Jen Kiggans
I applaud my U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans for her support for all those who have nobly served in our military. I just wish that Kiggans would, at a minimum, expand her focus a bit and acknowledge the need to support other worthy causes. Honesty and integrity come to mind.
President Donald Trump recently accused a great many of Kiggans’ constituents of “hating their country and democracy,” merely because these individuals exercised their right to protest against Trump’s attacks on their right to do so. He even belittled them with his childlike memes and behavior. Yet, Kiggans has been silent.
The president regularly disregards scientific facts, distorts history and claims, without a shred of evidence, that he lawfully won the 2020 election. Yet, Kiggans, apparently, does not care about such things.
The president and his appointees have fired inspectors general whose singular job is to ensure that the federal government is operated with the honesty and integrity that Congress requires and the voters expect. This administration has also fired civil servants who chose to become whistleblowers because they valued integrity and respect for the truth.
Kiggans has not, however, chosen to remain silent about the shutdown. She and the president have unfairly placed the blame on the Democratic Party.
Evidently, Kiggans believes that her constituents are not worthy of knowing the truth or are too ignorant to know the difference.
Charles Aiken, Virginia Beach
Voter ID
Re “Trump allies try new voter ID tack” (A8, Oct. 26): The Trump administration’s continuing attempts to disenfranchise voters by pushing to require proof of citizenship is yet another step on the road to authoritarianism.
It’s been shown repeatedly that rampant voter fraud is a figment of President Donald Trump’s vivid imagination and, especially with his crackdown on noncitizens in general, it just doesn’t pass the common-sense test to think that noncitizens would risk being charged with perjury in order to cast an illegal vote.
A petition by America First Legal (founded by anti-immigrant bully and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller) claims that enforcement of the perjury provision is “nearly non-existent” and that a system dependent “entirely on the honesty of applicants” is a recipe for fraud. Since the alleged crime of illegal voting is all but non-existent, the enforcement of the perjury provision is going to be “nearly non-existent.” It is particularly egregious that Miller’s organization suggests that voter fraud is to be expected from a system that depends on the honesty of applicants. From an administration that daily perpetrates fraud upon fraud on the American people, that’s rich.
Deborah Wyld, Smithfield
Vaccines
Re “COVID-19 vaccines may offer tumor-fighting help to cancer patients” (Nation & World, Oct. 23): Some surprising medical research is unfolding in cancer studies at the University of Florida, the University of Texas, and MD Anderson Cancer Center, among others. Patients with advanced lung cancer or melanoma lived “significantly longer” if they received the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy treatments. The studies “could revolutionize the entire field of oncologic care” and lead to essentially a “universal off-the-shelf cancer vaccine for all cancer patients,” according to co-senior author Dr. Elias Sayour.
Of course, the concern is that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s inexperienced Secretary of Health and Human Services, is no fan of vaccines — and the organization he heads has become almost traumatized since he took it over. Kennedy has fired talented medical staff if they disagreed with his philosophies and cut research regarded by many as important. His inaccurate claims about Tylenol, circumcision and autism continue, and there is a real concern he may increase his attacks on vaccines. I was astonished that the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate approved Kennedy’s appointment to this Cabinet seat.
Ed Prior, Williamsburg
