Donald Trump and maga Republicans dug themselves into a shithole war and they cannot get out unless they lie about it

Echo opinion letter to the letter of the Columbian news:

Trump digs a hole for U.S.❗

Donald Trump buried himself in a big hole at the behest of the Israelis and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Now, the Republicans are spinning that the military Marines on Kharg Island, located off the coast of Iran, are not “boots on the ground.” ❓A dangerous typical Republican lie 🤥😔❗ .

Trump is whining loudly that “nobody will help me❗” Those he insulted in Europe told him it’s “his war.” I love that!

Yesterday, I paid 💲67 to fill my Subaru — 💲5.20 a gallon 💲❗at Shell. Republicans also state that doesn’t matter. ❓ 

Midterm elections this year will surely stick it to Republicans. (Maine Writer- if voters will be allowed to get to our polling places....❗❗) For the GOP, the only hope is to rig the election, cheat in other words. Cheating is a one-way street with Trump and Republicans —😟 only they get to do it. 

From Bill Kelley in Yacolt, Washington State, published in the Columbian 

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must hear the truth over and over about how spreading Trumpzi evil is getting worse

Echo opinion letter published in The Columbian: What Donald Trump and his evil cohorts are saying and doing is ruining the America we know. 

It is time for everyone to stand up, face the facts and fight this takeover. We need to educate his cult believers that what he is doing is not OK and not helping them; Donald Trump is a total fraud, not caring for anyone but himself.  (He only cares about "me, myself and I....)

We need to educate his believers that what he is doing is not OK and not helping them; he’s a total fraud, not caring for anyone but himself. He has appealed to some Americans because he supports their key beefs (abortion, transgender rights, border, etc...racism) and they give him a pass on all the horrible things he is doing. 

We need to keep spreading the truth to enlighten these folks and others. (Maine Writer postscript:  This is precisely the reason why opinion letters to newspapers and other media are essential....truth must be documented.)

From Walter George in Vancouver Washington, published in The Columbian newspaper.

 

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are enabling tryannical overreach by Trumpziism and dictatorship

 Tyranny and overreach are not acceptable behaviors, now or ever❗😡 Echo opinion publihed in The Chronicle, in Washington State.

The latest round of overreach by the Trump cult regime includes threatening cities with military deployment. Do you know who does that? Dictators do.

Donald Trump is a convicted felon who lies about virtually everything❗

Also notice that the cities he is threatening are run by Black Democrats. But if he really cared about crime in U.S. cities, he would be going to Republican-run states and cities, because many of them have higher crime rates than the cities he is illegally targeting.

Memphis, Tennessee, has the highest rate of murder in the country. Does he even mention sending troops to that city? A heavily Republican state. Not as far as I have heard.

This all really boils down to pushing more of his agenda onto blue areas and giving the false sense of a strong man in charge.

But the truth is, he is weak. His agenda is unpopular, no matter how loud his base and the trolls of Lewis County yell.

I wonder what they would think if a Democrat president did this? They would call it tyranny and extreme overreach, but because they are part of the cult and cannot see any wrong, they will stay silent.

I suppose one thing Trump was right about was that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and nothing will be done about it. 

He certainly has gotten away with many evil things. Might as well release the Epstein files. It won't move the needle.

We are going down a very dangerous path where vengeance is a routine mission and who cares if more than half the country is not going along with it and another third are not happy but will remain silent because they are afraid of more retribution. Everyone is just hoping that it won't be that bad. But when it gets that bad, it will be too late.

Tyranny and overreach are not acceptable behavior now or ever. But I am sure the cult members and trolls of Lewis County will find so much to agree with in these actions and laugh at my concerns. We are doomed.

From Grace Thornton in Centralia Washington state

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are betraying their cult supporters by spreading lies: What are Republicans thinking? Answer: They are not!

Echo opinion letter published in the Washington state Daily Chronicle, in response to a zealous MAGA supporter:

Where to start regarding the maga Bruce Peterson’s letter disparaging a writer who was critical about Trump❓

Mr. Peterson, your good heart has been betrayed. Trump is a liar.🤥It’s the one thing he truly excels at.

What are maga Republicans thinking?

The problem with a lie is it alters perception of what’s real and what’s really happening. Believe the first lie and perception shifts. Believe the next lie and perception shifts again. Another lie and another shift. In time, perception becomes so altered, it is immune to facts and any information conflicting with the altered perception. Congratulations. You have arrived.

Lying is so harmful , it made the top 10 commandments list Moses brought down the mountain. Thou shall not bear false witness. Remember? People who believe lies become enablers, collaborators, doxers and worse. Some will progress to assassination, violent mobs, insurrection and a desire for political office and power.

Trump is a liar. He is mean. He is a bully, a rapist, a draft dodger, a tax cheat, a business fraudster, a serial adulterer, an insurrectionist and more. What all these behaviors have in common is they stand behind lies.

I don’t vote for liars because I see destruction done to relationships and institutions. Trump is ill, and it is a contagion in our country. I don’t know how many people are able to come back from the Trump lies. 

I hope, Mr. (maga) Peterson, I hope, Mr. Peterson, you can come back.  Finally, the inflation math in your letter did not make sense.

From MJ Marsh in Chehalis, Washington state

#ImpeachTrumpAgain

Donald Trump and maga Republicns are running away from a miserable record stealing from the poor to give tax cuts to the rich

 Republicans are stealing from the poor to give to the rich:  Echo opinion letter published in The Chronicle in Washington State:

Here’s some history: Once Ronald Reagan was elected, the Republicans have taken advantage of the middle-class by destroying workers unions, taxing unemployment, taxing Social Security and you pay less and less in taxes.

So, who cares? Well, I‘ve been poor, and I know what that’s like.

If you get ill in Yakima, Washington State, they usually take you by ambulance or medical flight to Seattle, and if you don’t have insurance, who will cover the cost?

I’ve seen the list showing that it’s possible three hospitals within a 70-mile radius in the Yakima Valley will close. 

We had two hospitals in Yakima, Washington, and now we only have one, and the Republicans in Yakima have been running the show for decades, and it keeps getting worse and worse.

I’ve lived in the Yakima Valley since 1978. Most of the illegal immigrants I know are good people with good families. Does anybody actually think someone on Medicaid is going to want to work to pune trees when it’s 100 degrees❓

Republicans are stealing from the poor to give to the rich.

From Michelle Erickson Yakima, Washington

Donald Trump and maga Republicans attack Freedom of speech suppressing the press and political opponents

Speak up now❗  💢  #Resist

Echo opinion letter to The Daily Chronicle in Centralia Washington state: 

It is time to speak up, before we are no longer allowed to:

Freedom of speech is the foundation of our democracy, a sacred right that allows us to express dissent, share ideas and hold our leaders accountable.

But under the Trump administration, this fundamental freedom is under assault.

Donald Trump has made it clear that he will do everything in his power to silence his opponents. Whether through legal threats, attacks on the press or public shaming of critics, he has consistently shown contempt for open discourse.

This isn’t just about politics, it’s about preserving the very principles that define our nation.

Without freedom of speech, independent thought withers. The ability to challenge authority or expose wrongdoing vanishes. A government that fears criticism is not a government by the people, it is a government for one man’s power and ego.

We are at a crossroads. Will we allow our rights to erode in the name of political loyalty, or will we stand up for the freedoms that generations before us fought to secure?

It is time to speak up, before we are no longer allowed to.

From Shauna Wilhelm in Chehalis, Washington State

Trumpziism is Trumpist Republicans that lie about everything!

Echo opinion letter published in The Chronicle, a newspaper published in Centralia, Washington.  

This is an interesting opinion letter! 

