Senator Moreno, I was disturbed to see your defense of President Trump’s pardons of the January 6 insurrectionists: “Some of these people have been in jail for a long time. January 6 was a long time ago, and they've been in jail with their due process rights taken away.”

Regarding the insurrectionists’ “due process rights taken away,” TheConversation.com spoke with retired federal judge John E. Jones III (appointed by President George W. Bush): “When it comes to Jan. 6 offenders, not only do I think they received appropriate due process, but in some cases, I believe they received excessive due process. I think Trump is going to make these people into martyrs and heroes, and to my mind, that flies in the face of the facts of these cases.”

From among a number of judges who condemned the pardons, U.S District Judge Beryl Howell wrote: “No ‘process of national reconciliation’ can begin when poor losers, whose preferred candidate loses an election, are glorified for disrupting a constitutionally mandated proceeding in Congress and doing so with impunity. No ‘national injustice’ occurred here, just as no outcome-determinative election fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election. That merely raises the dangerous specter of future lawless conduct by other poor losers and undermines the rule of law.”

Then, Senator Moreno, you said this: “Look, nobody is a stronger supporter of law enforcement than President Trump, myself, or JD Vance. We honor and respect law enforcement. When I walk in every morning, I look at the guards, I say, ‘Thank you. Thank you for being here, thank you for helping out.’ But these people [the Jan. 6 insurrectionists] have been treated horribly.”

At least one of them thinks not. As reported by CNN, Pam Hemphill of Boise, Idaho pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for unlawfully protesting on restricted Capitol grounds and served two months in prison. “I don’t want this pardon. I’m not going to be part of their propaganda … I couldn’t live with myself. This is my amends for being there that day. It’s my amends to the Capitol Police. Knowing that I was a part of this terrible day, it’s the least I can do. That would be saying, ‘What I did on January 6 was OK.’ No, it wasn’t. I broke the law.”

Finally Senator Moreno, regarding your supporting of law enforcement: What would you say to former U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell who had to retire from the Capitol Police at the age of 42 due to injuries sustained at the hands of the Jan 6 rioters? On the recent anniversary of Jan 6, Sgt. Gonell wrote: “I feel betrayed by those people who claim that they support the rule of law but gladly cheer on the people who violently attacked police officers. And I feel let down by the members of Congress who turned their backs on us even as we saved their lives. And yes, we saved their lives that day. Some of these same elected officials—who claim to be on the side of the rule of law—are now defending the January 6th rioters and calling on Trump to pardon them. This infuriates me. It is dishonorable. We cannot expect these lawmakers to stand up to Trump or defend the Constitution in the future.”

Senator Moreno, allow me to conclude with this plea urging you to uphold your oath to the Constitution of the United States and defend the power of Congress against the authoritarian aspirations displayed so far by Trump aided by un-elected billionaire oligarchs like Elon Musk. In short, I hope you will not be a Trump rubber-stamper.

From Cathy Weygandt, Findlay OH: Red flags

As Donald Trump announces $20 billion investments by a close business partner from the United Arab Emirates, do any red flags go up? This is so reminiscent of Trump’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was connected with the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Remember him? He was suffocated and cut up into pieces.

The UAE has extensive human rights issues that I see Trump leading America into. The UAE censors the press and media. As Trump’s billionaire connections take down any freedoms of expression, is anyone paying attention? Meta’s Zuckerberg donated $1,000,000 to Trump’s inauguration. Now “Zuch” has removed any fact checking from his Facebook platform. Elon Musk, Trump’s new boy-toy, has also removed any fact-checking from his X platform as well.

We also read that The Washington Post is laying off 100 staff members! Another billionaire Trump ally, Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder, had acquired the Post. He too donated $1,000,000 to the inauguration. He has limited the content of the WP written and political cartoon content directly affecting subscriberships.

You will be able to believe anything you read and hear now because it is all true, right? Remember Kelly Anne Conway introducing the “alternative facts” concept after Trump’s last inauguration, when the size of the crowd was disputed? America has been lapping up Trump’s lies ever since.

Likewise, DeWine and his supermajority gerrymandered lawmaker ilks have reduced transparency and freedoms in Ohio. The last minute un-vetted law they passed will allow police departments to charge up to $750 to release copies of body camera recordings to truth-seekers. How many small newsrooms and journalists will afford chasing down information that should be readily available?

The path to total oligarchy and tyranny is happening. Why do so many people admire billionaires taking away our rights? The far right does not support truth, freedom and democracy. Our Constitution’s Bill of Rights is being destroyed right before our eyes.

