Urgent call to permanently eliminate the hypocrisy of Trumpziism from America

 

• llot

Echo opinion letter published in The Forecaster Portland Maine: Trump supporters need to separate fact from fiction

For the upcoming 2024, presidential election, I wish more Americans, especially Trump supporters, would become more curious and willing to educate themselves about who this man really is, namely, by separating fact from fiction. Hopefully, the majority of responsible voters will consequently decide to permanently eliminate him from the political arena. Our unfolding American tragedy must end. Why?

Its main protagonist, Trump, is a megalomaniacal narcissist with autocratic tendencies, who lacks decency, humility and empathy. He ruthlessly uses any possible venue, and people, for personal gain, political and financial, the latter at times illegally. For example, he rails against illegal immigrants, but he has employed and often exploited them at his businesses. Also, labels on many products he and his family are selling state “Made in China.” While “America First” is important and often vital for American workers, for the Trump clan it obviously is “Our Profit First.” Excusing this blatant hypocrisy is shortsighted.  

Blindly believing Trump’s manipulative, inflammatory and often factually false rhetoric is not only irresponsible, but devastating for the future of American democracy and the world order. Saving America’s standing requires a “no” vote for this morally bankrupt, unqualified man.

And to the many who know these truths and have acknowledged the destructive ambitions and total lack of integrity of their GOP candidate, but still enable his run for the highest office, I pose these questions: Country first – really? How many of their principles are they willing to sacrifice? What has  happened to their self respect?

From Sigrid Fischer-Mishler in Harpswell, Maine.

Donald Trump - delusional thinking syndrome

My Letter to the Editor - this is not an echo.

So, President Donald Trump broke the law again. He misrepresented the National Weather Service’s hurricane forecast by drawing his own illegal version of Dorian’s devastating storm path, on a map, using a Sharpie. For some bizarre reason, he just had to emphasis the illogical thinking used to announce his wrong weather prediction. 

(By the way, Donald Trump claims to be the “chosen one,” but he was never “chosen” to predict the weather and meteorology.)

Obviously, Trump is expanding his delusional thinking syndrome. Still, he continues to break laws. His behavior is worse than writing deranged plots for a political horror story. He continues to violate the U.S. Constitution’s Emolument clause by using taxpayer money to pay for events scheduled at his failing international, and national golf resorts and hotels. Moreover, he broke campaign finance laws when he paid hush money to Stormy Daniels by using political donations.

Anyone reading this letter would be prosecuted for breaking even one of the laws that were flagrantly violated by Trump. There is a preponderance of evidence to support an impeachment trial. Reps. Pingree and Golden, Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King, you must respond by calling for Donald Trump’s impeachment.

Juliana L’Heureux, Topsham Maine

Paul LePage criticizing innocent people on FoxNews- makes no sense (as usual!)

Maine needs immigrants, not LePage’s opinions

MaineWriter - My letter to The Forecaster editor Feb. 4, 2019

(With a personal P.S. added to this blog)

Dear Forecaster, When Fox News interviewed former Gov. Paul LePage about his wrong-minded criticism towards Maine’s asylum-seekers, he made assumptions about the needs of the state’s aging population. He was wrong to say that Mainers who “lived their lives in Maine are without services in their aging years or with their disabilities.” He assumed the reason is because of asylum-seekers. The fact is, the state’s population growth is pretty much flat. Population growth is having an impact on the number of caregivers who will provide care for all Mainers, including the aged and those with disabilities. Maine’s nursing shortage is another contributing factor challenging the access to care for our citizens.

In fact, the correct response to this looming problem is to support allowing asylum-seekers to work while they wait for their legal proceedings. Moreover, welcoming immigrants is the best way to provide for the population needed to sustain Maine’s workforce. Immigrants are needed to work in the tourism industries. It’s pitiful to see the former governor speak about asylum-seekers like they are somehow a problem, when welcoming them and other immigrants could help to overcome Maine’s caregiver and service-sector shortages.

