Donald Trump and maga Republicans are over their heads in a coverup concerning the Epstein files

The Epstein files remain a flashpoint in public discourse. Letters to the editor nationwide emphasize themes of lack of transparency, government accountability, and calls to investigate the full release of all unredacted documents. Recent opinions have varied from demanding the complete unsealing of all records to criticizing current Justice Department stonewalling. 

Echo opinion letter published in The Cap Times, in Madison, Wisconsin:  Dear Editor: Our U.S. Justice Department has not been in this bad shape since the Watergate scandal, as we learned in last week's House committee hearing.

Its purpose was to determine who was responsible for not fully complying with release of the Epstein files. The buck was passed by former Attorney General Pam Bondi, who explained that even though she was the boss, she was not in charge over this matter. She explained that her assistant, the current acting attorney general and former personal lawyer to President Trump, Todd Blanche, was put in charge, presumably at the president's request.

This reminds me of the coverup orchestrated by President Richard Nixon leading to the "Saturday night massacre." On Oct. 20, 1973, facing a subpoena to turn over his secret tapes to Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Instead, Richardson refused and resigned.

Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox, but Ruckelshaus also refused and resigned. 

Nixon then ordered Solicitor General Robert Bork to fire Cox. Bork did so, leading to Nixon's impeachment.

It is becoming clearer every day that there could be a coverup concerning the Epstein files like there was with the Nixon tapes. Maybe, after the upcoming midterms, there will finally be accountability, as there was over 50 years ago.

If the rule of law is to exist, then we need this to happen. If it doesn't happen, then we might as well cancel our 250th birthday party.

From Irwin Kass in Madison, Wisconsin

Donald Trump crime family will leave a legacy of corruption - It is time to dump the tRump!

Echo opinion letter published in the Cap Times, in Madison, Wisconsin.

Dear Editor: Donald Trump is busy trying to get his name on airports and buildings throughout the country in an attempt to secure a positive legacy. Trump’s name on such facilities will not adequately reflect how history will describe his legacy.

Trump, his crime family and his Cabinet are among the most incompetent and corrupt in American history. They make millions while the middle class suffers. Trump’s illegal tariffs and his ego-driven war against Iran have raised the costs of gasoline, groceries and other everyday expenses paid by the average person and family. 

Donald Trump has insulted our nation’s allies and then he wonders why they won’t help get him out of messes he created in Iran.

There are facilities appropriate for the Trump name and legacy. Each should be called the Donald J. Trump Cesspool.

(Maine Writer P.S. - It is time to name recycling centers the Donald J. Trump Trash Services Centers.)

From Gene Lillge in Madison, Wisconsin

#ImpeachDonaldTrump: it is time to "dump the tRump", attention Senator Susan Collins.  

Americans are not informed about the huge cost of the Donald Trump Iran War but check out European news

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The Guardian: Generally speaking, when you bomb another country, and that country retaliates, you call it a “war”. Very simple word. Three letters. Even Donald Trump knows how to spell it.

Cost of Donald Trump's Iran War

Echo opinion letter published in The CapTimes news in Wisconsin

Dear Editor: The lies and obfuscation about the true cost of the Iran War by Donald Trump and his minions evoke shades of the Vietnam era.

In a well-documented report in Popular Information by Stephen Semler on May 6, 2026, the actual cost of the first 60 days of the current war with Iran is about 💲72 billion, not the 💲25 billion cited by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, or about 💲1.2 billion per day.

Furthermore, a group of reporters for the Washington Post, Evan Hill, Jarrett Ley, Alex Horton, Tara Copp and Dan Lamothe, have noted that it's "unusually difficult" to obtain satellite imagery from the Middle East, because the U.S. government has asked two of the largest commercial providers of such images, Ventor and Planet, "to limit, delay or ultimately withhold publication of images of the region while the war is ongoing." 

Since the companies have acceded, the journalists have had to review other sources of images, including the European Union and Iran's state affiliated media (as cited by Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, May 6, 2026).

Although some hypocritical Republican members of our U.S. Congress may not be concerned about being complicit with the Trump administration's deceptions, the American public deserves to know the truth. Then the electorate can hold Congress accountable in the November 2026, midterm elections.

From Stephen Austin in Madison Wisconsin

Land Fills of American United! Let's name them all after Donald Trump! Creative idea from Wisconsin should go viral!

Echo opinion letter published in CapTimes, in Madison, Wisconsin:

Dear Editor- We are failing Donald Trump. Although he is a shy human being, reluctant to generate publicity about himself, he has expressed a desire to add his name to public institutions. The Kennedy Center. Dulles Airport. He has expressed a thoughtful wish to have them named after him.

Dane County, Wisconsin, so far, is failing in its naming duty. 

We should rise to the occasion. Right now, a local site has a dull and uninspiring name: The Dane County Landfill. How boring. How jejune. By acclamation, the site should be renamed the Donald Trump Landfill. Sure, there is a chance small-minded people may call it the Trump Dump. So petty of them.🤣

If, for some obscure reason, our president objects to the naming of the landfill and sues the county for his traditional $10 billion, substitute names can replace our original request: The Donald J. Throw Away, The Orange Cheeto Trash Seato. (Can we suggest a Name That Trump Trash Site Contest❓)

It may be that other municipalities have sites for which a name change would be appropriate. Most towns have trash repositories, rendering plants or automobile cemeteries.

