Sounding off: Biden, Casey, protect our borders first

I cannot attend one of President Biden’s press conferences or Pennsylvania’s Sen. Bob Casey’s. But, if anyone knows someone who can, could you have them ask one or more of my questions for me?

President Biden and/or Senator Casey, you have to know that there is a tremendous amount of illegal immigrants crossing our country’s southern border every day. Do you approve of this? Are you happy about this? Why have you not tried to stop this? I believe that immigrants entering our country legally is OK. But “illegal,” to me, means breaking our country’s law.

Also, why do you have to protect Ukraine’s borders more than those of the USA?

One more question please? Everyone needs a government-issued photo ID to purchase cough medicine, cigarettes, alcohol and even fly on an airplane. I believe that everyone should have to show the same photo ID. Will you make photo ID a requirement to vote?

If you disagree with any of this, please tell me why.

Don Handley, Hempfield

Plenty of incitement on Jan. 6

I found Guy Kosinski’s letter “Incitement a tool of the left” smug and lacking in facts. He demeans another letter-writer, writing, “Like all misguided liberals, (Suzanne) Colvin attempts to paint the Jan. 6 incident at our nation’s Capitol as the worst threat to life and liberty we’ve ever seen.” The insurrection was the worst assault on Washington, D.C., since the War of 1812. Scores were injured, some died and our democracy itself came under bloody assault.

Then Kosinski boldly states, “She even goes so far as to falsely accuse a number of Republican congressmen of helping to incite the violence.” Rep. Madison Cawthorne gave a fiery speech. Rep. Mo Brooks shouted that the time had come to “kick ass and take names.” Sen. Josh Hawley was photographed giving the mob a raised, clenched-fist salute. How much incitement do you need?

Kosinski claims that “such incitement is a tool used almost exclusively by the left.” You don’t say. …Tell that to Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr., Alex Jones, etc. Is it too much to ask Kosinski to provide at least one example of what he claims?

Finally, Kosinski opines, “2021 was the deadliest year on record for our brave men and women in blue; I think that’s because of the left’s daily demonization of police officers.” On Jan. 6, 140 police officers were injured by incited Trump supporters who beat them down with bats, chairs, hockey sticks, flagpoles and fists.

Wouldn’t it be nice if right-wing letter-writers relied more on facts than rumor, supposition and propaganda?

Jim Harger, New Kensington

Jan. 20 is a day of infamy, too

I had a good laugh after reading Sandra Kremer’s letter “Why the big lie continues.” She designated Dec. 7, Sept. 11 and Jan. 6 as days that will go down in infamy. I laughed because for more than a year I have had a bumper sticker on my car that lists the days of infamy as Dec. 7, Sept. 11 and Jan. 20.

Jeanne Shields, North Huntingdon

GOP’s hollow words on election integrity

Republican Joe DiSarro, political science professor at Washington & Jefferson College, believes that Republicans’ redistricting plan, which political observers suggest favors Republicans, is a better option for Western Pennsylvania (“Westmoreland officials favor congressional map that unifies county”). This plan splits communities where Democratic voters reside and moves those voters into districts where they would be outnumbered by Republicans,

Those same legislators have introduced bills that would allow their caucus to change or overturn any election results they disagree with and permit their party’s representatives to enter county election offices following an election to confiscate and destroy mail-in ballots. They have repeatedly told their constituents that turning our 2020 election ballots and personal information for audit to some unknown third party protects the integrity of future elections.

Now, they are creating legislative districts to give Republican voters an unfair advantage, making it impossible for Democratic political candidates to ever win elected office in Pennsylvania again.

The more Republican legislators say these actions are being put in place to “protect the integrity of elections,” the more their hollow words sound like voter suppression to me.

Frances Weiss, White Oak

Don’t vote for Dr. Oz

I felt the need to write this letter to encourage Pennsylvania voters not to vote for Dr. Mehmet Oz. I’m not judging Oz; all I’m saying is, he’s not a resident of Pennsylvania. He lives in New Jersey, and to fulfill the Pennsylvania residency requirement, he listed his in-laws’ address in Philadelphia as his own. Is this not cheating?

Let’s elect a person to represent us in the U.S. Senate who is a real Pennsylvanian, someone who lives among us and knows the needs of our state.

Jeffrey Messer, Greensburg

Money is today’s magic medicine

In the last century, deadly diseases included tuberculosis, flu, smallpox, measles, yellow fever, polio, pneumonia, syphilis. Cures or vaccinations were found (in order listed) in 1921, 1940, 1796, 1963, 1938, 1950, 1977 and 1928. Note that at these times higher education was either rare or not common.

Today college graduates are almost as common as high school graduates were in the 1950s. Our deadly diseases today are cancer, covid and AIDS, and yet with all this education, neither proven vaccines or cures have been discovered. What does that tell you? Are we actually the victims of Big Pharma not releasing cures or vaccines? Is no one trying to find these things, or are we just more stupid than previous generations?

Penicillin was discovered in 1928, a magic cure-all for many diseases that were previously deadly. Where is the magic of these last 100 years? The only “magic” of today is money. Draw your own conclusions!

Eileen Condie, Hempfield

Secured weapons are benign

We see it in the news every day: stolen weapons used in murders or robberies, often both.

First, the term we should use is weapons, not guns. When discussing “guns,” the message becomes politicized and emotional, which undermines reason-based discussion and solutions about the topic.

Americans have a long history of display cases and other less-than-secure ways of storing weapons. Those with weapons often succumb to apathy and allow their weapons to languish in obscure but not secure locations — until they are stolen, sold at estate sales or given away. Even the weapons we know and love are often unsecured.

Into this interject another of America’s traditions: tax cuts to incentivize behavior and “create jobs.” We have seen these behavior modifiers work well. Two examples are home ownership with tax deductions for home mortgage interest and the proliferation of solar panel installations.

Why not also employ tax cuts for American-made “gun safes”? Once our weapons are secured in a safe, they are as benign as toy guns.

A.J. Stones, Penn Township, Westmoreland County