Juliana L’Heureux
Topsham

P.S. What I wanted to include in this opinion was a statement about Paul LePage's personal immigrant ancestry.  He is a Franco-American. His family were among the tens of thousands of immigrants who came into Lewiston and other Maine cities for the purpose of finding work in the industrial and textile mills. In fact, LePage is a hypocrite to criticize other people for aspiring to achieve the same opportunities that the members of his family were offered, when his relatives obtained work in Lewiston's mills. 

Border walls are destined to be torn down

The Universal Notebook: Mr. Trump, tear down this wall!

For the majority of Americans to be held hostage to the foolish fears of a mean-spirited minority is intolerable in 2019, which we can only hope will be the last year of the Trump administration.

An echo opinion by Edgar Allen Beem published in the Maine newspaper The Forecaster

As the Trump presidency careens out of control – government shutting down, stock market plummeting, top advisers abandoning the sinking ship of state – Donald Trump’s supporters are still convinced that unless the United States builds a wall along the southern border this country will be overrun with illegal immigrants taking their jobs, living off their tax dollars, committing crimes and, worst of all, destroying our national sovereignty.

Border walls do not work.  They are pre-destined to be torn down

It is an article of faith with the alt-right that unless we defend our borders we lose our country. What pathetic, fear-mongering nonsense.

The Great Wall of Trump is so important to the frightened far right that Trump was willing to shut down the government in hopes of forcing Democrats to fund his folly. It’s about time he woke up to the fact that the majority of Americans oppose his wall.

But then, Trump is not the president of most Americans.

According to an NPR/PBS/Marist poll, more than two-thirds of Americans do not think the border wall is a priority. The one-third who do are people who will continue to support Trump even when it is proved he is guilty of colluding with the Russians, obstructing justice, lying under oath, making illegal profits from his presidency, using his charitable foundation as a private slush fund and molesting women.

A border wall is not needed because the problem of illegal immigration is nowhere near as dire as conservatives paint it. Border agents already stop thousands of people from illegally crossing the border without a wall. The same highly suspect numbers supporters use to argue the need for a wall – 3,755 terrorists, 17,526 criminals, 1,019 gang members and 3,028 “special interest aliens” stopped from entering the country in 2017 by the Department of Homeland Security – could just as easily be used to argue that we don’t need it at all.

Even if those numbers were accurate, the majority of those stops are not taking place on the southern border. And if Trump got his wall, don’t you imagine hordes of highly-motivated people, whether refugees fleeing poverty and violence or drug mules supplying the U.S. market, would find ways over, under, around and through it?

The truth is that borders do not define nations, laws do. If we are in danger of losing our country, it is because of the assault on the rule of law posed by the illegitimate presidency of Donald J. Trump and the Republican quislings who go along with his abuse of power.

Not only has America never needed walls to maintain its sovereign identity, preventing people from migrating to America is patently un-American. One of the indictments of King George III enshrined in the Declaration of Independence states, “He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.”

Old George opposed immigration for the same reason the Donald does: fear that new citizens might not support him.

No one favors open borders. Everyone wants immigrants carefully vetted. There is a process in place for that. But most of us do not want to be fenced in or to have refugees fenced out.

For the majority of Americans to be held hostage to the foolish fears of a mean-spirited minority is intolerable in 2019, which we can only hope will be the last year of the Trump administration.

Remembrance Memorial to September 11 at Maine's Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham

Construction site for the new high school will support a place for the student created 9-11 memorial.

September 11 Memorial (9-11) - Mt. Ararat tribute in Topsham, Maine

9/11 rediscovered: Memorial at Topsham high school gains new visibility - published in The Forecaster by Alex Lear

TOPSHAM, ME — It was a sunny Tuesday on a late summer morning. Chris Chapman’s ceramics class at Mt. Ararat High School was drawing shells when the visual arts teacher was advised to check the news.

