Letter to the Editor

“Trump: Americans who died in war are Losers & Suckers”,  9/3/20 article in The Atlantic, written by journalist & editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, landed like a grenade, effecting much damage.  “The president has repeatedly disparaged the intelligence of service-members, and asked that wounded veterans be kept out of military parades, multiple sources told The Atlantic. When Trump cancelled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed the rain for not attending with all the other leaders present.  Trump asked, “Why should I go to that cemetery?  It’s filled with losers.”  Trump later referred to the more than 1800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.   America & its allies stopped the German advance toward Paris there in the spring of 1918.  Trump asked, “who were the good guys in this war?”  He stated he didn’t “understand why the U.S. would intervene on the side of the allies.”  See the article; read it for yourself.

Joe Biden rebuked these comments as “Damnable”, and said, “this has shaken many military families to hear these statements from the Commander-in-Chief, as undeserving as he is of that position!”  Biden stated, “Trump should humbly apologize to all the Gold-star mothers & fathers and the Blue-star families”.  Biden said his “son, Beau, volunteered & joined the U.S. military & went to Iraq.   Biden angrily denounced Trump’s characterizations saying, “My son was NOT a Sucker, and those who served with him and who didn’t come back were NOT Suckers!”  He continued, “No president has ever talked about our service men & woman that way!  And if that’s how you feel about our veterans, you have NO business being President of the United States of America!”  Research what Joe & Jill Biden have done for military-members & vets.  Vote for this respectable military family.   Trump doesn’t understand service to our country.  He’s also disparaged Vietnam vets for being “too dumb” to get out of service, like he did.  He doesn’t understand why our soldiers try to recover injured & dead fellow-soldiers.  He finds maimed veterans repulsive!  He believes the captured & missing-in-action soldiers performed poorly & deserved what they got.  He became furious at the flag-flying at half-staff, after John McCain’s passing, angrily stating, “we’re not going to support that loser’s funeral!”   This is Trump’s Waterloo/Swift-boat event.  VOTE VETS aired a televised ad-response on 9/4/20.    Only YOU, the voter, can fix this foul fiasco!

Trish Forsyth Voss

Do you feel safer under Donald Trump’s leadership?  There has been a dramatic spike in homicides this year across our nation; 89 percent increase in Minneapolis, 105 percent in Milwaukee, Jacksonville, Miami & Phoenix; there’s been over 505 murders in Chicago this year.  Domestic violence & property attacks have increased.  There is a civil breakdown in our country.  Shootings of civilians by police officers are up.  The Washington Post reports: “1026 people have been shot & killed by police in the past year”; 36 percent Blacks, though they comprise only about 13 percent of our population.  Recent high-profile incidents of Blacks killed or maimed, at the hands, knees or guns of police officers, have spurred protests & demands for criminal & social justice; we are facing a racial reckoning.  Breonna Taylor’s MURDER — Unforgivable!

In Kenosha, WI, on 8/23/20, an officer shot 29-year-old, unarmed, Jacob Blake, in the back 7 times; he;s paralyzed, yet lives.  Protests in the days since the shooting, we’ve seen arson, several businesses burned, and the Wisconsin national guard employed to extinguish the flames.  There have been arrests of far-Right anarchists in Kenosha, in Portland, and elsewhere, for setting blazes and inciting violence.  There have been instances of rioting & looting, but who are the culprits?  Kyle Rittenhouse, 17-year-old militia-member, traveled from Illinois to Kenosha, with his mother; attended the 8/25 protest, where he killed 2 people, taking another’s arm with his AR-15.  He was arrested 8/26 & charged with Intentional Homicide, yet Trump defended the vigilante on 8/31.  Trump took his divisive fear-narrative to Kenosha on 9/1, even though both the mayor and Wisconsin governor, Tony Evers, asked him NOT to come.  Kenosha was holding a community festival, seeking to heal their wounds; they do NOT need more division & angst instigated there.   Trump said he was “going to create enthusiasm for law enforcement”, touting his bogus Law & Order campaign, actually a thinly-veiled provocation for a race-war.   Some people hoped that Trump would try to unify the community, but how is that possible?  Trump’s only campaign ploy is to try to blame Blacks & Democrats for the civil unrest, though he has stoked this chaos & violence.  Trump is giving permission to all the white-extremists & Bugaloo-Boys to create Helter-Skelter.   He warns of ‘bad times’ under a Biden presidency, and speaks of “dark shadows”, but this carnage, economic disaster, and Covid-19 spiking in many states is Trump’s America.  Over 6.1 million cases, close to 200,000 deaths by week’s end.  AWAKEN!