From Roger Kranz, Findlay OH:

With the Congressional counting of electoral votes fast approaching on January 6, 2025, I write to you with the hope you will consider taking the action outlined in The Hill article of December 26: "Congress has the power to block Trump from taking office, but lawmakers must act now."

https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/5055171-constitution-insurrection-trump-disqualification/

The article recaps the compelling case against President-Elect Trump as an insurrectionist against the Constitution of the United States which disqualifies him from serving as President per the 14th Amendment. He was impeached in the House and voted guilty in the Senate—although not by the required two-thirds majority. The Hill article then indicates that it is up to you and your Congressional colleagues to follow the Electoral Count Act and object to the electors who voted for Constitutionally disqualified candidate-Trump.

I understand this is an extraordinarily consequential act I ask you to consider. Nearly 50% of the American electorate voted for Trump. Disqualifying him would no doubt cause civil unrest. But in this post-election period, Trump’s dangerously unqualified nominees for his administration; comments like taking over the Panama Canal and the sovereign countries of Greenland and Canada; and allowing billionaire Elon Musk to influence Congress are alarming for the future of our country. Can you in good conscience allow Donald Trump to become Commander-in-Chief again?

Trump has mostly been able to avoid the consequences of breaking the law and the Supreme Court has inexplicably granted him royal immunity once he becomes President. Now is the time to hold him to account. You, too, have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution. What will history record that you do on January 6th?

From Roger Kranz, Findlay OH: To task on Trump's promises

In his Dec. 5 letter to the editor, Wayne Baldridge implied that Donald Trump is mandated by God to “bless America”— a widely held belief among white Christian nationalists. I am not writing to debate this opinion, but rather to challenge the penultimate paragraph of Mr. Baldridge’s letter: “President Trump kept his promises … we had a great economy … the border was closed and controlled.”

Of 100 Trump promises tracked by PolitiFact, 53 were broken. They include: “I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall.” The southern border is 2,000 miles long, but only 453 miles of wall were constructed at an estimated cost of $15 billion, which we paid for, not Mexico. As far as the border being “controlled,” at the start of Trump’s first term the Border Patrol noted 100,000 successful illegal border crossings. By 2019 the number had risen to 150,000.

Regarding the economy, Trump said he would clear the national debt “over a period of eight years.” But by 2020 the debt had increased from $19 trillion to $27 trillion. Trump also said, “My plan includes a pledge to restore manufacturing in the United States.” There was a net loss of 188,000 manufacturing jobs when he left office. And the Labor Dept. certified over 200,000 workers lost jobs that moved overseas.

Trump promised the country’s infrastructure “will become second to none and we will put millions of our people back to work as we rebuild it.” Trump’s American Infrastructure Initiative never got off the ground. Compare that failure to Biden’s successful Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Mr. Baldridge concludes his letter, “we have not had such hope in America since Ronald Reagan. Thank God for an early Christmas.” After hearing President-Elect Trump’s current comments and the unqualified nominees he’s choosing to staff his second administration, I do not share your hope, Mr. Baldridge. But I pray that America will survive the next four years.

From Roger Kranz, Findlay OH:

Thank you for your letter dated 11/27/24 responding to my e-mail about President-Elect Trump and his attitude toward veterans. Although you made no reference to Trump’s shameful past comments about veterans, you generalized about Trump’s first Presidential term: “[his] aggressive agenda that addressed many of the challenges we were facing in Ohio” and you listed several “needs” without indicating what Trump did to address those needs.

For history’s sake, I must point out how Trump failed to address those needs four years ago.

BRING BACK MANUFACTURING FROM OVERSEAS
Factcheck.org reported a net loss of 188,000 manufacturing jobs at the end of Trump’s presidency. And Reuters noted that during the four years of the Trump Administration, the Labor Dept. certified 2,095 petitions covering 202,151 workers who lost jobs that moved overseas.

ELIMINATE BURDENSOME RED TAPE
On April 7, 2024, Washington Monthly declared that “Trump launched a massive deregulation campaign that largely failed.” And a November 1, 2020 Penn Program on Regulation Research Report titled “Deregulatory Deceptions: Reviewing the Trump Administration’s Claims About Regulatory Reform” concluded: “The Administration has not rolled back regulations at anything close to the rates it has claimed.”

