Stupid former guy Trump is a Russian asset. Calling Putin "smart" is treason.

This series of opinion letters sent to the Register Guard's editor express the depth of grief, anger and anti Putin sentiment from readers in the Eugene area of Oregon: 

The Former Guy is bought and paid for with useless Russian junk currency.

Praising the war criminal Vladimir Putin is treason!

Reading that #TFG Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “genius” for his “savvy” moves in Ukraine raises profound questions. Is that kind of praise coming from a past and future wannabe president of the United States in the midst of a globally significant crisis tantamount to treason?

Shouldn’t we be more outraged that a foreign leader, in particular, a ruthless, totalitarian oligarch like Putin, is freely playing into our political divide? Surely, Putin is testing our resolve as we are his. Surely, he sees NATO’s expansion along his borders as a threat, as we do his Russian troops invasion into Ukraine. 

From Jack Cooper, Eugene

A more fitting comparison:  Putin has compared NATO’s eastward expansion to Germany’s invasion of the USSR during World War II. A more apt comparison would be his invasion of Ukraine to “protect” Russians in the Donbas with Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia to “protect” Germans in the Sudetenland.

Hitler’s Rise to Power Explains Why Republicans Accept Donald Trump- The Intelligencer

From Lawrence N. Crumb, Eugene

A depraved fan: It takes a depraved person to order the brutal invasion of Ukraine, which has already caused the loss of lives, massive destruction, economic devastation and untold suffering. 

That special depraved person is Vladimir Putin. And it takes another special depraved person to describe Putin's actions as "savvy," "smart" and the product of "genius." That special depraved person is The Former Guy "Donald Trump".

Trump's repetitive idolization of Putin and Russia is an insult to all who believe in the rule of law and democracy. The United States has been, and always will be, a force for democracy and a foe of totalitarian rule.

Be it Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea and elsewhere, Trump will predictably favor totalitarian rule.

From David Jensen, Walterville, Oregon

Like Hitler, Trump is a radical, authoritarian figure who lies outside the normal parameters of his country’s conservative governing class.

War crimes

The attack and invasion of Ukraine is genocide, and the U.N. needs to begin war-criminal proceedings immediately against Putin. Innocent civilians are being targeted and lives lost due to a mad dictator. Please, citizens of the world, do all we can to help and support the beautiful people of Ukraine. 

From Cindee Robertson, Eugene

A tale of two mandates: Ukraine mandates all males age 18 to 60 remain in Ukraine, take a Kalashnikov into their hands to protect others and defend their right to be free from Russia. Hope: a free country. Risk to them: death.

From Larry Hirons, Eugene

Ukrainians deserve all our support

I've not been this upset on a political event for decades. Right-wing news asks, "Why is Russia the problem?” Freedom is OK, but not if it raises my gas prices. This mentality at World War II would have Europe speaking German and the Pacific nations (and Hawaii) speaking Japanese.

What I view as “American values” — proud of flying the flag, a threat to democracy anywhere needs to be challenged, people over politics are being eroded. A group not connected to the conflict, but close to home for many, feeling these events is the Afghanistan War vets. Twenty years, lost friends and family, and when we left, did Afghans fight for their country? No!

Did the cowardly President Ashraf Ghanirun away? Yes! 

In Afghanistan, billions of dollars were spent, and thousands of lives were lost or ruined. Do you feel it was worth your service for a country that lacks the courage to fight for your values? You were duped into believing that your service, as was mine in Vietnam, was moral and a cause worth dying for.

The Ukrainians deserve all the support we can offer.

From Dan French, Eugene

Toiletgate: More about Trumpzi's and toilets

Trump's toilet obsession just took a dark turn. 

Echo report published in Vanity Fair written by Bess Levin

"Maggie Haberman reports Trump has told people that since leaving office, he has remained in contact with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un—whose 'love letters', as Trumpzi once called them, were among documents the National Archives retrieved from Mar-a-Lago." So that’s nice for them. (Oh paleeze!)

Axios first reported on Wednesday one of the accounts Maggie Haberman details in her forthcoming books is that White House staffers regularly found ripped-up printed paper clogging a toilet in the presidential residence during Trump's time in office. 


Maggie Lindsy Haberman is an American journalist. She is a White House correspondent for The New York Times and a political analyst for CNN. 

