To the Editor:

Martin, your last Editorial was breathtaking in its obtuse assertions, several of which were darkly amusing. My allegations last week are easily checked, if truth is what you’re after.

Your defense of E. Jean Carroll’s verdict of “sexual abuse” rather than “rape” was astonishing. You see, in NY, unconsented sexual penetration with anything other than the male organ, even fingers or a foreign object, is not “rape” as it is everywhere else; it is “sexual abuse.” That’s how your guy escaped the “R” word. Proudly insisting on the distinction is pathetic.

I stifled an outright but inappropriate laugh at your “what-about” fruit salad (apples and oranges) equating January 6 with reactions to George Floyd’s murder. Martin, “insurrection” requires that the revolt be against the government. The tragic violence following George Floyd’s murder began as Civil Rights demonstrations against police brutality. January 6 was a deliberate revolt at the Capitol resulting in several deaths, threats to the VP and Speaker with hanging, the purpose of which was to interfere with a Constitutional process required of Congress. The fact that it was directed by the then-president makes it all the more egregious. There were few guns and knives in the hands of the insurrectionists because the police had already confiscated hundreds of them at the Ellipse.

I have already provided several direct quotes of Trump’s repeated derogatory statements about the military dead and wounded. You simply refuse to confront them. I have noticed that you don’t even try to deny Trump’s flagrant flirting with Putin and other tyrants.

Trump’s cruelest lies last week, echoed by you, were about the “failure of the Biden administration’s response to Hurricane Helene.” In fact, President Biden immediately committed FEMA funding in communications with the governors. Each Republican and Democratic governor roundly contradicted Trump’s falsities, and had to explain to understandably alarmed constituents that all the expected assistance was in fact in place or on its way. And that the Biden administration “did not cause the hurricane.”

What sort of a person amplifies the pain of people already suffering unfathomable loss, and increases their anxiety and despair? Trump did it on the chance that voters would devolve further into outrage, the currency of Trumpism. And then there are those who repeat the lies, truth immaterial.

On Sunday, Trump told Fox that the military should control his political opponents if there is unrest after the November election. “I think the bigger problem [not Russia or North Korea] is the people from within, we have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think…it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary by the military.” In fact, it is MAGA that has engaged in violence, on January 6, 2021, and threats of “retribution” thereafter. Trump has already said that it will only be a “free and fair” election if he wins.
Does this sound like the United States of America?

Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca