THE WASHINGTON TIMES

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Don’t forget redistricting

While I am never surprised at how the mainstream media misrepresents and often blatantly lies to make the president and the GOP look bad, I am indeed surprised that The Washington Times appeared to follow that script when reporting on Republican Dan Bishop's big win in the North Carolina 9th District special election this week ("Republican Dan Bishop wins North Carolina special election," Web, Sept. 10).

September 11, 2019

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Student loans are a choice

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said that she has outstanding student-loan debt of some $20,000, which she recently reduced to about $19,000 with a payment made (so she says) during a House Finance Oversight Committee hearing. "AOC" seems to believe that she, as well as her fellow college debtors, are entitled to relief or outright cancellation of such debts. Nothing could be further from the truth.

September 11, 2019

EDITORIAL: The Taliban deserves no trust

"Trust, but verify." President Reagan appropriated and popularized this traditional Russian proverb, then used it to great effect in his nuclear negotiations with the Soviets. As Americans face another sorrowful anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, President Trump must remain mindful of the need for caution in his dealings with Afghanistan's Taliban: Verify, then trust. There is no other way to handle so treacherous an adversary.

September 10, 2019

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Democrats’ absurd imagination

Hard-left Democrats have lost all sense of reality while trying to instill fear in our citizens. The mind of Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has come up with 12 years as the length of time humanity has before the world ends — unless we remove numerous things supposedly harming the environment. Ocasio-Cortez cohorts in stupidity who are running for office support this notion, which takes God out of the equation (as if they know God's plan for the human race). This must keep Democrats up at night, so instead of counting sheep they dream up Russian collusion and other acts by "deplorables." I'm sure their tiny brains are taxed after three years of prosperity under President Trump.

September 10, 2019

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Safeguard America’s sovereignty

Most Democrats today favor open borders. And open borders, by definition, would result in the United States ceasing to exist as a sovereign nation.

September 10, 2019

EDITORIAL: Joe Biden losing mainstream media support

Prognostication is a tough business, as anyone from Oracle of Delphi to Nostradamus to Nate Silver of the number crunching website "538" can tell you. We're as hard pressed to predict the winner of next weekend's NFL games as we are presidential elections that won't occur until months from now. But as the Democratic presidential primaries begin in earnest following the Labor Day holiday, it seems that putative front-runner Joe Biden is something of a paper tiger.

September 9, 2019

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Left’s 2020 message: Gimme

I characterize the 2020 Democratic message as the "utmost campaign" — utmost control of the federal government and our lives by utilizing utmost control of taxation, climate, health care, immigration, economics and anything else 'blue wave' fabulists think the unwashed must have. They intend to substitute the heavy, dull, gray blanket of top-down control and government-mandated equal outcomes for the wisdom and success of individualism and ingenuity, which has achieved record low unemployment and rising wages in our rollicking free enterprise system. And who are these controllers? Why, the very same who hungered for autocratic governance when George Washington wisely eschewed the mantle and title of royalty and chose instead a democratic republic with the Electoral College. The progressive peloton intends to protect the yellow jersey of intersectionality, the tangled web that binds together social-justice warriors and identity and grievance politics. The Democrats of 2020 are the antithesis of the America we love.

September 9, 2019

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Share tariff windfall

Many are concerned that a significant tariff on all Chinese goods, 30%, for instance, would negatively affect U.S. consumption. Here is a solution, which could be called the "Chinese Tariff Dividend": A 30 percent tariff would annually collect $150 billion on $500 billion of Chinese imports, generating $600 per U.S. adult ($1,200 per married couple) annually. Congress should legalize the distribution of the "Chinese Tariff Dividend" to all adult U.S. residents. This payment would be very simple to administer as a credit on tax returns.

September 9, 2019

EDITORIAL: Raytheon-United Technologies merger essential to U.S. effort to retain military edge

The rules of modern warfare are changing. The folks who still believe victory goes to the side that "gets there the firstest with the mostest" need to step aside in favor of the strategists who realize it's new technologies, applied appropriately, that will provide the margin of victory. This isn't a radical idea. History is replete with examples of new technologies producing lasting strategic changes. That's happening now as cyberspace becomes not just a potential future battlefield but the place where global weapons systems live.