Trish Forsyth Voss

Other troubling events facing our nation now: the transformation of once fringe-conspiracy-group QAnon, to its becoming a major player in far-Right politics and culture. Marjorie Taylor Greene just won the primary for Georgia’s 14th Congressional district, against a candidate who ran as “all of the conservative, none of the embarrassment”.  Trump tweeted, after her victory, praising her as “a real winner — a future Republican star'”.  She’s expected to win this fall and head to the House of Representatives.  She’s blatantly QAnon, and “there’s another 20 candidates for Congress, who will appear on General Election ballots, who have either identified themselves as believers in QAnon or have given credence to its dogma.”  THEY’VE INFECTED THE GOP, and Republicans are loathe to denounce them!    At a White House briefing, on 8/19/20, a reporter summed up the conspiracy theory that revolves around a false narrative that president Trump is leading a secret, government-led charge against pedophiles, cannibals and Satanic-worshipers, asking Trump about this, he responded, “Is that supposed to be a bad thing?  If I can help, I’m willing to put myself out there.  I’ve heard that these people who love our country …. that they like me very much, which I appreciate”.

QAnon first appeared 2017, on anonymous online message boards, with its crazy claims; by 2019 the FBI identified it as a “domestic-terrorist threat”.  At least 2 murders, attempted murders, attempted arson, kidnappings, countless threats…. these are the fruits of QAnon.   “The Prophecies of Q:  It is a movement united in mass rejection of reason, objectivity and other Enlightenment values.  And we are likely closer to the beginning of its story than the end.  The group harnesses paranoia to fervent hope and a deep sense of belonging.  The way it breathes life into an ancient preoccupation with end-times is also radically new.  To look at QAnon is to see, not just a conspiracy theory, but the birth of a new religion”, from Adrienne LeFrance  (June 2020 issue).  Instead of denouncing this conspiracy as dangerous, scary, crazy …. Trump, of course, uses this to his own advantage, at our peril.  He’s previously retweeted posts from QAnon.   Facebook removed 900 groups, 100 pages, 1500 ads related to QAnon on 8/19/20, and imposed restrictions on 10,000 Instagram accounts.  “After calling neo-Nazis & white supremacists in Charlottesville ‘fine people’ and tear-gassing peaceful protesters following the murder of George Floyd, Donald Trump just sought to legitimize a conspiracy theory that the FBI” warned us about, said Biden spokesman, Andrew Bates.  DESPICABLE!

Trish Forsyth Voss

Our Postal Service is NOW under major attack by Donald Trump, who on 6/15/20 inserted a donor-friend, Louis DeJoy, to head it up.  DeJoy, announced a massive reorganization of USPS on 8/7/20, displacing 23 experienced postal executives, and cutting services.  Many expensive mail-sorting machines were recently removed from postal-centers, mail-collection boxes eliminated in several swing states.  DeJoy has suspended overtime pay for postal-workers, some are vociferating on the slowdown.  USPS is extremely important in our lives, providing a critical resource.  Veterans & many elderly receive their medications via mail.  Some paying bills by mail have received fees for late payments.   Look up: 18 U.S. CODES: 595 & 1701, and U.S. Code 10307.   President Trump is against funding USPS, which has delivered mail through most disasters, but they didn’t see this one coming, from within.  Trump was asked on 8/17, if he’d told the Post Office to slow down the mail; he responded, “No, I told them to speed it up”.  Only days before, he’d proclaimed the Democrats could NOT have their Universal-Mail-in-Vote initiative, deeming it too risky; but when drivers licenses, passports, birth certificates, prescriptions, tax refunds, Social Security, pension & stimulus checks can be safely mailed, so can ballots.

Political mail has always been treated as protected First Class mail, but under new rules & practices, election mail (ballots) can now be treated as recyclable bulk mail.   Democrat lawmakers have called for an investigation of DeJoy’s “weakening the agency’s ability” to process, timely, millions of mail-in ballots, amidst an impending second wave of  Covid-19 pandemic.  (The P.O. handles over a billion Christmas cards & pkgs annually; they can handle a couple million ballots during election-season.)   Louis Dejoy, called to appear before a House Oversight Committee session on 8/24/20, now announces he’s suspending the changes until post-election, but that date stated that he will NOT reinstall the mail-sorting machines!  USPS is a government SERVICE, a Constitutional piece of our infrastructure, not a for-profit business.  (Our Army & Dept. of Agriculture don’t turn a profit!)   “In 2006, the Republican-led Congress passed legislation forcing it to prepay its health-benefits for future retirees DECADES in advance.”  Republicans consistently seek to circumvent, corrupt or privatize most government services.   “In 1753, Benjamin Franklin, who had been postmaster of Philadelphia, became one of two joint postmasters general for the colonies.  Franklin was appointed Postmaster General in 1775.”    We MUST SAVE our Postal Service!   Donald Trump, worried about his poll-numbers, is already trying to finagle & convolute the 2020 presidential election, at least to ‘muddy-up’ the results.  Democrats need to vote EARLY, so early votes can be tabulated by election day, making Trump less able to claim a victory & create more chaos.

Trish Forsyth Voss

Poor people need help NOW!  30 million jobless Americans need to pay their rent & feed their families.  The negotiation process between Dems & Trump proxies broke down, mostly because ‘tea-partier’ Meadows “doesn’t want to get to Yes”.   The ‘great deal-maker Trump’ obviously instructed Manuchin & Meadows not to forge a deal with Schumer & Pelosi, so Trump could make a big show of signing four Executive Orders, which are all Scams & Lies, more FAKE promises!  Republicans want to give another $250 billion tax-break to rich donors, another $28 billion for the military, and legal immunity for corporations that hire workers in unsafe conditions.   The wealthy & greedy have made $755 billion in this pandemic; Republicans already gave $2 trillion to corporations, in the first 3 Care-Acts.   30 billion workers lost Unemployment Insurance benefits.  Millions more lost healthcare; 87 million were already uninsured or under-insured.  This pandemic shows the fallacy of having our citizenries’ healthcare tied to their employment.  WE NEED MEDICARE FOR ALL!   As the millions of Covid-19 infections rise ever higher, more than 170,000 deaths in the U.S, the commandment comes from ‘on high’ to “REOPEN EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY”.  Americans need affordable access to decent healthcare, and states need funding for safe elections!

People are hungry, out of work, getting evicted amidst a pandemic!  Money and the uber-rich is the focus of Republicans.  McConnell actually said, “Let the states go bankrupt!”  When Pelosi was asked about why the negotiations had stalled, she said, “You’re mistaking ‘THEM’ for somebody who gives a damn about alot of these things”.   Trump shifted his attention to seeking to whitewash the Census, ending the counting a month early!  Under-counting & under-representing minorities only serves the purpose of Republicans.  Are we truly a multi-racial democracy?  Bishop William Barber said, “If ‘THEY’ stay in office, they will continue to oppress & abuse us”.   Meanwhile, our intelligence agencies have warned us that Russia is running programs to attack & undermine Biden, while seeking to help Trump stay in office, because that serves Putin’s geo-political interests!  Trump keeps yammering on his favorite subjects: “a rigged election”, how we can’t trust mail-in ballots, “incorrect & fraudulent ballots received, some sent to deceased persons & pets”, Dems are election-meddling, the Chinese-virus, stock market is rebounding soon, Covid is diminishing & will suddenly disappear, his wall is being built & will be finished soon, the “Blue states” are not run well & hence he doesn’t want to give THEM financial assistance.

