Letters: Keller’s hypocrisy on display; Disregarding the rule of law

Keller’s hypocrisy on display

Like Fred Keller, I took an oath to support, obey and defend the Constitution of the United States. Which makes it all the more disappointing that Mr. Keller has violated this oath by supporting the frivolous and unconstitutional lawsuit, brought by the state of Texas, to overturn the results of the presidential election in Pennsylvania and three other states. Mr. Keller claims this is necessary to “ensure that Americans have confidence in our election.” Meanwhile he undermines that very confidence by promoting claims of irregularities and fraud unsupported by facts and evidence. Officials at every level of government and now judges at every level of the judicial system have scrutinized the election results. In every case, the results have been certified as accurate and confirmed Joe Biden as the winner. Mr. Keller could have followed the example of Senator Toomey and acknowledged this obvious fact and simple truth. But when faced with the choice, he has pledged his loyalty to a single person over his country – our country! Mr. Keller loves to exclaim his patriotism and love of America, but in practice displays only cowardice. His hypocrisy is appalling. The citizens of central and northern Pennsylvania deserve better from their elected representative.

Disregarding the rule of law

After watching Hitlerism crumble a few years before, in 1952 I voted in my first presidential election. (I “liked Ike.”)

Now at the end of my life I’m asking myself questions I never dreamed of before 2016.

After last Nov. 3 I’ve watched prominent Republicans support the president’s claims of a fraudulent stolen election in the face of debunking by GOP state election officials and ridicule by judges Donald Trump even appointed himself. One supporter is my state representative and House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, a man I once could at least respect.

Then 17 Republican state attorneys general and 126 Republican members of the U. S. House signed on to the futile Texas plea to a truly conservative Supreme Court to throw out some 20 million votes and keep Trump in power.

So reluctantly I have to ask: How many of my 2,700 Walker Township neighbors who recently voted for Trump would agree to nullify the votes of me and the 1,623 of my other township neighbors because we did not vote for a man unique in American presidential history? I like to believe not all 2,700.

But the past four years have shown, and the last few weeks have confirmed, that a dangerous percentage of Americans, and the Republican Party itself, are willing to discard the rule of law in favor of a strongman — if he is their strongman.

Lawmakers chasing election fiction

We have all been through an extraordinarily difficult period of conflict throughout this election cycle. Now that it is blatantly obvious that President Trump lost, why do state Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, Pennsylvania’s House Majority Leader, and Rep. Rich Irvin continue to call into question the legitimacy of this election?

With that in mind, we are very concerned by the Dec. 4 letter to Pennsylvania’s U.S. Congressional Delegation, urging them “to object ... to the Electoral College votes received from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania during the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021.”

By continuing to support the false claims that President Trump won the presidential election, state Representatives Benninghoff and Irvin, as well as Congressmen Fred Keller and GT Thompson who signed onto the frivolous Texas lawsuit to invalidate President-elect Biden’s victory, are undermining Pennsylvanians’ trust in the election process, the cornerstone of democracy itself.

We worry that there is an ulterior motive here to suppress mail-in-voting in the future. Mail-in voting has worked exceptionally well for the military for one hundred years. By expanding it, we now have more people voting, which improves our democracy.

There is absolutely no credible evidence of widespread election fraud related to mail-in voting. None.

We hope Representatives Benninghoff and Irvin, along with the seven Republican Congress members from Pennsylvania who joined the suit, will now focus on the pandemic, and work to prevent the needless loss of more lives, and not continue to chase a fiction that President Trump has created out of thin air.