Letters to the Editor

Facts, please

Editor, the Journal,

Re: Partisan Facts, Letter to Editor, Aug. 25, 2022.

“Facts, pesky little critters that get in the way of a good lie.” Thus saith Mr. Ardean Anvik.

Now, let’s take look at the “facts” as he sees them.

1. “63,700 fentanyl deaths each year are caused by illegal drugs crossing our border?” Does “border” here mean only the southern border with Mexico or both borders and all ports of entry? Ambiguous statement with no corroborating source.

2. “Social services are overrun with homeless illegals.” Again, source?

3. “Biden won’t close the border.” And former President Donald Trump did? So far President Joe Biden has not rescinded Trump’s directives that I know. Please provide a source if he has/n’t.)

4. “His foreign policy is a fiasco …” Right, and kissing up to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un by Trump prevented the invasion of Ukraine and the continued military buildup of North Korea? As to his “selling out Taiwan to appease China” — it’s an erroneous statement because Taiwan’s international legal status has been an issue since 1949. (tinyurl.com/mry95u86).

5. “… even though a New York Times survey said only 1% of all voters said [climate change] was the “biggest” [my quotes] problem facing our country.” I subscribe to The New York Times and couldn’t find any survey that stated this “fact.” Source, please?

6. “Biden’s responsible for high inflation, gas prices and baby formula shortage.” High inflation and gas prices are a global problem caused by capitalism. You expect Biden to control global problems and multinational corporations? As to baby formula shortages, again, blame private enterprise and corporate consolidation; to blame only politicians is ludicrous.

7. Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Derek Kilmer are just two individuals in a governing group that includes Republicans as well as Democrats. And you blame them for voting for Democratic initiatives? You would rather have them be like Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema? (Then, what about your condemnation of Liz Cheney? Can’t have it both ways.) Have St. Mitch McConnell or Savior-in-Waiting Donald Trump provided any assistance in resolving the baby formula shortage or the soaring gas prices?

8. By all means, support Tiffany Smiley who has no experience in even local politics and knows next to nothing about anything in the federal government. If she were applying for a job with no experience against someone with job experience, would you hire her?

9. “… restore energy independence.” Huh? Don’t you know that the U.S. is a net exporter of oil? Tell Shell Oil, Chevron, Texaco, etc., not to sell oil to the highest bidder … or capitalism be damned and we should nationalize the oil fields (fascism)?

10. “… provide education not indoctrination to our children.” What a supercilious comment and goal. Isn’t it interesting that every gay man and woman comes from a heterosexual family. Democrats come from Republican households and vice versa.

Oftentimes I wonder where you get many of these opinions of yours; perhaps, off the walls in the private restrooms of the FOX News commentators?

Bill Pfender, Shelton

Stroll Railroad Avenue

Editor, the Journal,

The Aug. 25 edition of the Journal contained articles on pages 8 and 9 that gave me a feeling of hope for our downtown.

The Kallinens (Halsey and Thad), our new cobblers, and Philip Jackson and Kayla Cooper, our new self-described “local sugar dealers” are featured.

I know for a fact that lovers of black licorice will not be sorry if they stop in the candy store. Many of us have had our shoes and boots cared for at Todd’s on Railroad Avenue for decades. Now it is Thad and Halsey who will help keep our fine leather items in good shape and put new soles on our favorite boots when they start to leak.

There are several new businesses downtown, and lots of the ones that have been there for a while. Downtown Shelton businesses need our support to survive. Don’t donate that leather jacket, have Thad and Halsey fix it. And if you have been craving some old-fashioned candy, and you are of an age, you will be thrilled to see old friends from childhood.

Take a stroll down Railroad on a cool morning, or a hot afternoon, there is a lot to see.

Enjoy.

Katherine Price, Shelton

Communism, socialism

Editor, the Journal,

I wonder how many people know that our state educational system requires that kindergartners and first-graders be taught that gender is a social construct? Think about it: Innocent and very young children are not only being purposely confused but are being propagandized into believing woke socialist insanity. I wonder how many know that the true goal of socialism is communism? Vladimir Lenin said that. The purpose behind changing the meaning of the word “gender” is not equality; the purpose is to destroy the traditional family unit. Marxism/communism requires all loyalty to be given to the state; communism cannot tolerate any competing loyalties. That’s also why communism is atheist, and why so many on the hard left heap scorn on churchgoers and believers, but they’ve been deceived into another kind of absolute belief system. After all, total belief that there is no God is just as much a matter of faith as the opposite belief because neither can be scientifically proved. Please review “The Manifesto of the Communist Party,” chapter 2, which expressly states the goal of eliminating the family unit. “The Communist Manifesto” actually calls the family “disgusting.” Don’t believe me? Read it yourself. Change the accepted meaning of words and change people’s beliefs (George Orwell and former President Barack Obama both said that and it appears to work). Also see: “Sex differences in children’s toy preferences: A systematic review, meta-regression, and meta-analysis,” Brenda K. Todd, Rico A. Fischer, Steven Di Costa, Amanda Roestorf, Kate Harbour, Paul Hardiman, John A. Barry, “Infant and Child Development,” Vol. 27, Issue 2. Gender is not a social construct; it is biological.