Of the many obsessions that Donald Trump inflicted on the public during his four years in office—his hatred of windmills, the heights of politicians, hydroxychloroquine—one of the most bizarre was his fixation with toilets. Specifically, his insistence that it took an inordinate number of flushes to clear the bowl. “People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times as opposed to once,” he told reporters from the Roosevelt Room in 2019, claiming the EPA was looking into the alleged problem. “Ten times, right, 10 times,” he told rallygoers the following year. “Not me, of course not me. But you,” he said, pointing to a random member of the crowd, who we assume was mortified by the accusation.

In Trump’s telling, toilets were suddenly requiring nearly a dozen flushes due to onerous environmental regulations, which he insisted were not only killing businesses, but also creating scenarios in which people were spending half their day in the bathroom. Except, not one person—even among those who were similarly anti-regulation—ever came forward to claim that they, too, were flushing 10 to 15 times. This was clearly a Trump-specific issue. That made the whole thing not just ridiculous but deeply uncomfortable, in that it forced the American people to 1) picture the president sitting on the toilet, and 2) ponder the seemingly horrifying things coming out of him that necessitated an absurd number of jiggles of the handle.

But on Thursday, a new theory emerged: Perhaps it wasn’t Trump’s diet or the tiny demons that live inside him that required him to flush, flush, and flush again, but the fact that he was shoving documents down the bowl?

While TFG Trump was in office, staff in the White House residence periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet—and believed the president had flushed pieces of paper, Maggie Haberman scoops in her forthcoming book, Confidence Man.

Why it matters: The revelation by Haberman, whose coverage as a New York Times White House correspondent was followed obsessively by Trump, adds a vivid new dimension to his lapses in preserving government documents.… The news of White House toilet-flushing comes as the National Archives has reportedly asked the Biden Justice Department to examine Trump’s handling of White House records, amid the congressional investigation into the January 6 assault on the Capitol. The Washington Post reports that National Archives officials “suspected Trump had possibly violated laws concerning the handling of government documents.” The National Archives later retrieved 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago, the Post reported. Archives officials found possible classified material in the returned boxes, The New York Times learned.

In response to the toilet claim, Trump insisted in a statement that the allegation was “another fake story,” one “simply made up by a reporter in order to get publicity for a mostly fictitious book.”

News of Trump’s decision to abscond with more than a dozen boxes of presidential records comes alongside detailed reporting on his habit of shredding documents that were meant to be preserved and turned over to the Archives without issue. “The ripping was so relentless that Trump’s team implemented protocols to try to ensure that he was abiding by the Presidential Records Act,” according to the Post, which involved “aides from either the Office of the Staff Secretary or the Oval Office Operations team [coming] in behind Trump to retrieve the piles of torn paper he left in his wake,” and then painstakingly 

Good riddance to TFG*

“jigsawing the documents back together, using clear tape.” One person familiar with the matter told the Post, the Archives staff was “stunned at how many papers they received from the Trump administration that were ripped,” calling it “unprecedented.” Also seemingly unprecedented? A president perhaps disposing of official government property via the toilet; we just hope and pray no one was tasked with fishing out and drying off said property.

*The Former Guy

There were dire warnings about Steve Bannon - ugh! Bannon is a racist!

The Former Guy's chief strategist is racist. 
Bannon, the former head of the far-right web site Breitbart news, describes himself as an (evil!) leader of the ‘alt-right,’

Echo in stereo! Policy group The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights warned The Former Guy's administration about the danger of giving the ugly Steve Bannon any credibility.  

This following letter was sent to the media on November 16, 2016, and must be re-released!

Letter sent to The Former Guy- Donald J. Trump
To President-elect of the United States
Trump Tower
725 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Dear President-elect (Former Guy):

We are writing to you on behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 200 national advocacy organizations that, together, represent tens of millions of Americans from all walks of life. 

Since its founding in 1950, The Leadership Conference has played a vital role in every debate over legislation affecting civil and human rights. We are writing today on a matter of great concern to our organizations and to the nation as a whole. 

We strongly urge you to reconsider your appointment of Stephen K. Bannon as your chief strategist and senior counselor in the White House.

