Trump gives crazy speeches about mythical sharks and other bizarre statements

Echo opinion published in the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison

Trump is the candidate making crazy statements -- from Roger Brooks

Why, oh why,❓ I have repeatedly wondered, is so much being made in the mainstream media about President Joe Biden’s age and indications of minor lapses while, at the same time, little is said about former guy Donald Trump’s repeated crazy statements?

One recent example is when he mused about whether he would prefer being attacked by sharks* or being electrocuted in a sinking boat. Another is when he claimed that the feds are out to assassinate him.

Shark attack in Nevada? 🦈 Who knew?😩😧

When will we be given at least an equal indication of whether the presidential contenders are mentally, emotionally and temperamentally fit for the office?

Roger Brooks, Madison

Washington Post  Eugene Robinson Opinion: For thin-skinned Trump, every week is shark week: After saying something that made no earthly sense, and getting ridiculed for it, the former president couldn’t drop it.

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/24/trump-rally-sharks-media-electrocution/

Trump speaking in Nevada, "We can’t get the boat to float. The battery is so heavy. So then I start talking about asking questions. You know, I have an, I had an uncle who was a great professor at MIT for many years, long, I think the longest tenure ever. Very smart, had three different degrees and, you know, so I have an aptitude for things. You know, there is such a thing as an aptitude.
I said, ‘Well, what would happen if this boat is so heavy and started to sink and you're on the top of the boat. Do you get electrocuted or not?’ In other words, the boat is going down and you're on the top, will the electric currents flow through the water and wipe you out?'"

Republicans have a moral responsibility to dump Trumpziism

This opinion echo was published in the Montana Billings Gazette, (a reprint from the Wisconsin State Journal, by the newspaper's editorial board). 

OUR VIEW: Trump era must end, but only GOP can do it

Donald Trump’s chaos and narcissism has gone on for far too long.  Get over him, Republicans! Your party is, or at least was, so much better without him.  Wisconsin State Journal editorial board.

Trump has announced his third bid for the White House. 

Only the GOP, through its primary process, now has the power to pick someone else for the Republican nomination. 

Even if Trump stands little chance of winning the general election for president in 2024, given his poor record and soiled reputation, America can’t take that chance.

Trump declared himself a candidate just one week after most of his hand-picked hopefuls for U.S. Senate and governorships failed. Many of them were inexperienced celebrities in his mold. Republicans stumbled November 8 in what should have been a big night for the GOP. The party out of power typically dominates the midterms. Inflation is high, and Democratic President Joe Biden’s popularity is low.

But not as low as Trump’s, who is repelling independent voters, energizing the left and ever so slowly — yet surely — turning off conservatives with his stale denials that he lost the 2020 election. He’s so stuck in the past. And all the evidence for years has proven that he did in fact lose by 7 million popular votes and 74 Electoral College votes.

Trick or Treason Trumpziism

The Republican Party used to have some discipline and dignity under Wisconsin leaders such as former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Janesville. It tried to offer compelling ideas, not just rhetorical barbs. Trump trashed and chased Ryan and other reasonable Republicans out of office, including U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. Both Ryan and Cheney are far more fiscally and socially conservative than the reckless and opulent Trump ever was.

The deadly January 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol led to Trump’s unprecedented second impeachment. Trump sat idle for hours while a mob he inspired terrorized Congress and chanted for Vice President Mike Pence’s hanging. A bipartisan majority of Congress voted to convict him (though not the two-thirds required to keep him out of office for good).

Trump mostly failed on the national and international stage. Yet his record in Wisconsin alone should have cost him all trust in the Badger State by now.

Trump’s snake-oil promise that Taiwanese manufacture Foxconn would create the “eighth wonder of the world” in Racine County (Wisconsin), predictably fell flat. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Many Republicans need to relearn that lesson.

Trump launched reckless trade wars, creating havoc and lost sales for Wisconsin manufacturers and farmers overseas, and higher prices for consumers at home. He urged a boycott of iconic Wisconsin motorcycle company Harley-Davidson for making sensible business decisions. 

He tried to raid billions from the armed forces — including $8 million for the Wisconsin National Guard’s 115 Fighter Wing at Truax Field in Madison — to pay for his fake wall.

Wait!  Mexico was supposed to pay for Trump's fake wall!

Worst of all was Trump’s lack of character, his juvenile behavior, his chronic lying and insults. The Republican Party, founded in Wisconsin on an anti-slavery platform that the Wisconsin State Journal championed, should never stand for any of that.

