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I am writing this response to the letter to the editor authored by Sandra Alexander that unfairly criticized Jeanne Ives, the Republican nominee for Congress in Illinois" 6th Congressional District, for complimenting President Trump in early March in connection with his handling of the coronavirus outbreak. The criticism was grossly unfair for three distinct reasons.

The first is that we have now reached a near-crisis state, but the reality of that point in time in early March wasn't nearly as bad as it is today. Secondly, we didn't have any idea of the extent of the contagiousness of that strain of the virus at that time. Thirdly, I invite your audience to look up the timeline of not only the early intervention efforts by President Trump and his key officials, but also the extent of their collective accomplishments, which are too vast for me to recite in this article.

Now let us examine an honest appraisal of the performance of Jeanne's opponent, Congressman Sean Casten, in this near-crisis state arising from the coronavirus. Sean Casten and eight other Congresspersons signed a letter to Speaker Pelosi and other House Leaders pushing for special subsidies and tax deals for the Green Energy Industry. Sean Casten is personally invested in a company entitled Greenleaf Power, LLC, which would have immensely benefitted in those special subsidies and tax deals.

On March 21 Sean Casten praised China for their response to the pandemic. On March 27 he told the media not to cover presidential news conferences, since he states that they are killing people.

Glen K. Solo

Westmont

In it for personal gain

I didn't think Sean Casten could be any more gravely misguided, but he just proved me wrong. In a recent telephone town hall meeting, he actually defended the operation of China's wet markets. (It's also worth noting that in March he praised China for their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.)

Apparently he's more worried about criticizing another culture's practices than he is about making our health and safety his priority.

This is beyond disturbing since in recent years, wet markets around the world have been breeding grounds for deadly global outbreaks including H1N1, SARS and now, COVID-19. The devastating health (and indeed, economic) dangers these wet markets pose have been well established by the U.S. Coronavirus Task Force, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the U.S. National Library of Medicine, among others. But Sean Casten ignores all that and the media isn't calling him out on it.

What possesses Casten to take such an ignorant and reckless position? I'll tell you what - his annoyingly predictable liberal political agenda and his quest for personal gain.

Nancy Pelosi tried to include taxpayer funding of abortion in the House coronavirus relief bill. Fortunately the Senate stopped her, but based on his past support for radical abortion legislation, I have no doubt that Casten would have celebrated "sneaking" that in.

He also personally signed a letter asking for renewable energy subsidies to be added to the COVID-19 Bill. He is invested in a renewable energy company and would have personally profited financially had it been added.

While Casten was trying to wrangle political and financial gains for himself, millions of suffering Americans sat waiting for true crisis relief.

In a nutshell, Sean Casten's No. 1 priority is himself. In a recent Facebook town hall, he said, "We're going to get through this by being civil, respectful and patient toward one another." Ha. He is on the social media bandwagon that promotes not only attacking Trump supporters by calling them killers and traitors, he wants to ban the president's COVID-19 daily addresses to the nation because he doesn't like him politically.

Sean Casten is the epitome of vitriolic hypocrisy and arrogance. Vote this inept and self-serving opportunist out of office in the 6th District.

Mary Plunkett

Wheaton

Stand up for liberty

So I am watching this show today and they have this CEO from Home Depot and he says that full arenas with people sitting on top of one another is never going to happen again. He says owners/promoters are going to have to figure out a way to provide their product with few or no one in the arena.

Later I see a comment from Dr. Fauci who says that sports will be allowed to continue only if players stay isolated in hotels and no fans allowed to watch.

And then later I get a survey which asked me if I would be willing to buy season tickets to a sports team but only be able to watch it on television with my picture with the view from the season ticket I bought (i.e. box seat, grand seats, bleachers).

I think these people are nuts. At some point we must let the guard rails down and open the country letting people back to do as they chose. If I want to risk my neck and go to dinner, see a movie, go to a play, a concert, see a sports event, then that should be my risk and my choice.

A college president said yesterday he would never allow his university to play sports unless the students could attend, because that is what college sports is about.

Another gentleman said that if we are going to wait until there are no more people catching the virus to open the country back up there will be no more country to open.

People, we better get up and tell the governors who are playing politics with our lives how we feel (i.e. as they did in Michigan) or our freedoms will be gone and everything we have worked for all these years along with it.

Larry Eichman

Addison

Sustainable security

Rosemary Beutell falsely claims in her April 13 letter to the editor that Jeanne Ives wants to take Social Security benefits away from seniors. The fact is that Jeanne Ives wants to ensure that benefits will be sustainably available and also that people just coming into the system will have an option for a self-managed system in lieu of our conventional Social Security system.

It is well known that the current Social Security system is at risk. Why? The number of Social Security beneficiaries is increasing and the number of those paying Social Security taxes fails to keep up with the increase. In addition, on average, workers get a poor rate of return considering what they pay in to Social Security.

Jeanne Ives knows that to continue to provide benefits going forward, something needs to be fixed. We need someone with the guts, like Jeanne Ives, to confront this situation and get a workable solution in place. You can hear Jeanne Ive's position in her own words by going to her Facebook page.

Kristin Kocan

Warrenville

Save clean-energy jobs

The $2 trillion dollar CARES Act passed by Congress last month did not include any support for clean energy jobs, while airlines received $58 billion and big corporations received $500 billion.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics ranked solar and wind jobs as the two fastest growing last year, but over 3,000 Illinois clean energy workers were laid off in March. Job losses in April could be far worse.

While clean energy received $6.7 billion in federal subsidies in 2016, the IMF reports that the U.S. subsidized fossil fuels by $649 billion the previous year once you factor in the environmental and health impacts. These are real costs, borne by Americans in the form of asthma, cancer, rising seas and stronger storms. To be clear, funding to health care workers on the front lines, testing and medical equipment has to come first. But the CARES Act was also a corporate welfare bill.

Clean energy is our future (our only future) and now is exactly the time to invest in the jobs of the future.

Reid McCollum

Hinsdale