FIX OUR IMMIGRATION SYSTEM
On May 14, 2023 the New York Times listed some of the ways trump “fixed” the system: “He relied on cruelty and fear to deter migrants from the United States. Mr. Trump began his Presidency by signing an executive order that sought to limit travelers from seven largely Muslim countries for 90 days. The travel ban caused instant chaos. Airports were clogged with travelers who had been on airplanes when the order was signed and had no way of entering the country.
“In 2017, Mr. Trump began focusing on one of his earliest campaign promises — building a physical wall along the border between the United States and Mexico. Mr. Trump…wanted spikes on top, black paint to burn the hands of immigrants trying to scale it, possibly a moat at the bottom. He queried at one point whether migrants could be shot in the legs to slow them down. Fewer than 500 miles of barrier, at an estimated cost of $15 billion, were constructed. Nearly all of those 500 miles were in areas where dilapidated barriers already stood.
“By 2018, Mr. Trump — along with [Attorney General] Jeff Sessions — was frequently berating his cabinet secretaries over the number of illegal border crossings still happening. ‘We need to take away children,’ Mr. Sessions told other officials, elaborating on a new form of ‘zero tolerance.’ The policy involved separating children and their caregivers who had crossed the border and prosecuting the adults. The result of the policy: images and stories of children ripped from parents’ arms, crying and traumatized.”

STRENGTHEN OUR NATIONAL SECURITY
A February 3, 2020 headline by americanprogress.org stated “The state of U.S. national security is not strong under Trump.” The article pointed to how Trump “has alienated allies and cozied up to dictators, started distracting trade wars, and failed to address foreign interference in U.S. elections” among other failings.

FOCUS ON THE NEEDS OF HARDWORKING MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICANS
Also on February 3, 2020, americanprogressaction.org released the article “Trump’s Economy: Seven Broken Promises to Working Americans.” It details the administration’s “relentless assault on Americans’ health care…[seeking] to repeal the [Affordable Care Act] through the courts.”
Some of the other broken promises included: “the administration pushed through a tax plan favoring the wealthy and corporations after promising to help the middle class.
In 2016, Trump said ‘Wall Street has caused tremendous problems for us. We’re going to tax Wall Street.’” But once elected, Trump filled “his inner circle with Wall Street bankers. The six biggest U.S. banks saw more than $100 billion in profits in 2018 after receiving $32 billion in tax cuts.”
And after “promising to ‘drain the swamp,’ Trump brought in…corporate lobbyists to oversee the industries from which they came.”

His record four years ago, what he’s saying now and the astoundingly unqualified nominees with which he’s proposing to staff his second Administration leave me fearful for when Trump re-occupies the White House on January 20. I can only hope that you and your Congressional colleagues will uphold your Constitutional oaths and act in concert with the courts as the Legislative and Judicial branches to keep Trump from abusing his Executive power against the American people and our Democracy.

From Cathy Weygandt, Findlay OH: Here to stay

So, the voters have spoken?

A recap: Ohioans have openly supported getting rid of gerrymandering over and over. And now, due to deceptive tactics by Frank LaRose and the state GOP, we will continue to not all be represented. Ohio is one of the most gerrymandered states in the union. We lost a senator who fought for every Ohioan to a businessman without a shred of experience to represent us? And, Americans chose a misogynistic rapist, failed businessman with many felony counts still unaddressed, as he would make America great again? Wrong is right, up is down, laws don’t matter and investigative reports should be hidden, right? God help us all if we survive another term.

We as a nation cannot allow the obvious fascist direction that our newly-elected leader and his cabinet choices are introducing. It is time to be on the right side of history and decry the incompetent, immoral and questionable choices that we are seeing as this new administration is forming. Reach out to your elected officials and let your voices be heard.

This voter will choose to stay “light years out of touch with the majority” if this includes my values system that enshrines justice, ensures tranquility, provides the common defense, promotes the general welfare and secures liberty and prosperity for all. I was taught to “love thy neighbor” which is not defined by color, race, creed nor gender. I don’t believe there was an asterisk next to that commandment in Matthew 22:39.

The Democratic Party will always be relevant and we will not be fading away!

From Roger Kranz, Findlay OH:

Congressman Latta,

I appreciate your recognition of and advocacy for veterans.

However, I feel compelled to remind you of the attitude toward veterans displayed in the past by President-Elect Trump.

In 2015, Trump said this of Senator John McCain who was a Vietnam POW for over 5 years and was brutally tortured: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

As an aside I must note how ironic it is that Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted in response: “If there was ever any doubt that @realDonaldTrump should not be our commander in chief, this stupid statement should end all doubt. At the heart of @realDonaldTrump statement is a lack of respect for those who have served - a disqualifying characteristic to be president.”

