Mountain Views News, Pasadena Edition [Sierra Madre] Saturday, October 13, 2018

OPINION

B3

 Mountain Views News Saturday, October 13, 2018 

TOM PURCELL


Mountain Views

News

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson

PASADENA CITY 
EDITOR

Dean Lee 

EAST VALLEY EDITOR

Joan Schmidt

BUSINESS EDITOR

LaQuetta Shamblee

PRODUCTION

Richard Garcia

SALES

Patricia Colonello

626-355-2737 

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John Aveny 

DISTRIBUTION

Kevin Barry

CONTRIBUTORS

Kevin McGuire

Chris Leclerc

Bob Eklund

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Rich Johnson

Lori Ann Harris

Rev. James Snyder

Dr. Tina Paul

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Jeff Brown

Marc Garlett

Keely Toten

Dan Golden

Rebecca Wright


FAILING U.S. CITIZENSHIP


“If younger generations don’t know why and how America 
is such a great nation, we are doomed!”

 “Ah, you speak of the recent Woodrow Wilson National 
Fellowship Foundation survey that finds only one in three 
Americans can pass the U.S. Citizenship Test.”

 “You got that right. Two-thirds of Americans failed the 10-multiple-choice-
question test even though they only needed six correct answers to pass.”

 “That is troubling. The foundation says, ‘Only 13 percent of those surveyed knew 
when the U.S. Constitution was ratified.’ It says: ‘More than half of respondents 
(60 percent) didn’t know which countries the United States fought in World War 
II. And despite the recent media spotlight on the U.S. Supreme Court, 57 percent 
of those surveyed did not know how many Justices actually serve on the nation’s 
highest court.’”

 “What are these people being taught in high school and college?”

 “A better question is what are they NOT being taught? As the foundation 
notes, ‘It would be an error to view these findings as merely an embarrassment. 
Knowledge of the history of our country is fundamental to maintaining a 
democratic society, which is imperiled today.’’”

 “Just for the heck of it, I took the test. The questions aren’t so difficult. How can 
so many Americans not answer at least six correctly?”

 “The foundation reports that 72 percent of respondents weren’t sure about or 
misidentified the 13 original states, and just 24 percent ‘could correctly identify 
one thing Benjamin Franklin was famous for, with 37 percent believing he 
invented the lightbulb’” – the same percentage who ‘knew the correct answer as 
to why the colonists fought the British.’”

 “Yeah, and I’m especially worried about the 2 percent who thought climate 
change was the cause of the Cold War!”

 “The survey also found that younger generations are especially ignorant of the 
American system. Americans age 65 or older ‘scored the best, with 74 percent 
answering at least six in 10 questions correctly.’ But only 19 percent of those under 
45 passed, ‘with 81 percent scoring a 59 percent or lower.’”

 “That means older generations, who understand the importance of checks and 
balances to restrict each government branch’s power - and the triumph of our 
free-market system over socialism and communism - will eventually give way to 
younger generations who don’t understand these basic concepts.”

 “Yes, that’s our greatest worry. Per Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman, 
the University of Chicago’s GenForward Survey of Americans age 18 to 34 finds 
that 62 percent of them think ‘we need a strong government to handle today’s 
complex economic problems,’ but only 35 percent say ‘the free market can handle 
these problems without government being involved.’ What’s worse: 61 percent 
of millennial Democrats – and 25 percent of millennial Republicans – have a 
positive view of socialism.”

 “As I said, we’re doomed!”

 “Not if we heed the words of President Abraham Lincoln: ‘America will never be 
destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because 
we destroyed ourselves.’ We have our work cut out for us, but we must teach the 
young why and how America became so great.” 

-

Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s Childhood,” a humorous memoir 
available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist


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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Ms. Henderson:

 Thank you for your column in the 
September 29th issue.

 The raucous, ridiculous hearing 
showed the good ole boy mentality 
of our seventy and eighty year old 
male elected officials is still alive and 
well. So Kavanaugh drank too much 
and may have made sexual advances 
toward a woman when a young man, 
boys will be boys, so what. Let's get 
this nominee confirmed.

Michael Reagan, in his column the 
same day, admitted although he had 
been sexually assaulted but was vague 
on many details. Did he report the 
affair to his parents, other friends, the 
police? If so, when. Was he afraid he 
would not be believed, was he afraid 
he would be blamed for where he was, 
how he acted, what he said, what he 
was wearing?

All the questions above are faced 
by a female suffering the same 
treatment. Young women faced the 
same questions if they reported sexual 
assault when it happened or even years 
after. Even today, girls and boys telling 
parents are not believed. It's a fact.

I was sexually assaulted by my step-
grandfather as a child. I do not 
remember the first time or how man 
times after. I didn't tell anyone. To 
this day, (I'm in my eighties) this is the 
first time I have admitted it to anyone. 
I know my cousin, six months older, 
was also a victim. I ton't think she ever 
told anyone, but I'm not sure. I also 
don't know if her older brother or sister 
was also a victim.

When I was in my teens, I hinted at 
my cousin's abuse to my grandmother, 
father and step mother in one day. 
It was obvious they either didn't 
understand what I was trying to tell 
them or if they simply chose not to 
accept the truth.