The haunting image of two planes crashing into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers seared into her mind that morning, and into the minds of her students and people around the world.

Now 17 years after Sept. 11, 2001, a school monument to the lives lost that day has a renewed focus, and much greater visibility, because construction of a new school has cleared the land around the memorial.

On 9/11, Chapman directed her stunned students to sink their hands into balls of clay, letting their emotions guide them. The result was not important; the act was.

The tragedy haunted her that night. “The overwhelming feeling was that we need to do something, but nobody knew what to do,” she recalled Aug. 30. “We didn’t know, the kids didn’t know.”
But art provided an answer.

‘Tokens of shared loss’

Chapman wanted to honor the approximately 3,000 lives lost in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The result was the two pillars outside the school, an homage to the Twin Towers destroyed on September 11, 2001.

Each of them is 22 feet tall, with 110 floors. 

Composed of Plexiglas, they have all these years held thousands of clay objects Mt. Ararat students molded in memory of those who were lost.

With the entire school backing her “Remembrance Project” idea, all 88 home rooms received a bag containing 65 balls of clay.
“In the course of a month, everybody made their tokens of shared loss,” Chapman recalled, “by thinking about how they felt, just a squish or an image.”

Terracotta, porcelain, and white and brown clays were used, fired to different temperatures “so there’d be a little variety in color, to reflect the humanity that was lost,” Chapman remembered last week as she visited the pillars.

Since a 22-foot-tall structure would be too big to house indoors, space was found near a pond between the school and its athletic fields. The Plexiglas, the steel columns and PVC pipe spacers to support the pillars – placed a few feet underground – were all donated.

“Everybody came together to do it,” Chapman said with a smile. “The thing that was so remarkable was that everybody needed to do something. We all needed to heal (from) something that was overwhelming to all of us.”

The Harpswell woman retired in 2007 after teaching at Mt. Ararat for 33 years, although she returned for a semester in 2009.

“It’s so different than today,” she remarked. “Everybody came together. Everybody wanted to be part of that healing. … It was really a tribute to the unity of Mt. Ararat.”

The memorial was dedicated on Dec. 11, 2001. Chapman called it “an act of grace.”‘A sign of hope’

Recent years saw the twin pillars fall into some obscurity. Shrubbery around the secluded area, changing staff, and students born after the terrorist attacks contributed to the Remembrance Project fading out of awareness, its pillars relegated to objects of curiosity.

“A lot of people never really knew the story behind it,” school Principal Donna Brunette said last week.

Chapman shared a written history of the project with Brunette in April, after seeing the pillars once again in April during Mt. Ararat’s annual Capstone Day. Brunette found the narrative eye-opening.

“I never had this history, to even share with other kids, because I wasn’t here at the time,” she said.

Clearing of the area around the athletic fields in recent months to make way for a new Mt. Ararat High School has allowed the pillars to gain visual prominence on the Eagles Way campus. So close are they to the new structure, due to be complete in 2020, that they’re inside the fence around the construction perimeter.

With the new attention brought to them, Chapman said she is “amazed that they retained their importance.”

She also said she hopes the sense of American unity borne out of 9/11 would resurface if another tragedy of that magnitude occurs. 

It was a force of communal grieving and healing that continues to resonate within her.

“I really felt I was driven,” Chapman said. “And it wasn’t me; it was beyond me. It was just something I needed to do, and I got support all along the way, and everything fell into place.”

Brunette said she plans to send Chapman’s narrative to all the teachers this Sept. 11, “to read it on the anniversary, so that all the kids here, and all the adults here, will know the story.

“It’s a sign of hope. We want them to continue to see that,” she said, “and see (the memorial) for what it was built to be.”

Maine reality doesn't benefit from tax cuts for the rich

Senator Susan Collins wrongly supported the Republican tax cuts for the rich, a bill that does not help Maine's constituents. 

Of course, the few big corporations, those that happen to do business in Maine, regardless of where the corporate headquarters are located, will see tax cuts that are permanent. 