In the book “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021” by Susan Glasser and Peter Baker, Trump talked to his Chief of Staff General John Kelly in 2017 about a military parade being planned in his honor. “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade.” Kelly said, “Those are the heroes. There’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are, and they are buried over in Arlington.” Trump replied, “I don’t want them. It doesn’t look good for me.”

In 2023, General Kelly described Trump as “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.”

Congressman, I hope you will remember Trump’s attitudes towards veterans and all the other terrible flaws of the President-Elect during the next four years. My family and I are fearful for our country. Despite the fact that you twice declined to impeach Trump the first time he was President, we trust that you will work for what is best for America and not what benefits MAGA, your party or the President.

From Roger Kranz, Findlay OH:

Senator Vance, I write to express outrage at your handling of the problems in Springfield.
On Sept. 9 & 10, you posted on X about pets abducted and eaten by Haitian migrants.
Did you attempt to verify these inflammatory rumors before throwing them on the internet?
You wrote: “It's possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”
But you concluded: “Keep the cat memes flowing.”
Finally, during a CNN interview that night, you said: “this town has been ravaged by 20,000 migrants…it’s interesting that the media didn’t care about the carnage wrought by [Kamala Harris’s] policies until we turned it into a meme about cats…IF WE HAVE TO MEME ABOUT IT TO GET THE MEDIA TO CARE WE’RE GOING TO KEEP ON DOING IT.”
It’s justifiable to promote outrageous rumors to get the media to pay attention? Or was it to use Springfield as a “talking point for immigration reform” as Clark County Commission President Melanie Flax Wilt said in the Springfield News-Sun?
https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/springfield-leaders-reject-recent-wild-haitian-rumors-focus-on-few-key-problems/B7523FC6BVGYRNQDX7LXK3NVKM/
I wonder how as a Senator of Ohio you think this is serving Springfield?

Link to entire Putnam County Sentinel interview: https://www.putnamsentinel.com/online_features/congressman-bob-latta-visits-pc-sentinel-office-to-discuss-energy-broadband-and-the-border/article_0f2ad826-5c43-5a66-bbd7-8ffdf7f9932a.html

Comment by Roger Kranz, Findlay OH:

I appreciated your article about Congressman Latta’s visit to Putnam County, but I must fact-check two of Mr. Latta’s statements.

1.) “The congressman noted that it was a shame that the Keystone XL, the previously proposed extension of the Keystone pipeline system, had been canceled by President Biden.”

The history of the Keystone pipeline was a long and torturous one through the Obama and Trump administrations before finally being terminated by President Biden on his first day in office. The pipeline was opposed by Native Americans whose tribal lands were part of the pipeline route. There were numerous environmental concerns including the danger of contaminating the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the world’s largest freshwater reserves, which provides drinking water for two million Americans and supports $20 billion in U.S. agriculture. There were several leaks and spills from completed sections of the pipeline in 2016, 2017, 2019 and in 2022, 588,000 gallons of crude leaked into a Kansas creek—the largest spill in the U.S. in nearly a decade. It hardly seems a shame that President Biden revoked the Keystone permit.

2.) “Congressman Latta stated that we’ve had almost 11 million people that have crossed [the southern border] in the last four years, and not counted among that number are what is called “gotaways,” which are complete unknowns, possibly a criminal element, that had gotten away from border security.”

I emphasized “possibly a criminal element” because many Republicans under the leadership of their Presidential nominee with the help of their media mouthpiece, Fox News have been spreading the unsubstantiated myth of so-called “migrant crime.” I refer interested readers to the Washington Post article “The Truth About Illegal Immigration and Crime” of 2/29/24. Here are some salient excerpts: “There is strong evidence that all immigrants — in the United States legally or otherwise — are more law-abiding than native-born American citizens. Most immigrants are motivated to do well in their new country, especially if they bring skills that can enhance local economies, and so there is little incentive to break the law. [Two criminologists] surveyed more than two decades of research on immigration and crime for their 2023 book Immigration and Crime: Taking Stock. …Generally they found ‘that long-standing concerns about immigration as a major source of crime are unfounded.’ In fact, communities with more immigration tend to have less crime, especially violent crimes like homicide.”

It's sad that the Congressman would indict “unknown” persons as “possibly a criminal element” without evidence.