s a game. Silence from the Republican Congress.
When asked recently if there are limits to his powers, Trump replied: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” Trump’s words and recent actions both at home and abroad signal that he is irrational and delusional, a devastating mental state for a world leader with nuclear codes, and the President of a great still-free nation.
Since Trump’s morality animates him, we are in peril. Here’s a guy with a history of “no moral boundaries”: adjudicated sex abuse, fraud felony convictions, disregard for Law, disrespect of other countries, cheating in all regards, coverups, avaricious self-dealings, endless lies, and hunger for dictatorship. His “morality” is an existential threat to our futures, and to world peace.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.

To the Editor:
After the County built this concrete wall on Guiberson Road, the Sespe comes down and hits this wall then bounces off directly into the west side and damages my neighborhood. The past 20 years it has eaten up along my bank and now my home almost collapsed into the creek. Also, since the levee was built, the county stopped cleaning out debris where the water should be flowing. It is damaging all of us on Grand Avenue. For years we have been asking the County for help nonetheless we have been told too bad we can’t help, there are not enough homes to justify the cost to protect you all. Soon, not only my home will be another floating down the Sespe but many others are in jeopardy. What is mind boggling is that the County maintained the creeks, rivers, watershed in the past and issued building permits to construct homes at the time they were maintaining them. Homes were safe and out of harm’s way
But then they stopped around the 80s-90s. Due to that neglect of maintenance the erosion and evulsion started to occur. The path of the creek has eaten away continuously after each rain, threatening my home to collapse. I never dreamed that our government would turn their backs on us.
Cindy Jackson,
Fillmore, Ca.
***
To the Editor:
I don’t wonder that you propose “shifting our debates to fresh issues.” All right. Over the New Year, Trump, “locked and loaded,” threatened to invade Iran to protect the civil rights of its protesting citizens (as he does not do for American protesters at home), again targeted Greenland and, in an act of war for oil interests, invaded and kidnapped Maduro of Venezuela to face trial in NYC, and hinted at having eyes for Cuba or Mexico. With no Congressional input. Worry not about redundancy, Martin, because unfortunately, the issues of 2025 will resurrect and magnify under this administration, despite your ongoing “Trump Plenary Mulligan Award.”
In 2026, I salute your wish that Congress receives all the evidence in the Epstein Files. I don’t know if Trump was personally involved in pedophilia, but he sure is exerting massive deflective energy to protect himself from something. Last summer, the DOJ sought to close the Epstein Case because there was “nothing more” to find. Yet, millions more pieces of potential evidence were discovered over the holidays, after the legal deadline. Trump has indicated willingness to consider a pardon for convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell (“I have a right to do it”) whose incarceration has been upgraded by Trump’s DOJ to a long spa session, room service, and puppy foster care.
Facts, Martin. Alternate reality is for novelists or conmen, and you are neither. Five deaths eventually resulted from the insurrection, and the “official findings” rejecting 2020 election malfeasance came from a deeply conservative SCOTUS.
Explain how the female capitol insurrectionist, with hundreds behind her breaking into the capitol, was “harmless.” Clarify how the guard was “historically negligent” and how that reflected on his attempts to defend the capitol. Vindicate the “trivial damage” of fear and desperate attempts by our legislators to hide when the capitol defense was overcome (Mark Meadows said he’d “never seen Jim Jordan so scared”), the violent threats to the Vice-President and Speaker, makeshift weapons, broken furniture and doors, and human waste found deposited or smeared in offices and hallways. Reality is not going to bend itself to your need for political exoneration, Martin.
You touted that, “The event lasted exactly 4 hours,” 4 hours longer than if Trump had not instigated it. Instead, he eagerly watched it unfold on TV, and had to be begged to intervene.
As far as I know, no one died in “stop the steal,” but they did try to overthrow the People’s national electoral will at Trump’s urging, which is a federal crime. No one died, either, at the hands of Joe Biden or his unfortunate son, Hunter, whose laptop you insist holds “prima facie evidence of massive felonious graft!” After two full years of nonstop investigation by Republicans, what laptop or other evidence was uncovered to support your accusations of presidential graft? How many times was President Biden impeached by the eager 118th Republican Congress? Facts, Martin.
I recommend you review the YouTube video of former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s recent testimony of the investigation into Trump’s actions surrounding the events of January 6, 2021, and illegal retention of documents at Mar-a-Lago. The transcript is at Smith-Depo-Transcript_Redacted-w-Errata.pdf . Thorough, and illuminating. You will see why the Republicans chose New Year’s Eve to release it, when their base would surely be otherwise occupied.
One week into 2026, Martin, let’s recommit to “Facts.” I wish for us all that WWIII does not erupt, but I don’t think you need to fret that we will “be left behind.”
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.

To the Editor:
2025: It’s always good to look back on where you’ve been before estimating where you’re likely to go (for which there is no GIS). Facts are the only basis for evaluating the past. Here, since the Political Past is the subject, facts only, and just a few. Americans have always questioned their leaders. It’s our job in a constitutional republic.
As the year began, Trump pardoned all but a few of the January 6, 2021, insurrectionists. Later, he pardoned enablers of the “Stop the Steal” efforts to delegitimize the 2020 election, a claim rejected even by SCOTUS. Other pardons include fellow felons for fraud, drugs, money laundering, identify theft, etc.
Immigrants, or people who look as if they might be, are being rounded up and subjected to inhumane detention centers and moved without notice to families or attorneys. Citizen-children are abandoned to their fates. “The worst of the worst” was just another lie.
Through a series of executive orders and politically motivated hirings, firings, and defiance of court orders, this administration has drastically expanded the “Unitary Executive” power by fiat across all branches of government and, to date, the Republican Congress and SCOTUS have complied. Trump encouraged Musk to disembowel federal agencies with no proof of the need for such violence, or proven savings. Trump handed over our private information to his uber-campaign contributor with no known restrictions.
Adherence to the “P2025 blueprint” (which Trump disavowed and you dutifully ignored) dissolved or depleted numerous federal agencies like the Center for Disease Control (CDC), numerous medical research facilities, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), the DOE, FEMA, and transformed the DOJ and FBI into politically motivated entities reflecting Trump’s endless lust for revenge.
