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More attention needed on abuse crimes

Something that does not receive enough attention when it comes to those who are victims and survivors of sexual harassment, sexual assault (including rape), domestic violence and abuse, and incest is just how much and profoundly that many of these people suffer emotionally and psychologically for their entire lives.

Sometimes I get the feeling that a lot of people believe that they feel badly about it only for a few days and then somehow get totally over it. In reality, many survivors need extensive therapy for the rest of their lives. Many also have difficulty in ever having a loving, happy and successful long-term romantic relationship because it is so hard for them to trust, believe in and have faith in anyone even though, as some college students have confided in me, Not all men are bad.

As several incest victims and survivors have told me, If you cant trust, believe in and have faith in your own father to love you and protect you, how can you ever trust and believe in any man?

It bothers me that too many people deny, trivialize , minimize, and dismiss just how damaging all of these social problems really are.

Stewart B. Epstein

Rochester, N.Y.

We recently wrote to Senator Toomey asking why he voted against Congressional legislation that would end gerrymandering and outlaw unfair voting restrictions that have sprouted like dandelions across Republican-controlled state houses. Unfortunately, his responses ignored our concerns and contained numerous examples of misinformation and outright lies.

Toomey falsely claimed that voter suppression is absent as evidenced by increased Black voter turnout in recent presidential elections. But his superficial analysis did not explain why only 58.4% of nonwhite citizens voted in 2020 compared to 70.9% of white voters, a 12.5% gap that grew from an 8% gap in 2012. Substantial evidence indicates voter suppression is alive and well in Georgia, Texas and Florida.

Strangely, Toomey never addressed gerrymandering, a glaring example of partisan politics that concentrates selected groups of voters into as few voting districts as possible. Fair-minded citizens want this partisan practice to be abolished so that Alabama and other states cannot create districts resembling Goofy kicking Donald Duck.

Like other Republicans, Toomey denounced Voting Rights legislation as a federal takeover. Apparently, Toomey has not read the Constitution. Madison, Hamilton and other Founders recognized the need to counteract state electoral rules that would subvert the rights of citizens to fair and equal representation in Congress. Article 1, section 4 of the Constitution gives Congress authority to regulate state elections for federal offices.

Kevin Alloway

Port Matilda

On behalf of my family and myself, we want to say thank you to our community and beyond for your love and support. The amount of cards, messages, gifts, meals and prayers have been overwhelmingly wonderful. I dont know if you are aware but by loving and caring for others the way you have, you are actually being the hands and feet of Jesus Christ.

I have to admit that accepting the generosity of everyone has been at times very difficult and humbling. I have a heart to serve. To accept it for myself took me out of my comfort zone. I am beyond grateful to each one of you. I assure you that through your kindness, others will be blessed as well. As soon as I am able, I will be back to volunteering and serving the community I love so much.

I was absolutely amazed by the amount of people who came to the benefit. I want to say a special thanks to Becky Boorum and all those who worked so hard to put it together. So many people and so much love and work went into every detail.

Thank you to the VFW for allowing them to have it in your beautiful space. Thank you Pam Crants for designing the beautiful shirts. Thank you to those who donated cookies, soups, breads and desserts. Thank you to those who shared their gifts of song and to Joe and Christina for making it all sound perfect.

Special thanks to Duffy Inc., Ardagh, Women of Steel and all of those who donated items and baskets. Thank you to The Big Thirty and Pat Warnick for your heartwarming donation. Thank you to my teens as well as my extra kids for always helping and showing support and love every chance you get.

Thank you Port CMA Church for always being our family. You are always a huge help and support to us. Thank you to the First Baptist Church for your love and support as well as many other churches in the area who have sent cards and have been in prayer for us.

We are also so incredibly blessed for our work places. From the beginning we have had the complete support and love from Ardagh and Twin Tier Community Action Head Start. What a gift to work with people who love us the way you do. My preschool class and coworkers wearing my Team Mandy truly meant the world to me.

As always, I want to thank Pam Fischer for capturing one of the most precious moments in my life. You are a joy and a blessing! I love you all and thank God for the blessing each of you are to my life.

Mandy Miles-Rudolph and Family

Port Allegany

Elder abuse laws were supposedly created to prevent seniors from being taken advantage of and abused. However, it seems that law enforcement and our courts tend to ignore them.

A woman, under duress, can be coerced into signing over her paid for home by a conniving son. The woman and her 90-plus mother are mentally abused and treated like crap while law enforcement says there is nothing they can do about it and the courts side with the one breaking the laws, and ignore the laws supposedly protecting the elderly.

The son then takes out a $20,000 loan against the house, supposedly for repairs, but instead buys campers and other items. The mother supposedly gets a lifelong lease in the home that the son coerced her out of and is forced to pay the sons loan off to stay there.

Meanwhile, home is never repaired; the only water she has must be hauled from a spring a few miles away by brothers. Now the sons grandmother died after several years of mental abuse and being called vile names. The mother is abused, called vile names and has to get an apartment because repairs are not done and social security barely pays the bills.

So where is the justice and why should the elderly be forced to put up with this illegal goings on?

Kenneth Lunn

Ridgeway

Wow, how many people in the world would love to have our Second Amendment at this time? Thank God.

Otto Deutschlander

Coudersport

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Letters to the Editor | Letters | tiogapublishing.com - The Wellsboro Gazette

A gun-rights bill that would exempt Wyoming officials and law enforcement agencies from enforcing federal gun control laws violating the Second Amendment has passed a legislative committee and is headed to the Wyoming Senate.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday voted 4-0 in favor of the bill. You can read Senate File 102 here.

While the measure is designed to protect gun ownership in Wyoming, some gun rights activists consider the measure as weak compared with Senate File 87/House Bill 133, the Second Amendment Preservation Act, which failed to pass introduction votes in both houses of the Wyoming Legislature last week.

Supporters of that legislation say Senate File 102 is flawed because it doesn't name specific acts that would be deemed as unconstitutional and because state officials are only barred from using state funds to enforce federal gun control laws, but could still enforce those laws using federal money. Wyoming law enforcement officials in 2021 came out against similar legislation to Senate File 87 in 2021, in part because of concerns that the legislation would remove qualified immunity from Wyoming law enforcement officers under some circumstances.

All of the state's 23 county sheriffs signed a letter opposing the 2021 bill that was similar to this year's Senate File 87.

In Judiciary Committee discussion of Senate File 102 on Monday. Byron Oedekoven, the former Sheriff of Campbell County who is now a lobbyist for the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs And Chiefs Of Police [WASCOP] spoke in favor of the bill.

Oedekoven said the legislation ''looks to prohibit law enforcement, or anyone else for that matter, from taking any action on any unconstitutional attempts to infringe on the Second Amendment. So it likewise leaves in place the federal legislation that is constitutional.''

Senate File 102 now faces three readings in the Wyoming Senate. If the Senate signs off on the legislation, it would then move on to the Wyoming House of Representatives.

Hundreds Of Miles Of Tumbleweeds Trapped By Wyoming Fencing

Here Are the Top 10 Reasons Why You're Lucky to Be Living in Wyoming

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Second Amendment Protection Act Passes Wyoming Committee - Kgab

Since taking office just over a year ago, President Biden and Congressional Democrats have spent more than $3 trillion on big-government programs, many of which were included in the so-called American Rescue Plan. This out-of-control spending has led to an economic crisis culminating in the highest rate of inflation in 40 years, the highest gas prices since 2014, and a broken supply chain that has left store shelves bare. Yet, instead of reining in the reckless spending that has led to this situation, this week, Democrats on the House Budget Committee doubled down on their tax-and-spend agenda and held a hearing advocating for the elimination of the debt ceiling. Given the worsening fiscal outlook for the Nation, this plan is outrageous. During the hearing, I expressed my dismay over the Majoritys attempt to eliminate one of the few potential ways we can push back against the Lefts runaway spending. Democrats must recognize that we cannot continue to spend in the manner in which they have been if we wish to preserve the long-term viability of our economy.

***

Whether in Richmond or Washington, I have always been a staunch defender of the Second Amendment. That is why I joined my colleagues inwritingto the Acting Director of theBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to express our outrage about a proposed rule that would allow the agency to create apermanent database to track all lawful firearm sales. This rule would essentially serve as a federal gun registry, the creation of which has previously been prohibited by Congressional action.According to documents published at the time, the ATF had already collected 54.7 million records in FY 2021 alone. In response to the aforementioned letter, the ATF informed Congress that they were in possession of an estimated 920,664,765 records on firearm transfers. It is an affront to the Second Amendment and the American people that the federal government would maintain such extensive records of law-abiding citizens firearm transfers. I will continue to fight any attempt to create a Federal gun registry. To read the latest letter I sent to the ATF, clickhere.

Congressman Ben Cline (R-6)

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Defending Fiscal Sanity & The 2nd Amendment - The Roanoke Star

The once-free, English-speaking democracy of Canada is plummeting into thuggish tyranny. Mounted police trample unarmed peaceful protestors, on the orders of Fidel Castros Mini-Me, Justin Trudeau. North Americas Ceauescu declared a state of emergency and suspended Canadas Constitution. Translated into German, he invoked the Enabling Act to deal with the Reichstag Truckers.

So what should run through our heads? A number of things:

First we should pray for those brave Canadians fighting for their Magna Carta rights, against a regime run by a petty dictator who publicly admires Communist China. Heres the prayer the great Archbishop Vigano is offering:

Next lets offer prayers of thanks that our ancestors revolted against Great Britain. We can see now in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, that speaking English is no magic guarantee against Latin American-style fascism. There is something peculiar about the United States, which has so far held us back from the brink.

Lets think about that something. What was it? How can we cling to it, restore it, and carry it into the future?

As Ive argued here before, on a legal, practical level, that something is the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Speaking spiritually and psychologically, its the attitude toward citizenship that exists among citizens who retain the power to protect themselves. And in the worst extremity, to resist a tyrannical state.

Governments just dont dare try things like locking a whole population up in their homes. Not if those homes hold military-style weapons, and citizens ready to use them in self-defense. It might sound ugly to say this. If David French hears it, he will probably burst into tears. But its a grim reality of our fallen condition that the only guarantee against deadly force is force.

Our founders knew that from grim experience. Theyd heard countless sermons from Christian pulpits about the persecutions which Puritans and other dissenters had suffered at the hands of Stuart monarchs. Theyd helped their neighbors defend their settlements against American Indians whod understandably fought to resist Colonial landgrabs. Theyd seen that the very spark of the War of Independence was a struggle in New England over access to gunpowder.

Thats why the right of citizens to bear arms comparable to the military found unanimous support among the founders. As Stephen Halbrook documents, the debates over the ratification of the Bill of Rights saw repeated references by various founding fathers to citizens militias and an armed citizenry as the final guarantee of freedom. It took the COVID panic, which elites worldwide weaponized to bully and micromanage billions of people, to drive the point home again.

Notice that even in America, it was only in blue states where the Second Amendment is effectively and wrongfully nullified that suffocating constraints prevailed, and still prevail. Thats no coincidence. A populace that knows it is disarmed, helpless, and utterly dependent upon the police is much more docile. Like a Petsmart full of lapdogs, instead of a wood full of wolves.

The problem with shrinking into a lapdog, of course, is that the world is still full of wolves. The modern, secular State is one enormous wolf, like the world-ending Fenrir from Norse mythology. His snout is spattered red with the blood of innocents 170 million civilians murdered by their governments between 1914 and 1990. Those victims had one thing in common. Theyd been disarmed by those governments first.

At this point I hear in my head a nasal, whiny voice. Its the sound of the Servile Christian commentator, chiming in like Ned Flanders from The Simpsons. Okely-dokely, but what about Romans: 13? It sounds to me like youre callin on folks to act like a bunch of Zealots. And as Josephus noticed, it didnt work out too well for them in AD 70 in Jerusalem!So lets look at that passage. I will spend most of my columns this week examining how interpretations of this injunction by St. Paul have changed over the centuries. I ask you to read it slowly and reflectively, considering the implications of how you interpret it. If your reading of a Bible verse leads to outrageous consequences, which violate Natural Law or vitiate the Old Testament, or seem to condemn the behavior of many saints then youre reading it wrong.

A wrong reading of Romans 13 would imply that Holy Scripture condemned in advance:

Now the passage, from St. Paul addressing the church in Rome:

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is Gods servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are Gods servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are Gods servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

I have too much reverence for St. Pauls human wisdom, beside the inspiration of Scripture, to take this sensible, prudent piece of advice and run with it over the Gadarene slope into the sea. That is what many Christians have done over the centuries for instance by teaching that slavery was legal, and hence must be accepted. Or else by telling their congregations to be good Germans and obey the Nazis.

St. Paul was writing to a group of underground Christians living in an absolute monarchy dressed up like a republic. In the Rome of his day, wealthy senators could be falsely denounced for treason then summarily executed, with their estates seized for the State. Hed seen Jewish Zealots crucified for rebelling against the Romans. He knew that a third or more of that citys population were slaves. Furthermore, Paul was concerned to make clear to his readers that the Church was not a political movement seeking power. Instead, it was a family concerned with preaching the Gospel and offering sacraments, such as Baptism.

Paul did wish to rebuke those tempted to anarchism or antinomianism, who thought that the Kingdom of Christ dethroned all earthly authority and laws. He taught that it is good for men to live in organized societies, where legitimate rulers protected order and punished crimes. Some Christian thinkers have argued that the Fall is the only reason men need to have governments. Thomas Aquinas disagreed, asserting that even unfallen men would still need a single authority to organize and rule them.

Many early Christians were tempted to absolute pacifism rejection of military and even police use of force. Later on, many others would be drawn to political quietism refusal to resist evil laws or unjust authorities.

In my next few columns Ill explore the history which taught Christians the necessity, and the limits, of resistance to the government.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of God, Guns, & the Government.

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Mike Lindell Is Sending the Freedom Convoy Pillows. I'd Like to Send Them Our Second Amendment - The Stream

As a young lad, I asked my parents to allow me to do some pretty foolish things. Consequently, I heard my mother say the following quite often, If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you?

Her question was rhetorical, of course. She wasnt looking for an answer. She was trying to make a simple point its not good to do something stupid, even if everyone else is doing it. What mom was really doing, I now realize, was trying to get me to think for myself.

Sadly, in this day and age of political bickering and back-biting, we often hear of politicians doing foolish things and using the childish excuse that everyone else is doing it.

Such is the case with House Bill 1077, which made its way out of committee in the Senate late Wednesday evening. Dubbed the Constitutional Carry bill, HB 1077 was introduced to allow anyone 18 or older to carry a gun in Indiana without a permit with a few exceptions. Wednesday night an amendment removed the permit-less carry label and granted a provisional license to qualified applicants, cutting down wait times. Supporters of HB 1077 arent finished fighting for the bill in its original form, which passed the House in January. If its signed into law this year, Indiana would join 21 other states allowing gun owners to carry without a permit.

Indiana should not join those ranks because, as your mother would tell you, Just because someone else is jumping off a bridge doesnt mean you should.

I own guns. I have pistols, shotguns and rifles. I love to hunt. I enjoy shooting for recreation as often as I can. I also possess a lifetime permit to carry a weapon in Indiana. Im not in favor of government dictating every move its citizens make. Id fight efforts made by anyone to take my guns away. There are responsible men and women I would trust to protect me with a firearm should the need arise. Likewise, I know people who shouldnt go near a gun for any reason.

The problem with HB 1077 is twofold:

First, requiring a permit to carry a firearm isnt an infringement on our rights as citizens. Its a safeguard a weak one but a safeguard to help keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldnt be carrying them legally or otherwise. The permit system is simple to walk through if you want to carry a firearm. It doesnt take much effort or time. It doesnt infringe on your Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms.

Oddly, proponents of the Constitutional carry argument often neglect the wording in the Second Amendment that states, A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state.

Theres that dirty word regulated. Many who favor open carry argue that the government shouldnt regulate our freedom to bear a firearm. If were going to use the Second Amendment as a defense for open carry, we must include it all.

Regulate, by definition, states, to govern or direct according to rule.

Indianas current system of requiring a permit to carry a firearm is flawed. It is, however, better than a law that allows anyone (with few exceptions) 18 or over to carry a weapon in public.

That leads to the second problem with HB 1077:

Authors, sponsors and supporters of the bill assume that everyone knows how to use a gun. Ive witnessed far too many incidents of unsafe practices with guns at controlled gun ranges. I shudder to think what might happen if an unprepared citizen feels compelled to pull a handgun in public.

What HB 1077 should address and would make our state far safer is mandatory certification from a gun safety class that teaches us how and when to pull and, God forbid, use a firearm, in public. Most of us cannot imagine the amount of adrenaline/fear/anxiety that courses through ones body in a live situation where shooting at another human being is eminent. I certainly cannot and I was raised around guns.

Its a fools errand to think that ordinary citizens like you and me are equipped to safely pull a trigger on a would-be gunman in a public setting. There are ample statistics that tell us even trained police officers miss the mark as often as they hit it in a live shooting.

If Hoosiers believe that carrying a gun in public is fair and just, they ought to be willing to undergo training that makes it safe to do so. And, instead of pandering for votes, our elected officials across the state ought to be enacting legislation that actually protects its citizens by requiring mandatory training with firearms for those wishing to carry a gun.

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BILL HANSON: If you want to carry, learn gun safety - Evening News and Tribune