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Arrest those who stormed Capitol Building

I, just like most Americans, am appalled at what happened in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. The individual perpetrators must be held accountable. Every person seen inside the Capitol Building should be arrested and charged appropriately. Not everyone that attended the protest is guilty, but if they chose to enter the Capitol Building then they went beyond a simple protester and became a domestic terrorist.

However, that is not enough. We must also hold accountable the leaders who emboldened and encouraged this behavior. That, of course, includes President Trump who has spread inflamed rhetoric and lies for months now. We must all remember — words matter! And our leaders need to be especially mindful of that.

But let’s not forget that the terrorists were likewise emboldened by all the senators and representatives that announced and proceeded with their plans to object to the Electoral College results. These people, that had taken an oath to uphold the Constitution, were willing to take actions to overturn election results. Results that had been certified after many court battles where no evidence was found that would reverse the results of the election.

Every election is going to have irregularities. Anything that large, staffed largely by volunteers, and organized by thousands of local officials across the country may have a glitch or two. But there are checks and balances in place to ensure that an irregularity or two does not cascade or lead to full-scale fraud that makes the election results invalid. There is no evidence indicating there were enough irregularities to overturn any states results. To say otherwise indicates a belief in conspiracy theories.

Remember the names of the N.C. representatives that participated in the election challenges that helped embolden the terrorists as they have no respect for our constitution and violated their oath to uphold it. They must also take responsibility for the results of their words and actions: Dan Bishop, Ted Budd, Madison Cawthorn, Virginia Foxx, Richard Hudson, Gregory F. Murphy, and David Rouzer.

— Amy Hunter
Clemmons

COVID relief bill doesn’t contain unrelated items

Our Clemmons Courier editor can be forgiven for the errors in his posting two weeks ago. After all, everyone from President Trump and Rush Limbaugh to multiple reporters and news anchors and yours truly, made the same error. Similar to the editor’s article, I sent a rant of similar complaints in an email to many folks. That lead to a phone call to me from someone deeply involved in the COVID bill about which we, all, complained.

The COVID relief bill had none of the crazy parts that gave money to foreign affairs or other wasteful domestic items. It had been combined with the federal budget bill into a big omnibus bill. While the reason for combining of the COVID bill with the federal government’s budget by Speaker Pelosi was not understood, the part that was 5,600 pages had been sitting around since May 2020. Everyone had plenty of time to read it. One percent of the federal budget bill spends money on foreign dispersals. However, by making an omnibus bill by combining the COVID bill with the federal budget bill caused many of us to err in thinking that the COVID bill included those many unrelated items.

So, while there were budget allocations for gender studies in Pakistan (like that is useful), monies for the Kennedy Center, the Post Office and repairs on a Sri Lankan patrol boat, she said that the combined bills caused this misunderstanding.  Then, I received many email documents to back up these facts. It is important to understand that the COVID bill had none of those things in its own part of the total bill.

— Paul Johnson
Clemmons