Letters: Downtown doesn’t need another bar; Dangerous House committee assignments

Downtown doesn’t need another bar

After having breakfast at The Corner Room recently, I walked up South Allen Street. As I was walking, I started to count the places that sold alcohol: the Allen Street Grill, Pickles, Zeno’s, Champs, McLanahan’s, and the “Classic Cocktails” bar on the corner. Monday night the State College council, on the recommendation of the borough staff, just approved the Brothers Bar and Grill chain, to be the latest restaurant/bar on South Allen Street. This new establishment, which will be open every day until 2 a.m., will bring the number of places where students can drink to seven — all within one block! Borough council members occasionally talk about the need to encourage more retail businesses in our college town. Allowing what was once retail space to become yet another a bar is certainly not helping to achieve this goal.

Dangerous House committee assignments

Voters showed in November that they reject extreme politics, but MAGA Republicans aren’t listening.

Kevin McCarthy ransomed power to become House Speaker and Americans are paying the price. From the preposterous to the downright dangerous, McCarthy has delivered crucial committee assignments to his hostage takers.

Three of the most extreme members of the far-right Freedom Caucus, none of whom possess the necessary knowledge, temperament or experience, were assigned positions on the Oversight and Accountability committee, the House’s main investigative body.

Lauren Boebert, who confused the biblical reference to “wanton killing” with Chinese dumplings (“wonton”), is using her new-found power to push for frivolous investigations of the Biden administration rather than work on legitimate pressing matters.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon conspiracy theorist, who was booted off committees in the last Congress for incendiary comments, is now on the Homeland Security Committee — despite having zero military or intelligence experience.

At the first hearing of the House Oversight Committee of this new Congress, Greene made the ludicrous claim that an Illinois elementary school received $5 billion in COVID-19 relief funding to develop CRT curriculum! Greene, you’ll recall, confused “gazpacho” (soup) with “Gestapo” (Nazi) police in rants against Nancy Pelosi and recently proclaimed that if she’d organized the January 6 insurrection, “we would have won” and “it would have been armed.”

Assigning fringe figures into the highest ranks of political power is downright dangerous.

House Committees have serious work to do that American lives depend upon.

Commentary presents biased picture

In his recent commentary on Pennsylvania’s energy production, Gordon Tomb of the Commonwealth Foundation presents a very biased picture, ignores basic physics and, for good measure, contradicts himself.

Tomb isn’t interested in energy production unless that production comes from burning fossil fuels. He doesn’t mention that Pennsylvania is behind other states in adding wind and solar power. Instead, he claims subsidies for alternative energy make it hard for fossil fuels to compete. His complaint is meritless. Financial analysts found as far back as 2017 that wind and solar power are cheaper than fossil fuels even after accounting for subsidies. That trend has continued.

Tomb also ignores basic climate science and medical science when he says that mining more coal will “promote the well-being of Pennsylvanians.” Wrong. Burning coal is directly responsible for asthma and other respiratory illnesses. And climate scientists have been saying for years, and have the data to back up their claims: burning fossil fuels has changed our climate and is worsening extreme weather events.

Tomb claims Pennsylvania energy production is stifled by regulation — and then adds that Pennsylvania already exports more energy than all other states. Either way, that doesn’t stop him from promoting a radical solution to amend the state Constitution to allow the legislature to abandon health, safety and environmental regulations in service to corporations.

Pennsylvania’s land, air and waters are still being polluted by the coal, oil and gas extractive industries. We need cleaner energy, and certainly not any of the measures outlined by Tomb.

No need for casino

Those of us who live in Centre County are used to seeing “we are hiring” signs throughout the area. We have experienced short service in our schools, health care facilities, stores and restaurants. Our unemployment rate at 3% or less is perhaps the lowest in the state. We do not need 350 to 400 new jobs for a business that can have a negative affect on our population. We do not need to attract gamblers who are free to have their own poker parties, online betting etc. We have a need for people for the jobs we have vacant.

A casino as planned would negatively affect us all.

Taylor Greene is face of today’s GOP

The Republican party has come to this: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy appointed Marjorie Taylor Greene as Speaker pro temp in his absence.

That’s right — MTG, the 9/11 and Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist, Jewish space laser antisemite, QAnon kook, 1/6 pro-insurrectionist, election denier, MAGA extremist, State of the Union screamer — was appointed to preside over the U.S. House of Representatives.

While Greene’s appointment was, indeed, temporary, it’s worth noting that Speaker McCarthy had 220 other House Republicans to choose from.

Get used to it: MTG is the face of today’s GOP. This is what today’s Republican Party has become: ignorant, mean, unhinged Marjorie Taylor Greene is now mainstream GOP.