Supreme Court decision should be reversed
The Supreme Court recently issued a decision allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence election outcomes. The energy industry, for example, spent $150 million on lobbyists in 1998 and $400 million in 2008 with a total of $2.9 billion since the year 2000. That's just one industry!
It's obvious that there is no way an individual voter can compete with a corporation monetarily, so guess to whom our representative and senators in Washington pay attention.
It's time for we, the people, to begin standing up for ourselves by contacting those in Washington, demanding they reverse that Supreme Court decision.
Ray Raino
Carlsbad
Meaning of the Second Amendment
The First Amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, allows citizens to use speech as a means of effecting political change. No fines and no imprisonment may be levied for talk. Nevada Republican candidate for Senate Sharron Angle (and I assume she speaks for other tea party folks) interprets the Second Amendment similarly, saying it allows citizens to use guns to effect political change. Could this be what the Founders intended? Clearly not.
In 1794, George Washington's administration moved to put down an armed rebellion of people who did not wish to pay taxes on whiskey. None of the rebels were ultimately punished, but the incident made clear that the federal government does have the authority to impose taxes. Citizens who resist (with guns) may be arrested and punished. As voters, we may decide when a government has become so tyrannical that it must be replaced, but no individual or group is entitled to use guns for this purpose in lieu of voting.
The Second Amendment grants a right to bear arms in the service of a well-regulated militia. It does not grant citizens the right to use guns to effect political change.
Bruce Thompson
Vista
We need complex leaders for complex problems
Letter writer Gary Myers (Letters, July 15) decries "16 years of corruption of Supervisor Bill Horn," and extols the virtues of Vista City Councilman Steve Gronke. He wants Gronke to replace Horn in the November election. Myers adds that Gronke cares about "us lowly citizens of North County."
I beg to differ. In an interview with KPBS radio just before the primary, Gronke trotted out all the shopworn cliches about our schools being overcrowded with immigrant children and pregnant women sitting on the curb outside the hospital, waiting to deliver their babies in the U.S. ("Horn and challengers spar over 5th District," May 6, www.kpbs.org).
We need complex thinkers for complex problems. And we need better candidates than those who seek to get elected on the backs of poor people, be they Latino or of any other race. Better to leave the ballot blank for supervisor or write in another candidate. Forget about Gronke.
Mark Day
Vista
Beck's popularity proof of our willful ignorance
Regarding Murel Fisk's rather incoherent response (July 22) to my submission "Just a few of Glenn Beck's whoppers," June 30: Beck is "No. 1 on the liberal hate list" not because of his ludicrous political positions. Thinking people hate him because of the hateful and incendiary nature of his program and his perversions of truth.
What ever happened to thoughtful and reasoned political discourse from the conservative right wing, a la William Buckley Jr.? It's not "we think taxes should be lower" or "we think Obama should be more hawkish overseas"; it's "there's an insidious and deadly plot afoot by Democrats and progressives to strip Americans of their freedom and this country of its greatness" and "our country is being overthrown from within."
Worse yet are his recent egomaniacal rants that God is revealing these great truths only to Glenn and that he is a mouthpiece of God. His paranoid chalk-boarded delusions and Vicks Vaporub crocodile tears are entertainment for idiots that is very counter-productive to intelligent discourse on the pressing issues we face today.
The fact that Beck's hateful, bigoted, racist, militarist, hyper-religious and self-serving lunacy appeals to so many Americans is sad commentary on the prevalence of willful ignorance in America today.
Steve Farrar
Vista
Issa eager to start subpoenaing
Darrell Issa is eager to become Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in the sad event of the Republicans taking over the House. He's eager to start subpoenaing, stating (in a recent speech to Pennsylvania Republicans), "I won't use it to have corporate America live in fear that we're going to subpoena everything. I will use it to get the very information that today the White House is either shredding or not producing." (Issa produced no evidence to back up this remark.)
Issa seems to miss the $73 million Starr/Whitewater witch hunt. Obviously, Issa has the welfare of corporate America at heart. Issa, who has been arrested twice for car theft, suspected of arson and characterized by a previous business partner, Bob Rains, as someone he "wouldn't have any personal dealing with ... " (http://politicalcorrection.org/print/factcheck/201006010005) seems highly under-qualified to conduct any sort of character investigation.
The editors of the North County Times said residents of the 49th Congressional District "can take pride in knowing their representative is proving that being a squeaky wheel can pay off ... " ("Issa right: Sestak issue merits review," May 30). Well, this resident of the 49th District finds Issa to be an extreme embarrassment. He's a pompous, self-aggrandizing hypocrite who has used his money to buy a safe political office.
Margaret McCown Liles
Escondido
November is one chance to make changes
The July 28 North County Times announced that the Calloway Golf Company in Carlsbad has had enough of California and was moving most of its operations to Mexico with attendant loss of many jobs ("Callaway to reduce manufacturing in Carlsbad, cut work force"). No surprise here. Calloway joins lots of companies that have left the Golden State for greener pastures.
And I don't blame them. Why stick around in a place where the cost of living and taxes are among the highest in the country? Where state bonds are rated about the same as those of a "banana republic" and the State Comptroller has stated that the state will run out of money in October if the buffoons in Sacramento don't pass a budget?
There's only one chance to change all this, and it's the November elections. We voters have to keep Jerry Brown out of the governor's chair and take control of the legislature away from the Democrats. If we don't, the state will continue to go downhill. The funeral dirge will continue.
Birch DeWitt
Oceanside
Why are we giving away the conference center?
My husband and I have been enthusiastic supporters of the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, since its inception. Terrible name, but that's a different story.
I am really concerned with the city's blase attitude toward giving the conference center to the ill-conceived Marriott hotel. City officials have known from the outset that the conference center complex was a key money-making component of the arts center's budget. So far there has been no mention of any quid pro quo with the hotel –– such as serious sponsorship or patronage by the Marriott Corporation to offset that income.
If they have a plan, they should provide it forthwith to both the center's management staff and board of trustees.Last year, we lowered our donor level because it really seemed as if the city was going to shut the place down. I'm sure such irresponsible talk seriously hurt the center, both in donations and ticket sales.
Now, just as tickets for the next season (10/11) are on sale, it looks like the city has shoved aside the arts center and given its donors and subscribers fear that it is being set up by the city for failure. Again! Does the city of Escondido really want a great big empty white elephant next to its heavily subsidized hotel?
Gail Stienon
San Marcos
The back of the line
Everyone talks about the immigration problem, and the answer for so many of our leaders is to send the illegal ones to the back of the line, whatever they mean by that. So far, we haven't heard how the logistics of this endeavor will take place.
It is laughable to think that this could be carried out in an orderly fashion. Besides, the ones already waiting legally and patiently at the back of the line have years of waiting ahead of them before they are sworn in. Our exalted minds in Washington need to delve into sensible solutions, if there really are any, such as where the 20-plus millions wait before getting to the back of the line.
Oh, that's right, they stay where they are, living off our taxes, which are so freely doled out to them. Probably even Albert Einstein couldn't figure this one out.
By the way, he became a legal American citizen in 1940.
Anna Tewes
San Marcos
Please help reduce stigma, not ignite fear
My letter is two-fold. I would first like to address the North County Times regarding the section B1 article about an Escondido neighborhood protesting Interfaith Community Services Fairweather Lodge plan for a group home ("Neighbors pan plan for disabled veterans group home").
Rather than presenting the positive concept of Fairweather Lodge and its success in its program and service, they focused on the negative reaction of the proposed home's neighbors. I found this quite incendiary and misleading. Their approach feeds into the bias, misconceptions and myths regarding mental illness.
To the neighbors, I would say, please get educated about Interfaith Community and their Fairweather Lodge program. I know their concerns are based on fear and the unfortunate societal stigma that has been created regarding mental illness. Living next door to someone with a mental illness is no different from living beside a diabetic, or someone with lupus, cancer, etc.
The folks who qualify for this particular residence program are gifted in ways you may never know if you shun them and their program. I would strongly encourage the neighbors to learn more, be open-minded and be forever grateful for their own personal good health. Not everyone around them has been as fortunate.
Isabelle Carey
Del Mar
Childish, stupid act
The petty, vicious right wing in this part of the world never ceases to amuse.
My husband walks occasionally, mid-morning at Kit Carson Park. Twice, our Obama bumper sticker was affixed with an "I am an Idiot" sticker.
First, although petty, this is still a crime — interfering with or defacing someone else's property. Second, it is likely that some fool considers it his function to embarrass Democrats. This was a childish and stupid act, not designed to win friends and influence people.
With all the problems besetting this society, of which this valley has a good share, can time be better spent tutoring children, helping the poor, etc.? No, that is left for liberals and those of good will.
Al Gore won the 2000 election, but Bush was selected by a partisan Supreme Court. Shouldn't liberals have attached the sticker, "A village in Texas is missing its idiot" to all "W" cars? Did liberals and Democrats engage in such behavior? I don't think so.
Katherine Fromm
Escondido
Protecting the public from information
We have a federal agency showing disdain for the Freedom of Information Act. Dr. Patrick Gallagher, Director of National Institute for Standards and Technology, denied a request from structural engineer Ronald Brookman, who sought detailed structural analysis information gathered by NIST when they determined the cause of the World Trade Center Building 7 collapse. Gallagher's stated reason for denial was that releasing it "might jeopardize public safety."
What might jeopardize public safety is "not" allowing professionals in the building industry such as Mr. Brookman to independently study the NIST analysis of the highly anomalous building failure. A 47-story high-rise suddenly collapses straight down into its own footprint — highly anomalous.
President Obama embraced transparency and openness in government on day one of his new administration. Gallagher issued this determination on July 9, 2009, more than five months later — the exact opposite of openness in government. What is the public to make of this?
And where is our Congress? Not one member of Congress has raised a single word of concern. Does Congress no longer have oversight responsibility? Are you OK with the authorities thumbing their noses at you?
Dwain Deets
Encinitas
