Sounding off: Chill out; elections come every 4 years - TribLIVE

An anticipated coronation turned out to be an election. The long-suffering palace princess was not chosen to lead the multitude into the promised land.

A presidential election happens in the USA every four years, a process dreamed about in most other countries.

I recently read an article that quoted the writer Daniel Greenfield: “When you hate each other but accept the election results, you have a country. When you stop accepting election results, you have a countdown to a civil war.” (Think 1861.)

In 2008, I considered Barack Obama a “feel-good” candidate anathema to American values. The light, I hoped at the end of the four-year experiment in “hope and change,” was the 2012 election. This resulted in another four years of hopeless and irrelevant change.

I wrote no letters insulting the duly elected president.

To this forum’s caustic contributors, paraphrasing a candidate: “Come on man” — chill out; there is an election in eight months.

Should the next election not go to the person of your choice, suck it up, take it like a man and wait another four years. Your literary venom reveals more about you than the president you condemn — and even Lincoln was hated.

Assuming there is no 1861, another election will happen in 2024.

David A. Scandrol, Lower Burrell

How about reducing seniors’ property taxes?

In her letter “Property taxes ruin seniors’ ‘golden years’ ”, Barbara Markle asked, “Anyone out there feel this way?” Yes, Ms. Markle, I’m sure there are thousands of us who agree with you.

Officeholders and politicians, please take note: The single best thing you could do to improve the lives of senior citizens is to reduce our property taxes. We are not asking that you eliminate them for us, unless you develop a plan to eliminate all property taxes. But how about an increasing reduction as we age — say a 30% reduction at age 70, 40% at age 80 and 50% at age 90?

We understand that some other taxes may need to be increased to accommodate this loss of revenue, but I (and likely many other seniors) would rather pay slightly higher sales or income taxes to be able to remain in our homes until death or health issues cause us to leave.

Jerald F. Lowry, East Huntingdon

President has power to pardon

Here we go again — the president is abusing his power. Yeah, but why is it always the president named Donald Trump that is continuously accused of abusing his power?

Now before people start screeching “impeach Trump” again, go to Wikipedia and look up “list of people pardoned or granted clemency by the president of the United States.”

Trump has pardoned 25 and granted 10 commutations since being in office. The total presidential pardons and commutations in the 20th century is approximately 20,000, according to Wikipedia.

Also, from Article II of the U.S. Constitution: “The president shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”

He can do nothing right in the eyes of the ones who simply don’t like or fear him. All of Michael Bloomberg’s and George Soros’ money cannot stop the will of the people that support our president in draining the swamp and keeping America great. We want our children and grandchildren to have a country in which they can live in peace and prosper.

I am amazed that there are still people who do not realize how dangerously close we came to losing this country to the New World Order club. You will find it is not a conspiracy theory if you have done your homework on the subject, but a real conspiracy .

David Cassidy, Penn Township, Westmoreland County

Electoral College is archaic

Americans will vote this year using the same archaic method for choosing a president, the Electoral College, which does not necessarily allow the person who wins the most votes, aka the popular vote, to become president. Because of this anomaly, both George W. Bush and Donald Trump, instead of Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, were chosen.

Many want the Electoral College abolished, replaced by how we elect all other officials, the popular vote. Yet this year, we will be using the same outdated method that undermines the democratic principle of “one-person, one-vote” and majority rule.

Had Gore been elected instead of Bush, the debacle of the Iraq War might have been avoided. And had Clinton been elected, garnering nearly 3 million more votes, our world would have been spared Donald Trump, who is, in my opinion, the most corrupt and divisive president ever elected, who has undermined the constitutional process with his distortion of truth, vile, inflammatory language, obstruction of justice, hate-mongering, betrayal of allies and overall demagoguery.

The Electoral College, which long ago outlived its usefulness, has given us this dangerous, vindictive, self-anointed genius who is clearly a despotic threat to our national security. Pray in 2020 it doesn’t happen again.

Ron Slabe, Oakmont

Mike Bloomberg’s money

If you haven’t seen a political ad promoting mega-billionaire Michael Bloomberg yet, just hold on — you will. Bloomberg suddenly prefers to be called “Mike,” perhaps to appeal to the working class.

Bloomberg’s campaign proclaimed last month he would spend up to $2 billion to highlight his ideas so he can be the Democratic presidential candidate, or to support whoever receives the nomination. For us non-billionaires who try to make ends meet on monthly checks, that seems like an enormous amount of money, and it is. For “Mike,” it’s about 4% of his estimated wealth.

So you can call him Mike, maybe Mikey, perhaps even Mikey-Mike, anti-gun advocate, environmentalist, social equality candidate — but don’t call him super- capitalist Michael Bloomberg.

Can money really buy love?

Ed Klein, Shanksville

No excuse for not requiring ID to vote

Remember the old joke about the buses lined up at the cemetery on Election Day? It may not be a joke. The watchdog group Judicial Watch told Allegheny County in December that its voter rolls contain far too many names of people ineligible to vote — people who are dead, have moved away or have been inactive too long. Without photo ID, votes could be cast in these people’s names.

Is this going on all across the country? There is no excuse for not requiring photo ID to vote. You need photo ID at hospitals and doctor’s offices; you need it to drive a car, cash a check at the bank and get on a plane.

I can’t believe there are a lot of people without photo IDs. Is it illegals voting? Voting should be monitored more, but it is not. Without watchdog groups, we would never know about these crimes being committed.

Some politicians claim it costs too much to police this problem. Yet we can pay hundreds of dollars for toilet seats, and millions to fight fruit flies in France.

We waste too much money on pork barrel and not enough on real problems. Make America better. Please!

Blame Russia for election problems instead of illegals — it’s not politically correct to blame illegals.

Calvin Fatchet, Freeport

Democrats failed because Constitution worked

Impeachment? Here is what happened.

In 2016, successful businessman and nonpolitician Donald Trump believed in the conservative principle that reducing taxes and restrictive regulations on job producers would create rapid job growth and an economic boom. It sure did.

He believed that a strong military and law enforcement were the best deterrents to external and internal threats. They are.

He hoped that enough voters were informed enough to realize that the big-government, socialistic give-away spending programs of the Washington Beltway swamp were leading the country down a path of economic and political destruction. They were.

Unfortunately, the bureaucratic swamp, the opposition and their collaborative, biased news media, were so shocked at losing the 2016 election, they immediately started everything they knew, legitimate or not, to impeach the president. They still are.

Fortunately, the Democrats failed because our Constitution’s balance of political power among Congress, the president and the Supreme Court worked the way our Founding Fathers intended. The president was acquitted.

Had this partisan impeachment worked, this balance of power, the heart of our Constitution, could have been ruined, and our great republic wounded and brought to its knees. All because one political party refused to accept the results of a legitimate election of the president.

Ron Raymond, Buffalo Township

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Sounding off: Chill out; elections come every 4 years - TribLIVE

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