Readers’ Column for the week of January 21, 2024

You may call The Owego Pennysaver Readers’ Column at (607) 687-2378 24-hours a day, or email comments to ReadersOP@gmail.com (please note the new email address). We reserve the right to revise or reject any message. Thank you.

 

This Tuesday, between 5-5:30 a.m., three Town of Owego snowplows with blades down passed by. Between 5:30-9:45 a.m. several more passed with blades down. The last one blew through the stop sign at the intersection of Lisle and Davis Hill Road. I would expect the snowplows to use one gallon of gas per mile and have a high maintenance cost per mile. Could someone please explain the necessity for so much unnecessary plowing? 

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I went over what I paid in TAXES the last 18 years of living in the Village of Newark Valley; Town and County – 42%, School – 28.75%, Village of Newark Valley – 77%, and that does not include water or garbage! Then I went back seven years, starting in 2018 when they went up 21%, to this year, and on average there has been an increase of 3.99% per year. To the Mayor and Board members, the question is whether this constant tax increase is sustainable. We, as residents and taxpayers, need to attend the monthly meetings and show that we are concerned and paying attention to what’s going on and to see what we can change! 

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The Village of Newark Valley has two board member seats coming up for election soon. 

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With the water and taxes going up in the Village of Newark Valley the Philippines is looking better every day. 

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What has happened to the corporate mentality in today’s world? What has happened to employees who work for a public service company looking and dressing like a team? Wearing company logos or company shirts and the same type pants has gone out the window in favor of jeans, sneakers and t-shirts. No “team”, no cohesiveness, no looking like company employees. Went into one of our local stores where every employee was wearing blue jeans and a different t-shirt with their phones hanging out of their pockets. I couldn’t tell an employee from a customer. Thirty years ago, this wouldn’t have happened. Everyone wore black pants, white shirts and store smocks. We looked and acted like a team, serving our customers. This new “look” is just poor company spirit, poor customer engagement, and poor corporate management. 

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In response to the Jake brake question. I do know that it is being worked out. Why it’s taking so long, that I can’t answer. Our village board members are good people running the race, making the effort, but often having trouble getting to the finish line.

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To the person looking for somebody to clean their chimney – I clean my own chimney and my prices are reasonable. I live in Newark Valley; give me a call at (607) 902-4215.

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Hello, this is a ticked off senior citizen. I am getting so bitter going to the grocery store it’s not funny. They’ve cut my food stamps and cut the over-the-counter service. Every time I go to the grocery store I get less and less for the money that I have to spend in order to make it through the week. I just hope that other people understand and that they are not in the same boat, because that’s not funny at all. I do what I can. I make all my own food. I’m totally ticked off.

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To the person that wants someone to clean their chimney, there is one in Apalachin; call (607) 724-7335.

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How about getting rid of this negative column? I tried to stop reading it, but I have to keep peeking. How about replacing it with some happy, positive, uplifting news. Thank you.

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I’d like to know who to complain to on this snowy day. The plow has hit my mailbox two times. The neighbor’s garbage can is now flown into his front yard. It’s a disgrace!

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So as it turns out, the owners of electric vehicles are having trouble charging their cars during this deep freeze. What a shock.

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Why is it that a small local newspaper like The Owego Pennysaver Press has more national political viewpoints in this column than comments and questions regarding local issues? I find that’s always that way every week, and I think it should be more about local people and their viewpoints and keep the national political viewpoints elsewhere. We have enough of that crap going on.

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I miss the big Kmart. Is it possible to get a Costco in the valley? Everybody likes Walmart, but we need another big store in the valley. Anybody?

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Here on Maple Lane we want to thank the Owego town crew for the great job they’ve done cleaning up the snow and taking care of us during the winter. They salt the road on time all the time and then clean it up. We haven’t had any problems. Thanks a lot guys for a great job.