Dare to dream.

From Eric Schulenburg in Madison, Wisconsin 

Democrats must create visible non violent ways to effectively struggle against Donald Trump and Republican cultism

Bravo❗ 👏😘 Opinion by Robin Abcarian, published in the Los Angeles Times:

To all those engaged in the struggle against Trump’s anti-democratic bullying❗

The all-out war being waged by Donald Trump against so many American institutions and bedrock principles is sickening🤢 to watch.

In February, after Elon Musk took his chain saw to America’s most consequential foreign aid agency, I predicted that children would die as a result.

This month, PBS reported that a Nigerian mother of twins lost one of her babies to starvation, thanks to the dismantling of USAID. A former USAID chief nutritionist estimated that the cuts to food assistance could result in about a million children not receiving treatment for severe food nutrition and potentially 163,500 deaths. So much for rooting out waste, fraud and abuse.

“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” Bill Gates told the Financial Times.

Every day brings a new horror as Donald Trump takes a blow torch to the Constitution.

He blackmails universities and corporations to force them to end efforts to diversify their student bodies and work forces. He makes life as hellish as possible for immigrants, legal and otherwise. He wants to kill off birthright citizenship. Suspend habeas corpus. Ditch due process. Accept “gifts” from foreign governments. Erase the line that separates church and state.

On Thursday, he ratcheted up his battle against Harvard University, announcing that it would no longer be permitted to enroll foreign students in what the New York Times described as “a major escalation of the administration’s efforts to pressure the elite school to fall in line with the president’s agenda.”

The estimated 7,000 foreign students currently enrolled at Harvard, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem declared, would immediately have to transfer to other universities or lose their legal status.

While some Americans are positively reveling in the cruelty and chaos spewing from the White House, and many companies are knuckling under to Trump, those of us who oppose the descent into lawless bullying search for heroes and signs of hope anywhere we can find it.

Thankfully, Harvard is fighting back. With its $53-billion endowment, the school is uniquely suited to the task. Thursday, it filed a lawsuit challenging the termination of the school’s participation in the government’s student visa program. In April, it sued the administration over its revocation of $2.2 billion in research grants.

In January, Costco’s board of directors unanimously reaffirmed the company’s commitment to its diversity, equity and inclusion programs. In February, 97% of Apple’s shareholders voted against a proposal to abolish the company’s DEI initiatives. Executives at Delta Airlines have declared that diversity initiatives are a critical part of the company’s business strategy. Ben & Jerry’s, the Vermont-based ice cream maker known for its progressive politics, said it would not be “intimidated or bullied” into abandoning its commitment to racial and social justice.

Recently, I found a ray of hope in an unlikely place: Madison, Wisconsin, where I was attending the law school graduation of my step-granddaughter, Kenna.

I happened to drive past a Penzeys Spices store and pulled over to take a look. In an effort to counter some of the despair the second Trump term has caused, I have taken refuge in cooking, which yanks me out of my head and distracts me from all the bad news.

When I can no longer stomach the headlines, I zone out with my favorite online chefs: Notorious Foodie, a home cook who ends each of his videos by throwing a towel at the camera (I highly recommend his lasagne), and Chef Reactions, who offers a split-screen snarky commentary of trashy cooking videos (think Sandra Lee’s infamous Kwanzaa cake).

At the checkout counter with my herbes de Provence, pumpkin pie spice and ground Turkish sumac berries, the cashier gave me a little blue spice packet with a bleeding red heart labeled “Resist! Keep America Alive.” On the back: “Season Liberally.”

I did not realize that I had stumbled into what is probably Ground Zero of the business world’s Trump resistance. Based in Wisconsin — the state that can take credit for bringing Musk to his knees, the company’s founder and owner, Bill Penzey, has always been vocally liberal, and the outrages of the Trump era have given him an abundance of material.

On his website, in newsletters and Facebook posts, Penzey combines his politics with specials on various spices. In 2017, on the second anniversary of Trump’s infamous slander of Mexican immigrants, Penzey offered his customers free bottles of Mexican vanilla. “It seems a good day to apologize to the people of Mexico and Latin America,” he wrote on Facebook.

On the Penzeys Spices website, next to the typical “About Us” tab, he has added another, “About Republicans.”

“We’ve arrived at the point where there’s no way to respect the nonsense the Republican Party is promoting and have any hope of overcoming the problems we as a nation and we as a planet face,” Penzey writes. “Given the choice between saving America and planet Earth or saving the feelings of Republican voters, we are choosing to side with saving our country and our world.”

I reached out to Penzey, but he declined to chat with me.

“I‘m content with just doing what we do,” he wrote. “Somehow talking to people about it all and having them try to sum it up never quite clicks. Sorry.”

Oh don’t be. Just keep doing what you do, Mr. Penzey, and let’s hope that democracy prevails.

