Help appreciated

Dear Editor,

I cannot help but comment on the commentary in the Dec. 13 edition of The Times Leader on Kim Jong Un. It states that three renowned international jurists wish to have Kim charged with crimes against humanity for having camps, prison camps, where they keep their political enemies. I, for one, agree Kim is a tyrant and a menace to the entire world, but I also know he is an arrogant physiological nut case and with this said, I also know he has direct access to our worse nuclear nightmare.

As everyone that wakes up every morning knows, we all would like to live a little longer and live in peace and harmony. Intentionally harassing or stirring the pot, as one would say, is not a great idea.

We all know he needs to be taken down, but to what expense? This guy is sitting on the button that kills this planet. Sure he tortures and kills and oozes with evil, but we must be very very careful not to push the envelope! Let a sleeping pit bull lie!

Stay on alert, pray for him to have a change of heart and maybe, just maybe, diplomacy will have its way. I’m not a military expert or a strategist, but I do now if just one nuclear warhead makes it through our defenses and hits home here in our nation, life, as we know it, will never be the same. A nuclear holocaust is not what we want, but continued harassment of this nut ball is only going to bring us closer to that nuclear nightmare we all dread. Patience, prayer, diplomacy and the hand of God may bring us through this test. I do know that a tiny country like North Korea cannot afford to build such a mighty nuclear arsenal as they have, there is a rat is the wood pile behind all this.

It could be Russia or China or both, but let it be known to the whole nation and world that whatever the outcome, please please let this whole affair be a lesson to humanity. Kill the hornet before he builds the hive! If you wait, you’re sure to get stung!

Rich Lucas

Flushing

HCRHP calendar supports heritage

Dear Editor,

The 2018 Harrison Coal and Reclamation Historical Park calendars feature Hanna’s second No. 5561 Marion Power Shovel, nicknamed “The Green Hornet” and assembled in late 1946 near Georgetown, Ohio.

Why the nickname? It was originally painted green. The shovel had a 35-cubic-yard bucket, went to a 40-cubic-yard and in the late ’50s, a 46-cubic-yard bucket. It worked in several areas of Harrison County and had an accident in 1964 when it was located behind the Harrison County Home.

By 1981, it was working off Ohio 519 near New Athens when the boom and stick were damaged. Consol replaced those from its sister shovel, The Ground Hog, which had been idled in 1979. The Green Hornet came to rest near Ohio 519 and U.S. 22 and was scrapped in 1989.

The coal park group meets every first Tuesday in the Cadiz Visitor Center at 6:30 p.m. The park itself is located just west of New Athens, near the Stumptown area. Our membership dues come due the first of every year and are $10 a single, $15 per family and $50 a business. Persons interested in purchasing this latest in a series of calendars, may contact our vice president, Dale Davis, at 456 Park Ave., Cadiz, OH 43907, and enclose a check or money order for each calendar of $10, plus a $3 fee per calendar, for shipping and handling.

Dales’ phone number is 740-391-4135. If in Cadiz, you may pick up a calendar at the Visitor Center next to the courthouse or the Puskarich Library on Market Street, two blocks from the square.

There are a series of coal park calendars beginning in 2011 featuring The Mountaineer, The Silver Spade, The Gem of Egypt and others. Ask Dale. Many of the photos are in black and white because that was what was available at the time. These machines are all gone now, and most pictures no longer available. This is a money making project for the park as well as an opportunity to preserve the coal history in this region.

As president of this organization, I have come to know our history better from the wonderful contacts and friends I have made over the years. Coal mining was and still is important to our economy, and the hard-working men and women that live here have earned a place in our history, so I say thank you to all who have helped and supported us since 1992.

This past year was a very rough one for my health and the death of my husband, Roy, in September, but I’m back now and looking forward to coming events the next few years. Special thanks to Dale, Marilyn, George, Don, Carl, Martin, Sue, Kelly, and Bryan, and our men of the Ohio Valley Chapter HCEA.

Claren Blackburn

President of HCRHP

Cadiz

Supporting President Donald Trump

Dear Editor,

In a recent letter to the editor, a writer called the new tax bill the looting of our treasury. First and foremost the income earned by Americans belongs to them, not the government. There are only a few things expressly written into the Constitution that we Americans are required to pay for. Politicians keep adding to the list with their feel good and vote garnering programs, thus taking more and more of our hard earned money without recourse from us.

To date our mandatory spending uses 70 percent of the revenue they take and is 15 percent of our Gross Domestic Product. Social Security falls under mandatory spending but was self-sufficient until being changed and raped by the Democratic members of Congress. They took money out of the so-called lockbox and spent it on pet projects and started giving it to people who never paid into it. Who are the looters?

According to people who know a lot more than any of us, almost 80 percent of Americans will benefit from the new tax law. That sounds pretty good to me and rebuts all the Democratic talking points.

My second point is the DACA debate. The first and most important thing Congress needs to do is write and pass a separate law which says that only children born to legal American citizens are permitted automatic citizenship. This will stop the anchor baby BS and Democrats won’t be able to use their crybaby excuse of breaking up the family if parents are deported. In my mind it’s the parents who would break up the family if they leave without their child.

There should also be a moratorium on future citizenship applications, taking only the ones who will benefit America. No other country is stupid enough to grant automatic citizenship just because they are born here. Obama’s illegal executive order started most of this BS, allowed for anchor babies, chain migration, and an insane visa lottery system that allow people to come in without proper vetting. Democrats say they are the cream of the crop and that they pay their own way, but according to government statistics they cost us over $30 billion every year that could be better spent on veterans, infrastructure and American needs.

President Trumps slogan, MAGA, Make America Great Again, rang true with millions of Americans who want to put America first and stop sending our tax dollars to countries that hate us and have no desire to assimilate to American values. So, to all you Trump haters, between his appointments, new tax law, getting rid of onerous regulations, and many more orders that seem to be spurring the stock market and businesses that the fake news won’t report on, most Americans think his first year has been pretty productive, even with the fake news deriding him in over 90 percent of their reporting.

If this is what insanity looks like, sign me up! Thank you, and God bless America.

Dwain E. Knight

Flushing

Pray for Trump

Dear Editor,

It was pure political brilliance. Tie the first black president to being the first Marxist/Socialist president and the Ship of State would sail right into the stagnant grey waters of a collectivist dystopia under the exhilarating mantra of an historic election. (Yes they did.) But, it is a testament to the wisdom of our founders and their extraordinary vision of self-government that we were able to avoid being sucked into irreversible, philosophical suicide. We survived. Despite the NSA, IRS, and Department of State being successfully weaponized against any opposition and the popular media assuming the role of a mindless glee club, the heart of America said, “Enough!”

I’m not sure how many of the progressives had brains enough to fully realize the nature of the destruction being delivered to the American way of life or if they were willing collaborators with full knowledge of the subversive transformation they were supporting. Kind of scary either way. At any rate, the Ship of State is turning and it is nothing short of a miracle. But, be patient, it may take a while to unwind the previous administration’s mess.

Billy Joel may be right, and may have been politically prophetic, when he sang that “it may just be a lunatic you’re looking for.” Enter Donald Trump. Trump seems pretty nuts, but he unabashedly exudes American values and the American spirit. And, more importantly, he actually acts out of those American values and principles. In one year, he has been the unquestionable catalyst for economic growth and the restoration of America’s status on the world stage. No choir boy, he has even promoted the historical Judeo-Christian backbone of America. The USA is back and it is a force for good to be reckoned with.

Trump came out of nowhere to thwart the smug, self-assured crop of deranged Social Democrats like Pelosi, Schumer, Reid, Clinton, or Biden who are unrelenting in their desire to drag our country into some over-regulated globalist nightmare where third-world countries and rogue regimes feel entitled to take America’s wealth and where we feel obligated to thank them for taking it. The last administration had us pretty far down the tracks on that Orwellian crazy train.

Goodbye Barry. Hello Donald.

I’m sure the lefties view Trump’s pro-American, capitalist, small government approach as bizarre. To them, this president is a baffling embarrassment. I can’t go so far as to say that he is being prodded by some kind of divine inspiration, but the Creator has used some pretty wacked-out dudes in the past to achieve his purpose.

So, God bless America and pray for Trump.

Brett Merryman

Bellaire