Trump, friends are election fraudsters

DEAR EDITOR:

The FBI raided the Ohio Organizing Collaborative located near Cleveland on June 11 looking for suspicious voting practices. It was unknown if they had search warrants. Over 100 agents in eight locations interrogated staff, followed them to their cars and homes, took computers and called their phones. They would not explain their purpose even to elected officials.

Did the administration send a message of intimidation by going after this and other groups? Just a few decades ago the FBI harassed voters in Mississippi. They would not be targeting those communities unless they believed they were in danger of losing voters’ support.

It’s ironic that Trump still cries out about voter fraud in the 2020 election. He is absolutely right! There WAS voter fraud committed during that election, and he knows it because it was committed by him and his subordinates. The evidence lies in his past indictments and the reports filed by Jack Smith.

During the 2020 election, Trump instructed his lawyers to hire fake electors whose votes would be submitted in place of any electors for Biden. He spread the word even before the election that it was rigged because he wanted to brainwash people with the idea of fraud. He tried to coerce Vice President Pence into rejecting the vote totals from key states and he enlisted a few senators to help challenge those votes. He also incited a mob to attack the Capitol.

In fact, increasing numbers of people suspect that fraud through vote manipulation occurred in the 2024 election. Of the seven swing states, Trump won all seven, without triggering an automatic recount. The chances of that happening were 0.5 to the seventh power, or 0.78% — a chance of less than 1%. In neighboring Pennsylvania, multiple precincts across various locations reported counting more votes than the number of actual registered voters, according to Election Truth Alliance.

We need to reunite our country and say no to the disorder created by the people who are pushing Project 2025. Ordinary people are busy taking care of their homes and kids. They go to work and pay their bills, which are rising every month under Trump’s policies.

We do not want ICE in our cities. We do not want more privately-owned charter schools. We object to food nutrition benefits cut while those who earn more than $75,000 enjoy generous tax breaks and Trump builds monuments to himself. We cannot afford to pay increasing costs at the pump.

I will vote Democratic this fall, for Sherrod Brown, Amy Acton and Maria Jukic, because the Democrats have the best plans to make life better and easier for average folks.

LINDA COCUZZI RICHTER

Niles

Commissioners must act on tax relief

DEAR EDITOR:

I write this in the hope that the Trumbull County Commissioners will soon follow up and provide some much-needed relief on property taxes to the seniors and taxpayers that are so desperately needed. I watched the entire meeting with the school superintendents, assistant superintendents and treasurers.

I listened to them lament on how badly the schools would be hurt if the changes were enacted to provide relief to us seniors.

I listened to them whine and say they are such good stewards of our tax dollars.

I heard them say how if the proposed changes in the law for property taxes is enacted they may be forced to end up with a reduction in force, layoffs and cutting programs including busing.

One glaring omission was very obvious! I never heard one single school superintendent, assistant superintendent or treasurer say that there is a concession they could take to help the seniors of Trumbull County.

Nothing … crickets.

We seniors make concessions daily, taking our medicine every other day to help stretch our pensions, eat two meals a day to cut expenses.

I look forward to the commissioners enacting the doubling of the owner occupancy deduction to the full 5%.

And considering making the Homestead Exemption at a higher rate, too.

ROBERT PLANT

Warren

The loathsome American lawn

DEAR EDITOR:

You know that part in “America the Beautiful” where it says “amber waves of grain”? Yeah, well, the song says nothing about algae-colored fields of unremarkable plant life that leave no room for an ideal or inhabitable ecosystem. I am, of course, referring to what is widely regarded as the “great American lawn.”

An endless expanse of boring, drab grass, choking out native plant life all for the sake of middle-aged men competing over whose tractor is the best and which fertilizer is the most effective.

Let me warn you right now that if you find me face down in a swimming pool, I did not drown; I was disposed of by “big landscape” because they are not going to like what I have to say.

All the meticulous grooming of grass and unnerving obsession with lawns are quite tiresome. Mowing more than once a week is a waste of time, and everybody around you feels obligated to match your stupid grass level.

Let the bees live a little; leave them a couple clovers or hawkweed to get some pollen from, and just eat the honey instead of tending to your annoyingly manicured lawn.

Why would you want this underwhelming grass all over the place when you could enjoy some naturally occurring Quaker ladies? Every inch does not need weeds trimmed every two days.

Just sit outside; you don’t have to worry about which direction Billy the neighbor cut his lawn.

Stop wasting your own time, destroying the planet and annoying me with your infatuation with a mediocre plant and a ridiculous pastime.

JEREMY SANFREY

New Waterford

Juneteenth: Better late than never

DEAR EDITOR:

Juneteenth commemorates the day (June 19, 1865) when U.S. Army Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, with his army, to tell the Texans three things, in no … uncertain … terms!!!

First, the war was over. Second, the Confederacy lost. And finally, their slaves were now free!!!

Then he sent his army units from plantation to plantation throughout Texas spreading this news, at gunpoint!!! Don’t let Gen. Gordon Granger’s photograph as a balding gentleman fool you. He was a real badazz general, leading a badazz army.

They had been filling burial trenches with dead Confederate soldiers from Shiloh … through Vicksburg… to New Orleans!!! They were not about … to take any guff … from any Texas slave-exploiting plantation owners!!!

That was a day that makes me proud to have been raised in northeastern Ohio, with my state’s Abolitionist Heritage, and Ohio’s victorious Union Army leaders and soldiers.

Soldiers from here, including Maj. (and future-President) William McKinley fought “the War in the West” down the Mississippi River. They served with Gen. Gordon Granger’s army units who provided the firepower behind him in Texas.

Juneteenth should have been celebrated nationwide as a great military victory, like V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day 08-May-1945) and V-J Day (Victory over Japan Day 02-Sep-1945) from the Second World War.

Juneteenth should have been celebrated nationwide every year since 1865, but it took until the beginning of this decade for it to be officially recognized as a national holiday.

That was undoubtedly because of the lingering racist effects of our nation’s Original Sin of Slavery.

It was descendants of emancipated former slaves who kept the commemoration of Juneteenth alive, and started the commemoration of Memorial Day, that has since been rightfully made an official national holiday by our nation long ago.

Honor these people by celebrating or commemorating Juneteenth.

JAMES J. PIRKO

Youngstown