Letters: Benninghoff’s concerning environmental record; ‘Pathetic’ response from state GOP leaders
Benninghoff’s concerning environmental record
Kerry Benninghoff has been in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for the last 24 years. He has amassed an abysmal record on the environment during this time, despite representing a district that depends on a healthy environment to support the leading industries, agriculture and tourism.
Benninghoff’s lifetime voting record on the environment is 12%, according to the scorecard from the Conservation Voters of PA. That’s one of the worst in our entire House of Representatives.
Looking closer, he regularly votes to let polluters off the hook by creating loopholes and easing restrictions. He has voted for proposals that weaken protections for our health and our environment. He voted to remove the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s authority to review and approve permits.
The list could go on. Benninghoff is one of the most anti-environment members in the entire Pa. House of Representatives. He’s shown he doesn’t care about our health and the legacy of pollution he is leaving behind. He’s simply contributing to an unhealthy environment.
It’s time to end Benninghoff’s career as a lifetime politician. It’s time to vote Benninghoff out and Peter Buck in on Nov. 3rd. Peter Buck is dedicated to creating and sustaining a healthy environment for all Pennsylvanians now and in the future. Buck has a track record of preserving forests, streams and farms and moving solar energy forward.
Benninghoff represents Pennsylvania’s polluted past. Buck represents our best hope for a clean environment we can live with.
‘Pathetic’ response from state GOP leaders
I was appalled by the recent hateful actions of Rep. Russ Diamond (R-Lebanon). His mocking parody of Dr. Levine’s statement further marginalized a vulnerable minority of Pennsylvania residents. The response of party leaders including Rep. Bryan Cutler(R-Lancaster), House Speaker, and Rep. Kerry Benninghoff (R-Benner Township), House Majority Leader, was pathetic.
As a professional mental health provider for more than 30 years, I am disgusted by your lack of integrity! Gentlemen, are you aware that a full 25% of suicides among American children ages 12-15 years belong to the LGBTQ minority? Merely observing that discrimination is wrong is like seeing a pile of crap on the rug and stepping around it. It still smells. I urge you to take action to clean up this mess and reprimand Rep. Diamond rather than enable him to continue to spew hate. For the sake of human decency over politics, do the right thing.
No comparison on mental acuity
On Aug. 1, the CDT published an opinion piece by the vice president of the Maryland Federation of Republican Women who, (surprise!), bemoaned Joe Biden’s declining mental acuity. Yet, Americans are not buying what she is selling.
According to a recent Fox News poll, only 42 percent of Americans believe Trump possesses the intelligence to be president (which is less than Biden’s 51 percent) and only 43 percent believe he has the mental soundness (which is less than Biden’s 47 percent).
Although the author provides examples of lapses by Biden that should concern voters, she demolishes her credibility when she asserts, “Trump would be a president who is clear thinking, quick, sharp and does not let anything slide.”
Nobody who witnessed the nationally televised Coronavirus Task Force briefing on April 24th will ever forget Mr. Trump’s defensive, but nonsensical, rambling about future scientific research directed at determining whether injections of strong light or disinfectant into the body might kill the virus. Disinfectant!
His absence of mental acuity rendered America the joke of the entire world.
Trump’s presidency has been riddled with mental lapses; witness his claim that George Washington’s army “took over the airports,” or his current attempts to distinguish “mail-in” ballots from “absentee ballots.” Nevertheless, to focus on acuity is insufficient.
Clinical psychologist and niece, Mary Trump, claims her uncle is a sociopath incapable of human empathy. It’s an essential quality, in these trying times, which Joe Biden possesses in spades.