LETTERS TO THE - EDITOR
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
National Poppy Day
To the editor: The Friday before Memorial Day (May 26 this year) is designated as National Poppy Day. The red poppy has been a symbol of lives lost to war since World War I. Poppies are handmade by veterans as part of their therapeutic rehabilitation and purchased by the VFW which provides income for the vets in VAhospitals. The VFW, the American Legion, and both auxiliary organizations distribute the poppies throughout the country in exchange for donations that assist disabled and hospitalized veterans through various programs at the state and national level. Part of the monies collected through these donations also assist the VFW National home for orphans and widows of our nation's veterans.
Locally, during the month of May, individuals from VFW Post 2227 and the VFW Auxiliary will be going around to businesses asking for donations for poppies and providing a card with poppies attached. Please proudly display the card and poppies. Some individuals also set up displays and ask for donations throughout the year as well. We appreciate and thank you for your continued support.
Margaret Mateer Buddy Poppy Chairperson
SAVE Act is Needed
To the editor: I am responding to the editorial/opinion published in the April 16 edition of The Record-Review.
Voting is a fundamental right and obligation of citizenship. American students were once universally taught that in their civics classes. They were also taught about the great effort that was required to get and keep those rights.
American history is littered with attempts to ensure that only the “right people” are the ones making the decisions. After losing the Civil War, Democrat politicians in the South implemented property ownership requirements, literacy tests, and poll taxes to deny the right to vote to black populations who would have supported Republican policies. Jim Crow laws continued to influence voting until a Republican-dominated Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This legislation removed roadblocks to voting for black populations, but it did not eliminate election fraud.
A stable democracy requires an election system that is trusted by the governed population. Voting must be easy and secure. The current system consistently triggers charges of fraud from the losers (Republicans and Democrats), because people recognize that the voting process is not secure. It is impossible to resolve these fraud charges, because the current election system is designed to be impossible to audit. Recounts are not sufficient, because the illegitimate votes are indistinguishable from legitimate votes at that point.
There is a great deal of concern about noncitizen voting following the disgraceful effort by the Biden administration to flood the country with illegal aliens. This is a legitimate and serious concern, but there are many other suspected illegal voting scams. I will highlight a mail-in voting scam today.
There is a concern about people who use the active registrations of inactive voters to vote by absentee ballot. How could this be done? The state publishes a list of people who have voted in a given election. It would be simple to compare this list with the bloated list of Wisconsin registered voters to identify voters registered as “active” who haven’t voted in several elections.
In fact, this is how the Wisconsin Election Commission identifies these people. Anyone can then go to the website “MyVote.wi.gov” to request an absentee ballot of one of these people by entering the name and birth date of that person. They can have the ballot sent to any address. This ballot could then be forged and deposited anonymously in any ballot drop box. No one verifies the signatures of the voters or signatures of the witnesses on the absentee ballot envelopes in Wisconsin.
Once these ballots are separated from the envelope during the counting process, there is no way to distinguish that illegitimate ballot from your ballot. The names of these “ghost” voters could be recorded by the cheaters for use in future elections. These names will remain on the voter poll list, because they appear to the Wisconsin Election Commission to be active voters. This scam must be stopped.
Election security is necessary for the survival of our government. Security requires some effort by the voters. We should endeavor to use voting procedures that provide solid security with only a reasonable amount of effort. No effort, and no security, is not a reasonable option. The SAFE Act is a step in the right direction.
Please call on U.S Senator Tammy Baldwin to support the SAVE Act.
Bruce Bohr Marathon
Academic Freedom is Freedom of Speech
To the editor: Funding for institutions of higher learning, including the University of Wisconsin’s campuses in Wausau and Marshfield, is being used to coerce them into following philosophical mandates issued by the Trump Administration. Attempting to coerce universities to change admission and administrative policy is an assault on academic freedom and on the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The First Amendment is written for the express purpose of allowing people to speak in opposition to government policy without recrimination. The Trump Administration has been abducting and deporting foreign students accused of speaking against US foreign and domestic policy. Secretary of State Marco Rubio demonstrated his failure to understand the purpose of having the amendment when he said, “If they’re taking activities that are counter to our national interest, to our foreign policy, we’ll revoke the visa.” Law firms are threatened if they agree to defend the student’s right to study here and speak their opinion. News media are threatened for reporting news that is not favorable to the administration. Attempts to defund National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service are efforts to eliminate balanced news delivery. A more subtle attack on academic freedom is defunding the Institute of Museum and Library Services, removing $2.23 million from Wisconsin libraries, impacting rural libraries the hardest.
The Trump Administration has also violated the Fifth Amendment and the 14th Amendment in its efforts to stifle opposition to its policies through the denial of due process and equal protection.
President Trump’s disregard for the Constitution, his willful disregard for rulings by the Supreme Court, his attacks on educational institutions and his constant self-aggrandizing are characteristics of a dictatorial tyrant. They are beginning to affect what information we have access to and how we talk about it. Democracy is fragile. We must understand when the rights of one person are violated; the rights of everyone are in danger.
Bryce Luchterhand Unity
