Sounding off: Coal, gun laws, privacy, Biden-Harris among week's topics

Coal can still provide reliable, cheap energy

I disagree with the letter “We shouldn’t be celebrating coal” (May 23, TribLIVE) criticizing the legacy of coal in Pennsylvania. Although coal power plants provide only 12% of our state’s electricity today, they once provided the majority of our electricity powering our manufacturing plants and providing cheap energy to make our lives easier and more productive.

Yes, there was pollution, but burning coal now is many times cleaner than it once was. Would the critics of coal power generation prefer that Americans lived less prosperous and comfortable lives without coal?

The trendy alternatives to coal power like windmills and solar create even more hazards by requiring environmentally damaging mining of rare minerals needed for equipment manufacture. Solar and windmills installations use much more land than coal-powered plants and are less productive and efficient. And how are we going to dispose of all those dangerous materials from wind and solar plants once they wear out?

The rising economic powers of China and India are building new coal power plants today and into the future because they want to provide their citizens with cheap reliable energy while our country is reducing its electrical capacity by moving away from fossil fuels.

If we stubbornly ignore common sense and continue to destroy our power capacity by abandoning fossil fuels, we will relegate our great nation to the ash heap of history much quicker than most believe.

Dave Majernik

Plum

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Enforce existing gun laws

The so-called Common Agenda to End Gun Violence is no more than a feel-good law for the anti-gun crowd. I seriously doubt that anyone who values the Second Amendment would favor it. So what is going to be accomplished by enacting this as a law?

None of the points of this proposed law even mention speedy trial and punishment of someone arrested for a crime using a gun. All this law does is reinforce what 99% of the law-abiding gun owners are already doing in some shape or form.

The criminals, being criminals, will not abide by it. They will continue to get their weapons of choice illegally. It will definitely not stop mass murders. In many of the mass murders, the firearm(s) used were purchased legally with background checks (see Nashville shooter).

We could, however, take some of the criminals off the street, if we simply enforced the gun laws currently on the books, outlawed plea bargaining for crimes committed while using a gun and outlawed parole or any kind of shortened sentences for anyone arrested and convicted for a crime while using a gun.

Ralph Dunsworth

Oviedo, Fla.

The writer is a former Murrysville resident.

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We're too willing to give away our privacy

Are you aware of open road tolling?

It is a scheme whereby your vehicle’s travel is monitored by road sensors. (Already being done on some roads in Pennsylvania). A toll is then generated for your car and billed accordingly. No need to even slow down as you pass the sensors.

Eventually, every car will have a GPS transponder built in for better tracking. (Of course the theme will be to cut down on car theft.)

Once this is accomplished, you may be permitted (by the government) to go a specified distance from your home before your engine is disabled. (Not science fiction. It can easily be done now with current technology.)

What is happening to our privacy? People are too willing to give up their privacy for a little convenience.

Does anyone think that what they say in their own home is private? Alexa is an example. Do you think that it is ever really off? Are your TV remote, computer and cellphone listening to your conversations? Microphones are everywhere and able to transmit your conversations.

Next will be a cashless society. At that point, the government will control your ability to make purchases. You could lose access to all of your funds.

Bad ideas.

Ron Kowach

Southwest Greensburg

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Independence Health System’s ‘expense reduction’

The recently combined Excela Health and Butler Hospital System lost over $62 million. President and CEO Ken DeFurio said they need to develop a “significant expense reduction plan.” The hospital system recently announced it is adopting a new name, Independence Health System. It will cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to change signs, stationery, staff clothing, website, etc. I can already see the savings accumulating.

Tom Cerra

Latrobe

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Biden, Harris should be excommunicated

We continue to be deep in the bowels of hell. Earlier this month President Biden, who is theoretically Catholic, walked up on stage and gave a bouquet to Vice President Harris, who is theoretically Catholic, at a gala thrown by Emily’s List, an organization that adores fetal slaughter. Hey, Francis I, please excommunicate those two heretics by lunchtime today; the scandal they give is just too damned (literally) much.

James F. Cataldi

Moon

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Comparing Durham, Mueller investigations

The headline “Counsel blasts Russia probe” (May 15, TribLIVE), conveys Special Counsel John Durham’s opinion. A more informative headline could have read “No FBI criminality,” which states a fact and not a point of view.

Durham’s investigation brought criminal charges against three people. Two cases were thrown out of court. The third person pleaded guilty to altering an e-mail concerning Carter Page, who was already exonerated by the Mueller report. No FBI criminality was found.

Compare Durham’s results with those of Mueller, which included: 34 people and three companies indicted, convicted or pleading guilty; Roger Stone, President Trump’s confidant, criminally guilty on seven counts; Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman, who previously worked for Putin’s puppet in Ukraine, guilty on eight counts; Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor pleading guilty; Rick Gates, former Trump campaign aide, pleading guilty; Michael Cohen, former Trump personal lawyer, pleading guilty; George Papadopoulos, former Trump campaign adviser, pleading guilty; etc.

At the House Judiciary Committee meeting, when asked if Trump could be charged with obstruction of justice after he left office, Mueller answered yes.

There may have been missteps in the FBI’s investigation, but the facts remain unchallenged. Trump said the FBI scammed the American public, but is seems Trump is the only one doing the scamming.

Joanne Garing

North Huntingdon