To the Editor of the Fillmore Gazette,
I am writing to advocate for the County of Ventura to take control of the Fillmore Western Railway and reinvigorate the train museum in Fillmore. The current state of the railway, particularly the dilapidated railroad bridge crossing the Sespe Creek, is a significant concern that requires immediate attention.
The Fillmore Western Railway is not just a mode of transportation but a vital piece of our history. It played a crucial role in the settlement and development of Ventura County, and as such, it deserves to be preserved and celebrated. By taking control of the railway, the county can ensure that this historical asset is maintained properly and utilized to its full potential.
Reinvigorating the train museum and offering regular train tours and events can bring substantial revenue to our cities and county. These activities will attract tourists, history enthusiasts, and families, providing a unique and educational experience while boosting the local economy. Moreover, preserving and showcasing our railway heritage can instill a sense of pride in our community and ensure that future generations understand and appreciate the historical significance of the Fillmore Western Railway.
I urge the county officials to recognize the importance of this issue and take the necessary steps to restore and maintain this invaluable part of our history. Investing in the Fillmore Western Railway and the train museum is not just about preserving the past but also about creating a vibrant future for our community.
Sincerely,
Justin Gruetzmacher,
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
This LTTE concerns only the majority opinion in Trump v. US, important because it is the most significant SCOTUS decision since Dodds and Bush v. Gore. Next week, the minority dissent. I hope to get to other significant SCOTUS decisions this term. I’m afraid this is necessarily a little academic, but not as bad as if I were a constitutional law scholar.
It is noteworthy that both Justices Thomas and Alito, both whose conduct raises serious issues of impartiality, participated in the decision with no objection by CJ Roberts. The 94-page decision made no attempt at public clarity, leaves a trail of undefined terms, and sends the mess back to Judge Chutkan to solve.Then, SCOTUS will decide if she’s right or wrong in guessing what they really mean. Here is one link: 23-939_e2pg.pdf (supremecourt.gov).
The “Immunity Decision” significantly increased the power of the Chief Executive, (consistent with Project 2025 of the Republican Heritage Foundation). The holding in Trump v. US is that a president operates with immunity from prosecution depending on whether the conduct is deemed “official” or “unofficial.” Core “official” constitutional conduct (e.g., acting as Commander-in-Chief) has absolute immunity. Other “official conduct” (communicating with heads of state) has “presumptive immunity,” meaning that unless the government establishes that the prosecution will not create a danger of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch and “official” conduct, the president is immune. “Unofficial conduct” is not immune from prosecution, with caveats.
So, a former president is presumed immune from criminal liability while in office unless the prosecutor can prove that the president’s criminal act was purely “unofficial conduct” and: the proof of criminality requires no showing of mens rea, or motive, or does not rely on conduct tied to “official acts,” wherein he is immune.
A slight crack in the marble is all we have to hold him accountable. He is the only American citizen to be “above the law.” That is not what the Constitution intended, especially to an “originalist.”
Only ex-president Trump has required labelling of his conduct and parsing language to save him from criminal liability. No other ex-president has been accused of trying to overthrow the government, was convicted by juries of two frauds, liable for sexual assault, and is forever sniveling that he is being victimized as “no president has ever before” (apologies to Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy). He insists that none of it is due to his aberrant conduct. It’s someone else’s fault, always.
Martin, you assert that Trump is being persecuted and is innocent because he says so. He needs people like you to trust him, no matter that experience and glaring facts prove he is a chronic liar, cruel about others, the epitome of self-congratulation and -aggrandizement, and a child when it comes to accountability. You need him to prove that your passion for authoritarianism in life, politics, and “Old-Testament Christianity” is valid, even if contrary to the Constitution.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
Last week’s political and legal events were cautionary. In substance, the Presidential Debate was a contest between two elderly candidates for president, one who was overprepped and did not do a good job explaining his administration’s accomplishments on behalf of ordinary Americans, and a surprisingly semi-disciplined ex-president who unsurprisingly lied at every turn, who felt it necessary to insist he “did not have sex with a porn star (a unanimous jury found otherwise), who insisted on debating golf handicaps, and who must have gotten to the makeup tray first so there was little left for Joe. At Biden’s rally the next day when he vowed to do better, one could only wish that guy had shown up the night before.
While half the Democratic operatives lost their cookies the rest of us, while very surprised and unhappy with our candidate’s performance, know that debates are not a hard basis for success, and a lot is going to happen between now and November 5.
Some of the Democratic political class, busy wilting like violets, probably didn’t tune into Fox (and should occasionally) when Shannon Bream said, “He [Biden] had one bad night. He was sick. You know, it’s ancient history.” It is noteworthy that Biden did not offer any excuses, unlike Mr. Trump who always whines whenever he doesn’t like the outcome.
What is far more concerning are the decisions from SCOTUS this term. There is no way to describe each of them in just this LTTE because of length, but they have the potential to change America in a way that is not supportive of the rights of individual citizens. They are nearly all in favor of the government, and the “have’s” as opposed to the “have-nots.”
Every one of them is consistent with Project 2025, the Republican blueprint for remaking the government so that only the president, and his political operatives, will control the functioning of the government for a “one man rule,” also known as a dictatorship. Moreover, this SCOTUS is making itself central to even Congressional legislative authority. Checks and balances are quickly being eroded. This is not the America we have known. I will go through some of those cases next week, and then on to Project 2025.
On Monday morning SCOTUS, which has deliberately and strategically dragged its feet since December 2023 on the case US v. Trump, found that a president’s core actions and official actions (without defining them) are immune from criminal prosecution. Be aware that, unless you believe you have committed a crime, you do not need such an accommodation. No other president in 250 years has asked for or needed such protection, but Trump is the exception to that rule because of his criminal conduct and obvious disdain for the Constitution.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
The end of the constitutional right of women to choose abortion was Trump’s orchestrated plan and he revels in it despite reports of tragic consequences. The three Trump SCOTUS appointees swore in confirmation hearings that they would respect “stare decisis” (recognition and respect for established law) if confirmed. But In Dodds v. Jackson, they reneged and overturned Roe v. Wade, because “abortion” was not mentioned in the Constitution. One can only assume they lied to Congress, a federal crime. The Constitution also does not mention “woman.”
This LTTE is not about Inquisition Catholic Justice Sam Alito, the freak flags, and all his lies about them, indicating at the very least an appearance of conflict of interest, for which even the scant ethics rules of the Court call for recusal, and which Alito refuses to honor.
This is not even about Justice Thomas’ acceptance, over the years, of $4.2 million from billionaire Harlan Crow. Or his word-game majority opinion that a “bump stock” is not a machine gun, though it leaves the trigger finger in place so that gun’s recoil continues to hammer the trigger and the rapid-fire deadly results are the same.
It’s about Republican SCOTUS adherence to a concept of “originalism” or “strict constructionism,” which holds that only specifically mentioned rights in the Constitution can be applied to cases before SCOTUS, and that the words of the framers must be read as they would have understood them at the time, with one glaring exception. An honest “originalist” could not now read the Second Amendment to allow civilian use of an AK-15 with bump stock when all the framers knew as “guns” were blunderbusses and flintlocks.
The framers also wrote the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to that Constitution identifying individual rights the government cannot annul. They expected coming generations of SCOTUS to be intelligent enough to relate the framework established by the Constitution to their future reality and rule consistent with its basic objectives. The Republican SCOTUS, and certainly Thomas, is adjudicating back to the 1700’s. The framers would have been embarrassed that 2024 “originalists” still apply their era-conventional cultural ignorance.
Justice Barrett, herself an “originalist,” nevertheless criticized Thomas for his increasing reliance on “law office history books,” and his “highly selective frolic through the archives” in last term’s Samia v. U.S. She also chastised Thomas for his argument for “originalism” as if it were a dispositive mandate in the Constitution when, in fact, it is not mentioned.
In U.S. v. Rahimi, Thomas was the sole dissenting vote to allow a violent domestic abuser to have a gun. For Thomas, the strictest, albeit incorrect “originalist” application of the Second Amendment prevails over common sense. Besides, in the framers’ era, it was legal to beat your wife.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
As a retired teacher, I was very happy to learn that the Fillmore graduates had visited their former grade schools and middle school to thank their teachers. It was a lovely thing for them to do. Teachers will never know how many lives they influenced. Some possibly saved. It is rare but wonderful to hear from a former student who expresses appreciation for what we did. Teachers have great power. They have the power to make or break a kid’s day; they have the power to make or break a kid’s life. May they always use the power well.
Mary Ford,
Fillmore Ca.
To the Editor:
Some humorous events from last week. Dr. Phil ‘s love-fest interview with Trump was one instance. Those two were beneath each other’s outer layer of clothing before the lights came on. What a hoot!
Dr. Phil, a lapsed psychologist and former part-time jury selection consultant, claimed he “knows how courts work.” Phil insisted that President Biden can stop the states of GA and FL from prosecuting Trump for alleged crimes. Under the constitutional concept of “states’ rights” the federal government does not control state judiciary processes.
In a contest between two overstuffed narcissists, Phil lectured Trump on the danger of “retribution,” and declared before the credits rolled that, based upon his arguments, Trump would consider foregoing reprisals. Fat chance. Just a couple of old carny barkers hawking their goods on teevee. Phil shamed himself when he gave no pushback to Trump’s criticism of Oprah, who made Phil’s career.
Also, Judge Merchan felt bound to report a post from a purported cousin of one of the election interference jurors that he knew the verdict the day before it was announced. After a couple of MAGA hours of wailing and rending of garments, a self-proclaimed “professional shitposter” admitted his handiwork as an effort to “cause the biggest reaction with the least effort.” Easy to do with conspiracy theorists.
Our ex-president mused whether Taylor Swift is “legitimately liberal” or just pretending to be. In an excerpt from a book, “Bad Blood,” Trump declared, “I find her very beautiful…I think she’s very beautiful, actually - unusually beautiful!” Give it a rest already.
Also amusing, Ericka Andersen’s article in the conservative publication, “The Federalist,” argued that mega-star and national treasure Dolly Parton should prove her Christianity by condemning homosexuality as a sin. “Parton’s version of love, which includes condoning immoral sexual behavior (‘be who you are,’ she’s said), is unaligned with God’s vision for humanity.”
The swift and tumultuous backlash caused her to retract. Andersen admitted on Saturday that the near-universal response made it clear she had unwisely used Parton in her argument. “Dolly is one of the few people who is beloved by all and who loves all. The world is lucky to have her.”
So apparently, Dolly gets a moral pass on this issue because she is so beloved and loves everyone [despite their sexuality]. All that love. Sounds like she is exactly Christ’s “vision for humanity.” Too bad there are so few like her.
Kelly Scoles
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
I was astonished to learn this week that the Ventura County Board of Supervisors has tentatively voted to close both the ICU Department and Birthing Center at Santa Paula Hospital. The cited reasons are that closing these departments may save $5 million in the 2024-2025 Ventura County Budget.
