Every week with Donald is meaner that the week before!  On Easter Sunday, President Trump tweeted, “NO MORE DACA DEALS!” and made more threats regarding NAFTA, trade agreements with Mexico and Canada.   Why is “The Donald” tweet-ranting that hordes of immigrants are pouring into our country from Mexico to “take advantage of DACA” — when that statement is entirely INCORRECT?   Fact: DACA concerns only those immigrants who were 16 years of age or younger, who came to America by 2007  (must be high school graduates, employed or attending college, no significant arrests; many are serving in our military).

Every week there are so many more abhorrent issues we Americans must face!  David Shulkin, VA Secretary, was fired for NOT taking detrimental steps to privatize the VA.   Trump twitter-raging at Amazon CEO for “paying little or not taxes to state & local governments,  and is costing the postal service billions of dollars, putting many thousands of retailers out of business!”  E-commerce added 355,000 jobs 2007 – 2016, but still brick & mortar stores are diminished as technology services increase convenience, greater selection and opportunities for digital shoppers.  Bezos also owns the (Trump-hated) Washington Post; that’s the real reason behind Trump’s attacks on Jeff Bezos.  Wall St. numbers down this week, might be a combination of Face-Book tech stocks, tweets-bashing Amazon, and trade war issues, including China instituting 25 percent import tariffs on our pork, fruit and other products.

Nearly 40 percent of Americans get their news from local stations, many of which are owned or operated by Sinclair Broadcasting, whose compulsory scripted-messages regarding fake-news that all their anchors must follow is so reprehensible!  We need a FREE PRESS talking Truth to Power, not more government-sanctioned, propaganda, “state-run TV” and syndicated columnists!  Bryon York’s “labored” 3/29 column in The Register-Mail, — had only the last 2 paragraphs been printed — would have been more truthful journalism.  The fault of the “NO WALL – budget deal” Trump angrily signed on, was NOT the fault of Democrats, as  York and Trump love to assert; that is only propaganda for the Trump base.  Deal-maker Trump rejected the only passable bipartisan compromise.  Civics Refresher for Dummies — The Republicans can pass anything they can agree on, as they have control of Congress and the White House, which Trump characterized as in “tippy-top shape”.   Considering that many NATO allies have not been invited to the White House, but that recently Vladimir Putin has …. that seems a seriously-flawed decision!   He’s come UNDONE!

Trish Forsyth Voss

I feel compelled to respond to some ideas recently presented in Guest Opinions by Steve & Cokie Roberts, and Marc Thiessen.  Yes, we tend to pigeon-hole those we don’t agree with, making wide suppositions regarding them.  Yes, I  “fear and loath … Donald Trump”.  Yes, I agree whole-heartedly with Hillary Clinton that she “won optimistic, diverse and dynamic” populations, and Trump voters were “looking backward” –at what they thought made America great.  And I agree with Barack Obama’s 2008 comment that, for a large part GOP voters are “bitter, cling to their guns and religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them”.  And No, he didn’t lose the 2012 election for that observation.

On Clinton’s ‘snarky’ comment, during the 2016 campaign that, “Trump supporters filled a basket of deplorables”,  I ask the readers and thinkers out there, “Do any of you know ANY deplorable people?  If we are related to, or know and care about such persons, we don’t like to see them characterized as such, right?  But perhaps we can discern that some of their thinking, qualities or actions are deplorable.  Are any evil-doers, aside from terrorists, deplorable?  Merriam Webster dictionary defines Deplorable as: Lamentable, deserving censure or contempt.  Here I would assert that Rick Santorum, former US Senator of PA, made some ‘contemptible’ remarks recently about the ‘March for Our Lives’ protestors, when he ignorantly tweeted that those young protestors should take “individual responsibility, like taking CPR classes”, instead of expecting others to solve their problems.

We all need to examine our own beliefs and try to root out racist, misogynistic, xenophobic and regressive ideology.  Many grandparents of mixed-race kids have adjusted their beliefs on diversity, as many of us “have evolved on the issue of homosexuality”, or other differences among us because we have widened our understanding based on caring for others.  I like Marc Thiessen more after reading his March 22nd Opinion piece, asserting:  “Democrats do not hate America or God!”

Merriam Webster defines Liberal as: broad-minded, not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy or tradition, progressive.   I am a liberal (who would definitely vote for a “Sanders-Warren cabal”, but am also a gun-owner who supports gun-reform, and am a very regular church-goer, but definitely not fundamentalist!    I find apathy very difficult to understand…..that less than 20 percent of eligible voters in IL voted on 3/20?!  The youth will change that by 2020… Blue Tsunami.           This IS a left-leaning country; that is NOT a fantasy!

Trish Forsyth Voss

Cambridge Analytica  (CA), hired by the Trump campaign (Kushner, Manafort and Parscale) hacked into over 50 million Facebook accounts and exploited user’s personal information for the Trump campaign’s nefarious purposes.  Before the “old fogeys”, who can barely even text, start bashing us social-media users for being so gullible, let me remind y’all that “yesterday’s” bombshell was: Russia has “infiltrated the energy, nuclear, commercial, water, aviation and manufacturing sectors in our country (as well as having hacked 7 state’s electoral systems).  Russia supposedly can create significant havoc and possibly even shut down services in our nation.  CA started in 2014 as a voter-profiling company, funded with $15M by Robert Mercer, with “vice-prez” Steve Bannon, spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway — first worked to elect Ted Cruz, then switched to Donald Trump.  Mr. Nix, a Brit, heading up CA, was warned about involvement in U.S. political campaigns, he started up a British affiliate — SCL group; he boasted (we saw under-cover footage) of employing front companies and former spies on behalf of political clients around the world, and even suggested ways to entrap politicians (sending friendly Ukrainian girls to them) in compromising situations.  CA didn’t have the data to make its “product claims” work, so they “harvested” millions of profiles from Facebook to begin their “Psycho-graphics platform”.  The vast system of wide-scale corruption by CA/SCL group is being “investigated in Britain by Parliament and government regulators into allegations that it performed illegal work on the Brexit campaign”.  Meanwhile, Trump congratulated Putin on his re-election to his 4th, six-year term as Russia’s leader, the most popular since Stalin.  Putin recently told his people that “Russia has tested an array of new nuclear weapons that are impossible to intercept”.  Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State was fired; H.R. McMaster, National Security Advisor was fired, replaced by “Hawk Neocon” John Bolton, who “was part of the effort to mislead the US into the disastrous Iraq war, supports military actions against North Korea”, and thinks we need to instigate a regime change in Iran.  John Dowd, one Trump lawyer resigned, replaced by Joseph diGenova  (believer in the Deep State conspiracy).  Ex-CIA Chief, John Brennan said on 3/17/18 to Donald Trump, “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history.  You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America — America will triumph over you!

Trish Forsyth Voss

A Trump-Kim Summit?  A BIG deal or a BIG disaster?  What could come of the “maniac” and the “mentally-deranged dotard” duking it out over the negotiation table?  On the evening of March 8th at the White House, South Korea’s head of National Security office, Chung Eui-yong, was given the honor and precedence, by Donald Trump, to break the news and read out the announcement: an invitation from North Korea’s, Kim Jong Un, to President Trump to meet with him by May, and he would begin Denuclearization.  President Trump readily agreed to meet with “Little-Rocketman”.   That would be unprecedented!   No U.S. president has met with the rogue, pariah “state”, who has wanted U.S. validation for decades.  Dictator Un is responsible for Otto Warmbier’s death, and currently holds three jailed Americans, and is starving his own people.  North Korea has tried to “play us” for decades; they have previously entered into agreements with us and have reneged.   Trump’s narcissistic ego makes him a prime player for this “summit”, which normally takes several months to set up.  On Friday, the White House walked-back the news saying that, “No time or place has been set for a meeting, which will not occur until concrete and verifiable actions have been taken on the ‘promised issues’.  The Dictator wants to remove international sanctions, which were stepped-up by Trump’s “maximum pressure campaign”;  they are feeling “the burn”.  They need aid, resources and fuel supplies, and he wants troops moved off the peninsula.  North Korea agreed in 2005 to denuclearize, but didn’t.   Who believes that Kim Jong Un  plans to denuclearize the missile system that he just succeeded in ramping up to this current state of capability?  He just wants to play and buy time.  “The State Department is in shambles …we have no American ambassador to South Korea and no under-secretary for arms control and international security”.  Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, said Thursday, “We are a long way from negotiations with North Korea”.  Trump tweeted out Friday that his agreement to meet with Kim still stands, and later tweeted out the he “is tired of being reined in!”  Trump is notorious for not listening to his advisors.  In fact, the news today 3/9/18 is that Trump is planning for Spring Cleaning … to fire Chief of Staff, John Kelly, National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster, and “advisors” Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner soon.  No worries.. Trump gets the best people!

Trish Forsyth Voss

There is a Shift of Consciousness upon us NOW!  The Revolution is becoming increasingly apparent!  I love that young activists are rising across our country, and they aren’t accepting that change can’t begin with them.  I love that CEOs and companies are making changes that Congress can’t bring themselves to legislate.  Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO, Ed Stack, made the announcement last week that Dick’s will no longer sell firearms to buyers under age 21, and that they are permanently banning assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines”.   Walmart followed suit, reporting they will also stop firearms sales to buyers under age 21, and reported that they stopped selling ‘assault-style’ rifles back in 2015.   To date, March 6th, eight  companies have dropped endorsing the NRA and promoting discount programs for NRA members; Symantec, First Bank of Omaha, MetLife, Simplisafe, Enterprise, Hertz & Avis, and Chubb Limited.  Only FedEx, as of this date, has not dropped their discount program to NRA members.  Veterans, staunch supporters of the 2nd Amendment and gun owners are coming out to force the issue of:  WE THE PEOPLE want Universal Background checks, mental-health episodes and domestic abusers reported with tighter gun regulations,  and the majority are willing to give up rights to own assault-style weapons for the safety of our children and communities.  Gun-nuts can argue all they want about what constitutes an “assault rifle” and who is trying to mislead whom, but in the coming years we are going to see real changes enacted to protect our society.   Many cannot “see the writing on the wall”; they are blinded by fake news and its proponents, but taking more guns off the streets is what will ultimately make us safer.   The Florida Senate just passed a bill to raise the age to 21 for gun-buyers, to ban bump-stocks, and to arm some teachers.  Marjorie Stoneman Douglas students are raising consciousness among the youth, nudging others to get involved, run for office and make a difference; and the liars who promote bogus stories about these students should be ashamed of themselves, if they had any sense of shame or honor left.  Mark Thiessen wrote, “The NRA represents everyday Americans — we all want to keep guns out of the hands of mentally unstable people”.  That’s NOT true!  DJT revoked Obama-era law on gun-checks for severely mentally-ill.  And his televised meeting with Senators discussing gun-control measures — all for show — just like the DACA meeting.

Trish Forsyth Voss