Immigrants are coming? A humanitarian effort is needed? Well, here is the chance for the USA to shine; start investigating how to help. We have Sister Norma and her group, we have Catholic Relief Services, heck, we have Protestant churches at the ready to help with their Christian response.
Our government? State has the Texas National Guard here — have them help direct and organize, and test for COVID-19 as well as anything else we fear. Have them dole out food, clothing, water, medicine.
Our federal government? Move some of those judicial sections down to the borders to help with processing asylum seekers. Folks from Ukraine, Central American countries and some South American countries need our help.
I pay more taxes than Amazon and Jeff Bezos, Tesla and Elon Musk, and I pay more taxes than large corporations and their CEOs. I want my taxes to not only go to infrastructure throughout the country, but also to humanitarian efforts and to climate control with solar and wind sources becoming more and more prevalent.
We taxpayers are taken advantage of. Time for it to stop. Use our taxes as we see fit, not some wealthy yahoo who cares nothing for those in need. It is time.
Martha Talamas
McAllen
Oil policy
addressed
I found Robert Bonds’ letter, “Oil policy condemned” (April 21), interesting. He might want to do a little research, however. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, “Both the Obama and Trump administrations concluded that the Keystone XL pipeline would not have lowered gasoline prices. NRDC and its partners also found the majority of the oil would have been sent overseas.”
And, though its representative did not dispute Jen Psaki’s statement that more than 9,000 oil/gas leases on federal lands have been granted and have not been explored, the American Petroleum Institute states: “The lease already requires companies to either produce oil and/or gas on a lease or return the lease to the government … generally in the first 10 years.” The API makes several other statements why a lease might not be explored in a timely manner, sometimes due to government regulations, but in the research I have done I did not find that they disputed the 9,000 leases claimed by Ms. Psaki. There may be other sources that do dispute that claim, I just did not find them.
Gerard Pahl
Edinburg
Public
prayer
Hank Shiver of Mission points out in his letter, “School prayer brings lawsuits,” published April 18, that Jesus believed prayers were to be an intensely personal event between a person and God with no one else being present in that instance. Tell me, Mr. Shiver, if Jesus wanted prayers to be done in private, why did he allow his apostles to follow him and pray with him wherever they went during his time on earth, according to the four Gospels found
in the Holy Scriptures?
Also, if Jesus wanted prayers to be done in private, why do church buildings exist in every corner of the world? What exactly are those church buildings good for then?
In the 16th chapter of Mark in the Bible, Jesus told his disciples to go forth and proclaim the Gospel to everyone in the world. Did Jesus command his disciples to do their work in private?
Without any force, I encourage everyone to take a good look at the second chapter of Acts and see if there’s any proof that praying in public and giving alms openly were discouraged according to the Messiah.
May the Lord bless the Holy Scriptures and the U.S. Constitution.
Roberto Lopez
McAllen