I have read that the county budget is slated to be 2.86 BILLION dollars and that there is a Ventura County budget reserve of 170 MILLION. And while I understand the need for county departments to pay for themselves as much as possible, I also believe there are some public safety services that must be maintained for health equity, and the common good of all in our county. Are there no other places in this mammoth 2024-2025 budget that can be scaled down? I join with others in asking Supervisors La Vere, Gorell, Lopez, and Parvin to reconsider and vote to ensure that ICU and Birthing hospital access at Santa Paula Hospital remains an essential county priority. An overflow of patients to other hospitals, caused by these budget cuts, may indeed affect life in many county boundaries.
The cities of Santa Paula, Fillmore and the Neighborhood of Piru now include over 50,000 people and several convalescent homes. What are the odds that some of these folks may need the immediate care of an ICU? In an emergency, ambulance services generally take patients to the nearest hospital. If patients need to be transferred, many insurances may not pay the $1000 transfer cost. Sometimes transfers can take hours. There may be times when the ICU’s at VCMC, Community, and St. John’s are all full. What then?
While those in critical condition and expectant mothers in Piru may try to avoid the 45 minute drive to Ventura County Medical Center, and make their way to Henry Mayo Hospital, that facility, located in Los Angeles County, will often charge those from Ventura County a substantial “out of county” surplus fee. Closing our closest ICU when we are living in an active earthquake zone, near accident prone Highway 126, and in a somewhat violent society, means that some taxpayers/voters/children may be harmed permanently, and some may die, waiting for medical care that once was available.
We need at least 2 county supervisors and our Supervisor Kelly Long’s votes to overturn the tentative budget vote and keep these hospital departments open. The budget will be finalized by vote at the June 17 8:30am meeting of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors. All concerned may either appear to speak at this meeting, or call each supervisor at their numbers listed below. The emails of the supervisors are listed as well, but many believe our concerned voices may speak louder than more written words right now. At this time, there is also a petition that has a reported 1000 signatures.
Thank you in advance for helping to remind our supervisors of their need to view the county in its entirety and avoid the closing of The Birthing Center and the ICU at Santa Paula Hospital. A vote to close these rural hospital departments on which so many depend would not only be a relatively small and unacceptable cut, but an unconscionable way to trim an almost $3 BILLION 2024 Ventura County Budget.
Supervisor Matt La Vere - 805 654 2703 - Matt.LaVere@ventura.org
Supervisor Jeff Gorell - 805 214-2510 - supervisorgorelle@ventura.org
Supervisor Kelly Long - 805 654-2276 - Kelly.Long@ventura.org
Supervisor Vianey Lopez - 805 654-2613 - Vianey.Lopez@ventura.org
Supervisor Janice S. Parvin - 805 955-2300 - Supervisor.Parvin@ventura.org
Respectfully,
Mrs. Susan Jolley
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
No one should gloat over the 34-count felony guilty verdict in the Trump election fraud case. It’s tragic for our country. A former president has now been found liable for sexual assault and fraud, and guilty of conspiracy to defraud voters in a general election. I doubt the rest of the world sees us as “The Shining City on a Hill” when this ill-tempered man with no control over his appetites, or care for honor, who hates half the country’s population, is a candidate to have his hand on the nuclear codes.
Trump daily heralded his innocence of all charges, and condemned our justice system because it had the audacity to hold him accountable. Law is for others. He insulted the judge, the jury, even his own legal counsel. He claimed he was prevented from testifying under the gag order, a lie, and later complained (as usual) that he had been prevented from taking the stand. Trump whined that the prosecution did not call witnesses who could have absolved him, though Trump’s attorneys had the right to call any witnesses but chose only two. Following the verdict, Trump claimed that the jury was “unfair,” because it was not comprised of only his voters. The eternal victim, who can’t tell the truth, can’t stop abusing others, and shows disdain for the Constitution and Judeo-Christian values, Martin. And yet, he meets your standards.
Please provide your source that Judge Cannon “discovered” the FBI intended to use lethal force at Mar-a-Lago. The FBI scheduled the execution of the search warrant for a time when the Trumps were not at home, to avoid confrontation. You are alleging non-existent “facts.”
“Biden stole official documents,” though he demonstrated full cooperation by identifying their presence, alerting the FBI, and being searched under warrant? Trump claimed phantom “permission” to have highly classified national defense documents in his personal possession, claimed he had declassified them just by thinking, and when challenged on his authority, moved them from place to place to avoid detection in an obstruction of justice, then showed them to others not authorized to view them. What you are asserting is provably untrue.
It is not your business or constitutional right in a free society to determine what my child or grandchild chooses to read or what medical attention they need, or what an adult woman does with her body. You forever criticize God’s creation if it involves sexuality you don’t understand. You make a mockery of the “freedom” you say you are advocating. You really mean freedoms as you and your like-minded approve. “Conservative values” means that personal choices absolutely are not the concern of “small government.”
We fought those wars for the Constitutional rights of all citizens, Martin, not for any particular religious beliefs. Many patriotic Muslims, Native Americans, and atheists, have lost their lives in battles for America.
Not a whiff of projection in my last paragraph a week ago, Martin. However, there were multiple Trumpian quotations that are chillingly similar to those used in Nazi Germany.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
MAGA wants Trump to be the leader of the free world, a man who will tell any lie to advance his personal objective, simper and whine about being called out legally on his actions and knows that his plan for political chaos in search of anti-democratic authoritarianism, lodged in his tiny hands, has an eager clientele. Examples are legion.