As many news sources have documented in the past week, Mr. Bannon has a history of expressing alarmingly biased and uncivil views that demean women, the LGBT community, and religious groups. And as the executive chairman of Breitbart LLC, he turned the website Breitbart.com into what he described as “the platform for the alt-right,”[i] a movement that includes and is heavily shaped by white supremacists, anti-Semites, anti-Muslims, nativists, and other political extremists who are more dedicated to destroying our system than they are to improving it.[ii]

Whether – as his former editor-in-chief recently speculated – Mr. Bannon is simply pandering to a radical and extremist constituency in order to increase his political influence or whether he personally holds these views,.[iii] it ultimately makes little difference. Either way, his presence in the White House will undermine and discredit the pledge you made last week to “be President for all Americans.” (Maine Writer- Is this lie among the Lie Library in the litany of those quoted by The Former Guy?)

It is especially problematic at a time when many communities are facing a dramatic increase in hate crimes and other forms of racial and ethnic harassment.[iv]

As representatives of a coalition with a long history of working with both parties in Washington, we know very well that political opponents in this town have to occasionally put strong rhetoric aside and work together to advance the public interest or to simply keep the government running. “Strange bedfellows” can accomplish truly remarkable things in Washington. Make no mistake, our organizations have been alarmed by and will strongly oppose many of your policy proposals – on the merits, and in good faith. It is our sincere hope that we can find areas where we might be able to work together to improve the lives of all Americans.

Doing so, however, requires a certain level of trust and the belief that despite our differences, we all share certain common values: that all Americans deserve a chance to live up to their potential, that our cultural diversity is a source of strength and not a weakness, and that our government has an important role to play in improving our lives. Mr. Bannon’s record of, at best, catering to people who do not share these values will make it significantly more difficult for the communities we represent to develop trust in your administration as we move forward.

We cannot recall a previous instance in which The Leadership Conference weighed in on a presidential appointment that was not subject to the Senate confirmation process. The Bannon appointment, however, carries with it implications that go far beyond normal internal staffing matters, and will significantly affect not only your presidency but the broader interests of the American public. We strongly urge you to reconsider it.

Thank you for considering our views. If you would like to continue discussing this, please contact Wade Henderson, President and CEO of The Leadership Conference, at (202) 466-3311.

Sincerely,
9to5, National Association of Working Women
African American Ministers In Action (AAMIA)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
American Federation of Teachers
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Anti-Defamaton League
Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF)
Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC
Asian Pacific Americans Labor Alliance
Association of University Centers on Disabilities
Bend the Arc
Black Women’s Roundtable I
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Center for Responsible Lending
Coalition for Disability Health Equity
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists
Coalition of Labor Unon Women
Coalition on Human Needs
Council of Korean Americans
Demos
Do Justice and Fitting the Description
Equal Justice Society
Family Equality Council
Franciscan Action Network
Globe Women Research & Education Institute
Hindu American Foundation
International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
League of United Latin American Citizens
MALDEF
NAACP
NAACP LDF
National Action Network
National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE)
National Asian Pacific American Bar Association
National Asian Pacific American Families Against Substance Abuse
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum
National Association of Social Workers
National Black Justice Coalition
National CAPACD
National Center for Transgender Equality
National Coalition on Black Civic Participation
National Collaborative for Health Equity
National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA)
National Council of Churches
National Council of Jewish Women
National Council of La Raza
National Education Association
National Employment Law Project
National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC)
National Immigration Law Center
National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund
National Partnership for Women & Families
National Urban League
National Women’s Law Center
OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates
Poverty & Race Research Action Council
Project Vote
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
Restaurant Opportunities Center United
Sikh American Legal Defense & Education Fund (SALDEF)
South Asian Bar Association
South Asian Bar Association of North America
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
United We Dream Network
Voices for Progress
West Michigan Hindu Temple
Women’s Equality Coalition Greater Kansas City
Women’s Intercultural Network (WIN)
World Without Genocide
YWCA USA
Hindu American Foundation

[i] Sarah Posner, “How Donald Trump’s New Campaign Chief Created an Online Haven for White Nationalists,” Mother Jones, Aug. 22, 2016 at http://bit.ly/2g2oQgC.

[ii] See, e.g., “Alt Right: A Primer about the New White Supremacy,” Anti-Defamation League, at http://bit.ly/2g2rfb9.

[iii] Ben Shapiro, “3 Thoughts on Steve Bannon as White House ‘Chief Strategist,’” The Daily Wire, Nov. 14, 2016 at http://bit.ly/2g2un6O.

[iv] See, e.g., Azadeh Ansari, “FBI: Hate crimes spike, most sharply against Muslims,” CNN.com, Nov. 15, 2016, at http://cnn.it/2g2ooPI; Editorial, “Hateful acts are on the rise, and it’s Trump’s responsibility to take a stand,” Washington Post, Nov. 17, 2016, at http://wpo.st/fz0F2.

