Donald Trump watched television during January 6 Capitol insurrection never called in the National Guard

Americans, in real time, saw the January 6, 2021 insurrection caused by evil Donald Trump. 

Echo opinion letter published in The Winchester Star, a Virginia newspaper. 

Fast forward to the present, 2025, and once again, Donald Trump is angry. Angry that he is losing the country again. 

A very weak president- who complained about bone spurs rather than serve in the military, is trying to push through a bill taking away constitutional rights, and ruining our social safety nets, lifting up the rich and powerful, and cementing his grip on power over "his people," cannot accept that he is being exposed by our legal system, and thwarted. 

He creates an “attack” on an American city, in Los Angles, because he despises,  "criminal immigrants who are invading’" (and eating pets, I imagine) and takes executive action on these supposed invaders by calling out state and federal troops to “hit them” (his words). All of a sudden, states rights vanish and he and his masked unidentified goons 👺👹😷are in charge, threatening harm and “harder hitting” if people dare to continue their protests against this clearly authoritarian threat.

Instigating violence for others to carry out is all he knows.

We must continue to protest. Stand our ground. Do not take the bait to be violent, please. Walk away from violence, but stand your ground and know your rights. What he is doing is not normal, legal, or moral. But we shall, we must, overcome this. Try to be civil to and ignore those who lap his act up like a dog laps foul water, for they are victims, too. They just don’t know it yet.

From Krysten Lynn in Winchester Virginia

Immigrant abduction and roundups: Regardless of your political beliefs, this is not the nation I grew up in

Masked agents arresting innocent immigrants in the streets❓

Nazi tactics❗ Echo opinion letter published in The Winchester Star, a Virginia newspaper: 

Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, just left her home in Somerville , Massachusetts, to meet with friends when she was detained by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents, lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in a petition filed in Boston federal court. Khanababai called the arrest by masked agents "terrifying."😱😳😈

Dear Editor: It is beyond belief that masked federal agents are arresting people on the streets of America. I understand protective gear if necessary, but last week masked agents arrested a woman and whisked her off into custody and transported her to isolation in Louisiana. 😡😢💢 Regardless of your political beliefs, this is not the direction our country should be headed. 

Holocaust Museum✡️Jewish sector street scene  in 1930s Paris France

If masked agents can arrest this woman, what stops masked agents from arresting any person in this country and sending them to an unknown location? Not the country I grew up in.

From Gary W. Baylis in Frederick County, Virginia

⚠️Kristi Noem’s disturbing failure of compassion — and of leadership- The Hill

SignalGate: Pete Hegseth gaslighting Americans because a security breach is dangerous regardless of how he tries to redefine the incident

Signal (SignalGage) incident is 'terrible'❗: Echo opinion letter published in The Winchester Star in Winchester, Virginia.

Signal group chats are now dead, but not before the breach of security of government secret military operations in Yemen. 

The National Intelligence Director, Tulsi Gabbard, appointed by Trump, admitted it was a “mistake." 

The results of this mistake could have been disastrous for U.S. military pilots but fortunately it was not. On the Signal chats there was also CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who has defended the use of Signal chats as “appropriate,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, and a nongovernmental journalist employed The Atlantic. 

Unfortunately, I think The Atlantic will soon be attacked by Trump, as he already has PBS and NPR.

These people on the Signal group chat were all people who had been appointed by Trump despite their overall lack of familiarity with government procedures. In the two months since the inauguration of Donald Trump, these government officials did not have time to understand the common-sense procedures of government employees. They had not attained the common-sense necessary to function well in extremely rapidly changing executive edicts.

The Democrats claim that the information exchanged with the journalist was “classified.” I believe them, but it will take time to prove since the government only claims it was “sensitive” information. Time will tell, but in the meantime I think it was terrible even if it was sensitive information- it was still a dangerous ⚠️security breach❗

From Andrew White in Winchester, Virginia

QAnon Shaman is now the logo of Republican extremism

Opinion echo letter published in The Winchester Star, a newspaper published in Winchester, Virginia.

Maine Writer- In my opinion, this QAnon shamen is now the heinous animalistic logo of of the seditious Republican Party.

Jacob Chansley is the shape shifter symbol of Republican extremism.

'QAnon Shaman' turns on his cult idol: pleads guilty.

Jacob Chansley is the QAnon "shaman". He joined a seditious mob that stormed the US Capitol in a horned bearskin outfit and then pleaded guilty to a felony for obstructing the Electoral College proceedings on January 6

“Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.” — Gustave Flaubert

Recently, one of the most grotesquely colorful and idiotic thugs who attacked the Nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 pleaded guilty to various crimes and was sentenced to a stretch in federal prison. 

This is Jacob Chansley, the self-styled QAnon Shaman; he of the bare chest, red, white and blue face paint, and horns! It seems that out of a sense of self-survival he has forsworn QAnon and now prefers to be known simply as The Shaman. He has also, it seems, turned on his former idol, The Donald, and now reviles him. Expediency rules the day. This turnaround was no doubt motivated in part by his willingness to renounce Trump out of a sense of self-preservation, but also because he was miffed that Trump did not grant him a pardon while he still could.

As stupid as Chansley clearly is, it turns out that he is the genius of the family. His family was opposed to his pleading guilty to the charges he was convicted of, advising him to hold out until Trump is reinstated in the near future. At that time, their logic goes, Trump would grant him a pardon. This advice is bad on so many levels it simply defies belief anyone could be so stupid as to suggest this course of action. Stupid is as stupid does. Long live stupid on the right!

Michael Rea is a resident of Winchester, Virginia.

Trump intends to cheat - he is illegally calling for voter fraud: #voteblue #voteBidenHarris2020

Opinion published in The Winchester Star, a Virginia newpaper located in Frederick County:

Dump Trump #vote

 Our vote is our power to return to decency, fairness

As I sat down to write this Open Forum letter, I considered compiling a list of some of the lies, illegal actions, and immoral attacks on our democracy promulgated by the president of this country, and by his enablers, in just the last few weeks. But then I thought, why waste the words? Everyone who values unifying our country vs. dividing it and who believes in empathy vs. cruelty already knows the outrages being committed by the Trump administration and their Republican cronies.

Instead, then, I'll focus on the single action we can all take, soon, that will give us the power to make the pendulum swing back towards decency and compassion, towards valuing, once again, the constructs of our Constitution, and towards re-establishing the true meanings of justice and law and order — OUR VOTE!

If you believe that equality under the law – with decency, empathy, and compassion — are the bedrock of our democracy, it's completely clear who we in the Winchester/Frederick County area should elect and re-elect.

At the national level, vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Senator Mark Warner, and Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton. At the state level, vote for Irina Khanin (Virginia House of Delegates 29th District). If you live in the Shawnee District of Frederick County, vote for Richard Kennedy for Board of Supervisors. There are also a host of fantastic candidates in Winchester and Stephens City; their information is available at https://wfcdc.org/the-candidates/.

Finally, the Trump administration has made it crystal clear that they will cheat in order to win re-election in November, and the Republicans will do all they can to suppress legitimate votes by those of us who are likely to support Democratic candidates. 

Indeed, they have already attacked the postal service. So it's EXTREMELY important that we make sure that ALL of our votes are counted. The best way to do that is to vote early and in-person, beginning on Friday, September 18th, in both Winchester and Frederick County. 

You can get all the information you need about the voting process from these websites: https://www.fcva.us/departments/office-of-elections-voter-registration and https://www.winchesterva.gov/vote.

Mark Zimmerman is a resident of Frederick County.