In his perpetual efforts to instill distrust, victimization, and chaos into American life, Trump made the laughably false conspiracy claim that the search warrant for illegally hiding national security documents at Mar-a-Lago“ authorized Trump’s assassination. "Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger," he said. “Biden's DOJ was authorized to shoot me!" Fox went bonkers.
In fact, the warrant language limiting the use of weapons to defending against a “threat of deadly force” is standard in all FBI warrants and was also part of the paperwork in the search warrant at Biden’s home in DE. Trump and his minions reacted with frenzied hysteria to the fallacious accusation. When their accusations became amusing, they moved on to the next fabrication.
Contrary to his whining assertions of danger, Trump is now before SCOTUS arguing that a president should have absolute immunity to order the death of a rival so that Biden, under Trump’s reasoning, would be within his presidential rights “to kill Donald Trump.” Either Trump and Fox are not bright enough to see the dilemma, or they know that they can say anything to the base to fire them up. Logic, consistency, and truth being optional.
It is as clear as a stamp on the forehead, Trump plans to remake the government in the image of authoritarianism and abandon the Constitution when it becomes inconvenient for him. Remove the right to choose religion or none, reproductive bodily rights including contraception, what your child can read, who you can love, whether you are the right race to vote, whether your child’s right to life is less important than civilian military gun ownership. These things will affect you.
In his continuing disclosure of who he really is and what he plans for our country, Trump reposted on Truth Social a reference to the benefits of “the Reich.” He has rendered non-White immigrants as “vermin” who are “poisoning the blood” of our nation, language used in Nazi Germany to describe the non-Aryan Jews. Trump has said that he and Kim Jong Un “fell in love… He is a very strong guy. He is the absolute leader of his country.” People listen but many don’t hear or understand. Or care.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca
To the Editor:
Martin, your arguments against the Gaza Palestinians surviving at all is really an argument that their humanity is irrelevant because they follow the “wrong God.” For Israel, the Palestinian Wars are religious wars of entitlement masquerading as political conflict.
Israel is entitled to defend itself, and October 7 was a grotesque terrorist act by Palestinian Hamas. The taking of civilian hostages is a war crime. But the explicit Netanyahu response is that all Muslims in Gaza must die. Israel herded civilian Gazans to Rafah and now propose to slaughter them there, Hamas or not. To object is not to be “pro-Palestinian” and certainly not “pro-Hamas,” or anti-Israel. It is to recognize that civilian persons of whatever origin are being targeted for famine and death. It too is a war crime.
If you look at maps of the area since 1947, you will see a systematic occupation and annexation of most of what was Palestine into an ever-expanding Israel. Many Israeli Jews believe that the country belongs to them by right because: they occupied it first, over 1400 years ago before the Jewish Diaspora to Europe, and Judaeo-Christian roots and the Holocaust genocide entitle them as “the chosen people” to the Biblical land of Judah, exclusively and in perpetuity. No matter that Muslim Palestinians have occupied the land for 1400 years since then.
I urge you to go to this site to consider the views of one Jew on the current situation. https://www.transcend.org/tms/2024/05/the-shoah/
I have been following the Trump Election Fraud trial in NYC. The issue is whether the payment, made from Trump’s personal funds and labeled “legal expenses” to avoid identification as hush money payments, violated NY law as a campaign contribution to influence the outcome of the 2016 general election. I wouldn’t guess at the verdict.
But we got a first-hand glimpse of some of the people with whom Trump surrounds himself. Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen in Trump mob-speak revealing how he covered for Trump’s consistent avoidance of responsibility for his many transgressions, David Pecker’s “catch and kill journalism,” the Greek Chorus of Republican congressional sycophants condemning our justice system on Trump’s behalf, and the number of convicted persons in his circle, many working his 2024 reelection campaign.
The sad surprise is that so many people in our country, many of whom claim high, religiously inspired behavioral standards for themselves and prepare to impose them on us all, excuse and even celebrate the immoral and unethical underbelly of TrumpWorld.
Nearly all the people I know say they believe that integrity, respect, honesty, and honor matter in relationships. That standards of decency should instruct behavior. That scumbag conduct is not admirable. Some of them are MAGA. I wonder how they process TrumpWorld as the future of our country.
Kelly Scoles
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
Clean up from last week. It is a common practice to target a people with uniformly negative characteristics, as you did the Palestinians, to make it easier to treat their humanity as non-existent or irrelevant and is racist. As it is anti-Semitic to scorn “all Jews.” Like the “simian” Irish were viewed two centuries ago.
I emphatically did not equate the Holocaust with Gaza. I said that a people who have experienced the horror of being targeted for extinction might be expected to be sympathetic to the annihilation fears of others, but many Israelis have always felt entitled to Netanyahu’s policies of apartheid or genocide against Palestinians. Just as the European whites did in South Africa, the English in Ireland. As we did with the Native Americans. Invade someone else’s country and blame them when they resist.
Trump could have entirely avoided last week’s testimony of Stormy Daniels in the NY election fraud case if he had just stipulated to the obvious “affair.” But he insisted that the $130K event never occurred, he is an innocent family man (“I did nothing wrong”), so Ms. Daniels’ testimony was needed to establish the reason for the “hush money” payment.