Trish Forsyth Voss

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, assembled a task-force in March 2020, and allegedly produced a plan for “an aggressive, coordinated-COVID-19 response to bring the pandemic under control” in the U.S.  Kushner’s team included a former college roommate & a group of young business associates; they teamed-up with several top experts from the diagnostic-testing industry.  They shared information through WhatsApp  messages.  “They emerged with a detailed-plan, obtained by Vanity Fair.  The plan was to set-up a system of national oversight  & coordination to surge supplies, allocate test-kits, lift regulatory & contractual roadblocks and establish a widespread virus-surveillance system by the fall, to help pinpoint subsequent outbreaks; and to be presented to president Trump and announced in the Rose Garden in early April.   No nationally-coordinated testing strategy was ever announced, and we see the human & economic cost of doing nothing.”

Jared, also in March, ordered 3.5 million Chinese-made, diagnostic-testing kits for Covid-19, which were delivered to the United Arab Emirates embassy in Washington.  Jared bi-passed regular government ordering processes, so there’s a problem in paying for them.  The cost was $52 million, and oh yeah, the tests didn’t work; “they were contaminated & unusable”.  A White House staffer said, “improper procurement of supplies is a serious deal”.   The U.S. continues to suffer the worst outbreak in the developed world.  Back to Jared’s group; they didn’t coordinate with Health & Human Services; they “operated within their own bubble” and “their efforts ran into shifting sentiments at the White House”.  Trump was downplaying the virus & spreading misinformation regarding it.  Trump’s mindset was that more testing would only show more infected people and that would be bad publicity for him, bad for his re-election bid.  Meanwhile, ‘scarf-lady’, “Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House Coronavirus-response-coordinator was reportedly showing models to senior staff that optimistically & erroneously predicted the virus would fade away.  The prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor.”  One of Kushner’s team expressed, “because the virus had hit Blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would NOT make sense politically”.  They callously calculated the virus would take its toll on states governed by Democrats, “they could blame those governors and THAT would be an effective political strategy”.   Trump would use those deaths to his political advantage!   BLATANTLY OUTRAGEOUS, RUTHLESS INEPTITUDE!   Trump announced on April 27: a testing plan through Quest Diagnostics and Lab Corp, but leaving the testing-problem up to the hard-hit states.   EPIC FAIL!

Trish Forsyth Voss

Trump announced his plans for withdrawing nearly 12,000 U.S. troops from Germany, which is a blow to our own interests, but a repositioning that satisfies his friend Vladimir Putin.  Trump said regarding U.S. troops, “They’re there to protect Germany, right? And Germany is supposed to pay for it.  Germany’s not paying for it.  We don’t want to be the suckers anymore.  The U.S. has been taken advantage of for 25 years, both on trade and on the military. So we’re reducing the force because they’re not paying their bills.”  Some like his tough talk, but how tough is he, to be Putin’s puppet?  Trump admitted on 7/29 to Axios on HBO, that he had not confronted Putin with the intelligence suggesting Russia was paying Taliban fighters bounties for killing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan; “I never discussed it with him”.  How tough is that?  After numerous phone calls with Putin?  Trump said they discussed nuclear proliferation.  Tough on crime, tough on allies, soft on Putin, and other autocrats!

Allies agreed in 2014 to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense by 2024.  “Germany is a steadfast NATO ally  & 3rd largest contributor to its budget”, said Emily Haber, the German ambassador to Washington. (Trump mandated a cap of 25,000 U.S. troops in Germany.)  So, since Germany’s been paying 1.5 percent, not the full 2 percent GDP on defense, a mix of Army & Air Force units, 5400 troops will be withdrawn, moving European Command, EUCOM headquarters, 3 brigade-sized headquarters, an air defense artillery battalion & an engineering battalion to Belgium (which spends less than 1 percent of its GDP on defense), and moving 2 smaller support & contracting organizations and an F-16 fighter squadron to Italy (which pays 1.2 percent of its GDP on defense).  Rep. Senator Mitt Romney called the plan, “a grave error and a gift to Russia”.  Robert Menendez, Dem on Senate foreign relations committee said, “champagne must be flowing freely this evening at the Kremlin; withdrawing forces from Germany is an affront to one of our closest allies, and ultimately weakens U.S. efforts to counter Kremlin aggression in Europe”.  Defense officials said the move would begin within weeks, though it could take years to complete, and would cost billions of dollars, as new military construction will likely be required both in Europe, and in the U.S. to house the 6400 troops returning to the U.S. for rotational deployments.  Obviously, the plan could be reversed should Trump lose the election in November 2020.

Trish Forsyth Voss

As we engage in a heightened struggle for civil rights today, we bid farewell to two great civil rights leaders: C.T. Vivian and John Lewis, who recently passed over.  In their passing we must commit to make “good trouble” and take the fight onward & upward.  Frederick Douglass said, “Advocate, advocate, advocate; Power concedes nothing without a demand”.  It’s time to rename the Edmund Pettus (KKK Grand-Dragon) bridge to: John Lewis bridge, in Selma, Alabama, where Lewis suffered a concussion at the hands of a militarized police force, beating the peaceful protesters marching across that bridge in 1965.   Today we see, in Portland, Oregon, unidentified storm-troopers, “POLICE” emblazoned on their desert camo, accosting peaceful protesters, committing unreasonable search & seizures, basically kidnapping people, not reading them Miranda rights, tossing them in unmarked vans, some released days later.  One such young man was shot in the head with a supposedly “nonlethal” bullet; he suffered a fractured skull, concussion, and underwent facial surgery, but survived.  Portland’s mayor & governor asked the troops to leave Oregon, asked president Trump to remove the federal paramilitary troops he deployed, stating their presence was unnecessary & unwanted.    So as ‘Freedom fighters’, in 2020, take to the streets, to make “good trouble” we again face brutal police forces, one big difference being: the peaceful protesters are NOT mainly Blacks!

Asheville, North Carolina’s city council passed an historic resolution on July 14, 2020, “approving Reparations for Black residents”.  The measure passed unanimously, 7-0, and is not payments to individuals, but a commitment to provide funding to promote minority home ownership, minority business ownership, career opportunities, strategies to grow equity & generational wealth, close gaps in healthcare, education, employment & wages; and apologized for their role in slavery, discrimination & denial of basic liberties to Black residents, and voted to provide reparations to their descendants.  “Hundreds of years of Black blood spilled that basically fills the cup we drink from today; it is simply NOT enough to remove statues.  Black people in this country are dealing with issues that are systemic in nature”, said Councilman Keith Young.  Councilman, Vijay Kapoor, who supported the measure for moral and practical reasons: data shows large disparities between African Americans & other Asheville residents; Kapoor said, “We don’t want to be held back by these gaps, we want everyone to be successful”.  More cities & communities will follow their lead, with organizations, churches, corporations, universities joining this moral imperative!

Trish Forsyth Voss

Before Trump committed one of his most recent firestorms by commuting the sentence of cohort Roger Stone, William P Barr, Attorney General at Dept of Justice, forced Geoffrey Berman to resign as U.S Attorney prosecutor for Southern District of New York (SDNY) — to clear the way for Trump to install a political ally to the powerful Manhattan prosecutor’s office.  Barr offered Berman two positions, which he refused, telling Barr that there were several important investigations he wanted to see through to completion.  Nevertheless, Barr announced Berman was stepping down.  Trump wanted to appoint Craig Carpenito, to oversee the N.Y. office in an acting capacity in the interim.  Carpenito lacked the experience necessary for the position.  Berman was a widely-respected prosecutor.  Barr supposedly conceded to keep Berman’s deputy, Audrey Strauss, on as acting U.S Attorney until a successor could be confirmed.    Berman had brought forth several high-profile cases that involved Trump associates, the Michael Cohen case, and still pending cases for Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman, and Rudy Giuliani.  Berman, a Republican, gave closed-door testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on 7/9/20, detailing his firing; Dems released a full transcript of the testimony.   Republicans in the House refuted the Democrat narrative, releasing their own annotated-version of the hearing.  They predictably defended Trump & Barr, and denigrated Democrats.

Barr furthered his vandalism of the courts on 7/10/20, when “he changed the leadership of the Brooklyn’s U.S. Attorney’s office.  Barr named U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue head of the Justice department’s Eastern district of New York (EDNY) office, to serve under him as principal associate deputy Attorney General.  Donoghue is replacing Seth D. Ducharme, who will assume Donoghue’s former job at the Brooklyn-based office as acting U.S. Attorney.”  These changes occur to further blunt  investigative  proceedings involving Trump associates.   And remember that on 1/30/20, Barr named Timothy Shea, one of his closet advisors, to be top prosecutor in D.C, the largest U.S. Attorney’s office in the country, “the office responsible for some of the most significant and politically-sensitive cases the Justice Dept brings”.  Shea was Barr’s right-hand man, in visiting the Metropolitan Correctional Center after Jeffrey Epstein’s death, working with Barr to manage the crises & investigation, and helped institute reforms.  Shea replaced Jessie K. Liu, who was ousted for a more malleable lackey.   The system is broken and run by mobsters, Russian-backed ‘Americans’.   This is the constitutional-crises we feared; now Barr can bring Trumped-up charges against Trump’s perceived enemies.

Trish Forsyth Voss

Riding the night-mare!  Most of us wake each day to the overwhelming, ongoing, recurring nightmare of the Trump presidency, Covid-19 pandemic with increasing infections & deaths, people who don’t seem to care or refuse to believe any facts due to fake news stations spewing alternative info, economic woes, too many of our neighbors existing below the poverty-level, with little or no-access to healthcare, rampant drug abuse and untreated mental issues, living in a police state, and the resulting social unrest stemming from all of the above.  (Gladly, I haven’t heard of any school-shootings in the last few months.)  Senator Chris Murphy tweeted on 6/28/20:  “Our President is openly working to help a deadly virus spread that has killed 120,000.  Russia is putting bounties on the heads of American soldiers and he seems ok with it. He’s distributing white-power videos.  And that’s just the last 48 HOURS!”  That’s a day in the life of America.  Trump was trying again last week, in court, to take healthcare away from 20 million of us…. in the midst of a pandemic that is requiring hospitalization for many.   Steve Schmidt tweeted on 6/29/20:  “Afghan warlords are on the hunt for their treasure.  All it takes is a dead American soldier to receive it from their Russian patrons.  What is America’s faithless & treacherous President @realDonaldTrump doing about it?  He is tweeting about the name of Orange County’s airport.”  And:  “Americans are being hunted & have been marked for death by Putin & Russian intel.  The president knows this but does nothing.  It is a singular & astounding betrayal.  Trump shames us!”

The White House spokespersons, showing their total disregard for truth-telling, said that Trump was not briefed on such intel.   ‘Treasonist-in-chief’ denied being briefed on that subject.  Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president, said, “Patriotism means to stand by the country.  It does not mean to stand by the President.”  Meanwhile,  Mississippi voted to remove their state flag, which contained the image of the Confederate flag in it’s upper left corner.  Symbols of ‘Treason & Racism’  are being stricken as protesters endure.    A new day is coming to America!   No more “pigment over principle, color over conscience”.   Jay-Z Shawn Carter rapped,  “in the land of the free, where the blacks enslaved, 3/5 of a man, I believe is the phrase”, reminds us of the talk of freedom, the reality of servitude.  Black bodies have long been the warring ground on which America has been built.  ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

Trish Forsyth Voss