Letters to the editor of the Pahrump Valley Times

Email address correction for letter

In a letter written by Karen Duryea, published in the Jan. 15 Pahrump Valley Times, the email address was incorrect.

In the letter the email address the writer provided was cut off and continued on the next line in the column, putting in a hyphen that did not belong.

The PV Times regrets the error. The correct email address is pahrumpboard@gmail.com

Music lovers in Pahrump luckier than they realize

I have lived off and on in Pahrump since 2002. I have been in almost every establishment that serves adult beverages and has dancing and live music. I am amazed at how much pure talent there is in this small community. Dean West for one is exceptional at what he does and his music is my type and style, being born and raised on a farm/ranch in western Kansas. I am 83 years young and still have fire in the furnace, as us older people say and think.

So in search of entertainment the other day, Sunday to be exact, I ventured into a small bar and grill on Bell Vista, the last one on the right as you are going to Death Valley, and was overwhelmed by the young man that sat there and played his heart out for the few people who were present.

His name is Jeffrey Michaels and he does his music in a fashion that is so entertaining and engaging that I was drawn into his world for four hours of my life and I enjoyed it so much that I just had to sit down and write this letter. If you are ever afforded the opportunity to hear this person display his talents you will be well rewarded. He writes and sings his own music and has played with people like Buck Owens, Dwight Yokum and the like. He had a tip jar sitting there which I and a few others gladly contributed to. He came from the hills of Appalachia and told of his roots.

So please support this type of talent when you can.

Stacy Riney

Reader hopes impeachment trial in Senate will be brief

It seems the House trial couldn’t come up with enough anti-Trump charges to give to the Senate to remove our president, so now they want to tell the Senate how to do its job to remove Donald Trump.

If any of you watched the proceedings it was, in my opinion, as an outrageous spoiled child, like actions that 6-to 8-year-old children use to try to get around their parents’ restrictions, accusing senators and the chief justice of not conducting the trial fairly the way the House wants.

Thankfully, they did not prevail and hopefully this trial will be short and not use up time and taxpayers’ monies like the Mueller investigation and House trial for the president’s removal.

Hopefully, come November the working people of our country will reaffirm the 2016 election choice again.

Henry Hurlbut

Will the ‘chosen one’ be chosen again in 2020?

Is the deal maker finished or will the “chosen one” be chosen again? It would come as a surprise if the process now underway in the U.S. Senate results in Donald Trump being removed from office.

Not being a historian or political scholar, I am nevertheless inclined to believe that in her zeal to see Trump punished for his verbal assaults and perceived misconduct, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi may have overreached.

The media has made America – and the world, well aware that someone in the administration, the “whistleblower”, was appalled by what he or she overheard in a telephone conversation between President Trump and the president of Ukraine. What Trump said might well be considered improper, not in the best interests of the United States, and decidedly self-serving, but that chit-chat alone may not be enough to see a conclusion most favored by Democrats.

For the sake of congressional oversight, and as a means of trying to shape public opinion, Speaker Pelosi may have won immediate and fullest support if the House had sent a letter of censure, rebuke, or reprimand to the president. A sternly worded warning might have served to put the man on notice. Then again, given this president’s attitude and likely response in a tweet, the effort would probably have proven futile. And so it goes.

If the Senate trial doesn’t do it, what does the future hold? Like him or not, Donald Trump is one clever individual with decades of experience manipulating facts and circumstances to achieve his objectives. He succeeded on 2016 not only due to bluster and well, the cult of personality, but also because Hillary wasn’t quite as popular as she wanted to believe. On the other hand, the current slate of Democrats vying for president looks promising.

So, if the impeachment train runs off the rails, American voters might get another chance to actually “drain the swamp.” That expression is of course nothing more than wishful thinking. Little will change until we the people become absolutely fed up with the status quo and resolve to make term limits a reality.

Ralph Bazan