To the Editor:

In a move of shocking hypocrisy, the President who started his political career as a “community organizer” criticizes communities who organize against his radical spending. The mainstream media who said during the Bush presidency that “dissent was the highest form of flattery” now lampoon critics of a bloviated healthcare plan as right-wing extremists.
Nancy Pelosi calls dissenters “un-American” and even likened them to Nazi’s. Obama tells his critics to shut up and get out of the way. The leaders of the free world mock and menace concerned citizens, and folks wearing union T-shirts beat up an African-American man who dared to offer “Don’t Tread on Me” flags at a political rally. The President calls police “stupid” without knowing the facts, escalating tension with his inflammatory rhetoric.
During the Republican Revolution of 1994, democratic president Bill Clinton signed most of the “Contract with America” into law. Of course, those were the heady days when Democrats and Republicans at least pretended bipartisanship.
Where are we now? Approaching 200 days of a Democratic controlled House, Senate and White House, the "Cap and Tax" energy policy lies dormant, the healthcare bill is in disarray and we've lost 1.5 million jobs since they passed the “stimulus” bill. Unemployment is at a 27 year high at 9.5 percent and there are tax hike proposals everywhere.
Oh, yeah – and they quadrupled the federal deficit, placing a crushing IOU for our children and grandchildren to pay. Believe it or not, the Feds will borrow 50 cents for every dollar it spends this year!
Time for the President to remember his campaign promises. Instead of bashing Republicans and concerned citizens, he might try working with them instead. That would be “change I can believe in.”
 

To the Editor:

I was very saddened to see the cartoon in the Morgan County Citizen regarding transparency at the Morgan County Board of Commissioners.

As far as I am aware the B.O.C. meet on the first Tuesdays of each month at 10 a.m. in the morning, with work sessions taking place on the third Tuesdays of each month at 6 p.m. Both meetings are open to the public and you can raise any question there. I myself on various occasions have attended the Tuesday meeting and at no time did I see anything but transparency.

I have also noted that Ellen Warren runs regular public meetings for her own District 4, where members of the public can come along, receive information and ask questions. I also note that you can contact your county commissioner and ask them for a private meeting if you have an issue you wish to discuss. On their Web site, found at http://www.morganga.org/CommissionersOffice/tabid/54/Default.aspx, as well as a list of the current county commissioners, they have a calendar showing meeting dates and the opportunity to download minutes and agendas.

So, I do not see where this lack of transparency comes from, unless the cartoonist is referring to executive meetings that are closed to the public.

Dear Residents of Morgan County and Oconee
    On Friday, July 17 my family lost our home to fire. I cannot even begin to explain the outpouring of love and support that we have received from the people of this wonderful community.
    We want to express our deepest gratitude to the men and women who put their lives on the line trying to save our home.
    Our thanks and love also go out to all the people in this community that we feel blessed to call our home.
Sincerely
Larry, Deanna and
Laree Vanorden
Madison

To the Editor:

Thank you Madison Artists Guild for all your hard work in exhibiting the work of Eric Baurose, Casey Jones, Phil Neugebauer and Vic Steele.

It was a wonderful way to open your new Cottage to the public and so nice for these artists to be remembered. The video presentation prepared by Pete Muzyka was excellent and I know it took many hours of work. Thank you, Pete. Also thank you Karen Strelecki and Martha Lower for your role in making this memorial show truly memorable and to all the others behind the scenes.

Amelia Steele
Madison
Via e-mail

To the Editor:

When scientists engage each other in the arena of ideas, we follow certain ground rules. We attack experimental set-ups, statistical analyses of the data, and the like. We try to do so in a manner that is logical. This means that we do not fall into the logical fallacies, such as attacking the character of a man instead of his work, or attacking a man because of his associations, or confusing cause with effect, or appealing to authority, or any of the other logical fallacies we first learned about in elementary or middle school.

Another one of our ground rules is that when something has been proven as fact, we accept it and thereafter treat it as fact. The people on both sides of the man-made global warming debate, for example, long ago accepted as a fact that the largest volume or largest mass of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapor. We do not argue that point. We argue whether it is more or less significant than carbon dioxide, the oxides of nitrogen, and other trace gases, in its ability to trigger global warming. This quickly becomes a debate over thermodynamics.

Clearly Bill Scholly is not a scientist, because he does neither. And since I have been trained to debate only with those who follow logic and accept facts that have been proven, I have no idea how to engage him on this issue. How does one argue with a man who proclaims that 2+2 = 5?

Thus I give him the last say on this business of climate change. He can respond to this letter until he is completely satisfied that every reader of this newspaper has made a fair evaluation of his intellectual abilities. I will not respond again on this topic.

But, given that this is my last word on the subject, I take my parting shots.

To the Editor:
    I’ve been watching in frustration as our politicians debate the issue of healthcare in this country.  What I hear is the usual 30 second soundbites of “Socialism”, “Rationing”, “Taxes” that passes for debate but instead is meant to scare the listener and shut down the real debate.  When I see the statistics that show our country falling so far behind other industrialized countries when it comes to providing healthcare for our citizens, I am reminded of the time many years ago when Blue Cross/Blue Shield was a non-profit company.  What happened?  How did they and all the other big insurance firms get to be major profit centers more concerned with limiting who gets care and how much they get?
    Then, I happened to watch on television last week the playing of some of the Nixon Tapes just now becoming available.  This was a real eye-opener.
    On February 17, 1971 John Erlichman was in the Oval Office discussing healthcare with President Nixon.  What follows is the actual transcript of that conversation.
    Erlichman:  “...one issue and that is whether we should include these health maintenance organizations like Edgar Kaiser’s Permanente thing.”