Corporations will have permanent tax cuts, while the employees who work for those same companies, will not see their tax cuts extended beyond 10 years. 

Meanwhile, the national deficit will grow.

In other words, Republicans provided for corporations to enjoy extended tax cuts, while average people will see their short term benefits end. 

What that means is that, when the tax cuts leave the US in a dire deficit situation, the middle class will have to pay for the fiscal gap.

Indeed, the US deficit will grow to over $1.5 Trillion dollars, over 10 year period of time, when corporations will pad their financials and middle class workers will pay for the cost of the deficit by having to absorb cuts to earned benefits like Social Security and Medicare.

At the same time, health care costs in Maine are increasing. Therefore, if Maine people can't deduct their medical expenses in their federal income tax, as she approved in the Republican plan, then the incomes of these people will decrease and the tax cuts won't help them, at all. Moreover, the Maine jobs that Senator Collins says will be available for Maine people, as a result of the tax cuts, is a political pipe dream. Companies will not use tax cuts to help pay the health care costs for the employees who work in those few companies that will benefit from her vote.  

In fact, the employees who work for those rich companies will see their health care costs rise.  

Nevertheless, the most egregious reason why Senator Collins wrongly voted, by supporting the Republican tax cuts for the rich, has to do with the opportunity cost of not funding what Maine really needs. Rather than cutting taxes for the rich, the Republicans should have used the tax reform to invest in supporting the education of America's future workforce. 

I made a point of criticizing this very point in my letter to the editor. Coincidentally, The Forecaster, the December 29, 2017 edition, published an article by Kate Irish Collins, that supported this point of view. Ironically, the story about Maine's workforce was written independently of my criticism of Collins' vote. 

In this blog, I posted the two articles- "Maine workforce faces education, skills crises", followed by my own letter to the editor.  

PORTLAND, Maine — Most high-growth jobs in Maine will require an education beyond high school, making the need for a post secondary degree more acute here than in the nation as a whole.

Meanwhile, the proportion of economically disadvantaged students in Maine classrooms has increased by almost 10 percent over the past decade.

This is a cause for concern because family socioeconomic status is still one of the strongest predictors of overall student success.

This is all according to the fifth annual Education Indicators for Maine report from Educate Maine, which was released at the organization’s recent education symposium in Portland.

The report concludes “Maine has a workforce shortage and a skills gap that has reached crisis levels and can no longer be ignored,” Ed Cervone, executive director of Educate Maine, said.

Overall, the report shows Maine “is making some progress in key areas, such as access to (pre-kindergarten programs) and the number of people earning credentials of value,” Educate Maine said in a press release.

However, “stagnant reading and math proficiency and the widening education achievement gap for economically disadvantaged kids are areas of concern,” the release said.

Each of the 10 indicators in the annual report “has implications for workforce development and Maine’s economy,” the press release said.

In looking forward, Educate Maine has determined 66 percent of the high-wage, in-demand job openings available now through 2024 will require some type of postsecondary education.

In addition, Educate Maine said that earning a postsecondary degree or credential, particularly in a skilled trade, is not only a good gauge of higher lifetime earnings, it’s also a benefit to the workforce and the economy.

Educate Maine “champions college and career readiness and strives to increase the educational attainment of the Maine workforce,” according to the organization’s website.

It’s funded by some of the state’s largest employers, including Maine Medical Center, Unum, Idexx and Cianbro, as well as several universities and colleges, including the University of Maine system.

Educate Maine publishes the annual report because it provides “a solid picture of what we are doing well and where we need to invest resources to better educate Maine kids and prepare them for the workforce,” Cervone said.

As part of their investment in the future, Educate Maine and its partners have created the MaineSpark initiative.

MaineSpark strives to “connect people with the education, training, jobs, programs and resources (they need) to thrive in Maine’s robust and changing economy,” according to the program’s website.

