Climate Change or Climate Warming is debated by both sides of the issues by scientists, and legislators and citizens. The main problem is pollution by industry and people of our planet...our water, our air, our land.

This industrial pollution has been going on for over 150 years and we are reaping the results of a compromised and unhealthy environment. Thousands of toxic chemicals impact us, and diseases like cancer keep rising in numbers and people affected.

Debating Climate Change can be a distraction and take us from the need to clean up our act. Let's get on board and have a non-partisan interest and organizing to solve these pollution issues. We have only one Earth to deal with for many generations to come.

Consider the example and teaching of our Native American Nations that whatever we decide to do, consider the impacts for seven generations before we decide to do it.

Sincerely,

Vera Scroggins

Brackney, Pa

These are strange days we're living in.  A time when an obsessively religious person like Annette Corrigan can make a hero out of a profane, adulterous, compulsively lying, nasty, egomaniacal bullyboy.  I seem to have missed that part of the New Testament where these were listed as Christian virtues.  Perhaps she's so eager to get abortion banned-- as if that would ever stop it-- that she's made the virtue of tolerance into a vice; for certain she tolerates way too much here.  She earlier whitewashed the manifold character defects of Der Fuehrer by saying, "Sure, he's a little crude, but ..."  That's like saying Attila the Hun sometimes gives noogies.

Now Scribe & Pharisee Annette informs us of yet another Internet crackpot, one who is certifying that the Hero (who must never be criticized!) is indeed "draining the swamp".  Let's take a good look at that one.

One of the villainous firms during the recent Great Recession was Goldman Sachs.  The mere act of delivering a speech to them was offered as something that disqualified Hillary Clinton.  Well, guess who has littered his Cabinet ranks with Goldman Sach's refugees?  Plus 70% of his senior officials have worked for the Koch Brothers, who are buying the government even as we read.  How is this draining anything?

Walter Schaub, the head of Government Ethics, recently resigned in frustration over the Administration's utter refusal to take conflicts of interest seriously.  The ethics lawyer for George W. Bush has also faulted him for failure to properly divest.  As a result, this is some of what we're seeing:  Mar-a-Lago took advantage of the change in status by doubling its application fee-- to $200,000!  Cha-ching!  (Care to join?)  His eponymous new hotel in Washington is packed with foreign diplomats trying to curry favor.  More money.  (Despite a contractual clause against it being leased by any government official.)  Products are being routinely touted by the White House.  Special foreign licenses are granted to the First Daughter and her sweatshop products.  And our Feckless Leader has made a point of visiting a half dozen of his resorts 36 times since Election Day, giving them valuable free publicity from the much-maligned media.

You call this "draining the swamp"?  He IS the swamp, running the government to line his pockets and enrich his Crime Family.  I guarantee that he'll emerge from his term of office in disgrace (he's there already, actually) and having tripled his net worth (pending).  The fact that some people cannot see this as a problem is a problem.  But hey-- we'll get abortion symbolically banned!  And more tax cuts for the rich-- huzzah!  It'll sure be worth destroying Democracy.

Sincerely,

Stephen Van Eck

Rushville, PA

The boys of Sigma Alpha Epsilon decided to give a party, but only white girls were invited. So when a dark-skinned girl from an upscale sorority arrived, she was politely turned away. To which this writer says, three cheers and three cheers more for the boys at the frat house door.

Shocking? Maybe not. The cheers are not for racial or ethnic prejudice. They are morally repugnant. The cheers are for the freedom of association. Since this right was abolished by the Supreme Court 50 years ago---more on that later---it might be unfamiliar to some readers. Background is in order.

Freedom of Association is guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution. The Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people . . . to assemble.”

In other words, the First Amendment makes it illegal for Congress or the Supreme Court to curtail the freedom of assembly or association; in effect, it is a legislative No Trespassing sign.

Freedom of Association is a universal right; it applies to all equally, and all may exercise it equally.

Here's how it works.

Suppose Tom wants to establish a club for left-handed men, or homosexuals, or blacks, or whites, or Christians, or atheists; he may do so without interference from the government or the courts.

Let's take the less emotionally charged club, the left-handed men, that's Tom's club.

Now John wants to join Tom's club, but alas he is right-handed and is rejected for membership. John has no recourse either in law or in the grievances the rejection may have caused him. It is not a human right; it is Tom's right.

We see that Freedom of Association has a positive and a negative side. Tom has a right to fellowship in his club for left-hand men, but John is denied membership. John, however, may start his club exclusively for right-handed men.

For businesses, it works like this. Say a baker refuses to provide a service for a same-sex couple. He is willing to suffer the economic loss. But his loss is another baker's gain who will gladly provide the service.

That's how the law was understood from the ratification of the Constitution (1788) to the Civil Rights Act of 1964---175 years. The counterculture years of the 1960s changed everything.

The civil rights legislation of the sanctimonious '60s was a product of the times. Its roots are nowhere to be found in the Constitution but in the heated ideals of fairness and justice that were the causes célèbres at that time. It was the era when the wrongs of the past were to be righted by laws that guaranteed equal opportunity for all.

It started with the CRA of 1964, a federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees by sex, race, color, national origin, or religion. Riding on its tailcoats came . . the CRA of 1968 that prohibits discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing, by race, religion, national origin, and sex; the CRA of 1972 that prohibits discrimination by sex in any federally funded program or activity; the CRA of 1973 that prohibits discrimination based on disability; the CRA of 1974 that prohibits discrimination by race, color, national origin, sex, religion, or those receiving public assistance.

Note that CR laws are not universal. They favor government designated minorities, presumably victimized by a presumed class of oppressors. By nature, CR laws are discriminatory and divisive.

Lost in this sea of CR/social engineering laws are its results. Here are a few: (1) Freedom of Association exists only in memory. (2) A business owner's right to employ whomever he wished was revoked. (3) Equal funding for women's badminton and college football was mandated. (4) Renting your house to a tenant of your choosing was quashed. (5) The Boy Scouts were forced to admit homosexuals as scout masters. (6) Banks are obligated to grant sub-prime housing loans to borrowers who would probably default. (7) Signs on stores that read, We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service, had to be torn down.

Other lamentable results are measures taken to enforce CR/social engineering legislation. It is justice by the numbers. Business has to act proactively and employ a certain number of minorities---and thereby deny those jobs to better-qualified applicants---as protection against discrimination suits.

Civil rights Stasi-like undercover investigators were sent to spy on businesses, banks and homes. They report and initiate punitive legal action against offending parties.

All of which has caused a blizzard of lawsuits, billions wasted for legal fees and settlements, the hiring of less qualified people, and created a growing antagonism, if not a class war, between the “victims” and their “oppressors.”

Paradoxically, CR/social engineering laws are far from being equitable. These laws are based on granting preferential treatment for some minorities at the expense of other minorities. It is hard to imagine a more counterproductive and socially disruptive set of laws.

All in all, it seems that the burden of Freedom of Association---a freedom that would result in some associations that most would judge to be morally reprehensible---are a far better alternative than the present, government decreed CR/socially engineered dystopia that we now endure.

Let freedom ring.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA