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Letters to the editor

From ‘shoot them in the legs’ to shoot to kill

Joseph R. Fischer Northumberland During his first term, President Trump reportedly asked then–Defense Secretary Mark Esper whether soldiers deployed during the George Floyd protests could shoot demonstrators in the legs. Esper said no. Those now feel like the good old days. If events in Minneapolis over the past two weeks are any indication, the rules of engagement for ICE and Border Patrol agents have shifted dramatically—toward firing into heads and torsos for the offenses of being in the wrong place at the wrong time or recording federal agents operating against civilians ...

Thompson owes constituents accuracy

Julie Gittings State College I appreciate Representative Glenn “GT” Thompson’s efforts to communicate with voters in Pennsylvania’s 15th District. I would appreciate it even more if he provided accurate, complete information. In a recent newsletter, Rep. Thompson cited a Department of Homeland Security database listing 45 people apprehended for crimes while in the country illegally. He called the numbers “staggering” and implied the arrests were the result of “years of open borders and weak enforcement.” That implication is misleading. Rep. Thompson did not ...

A view from Minneapolis

Kyle Kline Minneapolis I grew up in Jersey Shore where my first job was as a Lock Haven Express paperboy and have lived in Minneapolis for eight years. I call Minneapolis home because it feels familiar to me. It is a place where neighbors look out for each other, kids walk to school, and if something seems off, someone reaches out to make sure everything is okay. Until recently, I felt as safe here as I did growing up in Jersey Shore, Pa. That sense of safety is gone. Over the past several weeks, two people, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed, and countless others have been ...

Calm down

Elsie M. Miller Mill Hall Just watched another citizen die at the hands of ICE. I won’t guess who was at fault... ICE or a citizen. Frankly, reports are conflicting. This man had a permit to carry. Right to carry is a law I don’t want to see legislated away. What a tragedy. God bless him and his family. Now the big question... People are abused on both sides, so, why doesn’t ICE give their list of ‘wanted immigrants’ to local police and require local police to collect those immigrants. Local police have collected immigrants before. It would get the job done and would ...

World democracies under threat

Donald Moskowitz Londonderry, NH This letter is based on Alan Dowd’s article in the July 2025 issue of the American Legion Magazine. He stated, “a world without American leadership is a world out of order — and a world out of order is a threat to American interests.” We must maintain our leadership role. Communist China, Russia and North Korea pose threats to the U.S. and democracies around the world. Their Communist ideologies promote authoritarian rule by decree without any of the freedoms encompassed by democratic governments, especially freedom of speech, freedom of ...

11.03.26

Sam Stea Cogan Station I’ll always remember my father’s words to me when I showed him a birdhouse I made for a seventh-grade school project. I’d done a crummy job and I knew it. He shook his head and said, “Sammy, how you do anything is how you do everything.” I find the older I get, the truer those words become. Let’s expand on this theme. President Trump, upon hearing a bad U.S. jobs report, made public by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fired its commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, citing, without any evidence, that the “numbers were rigged.” This happened last ...