Letters: Voicing opinions ahead of Election Day on Nov. 3

Buck will bring people together

Once in a while we have the opportunity to support a candidate whose effectiveness as a representative can transcend party. Peter Buck, running for State House District 171, is such a candidate.

Buck has the ability to bring people with different perspectives together around shared concerns. Through his leadership on the Ferguson Township Board of Supervisors he has demonstrated himself to be a pragmatic steward of the public’s resources and he will bring that same sense of stewardship of both taxpayer dollars and public lands to Harrisburg. He understands the tools available to state and local governments in addressing the needs of central Pennsylvania and he’s honest and transparent in his interest in hearing the diverse perspectives of those he seeks to represent.

Peter Buck has been an outspoken advocate of redistricting reform. Fair redistricting will lead to more competitive state House and Senate districts in Pennsylvania. There isn’t a more effective tool available for holding elected officials of any persuasion accountable than simply having to face voters in competitive districts.

Buck cares about what’s needed to keep central Pennsylvania’s communities thriving and healthy and his vision extends well beyond this or the next election. He is truly of this place and vested in its long-term well-being. Peter Buck is the right candidate for the job and I’ll be casting my vote for him on Nov. 3rd. I hope you will, too.

Waltz is no newcomer to 76th District

Joe Waltz wants to help District 76. He believes we all do the best we can for our families, no matter our age, gender, color or religion. He will take our concerns about jobs, education, taxes, the economy, environment and government accountability, to Harrisburg and find solutions. Joe’s life experiences mirror many in the 76th District — a rural childhood, first to go to college, longtime resident of Clinton County, high school teacher, coach, and community volunteer, and his wife a small business owner.

Some might call Joe Waltz a “newcomer,” but he’s not; his roots are deep in our District 76 soil. Joe is a listener and will represent ALL residents. Volunteers who’ve phone-banked for Joe Waltz tell many stories of voters (Republican and Democrat) who have responded “You betcha!” to the query, “Are you familiar with/voting for Joe Waltz?” Within coronavirus restrictions, Joe has been out meeting folks, and has a big online presence (see electjoewaltz.com). He’s our guy.

Send this “newcomer” to Harrisburg with all his passion, zest, common sense and hard-work attitude. Vote for Joe Waltz for your District 76 State Representative.

Looking toward a future with Griffin

We all need to vote for Lee Griffin for the United States Congress. I will tell you why. Currently, in the 12th Congressional District we have a representative by the name of Fred Keller. Mr. Keller holds no leadership positions in Congress and has introduced no bills that have become law. He recently voted against a grant to promote integration in the public schools and voted against a House resolution to condemn expressions of racism toward Asian Americans. Keller thinks like, and supports everything Donald Trump says, and like President Trump, Fred Keller needs to go.

Fortunately for us we have an excellent challenger in Lee Griffin who is articulate and thoughtful and who, as our representative, will bring progressive ideas and energy to Congress. According to Lee, “the future is ours.” Let’s move ahead toward the future with a vote for Lee Griffin.

Negativity around fracking is nonsense

Fracking continues to be a major topic in the presidential campaign, with Biden and Harris walking back some of their earlier negativity, and asserting that they haven’t been (quite) as negative as the Republicans claim. But the larger issue is not the degree of their negativity, but why they have been negative at all. Think of where we would be without the investors, geologists and operators that have created this critical industry. Without fracking:

• We would not be energy independent and enjoying the accompanying foreign policy flexibility, particularly in the Mideast, which we’ve not had in many decades.
• The U.S. would not have been able to accomplish its enormous reduction in CO2 emissions in recent years.
• The competitiveness of our chemical industry would be diminished.
• Thousands of well-paying jobs would not have been created or sustained.
• Average disposable income would be reduced, particularly burdensome for our lower income citizens.
• The United States would not be an exporter of liquefied natural gas.
• And very locally, it’s unlikely that Penn State would have its beautiful hockey arena.

And this revolution in energy sourcing is a product of the free market and the private sector — not the government — ironically with the fracking industry now somewhat a victim of its own success because of the low natural gas prices it has made possible. Given what the industry has enabled, both economically and environmentally, the Democrat leadership’s disdain, ambivalence and/or equivocation when it comes to fracking is both wrongheaded and dangerous.

