Focus on issues, not election

At the present moment the USA is faced with three serious situations.

* We have two forms of a pandemic called COVID-19 which is killing 1,000 to 2,000 people daily.

* There is a vaccine for this illness. To date only a little over a third of the distributed doses have been used.

* Russia hacked about 250 U.S. government agencies and private businesses. The full extent and damage caused by this intrusion has yet to be determined.

Instead of giving attention to these problems, President Trump is chasing the fantasy that voter fraud prevented his reelection. He is doing this in spite of the fact that in over 50 cases his lawyers have not appeared in court with any supporting evidence which is admissible in either state or federal courts.

Despite this lack of proof, Sen. Josh Hawley and U.S. Rep. Jason Smith asked that slates of electors committed to President-Elect Joe Biden not be certified. They did so without providing any documentation worthy of being called evidence.

Instead of supporting an orderly transfer of power, Smith and Hawley by their words and deeds encouraged the false narrative of the presidential election. This led to a violent storming of our nation's Capitol by people believing this false narrative.

Because they indirectly encouraged this event, Smith and Hawley have an obligation to every law abiding citizen of this country to make a maximum effort to make certain their followers do not start this country's second civil war.

JOHN PIEPHO, Cape Girardeau