Representative Liz Cheney is a political example of The Greater Good

Wyoming is a tough state to find journalism that I happen to  agree with.  Therefore, I was delighted to find this opinion published in Rocket Miner news, for my echo to post in this Maine Writer blog.  

In my opinion, this opinion is an example about how to bravely stand up to support The Greater Good: Definition- Benefit of the public, of more people than oneself; that which is better and more correct.

I agree with Mr. Gagnon in Wyoming!  

Let's support Representative Liz Cheney because she is demonstrating integrity during a time when Republicans have clearly lost their moral compass by protecting the sedition led by #TheFormerGuy

Debasing myself politically, I’ve joined the Republican Party. I never thought I would do this. The first time that I could vote in a primary, in New Hampshire in 1980, I voted for Jerry Brown. At Winter Park, Colorado, about 1984, I registered as a socialist. The election official was shocked and became angry. She nearly had a heart attack. Later, she told me it was the altitude. I knew better. A few years later, in Durango, I registered as a Green. My vote for Ralph Nader put George H.W. Bush in the White House.

For the next several decades I was a moderate and boring Democrat, but in presidential contests, at least as far as the popular vote goes, I never lost. There was that snafu in 2000, where Al Gore got more votes than George W. Bush, and should have given Gore Florida’s winning electoral votes, too. Unaccountably, democracy sank, oil companies continued stealing Middle Eastern petroleum, and airliners crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. These were evil yet eloquent warnings and expressions against the United States.

Had Gore become president, the rationale for 9/11 just wouldn’t have been there, and by now we would be off our addiction to fossil fuels.

“I will pay your legal fees!” Trump shouted in March of 2016, as a man punched another who was critical of Trump, and the nation slid into a pattern of increasingly fascist violence. This culminated in the Insurrection of January 6, 2021, and I, very oddly, suddenly gained respect and admiration for Wyominy's Representative Liz Cheney.

The reason for my party-registration change is to enable me to vote for Cheney in the Republican primary, and maybe in the November election, too, but by that point I’ll have to see who is out there. 

Some of my Democratic partners disagree with what I have done. One says she will no longer have lunch with me. Another explained that the Democratic Party in Wyoming is much better organized than the Republicans, and that we have better data. 

Later, I wondered if his data also shows that we never win?

Why do we bother with politics, and become angered and have heart attacks, especially, I tell you, at these Rocky Mountain altitudes? 

The reason is usually so we can have a positive influence within our society. In the state or regional context, such as here in Wyoming, some of the issues are specific to us, others are national or global.

The candidates come as a part of a parcel. That is, we can expect Democratic candidates to promote things that require cooperative societal efforts, and are often complex, such as the Paris Climate Agreement, free public education, fair taxation, the protection of wilderness and wildlife, including protection for wild horses, and responsible resource extraction, to name a few. To achieve these things, it’s usually taken for granted that government will be the guarantor and enforcer, until they become self-enforcing parts of “The Social Contract.”

The Republican parcel of characteristics includes axing environmental regulations on resource extraction, getting rid of wildlife, including wild horses, so as to have more cattle and sheep on public lands, forced school prayer, making abortion illegal regardless of any threat to health or specific circumstances, and restricting “what kinds” of people can vote. An interesting socialistic twist on this, of course, is an insistence on keeping the federal government out of our business, yet an equal insistence that they pay Wyoming vastly more than we contribute. OK, so nobody is perfect, but that’s how it looks.

Back to the top of this editorial, people like me intend to join forces with moderate Republicans and make Liz Cheney the official Republican candidate. Democrats have much on which they can disagree with Cheney, but she has impressed us with her honesty and courage, and we can therefore work with her. Also, she’s vastly better than the alternatives.

The far-right Republican extremists, also known as, fans of Donald Trump, the people who are currently running Wyoming’s Republican party, don’t have, in reality, anything enforceable to say about this. Their deplorable attitudes and interference are completely inappropriate. It was never intended that they should get to tell politicians what to say and how to vote. They are promoting a condition that might be called Fake Schizophrenia, the supposed belief, but really just acquiesce, in The Big Lie*.

Democrats, please join me in some temporary self-abasement; we can blame it on the altitude.

From - Tom Gagnon,  Rock Springs Wyoming

*Baseless Claims! The Big Lie and the Big Liar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cECFj989vvs