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Senators should vote no on SAVE Act

Letters to the Editor

I’m upset. I was born in Bedford and I’ve been voting since I was 18. The SAVE Act, if passed, is questioning my right to vote. Women in particular are going to have a problem. My birth certificate, which is in my maiden name, doesn’t match my REAL ID driver’s license. This bill requires everyone to reregister to vote in person (this means at the courthouse) and your driver’s license, REAL ID ($30), military ID aren’t going to be good enough. This pretty much eliminates me being able to register to vote by mail or online. Do you know where your birth certificate ($20) ...

State should consider I-99 extension

Editorials

People unfamiliar with Blair County’s mid-20th century highways probably cannot grasp the picture fully of how major roadway projects over the subsequent decades were the springboard for great economic progress. Interstate 99 has been the biggest economic generator up to now for the county as a whole and it isn’t done yet, as this editorial will discuss. However, numerous other improvements, including bigger ones such as the modern, four-lane, limited-access Route 22, Altoona’s 10th Avenue Expressway and 17th Street corridor, plus the improvements to Plank Road, Logan Boulevard ...

District deserves better representation

Letters to the Editor

Here in Pennsylvania’s 13th District, everyday necessities are becoming less affordable. Many families are feeling the strain of rising health Insurance, food and electricity costs. Catering to the wealthy, our representative in Washington, John Joyce, is voting in ways that many constituents believe work against their interests. His record includes votes that raise health care costs, reduce food assistance for struggling families and restrict voting access. Farmers, rural hospital workers and working families have good reason to worry. Joyce has not held a town hall where ...

Homelessness can’t be solved by laws

Letters to the Editor

As a clinical social worker with 40 years’ experience in Altoona, I see that homeless individuals cannot thrive in a capitalist oligarchy in which society is stratified by class. Because of serious mentally ill behaviors, they cannot navigate a complex society due to impairments in occupational, social and reality testing. The recent Altoona City Council meeting exists in this societal context of a class society in which it punishes by ordinance those who do not conform to the materialistic ideology of a clean town, rights of property owners and the only investments that middle ...

US better without gov’t dependency

Letters to the Editor

The modern Democratic Party often speaks passionately about compassion, fairness and helping working people. Yet many of the policies they promote seem to produce the opposite results for communities like ours here in central Pennsylvania. Policies such as rent control, heavy regulation and ever-increasing taxes are often sold as solutions to help struggling families. In practice, they tend to reduce housing availability, drive up costs for small businesses, and make it harder for working people to get ahead. Government programs intended to help too often create dependency rather than ...

AI regulations from social media mistakes

Editorials

Twenty years ago, no one really knew where social media was going to go. Facebook had just dropped “The” from its name. It was not yet ubiquitous. It was only beginning to move beyond college campuses and into broader public use. By 2006, it opened the doors wide. There were just two requirements: have an email address and be at least 13. It was a revolution without a war. We can remember a time when we weren’t in years-long WhatsApp group chats or documenting every sandwich on Instagram. But the inch-by-inch way social media’s before and after bled together can obscure how ...