Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 39 Editor's Choice: 2
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Re: Re: Re: to all the Trolls
[Read the article: Al Gore in 2012?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Puhleese,
Gore enlisted and served in VietNam, Bush used his Daddy's influence to join the national guard and stay stateside and he even went AWOL from that. As for greed, Cheney's ties to Halliburton and Blackwater, and those companies' recent impact on the human race should send them all to the deepest circle of Hell. Where is Dante when you need him?
And Al Gore is making some money by spreading the word about global warming? So what? At least he is earning it honestly and through his own ablities, unlike Cheney and his puppet Bush.
Looks like a lot of former swift-boaters are doing anonymous posts these days.
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McCain's the Only Republican who Could Win
[Read the article: Dead party walking]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But I don't think the party will let him get the nomination. If he does get it, he probably still won't win, because the econmy will be in such a shambles by November, voters will not want to vote for the party that made the mess. Even if things get better in Iraq, people will be in no mood to continue paying for it, so they will want a candidate who will work on getting the troops out.
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This is News?
[Read the article: Number of the Day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It should have been reported when it was happening. Many of us knew they were lying about Iraq from the beginning, but did anyone listen? Not my senator, John Kerry or my Rep Stephen Lynch. Not my metro daily papers. Only a handful of politicians stood up to Bush (thank you Senator Kennedy). Only the alternative media and bloggers told the truth.
If the MSM were independent, the Iraq War would not have happened. As far as the government goes, I agree with John Dean that our democracy is broken. This could not have happened in a functioning democracy.
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Private School vouchers
[Read the article: What's Bush's Pell Grant proposal really about?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was alarmed when NPR noted this particluar nugget from Bush's sotu adrress. I live in a town where the public schools have been decimated because the town won't fund them through property tax increases. A recent state audit showed that the teachers were good, the students motivated, but that if the town does not support the schools financially they will probably be taken over by the state. Because we are a town with a lot of low-income, transient, and immigrant students, the obstacles in the way of achieving the standards mandated (without funds) by "No Child Left Behind" are enormous. And the schools are facing this challenge with staff abd programs cut to the bone. I have put my own child in private school. What is happening in the public schools is that the poor children are all being left behind in schools that are failing because no one is willing to fund them. And Bush has the gall to blame the schools.
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Responding
[Read the article: What's Bush's Pell Grant proposal really about?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I know that in general private school teachers make less than public school teachers. Many of them are retired public school teachers who jump at the chance to finally teach in schools with better than adequate resources where they are not hamstrung by constantly teaching the kids to take standarddized achievement tests. Some have spouses who make most of the household income, some are young, single and idealistic, some are monks and nuns. I doubt that very many of them have to support families by themselves on their salaries. Ann Coulter has also raised the point of of teacher pay, as if public school teachers were in it for the money. I have met public school teachers, have seen the work that they do, and you could not pay me enough to do what they do. They could make at least 50% more in the private sector than they are paid to teach in the public schools. It is not realistic to expect an army of people who are paid less than the poverty
level to start teaching in the public schools. It hasn't happened in my town
As for teaching morals, the public schools do a heroic, unrecognized job of this. What is immoral is the alleged adults who have never set foot inside a public school demeaning the work of both teachers and students. When I was growing up nearly everyone went to public schools and nearly all of their parents respected teachers.
There are also many people who have a problem with the morality taught in Catholic schools and they should have a secular alternative. There's also that mandate in the Constitution to separate church and state. The government should not be funding religious schools.
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Separation of Church and State
[Read the article: What's Bush's Pell Grant proposal really about?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Abandoning the public schools so that they fail in all but wealthy communities while providing vouchers for schools run by only one religious denomination is sponsoring a state religion.
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If This is Representative of Republican Thinking....
[Read the article: John McCain hates Mitt Romney]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Democrats win, whether it's Hillary or Obama. There is no way a majority of Americans will vote for Mitt the shape-shifter, who in his current incarnation, is offering a continuation of the divisive Republican politics of intolerance and greed, plus endless war. McCain appears less divisive to Democrats, even though he too, offers endless war, but he is dividing his own party.
Halle-freeaking-lujah!
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Romney's Rage
[Read the article: Mike Huckabee wins first Super Tuesday contest ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hey, Romney bought and paid for this victory fair and square. How dare the Republican delegates of West Virginia play politics and take it away from him! More power to them for refusing to be bought by a Republican establishemnt suit.
And I agree that the tone of some of these posts concerning people of WV are far from progressive. Get a grip people, and bring people into the Democratic tent. This is our moment. We haven't had an opprtunity like this in decades.
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I Can't Help Liking Mike
[Read the article: Huckabee disputing Washington results]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For this move anyway. I suppose it's out of his own self-interest, but it does benefit the principal of fair elections. Democrats have been disenfranchised in the last two presidential elections by just this kind of Republican corruption in vote counting. I hope Mike vigorously pursues his legal response to the vote count in the Washington State caucuses and continues to shine a light on the cynicsm and malfeasance of his own party.