In the February 4, 2015 Letters To Editor, there was a question concerning DA Jason Legg’s ability to separate his personal views from judicial law, specifically regarding issues concerning family planning, women’s health and legalized abortion.

In my fifty-seven years on earth, I have never seen a person that could, or did, separate their personal views from their decision making. Recently in this country, it seems to be more important to appear to be politically correct than to be really correct.

If DA Jason Legg wins his bid for Judge of Susquehanna County Court of Common Pleas, I hope all of his decisions are based on strong christian morals. The same christian morals that our founding fathers used to form this great nation. They demanded life (even for the unborn), Liberty (not just for a select few), and the pursuit of happiness for all who live here.

I hope the citizens of Susquehanna County have the strength to stand up and vote for what is right and not be bullied into accepting what is politically correct.

Sincerely,

Dan Glezen, Jr.

Hallstead, PA

I just learned that our State Roads, like SR 167, 706 and 29 are not bonded by the Gas Industry.

Three digit and two digit State Roads are not bonded.

The Gas Industry has been pounding our roads with their endless water tankers, sand trucks, eighteen wheelers, and we have the worst roads yet in our county;  parts of SR 167 are broken and the blacktop is bursting straight across the road.  It's dangerous to drive and harmful to our cars and we have to take turns going in the left lane in sections.

We need to have these roads fixed pronto; where is the money coming from?  From what I can see, it's the taxpayers footing the bill for the hundreds and thousands of industry trucks drilling and fracking our rural area. 

We have folks suffering water impacts from gas drilling and toxic air emissions and noise from the forty gas compressor stations in our county and now we have to suffer and pay for the damaged roads that are becoming increasingly impassable.

As soon as they are repaired or blacktopped, in months the damages reappear. Contact your elected officials and the Governor and tell them your concerns. What will it take to make the industry carry its fair share of the damages they enact with their gas development. Royalties are way down, with production costs taken out and industry still wants us to pay for their damage to our roads. They fix the roads that lead to their gas sites and the main roads are in shambles.

Come to the County Commissioners meetings on 2nd and 4th Wed. of the month at 9:00 am. and voice your concerns and tell of the impacts in your area.  Call PennDOT and verify this info and complain about your roads.

Sincerely,

Vera Scroggins

Brackney, Pa.

I would like to thank Bob Scroggins for his invitation to reason together.  It appears he is a practicing Christian and is therefore a brother in Christ.  I learned from Mother Teresa that all people created by God are my brothers and sisters.  Never once did she ask their religious affiliation when she picked them out of the streets in India - she simply saw Christ in every face.

I have two adopted Vietnamese Chinese sons who are Buddhist and Pope John Paul II's best friend through life was Jewish.  I never tried to make my sons accept the truths I found in the Catholic Church.  It is my belief that God loves us all equally and although I must live fully what He showed me to be truth, it is not my place to argue with what others believe.  For me it is enough that, for over 2000 years great minds in the Catholic Church have studied the complex questions, resolved many of them, and explained the Scriptures - great minds of very holy people.  They are my teachers and explain away all of my questions to my great satisfaction. 

If anyone wants to know something about the Church, I am happy to oblige or turn them to my teachers.  If you judge the Catholic Church by the sinners in the Church I can only feel sad.  We are all sinners and we are not to judge anyone.  If anyone is interested in learning more they are always welcome to attend Mass.  We cannot invite them to receive Holy Communion, as that is the great gift of Holy Thursday when Christ ordained His first priests and told them to do this in memory of Him.  To receive Holy Communion in a Catholic Church is a statement that you believe and know this to be the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ and that you accept what the Church teaches.  If there are Catholics who have lost this reality I was, in my last letter, inviting them to come home. What could be more important in life than to be totally united with Him who paid such a high price for our salvation?  That is why I wrote the first letter and explained it was for my Catholic friends.  I do not wish to compare Scripture passages, for one can get the Bible to say whatever they like.   I respect all people’s right to follow their own conscience.  Again, for my Catholic friends, do not forget the great feast Pope John Paul instituted – The Feast of Divine Mercy – the first Sunday after Easter. If you can, Google it and see how very much you are loved and how to come home.

Sincerely,

Annette Corrigan

Jackson, PA

After six months and two exhaustive investigations, the head of the Department of Justice, Eric Holder failed to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown. So now, Holder is casting his net over the entire Ferguson Police Department.

Remember that, “Hands up. Don't shoot,” quote from Brown? Well, it is a start-to-finish fiction. Will the perjurers be tried? No. Since the fabrication “was due in part to a deeply rooted pattern of racial bias in the police department,” said Holder.

And who is at fault for the months of rioting, looting, arson, and millions of dollars in property damage in Ferguson? Not the hooligans. It was the police department that created “a highly toxic environment defined by mistrust and resentment [of police],” said Holder.

Holder's statements are clearly over-the-top, but President Obama leapfrogged over them. “There are whole [police] departments in America that may struggle to prevent prejudice in their ranks.”

Then Obama threw down the gauntlet at the FPD: “The city [Ferguson] must clean up its act or face legal action by the federal government.”

However, this time the flimflam team have solid evidence that the FPD is a hotbed of racism. “African Americans are over-represented in FPD's vehicular stops. Blacks accounted for 85 percent of vehicle stops despite comprising only 67 percent of Ferguson's population,” said Holder.

As Obama/Holder see it, if the FPD was not racist, then blacks would not be “over-represented” for traffic stops. Restated, if blacks comprise 67 percent of the population, then their traffic stops should also be 67 percent, not 85 percent. That 18 percent over-representation is prima facie evidence of racism gone a muck. But is over-representation really proof of discrimination, or is it a flimsy pretext to justify a charge of racism?

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 8.4/100,00 traffic stops involved white drivers and 8.8/100,000 were black. So nationally, black traffic stops are “over-represented.”

In studies where trained observers monitored police behavior and “controlled for factors such as the level of neighborhood crime, demographic variables, age, income, and education, the effects of race disappeared entirely,” reported the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In other words, blacks were stopped because of infractions not because of race.

Based on the Bureau of Justice Statistics, it seems that the most reasonable answer is the simplest one. The 18 percent difference in traffic stops represents a difference in violations. It is, by far a more plausible explanation than assuming the entire FPD targets black drivers.

However, since Holder takes such an interest in an 18 percent racial disparity, his attention should be redirected to a racial over-representation of 225 percent.

The FBI's Crime Report of 2012 lists 30 categories of crimes by race: 6.5 million for whites and 2.6 million for blacks. It seems like whites are the bad boys, but there are almost six times as many whites as blacks. Taking that into account, one finds that for every crime committed by a white there were 2.25 crimes perpetrated by blacks.

Perhaps the Obama/Holder flimflam team would do better by avoiding the transparently contrived case against the FPD and attack a real case of over-representation, the FBI crime statistics of whites and blacks. There is genuine over-representation there.

Those FBI stats were complied from every police department in the US, including the FPD. Could they all be racist? That would be as absurd as the flimflam team's case against the FPD.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA