Donald Trump and maga Republicans created a new meme named "Aunt Tifa"- a mokery about another Trumpzism invented conspiracy

HELLO❓Another idiotic Trumpian "Who's on first❓" directive.

Echo opinion letter published in the Akron Beacon Journal Ohio news:  Donald Trump aims to use terrorist label to intimidate, silence opposition | Echo opinion letter from Tracy Reiss

Donald Trump recently announced National Security Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7). This document establishes a new strategy for federal agencies to counter what it calls "domestic terrorism and organized political violence." 

Donald Trump directs federal agencies to investigate and disrupt domestic terrorism and organized political violence, particularly targeting “antifa”❓ (there is no such organization) as a “domestic terrorist organization (it does not exist❗.”

Think about what Trump is saying. The term "antifa" is short for anti-fascist- (IOW "Trumpziism"). Anti-fascist means against fascism. It therefore follows that: If anti-fascists are domestic terrorists, what is the current state of America if not a fascist regime❓

NSPM-7 represents a deliberate effort to intimidate and silence opposition to presidential abuses through fear tactics. No president can rewrite the Constitution and the safeguards we have under it. These safeguards include our First Amendment-protected freedoms of belief, speech and association; our Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures; our Fifth Amendment right to due process; and our right to equal protection under the laws of this country.

Donald Trump’s stupid action via NSPM-7 tells me that he’s feeling constrained in his fascist ideations by the framework of our Constitution and is looking for a way around it. NSPM-7 is unacceptable and must be resisted by those who still hold our core and basic "truths to be self-evident.”

From Tracy Reiss, in Akron Ohio

Norfolk Southern Railway disaster was preventable and the company must be held accountable

An echo editorial board opinion published in the Akron Beacon Journal in Ohio:

The nightmarish horrors inflicted on the tiny eastern Ohio town of East Palestine should serve as a wake-up call to all Americans.

While accidents are always part of life, what happened when the hazardous cargo of a Norfolk Southern train derailed February 3, is unacceptable and again illustrates why proper safety standards can't be compromised in the name of corporate profits or political victories.

There's still much we don't know about why the train derailed and how much fault Norfolk Southern should bear. There are also unanswered questions on how the emergency was managed and whether the controlled release of vinyl chloride from five rail cars was the best solution.

But we do know Norfolk Southern recently reported record operating profits, has a poor accident rate when compared to most of its peers, has lobbied against tougher safety standards and favors running heavier and longer trains to maximize profits.

ProPublica reported Thursday that Norfolk Southern policy "allows staffers to instruct crews to ignore alerts from track sensors that flag possible mechanical issues." In October, the company allowed a train with an engine wheel heating up to continue near Sandusky. Four miles later it derailed, dumping thousands of gallons of molten paraffin wax.

We also know federal rail standards have eroded, including dropping mandatory cabooses where personnel could report problems at the back of a train. And it's a fact that the Trump administration repealed a brakes requirement for some trains, stating the cost exceeded its benefits.

Norfolk Southern train likely passed through heavily populated areas. In fact, the cataclysmic Norfolk-Southern train derailment in East Palestine on February 3, 2023, could have impacted far more Ohioans.

Norfolk-Southern Railway officials haven't provided details of the train's route.  But, a federal agency investigating the disaster confirmed on Wednesday that the train, which started its journey on the Illinois/Missouri state line, was piloted by a crew it picked up in Toledo.

If the train followed the most direct route on Norfolk-Southern tracks toward East Palestine, it would have then passed through Cleveland, Hudson and Ravenna, as well as near Kent, before catching fire and crashing in rural Ohio. 

As awful as the scene in East Palestine has been, we keep imagining if this derailment had happened 60 miles earlier in a more populated area along the busy Norfolk Southern line. What would have happened if the same train derailed in Cleveland, Macedonia, Hudson, Ravenna or Alliance? All are along the Norfolk Southern main line, which also had a derailment in November near Ravenna.

The fires alone could have killed many and destroyed buildings while disrupting tens of thousands of lives, not to mention the clear health and environmental concerns from the release of toxic chemicals.

We empathize with the people of East Palestine in every way possible. They did not ask for their lives to be turned upside down and deserve all the help they need, beginning with clear and factual answers.

We've also been reminded that few of us pay attention to what's inside tanker train cars and semis, although the latter carry much smaller quantities. 

Many Ohioans are surely looking at and listening to trains roar through their communities with a different state of mind the past three weeks. Local leaders along major rail lines should review their disaster plans.

Republicans have built a campaign to squelch hard earned freedoms

Freedom helped Democrats prevail in 2022 midterms.

Echo opinion published the Akron Beacon Journal

Democrats defied the pundits, who said their message wasn’t connecting with voters. 

And the Democrats defied history, which portended huge losses for them in the midterm elections as the party in power. Why? Because Democrats united behind a compelling and consistent narrative of the midterms as a showdown over protecting our freedoms, with the Dobbs abortion decision underscoring the stakes. 

Moreover, the January 6th hearings provided another marquee view of precisely what Trump Republicans support and the dire threat we faced.

From our freedom to decide if and when to have children to our freedom to provide for our families to our freedom to make our voices heard in free and fair elections, Democrats have made a wide range of issues personal and potent. They made it clear that the election was a crossroads between Trump Republicans who want to take us backward and voters committed to moving us forward and protecting our freedoms.

Democrats’ victories in passing the Inflation Reduction Act and lowering student loan debt has strengthened their resolve and made clearer the contrast between voters' desires and Trump Republicans' aims.

Democrats across the country, and especially in battleground states, created a consistent drumbeat, repeating “Protect Our Freedoms” through social media, in person events, advertising, and organizing.

The efficacy of zeroing in on “freedoms,” putting Trump Republican villainy front and center, affirming voters as agents with power, and confronting right-wing divide to conquer tactics resulted in wins across the country. Democrats believed that Americans valued their freedom, and they were right!

From Susan Gallagher, Akron Ohio

Obviously William Barr is a failed leader of the U.S. Justice Department - he views slavery as "whaaaaa"? OMG!

Echo opinion:  Ruth Marcus: Slavery? Attorney General William Barr has never gone this far Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post and republished in the Akron Beacon Journal.

Dumb Barr?

WASHINGTON, DC — Attorney General William Barr's recent comments, in public and private, are so alarming it's hard to know where to begin. Barr has gone too far before, but never this far.

He compared pandemic restrictions to slavery. "You know, putting a national lockdown, stay-at-home orders, is like house arrest," Barr said during a speech Wednesday night at Hillsdale College. "Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history."

Barr was discussing limitations on religious services during the pandemic, and there are legitimate questions about whether some restrictions on worship have gone too far. But the slavery comparison is beyond offensive. Slavery was evil. Pandemic rules are grounded in concerns for public health.

And even if the two phenomena were somehow legitimately considered along the same continuum, there is no way that the COVID-19 lockdown could be accurately labeled "the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history."

How about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II? How could anyone, no less the attorney general, who oversees civil rights enforcement, analogize COVID-19 restrictions to slavery? "A different kind of restraint?" How does that sound to anyone with an ounce of historical memory — or of decency?

He warned that electing Joe Biden would put the nation on the road to socialism. "I think we were getting into a position where we were going to find ourselves irrevocably committed to the socialist path," Barr said in an interview. "And I think if Trump loses this election, that that will be the case. In other words, I think there's now a clear fork in the road for our country."

Leave aside the bizarreness of believing that electing Biden would consign Americans to life under socialism. Barr's entitled to think so. But he's the nation's chief law enforcement officer. He's supposed to be removed from partisan politics, so we can trust — in theory — that partisanship hasn't infected prosecutorial decisions. "As an attorney general, I'm not supposed to get into politics," Barr said in that same interview — right before getting into politics.

He belittled his own department: "Letting the most junior members set the agenda might be a good philosophy for a Montessori preschool, but it is no way to run a federal agency,"Barr said at Hillsdale. He depicted career prosecutors as over-aggressive "headhunters" in need of being reined in by "detached supervisors."

Barr was responding, without mentioning it, to criticism of his remarkable interventions in the cases of Trump allies Michael Flynn and Roger Stone. Of course, there are appropriate times for supervisors, including political appointees such as the attorney general, to step in.


But the circumstances of Barr's involvement in the Flynn and Stone cases did not conjure up the "dispassionate decision-makers" of his imagining — they suggested that political appointees were overruling career prosecutors precisely because of political connections. "The essence of the rule of law is that whatever rule you apply in one case must be the same rule you would apply to similar cases,"Barr proclaimed. No one believes that Flynn and Stone would have received the same kind of solicitude if they were not friends and campaign allies of the president.


He urged using sedition laws to prosecute protesters. The Wall Street Journal reported that on a conference call with federal prosecutors last week, Barr pushed them, rather than leaving the matter to state officials, to be aggressive in going after violent protesters, including possibly using "seditious conspiracy" charges.

Talk about prosecutorial overkill and the need for "detached supervisors." The rarely used sedition statute makes it a crime to attempt "to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States . . . or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof." Could violent protests fall within the parameters of this statute? Arguably. Would it be wise to use such a law, with the attendant concerns about free speech, to prosecute protestors? No — certainly not when there are other, more straightforward, less constitutionally dangerous statutes available.

There is a remarkable quality of obtuseness — or, possibly, gaslighting — to Barr's arguments. At Hillsdale, he bemoaned "hyperaggressive extensions of the criminal law." This from an attorney general who had urged his prosecutors to do just that with the sedition statute.

He decried the unhealthy "criminalization of politics," adding, "The political winners ritually prosecuting the political losers is not the stuff of a mature democracy." This from the attorney general for a president who reveled in chants of "lock her up" against his opponent.

And he accused those who fear a defeated Trump will refuse to leave office of "creating an incendiary situation where there will be loss of confidence in the vote" — this from an attorney general who described mail-in voting as "playing with fire" and trumpeted the risk of fraud.

Barr's Constitution Day address quoted, inevitably, former attorney general Robert Jackson's famous address on the role of the federal prosecutor. Suffice it to say, 80 years from now, no one will be quoting Barr, except as a cautionary tale.

Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.