Those with strong memories may recall that on the very first day of the Trump presidency, Jan. 20, 2017, the new administration claimed despite all eyewitness and photographic evidence that the Trump inauguration crowd was the largest in history.

Maine Writer - check this site here for photographs taken when protestors demonstrated after the 2017, Trump inauguration.

But not only did the Trump presidency begin with a lie, its mendacity has moldered and metastasized ever since.

A combination of photos shows the small crowds attending the inauguration ceremonies of Donald Trump, left, and the enormous crowds that celebrated the inauguration of President Barack Obama. These pictures were taken by Reuters, and were not the edited NPS images. Photograph: Staff/Reuters

The security of military and intelligence data always has been a top concern of the nation-state. The compromise of such data often has been of enormous consequence.

During the Civil War, for example, two Union infantrymen accidentally discovered a copy of Confederate battle plans, Special Order 191, wrapped around a cache of three cigars. Although slow and overly cautious, as usual, Union commander General George McClellan was able to use this information to stymie General Robert E. Lee's invasion of the North at the epochal Battle of Antietam, on Sept. 17, 1862, the bloodiest day of the entire war.

During World War II, at a secret facility at Bletchley Park, England, Ultra cryptographers successfully hacked the German Enigma military code transmitter, allowing Winston Churchill to boast in private that he knew Hitler's orders to Rommel before Rommel. 

Nazi neglect of its security apparatus undoubtedly contributed to the successful Allied campaigns in Egypt, Tunisia, Sicily and Normandy, and may even have swung the balance.

Mar-a-Lago: tRumpzi took stolen documents to his country club in Palm Beach, Florida. 

But, now we find that when Donald Trump left the White House, he hauled off crates of highly classified information to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Some of these documents were labeled "TS/SCI," an abbreviation for "top secret/sensitive compartmented information," the highest classification extant.

Without exception, such documents are meant to be read only in secure government facilities and should never be moved from such facilities without clear and urgent cause. To do so is an irrefutable violation of the Espionage Act and of other federal laws as well, and indisputably opens the door to many forms of malfeasance, including the illegal transfer of such information to foreign powers and treason.

Yet on Aug. 12, 3rd District congressional candidate Joe Kent posted that "the FBI leaked the nuclear documents nonsense to seed yet another narrative based on fake information that will be way too classified for them to release, we'll just have to trust the 'vanguards of democracy' w/another kangaroo court."

This is just garbage. Kent is a military veteran, as was his wife, Shannon Kent, a cryptologic technician who died in combat in Syria during the Trump presidency.

Clearly, this is a sensitive matter, but Kent, of all people, should know better.

Joe Kent (shame on him!) not only is a doormat for Donald Trump, he simply does not know what he is talking about.

From Joseph Tipler, in Centralia, Washington State

Cruz to Loose encore cubed!

So, the litany of Ted Cruz stupidity missteps continues: #CruzToLoose! Ted Cruz mistakes 'Western Australia' for 'Washington State' in botched attack on 'power-drunk' Dems

RawStory echo report by John Wright

And there was this:
Cruz accuses Democrats of playing 'ridiculous theater' in proposals following mass shootings with dozens of preventable fatalities and gun injuries. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) accused Democrats of playing “ridiculous theater” by proposing universal background checks and other reforms following serial mass shootings, and gun death mortalities, which he claimed would take “away guns from law-abiding citizens.” 

Meanwhile, school shootings in 2021, continue terrifying students, educators, parents, and communities—There have been 34 school shootings in 2021, in fact, 24 since August 1. 

A shooting on Nov. 30, in which a student killed four people and injured seven at an Oxford, Mich., high school, was the deadliest school shooting since May 2018. There have been 92 school shootings since 2018. The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have interrupted the trend line. The 2020 figure, with 10 shootings, was significantly lower than 2019 and 2018, which each had 24.

