A dip in the buff

Recently, some have called for U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder to resign for the heinous crime of skinny-dipping. I say bollocks to that.

Not only should he not resign, he should lead the charge for an annual congressional skinny-dip in the Potomac River. Can you imagine all the Congress critters in their birthday suits splashing around in the Potomac River once a year?

It could end gridlock, encourage compromise, improve civility and open lines of communication long thought closed.

Of course, for safety’s sake they would all have to pair off and have a swim buddy from another political party, and there should be no swimming until half an hour after lunch.

Yoder should neither resign nor apologize. He should be the first one in the Potomac River at next year’s congressional picnic and skinny-dip.

Brian K. Kegerreis

Overland Park

GOP convention, truth

The Republican National Convention last week in Tampa, Fla., may be sized up in three words: misinformation, lies and distortions. A Republican staff member actually stated that they would not be held back by truth assessment.

Louann Stahl

Kansas City

Schlafly true to Akin

I read where Phyllis Schlafly and many other Republicans are ticked off at all the out-of-state people who want to tell us who we can have as a candidate (8-28, A10, “Schlafly still supports Akin”).

I can’t help but wonder whether she and all the others are just as ticked off about all the money that comes to Missouri Republicans from out of state.

I bet not.

Bill Grimm

Blue Springs

Lapdog news media

I am a patriot and born American citizen who is greatly concerned about the lack of coverage by all forms of the news media concerning the Obama administration’s actions to bypass the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Congress, and American ideals and morals.

The news media covered the Vietnam War and President Richard Nixon’s resignation, and the truth was fed to millions of U.S. citizens.

The news media are not informing us about the acts committed by President Barack Obama and the czars and cronies of his against this nation.

We, the people, are upset and prepared to defend what are our rights.

Either the news media have become impotent, lost freedom of the press or are aligned with the liberals who are destroying our once-great country. As we speak, America is falling as surely as the twin towers.

Yet complacency rules. Please set a precedent and inform the people.

Mark E. Wheeler

Leavenworth

ID suppresses vote

Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai said, “Voter ID ... is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.”

The Republican Party should have raised as much of an uproar over Turzai’s statement, demanding his resignation, as was raised over Missouri Republican U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin.

Turzai’s statement is evidence that all the voting rights laws have been passed just to keep people from voting for President Barack Obama.

Mr. Akin is just ignorant and out of the mainstream in his thinking.

But Turzai and the Republican Party represent a clear and present danger to all Americans by deliberately disenfranchising us.

What does it say about the Republican Party?

It is not able to wage a campaign on principle. Instead it must try to win by nefarious means.

Americans, this is very, very serious. Many people have died so we can have the right to vote.

Think about it.

Carol Hooley

Raymore

Coronation for Romney

Of course Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is just one of the guys. Didn’t you see him wearing jeans and his sleeves rolled up during the primaries?

I wonder whether they were Levi’s? He also loves sports, which every red-blooded American guy does.

After all, he said he does know several NASCAR owners. Wow.

Look at a couple of his supporters, Tom Petty and Donald Trump. Now there are two everyday guys. Friends and supporters can often tell you a lot about the candidate.

Tom can be a calming influence on him so Mitt doesn’t go off on a tirade and make threats. Tom can also help him look at all sides of an issue, like gun control.

Don can help him in the areas of humility and diplomacy. He wouldn’t want Mitt to say stupid things and grate on people’s nerves.

In fact, Tom Petty would make a great secretary of defense and Donald Trump a great secretary of state.

One thing I’ll be looking forward to in January if Mitt Romney is elected, and that is his coronation.

Robert Duncan

Lee’s Summit

Obama takes liberties

So much for the hope and change people sought. This administration follows a long line of others that flout the law for their own benefit.

It doesn’t like federal immigration law, so it writes policies that counter enforcement. It knows that federal law requires a 60-day notification to workers of impending layoffs, but to Democrats that’s “inappropriate” in the context of the looming 20 percent defense-spending cutbacks.

The Obama administration knows of the work requirement in the federal welfare system but writes policies that gut enforcement of the law. It wants to usurp the role of the legislative branch and replace it with the administrative bureaucrats.

We should all follow the precedent being set by the administration and choose which laws we will follow. After all, if it’s good enough for the president, Health and Human Services and the Department of Labor, it should be good enough for us.

Ken Meyer

Lawrence

Taxes, wealth disparity

The income gap has been growing at a Third World rate for years. If lower tax rates motivated high-income earners to create jobs, where the heck are the jobs?

It seems to me that lower tax rates have only motivated wealthy income earners to want even lower tax rates. The middle class is being taken for a ride here.

Let’s quit being afraid to treat the bosses just like everyone else. They have been on the tax gravy train for years, and it hasn’t created a boom in the job market yet.

Linda Christian

Greenwood

Patriotic duty gets lost

If America’s richest 1 percent are the job creators and deserve a tax break, why have they not created any jobs?

Corporate America has been sitting on several trillion dollars in the bank for years now. Why have they not been hiring workers? Is Sen. Mitch McConnell blocking their every attempt to prime the jobs pump?

No, the real question is, Why should they spend their money hiring workers? They already have those trillions in the bank.

Hiring workers won’t help them get any richer. But what about doing their patriotic duty and helping our economy?

They don’t even think about it.

Bill Hankins

Platte City

What of the U.S. debt?

What about the $15 trillion debt? How can anyone call the upcoming election a presidential campaign?

Neither side is mentioning the $15 trillion national debt. Silence by both sides must end, and this issue must be addressed.

Alan A. Goldberg

Overland Park

Emulating Sarah Palin

What is scarier than facing down a mama grizzly and her cubs?

Try what Sarah Palin and the Republicans want to do to our public education system.

Anyone who witnessed Palin’s performance in the vice presidential debate and her interview by Katie Couric knows that critical thinking has become almost nonexistent among Republicans and might actually be a liability.

Now the GOP wants to abolish critical thinking entirely.

It has been widely reported that the Texas GOP platform opposes teaching “higher order thinking skills” and “critical thinking skills.”

It’s not surprising, because President George W. Bush set the gold standard for noncritical thinking from 2000 to 2008.

And because conservatives think science is an anti-God, liberal-elitist conspiracy, they are pushing hard to get creationism into our science classrooms.

Soon our kids will be learning how the biblical flood carved out the Grand Canyon and other such nonsense.

If we don’t want our kids debating how Noah arranged the dinosaurs on the ark, we must all push back and push back hard against the dumbification of our classrooms — unless of course, people want their children to grow up to be just like mama grizzly.

Jeffrey Bushman

Kansas City