A Trump toady in the making?
Jim Rhodes might be proud of Gov. Mike DeWine for emulating his most infamous act as governor. With luck, Ohio’s National Guard will not kill anyone in D.C. If (God forbid) it happens, Mike will cement his legacy as a Trump toady.
At least the Columbus Division of Police did not send officers to D.C. They already killed a homeless man last year on their political folly in Milwaukee.
I am borderline overflowing with pride in Ohio.
Bob James, Columbus
DeWine is no dummy
How disappointing to see that Gov. Mike Dewine will be sending Ohio National Guard members to Washington, D.C. to assist President Donald Trump in his diversion from the truth of the Epstein scandal.
Gov. DeWine is astute enough to know what is going on. Rather than spend Ohio taxpayers’ money on this folly, he and the Republican General Assembly should be complying with the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision to properly fund public schools.
Rather, the game plan is to eliminate public education in Ohio. Trump needs to be removed from office for the sake of our children’s future!
Joseph Sulzer, Grove City
Silly reaction, overblown response
Re “AE jeans ad: America can be offended by just about anything” Aug. 17: I hate to admit that I agree with Dispatch regular (why?) Philip Derrow on anything, but any negative reaction to the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle ad was a bit much.
A clever play on words, “good genes/jeans” in this case referred to her physical traits, and to pants, and they came from Sweeney, a Republican, but one with no ties to President Donald Trump or to his deputy chief of staff for policy, supremacist Stephen Miller.
(See his ties with The Federation For American Immigration Reform and their founder, John Tanton, who “believes in race-based pseudoscience about the genetic superiority of whites.”). And from American Eagle, a company with no apparent monetary ties to any politicians.
The ad was harmless and any negative reaction, though far overblown by the right, was a bit silly.
What was neither overblown nor silly was the counter-reaction of the right.
The party that profiles potential ICE detainees by color and that curtailed the Voting Rights and Civil Rights acts is offended. The party that attempts to gerrymander districts to eliminate minority districts is upset. The blonde, blue-eyed Megyn Kellys of the world feel picked on.
It is so hard to find such people being given fair breaks anymore, except in the Trump Cabinet and Fox, on countless right-wing podcasts — and everywhere else. As usual, the hypocrisy of the right far outweighs any “silliness” of the left.
The false equivalency is deafening.
Greg Ward, Dublin
Advice from Vlad
Once again Emperor Donald Trump has shown he considers the Constitution and the rule of law to be irrelevant.
His latest proposal to ban mail-in ballots and voting machines flies in the face of Article 1, Section 4: ” The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof…”
What is even more ludicrous is that he got the idea from his buddy Vlad Putin, a real expert on running free and fair elections. I am guessing President Donald Trump’s plan is to have his Homeland Security Investigations secret police seize the mail-in ballots so they cannot be counted.
Just when we think the Emperor’s Washington circus cannot get any more crazy, it does.
Ernie Hartong, Columbus
Scrap the Social Security cap
Re “Time is running out for Social Security,” Aug. 17: “Scrap the cap” is all you need to know. What that three-word mantra refers to is something most people don’t know about Social Security, and is skipped over lightly in the editorial.
A relative told me how he got a sudden and unexpected increase in pay in his check in December.
When he went to human resources to get an explanation, he learned about the Social Security cap, which ended his payment of the 6.2% payroll tax for Social Security for the year. His earnings exceeded the $168,600 taxation “cap” last year.
Since I presume, perhaps wrongly, that most members of the editorial board who are the source of this editorial are highly paid individuals in their professions, I don’t think they would like to “advertise” the “cap” because it is a rich benefit for them.
Others of the board who may be under the cap may simply not know about it, like my relative.
Republicans in the past have been fond of “flat taxes,” meaning that everyone pays a tax at the same rate. But not when it comes to Social Security, which they want “capped.” The cap provides a huge benefit to their income.
I say, “Scrap the cap!” and Social Security will be solvent for as far as the eye can see.
Bob Krasen, Columbus
Enough with the dope
As an ardent anti-recreational drug American, I strongly oppose the legalization of dope in Ohio and encourage lawmakers to make it more difficult to purchase recreational drugs and prevent underage youth from getting access to their parents’ recreational drugs.
We need our lawmakers to discourage all recreational drug use and put in strong penalties for those who use recreational drugs and damage property, injure others or create a safety risk on our streets and highways.
We need our state lawmakers to set a higher bar for recreational drug use and encourage employers to screen out recreational drug users from their workforce.
Brian Frank, Cincinnati
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio National Guard in Washington: Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself | Letters
Reporting by Letters to the Editor / The Columbus Dispatch
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