Ms. Daniels, however, was able to describe the contents of his Dopp kit, his anatomy, his silk pajamas, and a spanking. The failures of his defense counsel to enter objections to the sometimes-salacious details did further damage. After the “Access Hollywood” tape, his presumption of innocence in this regard is extinct. Fox knows (Trump is a “sex god”), his entire family including Melania knows, MAGA knows and, if he had a dog, it would know, too.
At a bizarre, vulgarity-filled rally in Wildwood NJ last weekend, Trump referred to migrants as “people from insane asylums and mental institutions,” riffed in mob-speak on “the late, great” Hannibal Lecter of “Silence of the Lambs” (1991), “a wonderful man” who “often times had a friend for dinner.” He falsely claimed again that his 2017 tax cuts resulted in more revenues to the government - when they in fact grew the deficit - and promised even more cuts. He also declared that offshore windmills were killing not just “all the birds,” but also slaughtering whales, though he did not clarify how the animals manage to swim through air.
Trump’s former “fixer,” Michael Cohen, took the stand on Monday and testified that his boss originally wanted to drag out the hush money payment to Daniels. “Just get past the election,” Trump told him. “I win, it has no relevance because I’m president, and if I lose, I don’t really care.” So much for his tender concern for Melania.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
The apparently obscure “Ginny-skunk” remark referred to the legal stink of Clarence Thomas in not recusing himself from the Trump Immunity case even though his wife, “Ginny,” was prominently involved in election denial and the insurrection on January 6. Still, you raised some lengthy but important points.
I agree that the Republican House disgraced our country and itself in delaying aid, perhaps fatally, to Ukraine. That was not President Biden’s doing. Only Congress can authorize funding. You are consistently and deliberately myopic on this issue.
It is not within the authority of state-supported schools to treat religion as anything but an academic or cultural consideration. If a student must have religion incorporated into the curriculum, (s)he can choose to go to a religious school. Constitutionally, the government cannot be in the business of promoting religious beliefs per se.
Students have the right to non-violently confront the issues of their day. Leaving aside the non-student racist agitators, at Columbia University the protest is against the school’s holding stock in companies that are profiting from the Israeli war to abolish Gaza. To censure the government of Israel’s 75-year national policy of apartheid is not anti-Semitic, and is not necessarily “”pro-Palestinian,” but to blame all Jews everywhere for Israel’s genocidal acts in Gaza is anti-Semitic. The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, was evil and what Israel is doing to the civilian population of Gaza is likewise despicable. Their mutual, decades-long intransigence is placing the world, including the futures of those students, at risk.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel was fighting “human animals” in Gaza and “cut off electricity, supplies of water, medicine, [and] food,” in breach of Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949). Intentional starvation of civilians is a war crime. President Biden has called for ceasefire and humanitarian assistance for Gaza but is understandably unwilling to abandon Israel to Iran.
Both Israelis and Palestinians have invoked “From the river [Jordan] to the sea” for their purposes. Since “al-Nakba” in 1948, approximately 700,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their homeland to accommodate Diaspora Jews after the Holocaust, resulting over time in an Israeli apartheid. When Palestinians demanded at least freedom and equality, as Black South Africans demanded from their White counterparts, it was always rejected. In fact, Netanyahu’s Likud Party platform (1977) says, “The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable… between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” That is not a “defensive” posture.
Netanyahu, most Israelis, and some Jews believe that they are sanctioned to commit any act of war and cruelty necessary to secure Palestine as Israel. Hamas is a result of that arrogance. I don’t know from Joshua, but incredibly imperious Netanyahu demands that we in the West support Israel, no matter what they choose to do in Gaza or anywhere else. But the Holocaust, as horrendous as it was, did not dispense to Israel the moral or historical right to deny Palestinians their freedom in that country and to perpetrate atrocities on their Arab neighbors. And not everyone believes it is our responsibility to enable it.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
How did we as a country get to this place? By not paying attention and letting it happen! For three generations we have let the far left sink their cancer into our schools, nonprofits, media, sports and entertainment. Yes, the far left has pushed just about all of it with their hands out to just about every enemy of this country, but many in the Republican Party just let it happen by the lazy but acceptable response of going along to get along. We did not send them there to make friends and get wealthy, we sent them there to represent us and they have failed.
Today the cleanup is a challenge that we may or may not succeed in. It will take strength in our leaders and our people to demand we clean out our schools, the many corrupt nonprofits and the cancerous DC swamp!!!
Take the time to learn who is pulling the strings on the social engineering and indoctrination of our youth. Starting with how the money gets passed around and how the organizing efforts accomplish the various riots and protests. One nonprofit is called A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). Quite a catchy name wouldn't you say. All the leftist cancers have warm and benign names. A.N.S.W.E.R received its 501C3 nonprofit status one day after the attack on 9-11-01. It is an anti-Israel, pro-Palestine org. with a goal of destroying western culture. It has US chapters in Albuquerque, Boston, Chicago, Connecticut, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, NY City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Syracuse. Along with other North and South American countries.
How does such a nonprofit get funded? They have powerful people and corporations including our own government, think CIA and a Color Revolution movement. But there are also for-profit corporations such as Arabella Advisors, founded in 2005.
According to Wikipedia it is a "Washington DC consulting company that advises left-leaning donors and nonprofits about where to give money and serves as the hub of a politically liberal 'dark money' network." Arabella partners the donors with a COUPLED 501c3, which requires a bit more transparency, and a 501c4 or Political action committee that can push political policies. Yet the money flows back and forth BETWEEN THE TWO and no one's the wiser!!!
How did BLM and the university rioters get all those resources within hours?
Through many of the nonprofits, which are also facilitating the invasion at the border.