Plus this: While the Cruz constituents in Texas were literally freezing to death during an ice storm when the state's power grid failed, he took his family to vacation in Cancun, Mexico! Cruz said that his Houston home didn’t lose power, unlike vast swaths of the state, though he said in his Thursday statement that he did end up losing power and heat. 

David Shuster "...confirmed @SenTedCruz and his family flew to Cancun for a few days at a resort they've visited before. Cruz seemed to believe there wasn't much for him to do in Texas for the millions of fellow Texans who remained without electricity/water and  literally freezing."

Rolling blackouts at times meant more than 35% of Texans went without electricity—and many of those without any source of heat.

Cruz to Loose in Cancun Mexico*

Echo report in RawStory:  Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz apparently confused "Western Australia" (WA) with "Washington State" in an attempted attack on Democrats over COVID-19 restrictions on Wednesday night.

On Twitter, Cruz falsely suggested that "Washington State" had banned dancing at private parties on New Year's Eve.

"Blue-state Dems are power-drunk authoritarian kill-joys," Cruz wrote. "Washington State: NO DANCING ALLOWED!!! Any rational & free citizen: Piss off."

Cruz later deleted the tweet, but here's a screen shot:

Cruz was responding to a post containing an image of a comment thread from Facebook. In the comment thread, "WA Government" responded to a question about New Year's Eve COVID-19 restrictions by saying that "Dancing is strictly not permitted."

As it turns out, the comment thread came from the Facebook page of the Government of Western Australia, not Washington state. Cruz may have gotten confused since the postal abbreviation for Washington state is "WA."

"Witness the idiocracy for yourself. This…leader (?) confuses Western Australia (WA) for Washington State. Like he confused Texas for Cancun. https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status"

#SIASD!

*P.S.  So let me get this right?  Ted Cruz was born in Canada.  His father was a Cuban immigrant.  So, how is it that Ted Cruz gets to travel in and out of Mexico without having proof of US citizenship? In other words, do we really have to let him back in after he leaves to visit another country? 

Calgary, Alberta CNN — Ted Cruz’s Canadian birth has become a key campaign issue. The U.S. Constitution requires a candidate for president be a “natural born citizen.” Most experts believe Cruz is a natural born citizen, but no president has ever been born outside of the U.S. and his father was not an American citizen at the time.

And, Maine Writer opinion here- these goofs will not be the end of the #CruzToLoose litany.

/1476356717336309766

Anti-vaxxers are fools to object about free COVID19 prevention

 Opinion echo letter published in the Seattle Times newspaper, in the state of Washington:

It is past the time to mandate universal vaccination against COVID-19, and put an end to the various restrictions on daily life, not to mention the continuing economic impacts on those who can least afford them.


I strongly urge all our levels of government to immediately mandate vaccine compliance, with exceptions only for medical reasons (and with follow up by public health to assure none of those are spurious). As with smallpox, measles and other highly contagious diseases, there is no excuse for continued reluctance to do the right thing. Further, if the mandate is universal, there will no incentive for critical workers, including health and fire protection staff, to leave their jobs.

The people of King County, in the state of Washington, and across the United States have put up with an array of continuing impositions by government which should no longer be necessary, were it not for fools refusing to get vaccinated. It is time to protect everyone, including the fools, from their own foolish behavior, and put an end to the impositions.

Americans have mandated vaccination in the past. Now, it is time to mandate vaccination for COVID-19.

From William J. Earl, Burien, in Washington State

Measles

This article was published in Health and Science in The Washington Post, writen by Lena H. Sun and Marueen O'Hagan, Feb. 6, 2019

Measles is a highly contagious infectious disease, but 97 percent preventable with vaccination

VANCOURVER, Wash.- Amber Gorrow is afraid to leave her house with her infant son because she lives at the epicenter of Washington state's worst measles outbreak in more than two decades. Born eight weeks ago, Leon is too young to get his first measles shot, putting him at risk for the highly contagious respiratory virus, which can be fatal in small children.  