Votes for Biden matter

So, you really want Trump out of office, but are not sure about Biden. If you assume that any vote that is not FOR Trump is a vote against him, you might consider alternative ways of depriving Trump of your vote, such as the following: Stay home; vote for a third-party candidate; don’t record any vote for president.

No! These are all (indirect) votes for Trump. Consider what happened in 2016. Lots of people stayed home, voted for third parties, and/or left the presidential choice blank. Lots of people, for whatever reason, really disliked Trump but did not really like Hilary. By not voting for Hilary, these voters handed the election to Trump.

Still not sure? Consider these numbers:

Assign the following values to various votes: Trump = +1; Biden = -1; 3rd party or non-vote = 0 (i.e., does not contribute to either a win or a loss for Trump). Take three voters, one for Trump (+1), and two non-Trump. If both non-Trump voters vote for a 3rd party candidate, then the tally would be 1+0+0 = 1, a win for Trump. If both non-Trump voters vote for Biden, then the tally would be 1-1-1= -1, a loss for Trump.

The only way to vote against Trump is to vote for Joe Biden. If you consider Biden “beyond the pale,” ask yourself whether he is truly worse than Trump.

Urge lawmakers to ensure a smooth election

State Sen. Jake Corman is Republican Senate Majority Leader. Rep. Kerry Benninghoff holds the same post in the House of Representatives. They control the legislative agenda. If they wanted to pass a bill to allow counting of absentee and mail-in ballots before Election Day (as nearly 20 other states do), it would become law. County election officials, including a Republican county commissioner in Bucks County (as reported in Oct. 20’s CDT front page), want the ability to do so to avoid days of delay in tabulating Pennsylvania’s votes.

If Corman and Benninghoff really mean what they say about ensuring a smooth election, they will provide county election boards the ability to tabulate votes speedily. If you agree, let them know. Their phone numbers: Corman, 814-355-0477, Benninghoff, 814-355-1300.

Obstructing progress

Trump asked Joe Biden why he and President Obama could not get more done during eight years in the White House. The answer is that Republicans blocked everything. Republicans said, “We’re going to do everything, and I mean everything we can do, to kill (Obama’s agenda) ... if he was for it we had to be against it.”

Obama’s bills blocked by GOP include:

• Elimination of tax breaks to companies shipping jobs overseas
• Transparency of political donations
• The Small Business Jobs Act
• Money for US infrastructure
• The Dream Act
• Defense Appropriations improving pay and protections for military
• Benefits for Homeless Veterans
• Health Care for 9/11 first responders
• The jobs bill
• Wall Street reform
• American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
• Oil spill liability
• Immigration reform
• Fair Pay Act of 2009

And much more. And now the GOP is blocking much needed help to Americans losing businesses, jobs, homes, health care and even their lives due to COVID-19. The GOP is unwilling to help suffering Americans but give massive tax breaks to the rich. Obama recently stated that: “Their (GOP) willingness to say no to everything, the fact that since 2007 they have filibustered about 500 pieces of legislation that would help the middle class just gives you a sense of how opposed they are to any progress.”

As Joe Biden says, “Give me a break!”

Our government needs to work together but the Republican Congress continues to obstruct progress.

Fearful of the future

Political ads would have us fearful of becoming a socialistic country, but there is an even greater danger, and that is fascism. Here are some of the characteristics of fascism:

• The free press is suppressed.
• The leader hypes himself as being the answer to every problem.
• The leader makes statements many of which cannot be backed up with the truth.
• Propaganda reigns supreme; facts become “alternative facts.”
• The leader demands absolute loyalty. Those who disagree are demeaned, ridiculed, vilified, threatened and/or fired.
• People of color or those from other countries are belittled and unfairly stereotyped.
• Groups such as white supremacists are encouraged or at least not denounced.
• The leader sews divisiveness and hatred.

Look honestly at what has been happening in America for the last four years and you will see many similarities. Hitler and fascism took hold because not enough citizens could or would speak up until it was too late. We must be careful with our vote to ensure that our country does not keep heading toward such a government.

The courage to stand up

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing...” (E. Burke)

I encourage people to be the good man or woman to not let evil triumph in our country.

Our president is unfit to lead, and our country is being divided. Before you cast your ballot, please look at the president’s actions or inactions over the last four years, and not the campaign ads. He instills fear, and turns a blind eye to aggression by his supporters. Instead of calming, he condones or promotes violence and hate. He has taken away liberties and services, and he has not led us in preventing the spread of COVID. He is abusing his authority and we are losing our country. We are losing America.

