Letters to editor of the Pahrump Valley Times

Reader responds to letter on climate change issue

This is in response to a letter in the PV Times on Sept. 20. This person stated that 70% of people are for the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act to charge the fossil fuel creators a fee and that it would reduce emissions by 40% and then be reimbursed to the people of this nation.

First: 70% is a hoax, this is a way to get government in your pocket so they can control you. Fossil fuels are the cheapest fuel there is and is what has made this nation as prosperous as it is. Without it we would become a third-world nation.

There are many scientists who say this is propaganda that is being presented, even to our children in school, trying to scare them, and is not true. So the figure of 70% is not true, it’s probably more like 40% with the other scientists who disagree being shut out. Please stop scaring our children.

If Al Gore’s message were true, half of us would be under water by now. Now for the fact that the government would give you back the money received on this initiative is to me a hoax. When does the government ever give back money?

The only time I ever saw that was when I lived in California with Ronald Reagan, when he was governor, who gave back surplus to the citizens of California and I was a recipient. The government would find some way to keep it, so I think this is a big dream.

Judy Pendleton

Has President Trump really reached the level of an impeachable offense?

Never, in the over two-hundred-year history of our country, has a sitting president been removed from office via impeachment. Nor does the House of Representatives have the authority to remove a president from office. But Pelosi’s political terrorists would have you believe otherwise.

The only function the House has under law is to identify acts which might rise to the level of an impeachable offense (treason, bribery or high crimes). In the entire history of our country, the House has only filed impeachment charges 60 times against public officials. This included eight federal judges.

These charges were then forwarded to the Senate. This government body reviewed the charges. Only 18 of the 60 impeachment charges forwarded to the Senate survived Senate review. The other 48 were found to be frivolous or not meeting the standard for an impeachable offense.

One president, for example, was impeached by the House for dismissing a cabinet member without the approval of Congress.

This case passed Senate scrutiny and was forwarded to the Supreme Court for adjudication. The court ruled there was no requirement in the law for a president to get congressional approval to remove a cabinet member. Therefore, no impeachable offense.

President Nixon was impeached for income tax fraud, similar to allegations against Trump. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this was not an impeachable offense.

So this begs the question. How much credence should you give Pelosi and her political terrorist with respect to removing our president from office? If history is any judge, not much.

Scott Culshaw

National Walmart gun ban prompts reaction

Regarding the letters about guns in your Sept. 20 issue:

In the first, Mr. Breitenbach states General Washington wrote that firearms everywhere restrain ‘evil interference’.

A few points: first, the guns in the late 1700s could only fire a bullet every minute or so. Today’s automatic weapons have a firing rate hundreds of times higher. Second, what commander in chief would criticize any weapon? And third, to what extent, and where, in the USA, are we threatened by “evil interference.” Could Washington have been referring to George III and his redcoats?

Mr. Cohen’s letter, the one below Mr. Breitenbach’s in the same issue, comments on Walmart planning to ban gun carrying in their stores. He raises some interesting points, particularly the one about 10,000 drunk driving deaths a year and Walmart selling liquor.

However, that being said, liquor doesn’t create an immediate threat of harm in the store. Speaking for myself, when I see someone carrying a gun, I feel apprehensive, there is the possibility of immediate harm. I feel that is more so these days with all the mass shootings.

If I were to see many customers carrying guns, in any store (OK I’ll accept a gun store), I would probably shop elsewhere. The question is, how many people feel like I do?

Perhaps we should ask Walmart’s CEO the reason for the ban.

Sincerely yours,

George Tucker

Maybe people are not clear on what socialism entails

With all due respect to my fellow Americans, most of us simply don’t seem to know that a “liberal/progressive” is not the same thing as a “socialist.” This includes the Democratic Party presidential candidates, such as Bernie Sanders, as well as the members of “The Squad,” such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar.

A true socialist is someone who wants all of the businesses and workplaces to be owned and controlled by “the state” or “the government” or “the workers” or “the people” and not by individuals and groups of people who run them for profit as we have here in the USA.

Democrats who want our federal government to spend more on social programs to help the lower and middle classes as they struggle to survive and pay their bills are not socialists. They are liberals/progressives” who want our market-based capitalist economic system to become more humane (and not replaced) by having our federal government spend more to help the lower and middle classes.

Let’s use a little common sense here—How can someone (including Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ilhan Omar) be true “socialists” when they do not advocate for and fight for replacing our market-based capitalist economic system with a socialist economic system?

Sincerely,

Stewart B. Epstein