Letters: Using Ukraine for partisan purposes; Shuffling Representatives

Using Ukraine for partisan purposes

House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff’s op-ed in the March 3 CDT is a prime example of using a non-partisan issue, the Ukraine Invasion, for partisan purposes.

Representative Benninghoff writes about the importance of Pennsylvania’s natural gas resources in a global energy market that is in the throes of dramatic geopolitical change. Fair enough. Unfortunately, he omits any mention that Pennsylvania is already the natural gas producing state with the lowest taxes in the industry. Strangely, he goes on to blame the Democrats and the Wolf administration for a failure of leadership, even though Pennsylvania is the second largest producer of natural gas in the country, following only Texas, which, by the way, levies a 7.5% extraction tax, to Pennsylvania’s 0% extraction tax (instead, PA charges an annual impact fee for every gas well that’s drilled, resulting in much lower revenues).

But in the most egregious and blatantly self-serving portion of his piece he blames our “state and federal leaders” for policies that will “embolden” Vladimir Putin.

Nice try, Mr. Benninghoff, but your reasoning is full of gas and your argument simply doesn’t hold water.

Shuffling Representatives

Due to the constant gerrymandering of the Republican party, no one knows who their representatives are any more. Here in Clinton County we had our Representative changed to Fred Keller, Glenn Thompson’s friend. Now Fred, one of the poorest examples of a politician, won’t run against an incumbent Republican. What a shame. I had hoped he never runs again and goes back to Kreamer. He likes and supports his Republican friends like Trump more than his duty as an elected official and his constituents. The Republican Party now consists of people who don’t have the gumption to speak up against the worst president (Trump) and hateful aggressive Republicans who can’t shut their mouths. Now we are faced with Putin, Trump’s idol, killing and maiming the Ukrainian people. All they do is attack Biden when we should be pulling together as Americans when the world is threatened by tyrants.

Thompson has more to answer for

Congressman Glenn Thompson needs to answer to his constituents.

Criticism is a natural part of politics — and any politician should expect questions from constituents they’d rather not answer. How they handle legitimate voter questions provides a measure of the man (or woman) — and Thompson doesn’t measure up.

Voters are still waiting for Thompson to explain why he voted against accepting the Electoral College votes on January 6, 2021, and why he voted for Trump’s tax cut, but against the infrastructure bill (a bill decades overdue), that provides desperately needed funding for Pennsylvania.

And now, we’d like him to explain why, through his deputy chief of staff, no less, he impugned the reputation of Patty Satalia (CDT letters dated March 3), a retired journalist and private citizen, for daring to question another of Thompson’s staff members who went after a different letter-writer who did just that: questioned Thompson on his votes.

The cheap shot by Renee Gamela was not only uncalled for, it was simply untrue.

We can’t help but think Thompson is still stinging from the fact that, as a first-rate interviewer and debate moderator, Satalia did her job and pressed Thompson, as she would any sitting Congressman with a voting track record, to answer simple questions voters want and deserve — and still can’t get from him!

Thompson still owes us those answers — plus, now, a public apology to Ms. Satalia.