The president of our country incessantly whines insults of elected past presidents, praises himself beyond reason or shame, and vents revenge and hatefulness at every turn (his horrendous comments on the Reiner tragedy is just one example). Trump’s Christmas message called Democrats “scum.” He openly attacks the Free Press as “enemies of the people,” and demands the firing of comedians who are “negative about Trump.” Trump’s coverup of the Epstein Files continues.
Our once-elevated status among other nations has been battered, possibly beyond reclamation, in just one year. Campaigning, Trump promised to be the “peace president,” but is unilaterally attacking or blockading other countries at will. He is mediating Ukraine/Russia like a Russian toady, checking in with aggressor Putin before and after negotiations with ally Zelensky. And proudly and openly racking up family billions dealing with foreign countries.
Trump’s tariffs, imposed without Congressional authorization, are a maze of overarching grievance, reversals, and denigration of other nations. His condescending moneymen smile approvingly while Trump lies about who pays tariffs. Tariffs are, functionally, taxes ultimately levied on the consumer. Yale University estimates that Trump tariffs will cost an American household $2,400/year. “Affordability” is “meaningless.” Here, I will simply acknowledge the current economy despite Trump’s alternate reality.
His weaponization of the dollar has escalated the trend to replacing it as the world’s reserve currency, an “erosion of [our] global economic dominance.” Wired reports that perceptions of the “safety” of the dollar is shifting as countries trade and pay in alternative currencies, a fact which will have significant negative effects on our economy.
Despite a rising deficit and threat to the dollar, Trump touts modest tax reductions for some, while demanding millions in tax relief for billionaires, and cuts social and medical programs for those who are in need because of the increasingly severe wealth imbalance. He and many in his base consort with known neo-Nazis and antisemites (I can provide citations as I did with Hegseth, Martin). Opposition voting rights are under attack without justification.
I want to be able to look to the wonderful possibilities for our country in 2026, but 2025 gives me pause. I don’t award “mulligans” to world leaders, especially where their failures are the result of their own hubris.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.

To the Editor:
There is an Over The Top Christmas lights display at the corner of Edgewood St and Wildwood Ln. You need to see this in person after dark. Plan to park your car and watch the changing display for a while. You have probably never seen a show like this one. Enjoy.
Larry Jennings
Fillmore, Ca
***
To the Editor:
Martin, I appreciate your emphasis on discernment, humility, and the pairing of urgency with hope. Those are not small matters, and they are especially fitting in this Christmas season.
If this moment is indeed the beginning of a new era, then the question before us is not only what is changing, but who we are becoming as it does.
Christianity offers a remarkably simple guide for moments like this, one that precedes doctrine and argument. In the Beatitudes, Jesus does not lay out a program or a prediction. He offers a vision of the kind of people through whom renewal takes root.
Blessed are the poor in spirit—those who know the limits of power and certainty.
Blessed are the meek—those who choose restraint over dominance.
Blessed are the merciful—those who refuse to let hardness have the final word.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice—not vengeance, but right relationship.
Blessed are the peacemakers—those willing to do the patient work of repair.
These are not passive virtues. They require courage, humility, and sustained attention. They ask us to measure success not by spectacle or triumph, but by whether human dignity is protected and the vulnerable are seen.
Christmas reminds us that what is most transformative enters the world quietly. The future arrives not armored, but fragile—shaped by the care, values, and imagination that surround it. Hope, then, is not denial of difficulty. It is a responsibility: to place around what is being born the qualities we most want to see endure.
If a spectacular new era is beginning, I hope it is one guided less by force and fear, and more by mercy, humility, and the hard, faithful work of peacemaking. Those are the measures that have endured across centuries, and they remain worthy guides.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca

To the Editor:
Thank you for your honesty, and for naming your weariness. Many people of faith feel it now, along with the sense that we are living through a moment of reckoning.
I take seriously your belief that we are being warned — about hubris, about disorder, about the danger of this hour. In the Christian tradition I was formed in, warnings are never given simply to be observed. They are given so that conscience may respond while there is still time.
If we are facing a reordering, then how power is exercised now — and what we are willing to excuse — matters profoundly. Hubris is not only a spiritual condition; it shows itself in contempt for limits, truth, alliances, and human dignity. These are not abstract signs. They are lived realities, with consequences borne by the vulnerable.
Faith may tell us that history is held by God. But discernment is asked of us while decisions remain human. Prophecy does not relieve us of responsibility; it sharpens it.
That is where I find both urgency and hope — not in predicting the end, but in choosing, here and now, what we will stand behind, and what we will refuse.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca
***
To the Editor:
I thought Pat Collins’ arguments were worthy of more than quoting Lincoln on his defense of whiskey generals. You forget that Lincoln’s General was a master tactician who did not require Mrs. Grant to attend his strategy sessions. Secretary Hegseth had to swear off the sauce to get the job, and brings his missus to his workplace, to either ensure compliance or advise him on security matters. To compare Lincoln to Trump is comparing a Christmas tree to a carrot.
With regard to my request for your estimation of Trump’s domestic policies, you did what you so often do. You reframed the argument, ignored the actual question, and cloaked yourself with the moral high ground of Judaeo-Christian and anti-communist principles. “But what of the good things Trump has accomplished”, you asked. You identified one.
You then anointed Trump with “a mulligan” for his detention and immigration policies, derailing all other domestic policies from discussion. Except that “a mulligan” is not absolution. It does demonstrate, however, your refusal or failure to recognize the inhumane harm and suffering involved in distinctly anti-Judaeo-Christian methods of achieving Trump’s and your core objective.
It allows you to endorse by silence Trump’s description of immigrants as “animals,” and “garbage,” removable by any means necessary to places of unspeakable misery in all forms, without Constitutional or moral protections. It gives you permission to avoid the consequences of all of Trump’s domestic policies, secure in the thought that Christ approves? You couldn’t be reading the same Judaeo-Christian Scriptures with which I am familiar. Yours must be a “Trump Bible.”
You ignore that Trump is now holding the bag for the economy, lack of employment, for using food assistance as a cudgel against government subsidies for health insurance, for reductions in Medicaid, for withholding federal funds in states that don’t elect Trump-endorsed mayors or governors. Who thinks “affordability is a “Democrat[ic] hoax,” and that an Arc de Trump and massive ballroom are essential governmental expenditures.