If you think that the public schools should be educating children rather than propagandizing them into leftist politics, contact your elected representatives at the state level and tell them. Take your children out of public schools and put them in a good private school or home-school them. This insanity will not end unless people speak up in large numbers and stop electing Lenin’s “useful idiots” — those who can be manipulated into believing propaganda because they don’t understand the end result.

Bruce Finlay, Shelton

Shifting words

Editor, the Journal,

Before looking at yet another example of President Joe Biden’s charm, I would like to go back some years to pretend I’m a college instructor (of composition and literature) and throw a little pop quiz. There is only one question: What is a “semantic shift?”

Students of linguistics learn this early. A “semantic shift” is simply the change in meaning of a word or phrase over time, and we have a ton of them. For example, let’s look at the word “gay.” “Gay” for a very long time meant happy, cheerful or carefree. Then the 1960s came along, a time of enormous change in most aspects of American society.

The late Kenneth Lynn (1923-2001), a prolific author and professor of history, English and literature, once said, “Except for the Civil War years, the Republic did more damage to itself in the 1960s and 1970s than in any other moment of our history.”

And so, it came to pass ... sometime and somehow in the 1960s, the word “gay” became a reference to most all things homosexual. This is a semantic shift on steroids.

Not to be outdone, Biden recently shuffled out to a podium, apparently in full campaign mode, and referred to his opponents as “MAGA Republicans.” Here, the audience was supposed to boo and hiss. You see, all Dems are terrified of a Donald Trump victory.

Well, MAGA simply means, Make America Great Again, a 2020 campaign slogan that was printed in white letters on red ball caps and worn by Trump fans. Biden has just established MAGA as a pejorative, or something bad.

Well, I’m not a Republican but I’m close enough, and I resent the hell out of this. I would ask any Democrat to explain to me what bothers you about “Making America Great Again?”

Biden has made a horrible mess of this country in a little over a year. The acronym MAGA is still most appropriate — especially today — for anyone.

Robert E. Graham, Union

Baby formula

Editor, the Journal,

Why is baby formula the government’s fault?

There was a comment last week that addressed the baby formula issue. Why is this a government issue? And why is it the fault of a president, any president?

The people blaming President Joe Biden all tell me that they are for business operating without government regulation. Well, when it came to baby formula, they got what they wanted. Now, I know they didn’t plan on a shortage, but that’s what small government can get you.

We’ve been steadily deregulating all business since President Ronald Reagan. We reduced the inspections, just like the business owners wanted. In 2018, we gave them a very nice tax cut. Those tax cuts were supposed to create capital investment. Never mind that the private sector themselves said it wouldn’t. And, they were true to their word. They promptly doled out the dough and didn’t upgrade their plants. What did the money get used for? Crypto and hedge funds bidding up housing prices with cash sales for rent seeking.

So, what happened? Well, thanks to deregulation, we only have three companies that make baby formula. Why? Because we let the “market” decide that it is cheaper to produce due to economies of scale, and we wanted low prices. That was great. Until Abbott had a booboo and contaminated their whole plant. That took 40% of production out of the system. So, deregulation wound up with stupid corporate leaders gaffing off plant upgrades and safety until they got burned. None of that had anything to do with government. What was the government supposed to do? Make a new plant appear out of thin air? The whole thing was the result of short-sighted decisions made by folks who wanted to line their pockets today and didn’t care about what happened later. Why would they care about such a thing? Their kids were grown. So, why are we talking about this as part of a political campaign? This was a business issue. Or do you think this is a command economy? Because the way people talk, they obviously have no idea how our economy works.

Andrew Makar, Hoodsport

Trump was right

Editor, the Journal,

I agree with former President Donald Trump. He was 100% correct when he said that if he loses the election, it’s because of voter fraud. Indeed, he committed voter fraud and lost the election by millions of votes. Then he instigated and led a deadly coup on Jan. 6, 2021, to overthrow our democratic republic and install himself as dear leader or comrade commissar. Take your pick!

