Republicans leaving this great country in ruins
To the editor:
In response to the Friday story, "Republicans kill jobless aid bill," I have a couple of questions for Nevada Sen. John Ensign and the other Republican senators:
Where am I supposed to live now that I can't pay my rent? What am I supposed to eat?
With their petty need to be anti-Obama and defeat the jobless aid bill, Republicans have made sure that thousands of Nevadans, including me, have lost their only source of income.
This isn't about welfare. Most of us have worked all our lives, paying into unemployment every week, and now our backs are against the wall with this "Great Recession." Yet we get yet another slap in the face. Look down from your ivory tower, Republican minority, and gaze upon the ruin you have made of this country.
It's time the voters of this country send a message and fire these politicians who have absolutely no clue as to the problems that they have caused. I suppose it's partially our fault -- they've taken advantage of our laziness and apathy -- but we, the average citizens of this state and country, need to start taking a more active role in the running of our government. Let's get everyone we know to register and vote against the ones who took away our only means of support.
This immature bickering between the Democrats and Republicans needs to stop, and it seems the only way to do this is to take away their power. Let's use the power given us by the Founding Fathers and elect people we know have the best interests at heart of those they have been chosen to represent.
BRIAN HUGHES
LAS VEGAS
Getting jobbed
To the editor:
Friday's headline, "Republicans kill jobless aid bill" couldn't be more misleading. When one Republican sides with a Democrat on a bill, the Democrats call this "bipartisan." But when one Democrat (Sen. Ben Nelson) sides with the Republicans to kill a bill, the Democrats (and the mainstream media) put the whole responsibility of stopping the bill on the Republicans.
Why isn't this considered "bipartisan?" Because it is election-year politics, that's why.
The Democrats could have used unspent money from the stimulus bill, but instead they decided to play partisan politics.
The Democrats have no desire to curb spending. That would be against their religion. Ending their gluttonous appetite for spending money they don't have would prevent them from parading the endless stream of victims in front of the media that we will be inundated with between now and November.
Warren Willis Sr.
Las Vegas
Too much
To the editor:
Twenty thousand dollars for a portrait of the governor ("Board OKs $20,000 for portrait of governor," Thursday Review-Journal)?
Are they serious?
Yes, it is a tradition that every Nevada governor have his portrait painted and then hung in the state Capitol. But in this time of economic crisis is the cost justified? Nevada's budget is more than $900 million in the red, unemployment rates are over 14 percent and the foreclosure rates are the highest in the nation. The governor called for budget cuts, with the majority coming from teachers and schools. Shouldn't the cost of his portrait be cut also?
Gov. Jim Gibbons should have his portrait hanging in the state Capitol. However, $20,000 is too much to ask from the taxpayers at this time.
Tabitha Rae
Las Vegas
Gun laws
To the editor:
Using the century-and-a-half-old assassination of Abraham Lincoln to imply that the right of law-abiding citizens to bear arms was the enabling factor in his murder sure put to bed any argument that Review-Journal cartoonist Jim Day is not against the Second Amendment.
His Friday cartoon was outrageous and so disingenuous. Why couldn't he have drawn a scene of an elderly couple cowering in their back bedroom, confronted by the pain of being robbed and beaten by an intruder? Or how about a young woman trapped in a darkened parking garage, faced with the pain of rape, or worse, at the hands of a determined assailant?
That was my immediate reaction to the visualization. I hope the rest of your readers felt the same.
Mr. Day makes his living under the protection of the First Amendment, defended by the Second, and I hope that he -- or those he cares about -- never has to regret not having an "equalizer" close at hand. Or, does Mr. Day just trash our rights to make a living, while keeping a .38 under his pillow?
Guido Deiro
Las Vegas