September 8, 2019

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Trump, not left, Earth’s champion

The Democrats' climate-related proposals are serious — they just do not relate to anything remotely affecting the climate in a positive way ("Republicans seek 'serious' climate solutions" Page I, Sept. 6). Low-impact power sources, such as nuclear, and carbon capture, which is really just regenerative agriculture, are not on the Democratic radar screen. What's more, complaining about withdrawing from the Paris accord is rich considering that France gets more than 80 percent of its power from nuclear.

September 8, 2019

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Trump making good on wall pledge

I'm thrilled that President Trump has found a creative solution in diverting $3.6 billion in military contracts to pay for 175 miles of his proposed wall ("Trump says border wall being built 'very rapidly,'" Web, Sept. 4). The wall will defend America from an unrelenting illegal immigration invasion, as well as human and drug trafficking, and the threat of terrorism.

September 8, 2019

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: AOC spews hurricane balderdash

Am I to assume the stock photograph of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez putting on glasses, which accompanied "AOC says Hurricane Dorian 'is what climate change looks like': 'This is about science & leadership'" (Web, Sept. 3), is there to imply that the congresswoman is overdue for an eye exam? If you're going to give the devil his due, then the preposterous are to be given the benefit of the doubt, too -- and I doubt Ocasio-Cortez assimilated this nonsense alone.

September 5, 2019

EDITORIAL: How political donations can open up donors to retaliation

The secret ballot dates back literally thousands of years; even the ancient Greeks voted anonymously on matters such as ostracism. (Today, of course, most ostracism takes place in full view in the sewer that is social media.)

September 5, 2019

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Bike laws, licensing save lives

I hope New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will be bold enough to rebuke the disproportionately influential bike lobby and move forward with his plans to rein in bicyclists ("Bill de Blasio eyes license requirement for bike riders," Web, Sept. 4).

September 5, 2019

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Wage reflects work, not worth

The summer before my senior year in high school, I was hired as a handyman at a marina in Long Beach, California. I was 17. The work was hard and took place six days a week, outside in the hot sun. I was cleaning the bathrooms, cleaning the pool, repairing wood docks, painting boats in the yard and more. My salary was $1.10 an hour. The year was 1957.

September 4, 2019

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Senate obliged to legislate

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made clear once again that he will not allow bills — in this case, those involving gun reform — to be brought to the floor, debated and voted on without a signal of support from President Trump ("Mitch McConnell looks to Trump before making any move on gun legislation," Web, Sept. 3). If this unprecedented position of not allowing bills to be debated without a guarantee that they will become laws were the stated policy of former Senate majority leaders, imagine all the important legislation that never would have been enacted: Social Security, Medicare, civil rights, etc.

September 4, 2019

EDITORIAL: It’s been 1 year since the ‘I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration’

September 5 marks the first anniversary of an unprecedented opinion column in The New York Times, "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration," written anonymously, that left Washington tongues wagging for weeks after its publication.

September 4, 2019

EDITORIAL: Going ‘green’ won’t stop hurricanes

For coastal Floridians and some of their neighbors to the north, it's a September to remember. Hurricane Dorian's roaring winds have sent millions to scour store shelves in search of generators, flashlights, bottled water and dry foodstuffs. Millions more have lined up to fill up their SUVs before fleeing up the interstates for shelter from the storm's fury.

September 3, 2019

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: The sharply rising cost of living

I'm old enough to remember when professional baseball ballplayers spent their entire careers with the same team. These days, only money buys loyalty. I don't know what the average salary was for MLB players during the '30s and '40s, but I do recall that Babe Ruth earned the astronomical salary of $80,000 per season.

September 3, 2019

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Koch a generous philanthropist

I first met David Koch 40 years ago when he ran for vice president on the Libertarian Party ticket ("Remembering David Koch," Web, Aug. 29). Although I am a life-long registered Republican, my philosophical leanings are libertarian and I usually follow libertarian candidates. In this race, Koch had little chance of winning, but he was always willing to invest his personal resources to promote his views. He did this throughout his life and I admired him for doing so because he always did it in a very calm and thoughtful manner. Consequently, I believe he was extremely effective in advancing his limited-government views.

September 3, 2019