While you are focused on the latest MSM shiny object, like taking Trump to court, Ukraine, Israel-Hamas, homeless etc. your fellow citizens are being socially engineered to ignore who's pulling the strings and spreading the disease of Marxism with a goal of making the population dependent on the government and it owns you. You want free housing, free food, not having to work and not having to be responsible for yourself? Go live in a prison, you'll have all that, just give up your freedom. Recognize what you are giving up and you might just want to keep your freedom.
Jean McLeod
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
Last week, SCOTUS heard arguments on presidential immunity. No president before Trump has sunk so low as to demand a radical revision of the authority of the American presidency to include absolute immunity for acts committed during his presidency. The only fun to be had was to watch conservative SCOTUS abandon their “Originalist” playlist for purely political motives, and watch Clarence Thomas pretend he wasn’t the Ginny-skunk at the party.
Denying the liberal minority’s attempts to stick to the facts of the pleadings, the conservative majority was instead consumed with a kaleidoscope of hypotheticals. If a future unknown president were to order the assassination of a political rival, or initiate a military coup, or sell nuclear secrets to a foreign nation, should he be immune from criminal prosecution? “It depends,” was defendant’s answer.
Consumed with lurid “what if’s,” conservative SCOTUS ignored the real issue: whether Trump’s planning, urging, and incitement of the insurrectionists before and on January 6 to intimidate VP Pence and Congress to bend to his will and interfere with a congressional election duty (as well as creation of phony slates of MAGA electors in several states), is entitled to presidential immunity under the Constitution. They toyed instead with a new Constitutional test: whether a president was acting in his “official” concern for the nation or his own “private” interests in, hypothetically, assassinating a political rival. It didn’t occur to conservative SCOTUS that an immune president would not be criminally constrained from targeting them.
Trump also argued that if he were not declared immune, before being criminally prosecuted, he would first have had to be impeached and convicted in Congress, an impossibility since he is no longer president. Contrarily, Trump insisted during the January 6 impeachment process that post-presidency criminal prosecution - and not impeachment - was the only remedy for his high crimes. Now, Trump needs an “alternate truth,” but surely even this SCOTUS won’t masticate that cow pie.
Political affairs analyst David Rothkopf said, “the court is leaning toward creating new immunity protections for a president….We’re watching the Constitution be rewritten in front of our eyes.”
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on authoritarians, fascism, and democracy observed, “the idea of having immunity for a military coup [be] taken seriously…is a big victory in the information war that MAGA and allies wage alongside legal battles. Authoritarians specialize in normalizing extreme ideas and involves giving them a respected platform.”
How are we at a point where SCOTUS will consider and debate presidential impunity for a military coup or assassination of a political rival? Do you hear the whisper of “banana republic”?
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
I had planned to address, in similar word count, most of the apologies for Trump and arguments against Biden, but recognized it will have no effect on the people who are most invested. There is one obvious thing that the author does not realize. Republicans hawk small government while they - in fact - strive to increase corporate rights, all the while diminishing people’s personal rights (women’s reproductive rights, what can be read and taught in schools, whose parental rights will be honored, who you can love, and what they think God wants them to impose on you despite the Bill of Rights), and Republicans have regularly lapped it up. The two examples of success in inhabiting government to control and shrink it happened only in the French and Russian Revolutions.
Different presidents have different policies; it’s why we have elections. If their vision for the future conflicts with a given SCOTUS, presidents will try to pass legislation or rely on executive orders. Or find another way. It’s not “lawless,” it’s finding ways to effectuate policy when a particular SCOTUS does not agree with you. Sometimes, success.
President Biden is attempting to lift a lifetime financial burden of student debt and stimulate the economy by enabling young people to buy a house, a car, and care for their children, not a significant concern of the Judicial Branch. He is trying to make the foot fit the shoe. I hope he succeeds.
The time to confront January 6 will come unless a Republican wins and pardons Trump. It is not within First Amendment rights to yell Fire!” in a crowd or solicit and encourage a mob to subvert a constitutional process by obstructing the rights of American citizens to have their votes counted. The courts have denied MAGA complaints of significant fraud, and future courts will, I hope, determine the extent to which Trump exceeded his First Amendment rights.
Governmental attempts to prevent social media from repeating lies regarding public health issues is a worthy cause requiring constitutional scrutiny and consideration before the Courts. But note, MAGA accepts if not applauds Trump’s threats of “dictatorship,” “retribution,” and “bloodbath,” or threats to jail and even execute people who exercise their First Amendment rights against him. If you think he’s “kidding,” I have some history books for you.
Since conclusions are not argument, I decline to address final assertions of Trump’s “virtues.” Instead, is time to review “Project 2025”, a Republican “blueprint” for the first year of Trump’s “next term as president” prepared by the Heritage Foundation. It plans for the Executive Branch to assume control over Civil Service and the DOJ and FBI, legislation to impose military law on American citizens, and a host of other MAGA dreams to redefine our government and society. It may explain to the author the Democratic concerns of the future of our constitutional republic under MAGA.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
It’s important in the conversation regarding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to set forth the history of its creation.
The British controlled Palestine in 1948 and they, in turn, carved out what is currently known as Israel to be the home for the jews after WWII. The jews were an unwanted class at the end of the war, as neither USA, England, France or other allied countries, would grant them asylum.
As is evident today, the countries surrounding Israel refused to acknowledge their existence. In the early 1970's, backed by Russia, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on Yom Kippur. In turn, President Nixon supplied Israel with arms. In response, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) reduced oil shipments to the US. Price for oil rose from $3 per barrel to $12. Even after the war ended OAPEC didn’t lift the embargo until March 1974, causing an international energy crises.