My question remains, how do you separate the terrible things you admittedly see Trump doing in foreign affairs from the same inclinations in domestic affairs? A president who will treat honor as optional in one area will treat it as optional elsewhere. He promised to rid us of the “worst of the worst,” and instead makes no attempt to differentiate them from our families, neighbors, and friends. He is the same heartless, narcissistic con man he has always been.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca

To the Editor:
I’m genuinely glad you see the danger in Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. That matters. But I’m still trying to understand what you mean when you say you support him “on domestic matters,” because whenever I ask which policies you’re referring to, you never answer.
What exactly is it that you admire?
Is it the governing by insult, the late-night tirades, the lack of verbal discipline, the constant verbal chaos that keeps the country off balance? A senator is a loser, a representative is garbage, a journalist is a pig—and that’s just in the last week or two. What mature adult does that?
Is it the erosion of congressional authority, government by edict, as he declares emergencies, diverts funds, and treats checks-and-balances as inconveniences instead of constitutional obligations?
Is it his immigration record, which is loudly advertised but doesn’t match reality?
Deportations were higher under both Obama and Biden. What increased is lawlessness; it’s cruelty—ICE agents arresting U.S. citizens in “papers, please” sweeps, children pulled from parents, families scattered. And for what? What did that brutality accomplish other than trauma?
Is it the tariff whiplash, imposed without strategy, that sent farmers into panic, raised prices on American families, and forced emergency subsidies to clean up the mess he created?
Is it the decision to let tons of American-grown food rot in warehouses rather than allow it to be distributed to people who are starving—shipments that in normal years support our own farmers as well as our standing in the world?
Or is it the overarching pattern: chaos, harm, and a political style fueled by grievance rather than governance?
I’m not asking rhetorically. What domestic policy do you think reflects sound leadership? I’d genuinely like to hear which one, and why. Not just in concept but in process. Because from where many of us sit, the record doesn’t look conservative or Christian or even coherent. It looks destructive—both to the country and to the moral fabric that used to matter, especially in communities like ours.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca
***
To the Editor:
I’m still recovering from last week’s Editorial. While you are moving in the correct direction, you are avoiding the fact that the foreign affairs president is the same man as the domestic affairs president - unless he suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (“split personality”). Single issue: “What are the domestic Trumpian policies that you support?” Let me offer a couple of options:
How about appointing a non-elected, unvetted, wildly eccentric man-child to descend on federal agencies, without first identifying agency problems and justifying the mass firing of federal workers, and enabling the greatest identity heist in history? Trump handed all our personal information to Nazi-sympathizer Elon Musk. Doubtless, a reward for Musk’s $275 million donation to the Trump campaign for the 2024 election. There is no known limitation on the use that the unscrupulous and testosteronic trillionaire can make of our private information.
Or fomenting conflicts to justify the invasions of federalized troops and military occupation of cities against the will of states’ governors and mayors, and states’ rights? How about violating a promise “to deport the worst of the worst” and instead rounding up quotas of anyone looking foreign or speaking Spanish, including American citizens and authorized residents, without Due Process and kidnapping them to other countries or to subhuman conditions in terrible environments?
Or the very concerning fact that Trumpian Republicans, supported by SCOTUS, have reduced voter rolls “in the interest of free and fair elections” without proof of measurable abuse, have tried to prevent mail-in voting, and have sharply reduced the number of polling places? Trump and his pernicious elves are using mid-term gerrymandering to reduce potential Democratic votes. In the 2024 campaign, Trump promised MAGA Truth Socials that, “You won’t have to do it anymore. It’ll be fixed; it’ll be fine; you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
An unconstitutional and dangerous military policy is the attacks on small boats at sea. More than 22 boats have been similarly attacked, but on September 2, a Venezuelan boat allegedly carrying cocaine (not fentanyl as originally claimed), with Europe a likely destination. Only Congress can declare war, so Trump’s self-declared “Narco-Terrorist War” by EO is a series of “military strikes.” Our government has offered no proof of its allegations but was recently forced to release video showing 4 strikes on the one boat: 1 killing 9 crewmembers, 1 killing 2 wounded survivors, and 2 to finally sink the boat. The stories get obscure, inconsistent, in Secretary Hegseth’s “fog of war.” Which is absurd when nobody is shooting back. “A warrior without honor is just a thug pretending that murder is heroic.” Remember My Lai?
Hegseth claims he only saw the first strike, insists he didn’t order Operations Admiral “Mitch” Bradley to “kill them all,” which would likely be an international crime. Post facto, Hegseth says he endorsed the “decision” of Bradley, who is now taking the fall in an attempt to wipe the blood off Hegseth’s hands. But what of those military who followed their Admiral’s orders? If they can’t trust that their commanding officer is giving legal orders, instead of operating at will, where does that leave them?” Remember the film, “Dr. Strangelove”?
In response to constituent inquiries, six Democratic former military or CIA officers quoted from the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), that the military cannot follow an illegal order. Trump condemned their “Seditious Behavior, punishable by Death” (all caps). “President Bone-Spurs” does not care about the UCMJ, or the First Amendment, and/or cannot read.
Then there’s the Epstein Coverup.
Same guy, Martin. Unfettered by truth, the Constitution, honor, insight, or a shred of empathy, as he always has been. Every other country in the world already knows what this guy is. The world will not forget. We will continue to encounter many more domestic challenges, and the continued loss of respect from other nations. We will be transcendentally lucky if we don’t reap what we sow.
It’s Trump’s/MAGA Swamp now, Martin. So, what administration domestic policies rate your support?
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca

To the Editor:
I’m genuinely glad you see the danger in Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. That matters. But I’m still trying to understand what you mean when you say you support him “on domestic matters,” because whenever I ask which policies you’re referring to, you never answer.
What exactly is it that you admire?
Is it the governing by insult, the late-night tirades, the lack of verbal discipline, the constant verbal chaos that keeps the country off balance? A senator is a loser, a representative is garbage, a journalist is a pig—and that’s just in the last week or two. What mature adult does that?
Is it the erosion of congressional authority, government by edict, as he declares emergencies, diverts funds, and treats checks-and-balances as inconveniences instead of constitutional obligations?
Is it his immigration record, which is loudly advertised but doesn’t match reality?
Deportations were higher under both Obama and Biden. What increased is lawlessness; it’s cruelty—ICE agents arresting U.S. citizens in “papers, please” sweeps, children pulled from parents, families scattered. And for what? What did that brutality accomplish other than trauma?
Is it the tariff whiplash, imposed without strategy, that sent farmers into panic, raised prices on American families, and forced emergency subsidies to clean up the mess he created?
Is it the decision to let tons of American-grown food rot in warehouses rather than allow it to be distributed to people who are starving—shipments that in normal years support our own farmers as well as our standing in the world?
Or is it the overarching pattern: chaos, harm, and a political style fueled by grievance rather than governance?
I’m not asking rhetorically. What domestic policy do you think reflects sound leadership? I’d genuinely like to hear which one, and why. Not just in concept but in process. Because from where many of us sit, the record doesn’t look conservative or Christian or even coherent. It looks destructive—both to the country and to the moral fabric that used to matter, especially in communities like ours.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca

To the Editor:
I’m genuinely glad you see the danger in Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. That matters. But I’m still trying to understand what you mean when you say you support him “on domestic matters,” because whenever I ask which policies you’re referring to, you never answer.
What exactly is it that you admire?
Is it the governing by insult, the late-night tirades, the lack of verbal discipline, the constant verbal chaos that keeps the country off balance? A senator is a loser, a representative is garbage, a journalist is a pig—and that’s just in the last week or two. What mature adult does that?
Is it the erosion of congressional authority, government by edict, as he declares emergencies, diverts funds, and treats checks-and-balances as inconveniences instead of constitutional obligations?
Is it his immigration record, which is loudly advertised but doesn’t match reality?
Deportations were higher under both Obama and Biden. What increased is lawlessness; it’s cruelty—ICE agents arresting U.S. citizens in “papers, please” sweeps, children pulled from parents, families scattered. And for what? What did that brutality accomplish other than trauma?
Is it the tariff whiplash, imposed without strategy, that sent farmers into panic, raised prices on American families, and forced emergency subsidies to clean up the mess he created?
Is it the decision to let tons of American-grown food rot in warehouses rather than allow it to be distributed to people who are starving—shipments that in normal years support our own farmers as well as our standing in the world?
Or is it the overarching pattern: chaos, harm, and a political style fueled by grievance rather than governance?
I’m not asking rhetorically. What domestic policy do you think reflects sound leadership? I’d genuinely like to hear which one, and why. Not just in concept but in process. Because from where many of us sit, the record doesn’t look conservative or Christian or even coherent. It looks destructive—both to the country and to the moral fabric that used to matter, especially in communities like ours.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca
***
To the Editor:
I’m still recovering from last week’s Editorial. While you are moving in the correct direction, you are avoiding the fact that the foreign affairs president is the same man as the domestic affairs president - unless he suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (“split personality”). Single issue: “What are the domestic Trumpian policies that you support?” Let me offer a couple of options:
How about appointing a non-elected, unvetted, wildly eccentric man-child to descend on federal agencies, without first identifying agency problems and justifying the mass firing of federal workers, and enabling the greatest identity heist in history? Trump handed all our personal information to Nazi-sympathizer Elon Musk. Doubtless, a reward for Musk’s $275 million donation to the Trump campaign for the 2024 election. There is no known limitation on the use that the unscrupulous and testosteronic trillionaire can make of our private information.
Or fomenting conflicts to justify the invasions of federalized troops and military occupation of cities against the will of states’ governors and mayors, and states’ rights? How about violating a promise “to deport the worst of the worst” and instead rounding up quotas of anyone looking foreign or speaking Spanish, including American citizens and authorized residents, without Due Process and kidnapping them to other countries or to subhuman conditions in terrible environments?
Or the very concerning fact that Trumpian Republicans, supported by SCOTUS, have reduced voter rolls “in the interest of free and fair elections” without proof of measurable abuse, have tried to prevent mail-in voting, and have sharply reduced the number of polling places? Trump and his pernicious elves are using mid-term gerrymandering to reduce potential Democratic votes. In the 2024 campaign, Trump promised MAGA Truth Socials that, “You won’t have to do it anymore. It’ll be fixed; it’ll be fine; you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
An unconstitutional and dangerous military policy is the attacks on small boats at sea. More than 22 boats have been similarly attacked, but on September 2, a Venezuelan boat allegedly carrying cocaine (not fentanyl as originally claimed), with Europe a likely destination. Only Congress can declare war, so Trump’s self-declared “Narco-Terrorist War” by EO is a series of “military strikes.” Our government has offered no proof of its allegations but was recently forced to release video showing 4 strikes on the one boat: 1 killing 9 crewmembers, 1 killing 2 wounded survivors, and 2 to finally sink the boat. The stories get obscure, inconsistent, in Secretary Hegseth’s “fog of war.” Which is absurd when nobody is shooting back. “A warrior without honor is just a thug pretending that murder is heroic.” Remember My Lai?
Hegseth claims he only saw the first strike, insists he didn’t order Operations Admiral “Mitch” Bradley to “kill them all,” which would likely be an international crime. Post facto, Hegseth says he endorsed the “decision” of Bradley, who is now taking the fall in an attempt to wipe the blood off Hegseth’s hands. But what of those military who followed their Admiral’s orders? If they can’t trust that their commanding officer is giving legal orders, instead of operating at will, where does that leave them?” Remember the film, “Dr. Strangelove”?
In response to constituent inquiries, six Democratic former military or CIA officers quoted from the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), that the military cannot follow an illegal order. Trump condemned their “Seditious Behavior, punishable by Death” (all caps). “President Bone-Spurs” does not care about the UCMJ, or the First Amendment, and/or cannot read.
Then there’s the Epstein Coverup.
Same guy, Martin. Unfettered by truth, the Constitution, honor, insight, or a shred of empathy, as he always has been. Every other country in the world already knows what this guy is. The world will not forget. We will continue to encounter many more domestic challenges, and the continued loss of respect from other nations. We will be transcendentally lucky if we don’t reap what we sow.
It’s Trump’s/MAGA Swamp now, Martin. So, what administration domestic policies rate your support?
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca

To the Editor:
Same subject, three examples.
1. While we are often obliged to deal with unsavory nations and leaders in the interests of world peace, it was not in those interests that two weeks ago Trump offered an extravagant WH welcome and giddy interaction with a Saudi Arabian prince, Mohammed bin Salman, nicknamed MBS. It included a military flyover and red carpet, and large formal dinner including a lavish dessert of slavering sweet nothings served up by our president.
This is the same prince identified by American intelligence agencies as ordering the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist and Saudi democracy activist, Jamal Khashoggi, in October 2018 by a Saudi hit squad. Trump blasted the question of one reporter, saying, “that man [Khashoggi] was a controversial figure…and things happened to him. But he [MBS] knew nothing about it. Why are you trying to embarrass our guest?” MBS assumed his saddest puppy face. The President of the US defended MBS’ murderous lie. Recall Zelensky’s insulting, querulous welcome, ridicule over his clothing, and Trump’s false accusation that Ukraine started the war with Russia.
Business deals involving Trump’s family and the Saudi government predate the last election. Jared Kushner famously cultivated close ties to MBS during the president’s first term. Thereafter, MBS overruled his own sovereign wealth fund advisors and gave $2 billion to Jared Kushner’s inexperienced private-equity investment firm. MBS included a $125 million-dollar “management fee” for Kushner, no doubt to reward his staunch support after the Khashoggi murder.
Dar Global, a Saudi-linked business partner of the Trump Organization, has announced multiple Trump-branded developments, and last year paid the Trump Organization $22 million dollars in licensing fees to use the Trump name. Trump insists that only “the boys have control” over the Trump Organization. I’ll skip over the Qatar-Trump Organization deals, and plans for Gaza.
2. Having formerly derided cryptocurrency as a “scam,” (but the magic word having been spoken!) Trump recently announced his sons have created their own new crypto company, World Liberty Financial, in which Saudi Arabia is investing. Trump dismisses ethics experts’ concerns for potential conflict-of-interest and national security issues in cryptocurrency ventures. If it was a conflict for Hunter Biden to engage in business deals with foreign countries, it is a conflict for Trump’s progeny.
3. Conservative WSJ recently published “Make Money Not War,” reporting that, even prior to the 2024 election, the Kremlin strategy was to convince this administration to “bypass the traditional US national security bureaucracy and view Russia not as a military threat but as a land of bountiful opportunity.” Trump’s narcissistic promise to “end in one day” the Russian war with Ukraine was teased and tumbled by Putin, but was recently re-revived.
In the last couple of months, Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff (major Trump donor, special envoy for Middle-East peace, cozy Putin whisperer, and business partner of Kushner’s), and Kirill Dmitriev, a Stanford- and Harvard-educated head of Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund, and Vladimir Putin’s designated negotiator who had already largely shaped the document they were revising, met in Miami “to decide Ukraine’s future.”
An early leaked version of the resultant 28-point Plan (now 19) product was largely criticized by Europe. Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk observed, “We know this is not about peace. It’s about business.” After the August Alaska meeting, a private report shocked the most senior world national security officials. It included details of the “commercial and economic plans the Trump Administration had been pursuing with Russia, including jointly mining rare earths in the Arctic.” To be continued.
The apparent “Trump Doctrine” is that our foreign policy is transactional, determined by Ka-Ching for Trump or his donors, not principle. Trump rails against the “evil horrors of communism” while he plays footsie with its chief proponent. Buckle up, Martin.
Kelly Scoles
Fillmore, Ca.

To the Editor:
This will be short. You have other things to do this beautiful Thanksgiving weekend.
Rarely am I completely shocked by a political turn of events (the 2024 election result was one), but a week ago the most unlikely congressional MAGA jumped ship and announced her withdrawal from Congress as of January 5, 2026.
Marjorie Taylor Greene explained that the denouncement by her former crush, Donald Trump, caused cascading threats of violence to her and her family from some in MAGA. She had broken with the president by insisting that the Epstein Files be released as he had promised in the campaign. She apparently hadn’t noticed that the door only swings one way with the Revenge King.
Don’t counter with Black Lives Matter protesters, Martin. Trump’s violent revenge machine is not in defense of civil rights and against racial targeting. It’s always personal with him, against someone who violates his loyalty and deference tests. One very odd exception: Zohran Mamdani, newly-elected democratic socialist mayor of NYC, whom Trump invited to call him a “fascist,” while he threw Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) under the gubernatorial bus for calling Mamdani a “jihadist.” Go figure.
Once Greene announced her commitment, Trump called her a “traitor,” and MAGA violence and death threats began, such that she was forced to hire private guards to protect her family. Trump doesn’t even have to ask them for cooperative retribution. He knows they know what he wants. They know that Nobody Crosses The Don and survives unscathed. Michael Corleone would be proud.
Traditional Republicans have attested to this anti-democratic protocol. Lisa Murkowski referred to congressional fears of crossing Trump because retribution was certain to follow. Adam Kitzinger and Liz Cheney, otherwise solid conservatives, had their careers derailed. Uber-conservative Mitt Romney has related stories of fear of voting against Trump’s impeachment because he knew it would likely endanger his and his family’s lives. There are others.
It’s now irrefutably clear that Trump’s plan, as those of other autocrats, is to sell the idea that, “our violence is patriotism (January 6, etc.) and that critics are enemies” (“Quiet, Piggy!” “You married a Loser!” to the wife of dissident Republican Senator, Thomas Massie). Political argument is irrelevant in our Constitutional Republic under Trump.
Menace and violent threats, or prosecutions for financial ruin (James Comey, Letitia James), are the name of Trump’s game. Gin up enough rage and resentment, and somebody in MAGA will feel it righteous to “do something.” And then Trump will blame the Democrats.
Some people only understand peril when they themselves are the target. MAGA has an interesting dilemma.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.
***
To the Editor:
THANKSGIVING
This Thanksgiving mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion, and replace it with trust. Write a love letter.
Share some treasure. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Express loyality in your word and deeds. Keep a promise. Find the time. Let go of a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Listen. Apologize if you were wrong.
Try to understand. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Appreciate more. Be kind;be gentle. Laught a little more. Deserve confidence. Take up arms against injustice. Express your gratitude. Go to church. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of this earth. Speak your love.
Speak it again. Speak it still once more
Bill Steiger,
Fillmore, Ca.

To the Editor:
For all the noise about left and right, most Americans agree: the system has tilted against ordinary people. Wealth keeps rising to the top while working families fall behind—and we’ve been seduced into blaming the other rather than asking who benefits.
The Epstein revelations are one more reminder of how differently the powerful are treated. Wealthy men exploited vulnerable girls and expected to walk away untouched—and, so far, they have. Meanwhile, a poor 19-year-old can face jail for a consensual relationship just months outside the legal line. The rules were never equal; they were built to protect those at the top. The obvious question is why this administration is so determined to prevent us from seeing what was really going on—and who was involved. Going after their enemies doesn’t really cut it. Let’s see all of it—regardless of what party someone belongs to.
We saw the same imbalance during the shutdown. Families who need help to keep their children insured were told by Trump, in effect, that they had to choose between healthcare of food. But tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy? Those were never on the table. Remember Trump railing against private insurance companies in ACA as corrupt? They are part of the ACA instead of a public option because the Republicans insisted. Trump has no plan—and never will.
This country could turn a corner with the smallest shift at the top—the 0.1%. Economists estimate that a modest two-percent tax increase on the wealthiest households could dramatically reduce poverty, strengthen schools, modernize infrastructure, and stabilize the health programs families rely on. Just two percent—barely noticeable to people with more money than they can spend—would mean clean water, safer roads, and medical care for millions. Yet instead of asking for that simple two percent, they get the tax cuts—and we get healthcare subsidies cut.
This isn’t about left or right. It’s about recognizing the pattern and refusing to be pitted against one another while the real power players walk free.
Demand a country that finally serves the people who hold it together.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca.
***
To the Editor:
Over the last couple of Editorials, I recognize your pain and lack of enthusiasm for contrary political discourse, and the wish to remain detached as the present administration shows its true authoritarian intentions. Whatever the current state of affairs, I think the individuality of the American spirit, our disposition for fairness, and the refusal to be subject to a king, will prevail. But for the moment, all we can do is exercise our Constitutional right to gather the facts and protest.
Just so you know I read every word of “Realities,” I detected multiple instances of “beyond snarky” comments last week, including gratuitous aspersions on Democratic religious and moral principles, and attribution to the Party of worshipping “might makes right.” Which, ironically, is exactly what Trump is practicing. The “might” is all his as the “unitary executive.” You are aware of the vast overreach on immigration issues, rabid tariffs, his illegal killing of Venezuelans on the high seas, and his announced preparation to invade either/both the Congo and Venezuela, as another “national emergency.” Also, because the Epstein Matter is heating up, in no small part because of Trump’s massive efforts to divert national attention from it, and his Party is recumbent.
It’s impossible to imagine that other countries don’t recognize the ploy. The next president will have to be an exceptionally standup man or woman to remedy the international image damage we have suffered. If we have free and fair elections.
True Socialism has never succeeded outside a monastery, but how can you wonder why people are open to a different economic system when the current system, certainly since the 1980’s, has persistently favored the wealthy over the rest of the population? In a country with billionaires, in the “hottest country” and “richest country on earth,” ordinary people require government assistance in a wildly imbalanced economic landscape. When We The People are last in the line of consideration, why wouldn’t an alternative be weighed?
Every healthy dual-Party political system needs a truly Conservative voice, but that is not what the GOP now represents. It is a Radical Party, aiming to ignore the Constitution for the Unitary Executive president, and using institutions like the DOJ to prosecute Trump’s enemies, and reward people who do his bidding (Maxwell, Guiliani, Changpeng Zhao, etc.). Is the Republican Party willing to place the same powers in a Democratic president as it has in Trump? Or does it expect that future elections will be contrived so that possibility is non-existent? It is my opinion that the republic is in grave danger, aided and abetted by people who have no sense of conservation or conservatism.
I had to google Ross Calvin, founder of a bitcoin-mining firm, who is crowd-funding a massive statue of Prometheus to advertise American technological strength. It’s odd that you appear to despise Calvin, a bitcoin investor who wants to build a massive structure, and so has things in common with Trump. But at least Calvin’s proposed structure is not to honor himself, as is the Arc d’Trump.
We are in turbulent times. One good thing we can do is pay attention and call the evidence as we see it. It can be exhausting, and sometimes painful, but democracy demands our attention to survive.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.

To the Editor:
In Negotiations, the party who refuses to deal is the one who bears the burden of an impasse. The Democrats did not cause the Shutdown. It was the Republicans who sent Congress home to prevent any settlement (and avoid the Epstein vote). The terms of the disappointing “deal” gave Democrats some achievements: furloughed and fired workers will return to their jobs, with back pay, contrary to Trump’s wishes.
Part of the agreement with the caving Democrats was a commitment by Republican negotiators to take a separate vote on the ACA extension, which Speaker Johnson has already negated, “I am not committing to it or not not committing to it.” So, it was a “pinkie-promise,” the only value of which, once again, will be to demonstrate to the voters how little this administration cares about the well-being of ordinary people.
Democrats’ biggest failure, even beyond believing Republican congressional promises, was to fail to account for the depth of Trump’s jealousy-hate for the man whose name is colloquially on “Obamacare.” It has long been Trump’s personal quest to destroy “Obamacare,” and the man himself, as he has advertised. And he has not produced his promised “better than Obamacare.”
There was one incredibly illuminating discovery in the negotiations. The entire nation now knows the lengths to which Republicans will go to punish people who reject their demands. Not just Democrats, but every voter in every state now knows that there are no limits to the pain and privation that Trump and the Republican Congress will impose to get their way, including withholding food assistance for families, even though directed by a court to disburse it. Trump immediately appealed the lower court order so he could continue to withhold SNAP funds, despite the desperate pleas from the poorest red states. No one can say that they haven’t gotten a glimpse into the soul of the GOP and its Grand Poo-Bah.
Our president holds daily “fireside chats” from the Resolute Desk in the newly-signed Oval, in gold, natch. Where, no matter the question, he delivers stream-of-consciousness concoctions to the world, and recites his greatest hits (his physician thinks he is a “magnificent specimen,” more so than Obama; that he was robbed by sinister but unproven forces of reelection in 2020; that every president except himself was a dumbbell and dud, with the occasional exceptions of Washington and Lincoln; and that there is no inflation, jobs are plentiful, and the tariffs are bringing in either billions or trillions, depending on how breakfast went.
In a recent interview with Fox’s Laura Ingraham, Trump blamed the Democrats for a “rigged system” to make people think that costs are up, when “costs are way down.” “More than anything else, it’s a con job by the Democrats.” Trump always blames someone else for his messes, and this time he is blaming us, and our lying eyes and experiences. “We have the greatest economy we’ve ever had,” he insisted.
