Sounding off: Think, verify before you post

With the rise of Facebook and Twitter, we have all become media outlets. With the click of a mouse we can share news links with our family and friends. When we share a story, we are applying our personal stamp of approval. Sometimes, we are saying we think something is funny, or we agree with an opinion. Other times, we are being used to disseminate stories that have no basis in fact.

Consider Edgar Maddison Welch’s act on Dec. 4, 2016: After spending days reading about “Pizzagate,” Welch entered the Comet Ping Pong restaurant in Washington, D.C., and fired an AR-15 rifle into a door.

On June 14, 2017, James Hodgkinson shot U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and others at a practice for a charity baseball game in Alexandria, Va. Hodgkinson had become convinced of the evils of the Republican Party. He was a member of various anti-Republican groups on Facebook, including one titled “Terminate the Republican Party.”

These are extreme cases, but they demonstrate the power we have at our fingertips. We read a headline or 280 characters and post to share with friends and family. Sources hope to get their stories and tweets “trending” with catchy headlines and topics. These groups can look like legitimate news sources and use real people to propagate false information.

In a world where perception can become reality, words matter. Please verify the news source and the author before stamping the approval of your media outlet.

R. Keresztury, Plum

No thanks, Giant Eagle

I agree totally with letter-writer Mary Bach’s assessment that “It’s a sad day for longtime Giant Eagle customers” (“Giant Eagle’s double-coupon decision.”)

I have limited my Giant Eagle shopping more and more because the stores stopped carrying Amazon gift cards and Giant Eagle made confusing, consumer-unfriendly changes to its “fuelperks” program. And now this — no more double coupons.

I’ve been shopping more and more at Shop ’n Save stores because, yes, they have Amazon gift cards.

Joanne Hartzell, Youngwood

Why Democrats hate Trump

You’re on the 50th floor of a burning building with two choices: be consumed by the fire or jump. At the last minute, a fireman appears; however, you are acquainted with him and rumors say he is a sexist, racist, homophobic womanizer. What to do? Jump into his arms, or jump from the balcony?

The burning building represents the state of our government, the fireman is President Trump and you, a Democrat, despise him. Maybe you don’t know why.

Some Democrats don’t hate Trump because of the stated reasons; they hate him because he is draining the swamp in which they reside. Are you familiar with the corruption in the FBI and Justice Department? Do you think people the likes of James Clapper, John Brennan and James Comey could withstand the scrutiny of a special prosecutor? If your response is “duh,” please don’t vote.

The mainstream media — under control of the swamp? — reports nothing positive about our president. Thus, low-information Democrats (most of them?) couldn’t possibly know that Trump has accomplished more for the good of the nation in three years than any other president before him. Trust his record, not what your party leaders espouse.

Some Democrats look you in the eye and say they will raise your taxes and take away your Second Amendment rights, yet morons will still vote for them. If you are one, you must be driven by all the free stuff to which you think you are entitled.

Rudolph Puchan, Latrobe

Dead people voting is easy to prove, disprove

The issue in the letter “No excuse for not requiring ID to vote” regarding ineligible voters can be easily proved or disproved by a comparison of voter databases with Bureau of Vital Statistics’ death records. Both are considered to be public records and can be easily compared to see if anyone “voted” after they died. A simple comparison of the date of death with the last time an individual actually voted will prove if we have a problem. I don’t know if this is a problem, but we can’t fix it if we don’t know for sure.

Tom Portante, O’Hara

For sake of world, Trump must be voted out

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi symbolically trashed the president’s State of the Union speech. Her actions described his three years in office.

He has trashed our Constitution, the environment, our farmers by issuing tariffs on China, the children of immigrants, citizens with speech and other impediments, our relations with our friendly nations, and our military code of justice.

As an economic genius, he has, with the help of his Republican cohorts, raised our national debt from $20 trillion to $22 trillion while adding substantially to the coffers of billionaires.

He established an immigrant system that greatly reduces access of men, women and children of color attempting to enter the United States. As a favor to his evangelical friends, he has also greatly reduced Muslim access to our country while also trashing Muslim members of congress and Muslim citizens.

For the sake of our democracy and the world of many colors and religions, American citizens should rise up in November and remove Donald J. Trump from office.

Richard P. Davis, Saltlick

Stop importing from China

The recent outbreak of covid-19 from the coronavirus originating in China should force us to reexamine the wisdom of importing so many of our products from China. I believe it is high time to consider ways of manufacturing more of our products in the U.S.

Many products shipped from China are vital to our national security, health and welfare. This provides China with leverage to blackmail the U.S. over foreign policy interests. Also, as products are shipped from China, U.S. dollars are transferred to the Chinese economy, creating a trade deficit. It also gives the Chinese tremendous financial leverage to influence Congress through Chinese lobbyists.

Thus, in the long run, the Chinese hope to overpower the U.S. both militarily and economically. On a level playing field, a communist economy cannot compete with a capitalist economy. We are tilting the playing field by subsidizing a tyrannical regime by purchasing American products made in China. Additionally, China uses its wealth to subsidize our national debt, further compromising our national integrity.

Dr. Joel I. Last, Greensburg

Immigrants and coronavirus

While President Trump visited India last month, mobs attacked Muslims in several locations. Over 30 people were killed, including an elderly woman burned to death in her home. A writer for Atlantic Monthly notes that “pogrom” is the correct term for such attacks. As in czarist Russia and Nazi Germany, crowds gathered by prearrangement, chanting hatred. Police stood by and let them have their way.

India is officially a multiethnic, multireligious state. But Hindu extremism endures, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposes quasi-legal means to deprive Muslims of citizenship rights. To the extremists, Trump’s visit felt like political cover.

Some hosts consider open ethnic violence embarrassing, but Modi felt comfortable enough to take no action for several days. Contemptibly, an American president congratulated Modi on religious freedom in India. The Trumps got to preen in front of the Taj Mahal, built by a Muslim emperor.

After returning home, Trump insinuated that immigrants transmit coronavirus. White supremacists and xenophobes see Trump as one of them, and anti-minority violence rose dramatically after the 2016 election. We can expect the same if coronavirus spreads.

Then, no doubt, Trump will travel to the U.S.-Mexico border to lecture a carefully chosen audience about the blessings of American freedom.

Eugene V. Torisky Jr., Latrobe