Readers’ Column for the week of July 27, 2025

You may call The Owego Pennysaver Readers’ Column at (607) 687-2434, extension 2, 24-hours a day, or email comments to ReadersOP@gmail.com. We reserve the right to revise or reject any messages. To allow more callers to be heard, please limit your comments to 100 words or fewer. We will not be running comments that exceed this number, give or take five words.

Tioga County Cooperative Extension will be offering the regional Master Gardener Volunteer training program beginning in September. This is an intensive 20-week course focused on gardening and preparing you to be a master gardener volunteer. Please call Jean Koski at (607) 659-5694 or email jas54@cornell.edu for more information or to receive an application packet.

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I just got home after dark, and on my way, three kids crossed the street right in front of me in dark clothes. Kids need to be taught not to do this; they can get hurt.

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On Saturday, at about 1:30 p.m., I was driving down 17 in front of Lockheed Martin when a man on a bicycle cut right in front of me with no signal of any kind whatsoever. I slowed way back and gave him his room. He turned around, yelled at me, and swore at me. He should say thank you to me for not hitting him in an accident or for not texting on my phone. If I had been looking down, I could have clipped him.

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I was wondering if the Town of Candor still mows the sides of the roads.

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I’m reading your wonderful Pennysaver, and here on page 12 there’s an article about the village considering a chicken ordinance. That’s a great idea! They should do that in Nichols as well. The chickens here are running rampant. So good luck with it; they should pass it in Nichols too, and other villages and towns. Thank you.

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To the Town of Candor Highway Department, congratulations on the awesome job you all did on Honeypot Road with the new man-made potholes and smearing the trash and debris up to the ditches instead of actually cleaning the ditches. But I guess that’s just job security. Again, thank you very much.

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Something really needs to be done about all the dust on Stanton Hill Road.

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I heard a rumor about a resident in the Village of Newark Valley who, after the devastation of flooding, said their neighbor should be responsible for cleaning up his yard because debris from his neighbor’s driveway had come into it. If true, how childish and arrogant this individual is!

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The culvert system in Newark Valley has been woefully inadequate for many years. It needs a redesign and rebuild. I have seen the mayor on TV saying nothing can be done. The mayor would rather spend money on an awning for the village office than help residents on the east side of town. 

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If you thought going to a Village of Newark Valley Board meeting was bad before new rules were put in place, now you only have five minutes to ask a question, propose an idea, or make a statement. I believe that if you are a resident or taxpayer, you should have more than five minutes with elected officials to express your concerns or displeasures about what is going on! 

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There are alot of negative comments in this column. With that said, I would like to shed some positivity. First, we have a great paper and equally great writers here; the Binghamton paper is based in Rochester, so local news is forgotten. The Owego Pennysaver is our last hope for all things local. Next, Newark Valley was hit hard in the last two weeks: hail, trees down, and then major flooding, all while having no power each time. As in the past, our town has helped its neighbors and stayed strong. Think positively; we have good people here!

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Maybe now “your mayor” and the state will get together and clean out Slosson Creek annually or biannually.

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If you haven’t stopped by the Amish bakery/ produce stand in front of the Owego Price Chopper on Thursdays, you’re missing out. They have reasonably priced homemade baked goods, fresh produce, and even dog cookies. I still think it’s shortsighted not to offer these folks co-op space in town, where they could sell not only these items but also their beautiful quilts, handmade furniture, etc. Perhaps offer a 30 day trial? Something in a store is better than nothing.

 

National Political Viewpoints

I think these Democrats just lost their minds! They never cease to amaze me with their ideas.

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Where’s Roger? I guess we know, nice person, nice family? They would still be here if they had obeyed the rules of our country. That was his choice not to.

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Are you people proud of Mr. Trump? He is going to destroy more than 1 million pounds of food meant for starving people. I’d like to see him go a couple of days without food, to see how that feels. What the hell is wrong with you MAGA people? Don’t you have a heart, a brain, or a soul? Or don’t you give a damn except for the almighty dollar? God help you all!

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In your Pennysaver last week, someone called about the crucifixes that the Trump team wears and probably sells. Also, the Fox News people wear them. It’s a distraction and nothing but a show. Everything Trump does is a show, and he has to have an audience just to even sign one bill; it is a show all the way. Welcome to the one big, beautiful show!