Gorrow also lives in a community where, she said, being anti-vaccine is as acceptable as being vegan or going gluten free.  

Almost a quarter of kids in Clark County, Washington, suburb of Portland, Ore. go to school without measles, mumps and rubella immunizations, and Washington Governor Jay Inslee (D) recently declared a state of emergency amid concern that things could rapidly spin out of control.

Measles outbreaks have sprung up in nine other states this winter, but officials are particularly alarmed about the one in Clark County because of its potential to go very big, very quickly.

The Pacific Northwest is home to some of the nation's most vocal and organized anti-vaccination activists.  That movement has helped drive down child immunizations in Washington, as well as in neighboring Oregon and Idaho, to some of the lowest rates in the country, with as many as 10.5 percent of kindergartners statewide in Idaho who are unvaccinated for measles. That is almost double the national median rate.

Libertarian-leaning lawmakers, meanwhile, have bowed to public pressure to relax state laws to exempt virtually any child from state vaccination requirements whose parents object.  Three states allow only medical exemptions; most others also permit religious exemptions. And 17, including Washington, Oregon and Idaho, allow what they call "philosophical" exemptions, meaning virtually anyone can opt out of the requirements.

All those elements combine into a dangerous mix, spurring concern about the resurgence of a deadly disease that once sent tens of thousands of Americans to hospitals each year and killed an estimated 400 to 500 people, many of them young children.

"You know what keeps me up at night?" said Clark County Public Health Director Alan  Melnick.  "Measles is exquisitely contagious.  If you have an under-vaccinated population, and you introduce a measles case into that population, it will take off like wildfire."

To date, at least 55 people in Washington and neighboring Oregon have gotten sick with the virus, with new cases tallied almost daily.  All but five are in Clark County. King County, which includes Seattle, has one case.  Multnomah County in ORegon, which includes Portland, has four, including three cases reported Wednesday. Most of those infected are unvaccinated children under 10, health officials said.

Gorrow, who lives in a middle-class bedroom community, says the outbreak has changed nearly every aspect of her life, which is now laser-focused on avoiding contact with children who may carry measles germs.

When she picks up her 3-year-old from preschool, she gently pushes grubby little hands away from the baby.  She canceled a family outing to a children's museum, regular trips to the library, the weekly Costco run and play dates for her daughter.

"I hate to say it, but I'm even nervous about having people over - especially people who have small children and I'm not sure where they stand", on vaccinations, said Gorrow, 29, who had her older child vaccinated.

Measles, which remains endemic in many parts of the world, generally returns to the United States when infected travelers bring the disease back to pickets of the country where some parents have chosen not to vaccinate their children. When immunization rates fall below a certain threshold, outbreaks can occur; pregnant women, young children and people with compromised immune systems who can't get vaccinated are especially at risk. Last year, 349 cases were confirmed across 26 states and the District of Columbia, the second highest total since the disease was declared eliminated from the United State in 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Since October, an outbreak in New York's Orthodox Jewish community has sickened 209 people.  In the first month of 2019, 10 states, including New York and Washington, have reported cases, all signs of a resurgence of a disease that is entirely preventable with a vaccine that authorities say is safe and effective.

In Washington, with late winter and spring generally the height of measles transmission, health officials say they are scrambling to stop the disease before it can spread further- spending about $200,000 so far, tracking down hundreds of unvaccinated people who may have been exposed.

Federal guidelines typically recommend that children get the first vaccine dose at 12 to 15 months of age and the second when they are 4 to 6 years old.  (Babies may be vaccinated at age 6 months or older if they are at risk of exposure, for instance, if they are traveling to an area with an outbreak.)  The combination is 97-99 percent effective in preventing the viral disease.

Clark County officials are directing hundreds of susceptible families who may have been exposed to the virus at more than three dozen locations- including Portland Trailblazers basketball game, schools, churches and stores such as Costco and Walmart - to keep their kids home from school for 21 days to avoid exposing others.

They're encouraging parents t vaccinate their kids if they haven't already, and are pushing back against rumors and misinformation,including that self-medicating with vitamin A will prevent measles.

Melnick said the county is also spending precious time and resources addressing false ideas, being spread by anti-vaccine advocates, who he said posted "ridiculous" misinformation as comments, on the county health department's Facebook page.

Critics claimed, for instance, that the measles vaccine can cause encephalitis or brain inflammation, he said.  That was documented once in a child who had an immune deficiency and should not have gotten an immunization. More commonly, encephalitis is a severe but rare complication of the measles disease itself.  The department has a three-person team countering these false assertions and responding to questions.

"That's what we're up against," he said.

Anti-vaccinations activists, for their part, contend that state officials are twisting facts to stoke public fear.

"I shouldn't be called an outbreak," Seattle-area mother Bernadette Pajer, a co-founder of the state's main anti-vaccine group, Informed Choice Washington, said of the measles cases, arguing that the illness has spread only within a small, self-contained group. "I would refer to it as an in-break, within a community."

In fact, health officials say, the virus is so contagious that if an unvaccinated person walks through a room two hours after someone with measles has left, there's a 90 percent chance that an unvaccinated person will get the disease. People can spread measles for four days before the rash appears and for four days after.

Vaccine advocates are also trying to arrange for doctors to meet with parents in small groups or one-on-one, sometimes for hours at a time, to answer their questions.

Martina Clements, 41, a Portland mom who didn't vaccinate her two children until recently, said the anti-vaccine community uses fear to raise doubts about vaccine safety. But, parents who support immunizations can be belittling. "On one side, they make you afraid, and the other side make you feel stupid, and you get stuck in this middle where you feel beat up by both sides," she said.

Vaccine advocates blame federal public health officials for not mounting a more robust response to those spreading fears about vaccine safety.

Peter J. Hotez, a vaccine scientist and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX, whose daughter has autism, wrote a book, "Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism" to counter the anti-vaccine lobby.

In a Twitter exchange last week, Hotez said the U.S. surgeon general and CDC director could be doing much more to push states to tighten vaccination requirements.

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams

Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams responded by flipping the responsibility back to local and state officials, who he says have greater influence with local communities.

"Their response seemed to say this was not their fight because it's a state issue, not a federal one," Hotez said.  But, I disagree.  I feel that anything adversely affecting the public health of Americans is certainly within", their purview.

CDC Director Robert Redfield has tweeted about the dangers of the disease (i.e., measles), and the importance of routine vaccinations.  In fact, Adams also released a YouTube video with information about measles posted here.

In Washington, state lawmakers supporting tougher vaccine requirements are mounting their second effort in the past three years to make it harder for parents to opt out of vaccinations.

The same day that Inslee declared a state emergency about measles, the Washington state Rep. Paul Harris, a Republican from Vancouver who represents Clark County, introduced a bill that would prohibit all exemptions from the measles vaccine requirement, save for medical religious reasons.

"It's about public health," he said.  "People have told me they won't go to the store or out into the community as much because they have cancer and are getting chemotherapy. So, it doesn't just impact those people who choose not to get vaccinated."

Anti-vaccine groups are prepared to turn out at a committee hearing scheduled for Friday. 

Pajer said that her group is arranging experts to testify against it. Among those expected to speak is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has argued that there is a government conspiracy about the safety of vaccines.

Despite the expected turnout and the defeat of a similar bill in 2015, Harris said he believes the bill has a chance of passage.  The resurgence of a vaccine-preventable disease has scared a lot of people, he said, noting that polls show that the vast majority of American support vaccinations.

"IT's the right thing to do," he said.  "This is something we can actually control if we choose to."

Sun reported from Washington state and Alice Crites contributed to this report.  Lena H. Sun is a national reporter for The Washington Post.