Democratic hypocrisy

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and the Democrats are after Dave Spence, Nixon’s Republican challenger, for receiving TARP money for his bank and are demanding that he pay it back before running for public office.

What about Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s loan for a carwash. According to The Star, Cleaver has accrued more than $1.5 million in debt for a loan to purchase a carwash and is set to default on the loan.

Because 75 percent of the loan is guaranteed by the Small Business Administration, we the taxpayers are on the hook for more than $1 million. Why aren’t the governor and Democratic Party asking for Cleaver to step aside until his debt is paid?

Is there a little hypocrisy being shown here? Mr. Cleaver is not my representative, but he used my money to finance a very shady business deal.

Lowell Sims

Garden City, Mo.

Missouri can do better

It was a relief to move across State Line Road to Missouri (after 20 years in Kansas) when Kansans elected Phill Kline and Sam Brownback. I still had hopes that the state of Sens. Nancy Kassebaum and Bob Dole might come to its senses or vote once again with a little more common sense.

But that shade of optimism turned gray when “moderate” Johnson County wiped out capable, common-sense candidates in the recent Republican primary and chose ultra-partisan reactionaries.

But if Missouri voters choose Republican Todd Akin to represent us in the U.S. Senate, it would be Kansas that would have the next laugh.

Surely Missouri voters would be too embarrassed to have such an outlandish and anti-female senator represent them in Washington, D.C. That is not the image of this state that we would want the nation to see.

I am still hopeful that there are enough Missourians with good sense not to let that happen. We deserve better, much better.

Hal Schultz

Kansas City

Media’s Obama bias

I see President Barack Obama is at it again, unable to defend his record, unwilling to run on his record, ducking any questions of any substance when it comes to his record and all the while getting a free pass from the press, including most of the opinion writers at The Star.

Why don’t you just say that you want Obama re-elected and stop wasting space bashing Republican challenger Mitt Romney?

Just put a full-page picture of Obama on the opinion page until the election is over. That at least would be more credible. But instead you all talk about how bad it would be under Romney, all the while ignoring how bad it has been under Obama.

Obama slams Romney’s economic plan at a whistle-stop in Ohio but makes no mention of his plan or the one that didn’t work these last four years.

You bash Romney for his wealth yet make no mention of the millionaires that Obama rubs shoulders with.

At the bottom of the opinion page is a quote from The Star’s founder, saying, “A paper for the people.” It should now read, “Lackeys for the left; a mouthpiece for Obama.”

Mark Haskell

Olathe

I am very disappointed with the bias being displayed by media during the current presidential election. The media have dropped any pretense of being independent and are openly pro-President Barack Obama and pro-Democrat.

The survey that they quote is totally biased for Obama. I suspect that some of the media (ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC) just make up their numbers or use a very skewed sampling to buttress their claims.

No wonder so many people have lost all respect for so-called journalists. I, for one, don’t believe what is printed or shown on TV.

I think the journalists should take a hard look at themselves and report and not opine their biases, otherwise they will go the ways of the dodo bird.

Rob Keshav

Overland Park

Romney’s tax returns

What was my reaction when I saw Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s 2011 tax return? What did I think when I saw Romney had 2011 income of $13.7 million?

What did I think when I saw that he had paid a 14.1 percent tax rate on his 2011 income?

Immediately, I thought, “Oh, my gosh, that poor man needs a tax cut.”

Steve Grant

Kansas City

Obama offers no help

President Barack Obama is voicing support for returning to the tax rates of President Bill Clinton as the recipe for economic prosperity for the middle class. Obama’s position conveniently ignores two important facts.

First, the 1990s balanced budgets were largely because of the then much-discussed “peace dividend.” A major reduction in defense spending followed the end of the Cold War, which resulted from the actions of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush as well as Lech Walesa and Pope John Paul II.

Second, the Clinton tax rates did not and will not do what Obama claims for them.

He says the middle class would be aided by a return to the Clinton tax rates. But the facts are that President George W. Bush reduced the rate for the lowest bracket by one-third, from 15 percent to 10 percent.

Especially pertinent to Obama’s untrue claim that the middle class would be helped is the fact that the marginal rate for a married couple with taxable income of $65,000 was 28 percent under the Clinton rates and is now 15 percent.

The middle class today is hardly in a position to withstand Obama’s kind of help.

Jim O’Connell

Shawnee

Women against Akin

Women, there never has been a better time to stand together and vote in November to show GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin what you really think about “legitimate” rape.

It’s not about being a Republican or a Democrat. It’s not about the words that he used.

It’s about what he believes.

Paula Labart

Weatherby Lake

Philanthropic support

We were gratified by the positive coverage in The Star on the University of Kansas Hospital becoming the first institution in the country to implement Mediguide technology to reduce radiation exposure during complex heart rhythm procedures (10-9, A1, “Navigating the heart”). This is an important advance in the hospital’s ability to enhance the care of our patients and will support our increasing national reputation.

There is one point I’d like to clarify. This technology wouldn’t have been possible without strong philanthropic support.

Amit and Amanda Raizada led the effort. The Mediguide equipment is in the Raizada Family Electrophysiology Laboratory in the Bloch Heart Rhythm Center.

The KU Hospital Authority receives no tax support to provide care to patients. The remarkable growth of our cardiac program, the NCI designated cancer program and many others wouldn’t be possible without the support of generous philanthropists like the Raizadas.

The hospital’s ability to offer innovative solutions, attract and retain talented physicians, and enhance our national reputation is in large part because of partnerships we forge with the Raizada family and other generous philanthropists.

Loren D. Berenbom, M.D.

Professor

Medicine/Cardiology

Director

Richard and Annette

Bloch Heart Rhythm Center

Prairie Village

Need for brotherhood

From Bobby Kennedy’s extemporaneous announcement of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. before an unknowing audience in Indiana in 1968: “Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it’s perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. ...

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.”

I miss them.

Patrick Puntenney

Overland Park

KC Chiefs no bargain

As a fan, I would expect our tickets to be the cheapest in the National Football League.

Come on. This is the second year in a row the Kansas City Chiefs organization has been significantly under the NFL salary cap.

If we’re getting a discount team, shouldn’t we expect discounted tickets?

Randy Rose

Warrensburg, Mo.

Help feed children

Thousands of children will go to sleep tonight without eating dinner. This is happening here in the heartland of America.

Help out with whatever you can.

For all of the blessings of successful businessmen or women, please help out our hungry children in Kansas City.

Thank you in advance to all of you.

Florentino Camacho Jr.

Kansas City