Amy Coney Barrett’s paper trail of bad ideas
S.E.Cupp’s op-ed last Thursday (DP-09-24-20) trivializes the objections to Amy Coney Barrett getting a seat on the Supreme Court. Sure, some people don’t like her religious views, but she has left a paper trail of bad ideas.
The real issue and what concerns most people is whether she will overturn the Affordable Care Act, leaving millions of people without health insurance and stopping the war on opioids in West Virginia.
We are in a pandemic and we need more, not less, health care. Barrett seems unconcerned about the real-life effects of her “originalist” theories, her apparent willingness to turn back the clock to some imaginary 1950s, before civil rights laws.
Worse than her views is the behavior of Sen. Mitch McConnell, and sycophants like our own Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, who would not give Merrick Garland even an interview, let alone a fair hearing, early in 2016, ostensibly because it was an election year. That was a phony excuse, but now the Republicans have overturned their own phony excuse to push a judge onto the court who meets their ideological profile of an ideal judge. Anyone who believes anything a Republican officeholder says is a fool.
I wish Ms. Cupp had pointed some of these things out, instead of implying that people don’t like Amy Coney Barrett because of her religion.
Barry Wendell
Morgantown
No. More. Roundabouts. Anywhere. Period.
No more roundabouts! Not Green Bag Road; not anywhere. The Mileground is a total disaster.
Bob Holepit
Morgantown
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito sinks to new low
I received an email from Sen. Shelly Moore Capito. An excerpt from it reads, “When it comes to filling the [Supreme Court] vacancy, the Constitution authorizes the president to name a nominee, and it gives the Senate the power to approve or disapprove of that nomination […] I support the choice to move forward with the confirmation process and look forward to seeing who President Trump nominates.”
To say that I am shocked would be a lie, but to say that I am disappointed is an understatement. Anyone who follows issues around the Supreme Court remembers when Sen. Capito, along with the rest of the Republican majority, refused to give a hearing to Judge Merrick Garland when he was nominated by President Obama on March 16, 2016.
Her statement on that date read, “Before a Supreme Court justice is confirmed to a lifetime position on the bench, West Virginians and the American people should have the ability to weigh in at the ballot box this November. My position does not change with the naming of a nominee today.”
Yet here we are in 2020, in a similar situation, with an empty Supreme Court seat and the country on the cusp of an election — even closer, in fact, than in 2016 — and Sen. Capito has changed her tune dramatically.
Notably, only two of the 53 Republican senators have had the integrity to maintain a moral standard that is unchanged based on political expediency. With these conflicting statements, Sen. Capito has demonstrated that she is more loyal to partisanship than to her own principles. She has shown that we cannot trust her word — that we can expect hypocrisy as the norm in order to maintain and perpetuate the power of her party.
One’s expectations for their senate representatives should be high, but, in my opinion, Sen. Capito has sunk to a new low.
Rebekah Aranda
Morgantown
Mon Board of Health blocking dispenseries
It’s been more than three years since the Legislature passed West Virginia’s Medical Cannabis Act. The state Office of Medical Cannabis is finally ready to issue permits to dispensaries, processors, and growers, which must follow strict protocols to ensure that the cannabis is grown and handled safely. But here in Monongalia County, we’re at risk of missing out.
The law is very clear. Cannabis will only be sold to West Virginia residents with serious medical conditions, including cancer, AIDS, epilepsy, PTSD, severe chronic pain and other conditions, including the terminally ill.
But the Office of Medical Cannabis can’t issue permits here without approval from the Mon County Board of Health. Unfortunately, the board is now throwing up a roadblock that, if successful, will mean no dispensaries in Mon County.
At its meeting last week, a new local ordinance was floated that would add additional restrictions above and beyond those in state law. If the board moves forward with this ordinance, the process will be delayed yet again, and dispensaries likely won’t be permitted in Mon County for the foreseeable future. Sadly, your family members, friends and colleagues suffering from serious medical conditions won’t get the relief that the Legislature promised three years ago.
I urge the Board of Health to immediately approve the permits proposed for Mon County under the existing state rules. If additional rules are good for Mon County, then they should also apply to dispensaries across the state.
In the meantime, I urge residents who think it’s time for well-regulated medical cannabis dispensaries to open in Monongalia County to contact Board of Health members, who are listed here: www.monchd.org/board-of-health.html.
Evan Hansen
Morgantown
First debate resembled Jerry Springer show
The first presidential debate was more Jerry Springer TV show than presidential, lacking only hair pulling and chair throwing.
The Commission on Presidential Debates, in coordination with each of the candidate’s parties, establishes the rules. An independent, non-partisan not-for-profit entity, it was formed to ensure the voting public has the opportunity to see the leading candidates debate during the general election campaign.
It failed. Lack of effectiveness of rules agreed upon by both candidates was plainly evident as both yelled over top each other and ignored the moderator. If there was any intent to inform viewers, it was lost or unheard in the babble.
The American people deserve far better. Put each candidate in a clear booth where they can hear each other and speak. Cut them off when their allotted time is up.
Lew McDaniel
Morgantown
Trump’s debts explain his COVID strategy
There is a lot of “flak” obscuring the most alarming fact confirmed in Donald Trump’s tax return reveal: Millions of dollars in personally-guaranteed loans, many from foreign banks, which will come due within the next presidential term.
The ability to field an army of tax lawyers to game the tax system makes us feel angry and envious, but just ask our bar owners and other business owners the depth of panic over loans taken in a more optimistic time that are looming large when their businesses are losing money by the hour — the same bleed that Trump businesses are experiencing. No wonder he defies every guideline that comes out of his own COVID task force and health care experts: He’s desperate to get his own income-stream flowing, regardless of how many citizens die unnecessarily. No wonder he is so desperate to retain his office and the legal protections inherent therein.
His base can conjure every excuse in the world for unethical, abusive and immoral behavior, but can any citizen in good conscience ignore the implications of a president on the hook to foreign banks and dependent on loans and properties in multiple countries?
Margaret A. Roberts
Morgantown
In support of Walker for House of Delegates
With the election fast upon us, there is no better time to consider what public service is about. Specifically, what do we want in our representatives to the West Virginia House of Delegates?
Here are some qualities that are important to this voter:
Someone who is responsive to constituent needs. Who do you call when your unemployment claim seems to be going nowhere, your family is hungry and the bureaucracy is immovable?
Someone who listens and responds to cries for help, even if you happen to be from a county where your elected officials do not.
Someone who empathizes with the vulnerable and supports fairness, all day, every day.
Someone who goes above and beyond, simply because that is what public service is all about.
Someone whose vision is not blinded by a lifetime of privilege. Indeed, someone who stands up to injustice in all forms. Someone who is willing to take unpopular stands and cast unpopular votes because it is the right thing to do.
Someone whose concerns for West Virginians do not stop at the Monongalia County border, because problem-solving in other parts of the state benefits Monongalia, too.
This is the kind of delegate I want. And that’s the kind of delegate Monongalia County has had for the past two years. If that’s what you want in a delegate, you need to be voting for Delegate Danielle Walker. Send her back to the Legislature to continue to serve all of us.
Caressa Stoller
Morgantown
Trump used debate to call on white supremacists
The Tuesday debate was unlike anything any of us have ever witnessed. It was truly a heartbreaking moment for this country to watch the highest, most respected office in our country be reduced down to petty insults, veiled threats and shouting matches. It was an equally chilling moment to realize the seriousness of what lies ahead, little more than a month away.
As someone who was present at the Sept. 12 Black Lives Matter rally in Kingwood, and as someone who stood face to face with maskless, armed men — some of whom were adorned in Nazi apparel and swastika tattoos — screaming “white power,” “justice for Kyle Rittenhouse” and “four more years,” hearing the president speak the words, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by” chilled me to my very core. These are the people our president is speaking to — people who are so blinded by hatred that they will punch down at any and everyone they can in an effort to regain a feeling of superiority.
Instead of watching a president lay out his policies and attempt to reach undecided voters, we watched as he instead chose to solidify his base of extremists and strengthen the idea that this election will be rigged and fraudulent, and his supporters must do all they can to ensure the proper result — his victory. Even if it results in more violence.
In Germany, they have a saying, “If there’s a Nazi at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you have a table with 11 Nazis.”
I ask those who have never been swayed from their support for their president to ask themselves: Is this really the table you’re choosing?
We are better than this. Now we must prove it. Vote.
Julia Hamilton
Morgantown
In support of S. Marshall Wilson for governor
In the gubernatorial election Nov. 3, you have a choice. If you are satisfied with the present failed state policy for COVID-19 that has resulted in business closings, high unemployment, children and adolescents denied the benefits of in-person education and the restriction of our freedoms while there continue to be 150 or more new COVID-19 cases daily, vote for Justice.
If you would like a governor with extensive U.S. Army Emergency Operations Planning experience, whose focus would be to protect those who are vulnerable to COVID-19 while letting the rest of us get on with our lives, you should vote for S. Marshall Wilson, a current House of Delegates member and an independent candidate for governor.
Wilson believes the government’s job is to uphold and defend our individual natural rights. He does not believe the governor should usurp these rights. Notably, 100% of the state does not need its liberties restricted and lives put on hold to protect the small percentage who are at increased risk from COVID-19 because they are older or have multiple underlying illnesses. Wilson believes that if there are laws needed in West Virginia, it is the Legislature’s role to make them, not the governor’s.
Because of his role with the Army, Wilson understands emergencies. There is not a true state emergency now nor was there one in March when Justice issued his stay-at-home order. An emergency is when there is imminent or ongoing destruction of critical key infrastructure, massive loss of human life or massive destruction of private property.
S. Marshall Wilson will be a governor who prioritizes strategic planning and considers the impact of his decisions on all West Virginians. If that is the type of governor you would like, I urge you to write in his name.
Alvin Moss
Morgantown
