Most of Andy Anderson’s letter to the editor of Feb. 2 it’s not factual. As far as the Keystone Pipeline goes, that wasn’t U.S. oil, that’s Canadian oil. But it is an oil that can be particularly hard on the environment should it leak.

Plus, it is going through lands it really should not be disturbed.

The pipeline in no way really affects United States. Canada just needed permission to run it through American territory. Those of us that are really passionately interested in reducing the harm done to our environment are passionately against the pipeline and still are.

The wall across our border with Mexico is again being worked on. And it will probably be completed although as we’ve seen it is easy to be breached.

We have never really had energy independence other than for a short period in 2019. I don’t know how Mr. Anderson figures energy independence, but the experts define it as the period in which U.S. oil exports outnumber in dollar amount the cost of U.S. oil imports. And yes the United States continues to import oil from other countries.

Factories lost that Mr. Anderson seems to refer to we’re actually the result of China joining the WTO. And that goes back to 2001 ... It has nothing to do with Obama. In fact, this leakage happened during both of the Bush presidencies. Republicans.

The tax reform cut taxes to businesses, which actually should have been raised. But after the first year the tax reform wound up for a lot of us in increased taxes not decreased taxes.

As far as the economy goes and unemployment: When Obama left office, unemployment was at 4.7%. And gas was $2.35 a gallon. When Trump left office, unemployment was at 7.2% and gasoline was it $3.19 a gallon. As of Dec. 31, under Biden, unemployment was down to 3.9% and gasoline was $3.34.

As far as the vaccine goes, this vaccine is something that dates back to H1N1. And Ebola. H1N1 hit in 2009. Ebola hit in 2014. Ebola was contained by a pandemic response put together by the Obama administration. That prevented a worldwide outbreak. Science has been working on a vaccine for the coronavirus since 2009. This was not something that Trump put together in a year, this was something that had already been developed.

Mr. Anderson‘s allegations about socialism and socialists would be funny if one didn’t think he actually believed them. What he described as the wants of liberal socialist is totally false and off-the-wall. It’s too bad that we have had a party in a prior administration that sought to divide us so that we can no longer work together for the benefit of the people of the United States.

However when you read allegations in a newspaper that are not true, you need to push back.

Trump didn’t say anything about a cesspool, he talked about a swamp. He was going to drain swamp. Maybe he did, but he also turned it into a cesspool.

It’s too bad such a man who will likely wind up being in jail for tax evasion and or treason is the one some conservatives hangs their hat on.