To The Reader’s Forum:

Well, the weekend (9-13/14-25) P-J is full of “bunk” from Cal Thomas and Armstrong Williams. Reading the headlines, “Presidential Authority Can Be Misused And Abused” and “America’s Public Health System In Desperate Need Of A Reset”, my initial reaction was that finally Trump and RFK Jr. would get criticized for their conduct. Boy, was I wrong!

The first article criticized Joe Biden over and over again, while at the same time, without an example, says, “Yes, the president has unlimited authority when it comes to pardon power…”. Surely, Cal Thomas could have acknowledged that Trump granted the “J6” defendants full and complete pardons without considering any aspect of their illegality including beating police officers! Thomas says of Biden, without complaining similarly of Trump, “It seems an impossible task for any of these to have been properly vetted.”

Thomas quotes the Pew Research Center by saying Biden pardoned more persons than any president since the 20th Century began, even acknowledging that these were completed “in the final days of the Biden administration”, not spread out over Biden’s “four-year tenure”. Thomas is effectively saying the pardons were anticipatory by Biden because Trump publicly said he would “go after” public officials of the Biden administration and federal prosecutors for the “J6” defendants. Talk about Trump misusing and abusing the pardon power!

Williams essentially says the same about RFK Jr., in spite of the fact that RFK Jr. is not a doctor and uses “conspiracy theories”, or falsities to back many (most?) of his decision-making. No one said that the “COVID-19 shot” would “outright prevent infection”. The truth is that any vaccine is not 100% effective and would “prevent” infection! Any physician will tell you that! However, 90+% effectiveness, to prevent serious illness using the vaccines is huge! I have gotten and would get a COVID vaccine in a heartbeat! Here, again, the comments from Williams fail to be very critical of America’s “health system”! One reason for spending “more than $13,000 per person per year on health care” is the very expensive and often unnecessary testing of individuals, which are used to prevent lawsuits against doctors in our highly litigious society. If RFK Jr., and Williams, would talk about costly/unnecessary health services instead of highly dubious vaccine policy, Americans would be less confused! We need someone in RFK Jr.’s seat who is not a “conspiracy theorist”!

Paul L. Demler

Jamestown