@rabcarian.bsky.social @rabcarian

School shootings in America are a horrible public health epidemic: Must be treated with prevention strategies!

MADISON, WI- Yet another school shooting occurred at Abundant Life Christian School on December 16, 2024, in Madison Wisconsin. 

Where is the will to end the school shooting tragedies?

Echo opinion letter published in The Boston Globe:

Official says Wisconsin shooter was new student at the Christian school where her victims had deep ties.

Aside from finger-pointing and litigation, where is the active prevention of this kind of violence and the follow through to act❓

The normalization of school shootings in America must serve as a wake-up call. We must no longer merely react to these tragedies — we must ask ourselves, “What is happening here? Why is this happening?” We cannot accept such violence as normal — we must act.

While media coverage often focuses on the immediate tragedy, the critical question of why — as in, what motivates these acts — often goes unexplored. Understanding these motives is crucial for both public awareness and effective prevention. Mental health professionals need this insight to intervene early, before issues escalate into violence, whether in schools or the broader community.

I propose establishing a commission of behavioral health experts dedicated to investigating the motives, triggers, and warning signs of these violent events. This commission could offer vital guidance on how to identify and address dangers before they reach a breaking point.

If we continue facing these tragedies without meaningful prevention steps, we will have missed the chance to create lasting change. The time for reflection, understanding, and action is now.

Chuck Weinstein in Arlington Massachusetts.

Trump administration unable to create trust in the administration's ability to care for all Americans

Echo opinion letter published in the CapTimes of Madison Wisconsin

Get Ready for a Catastrophic Four Years for Public Health

"The concern is not just about what the Trump 2.0 Administration will do, but also about what it will say," TIME.

Dear Editor: The nomination of (the incompetent❗) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of Health and Human Services is a potential catastrophe for health policy in the U.S.

A person who continues to believe that vaccines cause autism — in the face of scientific consensus that they do not — and that "there are no safe and effective vaccines," represents a danger to all of us.

Literally, children and others will die, like the excess deaths that occurred in "red" states where vaccination and sound public health protective behaviors were rejected during the pandemic. And he’s a worldwide danger. Read about the Samoans who died unnecessarily because of anti-vaccine policy Kennedy espoused. Pathogens don't respect international boundaries.

The author in this conservative publication notes, "(T)he Senate has a job to do. ... The question before the Senate is whether he should run the Department of Health and Human Services, and the answer — even after accounting for some due deference to the president’s preferences — is that he very obviously should not." This view spans political perspectives.

I'd urge any and all who care about public health in our country to call or write your senator now and tell them the danger this particular nomination has, and to reject it. Especially senators who are likely to vote to support nominees, which I’d estimate to be about 50% of Wisconsin’s senators.

From: Gordon Herz  in Madison, Wisconsin

Donald Trump spews egregious political rhetoric spreads highly virulent toxicity

Echo opinion published in CapTimes a Madison Wisconsin newspaper:  Dear Editor: I feel fortunate to have listened to at least a portion of Gen. Mark Milley's retirement speech.

To my mind, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was a true leader, a man of great integrity who always kept his oath to our Constitution. 

I am still awaiting the condemnation of Donald Trump from any Republican who might be outraged at the former president's statements that Milley should be executed.

Trump insults the military and disregards the sacrifices of the "suckers" who were captured or wounded. He has stated that he doesn't want veterans who have lost limbs at any official events because "no one wants to see that."

The degree of the politically violent rhetoric and the level of toxicity that Trump posts on social media is egregious. The very thought that Trump, who is entirely unqualified to become our commander in chief, might once again assume that role should be alarming to everyone.

From Mary Lou Reisch Madison, Wisconsin

America will finally hear first person truths about January 6 insurrection events

Speaker Nancy Pelosi strong! 

Pelosi appoints Republican Representative Kinzinger (Illinois) to the Jan. 6 committee:  McCarthy threatened to pull all of his Republican picks after Pelosi rejected two of them. (Poor Q-baby!)

January 6th insurrection!

Wisconsin State Journal opinion echo letter!

When I heard a bipartisan commission had been proposed to investigate the Jan. 6th  Capitol seditious riot, I felt a sense of hope that the truth about what happened on that day would be fully disclosed. 

I recalled how serious elected officials, both Republicans and Democrats, came together for the Watergate hearings and 9/11 Commission, with the sole purpose of finding the truth.

Regrettably, that simple goal may not be attainable in today’s political climate.

My hopes for a true accounting of what happened faded away when House Minority Leader (#TheDummyLives!) Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., verbally attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for her refusal to accept two of McCarthy’s nominees for the commission. McCarthy attacked Pelosi with more anger and indignation than he has ever showed over the events of Jan. 6.

McCarthy is not a serious elected official seeking the truth, nor are his two rejected nominees, Reps. Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. They are both presidential election deniers and among a handful of Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

The only thing McCarthy, Banks and (Gym-Jim) Jordan have going for them is that they have passed the Trump cult fealty test which is the #Jonestown litmus test of the Republican #GQP Party. 

Obviously, the Jan. 6, sedition attacks are tragic, but it would be even more horrid if the American people never get a truthful accounting that day.

Bob Vetter, Madison