Please urge your Republican Representatives in the US and state legislature to have the courage to stand up and be one of the “good men,” even if it’s against their party line. We rely on these elected men and women to protect the laws and constitution, and to protect our country from evil.

If you are already being a “good man or woman,” thank you so much for your courage.

Use your vote to move America to energy freedom

I owned Energy Professionals Insulation for 37 years, working in people’s homes to help them by weatherizing. My customers were thrilled to cut their fuel bills back then. And that helped the planet. But we should have started changing from oil and natural gas to wind and solar 40 years ago. Joe Biden has a plan for these changes.

No one can argue that the Earth isn’t changing — no ice on the Siberian side of the Arctic Sea for the first time ever, fires in our western states that broke all records, derechos that no one had ever heard of, and 27 named hurricanes.

Jimmy Carter, a very religious man, saw the light and helped humankind for his entire life. He knew how important the path to environmental sanity was, and started us on that path. Joe Biden wants to continue that path. Tens of thousands of jobs could be created by transitioning from fossil fuel to renewables.

I saw photovoltaic powered vehicles at the 1982 Worlds Fair in Knoxville. They should’ve been mass produced then; cars that run with renewables should definitely be mass produced now. Let’s put American ingenuity to work and put photovoltaic factories in former West Virginia coal mining towns.

I’ll be dead before global climate change gets really horrible. I just want to see people have good lives. You can see that global changes are happening. Vote for Joe Biden to help America.

Not new for legislators to interfere with votes

Sen. Jake Corman and Rep. Kerry Benninghoff wrote in their Oct. 19 op-ed that they would have no role in selecting PA’s presidential electors. Translation: how could we imagine they would steal our election for Trump?

Here’s how.

Their op-ed discusses the process for approving electors, based on which candidate gains the most votes. It says nothing about whether they would interfere with that vote total.

Anyone who keeps up with the news knows they have been interfering with the voting process for months. They are still suing over the deadline for mailed ballots to be received, saying three days for the mail is too long — in a pandemic, when their party has been subverting Post Office operations. But they don’t object to military ballots’ deadline of a full week after Election Day (per Pennsylvania Department of State calendar). Could it be because they anticipate the majority of those votes going to Trump?

Who is paying for all these lawsuits? You are. They target county and state governments, and thus, taxpayers.

But the main reason is, they’ve been interfering with our votes for a decade. How does a blue county have a Republican senator and three of four Republican representatives? Gerrymandering. Pennsylvania was the model for Project Red Map, using the last census’ data to redistrict legislatures in Democratic majority states to gain Republican control.

If they will work so hard to disenfranchise voters in elections, why would they care about your opinion after the election? Please vote accordingly.

No place for vandalism

Look, we all understand elections can bring out the best and the worst in some people. However, this election is very different. Supporters on both sides are generally respectful of each other. Unfortunately, there seems to be some supporters who think they have the right to steal, spray paint and damage Biden signs. Yet, you don’t see Biden supporters do anything to Trump signs. It’s fine to show support wave flags, hold mini-rallies, etc. This is America. You do not have the right to destroy Biden signs. Trump keeps saying he’s the “law and order” president, well for those who choose to commit this destruction you are breaking the law by vandalizing and if you get caught can be arrested. Some of you probably think this is funny. Well, it doesn’t change who we vote for. It doesn’t say much for you, does it now. You can be passionate or vandalize. The choice is up to you!

Vote to keep democracy

Our American democracy is a great system. We learn about people who want to represent our wishes and needs in Harrisburg and D.C. We vote for them. The person with the most votes wins, and the other candidates concede.

The peaceful transfer of power that our American democracy provides is a pretty amazing accomplishment of our civilization.

So if you want to keep America a democracy, please consider not voting for Donald Trump, who has said he’ll accept the outcome of the election “If I win.” Mr. Trump (and much of the Republican Party establishment) have put a lot of effort into their “EDO”— Election Day Operations, including 50,000 poll volunteers in 15 contested states to challenge voters they deem to be suspicious-looking. Voter-profiling?

On the playground we all know how to deal with the kid who says, “The only way I can lose is if you rig the game.” We don’t play with them. So, don’t vote for Mr. Trump.