In its report, Educate Maine maintains that “reaching Maine’s at-risk and economically disadvantaged children and staying the course on proficiency- based learning” are both instrumental to the state’s future economic growth.

In reviewing the latest Education Indicators report, Cervone said “a few things strike me. First is that Maine has made good progress in creating more pre-K (programs and making them) available to more families.”

In fact, according to Educate Maine, 71 percent of Maine school districts now offer a public pre-K program to students, compared with only 24 percent in 2008.

And, Educate Maine said, increasing the number of school districts that offer pre-K instruction should become easier with changes the Legislature made to the school funding formula in the current biennial budget.

The other major point in the Education Indicators report, Cervone said, revolves around postsecondary attainment.

“Maine people need something in addition to their high school degree to be positioned to take advantage of work opportunities,” he said. And there the state is making progress, too.

Cervone said the number of adults with a skilled trade certification, a college degree or a professional designation is at 43 percent.

“This is great, (but the) real challenge will be to get to 60 percent by 2025,” he said, which is a long-term statewide education goal.

Cervone said the objective of the annual Education Indicators report is for educators and state and community leaders “to use the data in their planning and decision-making.”

“The reality,” he said, “is that Maine needs workers for a wide range of occupations and industries … in order to meet the demands of the (state’s unique) economy. Getting the education piece right will allow us to do that.”

Kate Irish Collins can be reached at 710-2336 or kcollins@theforecaster.net. Follow Kate on Twitter: @KIrishCollins.

Following is my independent letter to The Forecaster published January 2, 2018:

http://www.theforecaster.net/letter-collins-defense-of-tax-cut-vote-ignores-deficit/

Letter: Collins' defense of tax-cut vote ignores deficit

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins published a defensive position in Maine newspapers to explain her wrong-minded vote in support of the Republicans’ tax cuts for the rich. Unfortunately, her explanation did not explain how the tax cuts will recover the $1 trillion the GOP plan will add to the national debt over the next 10 years.

While the individual personal tax cuts will expire, they are permanent for corporations. Moreover, the math doesn’t work. Health care costs will no longer be deductible, insurance premiums will rise, Medicare contributions from Social Security beneficiaries will increase along with co-pays for services and drug costs. 

These cumulative increases will negate any individual tax cuts.

Collins wrote about rich corporations being able to hire more people. But what “people” is she talking about? Maine corporations can’t find qualified workers for the jobs already unfilled. Instead of supporting tax cuts for the rich, Collins should have voted to invest in America’s future. Wrongly, she voted to burden our children with debt. The only way Collins can be proved correct is if Maine’s population grows, to increase the workforce (not likely, with an aging population) and health care costs are reduced. 

Neither will happen.

Juliana L’Heureux @julianawriter
Topsham

In summary, Maine's demographics do not benefit from the vote of Senator Susan Collins to support the Republican tax cuts for the rich.  

What Maine needs is workforce investment and she knows this. Collins' vote to support the Republican tax cuts for the rich was wrong.

Sanctuaries in academia

It's impossible to think about just how low Donald Trump can go in his desecration of American democracy. Now, academia is bracing for mass deportations of foriegn students, a policy contrary to our history as an immigrant nation. Deportations of students is pushing out another sanctuary bottom.  Sadly, the Trumpzi cult population is enjoying the evil that comes from destroying families and students with cruel words and policies. 

These are scary days for immigrants and to those who may be feeling the impact, please accept my sincere apologies.  Perhaps, after Inauguration Day, I'll be one of the blogging journalists who will be sent packing along with the rest of you. I'm ready.

Even the Brunswick gem Bowdoin College, home of the Civil War Hero Joshua Chamberlain and where Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote her immortal classic, "Uncle Tom's Cabin", is preparing to protect students in the event of Trumpzi cult deportation policies.

Petition seeks 'sanctuary' status for Bowdoin College- in Brunswick, Maine a report in The Forecaster

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals - those in colleges and universities need protection

BRUNSWICK — Following at least 100 colleges and universities across the country, a group of Bowdoin College students are circulating an online petition that would make the college a “sanctuary campus” and protect students at risk of deportation.

The action comes at the same week that Portland announced it would cooperate with federal officials if President-elect Donald Trump follows through with his pledge to immediately deport undocumented immigrants, according to the Bangor Daily News.

“We call on Bowdoin College to stand with other colleges and universities and investigate how to make Bowdoin a sanctuary campus that will protect our current and future students from intimidation, unfair investigation, and deportation,” the petition states.

As of noon on Monday, the petition had received 841 signatures from students, alumni, faculty, board members, and parents. It is addressed to college President Clayton Rose and four other top-ranking Bowdoin officials and deans.

Trump campaigned on the promise to repeal President Obama’s executive orders that provide protections to undocumented immigrants, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a measure that protects undocumented immigrant minors who arrived in the U.S. before age 16.

The letter states that “DACA-mented and undocumented peers are able to remain on campus and focus on their education instead of their fears of being forced to abandon their education and separate from their families.”

DACA provides protections to more than 700,000 students, according to the petition.

The petition enumerates an eight-point list of protections that would establish a sanctuary campus, which includes keeping students’ immigration status confidential, and the college’s refusal to share information or cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

The list is similar to characteristics of so-called “sanctuary cities” around the country, an unofficial term to describe cities that provide safe havens to undocumented immigrants, primarily by refraining to prosecute violations of federal immigration laws.

In the days following Trump’s victory, mayors in cities such as New York, Boston, and Los Angeles have reaffirmed their commitment to remaining places of sanctuary. 

But last week, the Bangor Daily News reported that spokeswoman Jessica Grondin said Portland is not a sanctuary city, and would comply with federal immigration officials.

A 2014 report by the Pew Research Center estimated there are fewer than 5,000 unauthorized immigrants living in Maine.

The student petition suggests the college has the ability to act independently of neighboring cities and municipalities.

“U.S. Customs Enforcement officers are not able to enter college campuses without authorization. Bowdoin has the power to protect undocumented community members and students from law enforcement,” it states, citing an ICE policy that exempts “sensitive locations” like colleges and places of worship from enforcement actions.

However, the policy stipulates that “enforcement actions may occur at sensitive locations in limited circumstances, but will generally be avoided. ICE or CBP officers and agents may conduct an enforcement action at a sensitive location with prior approval from an appropriate supervisory official, or if the enforcement action involves exigent circumstances.”

Leah Alper, a Bowdoin senior, said the petition is modeled on similar petitions that are circulating on campuses around the country, but that the group has tailored the language to apply specifically to Bowdoin.

While she and a small group of students are coordinating the petition drive, Alper said “the organization that has been the real catalyst for this is Cosecha,” an action-network centered on promoting rights for undocumented immigrants, started by students with undocumented parents.

College spokesman Doug Cook said Friday that the college is aware of the petition, and will carefully review it and prepare an appropriate response once it is formally presented to leadership.

Cook could not comment on whether the college knows of specific students who might be threatened by Trump’s immigration plans, but wrote in an email that “I will emphasize that Bowdoin will continue to support all of our students.”

“Bowdoin will not be swayed from its values,” he added, quoting an email sent by Rose on Nov. 10 in response to the presidential election.

“(Bowdoin must) always reject hate; demand mutual respect, vicinity, and inclusion; encourage freedom of inquiry and expression; inspire a deep commitment to the common good; and ensure unwavering concern and support for one another,” Rose wrote.

Trump has yet to explicitly say he would repeal DACA, although he renewed his pledge to immediately deport undocumented immigrants during an interview with “60 Minutes” on Nov. 13, with a priority of targeting those with criminal records.

Maine Writer comment: These radical anti-immigrant policies are reminiscent of pre-World War II Germany, when Nationalism swept the nation at the expense of the Jewish population. One of the emigres who made his exodus during Alolf Hitler's purge of Jews was Albert Einstein.