None of Trump’s antics mattered enough to most Republican leaders in Wisconsin for them to forcefully object when Trump was on top. But now that Trump has fallen, some are changing their tunes.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, called for Wisconsin Republicans to move past Trump in light of the party’s poor showing in the Nov. 8 election. 

Another positive sign was the Wisconsin Assembly GOP expelling from closed meetings the election-denying chair of their elections committee, Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls,Wisconsin. They said she can’t be trusted. No kidding!

Vos, reelected speaker by his peers, should go further and remove Brandtjen, a gullible conspiracy theorist, from even sitting on this important committee.

Even U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, one of the earliest Trump supporters back in 2016, may have finally had enough, if based on nothing more than his own political survival. Fitzgerald supported Trump’s attempt to overturn a fair election on Jan. 6, 2021 — even after the riot. 

Yet last week Fitzgerald declined to voice support for Trump’s third presidential bid.

Ultimately, Republican voters will decide Trump’s fate. We urge them to back other GOP candidates for the party’s presidential nomination, and to make their wishes clear to elected officials. The sad Trump era must finally end with no chance of him ever getting near the White House again.

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

Republicans are the problem!

Echo opinion letter about the unqualified Senator Ron Johnson published in the Wisconsin State Journal 

Wisconin's Johnson shows his ignorance again -- 

Republicans are the problem!

By John Finkler

It is beyond comprehension that the U.S. Senate seat from Wisconsin once held by the legendary Gaylord Nelson is now occupied by Ron Johnson (aka "Mr. Celophane"*).

It has almost become a daily ritual that Sen. Johnson shows his ignorance. His latest blooper is related to people getting the COVID-19 vaccine. While many elected officials, health care professionals, athletes and entertainers are doing regular public service announcements "to get the vaccine when it's your turn," Johnson actually said: "What do you care if you neighbor has one or not?"

In Johnson's world, there is no caring for or interest in your neighbor. There is no ability to process that more people vaccinated will help everyone. He doesn't appreciate the United States and world are in the midst of the worst pandemic in over a century.

For Johnson, who in 11 years in office has never shown much, if any, interest in helping the people of Wisconsin, it was just another fringe political statement.

As the Wisconsin State Journal article noted so well in just a few words, "Johnson, of Oshkosh, who has no medical expertise or background ... ."

Those same words would also apply to his background or expertise to be a U.S. senator: None.

*If someone stood up in a crowd

And raised his voice up way out loud
And waved his arm and shook his leg
You'd notice him.

If someone in the movie show
Yelled "Fire in the second row
This whole place is a powder keg!"
You'd notice him.

And even without clucking like a hen
Everyone gets noticed, now and then,
Unless, of course, that personage should be
Invisible, inconsequential me!

Mario Garcia Sierra: ICE creates panic instead of keeping the peace in Wisconsin

An echo opinion published in the Wisconsin State Journal newspaper:

When we leave our loved ones in the morning, we expect to come home to them at night. This is particularly true for children. This unspoken truth is the foundation of safety and security.

That foundation was shaky for Wisconsin immigrant families during four tense days in September, 2018, when armed federal agents conducted an unannounced operation. They detained 83 Wisconsin residents, including 20 in Dane County. Only 44 had criminal convictions. Other residents were detained for offenses that posed no danger to public safety, including those whose offense is a byproduct of our broken immigration system.

Some children came home to find a loved one was gone. Some children witnessed their loved ones taken from their homes by federal agents. Some children had opened the door to agents, unaware of how their world was about to change.

The agency responsible is Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), formed after 9/11 to protect national security. ICE previously has taken actions to arrest criminals in the Madison area, following the agreed-on protocol for advance notice to local law enforcement. This step was designed to keep communication lines open and the community safer. In September, ICE did not follow protocol with the Madison Police Department, which includes a call to a specific number staffed 24/7 by a ranking member of the force.

Instead of keeping the peace, ICE created panic. Instead of protecting the most vulnerable, ICE traumatized children. Instead of sharing information with local law enforcement, ICE worked in secret.

As a result, parents were afraid to take their children to school, to go to work or even go to the grocery store. While parents remained strong for their children, and while Centro Hispano staff and allies rallied in support, no one should have to live in fear of federal agents summarily tearing their family apart.

No parent should have to teach a child what to do if they suddenly disappear.

Instead of threatening hard-working families who contribute so much to communities across the United States and right here in Wisconsin, let’s support fixing our broken immigration system.

Garcia Sierra is president of the Centro Hispano of Dane County, Wisconsin, Board of Directors. The rest of the board signed on in support of this column: www.micentro.org.

Dane County Wisconsin will be a community where Latino families can aspire upward, to reach their personal goals and dreams because they feel engaged and strengthened with the tools for success.