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Wow! Hunter Biden’s podcast was unbelievable! Just like a Biden, he blames everyone else for the fall of the Biden family. But more important and noticeable to me was his awful language. Was that really necessary? It’s no wonder the daughter he had with another woman is not in his life. No way would I allow any of my children to be with someone who uses that kind of language!

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The Jeffrey Epstein case is not going to go away. Mr. Trump and his Republican cronies most certainly will.

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I don’t agree with Tucker Carlson on many things, but I listened to his speech to Turning Point USA from July 12, and I applaud his courage to state the obvious: Epstein was running a blackmail ring for Mossad. Alex Acosta, Trump’s former labor secretary, was the Florida U.S. Attorney pressured into the non-prosecution agreement with Epstein’s defense team in 2007. When questioned during Trump’s first term, Acosta let the cat out of the bag: “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.” Oh, Ghislaine Maxwell’s dad was a Mossad spy? I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

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During the Biden administration, thousands of government employees were not reporting to work and were not actually even in contact with their agency, but were receiving full wages. This indicates to me that those employees who didn’t go to work were somewhat, if not totally, unneeded. This was revealed after the Trump administration took over and tried to get these people back to work. I’ve never heard any Democrat complain about this, so why are they now causing such a ruckus about the firings or layoffs of excess staff?

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Liberals are so upset with Trump that you would think he stole 90% of the Haitian Relief Fund, sold 20% of our uranium to Russia, deleted 33,000 emails, and let innocent Americans die in Benghazi. — Mama Gump

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The job of mainstream media is to make you think that the views of 10% of the country are actually the views of 80% of the country. — Alfred E. Neuman

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So the Trump supporters are writing editorials for The Owego Pennysaver. One recent letter blasted the left and listed all shortcomings? Supposedly, the country has been run into the ground, and they said nothing. It’s gotten even worse under Trump, though. The saddest thing is that the hugger never offered any ideas, suggestions, or ONE solution! The letter was all Monday morning quarterbacking. Well, like you said, you took it back. It’s your turn now; you have less than four years!

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Under Biden, over 320,000 children who crossed the border unaccompanied were lost; they were given to people whose names were on a paper pinned to the children. No one followed up on this. More than 10,000 have been found under President Trump’s administration. Recently, a group of them was found on a pot farm, along with other illegal immigrants convicted of violent rape of children. Has this information been covered by legacy media, or was only the violence of a bunch of protesters covered? Where are all the Democrats who insist it’s all about the children?

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It’s really strange how Trump went from being “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency” to now all of a sudden suffering from chronic venous insufficiency. I always thought it was odd that he reported his height and weight as being identical to several prominent pro athletes and actors who have chiseled physiques. Maybe this guy plays fast and loose with facts? No, it can’t be.

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As I submit this comment to The Owego Pennysaver, the Wall Street Journal has just broken the story about the letter that Trump sent to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. Trump is, of course, denying, denying, denying, just like Clinton denied his affair with Monica Lewinsky. What a sicko.

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“Now, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe Trump just misspoke and made a slip. I mean, who among us hasn’t accidentally told people that our uncle taught the Unabomber?” — Jordan Klepper

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“The Epstein story is about more than the sex trafficking of girls. It is also about rich and privileged people evading accountability for breaking the law. MAGA likely jumped on the story for both of these reasons when they thought a cover-up was protecting Democratic politicians and Hollywood elites. But the story is also about a group of elite people who think they are better than the rest of us and have the right to dominate anyone who is not part of their group, particularly people of color, Black Americans, and women, no matter what the law says.” — Heather Cox Richardson (July 18, 2025)

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It should be pretty obvious that the entire concept of separation of powers was devised to prevent people like Trump from doing anything they want.

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Donald Trump has let more criminals off than anyone else I can think of, and he’s all upset about bail reform?

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Outstanding letter by Jim Outman, a true patriot.

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Mr. Trump has successfully engineered the firing of Stephen Colbert, a comedian and Trump critic. He has his sights set on Jimmy Kimmel and The Daily Show. He forced the defunding of NPR and PBS. He has sued multiple media outlets for airing stories critical of him. Books are banned, universities lose accreditation, and media sources have their White House Press Corps privileges suspended if they disagree with him. It seems he wants total control over all information sources; different opinions are to be eliminated – and he has the Justice Department now acting as his own personal law firm.