When a man sexually assaults or 
abuses a woman, whether it was thirty 
years or thirty minutes ago, it makes no 
difference. That man's thought process 
is rightfully brought into question. 
While the Supreme Court Justices are 
to rule base on the Constitution and 
Rule of Law, they are human and their 
mental state of mind can determine 
their decisions.

It is my hope that women, watching 
the hearing and reading your column, 
will no longer tolerate men who 
don't deserve our support and vote 
accordingly.

Please, if you print any or all of this 
letter, do not print my name. There are 
others alive who do not need to know 
my story. I'm just telling you so you 
understand how much your column 
meant to me and should to other 
women. Sierra Madre Resident

Dear Reader: Thank you for your 
letter. I hope your sharing will also 
help others understand the dirty little 
secrets that women and men have kept 
inside for so long and work to become 
part of the solution by voting. We need 
to vote for elected officials that will 
protect everyone, and who will never 
again elevate predators and self serving 
individuals to positions of power.

S. Henderson, Editor

JOHN L. MICEK


TRUMP GOES FULL TRUMP 

IN YET ANOTHER 

PENNSYLVANIA RALLY

ERIE, PA - With his second U.S. Supreme Court confirmation in the 
bag, President Donald Trump took a victory lap around this city by 
the lake on Wednesday night, skewering “radical” Capitol Hill Democrats and the “dishonest” 
media, even as he exhorted supporters to vote in next month’s midterm election. 

 Standing in a hockey arena just blocks from the shores of Lake Erie, Trump called Democratic 
efforts to defeat new Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s nomination “a national disgrace,” and dismissed 
Democrats “as the party of crime.”

 Amid predictions of a Democratic take-over the House and a possible one in the Senate, 
Trump warned that if current House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and “the Democrats take 
over Congress, they will try to raise your taxes - we’ve lowered them tremendously - impose 
socialism, which is where they are coming from; and take over and destroy American health 
care.”

 “I say this and I mean this, the Democrats are the party of crime,” Trump continued. 
“Republicans are the party of law, order and justice. And we are also the party of jobs, jobs, jobs.” 

Across an hour-long speech, Trump hit on familiar themes. He touted tax cuts passed last 
December, bragged about the resurgence of “beautiful, clean Pennsylvania coal,” his renegotiation 
of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and his efforts to contain illegal immigration.

Still, Trump’s visit to Pennsylvania, his second in as many weeks and seventh in 2018, comes at a 
tenuous time for Keystone State Republicans. 

 State party leaders have already acknowledged that they will lose House seats in the mid-term 
contest. The question is how many seats will be turned.

 Pennsylvania was central to Trump’s 2016 White House win. He beat Democrat Hillary Clinton 
by 44,000 votes, snapping a three-decade-old presidential winning streaks for Democrats. But 
thanks to a court-imposed congressional map that strengthened the Democrats’ hand, as many 
as a half-dozen Pennsylvania seats could flip from red to blue in November.

 While Republicans narrowed the enthusiasm gap with Democrats nationally in the wake of 
the conflagration surrounding Kavanaugh’s confirmation, the generic ballot remains favorable to 
Democrats by an average of 6.9 percentage points, according to RealClear Politics.

 Republican Senate candidate Lou Barletta has struggled to close a fund-raising and polling 
gap with Democratic incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, who has held an average 16-point 
lead in the race, according to RealClear Politics. 

 Trump, who nicknamed Casey “Sleepy Bob” during a rally in Wilkes-Barre in August, kept up 
his drumbeat of criticism against the two-term Democrat.

 “While Lou is fighting for you, Bob Casey is fighting to protect violent criminal aliens. Bob 
Casey voted for deadly sanctuary cities that release thousands upon thousands of violent criminal 
gang members to prey on Pennsylvania citizens,” Trump said.

 Trump also repeated a false claim that Casey wants to abolish Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement. He does not.

 “Pennsylvanians will see these desperate scare tactics for what they are because they know Bob 
Casey has always fought for them,” Casey’s campaign spokesman, Max Steele, said in an email. 

The race between Erie-area Republican Rep. Mike Kelly, a four-term incumbent, and Democrat 
Ron DiNicola, a former Marine and former Erie County solicitor, has been a talker in 
northwestern Pennsylvania this year.

 “Take the enthusiasm you have tonight and the love you have in your hear for the greatest 
nation in the history of mankind, and you’re going to get out and vote,” Kelly said. “You’re going 
to turnout in numbers you never thought you’d turn out. You’ve got to play it through the whistle.”

As he has at other rallies, Trump made it clear Wednesday that it’s on his MAGA faithful to turn 
out on Election Day.

 “I need your help this Election Day on Nov. 6 to stop the radical Democrat mob from trying 
to take it away. I need you to show up at the polls to continue this incredible movement, like the 
country has never seen before. The only reason to vote Democrat is if you are tired of winning.” 

-

Copyright 2018 John L. Micek, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

 An award-winning political journalist, Micek is the Opinion Editor and Political Columnist for 
PennLive/The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. Readers may follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek 
and email him at jmicek@pennlive.com.

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