Sounding off: Supreme Court needs diversity

Negative tropes being used to critique President Biden’s decision to nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Black woman, to the Supreme Court may be missing the point (“Biden demonstrating his racism again.”)

In these bitterly divisive times, when our self-serving legislative and executive branches are increasingly irrelevant, the court may be our Constitution’s best hope for survival.

The court has maintained its preeminence throughout our history because no jurist’s background or presidential patron is a reliable barometer of how they will rule. Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor proved far more moderate than Ronald Reagan.

In the same vein, a historic appointment does not guarantee political payback. Lyndon Johnson’s nomination of Thurgood Marshall lost the Democratic South. O’Connor’s appointment did not close the GOP’s gender gap. More Latinos voted Republican in the last election, even though a Democratic president nominated Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

While Marshall may not be remembered for authoring landmark opinions, his presence on the court helped other justices understand the struggles of Black Americans. The lived experiences of O’Connor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg were essential in advancing greater equality for women.

A diverse court’s rulings have more integrity than those from a polarized, overwhelmingly Ivy League and Catholic court. Those whose everyday lives are affected by its opinions must have confidence in the court’s relevance. Subsequent nominees should be of eastern and western Asian descent, Muslim, Native American and LGBTQ+.

To preserve democracy, every president should commit to taking an affirmative action to see that the court reflects America.

Peter Busowski, Jeannette

Why history matters

Mark Twain is credited with the quote “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.”

Putin says one reason for his invasion of Ukraine is to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. That statement operates on an Orwellian level as a vile and malignant lie. It is Putin who is following the Nazis’ path to war in the 1930s.

Anschluss with Austria, spring 1938? Check. See the “friendly takeover” of Belarus at the request of its dictator, Lukashenko. Demanding that a border area, the Sudetenland, filled with ethnic Germans be incorporated into the Reich to prevent a fictitious genocide? Check. See the recognition of the “independent separatist republics” of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. Full-scale invasion of the rump state of Czechoslovakia in spring 1939? Check. See the current invasion of what is left of Ukraine.

What’s next? Demand for a land corridor connecting Russia’s Kaliningrad province, currently surrounded by the independent nations of Poland and Lithuania, replicating Hitler’s demand for a land corridor connecting the Reich with Danzig? Perhaps. Invading Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which, like Ukraine, were part of the Tsarist and Soviet Empires, with or without the use of the Russian equivalent for the word “lebensraum”? Perhaps.

Abraham Lincoln stated, “It has been said of the world’s history hitherto that might makes right. It is for us and for our time to reverse the maxim, and to say that right makes might.”

Does might make right? Shall we accede to that noxious creed? That is a question that has stalked us since the beginning of time. That is why Ukraine, and history, matter.

Eric Falk, North Huntingdon

Traitorous views of Putin

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” said Republican patriotic icon President Ronald Reagan on June 12, 1987, standing at the Berlin Wall.

By sorry contrast, ex-President Trump last week said Vladimir Putin made a “genius” decision when he recognized two pro-Kremlin breakaway states in eastern Ukraine and ordered Russian troops across the border on a so-called “peacekeeping” mission.

On Saturday, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was a featured speaker at a white nationalist conference in Orlando, Fla., where Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was actually cheered and Putin’s name was chanted.

What has happened to the Republican Party we once knew? It has descended from a party that vigorously championed freedom to one that praises the world’s most prominent despot as he attacks his neighbor.

High treason, as defined in our Constitution, includes in part to “adhering to their enemies giving them aid and comfort.” Trump’s and Greene’s treasonous remarks are being played with glee on Russian TV.

“It’s good that the United States is not neighbors of Russia, otherwise no one in the United States would have such an opinion about President Putin,” Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on a Bloomberg TV interview.

We are waiting for Republican leadership to vigorously denounce these traitorous views of Trump and Greene.

Charles Henry, Greensburg

Another diplomatic failure in Ukraine

We are doing the same thing with Putin that we did with Germany and Japan and many other diplomatic failures over the years.

I can still remember British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain holding a paper stating “peace for our time” in September 1938 after he gave Hitler what he wanted. In September 1939, Hitler invaded Poland.

We placed sanctions on Japan to stop their aggression in the Far East. They attacked Pearl Harbor, and World War II ravaged the world for four years. When the war ended in an Allied victory, the “diplomats” took over the war that the military won; the diplomacy weaklings lost the peace.

Putin is not going to stop now that he sees the weakness in our willingness to be physically involved together to stop him from restoring the Soviet Union to its once-powerful position. If we do not stop him now in Ukraine, China will observe our lack of unity and weak leadership and try to bring Taiwan under its control.

It is time to remove the “liberal diplomats” from sinking the ship of America before we really have the “war to end all wars.” Putin is a KGB graduate and, like a “rat in a corner,” he will not hesitate to push the button. The diplomats talk a good game but always come up as losers.

God, please help us and bless America again.

Rev. Tony Joseph, Johnstown

The writer is pastor of St. Stephen’s Orthodox Church, Latrobe.

Where is sense of right and wrong?

Letter-writer Joan Heinz’s reality seems to be whatever the triad of Donald Trump, Fox News and RT tell her it is (“Democrats, the party of lies.”) Her inability to see that Jan. 6 was a Trump coup attempt is not surprising. The Jan. 6 committee will soon televise hearings with witnesses under oath. The seditionists and coup plotters will be accountable in the courts.

In America, there are consequences for trying to overthrow a free and fair election. Heinz may be trying to “own the libs” with her letter. That is a harmless delusion. However, my concern is that refusing to believe one’s eyes about Jan. 6 leads to bigger issues.

Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson and other GOPers have praised Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine. This propaganda is being played in a loop on Russian media. They are counting on Trumpsters to believe their lies.

Where are the Reagan and Bush conservatives who will put country before an authoritarian wannabe? Have the Republicans lost their sense of right and wrong? My dad, uncles, neighbors and fellow Americans who lost their lives fighting the Nazis and fascists during World War II would be outraged at the Seditionist Party of Trump today that praises a fascist.

Yes, Joan, President Kennedy would recognize the Democratic Party today because we still believe that all men are created equal and the Constitution must protect all of us. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it always bends toward justice.”

Renalda Arndt, South Huntingdon

Biden should sanction Russia like he ‘sanctions’ U.S.

If President Biden had imposed sanctions on Russia as severe as he has imposed on his own country, Russia would be on its knees already. Just like us.

Kenneth Minyon, Saxonburg

If CRT is invalid, so is the Bible

Critics say critical race theory teaches that Americans are guilty of racism and responsible for past American racism and must make amends.

Yet, the same critics subscribe to a religion that is premised on the very same beliefs when they teach biblical original sin and that the sins of the fathers fall upon children down to the third and fourth generations. If CRT is invalid, so, too, is the Bible.

Bruce Braden, Carmel, Ind.