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Lying should not be a good look for a US president
DEAR EDITOR:
All politicians lie. That's not a new concept, and whether it is true or not doesn't matter when too many people accept it as fact.
The Trump era has brought us to a tipping point: Since lying is ubiquitous, it must not be wrong. This is dangerous territory for a democracy.
I've known hundreds of politicians, and I'm sure some, maybe even many, lied. Sometimes, I could tell if they were lying; sometimes I figured it out later through fact checking. But I never knew anyone who lied the way President Trump does. He'll repeat a lie even after it's been exposed as a lie.
In a recent online conversation with a Trump supporter, I was challenged to give an example of an egregious and provable lie that he has repeated.
It wasn't hard. He has said multiple times that he is the only president who has not taken a salary. That is a bold-faced lie.
John F. Kennedy, Herbert Hoover and George Washington all refused their salary or donated it to charity. Washington later relented when he was persuaded that if he set the precedent, only rich men would run for president. There is no way Trump could not know that by now. It doesn't matter to him, it should to us.
Some of Trump's lies can be chalked up to his hyperbolic rhetoric -- such as a claim he has made since his first campaign a decade ago, that he knows more than all the generals. In 2016, that could be dismissed as Trump the TV reality star being Trump. But he's now the commander in chief with the lives of America's sons and daughters in his hands. Does he still believe he knows more than all the generals? His shameless denigration of Gens. Milley, Mattis and Kelly, among others, would suggest he does.
Recently he posted an AI generated image on Truth Social showing him in the uniform of a four-star general, his chest covered in ribbons, flanked by two real-life generals, George Patton and Douglas MacArthur.
Wearing such a uniform would be impersonating an officer. And while an AI image is protected by the First Amendment, it is still dangerously close to what we'd call stolen valor.
Some people wonder why Trump is obsessed with painting Washington gold. I worry about why he thinks reality doesn't matter and lying is an acceptable presidential strategy.
DENNIS B. MANGAN
Howland
Youngstown should ask who will own the next economy
DEAR EDITOR:
My father, Pat Barrett Jr., was born in Youngstown and raised in Port Clinton, so Ohio has always been part of my family's story.
Youngstown also knows something much of America is only beginning to understand: what happens when generations of people build economic value but have little control over what remains when companies close, move or change hands.
Schwebel Baking Company is the latest painful reminder.
The ownership question has to come before the emergency.
When a locally important employer faces succession, sale, restructuring, or outside acquisition, employee ownership, cooperative conversion, and community-backed acquisition should be among the options examined early -- while there is still a functioning enterprise, a skilled workforce, customers, equipment and time.
And while one part of Youngstown's economy is disappearing, the next economy is already being built.
Site plans are being reviewed. Zoning and utility issues are under discussion. Officials, residents and developers are meeting. Data-center proposals and other investments are already moving through decisions across the Mahoning Valley.
So ask a question larger than how many jobs a project promises:
What will people in the Mahoning Valley own because this new economy came here?
Local businesses? Contractor capacity? Skills? Equipment? Energy assets? Housing? Worker-owned enterprises?
The exact answer can differ from project to project. But the objective should be clear: economic development should leave behind economic capacity.
This time, before everybody finishes making the deal, Ohio should ask:
When the market changes, the technology changes and the investors eventually move on, what will the workers and the community still own?
If the answer is nothing but memories of the jobs that used to be there, we will have spent another generation rowing somebody else's boat.
GEOFF BARRETT
Founder
Seven Years of Change
https://www.sevenyearsofchange.org
Bayside, California
Differences between socialists and communists
DEAR EDITOR:
Well, let the "name calling" begin. With the upcoming elections, I'm sure you have witnessed the name-calling, "socialist" and, "communist," mostly being applied to a specific candidate or party. Far too many of us truly don't understand the association, and too often combine the two, suggesting, accepting that they are the same.
There have been some corrections noted in the past election, where many realized that one who supports a socialistic government is not a supporter of a communistic government; therefore, the name-callers needed to enhance their vilification, their labeling.
Today, the "hot term" being used, one that gets immediate attention, is "communist.". The "talking heads," the other candidate, are constantly using the term, applying it to their challenger or a specific political party.
Is it working?
If one doesn't fully understand the difference, that being between a "socialist" and a "communist," as I previously noted, many believe they are the same, then it may just sway one's decision.
To support such labeling, one takes a small portion of someone's or a political entity's beliefs or statements and quickly applies it to the title, without diving deeper into the substance.
I wish it were possible to dive deeper into the socialist doctrines we all currently accept and rely on in today's democratic government. But I am limited to this format, and I assure you that those of us who understand and support these doctrines are not "communist."
If one wishes, without fully explaining to the listeners, one can take the doctrine of "Nazism" and apply it to those on the opposite side of the socialist believers, supporting their labeling by the current apparent antisemitism, racial divide, striving for a totalitarian leadership, a "my way or the highway," governing, ignoring the hard-fought democracy we all love and support.
The need to fully understand the difference between the forms of government, in support of democratic governing, is extremely important for all of us to take time and understand, simply based on ensuring that our elected officials strive to maintain our nation's core principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence, unalienable rights, where the people dictate the limits of power and not an elected officials who may take the position of the supreme leader, who ignores our current democratic governance, which would suggest such an individual may be a Nazi?
If you quickly recognize the unfairness of that defamation, then you understand the need to understand.
JOHN P. LESEGANICH
Canfield
A question of citizenship in the United States
DEAR EDITOR:
Are we citizens, subjects or serfs?
The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, in part, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
It contains two components: (1) birth of naturalization in the U.S. and (2) subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S.
The 1868 enactment date of the 14th Amendment is also significant and must not be overlooked. It was intended to constitutionalize the Civil Rights Act enacted two years prior. This act established the citizenship of newly freed slaves and protected their rights and liberties--but did not automatically confer U.S. citizen status on every child born in the U.S. Indeed, children born here of foreign diplomats are not conferred that status, so why is most everyone else, including, as the U.S. Supreme Court has decided, "anchor babies" whose mother is part of an elaborate birth tourism network?
The 1866 Civil Rights Act's intent was to protect the rights and liberties of slaves, not newly arrived, illegally entered persons. The 14th Amendment constitutionalized black persons' citizenship.
If the framers of the 14th Amendment had omitted the ending phrase, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," that would end the discussion; however, ending the phrase was construed by the Supreme Court as equivalent to adherence to the laws of the jurisdiction. The phrases "subject to" and "adherence to" have two separate and distinct meanings. Of course, everyone who enters into the U.S. is required to adhere to its laws but is not automatically subject to them.
The Bolsheviks replaced serfdom with communism in the early 20th century.
Serfs were "tied to the land." Did the U.S. Supreme Court just reinforce the concept of serfdom by holding that by being born in the U.S., one is automatically "subject to" (tied to) the land?
Because the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause was qualified by the phrase "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" (the U.S.), an additional requirement was added for a person born here to become a citizen. If the additional phrase is rendered meaningless (as the Supreme Court apparently has just decided), then the Court not only erred but also ignored the historical basis for the citizenship clause as indicated above.
C. RAFOTH
Attorney
Boardman
Trying to make sense of Trump's Iran War
DEAR EDITOR:
In June 2025, Trump announced that Iran's "nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and fully obliterated" in a bombing raid that he called a "spectacular military success". Then, seven months later, he attacked Iran again with the express goal, he stated, of preventing them from developing a nuclear weapon.
This action, understandably, puzzled most Americans and left us with only three possible explanations. 1) The June 2025 bombing was actually a spectacular military failure, not success as he claimed, 2) if it was a success, those enterprising Iranians had somehow, in only 7 months, rebuilt those facilities (that took decades to build) to the point that they were even closer to developing a nuclear weapon than they were before the June 2025, bombing, or, most likely, 3) Trump needed to divert America's attention, especially the media, away from the disastrous effects of his domestic and foreign policy blunders before the midterm elections.
When Iran offered no retaliation after the 2025 bombing, Trump foolishly believed that Iran would easily capitulate after we assassinated their leader and aggressively bombed their country. It was going to be over in 2 weeks and he would be hailed a hero, a great leader for ridding the world of this terrible scourge that is Iran. He never planned for or anticipated a "war". In his continuing and utter incompetence he started a war that has cost 18 Americans their lives and wounded over 600, cost taxpayers over 100 billion dollars (in only 5 months) with Hegseth asking for another 67 billion, and another 30 billion necessary to repair our military bases, and a war that seriously depleted our defensive missile capabilities. He instigated this unnecessary, untimely, illegal, unconstitutional, tragic and expensive attack simply as a diversion.
In his 2024 campaign for the presidency, he said, "I'm not going to start a war; I'm going to stop wars. Under Trump, we will have no more wars," ... that is, unless he deems it necessary to suit his personal and political ambitions. When will his loyalists in Congress open their eyes, pull their heads out of their butts, and acknowledge that Trump is destroying America, not making it "great" again? When will they find the courage and integrity to honor their oath to protect our Constitution? Trump and his party are a festering cancer on our democracy.
THOMAS BRENT
Struthers
How much do electric companies expect us to pay?
DEAR EDITOR:
In a recent edition of The Vindicator, there were two -- not one -- requests for an increase of rates for electric distribution rates. How much do these companies expect us to pay?
I thought Trump was going to make everything more affordable. I can hardly wait for the prices to drop.
HAROLD WILSON
Youngstown
John Stossel's source on climate lacks credibility
DEAR EDITOR:
John Stossel begins his article(8/10) questioning the accuracy of Jon Stewart on the "Daily Show." Someone might tell Stossel that the "Daily Show" is entertainment, not news. He goes on to list an impressive list of people and news outlets who all warn of the dangers of global warming while countering over and over with one man, Heartland Institute's Linnea Lueken.
While I have heard of The New York Times, CNN and the United Nations, the Heartland Institute not so much. It is easy enough to copyright an impressive title and pass yourself off as an expert.
Stossel has done it for years. Insurance companies sure believe in global warming, climate change and sea-level rise. Try to get home owners insurance in Florida!
STEVE SOLAK
Youngstown
Prepare for the constant noise of data centers
DEAR EDITOR:
The transformation of voters into cicadas. Our future life in an industrial park.
This is what the wealthy have planned for America, while they themselves leisure hundreds of thousands of miles away.
America shall be humming away, literally. Data center noise typically remains audible within a .5- to 2.5-mile radius, a continuous hum of 55 to 85 dBA. Prolonged exposure to noise over 70 dBA can cause permanent hearing damage.
Something like the 7-year itch of a cicada, with their loud buzzing sound, only opposite with a low hum, 24/7. I'm sure the wealthy will offer relief to those who can't afford it, such as Walmart ear plugs.
Humans molting under data centers, leaving behind the shells of people. Being the loss of freedom without nature also sheds pounds of pride in its wake. Accept it or not, we became part of the AI experiment.
PAUL LAWSON
McDonald