A filter needed for liberal garbage

I was astonished at the absurd bias of a recent guest columnist. He claims that using sarcastic terms describing President Obama as "messiah" and "the anointed one" are hate mongering. Where was his outrage when people from his side of the aisle hoped for George Bush's death, or that Dick Chaney would die of a heart attack? Where was his editorial condemning David Letterman for calling Governor Palin a "slutty flight attendant" or for Letterman's obscene and base attempt at humor referring to Palin's daughter in a gross sexual act? No conservative ever used such hateful language in describing the Clinton children or the Obama children.

I have noticed extremely few cartoons of Obama in any newspapers in which he is depicted with huge ears or other insulting caricatures. But I remember tons of gross lampoons of George Bush with giant ears and even horns in the papers right after he took office. Now tell me which political people are hateful and "mean spirited"?

The writer is right about needing a "truth filter.” A filter is needed to sift the garbage put out by the "liberals" of this country.



Peter L. Supp

Valdosta



Lack of health care affects everyone

After 40 years working in the health care field, I’ve concluded that a major cause of societal erosion is the lack of health care access for the 47 million uninsured residents in our country. The clearest solution is for single-payer health care.

I had an opportunity to do a two-month practicum study in Germany working side-by-side with German nurses, doctors and health administrators in a Berlin hospital in 1990. Germany’s demographic structure is similar to ours, including an equivalent proportion of immigrants. Single-payer systems work well in other countries and would affect all aspects of society — better education if children are healthier, less crime due to less desperation, and less abominable health care rankings (the U.S. is 37th in the world according to the World Health Organization). I hope House and Senate representatives can find the courage to stand up to the strong lobbies of insurance carriers, hospital corporations and medical provider pressures.

Nurse-practitioners have 6 to 7 years of stringent, targeted education and are well situated to extend cost-effective services to rural as well as urban areas. It will be important to include their services in the expansion of health care. Personally, I would be more than willing to pay increased taxes if necessary to assure that everyone gets health care which will ultimately result in a stronger, safer society.



Nancy Redfern-Vance, Ph.D.

Lake Park



Support health care reform

To All Georgians:

I am writing to ask you to support health care reform today. