To the Editor:
Martin, in your religious argument for ignoring the Epstein matter and deflection of interest in the subject, not once did you express concern for the young women who were sexually victimized. You have already absurdly claimed that you hold women in such high regard that you advocate denying them their humanity in the control of their own bodies. Here, you would deny them justice as mere collateral damage to protecting political bigshots and sexual perverts.
You once accused me of not giving Trump credit for anything good. Trump is a master at recognizing and manipulating people’s anger, fears, and resentments, and attaching them to “elites” whom he warns are trying to “impose communism” on the country. An epic oxymoron since “elites” are unlikely purveyors of socialism or communism. Trump creates threats and anxieties, then proclaims that “I alone can fix it,” lulling the faithful into ignoring or excusing his authoritarian power grabs. An alarming example:
1. Those familiar with P2025 know that Trump planned to create a federal military police state, unconstitutionally and in defiance of the Posse Comitatus Law and states’ rights, a police first-responder at the will of the president. One political weapon of every dictator who plans to smother democratic impulses. Any excuse will do.
1a. Following the power grab in Los Angeles in July, against the will and refusal of permission by the California governor, and under false emergency pretenses of “invasion by migrants” in LA (then Ventura County), Trump vowed he would “use military power anywhere [he thinks] it is needed.”
1b. Because a DOGE interloper was assaulted by a car-jacker, Trump has committed to federalizing troops to take over police functions in DC, even though it has the largest police force per capita of any municipal force in America, and crime is at a 30-year low. “If DC doesn’t get its act together…we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City,” Trump wrote on social media.
1c. A written memo widely circulated at high levels of the DHS and DOD was obtained by The New Republic. It indicates plans to normalize and expand the use of the military on our own soil, against our own people, and against the Constitution. It calls for expansion of the LA deployment for “years to come” in American cities. It equates First Amendment protest rights with threats from terrorists. It effectively makes the military the private army of the Commander-in-Chief. Meanwhile, the Republican Congress sucks its thumb. What’s it going to take for people to wake up?
On another subject, tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets last weekend to protest Netanyahu’s plan to occupy Gaza and “finish the job.” “Not in our names. We are not our government!” What is happening, right in front of our eyes, is another holocaust. Netanyahu, and those politicians who facilitated this genocide, are war criminals.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, CA
To the Editor:
Let me get this straight. First there was a cabal of baby eating, satanic Democrats operating out of a basement in a Pizza Parlor. Then it was Democrats on a plane going to Epstein’s island for sex with minors. Trump, of course, was not involved. Despite the treasure trove of photos with him buddying up to Jeffrey and Ghislaine for over a decade. Or the photos and recorded sexual statements from Trump about his own daughter—and as if that wasn’t bad enough, she was underage. He even made sexual comments about his newborn daughter. But it was all Democrats on that plane and worshipping Satan, and if we just elect Trump, he’d sort it all out and put it right? There was a list and he and he alone would make sure we saw it all.
Now that he’s president, the list has disappeared. Trump tried to distract us and get us to believe it was all about transparency—so he sends his own personal lawyer, now supposedly representing the people, to talk to Ghislaine to get to the bottom of it and find out just who was involved in the horror show. No need to talk to the victims. After all, they were just kids. What do they know?
Next thing we know, Ghislaine’s moved to a minimum-security prison—that she wasn’t eligible for according to the rules. Of course, we, the citizens, are going to have to pick up the extra costs of her security there. And now, she’s on work release? Lordy.
Who’s he protecting? The Dems? Or himself?
It’s time to realize that TDS doesn’t stand for Trump Derangement Syndrome, it stands for Trump Delusion Syndrome.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, CA
To the Editor:
I’m a big fan of computers—made my living with them. I love it when they do tedious work for me, when they calculate
numbers. When they do what I tell them. I was in the driver’s seat.
Not so much anymore. I still love them. I’m not a complete naysayer on AI, but I recognize how much the game has changed.
For those who haven’t been as deeply immersed in technology as I have, I want to spread the word.
As most already know, AI doesn’t just do what it’s told—it learns from data, recognizes patterns, and makes decisions on
its own. It writes essays, fires workers, selects job applicants. It analyzes satellite images for military targets—
deciding who lives and who dies. And it does all this with limited human oversight, at a speed none of us can match.
This is more than just a faster calculator. It’s a new kind of decision-maker—one built by a handful of powerful companies,
trained on data we didn’t always agree to give.
That means AI is being used to decide who qualifies for a loan, whose job gets cut, or when emergency services respond.
It’s important to be aware that this is happening.
Here are three concerns we should all be paying attention to:
1. Lack of transparency. We often don’t know when AI is making decisions—or what data it’s using.
2. Loss of control. AI is increasingly built into systems we rely on, from hospitals to schools to farms.
3. Concentration of power. A small group of companies and governments now control systems that affect billions of lives.
So how do we respond?
Stay informed. Ask hard questions of our local and federal leaders. How is it being implemented in our schools? By the
city? By law enforcement? Push for laws that ensure AI is used transparently, ethically, and in the public’s interest—not
just for profit or control.
The data that’s been collected by our government has already been exposed to known hackers through DOGE. Google Edward
Coristine aka “Big Balls.” None of Musk’s DOGE workers were vetted. Our data, in the wrong hands, turns us from citizens into a marketable product.
The industry needs guardrails, now. Not 10 years unregulated and unconstrained.
Pay attention. Ask questions. Use your voice. Call your representatives. This has enormous implications.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
Martin, first you attributed to me statements I did not make, and then you said that we have a lot in common. I was
positively verklempt! Then, mercifully, I read that you only meant our common educational ties at the hands of the Jesuits,
who did what they do, introduce differing opinions, and raise a lot of questions on God and the human condition.
Apparently, USF was heavily into Inquisition theology and the alarming view of Christ as a vengeful Old Testament Deity.
Many Santa Clara Jebs were not so inclined but believed that human life is ours to experience with the help of faith, hope,
and charity. Just one question, was Constitutional Law included in your law school curriculum?
It is our business as humans to confront our challenges. If God were deeply involved in our day-to-day issues, how do you
explain the Armenian and Gazan genocides, the Holocaust, even the Crusades, Epstein? The creation of the human animal armed
with intelligence and free will was a curiously risky venture, and sometimes people make really bad decisions.
Unfortunately, ignorance is not a defense.
The reason that my accusations against Trump are serial is that his offenses are serial. Like an unloved and disgruntled
child with Big Bird lodged on his head and a nutrition pyramid with one word: “McDonalds,” he visits revenge on little
insults, legitimate questions, every slight he suffers and accusation he faces. These are “national threats,” “treason,”
“enemies of the people,” if they disagree with him, and all are “hoaxes,” “fake news,” and “persecution.” Most adults have
to be big girls and boys. Everything Trump does is “perfect,” which must surprise the Almighty.
I doubt that the sexual victims of Epstein’s elites will ever get the human justice they deserve. You, who justify
retribution genocide in Gaza, dispatch God to take care of the Epstein atrocities without investigation because…?
WH management of the Epstein coverup is textbook Trump. Every “shiny thing” sufficiently dazzling to distract MAGA is being
waved. Now, Obama, Biden and Jill, Kamala Harris, Jack Smith, every civil servant involved in the civil and criminal cases
against him, the juries that convicted him of sexual assault and fraud, the “rogue courts” that defy his legal arguments
(though SCOTUS is in his pocket), his treatment of foreign dignitaries, his incredibly long learning curve with Putin, his
firing of the head of labor statistics because she brought accurate but unwelcome news about July’s unemployment numbers,
the big beautiful bill, the increasing evidence of his dementia. Do you think Trump has the slightest interest in the
welfare of ordinary Americans? No, really, do you?
My reluctant sense is that, until the economy crashes and Trump blames Obama and Biden, and digs up Jimmy Carter to answer
for himself, people will continue to ignore flashing signs like Project 2025 and the Trumpian march to authoritarianism, past the opportunity to object. But good news! That will give you time to fully decipher God’s Will for the rest of us,
ignore the impending damage to the Republic, and polish up your eternal merit badge.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
What the media and Progressives are trying to do, like Kelly Scoles, is to weaponize the Epstein case against President
Trump. They want everyone to ignore the horrors progressives created without taking one bit of responsibility for what is
now being exposed. With statements like “What is Trump’s real reason for paving over the Epstein crimes and protecting
pedophiles.....” she completely ignores, on purpose, the real issues still happening TODAY.
Last week the House Committee on Homeland Security held a hearing revealing the Biden-Harris Administration (BHA) working
with Democrat officials and open border advocates pushed a pro-illegal immigration agenda and placed political aims above
the welfare and safety of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC). A child trafficking industry prospered for four years with
open border policies and young victims still hiding in plain sight.
The Center for Immigration Studies calculated that BHA gave $6 billion in grants to 15 United Nations (UN) Agencies and 230
Nonprofit/NGOs that turned the border into a welcome center with a travel service of planes and Uber drivers to ship
migrants throughout the US interior. Recent reports have upgraded the numbers of missing UACs to 450,000 in the last days
of the BHA.
Through cooperation of Dept. Homeland Security (DHS), Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS), BHA, UN and Nonprofits/NGOs
a child trafficking ring was created.. The UN and NGOs were placed along the border and worked as the middleman in a
pipeline of tender-age children into sex trafficking and slave labor. As the UAC crossed the border, they were primarily
handed over to the NGOs by the Border Patrol. They were then delivered to poorly vetted sponsors with little oversight and
failed to ensure proper follow-up or communications for the UACs’ well-being.
Their speed of removing the migrants was important to avoid the bad optics of the thousand walking and sleeping on the
streets due to the volume of overcrowding in certain sectors which still happened due to the overwhelming numbers. BHA
stopped the use of DNA biometric screening of children leaving no way to check who the UAC belonged with, while 70% of the
documentation turned in by sponsors was fraudulent or incomplete.
It was reported these NGOs did little if any background checks on their own employees and if one complained of problems or
raised concerns they were fired; while the executives received substantial revenue, salary increases and bonuses.
In February 2023 the Office of Refugee Resettlement reported 85,000 UAC could not be located. A Notice of Concern hotline
was set up for the UAC to report problems and get help. BUT get this; it had ONE PERSON HIRED TO OPERATE IT. Yes, One
person!!! As a result between Aug. 2023 thru Jan. 2025, 65,000 calls for help went unanswered. Later, in August 2024, ICE
reported they could not monitor all the UACs released from DHS custody. All this open border horror was done for power
(more house Representatives) and monetary gain through cheap labor.
Today the Trump Administration, DHS, ICE, FBI, local and state law enforcement are working to locate the children using the
65,000 recorded unanswered calls and rescue the trafficked children which are mostly girls 14 yrs. or younger. So far
13,061 of the 35,000 located, some working in factory farms, had their captors/sponsors arrested. The Trump Administration
has stated locating those children is a priority adding, “We know some of these kids are in forced labor and sex
trafficking and we found some, unfortunately in those conditions”. Progressives like Kelly Scoles claim “shiny things” will
“divert attention” from Epstein. Are children working in sex trade and slave labor just “shiny things”?
Jean McLeod,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
Martin, after reading last week’s Editorial, I have concluded that it would be best, in the future, that I avoid your
statements about religion. However, I want to clarify one point.
I often use Catholicism as a religious exemplar because it is the source of my entire education, except law school, and
is my religious ancestral home. True, I have relocated since childhood, but I still revere “home” in the message of Christ.
I offered my view of what any religion, at a minimum, should have as its mission. When a religion fails to promote benign,
if not charitable, treatment of others as fellow human beings or as God’s children, I’m not sure what purpose it serves.
The last couple of editions found you blind-vaulting over substantial political issues – which you’ll recall were the
objective of our discourse from the beginning. There is so much happening in this country and the world that will shape our
lives and succeeding generations, so I am surprised and a little disheartened.
A couple of things that deserve attention: The UN and other organizations report Gaza is starving to death. Children and
babies are dying, their parents too weak to tend to them. There is no clean water, no medicines, and very little food.
Israel and their partners in this genocide, including the US, are, in Netanyahu’s recent words, obliged “to allow the entry
of minimal humanitarian supplies” (emph. mine). Trump sniffed that, “we didn’t even get a ‘thank you’ for our contribution”
for those inadequate supplies. That is what he values. This has happened before in history, but this time it’s ours.
Meanwhile, food destined for aid distribution was destroyed at the docks last week, rather than being distributed before
expiration, because poor countries could not buy it from us for even thirty pieces of silver, on Trump’s orders. What
resides in a person’s heart and soul that they would do such a thing? And it was done in our names.
Nearly 60,000 men, women, and children are now detained by ICE in the US, El Salvador, Guatemala and other countries where
there’s little or no control over their conditions. Those detainees who are not citizens may have entered the country
illegally, but the vast majority are not “the worst of the worst” as Trump promised. Whatever their immigration status,
detainees are human beings, and this immigration terror plan is devoid of any consideration of their humanity. This is not
“God’s Will.” We alone own this.
Our President is once again crooning his Greatest Hits on Epstein, including “fake news,” “somebody framed me,” “witch
hunt,” “hoax,” and “I don’t know that guy” or sexually- assaulted woman, or lewd sketch. Having demanded revelation of the
Files during the 2024 election, now it’s apparently in Trump’s interest to protect the perpetrators, pardon at least one if
she coughs up what he wants to hear and ignore the victimized girls and women. If we are still by any chance a Nation of
Laws, the perpetrators, whoever they are, will face identification and prosecution.
Trump delivered a lecture to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in a bizarre stream-of-
consciousness and childish self-congratulatory monologue. This is how America presents to the world. (YouTube.com, then
choose duckduckgo.com, “Trump meets with president of European Commission”).
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
Martin, you and I can have fun sometime arguing the history of the Catholic Church, its profound effect on Western Civilization, its positive and negative contributions to the world and the faithful, and divine mysteries, but I don’t see the audience for that here.
Commitment to religious beliefs can only be measured by how we treat each other. You are attached to a version of Catholicism that is a mix of medieval mysticism and ardor for political inquisition which I do not share. We all struggle against making ourselves and our own needs and beliefs the center of the universe, or lulling ourselves with, “we good, they bad.”
If religious practice helps people to become the best version of themselves, it will also remind them that we are all human beings just trying to figure out why we exist and recognize and honor the pilgrimage of others. There are many religious people who unequivocally support our human experience, and many who don’t but invoke “God’s will” as if theirs are the ears into which the Almighty would choose to whisper.
Last week, you declined in deep weariness to respond to any of the raised real-world issues but were re-animated by mystical matters which can be a refuge from reality. We all exist here on Planet Earth, trying to experience and survive what it is to be human as best we can, but Marian prophecies are not, I think, a significant resource for most people.
I’d give Trump credit for any “good things” he has done, if they weren’t wildly outnumbered by the critical damage he is doing to America, average Americans, and our status in the eyes of other countries; by cozying up to Putin (“he fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden, but he didn’t fool me!!” a statement so ridiculous no other comment is needed; by handing a drug-addled, billionaire megalomaniac a license to destroy the government; by toying spasmodically with tariffs; and vilification of anyone who does not do his bidding in the Epstein coverup, including his own MAGA followers.
Trump whined that MAGA who won’t “let it go” are “stupid” and “weaklings,” and sneered that he “doesn’t want their support anymore.” What is Trump’s real reason for paving over the Epstein crimes and protecting pedophiles when he is willing to pay such a huge price for it?
Trump has believed since 2015 that he can sell MAGA anything, and has, but this Epstein matter was such a 2024 bonfire MAGA issue, so filled with political venom, perverted rumors, and avenging promises of “transparency,” that it can’t be ignored. More than one political writer has recalled deviant politician “Lonesome Rhodes” in the film, “A Face in the Crowd, “ who bragged about his constituents, “I can take chicken fertilizer and sell it to ’em for caviar.” Or Bibles, sneakers, steaks, or virtual cards depicting Trump as Atlas, Elvis, and Jesus. The 1950’s film is preternaturally prescient of our own time.
Now will come accusations against past Democratic operatives, the emergence of shiny things “over there,” and Trump insinuating himself into high profile issues to divert attention from Epstein. It’s his MO, and we’ll see if it still works when the issue is protecting pedophiles.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
There are a couple of writers to this LTTE that should be hanging their heads in shame. Last week Pat Collins protested that "This is Trump doing what Trump does best---fooling some of the people all the time." While Kelly Scoles claims "...Trump's personal prejudices, Constitutional indifference, lust for power, personal demons, or human insensibilities." This week DNI Telsi Gabbard exposed the seditious conspiracy, and probably acts of treason by Obama, Brennon, Clapper, Rice, Karry, Newland, McCab, Lynch. McCord, Johnson, Choseman, Rhodes and other corrupt cohorts who concocted Russiagate and went after President Trump as soon as he won in 2016. They removed the intelligence findings, got together to create a lie, leaked it to the press using the fake Steele Dossier, then corrupted the courts to destroy General Flynn and others. Gabbard brought the evidence and receipts with more to come. Now the party of "I take the 5th" with three so far, refuses to answer any questions. Expect cries and a quibble from their corrupt inside players and media, "It's a conspiracy or they're misrepresenting the facts, we're victims of the Orange Man". But Gabbard has it in hand. Remember, at that time Susan Rice, for a CYA, sent HERSELF an email stating "Everything should be done by the book". That in itself was a dead give away something wasn't right. Worse is that their corruption could have brought us to war with Russia.
Next up, the media's focus on Epstein. So just ignore the treason and corruption, that's so yesterday. Or maybe ICE and a continued threat that our fruit and produce will rot in the fields with no one to harvest. Fear works. But did you know that farm labor uses LESS than 1% of the agricultural work force and has for many decades? Everything else is getting automated, but there's not a word about the machines available today that can supply most of the farm labor. What? Isn't AI and technology already here? Yes, it is, but the agricultural business doesn't want to eat the cost of machines and maintenance. Cheaper for them to have the taxpayer subsidized human labor. That will change soon.
For four decades around 35 million legal and illegal immigrants entered this country. Many through temporary visa overstays or our open borders. Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) estimates 14 million entered in Biden's first three years in office. Most lower educated immigrants, which are mostly illegal, concentrate in specific metropolitan locations like the incorporated town of Compton, which in the past was overwhelmingly home to the Black community of all economic classes. But today is less than 26% Black and over 52% illegals. Watts, South Central, San Fernando Valley and communities throughout the country have seen the impact of dislocated lower class citizens forced to move to find homes or jobs and access to the first rung up the ladder to middle class.
Adding 20 million, where 90% of illegals are renters, drives up the cost of rentals for everyone. CIS analysis indicates a 5% migrant increase is associated with a 12% increase in overall rent when associated with income. Illegal immigration undercuts wages and undermines the incentive to work. sometimes leading to a "death of despair" with drugs, alcohol and a cascading series of harmful consequences. It has displaced our own citizens in janitorial cleaning, maintenance, food preparation and processing, groundskeeping, retail sales and many other industries. But all you hear is lettuce will be $5 a head without illegals. The jobs taken and lost by our citizens are never spoken of and thus treated as though they don't exist. These are the original victims of unfettered immigration. We're told they are jobs Americans won't do. That's NOT TRUE. But the media won't tell you or show when a business gets an illegal immigration raid it often results in long lines of people applying for those jobs. Yes, it happens.
A Federation for American Immigration (FAIR) 2023 study found the cost of illegals is $182 billion annually offset by $31 billion paid in taxes from 15.5 million illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants do add $321 billion to the GDP but not as tax contributions or benefits to our citizens. Almost all goes to the illegal immigrants themselves in wages spent or sent home as remittances. The illegal households more often than not, use one or more welfare assistance programs, creating over $42 billion in cost. Add $70 billion in education along with $18.5 billion emergency medical and the $11.2 billion in federal medical funding, it becomes apparent the illegals cost much more than they provide in earnings to our country.
Many displaced people became homeless as the problem impacted more towns and neighborhoods. Ask a simple question; were more homes built in those lower income areas which were already built out? No. Grants went to hundreds of nonprofit/NGO's who wasted billions realizing if they fixed the problem, they'd be out of a job. So the powers that be placate the people with "we're trying", look how much we've spent on it.
Who profited? The globalist, politician, the wealthy, greedy business owners, nonprofits/NGO's and anyone who wanted cheaper labor at the expense of others. Social engineers convinced society to believe, 'I'm too smart to be fooled, these poor migrants are the victims of conservatives and we must help' with an attack list in hand of xenophobic, racist, bigoted, nazi, fascist or whatever chosen name for that day. Just keep people in their place.
Remember the cry for boycotts because China used slave labor to make Niki and Addias sneakers. Nothing changed. China is still using slave labor. Do you hear a peep about Chinese slave labor today? No. Instead you hear the claim of 'victimhood' while gangs riot and rob the shoe stores. Then we're told it's the poor needing shoes. Shoes that now cost hundreds of dollars a pair. The con of social engineering by some very evil people, yet so many admire those same people as virtuous and caring.
When your needs are met and you still feel entitled, be thankful that you live in a country that allows you the opportunity to go for it and work harder to achieve what you want by merit. Today we have far too many living off the sacrifices of past generations while borrowing from future generations through bonds and credit cards to keep a lifestyle they've become accustomed to. Who's willing to sacrifice anything or grateful for what they've been given? Are we living in the final stages of the Tytler Cycle? History does repeat itself. Remember we are $37 trillion in debt.
Jean McLeod
Fillmore
To the Editor:
After years and years of righteous demands for transparency and accountability in the Epstein scandal. After telling you only
Trump would give us that transparency and accountability. When given the chance to finally do it, Trump says no, Bondi says
no. Republicans in the House say no. Who are they protecting? The Democrats? Come on, people. Get real. This is Trump doing
what Trump does best—fooling some of the people all the time.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, CA
To the Editor:
In a lurid manifestation of lack of character and consideration of constituent needs, the Republican House adopted the
Senate Budget Bill, which caused some admitted Repo Congressional opponents to snivel that there was “nothing else they
could do” because Trump insisted on a completely fabricated signing deadline of July 4. The Republican Congress couldn’t say
“no” to the little guy squalling for his aery boom-booms.
Republican conservative and moderate legislators, who had expressed dire warnings about the big, beautiful bill, calling it
a “travesty, ““broken,” and “mortgaging our future, “cowed under the pressure of a primary challenge threat, and voted for
their jobs instead of their constituents’ non-billionaire interests. There were some crumbs for the Middle Class, but the
real object was services for food support for families, Medicaid and other health insurance, veterans’ services,
environmental safety and consumer protections. But tax breaks for the most wealthy were the one essential cause. The
Republican budget just put another notch in the income-inequality gunbelt.
We await the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assessing on-site the damage to Iran’s nuclear sites
but, even if it was as overwhelming as Trump declares, our global status as a peace broker is as tarnished as our 7-month
reputation for clear, coherent, disciplined tariff negotiations. Especially measured against Trump’s cancellation of
committed shipments of weapons to Ukraine. The WH deputy press secretary explained, “This decision was made to put America’s
interests first [Iran?] following a DOD review of our nation’s military support and assistance to other countries across the
globe.”
So, a peremptory attack on Iran is justified, but promised military assistance to defend embattled, free-world Ukraine must
be balanced against the interests of nameless other countries, though Trump has insisted that Europe and NATO are not major
“America First” concerns? How can this be seen as anything but a deceptive excuse for capitulation to Putin? This is
happening in plain sight in front of the entire world, and makes a mockery of Trump’s “peace through strength” motto.
Last week in a July 4 celebration in Des Moines, IA, advertised as “a bi-partisan celebration to bring America together,”
Trump choked the stated objective to blackout. He poutily declared that Democrats refused to vote for [the bill] “only
because they hate Trump. But I hate them too, you know?” This sad and artless self-pity is yet another example of Trump’s
wounded psyche which often translates to cruelty.
To wit: Trump visited “Alligator Alcatraz” the new pop-up, swampy, open-air immigrant detention center in the FL Everglades.
Trump gushed about the 8-day construction, located in a High Hurricane Potential Area (which has already flooded), financed
by select donors and some FEMA funds: plastic tents over cages, in a very hot and humid location, surrounded by alligators,
snakes, horrendous mosquitos and other dangers. It’s location makes access extremely difficult for families, lawyers, or
state congressional oversight. Trump whisperer, Laura Loomer, extolled the facility. “Alligator lives matter. The good news
is alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we get started now.” Only the insentient could deny that cruelty
is the point.
Is this who we have become in Trump II? No US Christian or person of conscience can criticize foreign treatment of US
captives, or this administration’s treatment of any of us when we trigger Trump’s personal prejudices, Constitutional
indifference, lust for power, personal demons, or human insensibilities. We have been warned. Repeatedly.
God bless the flood victims in TX.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, CA
To the Editor:
In a lurid manifestation of lack of character and consideration of constituent needs, the Republican House adopted the Senate Budget Bill, which caused some admitted Repo Congressional opponents to snivel that there was “nothing else they could do” because Trump insisted on a completely fabricated signing deadline of July 4. The Republican Congress couldn’t say “no” to the little guy squalling for his aery boom-booms.
Republican conservative and moderate legislators, who had expressed dire warnings about the big, beautiful bill, calling it a “travesty, ““broken,” and “mortgaging our future, “cowed under the pressure of a primary challenge threat, and voted for their jobs instead of their constituents’ non-billionaire interests. There were some crumbs for the Middle Class, but the real object was services for food support for families, Medicaid and other health insurance, veterans’ services, environmental safety and consumer protections. But tax breaks for the most wealthy were the one essential cause. The Republican budget just put another notch in the income-inequality gunbelt.
We await the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assessing on-site the damage to Iran’s nuclear sites but, even if it was as overwhelming as Trump declares, our global status as a peace broker is as tarnished as our 7-month reputation for clear, coherent, disciplined tariff negotiations. Especially measured against Trump’s cancellation of committed shipments of weapons to Ukraine. The WH deputy press secretary explained, “This decision was made to put America’s interests first [Iran?] following a DOD review of our nation’s military support and assistance to other countries across the globe.”
So, a peremptory attack on Iran is justified, but promised military assistance to defend embattled, free-world Ukraine must be balanced against the interests of nameless other countries, though Trump has insisted that Europe and NATO are not major “America First” concerns? How can this be seen as anything but a deceptive excuse for capitulation to Putin? This is happening in plain sight in front of the entire world, and makes a mockery of Trump’s “peace through strength” motto.
Last week in a July 4 celebration in Des Moines, IA, advertised as “a bi-partisan celebration to bring America together,” Trump choked the stated objective to blackout. He poutily declared that Democrats refused to vote for [the bill] “only because they hate Trump. But I hate them too, you know?” This sad and artless self-pity is yet another example of Trump’s wounded psyche which often translates to cruelty.
To wit: Trump visited “Alligator Alcatraz” the new pop-up, swampy, open-air immigrant detention center in the FL Everglades. Trump gushed about the 8-day construction, located in a High Hurricane Potential Area (which has already flooded), financed by select donors and some FEMA funds: plastic tents over cages, in a very hot and humid location, surrounded by alligators, snakes, horrendous mosquitos and other dangers. It’s location makes access extremely difficult for families, lawyers, or state congressional oversight. Trump whisperer, Laura Loomer, extolled the facility. “Alligator lives matter. The good news is alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we get started now.” Only the insentient could deny that cruelty is the point.
Is this who we have become in Trump II? No US Christian or person of conscience can criticize foreign treatment of US captives, or this administration’s treatment of any of us when we trigger Trump’s personal prejudices, Constitutional indifference, lust for power, personal demons, or human insensibilities. We have been warned. Repeatedly.
God bless the flood victims in TX.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
The “world” has not chosen war, Martin. Israel and the US have unilaterally chosen to attack Iran without a verified, imminent provocatory threat, according to international and American intelligence agencies. It’s conceded that Iran is a nation of hateful ill will toward the West, Israel, and non-Muslims, yet Iran, Israel, and the US had been negotiating an agreement to monitor and control Iran’s uranium enrichment for nuclear power (Obama’s agreement which Trump invalidated), when Israel peremptorily attacked Iran. Like Japan’s peremptory attack on Pearl Harbor, a dishonorable chicken-feculent act that the free world despised.
A few days later, the US struck three nuclear sites in Iran, exactly what Trump denied he would do under “America First,” and “No New Wars.” Trump insisted that Iran’s nuclear sites were “completely and fully obliterated.” However, neither American intelligence agencies nor international sources would substantiate that claim without an on-site damage assessment.
Netanyahu pretend-groveled to congratulate Trump on the strikes, saying that, “the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history.” Bibi finally achieved his 30-year dream to involve the US in an attack on Iran. Trump avoids his betrayal of “America First” by accusing protestors of degrading the US military flying the mission. When that foolishness fails, it will be “sedition” to question Trump’s decision. Iran will go quiet for a while, Trump will declare his “military negotiation” a brilliant success but, tragically, this is not over.
When pushed to explain the lead-up to and results of the strikes, Trump II won’t explain and can’t justify his actions, because there was no imminent threat to Israel or the US. But (once again) why a military attack now? How did Trump get so influenced by Bibi? Why not attack Russia, as Putin continues the unfettered rape of Ukraine?
The Senate has adopted Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” It includes spending reductions for people in need, including children (SNAP, and other food support for children and infants), provides massive cuts to Medicaid insurance and hospitals, establishes a 10-year moratorium on state oversight of AI, all but eliminates federal FEMA assistance to states, approves sale of public lands, reverses governmental support for clean water, clean air, and clean energy incentives in favor of new fossil fuel coal subsidies (“Make America 1850 again!”).
To conceal the $5.5 trillion-dollar deficit for the billionaire tax cut (which will soon jeopardize Medicare and Social Security), Republicans will use “current policy” accounting to treat the 2017 Trump I tax cuts, expiring this year, as a base, and not a new MegaBill budget item. This falsely makes the Republican Budget and national debt look far less onerous. The 20-year Senate Parliamentarian’s determination that the Republican accounting method violated Senate Rules was ignored, and Trump called for her firing. Nobody can disagree with Trump.
The House now must now accept the Senate amendments, and they will, to get on a plane to celebrate, ironically, our Declaration of Independence from a King
Republicans have assured their congressionals, “Don’t worry about your constituencies fighting us on this Bill. They’ll get over it.” You have to ask why Republicans are so furiously committed to the welfare of the obscenely wealthy, and willing to do it at the expense millions of ordinary Americans and their families who are falling further into poverty and below Middle Class. It’s as if Republicans legislators believe that their constituents don’t fully understand what is happening or will, in fact, “get over it.”
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
Growing up I remember watching TV commercials which bragged about all the young people getting their first job at McDonalds. It was a pride to the company. Many of those entry level, no skilled jobs taught the young to show up to work on time, deal with the public, take direction, handle money, think on their feet and deal with others in the workforce; all things not taught in schools. What happened? In the 70’s schools began telling students those jobs were below them and they needed to go to college to compete in the job market because they were citizens of the world, not part of the horrible USA. Then a few years later schools handed the elementary students a calculator to do basic arithmetic (addition-subtraction, division-multiplication) the fundamentals of all math and science. The excuse used; computers will be used in the future and it was a waste of their time to teach rote by memory arithmetic. Today, we have people who can not divide even simple 50% or 1/2 of small amounts; they pull out their phone! Ask the directions of north, south, east or west something taught in grammar school years back and humans realized thousands of years ago. Chances are they don’t know those directions, even those doing delivery services. Why is it so hard to find employees that can handle even simple tasks? Answer; our schools. The government hires two or three employees that should be handled and completed by one person. Yes it is that bad.
Three generations of social engineering to replace our citizens in the workforce has people today recognizing something went wrong. After the dumb down, the globalists cried, “We can’t find people with the skills we need for our company. We need more Visas and immigrants”. Then brought in the cheaper labor to fill the workforce. Remember a few years back when companies demanded their employees train their new immigrant replacement? Disney and others were happy to replace our people.
If you even mentioned it as it was happening you were called a bigot, xenophobic, racist, white supremist and all the phobic/fear name tags to shut up the messenger who dared to notice. It’s called indoctrination and social engineering. How many times do you hear “They do jobs Americans won’t do”? The schools at the behest of the Globalist, China and you could probably add the Drug Cartels love our new indentured servant/slave labor class. They will cry, “You’re a racist” to call out the new slaves, yet cry their “lettuce will be $10 a head without them” Sound familiar Kelly Scoles? Then cite the eleitest educated as their source of information.
Try studying The Fall of Rome and others in history and you’ll see what unfettered immigration can do to an empire or country. You wonder why honest history, not revisionist history, is not in our schools today. Instead they put in MeCha to install a feeling of entitlement. They’d get more honesty if told the tooth fairy is real than anything in MeCha. But the kids don’t know or care; they just want to be part of the new gang and act gangster because ghetto/gangster is so cool today.
Why wasn’t Wed. June 18th large illegal drug/marajuana bust in Riverside County Eastern Coachella Valley reported on the news? Over 70 undocumented were arrested. It wasn’t reported because it was run by China using Chinese slave labor. Not the cry the media wants reported. The Chinese compete with the Mexican Drug cartels for control of illegal marijuana fields here in California. There are quite a few of the Chinese controlled growing in Northern California, but the slave labor must be kept hush, hush. There are children, women and men in slavery, but you better not talk about it, because you’ll be called a conspiracy theorist. We need to clean out our schools and the Nonprofits/NGO’s that are working to destroy all of us as they hide behind “We’re here to help”. Why pay attention to the war going on in this country? They tell you the bad guys are over there, focus on that, not the slave indentured servants paying off the Chinese and cartels and sending their booty back home.
Jean McLeod,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
Martin, any attempt at humor is welcome in this troubled world, so don’t be too hard on yourself because this reader missed it. No need to explain yourself; it compromises the ambience.
Your only concern about protests seems to be the identity and cause of the perpetrators, and the financial costs of control. If it’s BLM or a protest for First or Fifth Amendment Rights, you want it instantly quashed by any means available. Forget states’ rights, or the fact that the LA protest originated as a First Amendment exercise, or who actually initiated the violence. This was no “Rodney King” protest. “Insurrection will not be tolerated” in a “trash heap city”, in a blue state, but was tolerated and rewarded when the Trump-induced January 6 mob threatened the Capitol, people died, and Trump consecrated the principle that violence on his behalf is “heroic.” All others are anti-American.
Like Trump, you don’t seem to stand for Constitutional principle so much as for the audacity of any group to challenge your political ideas or engage in violence, even if instigated by military or police. I believe you to be an intelligent man, but from your MAGA perch, you often can’t see the woods for the trees, or the frog in the cooking pot.
We learned from George W. Bush not to engage in regime-change hostilities without a clear and defined Plan “B.” Obama’s self-owned biggest foreign mistake was attacking Libya without a plan for re-stabilization of a nation long under despotic rule. Regime change is a massive, expensive, and long-term undertaking, and Trump has no patience for such commitment. He wants something else from the conflict.
Trump dismissed statements from his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and VP Vance denying that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, an assessment that undercuts the US and Israel’s stated reason for the attacks on Iran. When Trump yanked their chains, these two “brilliant advisors” immediately recanted. SoS Marco Rubio was near-hysterical with Margaret Brennan, insisting that “proof” of Iran’s nuclear capabilities was “irrelevant.”
When VP Vance was later asked by USA Today if we can trust our intelligence community that there was no imminent threat from Iran, a redirected Vance replied that, “we trust [them], but we also trust our instincts.” The report continued, “Trump and Vance just marched America into a potential war because the vibes felt real nuclear-weapon-y?”
What is the point of this attack on Iran for us? Why did Trump betray “America First”? We know that Iran is a very repressive country that makes threats to nearly every other country, especially Israel. They must be taken seriously. But why is it to America’s advantage to destabilize the country now?
Netanyahu has always wanted the US directly involved in this conflict, and now we are. Israel was the military aggressor and Iran retaliated, and we supported the aggressor. While Trump doesn’t really care about Europe, the Middle East, or Asia, except for personal investment purposes, he knows that, historically, most citizens follow their president in a crisis, no matter how contrived. He just needs a crisis to skew the American psyche, and he is expert at creating those.
For an individual who relentlessly warns of imminent WWIII, Martin, you are remarkably bellicose. Like Trump, you appear to believe that a speculative war, based upon deliberate, willful disregard of known, essential intelligence disputing Israel’s nuclear weapon allegations, is a defensible risk of war. You passionately lament threats of international conflicts while defending and endorsing our own.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
Martin, I had to laugh at your finger-wagging defense of “domestic Trump” and objection to my vocabulary. I’m sorry that you were diverted by the use of the word, “feculent,” which I used to avoid a word more vivid that could be considered “cussing” (to which I have resorted on occasion, but rarely in print). If only you were as interested in the core issues, rather than in an accurate description that honored sensibilities, or facts that don’t suit your reactionary bias.
Your spin reflex remains exemplary. However, your belief that LA was about to fall to violent, trained and paid activists, without Trump’s federalization of the National Guard and deployment of Marines, is unsupported by the testimony of people on-scene. The protest was confined to one square mile of LA in an industrial/commercial area, and did not “threaten Los Angeles.” LAPD confirmed that they did not require federal backup.
The core issue: the federal government cannot invade a state, and federalize National Guard troops, without the request of the governor. The exceptions in 70 years, to enforce a SCOTUS decision. In LA, Trump’s troops were not requested.
It was another Trump performance and a test to intimidate governors of other sovereign states. “I will have troops everywhere,” Trump bragged, certain he can provide the provocation.
Both the January 6 DC and LA incidents were orchestrated by Trump. The Proud Boys, Rise Above, Oath Keepers, etc., whose guns had been largely confiscated on the 6th, did in fact come armed to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, with a variety of weapons, including stun guns, baseball bats, pepper spray, and flagpoles, and produced numerous injuries, 5 deaths, and feculent “souvenirs.” Google it.
I look forward to Martin’s take on ICE visits last week to two grammar schools in Fillmore (to draw out parents). As elsewhere, ICE dragnets people instead of enforcing warrants for identified criminals, or the “worst of the worst,” to traumatize people and families who are our neighbors, many in the queue for citizenship.
After backlash, Trump “suddenly realized” that his immigration edict negatively impacts donor farmers, meat packing plants, hospitality workers, and (horrors!) Mar-a-Lago itself. Who knew? Everyone except deportation-crazy Trump. “We can’t do that to our farmers and…hotels,” he said. They’re [undocumented immigrants] not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be, you know, great.” Then he proudly announced that Putin had called him for his birthday. Same guy, Martin, same lies, allegiances, and dizzying reversals.
Some MAGA quarters expressed fury for the betrayal of its slogan, “America First,” in Trump’s endorsement of Israel’s unprovoked attack last week on Iran’s nuclear facilities and military leaders. In a call with reporter Michael Scherer, Trump defended himself saying that he “invented” the term, therefore he alone can decide what it means. In fact, the phrase was “invented” by Nazi-sympathizers before and during WWII. Google it. What you thought Trump meant by “America First”, or anything else, depends on his knowledge level, neediness, and mood. No Kings.
This isn’t about Democratic v. Republican politics. It’s whether the people trust themselves, or want an abusive, self-adulating, logic-deprived, political Pooh-bah to tell them the “facts” as he wants them to be known, false or unreliable as they may be.
The 45-million-dollar military/birthday parade was a yawn.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.
To the editor:
Requiem for a Bromance
Your words made me gaga.
I bought a hat that said MAGA.
You called me Elonia.
I called you Donnytello.
And when you spoke
My knees turned to Jello.
I won your heart by spending a billion.
And ruining the lives of the deep-state cotillion.
I bought you an election
But all I got was a huge rejection,
Now my empire is in ruins
And it’s all your doin’s.
I may be a wino,
But you’re a Big Mac-eating RINO.
Just another ex that I’ll troll forever on X.
Art Sandford Sr.
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
Martin, you are consumed with Ukraine but ignore the growing concerns at home that only Americans can solve. You bifurcate Trump into, 1) a failing foreign affairs president who coddles Putin against our national and free world interests, insults our allies, and can’t make and follow a plan on tariffs, and 2) the president whose “domestic actions speak louder than words for good.”
Last week, the twin megalomaniacs got into a junior-high bitch-slapping match over who was the biggest feculent voice in Trump II. Musk said Trump should be impeached, and Trump tooted that Musk was a “big-time drug user.” This is the same guy to whom Trump handed the government, including Social Security, to make deep cuts before even defining and identifying what comprised “fraud, waste, and abuse” “Trust me,” Trump said. “Only the best people,” he said.
To further his power grab over the other two branches of government, run a test case for SCOTUS, and divert attention from the rabid exchange with Musk, Trump declared an out-of-control “rebellion against the US government,” and federalized and eventually ordered 4000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles to create a chaotic spectacle of a “city out of control,” protesting ICE agents invading businesses and workplaces searching for “possible illegal aliens.” Trump’s incursion made the situation far worse, but that was the point.
No one advocates violent protest, but neither the governor, mayor, nor LAPD, requested assistance, or were consulted, as required for federal military intrusion into a sovereign state. Five EV robot taxis were set on fire on Sunday. Some rocks were thrown after the police fired with painful but non-lethal “bullets.” The arrest count, as of Monday morning, was 56 people, not good, but by no means a “rebellion.”
Trump falsely packaged his LA directives as a Constitutional prerogative reserved to cases of insurrection, invasion, or “rebellion against the government.” Contrary to his reaction to the January 6, 2021, insurrection of the federal Capitol building, in which hundreds were arrested and five people died as a result of the violence against Capitol Police and death threats against the then-Speaker and Trump’s own VP. Those Trump-induced criminals were pardoned by him as “hostages of the state.”
Trump has now endorsed the ICE arrest of “grossly incompetent” Governor Newsom. Most of the National Guard soldiers were never needed to patrol LA but, on Monday, Trump deployed additional military of 700 heavily-armed Marines into LA. A diversion to cover, for instance, a push by Mark Levin and others, for Trump to bomb Iran. The blood lust is no longer under wraps.
The attempted power-grab in Los Angeles is a test case for Trump’s future federal military force, no matter how unfounded the provocation, unless the courts intervene. Trump has bragged that he “will send troops everywhere.” Alarmingly, the House Budget includes legislation forbidding all courts to issue injunctions or TROs without financial deposit, which will make it financially impossible to stop the government from doing whatever it wants.
If Trump succeeds and citizens become afraid to exercise First Amendment rights in reasonably peaceful protests of budget cuts, or other issues, because federal military troops will attack them as a “rebellion” or “disappear” them in defiance of the Constitution, we are lost. Martin, Trump’s domestic actions really do “speak louder than words,” but not “for good.”
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
Martin, you appear more deeply invested in the possibility of WWIII, or defending Trump’s endless lies, than you are in
what we can do in our country to preserve the Constitution as we face powerful changes in the world. You avoid discussion
about House Republican votes endorsing Trump’s plan to control elections, or to dismiss the Courts as an equal branch of
government, but you rhapsodize about Bill Buckley at length. In fact, Buckley and Gore Vidal fully deserved each other. We
can discuss later Buckley’s borrowed caution not to “immanentize the eschaton,“ which laughably made my point about his
condescending bleats.
Jean, I can’t be certain where you get your information, but you and Martin are incorrect that George Floyd died of a
fentanyl overdose. If you Google the subject, you’ll find that the 20-page Medical Examiner’s autopsy of George Floyd
concluded that his death was a “homicide,” caused by “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual,
restraint, and neck compression.” Why is it important to you hold Floyd responsible?
In Trump’s eyes, his wins are always “huge,” “massive,” or “mandates,” while his losses are due to “cheating”, “fake news,”
or “persecution.” The following are final Federal Elections Commission (FEC) official popular vote percentages, for
comparison to 2024:
2024 Trump beat Harris by 1.5% (49.80% to 48.32%).
2008 Obama beat Romney by 1.4%;
2012 Obama beat McCain by 7.3%;
2016, Trump won the electoral college, but Clinton beat him in the popular vote by 2.1%;
2020 Biden beat Trump by 4.4%.
1984 Reagan beat Mondale by 22.2%, a true “massive” blowout and mandate.
Trump has never had a mandate but, somehow, some in MAGA choose to believe what is unsupported by the facts. He lies,
except when he wants to slip something by us, and then he tells a truth so outlandish that some insist it’s a joke. “I will
be a dictator on day one.” MAGA laughed at the hyperbole. Oh, sorry. He said “only” on day one, and that was the lie.
On Memorial Day, Trump gave a startling, smarmy speech about ultimate military sacrifice, he who has called them “suckers
and losers,” and has asked, “what was in it for them?” Once again, he launched another self-pitying monolog on his “stolen
2020 election” (the courts, including SCOTUS, disagreed), and referred to former President Joe Biden as a “decrepit
corpse.” It was an insult to veterans on a day of honor, a pointless and cruel invective of a former president, a
steroidal version of a teenaged Mean Girl masking some personal wound or insecurity by traumatizing others.
Trump has no purpose to unite the country for our common good. He has no intention of respecting our Constitution. His
objective, like so many dictators over time, is to be the sole source of Law, Policy, or Fact, colloquially known as a
“dictator.”
We are beyond politics and are, instead, facing the real chance that mere assertions of authority will be fact, that lies
are truth, that ludicrous ideas are worthy of impassioned defense because they come from Trump, and that we will self-
immolate our 250-year-old Constitutional Republic. Benjamin Franklin said, “We have delivered you a Republic, if you can
keep it.” Post-WWII Russia always said that America would destroy itself from within.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
In a world that seems to grow more cruel as we demand that we are a Christian nation, another horrifying story hit the news. A 30-year-old woman was declared brain dead.
Her partner, her parents, and her 5-year-old son, cannot mourn her. They cannot put her in her grave. Instead, they go to the hospital to visit her, every day, to listen to the whooshing sounds of machinery that force her lungs to take in and expel oxygen. While her body lies still in a cold and sterile room.
On the day blood clots in the brain took this woman’s life, the fetus growing inside her was less than an inch long. The size of an olive. The fetus is also in trouble. Examination reveals that water is accumulating on the brain. The prognosis is poor while it continues to develop in the body of a dead woman.
If we let nature let it take its course, the way God designed it, this fetus would have died shortly after the mother. Instead, cruel laws in her home state require this horror to continue until the fetus dies, or until the 32-week mark—for a total of 23 -weeks, nearly six-months trapped in a dead woman’s womb— when the doctors can surgically remove it. The family will be forced by the government to go to that bedside, where this woman lies dead. With mounting bills, for care that none of them chose. With what is, at best, a scary future for a baby, if it survives. Unable to let go of the woman they love, not by choice but by governmental edict.
How is there room for the government in that small, cold, crowded room? How does the government have a voice in what’s happening there? When, somehow, there is no room for the government when it comes to decisions about whether a domestic abuser, someone who has shown themselves to be violent and potentially deadly, to have a gun?
For those who think this is God’s will? You need to be introduced to the teachings of Christ—about mercy and compassion and about love over law.
Pat Collins,
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
Martin, your Editorial last week was astounding. I wish I could address each point, but there are daily Trumpian affronts to democracy, and I have space to address but a few.
I lament your boredom with budget proposals because when they are adopted, while not law, they are a blueprint for appropriations that will affect us all. You’re uninterested until proposals are already adopted (as with P2025), to avoid seeing it coming. Exactly the attitude needed to founder a democracy.
I could again explain the situation with Medicare and Social Security, but why? The facts are available everywhere except on Fox. Not interested enough to follow it? In time, the facts may find you. Unrelated, but “whataboutism” is an adolescent’s defense and yours about Biden are ridiculous. Countless hours of rabid Republican accusations and hearings provided no presidential criminal issue, except as against Hunter Biden who was not president.
I was precipitous last week. As of this writing, the highlight of the jet debacle is still Trump’s pouty demand for a used “Flying Palace” that was discarded by the Emir of Qatar because he couldn’t unload it elsewhere. Trump argues that AG Pam Bondi approved the “gift.” Fun fact: between Trump terms, Bondi was Qutar’s paid lobbyist in DC. Whatever the outcome, Trump reveals himself again as a petulant child who didn’t get what he wanted for Christmas.
Face it, Trump got rolled twice by China on tariffs. He didn’t score well even with an old ally, the EU, because he has previously and gratuitously insulted them. Someday, it will be acknowledged that tariffs were a Trump vanity project, wherein the “great negotiator” was managed by China, and in the Ukrainian war by Russia.
The conservative WSJ reports that the House Republicans pushed Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” forward on Sunday night that will not reduce federal budget deficits, because it renews tax cuts for the wealthy. The bill slashes Medicaid, strips medical and disease research, health care for millions, and reduces SNAP. It establishes “hard-core GOP priorities” of P2025, including opening public lands to aggressive logging, drilling, and mining and decimating EPA (Clean Air, Clean Water, etc.). It shuts down the Department of Education and consumer protections, and severely curtails FEMA.
Walmart has said it will raise prices to pay for Trump’s tariffs, and Trump ordered them to “eat the tariffs,” just as he did to Amazon and Mattel. Fat chance Trump would “eat” a loss, but they must. These companies are realistic. As their costs predictably rise because of the Trump tariffs, their prices to consumers will rise, too. But Trump promised prices wouldn’t rise. Either he doesn’t understand tariffs, or he lied and no one can call him on it. Or both.
To be fair, there are some “fun ideas” emanating from the WH. ICE Barbie Kristi Noem is developing a “great concept,” a TV “reality show” that pitches illegal immigrants against each other for expedited citizenship! In San Francisco, immigrants would go down into a mine to collect the most gold! In Hayward, WI, they’d struggle to keep their balance on logs! At Cape Canaveral, contestants would rush to build and launch a rocket! And, “Americans would learn to treasure their citizenship.”
An administration of carny barkers, top to bottom.
Kelly Scoles
Fillmore, Ca.