Letters to editor of the Pahrump Valley Times

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Broken promises viewed as impeachable offenses

I won’t glorify the previous writers by mentioning their names yet again. Let me just get straight to the point. It was written that Trump tells lies and therefore he should be impeached. Firstly, I don’t think that lying is a “high crime and misdemeanor.” But for the sake of argument, let’s say it is.

Why wasn’t the Saint Barack Hussein Obama impeached? “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” “ISIS is not Islamic.” (Somebody should have told him that ISIS is an acronym for “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.”) “America is not a Christian nation.” “There is no terrorist threat. The war on terror is over.” There were so many more, but for now, last and certainly not least, “The Benghazi attack was caused by a video.” Let’s unpack this one.

First, the fact that the terrorist attack on the American Embassy in Benghazi was caused by a video apparently meant that the U.S. didn’t need to send defensive aid there. Taken to its logical conclusion, U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, Glen Doherty, Sean Smith and Ty Woods didn’t deserve backup and aid. They and the USA had it coming because of a video.

Those four Americans (and others, such as Brian Terry, a victim of Fast and Furious) lie in their graves unavenged, their deaths unjustified, unanswered and far before their times. (Besides, that was a long time ago, let it go, already. Now, where were we? Oh yeah, sixteenth hole, par four.)

This was not just a lie. This was murder. I personally would classify murder as a “high crime and misdemeanor.” But we can’t impeach Obama, for heaven’s sake. He’s black! Well, half black, anyway. Impeachment under any circumstances whatsoever would have been racist!

Now, maybe someone can explain what lie Trump has been accused of telling that rises to the level of murder. Yes, he did say that there was no Russian collusion. He should have said there was no Russian collusion by the Trump team or the conservatives. Not a lie, just an incomplete sentence. But importantly, Trump should be impeached because they don’t like him: he’s coarse and he has bad hair.

Linda DeLaMare

Sometimes courtesy, respect is not returned

They keep telling us that if you have an encounter with a law enforcement officer and treat him with dignity and respect, he will respond in kind.

An incident that my wife and I had driving home from a dentist appointment in Vegas reminded us that you can’t count on it.

We were driving down Charleston intending to continue on the 159 and take it to the 160 and home to Pahrump.

The connecting intersection at Desert Foothills was blocked by a highway patrol vehicle. My wife leaned out the window and asked the officer, VERY POLITELY, if there was some alternate route we could take to get on the 159. He totally ignored the request and just ordered “back up and turn around”.

I tried myself, and the officer just barked back with an escalating level of rudeness, “back up NOW”.

This was the only way we knew to get on the 159. Being unfamiliar with the area and not having a local map, it took us forever to find an alternate route to the 160 and make it back home.

There are many law enforcement officers out there who are sincerely dedicated to protecting and serving the public, and conduct themselves in a civil and courteous manner. Just don’t count on the one you encounter being one of them.

This reminds me of a speech our current sheriff gave to recent academy graduates. “Act like lion tamers and dominate and control the citizens”.

This directive can reasonably apply to offenders who are hostile and/or violent, but at least in my humble opinion, not to everyone.

There is a saying that “money talks, and B.S. walks.” There may also be a saying that “courtesy goes a long way, and discourtesy is a dead end.”

David G. Alexander

Vote carefully about disarming lawful gun carriers, reader advises

OK, so pretend all legal weapons have been confiscated down to a single-shooter. Now pretend you and your family or friends are at a gathering, a fall festival, large birthday party, or at a family gathering at some nice restaurant.

In comes one, or more, criminal(s) with any kind of repeating rifle or pistol and has just been dissed by someone and wants to just kill anyone. You’re in a no-gun zone and no one is carrying because they (you) are law-abiding citizens.

What happens next is what you voted and pressed for – eliminating of the law-abiding gun owners.

Understand this – you are responsible for this loss of life by your actions to confiscate weapons. Remember the police may get the shooter(s) but long after you and yours are dead. Law-abiding carrying persons could have saved many of yours in this situation and have many thousands of times but one almost always never hears about it.

Think before you make or promote new laws, please!

Henry Hurlbut

Reader not ashamed of exposing political untruths

Michael Miraglia, you imply I get my view of the world from Fox News. Nothing could be further from the truth. I rely on more than Fox News or the Pelosi-controlled news outlets. You would have known that if the PV Times had printed my last response to CJ Stevens.

In one letter to the editor, for instance, Stevens claimed President Trump confessed to wrongdoing with respect to Ukraine. CJ also claimed Trump asked the Ukrainian president to “dig up dirt” on Biden. Both these assertions, according to CJ came from the now-infamous phone call transcript.

Well, I read the transcript, one of my actual news sources. And nowhere in the transcript could I find Trump confessing to any wrongdoing. Or the phrase “dig up dirt.”

But I did track down the source for both these claims. And they didn’t come from the phone call transcript. They seem to have come from Nancy Pelosi and her cronies. This would make me believe Stevens, if not a Democrat, gets his views of world news from one source. The Democratic Party.

