Letter to the Editor: More profiles in courage and cowardice

Published 1:00 pm Tuesday, August 4, 2026

Elfers’ recent piece about cowardice and courage (“The difference between cowardice and courage,” published July 22) overlooked some examples of political courage, probably due to insufficient space in the paper. His citations were not exactly “Profiles in Courage” stuff. I’ll fill in some of his gaps.

Courage is Pennsylvania Democrat Senator John Fetterman fighting with his own party, which has repeatedly shut down the Federal government for weeks, leading to impoverished federal worker families, poor government services and concerns over national security and disaster relief. Fetterman has also bravely rebuked his own party, calling them “morons” and saying the party is turning into an “orgy of socialism.”

Courage is President Joe Biden sitting on the Epstein files for years, so that they could be released under the Trump administration. Perhaps he was too preoccupied with admitting millions of illegal aliens to worry about the little things.

Courage is shown by the Washington small businesses who have not yet closed shop or moved out of state. They continue to serve customers and pay employees, despite being over-taxed, over-regulated, and under-served by state, county and city governments.

The Elfers piece credits Texas Senate candidate James Talarico for his courageous statements but omits some of his most courageous ones, such as: “God is non-binary,” “Our trans community needs abortion care too,” and claiming that God is pro-abortion. He has stood up for his flexible convictions by being either “non-meat” or a carnivore, depending on his audience.

Courage was Representative Thomas Massie, trying to be the Republican 2026 candidate for his current House seat, despite having a former Navy SEAL as his opponent and over 54% of the Republican voters against him.

Courage is seen in the Minnesota whistle-blowers who reported billion-dollar frauds in their state welfare programs, even though the top echelons of their Democrat-run government wanted this kept under the carpet. A different flavor of “courage” is the California legislators who are promoting a law to make it illegal for journalists to expose such fraud in their state.

I second Elfers’ encouragement for people to vote and to inform themselves, but caution readers that Elfers’ column isn’t a place to find information, it’s just one man’s opinion. Remember his statement in that same July 22nd piece, “All media have the right to… provide any view, whether true or false, under the First Amendment.”

Kristopher Galvin

Black Diamond