Letters to the Editor

The big lie

The sick feelings I had on 9/11 returned as I watched the rioters storm the United States Capitol. The travesty of invading and looting the Capitol is more than vandalism; it’s no different than desecrating the graves at Arlington National Cemetery or the battleship USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

What President Trump did on Jan. 6, 2021 was incite a riot, like someone lighting a match and let others start the blaze. President Trump took a page from Adolf Hitler’s political playbook. This quote from Adolf Hitler is displayed in the General George S. Patton Museum in California:

“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough it will be believed. Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”

There was no “stolen election,” President Trump. That was your big lie.

Michael McCarthy, U.S. Marine Corps veteran

To the Editor:

Interesting to see that at the height at the attempted insurrection last week, Trump’s followers were loudly proclaiming ownership of the “revolution.” But with its defeat, all of a sudden, it was Antifa? Just saying …

Kim Burrows

Stepping over the line – will democracy end?

Webster Dictionary defines treason as “the betrayal of a trust – the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance. “

On Sept. 23, 2020 I watched President Trump respond to questions regarding the upcoming November election. He stated that he would “wait and see” if there would be a peaceful transition of power. He predetermined that the election will be illegal and fraudulent because of mail in ballots (in the past Trump and Bill Barr both voted by mail). Earlier that week he said basically the same thing, adding that it was necessary to appoint a new Supreme Court justice so she could rule in his favor in the election outcome. On Sept. 24, 2020 he stated that they need to get rid of the ballots and there could be a peaceful continuation of his presidency.

We had over 200,000 dead from the virus and since have exceeded 325,000. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President—elect Kamala Harris have won in a fair election where little to no fraud has been discovered after careful examination. Over 50 challenges to the election by Trump’s people have been thrown out by courts. Yet, president Trump continues focusing on trying to overturn the election, surrounding himself by the likes of pardoned Michael Flynn who promotes martial law and military interference (he could be charged in a military court marshal for sedition for this), Flynn’s attorney and radical Sidney Powell, and Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani who wanted Homeland Security to gather up voting machines and “examine them.” (Rudy is also possibly to be indicted for illegal activities in an active case).

This egregious and appalling behavior by our current president is no laughing matter. We were instructed by a former president, “Don’t boo, vote!” The people voted and Trump lost in both the popular vote and electoral college. Now we are faced with a president who proposed throwing the votes out.

We cannot give up.

We are in this together and the survival of our democracy is on the line.

Michael E. Murray

We offered a part of our best

I never wrote a formal thank-you to voters in the Kenai Peninsula Borough for voting last fall to repeal Ordinance 2020-24. Let me do so now. Thank-you, thank-you.

By a vote of 60% “Yes” we repealed an ordinance which in the future would’ve encouraged vote by mail while limiting access to our most secure voting method to date, which is voting in person at numerous reasonably convenient polling locations. If only all other boroughs and counties in the United States had done the same in the general election of 2020 there wouldn’t be such significant mistrust and suspicion in some cases.

Thanks again, voters. We’re blessed.

Leonard Miller

Dear editor,

Thought for liberals: If society is okay with the purge, your education system was too effective.

Mark Millspaugh

Dear Editor,

While listening to Rep. Sarah Vance’s weak and heartless statement to Homer City Council regarding the siege on our capitol building, I felt gut-punched when she stated, “That is the people’s house. They weren’t trespassing.”

This to me sounds very much like a defense of those who stormed the building, causing extensive damage, injuring over 50 police officers, and resulting in the loss of five lives. So I’m wondering Ms. Vance, who are you defending? The ones who defecated in the halls of our capitol? The ones who waved Confederate flags and replaced the American flag with a Trump flag? The ones who ransacked offices, stealing and destroying personal property? Or the ones who savagely beat a police officer to death?

It’s very disappointing that you did not take the time to denounce these violent acts and call for peace and civility. But instead, with your silence, you condone these horrid acts. I urge you to look in your heart, call on your faith, and then do the right thing and strongly denounce this awful attack on your fellow Americans. That is what a true servant of the people would do.

Respectfully,

Margarida Kondak

The real face of the new Republican Party

Make absolutely no mistake: The party of Abraham Lincoln is not the party of Trump. Its transformation at its core under the auspices of the leadership within the Republican National Committee have remade the Republican Party into what it has now clearly shown itself to have become: It is the party of hate disguised as patriotic fervor. It is the party of insurrectionists claiming to uphold the rule of law and order.

It is the party of bigots who represent the filthy rich elite, whose sense of self-importance can only be measured by how deep the pockets of their wealth have been enriched. It is the party of xenophobia. It is the party of misogyny masquerading as chivalry. It is the party that uses religion as a prop to bolster the impression of self-righteousness in the public eye. It is the party of racists. It is the party of the destructive, lingering legacy of the remnants of carpetbaggers, Jim Crow and Confederate symbols of oppression, steeped in the twisted wreckage of its historically Southern, racist past. It is the party of extreme right-wing, fascist-leaning, neo-Nazi sympathizers.

It is the party of white supremacists that welcomes domestic terrorists into its ranks with open arms to further an underlying extermination agenda to obliterate anyone opposed to their beliefs in an ideology that justifies and promotes the use of violence to eradicate all forms of what it views as weak and inferior sub-species and procure the domination of white superiority.

What kind of a party is this for anyone with even the thinnest sliver of a kernel of moral fiber in their bones to belong to? When is enough too much?

Carl Church

Dear editor,

We all have had vivid dreams, then we wake up and appreciate reality. Donald Trump has had a vivid dream that he won 2020 election in a landslide. He has been unable to wakeup.

William J. Marley

A call for accountability

The attack on the U.S. Capitol and democratically elected officials was horrifying, shaking many Americans to the core. This insurrection was not done by patriots — it was done by traitors, with 45 at the helm inciting violence that the world witnessed in real-time. There’s really no other way to spin it unless you believe in false realities.

Rep. Sarah Vance’s response, when questioned publicly about the incident, was lukewarm and rebuked essentially nothing. “And that we already own all of those things in the nation’s Capital. That’s the people’s house. They weren’t trespassing. They should have come peaceably,” she was quoted in a KBBI story. No condemnation of the five deaths, the terror, the violent incitement by a sitting president.

Rep. Vance, I do not claim to know your heart, but I have made several observations over the past few years. You started your political career from a place of divisiveness, a recall of public servants seeking to create community inclusiveness. This past summer you refused to condemn the Confederate flags waved during a Fourth of July rally. (While I agree with you on free speech, I don’t agree with the ethics of supporting racist symbols of hate and violence towards POC.) In addition, you were an active member of the Homer Sons of Liberty Facebook group which organized the rally, before it was temporarily banned for hate speech by the platform.

I personally tried twice this summer to contact you, with no response, about masking issues at private businesses and the terrible and often dangerous treatment business operators are suffering. I’ve seen you walk into businesses without masks, and it was reported you voted without one as well. If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine, but I would hope as someone who represents my district could take the time to respond. Recently I’ve picked up on your Q’Anon leanings and your public questioning of our election results (an election that you won, fairly I might add).

I truly hope the “best is yet to come,” a slogan you keep repeating. Martin Luther King Jr., reminds us that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I hope you will find the moral high ground and hold those accountable for this assault. Beyond that, I hope you lay responsibility where it belongs. It’s been a long four years of enabling a dangerous fascist refusing to call out anti-democratic behavior.

Concerned Citizen,

Robbi Mixon, Fritz Creek