Trump and his deadly radical Republican cult have adopted the Russian form of voting as Josef Stalin said, “Let the people vote, it’s who counts the votes that matters.” We all have heard Trump ordered the Georgia secretary of state to “Find me 11,760 votes, that’s one more than I need — give me a break.” That’s Stalin’s way —“It’s who counts the votes that matters.” Remember? Just as the Nazi Joseph Goebbels said, “The bigger the lie the better.” Just keep repeating it, and it will become the truth to the Republican base — the one-third that can be fooled all the time. The fools will vote to give away their vote. One man, no vote.

It is time for all good men and women to come to the aid of our country and fight for truth, justice and the American way. Get out and vote for democracy and vote Democratic. Or remember, the radical cult Republican way rallies around treason, one man, no vote, “It’s who counts the votes that matter.”

Remember the lies, the hate, the fear, the revenge, the punishment — Trump/Putin/Stalin. It is their way or the gulag (a Russian prison) — or?

Roderic Whittaker, Shelton

Troubled times

Editor, the Journal,

Our government continues to get low ratings for trust and that they are doing good job. 75% of you think we are going in the wrong direction.

The latest bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, passed and signed by Biden, represents the poor job they are doing, that they spin things to make it look good or just lie to us, and this causes us to reduce our trust in them.

Let’s start with reducing inflation. No reduction to inflation coming for the next two years, and very little 0.1% to 0.2% after that. If you want to reduce inflation, you don’t spend more, increase taxes and grow the size of government. You don’t have a Federal Reserve late to the table raising interest rates and printing money. Another $700 billion spending bill, after a record almost $10 trillion in spending bills over the past 2 years. They don’t care about gas prices, food prices, increases in rents, electrical and natural gas rates, etc. They spin to get reelected, keep their party in power, and their climate agenda. Too bad most of media supports their efforts.

Taxing some corporations (example, Amazon) a minimum of 15% tax. Do you believe these corporations will not pass this onto the consumer, which will feed inflation? Corporations are driven to protect their earnings, dividends and stock prices.

They are going to reduce the deficit by $248 billion? Do you believe this? Have you heard this before? Did you forget the $2.8 trillion you added to the deficit over fiscal 2021? Thirteen percent of GDP, second largest since World War II. How about the $330 billion, maybe 1 trillion, in student loan forgiveness? Adding another $519 billion to federal deficit. By the way, it is illegal for your president to do this with an executive order. Only Congress can do it. He keeps his campaign promise based on an illegal act. Did you know the moratorium on paying loans has cost us $100 billion in lost revenue?

IRS funding increased by another $80 billion, increase their size by 87,000 employees, a sixfold increase of staffing. Bigger government, good for you. Not. Who do you think they are going to come after? Initially they will only go after high-income citizens earning more than $400,000 and large businesses. They can afford to fight IRS and when they don’t generate the billions in more taxes paid, they will come after all of us, to generate more taxes and justify the 87,0000 more employees. In fact, our government couldn’t wait to pass and sign the bill before the bipartisan Congressional Office of Budget reviewed and released its findings. Oops, 16% or $20 billion of $124 billion generated by bigger IRS, will come from 96% of the bottom earners. We are better served by reducing the complexity of the tax code that no one can understand and/or implement a simple flat tax system.

Lastly, need a job, this may be attractive to you. You get to carry a concealed weapon and must be prepared to kill someone with it. Oh, did I forget the IRS has enough information to generate our income tax forms for us and what we owe, why not?

They supported higher gas prices and now a tax credit for pushing you to buy an electric car. Oops, a few gotchas. To be eligible for $7,500 tax credit, the price of car must be under $55,000 and 60% of batteries used must be made in North America. As of today, 30% of electric cars available qualify today. Many people today cannot afford a $40,000 plus electric car. Did you notice Ford and GM raised the price recently on some of their electric cars by $7,500? By the way, our electric grid cannot support electric cars.

No tax increases for those earning under $400,000. How many times have they told us this? The big lie. Too many examples for this letter.

Saving money on prescription drugs, wait until 2024 and 2025. Helps today? Not.

Our current president, his Cabinet and Congress support bigger government, more spending, higher taxes, more regulations and their climate agenda. Very little effort goes into other crises (inflation, economy, supporting our police, border, fentanyl, crime, education, foreign policy, killing small businesses and killing our retirement accounts with higher interest rates.) Sorry, if you’re trying to buy a new home.

Maybe it time to limit those who can serve in Congress to less than 20 years. Our president is limited to eight years. By the way, maybe they and their families should not be allowed to trade in the stock market with their inside information. Implement a simple flat tax system, and take away half of their job (taxing us) and focus on spending accountability.

Educate yourself on what is really going on. Provide feedback to your government. Hold them accountable. Careful who you vote for. Are things getting better or worse?

Howard Ringoen, Shelton