In the mid-1970's Washington embraced environmentalism by redefining our relationship to our sources of energy and passed the Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act and creating the Department of Energy. A movement began to stimulate domestic oil production and looking at solar, wind or nuclear power as alternative sources. In addition, the SPR was enacted to safeguard our independency on others for our supply or combat price inflations. The SPR has a storage capacity of 1 billion barrels.
The president is the lead on withdrawals and Congress approves the purchase to refill. When Trump took office price of oil was $52. The SPR had held 695 million barrels. Trump attempted to refill the SPR at a time when capacity was approximately 635 million barrels and the cost per barrel was $24, but Congress wouldn’t approve the purchase. Senate Democrats took credit for the decision stating it was a “bailout” for the oil industry. When Trump left office there was approximately 639 million barrels on hand.
Even though there wasn’t a supply disruption, in November 2021, Biden released 50 million barrels to pressure OPEC to increase production, and act which failed.
Due to Venezuelan’s lack of cooperation dealing with counterterrorism and anti-narcotics efforts, in 2006, the US imposed various sanctions on Venezuelan government, one being blocking oil imports from that country. Trump tightened those sanctions in hopes it would help oust President Maduro. Democrats argue these sanctions have caused the rapid rise of Venezuelan’s to cross our border.
In late 2022, Biden eased sanctions to allow Chevron to resume operations in Venezuela, ignoring the many oil spills which occurred in 2021. Today Biden indicates he may “reimpose” sanctions due to Maduro’s failure to allow “an inclusive and competitive election” to be held. In addition, the easing of the sanctions hasn’t changed the living conditions of most Venezuelans.
In the hope to stabilize oil prices, Biden released an additional 30 million barrels due to the Ukraine war.
During his first two and a half years in office, Biden sold off more than 40 percent of the SPR, bringing it down to 291 million barrels, its lowest level in 40 years. He announced he’d replenish the SPR when the prices fell to $67-$72 a barrel. To date he has purchased 26 million barrels of oil from private companies at an average cost of $76 per barrel. Today the price per barrel is $85. I mean, what a bargain!
Next week Title IX..
Patti Walker
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
Democracy, according to Merriam-Webster is: a) government by the people, especially the rule of the majority, and b) a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.
Biden and the Democrat party strongly believe, and voice, that in the event Trump becomes the next president, he will be a “threat to Democracy”. They base their beliefs on the premise he fueled the January 6 actions of his supporters. He has yet to be found guilty of any charge pertaining to Jan 6. Constitution scholars believe the entire Jan 6 case is based upon comments Trump made in an attempt to overturn the election, thereby, actually, the case is based on the First Amendment and Trump’s rights to say whatever he wishes, even lie. Research fails to point out any other action Trump has done that threatens democracy.
As Biden cautions voters to not vote for Trump, as he is a threat, he continues to fail to enforce the immigration laws, laws he swore to uphold when he’s taken the oath of office in his 50 plus years. It’s true changes in the law need to be addressed, but that does not give him the power to not comply with them.
Biden flipped the finger at the US Supreme Court and decided to move ahead with student loan forgiveness. He actually acknowledged he didn’t have the right to enact his order but will do so until sued, again.
Biden violated the First Amendment rights of various social media companies, and yours, by directing them to censor and suppress American’s free speech. An order to stay his administration from communicating with those companies remains until the Supreme Court makes their determination on the case.
Biden continued to violate his oath of office when he announced his second eviction moratorium during the pandemic, right after he was told the first attempt exceeded his existing statutory authority. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was more honest, saying, “...a huge victory for the power of direct action and not taking no for an answer." Not taking no for an answer from the Supreme Court is lawlessness.
By December 2021, the courts struck out against his administration seven times. Biden, nor those in his administration, can’t unilaterally overturn or subvert laws passed by Congress. Yet Schumer and other democrats won’t move to impeach or penalize those who do. So while Biden and others want to normalize the idea presidents can regurgitate unconstitutional executive actions so long as he has positive polling is no longer a good argument.
Just ask yourself a few questions as they relate to Trump. Did he weaken the powers of Congress? No. Did he damage our system of shared power between the federal government and the states? No. Or did he weaken the judiciary? No. Or weaken the press? No. And lastly, was Trump able to exert control over the civil service? No.
Under Trump the democratic system withstood his four years in office. I don’t believe the same can be said of Biden.
Next week let’s discuss the strategic petroleum reserve. Have a good week everyone.
Patti Walker
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
“The Trial of the Century,” the 1995 prosecution in Los Angeles of OJ Simpson for the brutal murders of Nicole Brown, his ex-wife, and friend Ron Goldman, was televised daily with nightly summaries. I watched every available moment (a common compulsion of law school graduates who don’t practice law).
I and everyone else thought the case would be a slam-dunk. The prosecution was assigned to two DA deputies: Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden. Judge Lance Ito, at first very judicial, soon surrendered to the cameras.
The “dream team” defense lawyers were Johnnie Cochran, Robert Kardashian, F. Lee Bailey, Alan Dershowitz, and Robert Shapiro. And Barry Scheck, now of the Innocence Project, presented the defense to the prosecution’s blood evidence (of which there was a lot). The blood evidence was the most damning. Or seemed so.
Weeks of evidence of bloody shoes and gloves, blood samples, the science of blood evidence, and rules for preservation of evidence, were presented. But when the prosecution rested and the defense began, cracks appeared in the prosecution’s conduct of the case.