One major issue confronting us and the WH will be the SCOTUS decision on whether Trumps Rorschach Tariffs are legal. The Constitution gives the tariff taxing power to Congress, unless there is a demonstrable National Emergency. Trump alone decided on the bumper-car tariffs, based on his assertion of a “national economic emergency” for which no proof exists. He tried to pre-empt SCOTUS by warning that to deny his case would be to threaten “another Depression,” make us a “Third World Country,” and that “no court” should be allowed to interfere with his Unitary Power. What he has been saying since P2025.
Last week’s off-year elections can be fairly described as a near-landslide for Democratic candidates. Most Republicans dismissed it as anecdotal. It was fun watching them try to spin it.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.

To the Editor:
I read with interest your reply to Ms. Scoles’ recent letter mentioning Project 2025. Since you are unaware of its contents, let me illuminate.
It isn’t about legislation. It isn’t waiting for a vote.
Project 2025 lays out how to use executive action to make changes before courts or voters can respond. They are not interested in our voices. Only their own. The plan is to act so quickly that it’s over by the time we figure out what’s in it.
Project 2025 is designed to be read only by those with the leisure and energy to read its 900+ pages. You know, people without young families and jobs and lives and bills to pay. Much of it is already implemented.
Project 2025, created by The Heritage Foundation and partners, is a map to reshape this country in their image through executive power—not through the legislative process. In plain English, they don’t care whether this is what the citizens of this country want. And it’s why Trump feigned ignorance during the campaign—then, once elected, hired one of its chief architects, Russell Vought, to carry it out.
It never was about egg prices. They were what Alfred Hitchcock called the McGuffin—the thing we’re supposed to chase here while the real crime is happening over there.
The only thing that matters is what they want. You will never get a chance to vote on it—by design.
Here are some of the ways it impacts Fillmore:
• It makes it harder for families and seniors who rely on food aid. (Cutting SNAP benefits is the goal. The shutdown is pretext.) While local food banks struggle.
• Forest Management is turned over to industry-friendly councils, for more logging and less oversight.
• USDA programs now emphasize production over protection. To the benefit of corporate “farmers” aka investors.
• Federal education offices are downsized. Students needing special services or protections see their programs axed.
• Student loans are harder to get, making higher education out of reach for many.
Project 2025 is changing who gets food, who gets educated, and who gets heard. These changes hit home.
You can follow what’s happening to the policies outlined in Project 2025, at this link: https://progressivereform.org/tracking-trump-2/project-2025-executive-ac...
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca
***
From Skid Row to Reform: Homeless Advocate Pushes ‘Treatment-First’ Model to Replace Housing First By
Lang Martinez
I’m a homeless advocate, calling for recovery, accountability, and faith-based reform in California’s approach for funding homelessness.
As California continues to struggle with rising homelessness, despite record funding and new housing initiatives, I have consistently challenged the dominant approach known as Housing First. I have real life lived experience with homelessness, which has shaped my belief that California’s current model is fundamentally flawed.
I argue that Housing First, a policy that prioritizes providing permanent housing without requiring sobriety, treatment, or participation in services, fails to address the deeper causes of chronic homelessness. The crisis isn’t just about a lack of housing; it’s about addiction, mental illness, trauma, and the loss of accountability that once defined recovery-based programs.
I have never published a single comprehensive policy to replace Housing First, however my public statements and advocacy paint a clear picture of the alternative. I envision a “treatment-first” approach rooted in structure, accountability, and recovery.
The Housing First Debate
The Housing First model gained momentum in California more than a decade ago, built on the premise that people need stable housing before they can effectively address other challenges such as substance abuse or mental illness. Supported by billions of dollars in state and federal funds, the policy has become the foundation for most homelessness programs across the state.
However, I’ve criticized that Housing First has lowered expectations and removed incentives for recovery, particularly for those struggling with addiction. Without requirements for sobriety or engagement in treatment, I argue, the system ends up warehousing people rather than helping them rebuild their lives.
Treatment Before Housing
I advocate for a “treatment-first” or a “shelter-first” model, which emphasizes temporary shelter combined with mandatory participation in recovery or mental health programs. Under this approach, individuals would receive immediate safety and stability through shelter, but permanent housing would come only after people show progress in treatment and sobriety.
I look to models from past decades, when transitional and sober-living programs helped individuals progress through structured stages of recovery. Those systems demanded personal responsibility and offered mentorship, something that today’s programs have lost.
Rebuilding Transitional Housing
I have repeatedly called attention to the decline of transitional housing units in California, which I believe has left a major gap in the state’s recovery network. Transitional housing once served as a bridge between homelessness and independence, providing support, structure, and accountability. Reinvesting in such programs would restore a critical pathway for individuals working to rebuild their lives.
Accountability and Oversight
Transparency and accountability are major themes throughout my advocacy. I’ve become frustrated with what I see as poor oversight of the billions of public dollars funneled into homelessness programs. I support establishing independent review boards or task forces to track how funds are spent and to measure program outcomes beyond housing placements, focusing instead on long-term stability, recovery, and employment.
Tailoring Solutions to Different Populations
I also argue that policymakers must distinguish between different groups within the homeless population. I separate individuals who are temporarily homeless, often due to financial hardship, from those who are chronically homeless and struggling with addiction or untreated mental illness. I believe a one-size-fits-all strategy like Housing First can’t meet the needs of both groups and ultimately fails those most in crisis.
From Skid Row to Advocacy
Personally, my advocacy is shaped by my life and journey. Years ago, I was living on the streets of Oxnard and before on Skid Row in Los Angeles. Addicted and without hope, my life began to change only when I entered treatment and found faith.
That transformation drives my passion today. I now volunteer with local churches, recovery programs, and outreach efforts to help others find the same second chance. I’m very outspoken, sometimes controversial, but always direct. I pride myself by being consistent through my lasting recovery, that begins with accountability and treatment, not entitlement.
A Different Vision
As California continues to grapple with homelessness, I view a growing tension between compassion and accountability in public policy. I propose that a “treatment-first” model challenges leaders to rethink what success looks like, not just housing units built, but lives restored. Whether policymakers will embrace this shift remains to be seen, but my dedication towards real changes in the lives of those who struggle with life’s pitfalls is what drives me. This mission is personal, and the message is simple: solving homelessness means healing people first.