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I would like to give a special Thank You to K&J’s Corner Store of Barton, N.Y. They are one of very few gas stations that have “Free Air” for my soft tire. God Bless You! You saved me from walking in Tuesday’s snowstorm!

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It is interesting that all of the other 49 states have their income tax forms completed and publicly available by Jan. 1 of each year. NYS still has not completed theirs. In times past, the NYS Education Department published the data for school District finances and expenditures around the end of October. The intended use of this is to provide useful information for school district financial planning and budgeting for the upcoming fiscal year. With the highest tax basket of any state, how is it that New York is so incompetent. Should we raise taxes to solve this problem? The reason for income tax delay is to artificially make state finances appear better than they are. 

National Political Viewpoints

You’re either an American or a democrat; you can’t be both. Time to choose.

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Last week a reader complained that Biden mishandled the spy balloon. As an engineer who has worked for five different defense contractors with electrical, RF and software design expertise, I assure you that keeping the balloon afloat and operational was absolutely the correct thing to do. This allowed us to fully characterize its RF emissions and determine, for example, that it was connecting to cell towers intermittently. That enables the NSA to pull everything from those towers. There’s a lot more that went on behind the scenes than what you are led to believe by pundits who work for the outrage-industrial complex. Stop politicizing everything. You sound like you probably blame Biden when you stub your toe.

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The Climate Buffoons, Loons, and Liars have started the year with a whopper. 2023 was the hottest year ever and they can’t attribute this to their CO2 based “climate models”. They can’t allow the narrative breaker that Global Warming could come from other sources, so they lie. Follow the Science, for the uneducated non-thinking sheep. Reasons for the alleged spike include 1) approach of the Solar Maximum, 2) 20% weaker magnetic field (more cosmic rays), and 3) the huge amount of H2O (water) and aerosols put in the troposphere by the undersea volcano, Hunga Ha’apai. Half-truths, omissions and outright lies are the modus operandi for Climate Liars. Long ago when weathermen or meteorologists existed, they were well versed in higher mathematics. Today the climatologist is a biologist or journalist who can’t make it in their profession!  

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President Trump spent about 25% of his time “on vacation”. When I went to school, 25 was less than 39. I am fairly certain he knew where his secretary of defense was at all times, even though there weren’t multiple wars we were heavily involved in going on. Also, he donated much of his salary.

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A Jan. 14 headline in the Press and Sun, ‘Gas prices drop by 2 cents in New York State.’ There you go, Biden-omics is working! Thanks for your 2 cents Joe! And not to forget our governor, who makes a concerted effort to get herself noticed every day!

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Looks like the 2024 election will be a repeat of 2016. A nation of 350 million people gets to choose between the exact same two elderly men who both received multiple student deferments before finally receiving an auspicious 1-Y medical exemption from the Vietnam draft. Both men were multi-sport athletes, making their diagnoses unexpected, yet decidedly convenient. Having recently lost my childhood-best-friend’s father to cancer, I’m a bit salty about draft dodgers. My friend’s father received three bronze stars, a purple heart, and a laundry list of other medals and commendations for his service and bravery in Vietnam. I wish we would stop nominating and electing duplicitous, sweet-talking, empty suits. We can’t do better than this? For shame!

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In less than a New York second, news media were quoting a NASA scientist as stating 2023 was the hottest year by far and they didn’t understand why. I wonder if any of the consumers of Climate Porn understand the significance of this gaff? It is gospel that Climate Pornographer’s knowledge and wisdom establish with certainty that Climate Doom is near solely on account of CO2 emissions. However, this past year they don’t understand what happened, but in all other years they did! Biden will need to pass a Climate Cooling Bill to save us. No news media asked, “By how much?” Was it .001 or .00000001 a degree or a flat out lie? 2024’s Nobel Prize winning discovery will be that cow farts cause it. Strangely, all the Biden years have been the hottest ever.

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How is Joe Biden not impeached a long time ago? Like March of 2021 when he reversed all the border policies that were in place? The number one job of government is to protect us? He has enriched the cartels that bring in guns, drugs, and do human sex trafficking? They have caught several known terrorists. Why are they trying to impeach Mayorkus? It should be Biden. This is unbelievable! And why do people complain about the governor of Texas? He doesn’t claim to be a sanctuary city like Chicago and New York. Why is it up to him to be the only one to deal with literally millions of illegal immigrants because Biden doesn’t do his job? I could just go on, but it’s so maddening. What a complete disaster.

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It is sad that our country has fallen this far and most people feel this way. “I was once willing to give my life for what I believed this country stood for. Today, I would give my life to protect my family from what this country has become.”

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For all of you who voted blue no matter who, and as we all watch our retirement plans crash, fuel, heating, cooling and food costs rise to unmanageable levels, crime filth and despair spread from every deep blue democrat stronghold, it isn’t Biden’s fault, it’s YOURS!

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It’s remarkable that the ‘Trump is Hitler’ strategy is the best that Biden’s team can come up with. Here we are, three years into his presidency, and his re-election message is all about events that happened before he entered the White House. Biden’s campaign team has clearly decided that his supposed achievements – such as Bidenomics and green investments – will have little purchase with voters.

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1,200 in jail, deport the immigrants, impeach Mayorkas, and then finally drop this green agenda and then impeach the big guy.

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I understand they were housing the migrants in New York City public schools. Well, I do not blame those parents one bit for being upset. They’re the ones paying the taxes and they’re letting the migrants come there? Not fair, unbelievable!

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Did you see that Biden is actually blaming Trump for the immigrants? He didn’t do anything with the border. I’m not a Trump supporter, but he did try to build a wall. Biden tried to stop it, he let them in! It’s all my party, Democratic Party, I’m ashamed to say, but it is my party who opened the door and let them all in. I’m a Democrat in New York State, my party again, who brought them in by busloads, and now she wants to turn around and sue the bus company for what she and Joe Biden did. This is my party! I’m so ashamed it makes me sick. It’s disgusting! I, for one, am going to go Republican. I’ve had enough. My own party has turned their back on me. They don’t care about me. What they’re doing to this country is disgusting. It’s time for a change, and by God I’m going to do my part to change it. I’m voting Republican!

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After more than 120 Houthis attacks on U.S. bases and personnel, someone in the Biden administration ordered an attack on the Houthis. But as of Jan. 12, the Houthis have not been labeled as terrorists. That is still being debated by the ever-astute Biden administration.

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So now it’s been shown that the six-foot distancing hoax during the pandemic was nothing but that. It did nothing to prevent COVID, nor did masking or staying home. It was just another way for the Democrats to try to control your life. As the days go on more things are unveiled. And guess what? Trump was right. It escaped from a lab like he said in the first week. But people call him a liar and crazy. More fake news.

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The far-left Joe Biden hired nine DEI candidates for his cabinet. How’d that work out for you, Joe? More importantly, how’d that work out for the country? Check all the boxes you need, it doesn’t help.

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After Fox News was sued twice, I believe, and lost both cases for lying about the Dominion voting machines and the election and so on and so forth and paid out millions and millions and millions of dollars, I’ve got one question for you readers of this column. Do regular people believe Fox News, or is it just the dumb ones?

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So isn’t that interesting? Biden’s approval rating is at its lowest, the lowest it’s ever been for any president in the last 15 years. Go Biden supporters. Hopefully you’ll come to your senses and vote for Trump next November.

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You Republican voters who will believe anything, it’s amazing you’re still hypnotized by Fox’s BS. If you Republicans truly believe the election was stolen, how come your butts were on that bus down to Washington, DC, taking over The Capitol? I think deep down you know its BS. You know damn well Trump lost. God knows we can’t have you admit you’ve made a mistake. Nobody likes to be told they’re wrong. And I’ll tell you right now, when Trump loses again I’m going to hear a bunch of you whiners complaining about it again. He’s definitely the king of the whiners, Benedict Donald Trump.

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Yeah, I’m calling about the comment about the REAL Jan. 6 tapes. Let’s see them, you got them? Bring them out in the open! You people are just so full of it. You follow this disgusting lousy deceitful individual, and yet you’re in the paper making lies yourself. Let’s see the original tapes. Let’s see the real tapes.

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Finally, we’re waking up to some good news! President Trump wins big in Iowa. We’re on our way to making America great again!

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I can’t believe why you people still believe Trump was screwed out of the election and that it was stolen from him. I don’t really understand why a lot of you people can’t get it. You know, part of being an adult is to accept consequences. You don’t always win; you don’t always get your way. Apparently, your minds are not fully developed to the point where you are grown up. The man lost and he’ll lose again. There are more adults in this country than there are children. Thank God you’ve got to at least be 18 years old to vote.

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Donald J. Trump; J stands for John, not Jesus.

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In response to what was in the Courier about Jan. 6 and written by RW White, he describes exactly what he is, a dictator, mentally ill. Will somebody explain to me what the hell we have in there now? This guy wants your cars; he didn’t give you a choice. He wants to do away with fossil fuel. He wants you to buy electric cars. He wants your refrigerator, your air conditioning. He wants you to go solar, all solar windmills. And it’s not even your choice. What the hell do you call a dictator? If that’s not a dictator I’ll eat my hat!

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I read this column every week. I’m not a Republican or Democrat, either, but I will tell you one thing, if it wasn’t for Donald Trump you people wouldn’t have anything to talk about. It’s the God’s honest truth! You sit and call that man a tyrant and a dictator, but take a look at what you’ve got in New York State. She’s a Democrat, Governor, and all she cares about is immigrants. She wants your guns. She wants you to hook up to all this nonsense, the solar panels, all this. And she doesn’t care about the rising cost of electric bills and phone bills. She doesn’t care that people are losing their homes because of high taxes. Now does that say dictator to you, or what does it say? I am not happy with Democrats or Republicans, but right now I’m saying Democrat is way worse than Republican. I live in New York and I know what’s going on here, and Chuck Schumer is just as bad.

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Governor Hochul is always shooting her mouth off about the immigrants. I would say you made the mess lady, you own it.

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It’s no wonder why Russia, China, North Korea and Iran all would like to see another Trump presidency, as that would diminish democracy not only in the United States, but also weaken our democratic allies as well. It’s been proven that Russia helped Trump politically and financially before, and Putin is willing to help his supporter Trump win again. All the dictators want America’s democracy to fail, as Trump would become America’s first autocrat on his way to being a dictator. Listen to Trump’s own words proving that. Please don’t let Trump have a second chance at overthrowing our government again.

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The red wave is rolling, Trump wins in Iowa, and the fake news is too afraid to let the people in the country see what really happened or listen to him speak. Keep watching that garbage, folks. You’ll never know the truth.

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Kamala Harris has no time to go to the border and fix that mess that her and Joe created, but she’s on The View today preaching to us how fearful it is if Donald Trump gets to be president. Well, she needs to realize he will be president because everyone’s tired of her Joe.

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Cancer diagnosis are at their highest ever in the USA and we’re sending billions overseas and spending billions on people flooding into our country illegally. Crime and drug abuse is out of control; our school students are far from #1 in the world. How about making conditions optimal for our own people ahead of thinking we are responsible for the entire planet. Once we achieve perfection here, then maybe.

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Traits I’m looking for in a Presidential Candidate are honesty, trustworthiness, empathy, no criminal record, not a sexual predator, loyal to the legal citizens of the USA and not a political party or special interest group, citizens well being before corporate greed, domestic issues have a priority over support for regional wars not in the USA, national security means our borders are secure, and our military being used as world police must end. Does any of this sound like Trump? He lost out on my first requirement, honesty!