The people of the United States continue to hear of deaths and horrible injuries to our brave men and women in war zones while Republican Governors and Legislators around our country enact new laws to deprive American citizens of their right to vote. Many disabled veterans and seniors, who do not have drivers’ licenses, are being told they may no longer vote. Even government issued student and military ID’s are unacceptable as they do not include expiration dates. I grew up in NYC and know that many people do not own cars; for the offense of using public transportation, inner city citizens are having their right to vote taken away from them.
Numerous Republican Governors and Legislators have enacted new laws to deprive low income women of lifesaving gynecological tests and cancer preventive tests such as mammograms and Pap tests. One Republican Governor proposed a degrading, medically unnecessary, invasive vaginal probe of all women seeking a legal medical procedure.
Simultaneously with our expensive foreign nation building, thousands of police, fire fighters, teachers, and emergency first responders at home have been fired to save money. Republicans have boasted of their building schools, roads and infrastructures abroad, while blocking Democratic Bills in Congress to do the same at home at a time of high unemployment, crumbling bridges etc. Republicans are currently blocking a Farm Aid Bill following the worst damage to farms since the dust bowl.
I urge voters to please put aside old feelings of ‘party loyalty’ this election year and realize what the right wing of the Republican Party has done to that Party and to our country. Until real Republicans purge their Party of all the uneducated, mean spirited, self-centered bigots in their right wing, the rest of us owe it to our country and to our children to purge all Republicans from every level of government.
Claire L Kelly
Stevensville