Final Thoughts
I believe you can’t build recovery on top of addiction. If someone isn’t ready or willing to get clean, housing alone won’t change their life. We’ve spent billions of dollars, but we’re not seeing people getting better. We’re just putting a roof over the same problems. We need to give people a place to start healing, not just a room key. Recovery has to come first. People need steps, not shortcuts. We’ve taken away the middle ground that used to help people move forward. If the system really worked, we’d see fewer tents every year. Instead, we’re spending more and getting less. We’re treating everyone the same, but they’re not all the same. Some people need rental assistance and jobs. Others need rehab and tough love. God took me from Skid Row to the front row. I like to quote Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” I’m not against housing. I’m for helping people change so they can keep their homes. That’s the difference. I’m living proof that with God, accountability, and recovery, people can change.
Lang Martinez is a homelessness and recovery advocate based in Ventura, California. A former addict and survivor of homelessness, he now works with faith-based and community organizations to promote accountability and recovery-focused solutions across California.

To the Editor:
When we talk about national defense, most people think of weapons systems or border security. But the greatest threat to America’s strength comes from within—our own health.
A nation can’t defend itself if its people are sick, stressed, or bankrupted by medical bills. We spend more per capita on health care than any country in the world, yet rank far below others in life expectancy and infant survival—even with some of the best hospitals and researchers on Earth.
Universal health care isn’t radical; it’s a defense strategy. It ensures every American—soldier, teacher, farmer, truck driver—can stay healthy enough to serve, work, and care for their family. It strengthens the workforce that keeps our supply chains moving and our communities stable.
The pandemic showed how quickly our fragmented system can fail. When people skip care because of cost, we all become more vulnerable—to disease, economic collapse, and disinformation that feeds on fear.
Health care should be treated as critical infrastructure, like roads or power grids. A healthy population is our first line of defense. Universal coverage is not just humane—it’s patriotic.
Trump, Johnson, and their allies have already done the damage—shutting down government operations, furloughing federal workers, and stalling programs they label “liberal,” no matter the harm to the states or the people they represent. All to block modest assistance that would help Americans pay their dramatically rising health insurance premiums. It’s hard to prevail against people who don’t care how much pain they inflict.
Meanwhile, the wealthiest keep their tax cuts. The rest of us pay the price--and take on the tax burden the wealthy shirk—and the debt incurred.
Trump has promised something “much better than Obamacare” for ten years. What have we gotten? Bupkis. The wealthy have their tax breaks. Argentinian cattle ranchers have our beef market. Trump’s got his vanity ballroom. Where does that leave us? Flattened like the East Wing.
How is this America First?
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, CA
***
To the Editor:
Sorry, but after January 20, 2025, by Trump’s design, it is impossible to pick only one or two alarming topics. Hungarian despot Erdogan’s playbook, which now-OMB Director Russ Douthat morphed into Project 2025, enabled Trump’s blitzkrieg for the disassembly of our government, neutered the Republican Congress, cowed SCOTUS, and militarized the streets against states’ rights and the will of elected governors and mayors. Joe Biden, whatever his faults, did not try to create a police state or dismantle our republic.
Flash-alert. The Epstein Matter is not going away. Unlike you, many Americans of both Parties are deeply troubled that many young women were seduced, victimized, passed around, and emotionally brutalized by powerful, wealthy men (one convicted woman sex offender), and that Trump, who campaigned vigorously on the necessity of transparency for the scandal, has ordered the DOJ to bury it. You preach that “men must protect women,” but you really mean from themselves, and only for reproduction. The Epstein victims can pound sand.
What reason can there be for a self-proclaimed, staunch advocate of Judaeo-Christian morality to urge a vanishing act for the Epstein criminal perpetrators’ identities and accountability? You are adamantly retributive about sins of the flesh, for instance, Hunter Biden’s pathetic drug-addled stripper follies, but want to tippy-toe past multiple crimes of rape, pedophilia, and human trafficking. It appears that your principles are in service to your politics.
Trump is demanding that his former legal defense lawyers, now DOJ appointees, award him $230 million in restitution for costs of defense of his fraud conviction, and the Mar-a-Lago search under warrant, after repeated FBI requests for documents and Trump’s refusals. Trump has announced that HE will make the ultimate decision on the award of our tax dollars to soothe his hurty feelings. OK with you?
Somehow, you are not concerned about a president who doesn’t recognize the revelation of lack of judgment in the publication of a 10-year-old boy’s fevered dream of having “hilarious” explosive diarrhea on First Amendment protestors. Imbibing beach-cleanup volunteers project more adult sensibility. And this guy has the nuclear codes.
In the Shutdown, the Democrats are proposing restoration of benefits only for those lawfully present in the US. It is illegal to provide federal health care benefits for undocumented persons. Trump and Johnson, et al., are lying, hoping to mislead the public. Again.
In retaliation, Trump disbanded the DOE’s Department of Special Education (a “Democrat-favored program”) and threatened SNAP assistance, to force many American citizens to choose between family health care insurance and food assistance. No negotiation. At some point, most constituents will understandably choose food for their hungry kids over health care, but they will know that they were extorted by Trump and the Republican Congress, who used their children as hostages.
Last Friday, Trump ordered the ninth fatal attack on non-military vessels from Venezuela or Colombia in international waters. The 49 bodies are starting to wash up. The justification, for which Trump has produced no evidence, is that the US attacks were responses to an undeclared “narco-terrorist” war, because vessels were carrying fentanyl to the US. But fentanyl is not produced in South America, but in labs in Mexico and China, and is most likely to be smuggled over the land border.
Trump has labeled the dead “terrorists,” so that he can treat them as enemy combatants in an undeclared, non-existent “war,” just as he is doing on the streets of selected American cities against “domestic terrorists.” So he can exercise power in “war” or “crime,” and call it “peacekeeping.”
Looking forward, in February Hegseth fired JAGs to prevent, “roadblocks to anything that happens.” Inadequate, if any, military legal assessment was done for these attacks. Deliberately.
How do we Americans justify false wars against inferior powers, crazy-8 economic policies, attempts to seduce despots, our government inciting protestors to declare insurrection and invade states under false pretenses, retaliations by threatening to take food from families, but build a grotesquely excessive ballroom for Dinners for Donors and Dances for Dollars?
Do we imagine we will recover unscathed from all this and more, our Constitutional Republic intact?
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, CA