Testimony revealed that blood samples from OJ and the victims were carried in police pockets from crime scene to scene, a blood sample was left open on an investigator’s desk, both significant errors in the chain of evidentiary custody. OJ’s bloody socks, not on the floor the day after the crime, suddenly appeared in a video taken a week later. The chief investigator, Mark Fuhrman, seized evidence in OJ’s home without a search warrant, and falsely said he had never used the “N” word. Unbelievably, the prosecution sought to definitively prove the bloody (and now dried) glove fit the defendant over a protective vinyl glove, a foolish prosecutorial error.
By the time the defense rested, I thought the jury would find OJ Not Guilty (even without the well-known prior racial misconduct of the LAPD). I would have voted the same way, knowing in my heart he had done the crime, but recognizing that the prosecution had not met its difficult burden of proof. There were too many prosecutorial errors, failures in evidentiary custody, mishandling of the essential blood evidence, impeachment of key witnesses, too little probable cause or lack of warrants for searches and, of course, “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” Criminal guilt requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt and to a certainty. OJ was later found liable in a civil suit where the burden of proof is “more likely than not.”
The same prosecutorial burden of proof exists for Trump in his upcoming criminal trials. We will soon discover if that burden is met.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
Economists and the government use the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to see the status of the overall economy of the US. The CPI tracks the cost for food, housing, clothing, healthcare and various other items. What it doesn’t follow is when you have to buy less expensive items because of the higher cost of goods. So in the past you may have purchased name brand bread and now, since it’s too expensive, you’ve downgraded to the store brand. Yet the CPI assumes you’re still buying the same amount of the expensive bread.
The problem was inflation came into our every day lives in 2021. Treasury Secretary Yellen and Biden said inflation was “transitory”. Recognizing that was an illusion, in March 2022 the Federal Reserve was required to raise interest rates to stave off a recession. They’ve done so 11 times.
There are many reasons inflation is gripping us. The supply chain problems as a result of the pandemic caused a shift in demand for various items. Then the lockdowns in China who satisfies our demands for those items. Of course the pandemic relief funds doled out by both Trump ($2 trillion) and Biden ($3 trillion) play a part.
In 2022 Congress signed Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). It was touted to have a huge impact on the economy. Actually the spending and tax changes it covers have not been a significant factor in reducing inflation. As Biden even admitted the bill didn’t have anything to do with reducing inflation, it was “... the single-largest investment in climate change ...”. In fact, the IRA is filled with tax incentives paid out to corporations, ignoring market-based capitalism.
Federal debt is subtracting spending from revenue (tax collections). If the revenue exceeds spending you have a surplus. If spending exceeds revenue you get a deficit. Just because there’s a smaller deficit doesn’t mean the debt shrunk, it only means the debt grows slower than it did before. With a federal revenue of $4.7 trillion, and the interest rate of 6.41% we’ve got a long way to go to balance the federal budget.
In his State of the Union address in March Biden said, “We’ve already cut the federal deficit by over $1 trillion." But the debt continues to rise under Biden. In 2021 the debt stood below $27.8 trillion, now it’s $34.4 trillion.
Next week let’s discuss the threat to democracy.
Patti Walker
Fillmore, Ca.
To the Editor:
I returned from a visit in NoCal to find to find that the MAGA candidate for president had been deified (“The Crucifixion of Donald Trump,” and “The Chosen One send by God”), and had embarked on a new, more supernatural gig than selling Trump steaks and vodka, gold hightops, and “Victory 47” perfume topped with a golden “T” (imitating Christ’s humility).
This time, a $60 Trump-endorsed leatherette King James Bible. The recent question of why we need lawyers (in a nation of laws) is answered in that an ex-president charged with 80-odd felony counts for acts forbidden in the Ten Commandments and elsewhere in the Good Book, and incidentally in the criminal code, is compelled to hawk these trinkets to pay lawyers to keep him out of jail. Perhaps a little less carny barker and a little more legal curiosity would have inured to his benefit.
Trump has refashioned his constituency into a congregation, convincing them of his quasi-messianic mission, increasing his use of dehumanizing (“they’re animals”) and darkly apocalyptic language. If he is not re-elected, he warns, the Democrats will have cheated (regardless of the facts) and we will experience an “Oppenheimer”-like doomsday; we will lose World War III and America will be devastated by “weapons, the likes of which nobody has ever seen before,” language wallowing in fear, doom, threat, and violence.
In your editorial last week, Martin, you blamed the current administration for “abandoning Ukraine in the middle of the fight….We lack effective leadership at a time when nuclear war is imminent.” The Democratic proposal to aid Ukraine has been on the table for months. The Republican House refuses to pass it. One political Party wants to support Ukraine, and ultimately the free world, against Russia. The other openly admires Russia and Putin, Orban and Erdogan, and believes in America First (and only). Someone the caliber of Margie Green is the foreign affairs mouth of the Republican House. Yet, you blame the Democrats.
One Party wants to invest in improved border control/funding and one doesn’t (until after the next election). The Republican House repeatedly turns on each other in a frenzied zero-sum political purity game which has halted legislative solutions and resulted in the abdication of several disgusted Republican legislators. And still, you blame the Democrats.
“I cannot write about a happy future when all I see ahead is confusion, chaos, and war.” Much of that confusion, chaos, and fear is engendered by Trump to arouse vulnerability to his message of “I alone can do it.” The guy can really sell stuff to some people.
Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.