As for your comment on Mitt Romney, I put little stock in what he says. Why? He had the chance to run against Trump. But he didn’t want to face the lies and ridicule Democrats heaped on him the first time he ran for president.

Michael, you also mentioned Republicans opposed some of Trump’s foreign affairs policies. But failed to mention the Republicans who stormed the secret witch hunt trial of Trump. A witch hunt started by Pelosi, not the House of Representatives.

So I feel no shame in exposing the lies put out by Democrats. Or the damage political radicals like Nancy Pelosi and her cronies do to our country.

Scott Culshaw

Reagan Dinner raffle prize baffles letter writer

With the reluctance and objections the Republican Party has to universal background checks on firearms sales and its refusal to renew the ban on sales of assault-type firearms, does it surprise anyone at all, that the Nye County Republicans’ recent Reagan Dinner raffled off an AR-15 rifle?

The National Rifle Association must be smiling!

Erwin Franke

Not all Democrats are ‘crazy socialists’

I am certainly glad Mr. Epstein and I are on the same page. He states that all Democrats are not “crazy socialists,” and I agreed. I am a registered Democrat but I am a JFK Democrat, the last one I voted for. I am not a “crazy socialist”. I believe in the ideals that the founding fathers put forth that were definitely not socialistic.

But I think that all “crazy socialists” are Democrats, AOC and the squad, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and on and on. I realize Bernie is not a Democrat but he is definitely not a Republican. He is just out there by himself and I have no idea why anyone gives him credit for anything. These people are out to destroy this country. They are offering a lot free crap that they have no idea how to pay for.

We currently have a president who is trying to change D.C. but all the above-mentioned folks are pulling in the opposite direction. He is willing to work for nothing and all they and the fake news can do is criticize him.

Stacy L. Riney

Vehicle mileage fee generates more comment

Alexsander “Sasha” Jevtich wants Tim Burke and not-my-assemblyman Hafen to come up with solutions rather than criticisms on how to extract the right amount of silver from electric vehicle drivers who share the road with those who drive the venerable internal combustion engine-powered vehicles.

Not a daunting task – simply charge a much higher registration fee for electric vehicles and voila! Problem solved. How’s that, Sasha?

Unfortunately, simplicity and expediency is not the preferred method for liberals (and RINOs, which describe the majority of Nevada’s Republicans) who never saw a tax they didn’t like. If anyone is really interested in what the funding mechanism will be like after the 2021 legislative session, refer to Assembly Bill 401, which can be easily be found on the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau’s website. It proves that ALL drivers, regardless of how their ride is powered, will pay a mileage fee upon registration of your vehicle. If you are unfortunate enough to be driving the good old internal combustion engine-powered vehicle, you will still be charged the state and federal taxes for each gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel you pump into your tank.

In October 2021, when your vehicle registration fees increase, remember where you first found out about this.

David Perlman

Trio of commentary subjects addressed by reader

The Voices page in the October 23 PVT was, as it frequently is, filled with commentary that stimulates thought — and response.

Stroke One: That NDOT will very soon require odometer numbers when we re-register our vehicles, comes as a double-edged sword. At first blush, facts and specifics about vehicles operating on state roadways for planning purposes, seems reasonable. But as some have surmised, the information to be gathered will likely impact future costs for individual drivers in a substantial way. As circumstances change (increasing use of electric vs. fossil fuels) it is necessary for the state to find ways of enhancing revenues dedicated to highway maintenance. In some eastern states toll roads have been a major source of funding for decades.

For U.S. routes and interstates, that might be at least part of a solution for Nevada, and would, of course, include all motoring tourists, whether they drive an electric-powered vehicle or not.

Stroke Two. Letters from those who praise President Trump for all the wonderful things he has accomplished thus far often lead me to wonder. Maybe I’ve missed it but I’ve yet to see anyone describe specifically what the Trump administration has produced for America, beyond chaos and controversy.

One thing that caught me by surprise was a change in the tax code. For several years I itemized when preparing my return, with the result that I consistently got a refund. For me, 2018 was a kick in the you-know-what. Although my situation remained unchanged for several years, rather than the expected refund, IRS told me I must pay hundreds more! Okay. Enough whining. Still, I’m hung up on a line from the movie, “The Outlaw Josey Wales”: “Don’t —— down my back and tell me it’s raining.”

Stroke Three. Although I frequently find myself in disagreement with the positions taken by the current generation of Republican leaders, I am a registered Republican, and have been for many years. The single credo that has always resonated with me, is that Republicans traditionally advocate for the smallest government we can possibly have. That may not be as true today as it once was but it remains a defining principle. Even so, I often ponder about the purpose or purposes of government. To represent and defend the homeland are, and always will be key. Another obvious purpose is to give national identity to its people. Is that—-and the most bloated bureaucracy in the world, the end all be all? I think not. Perhaps there are extremes that cannot be reached, yet I have to believe that government has the responsibility, the duty, to provide reasonable and well-managed aid and assistance to its less fortunate citizens. Improving health care is among those singular issues that demand the very best from government at every level.

Ralph Bazan

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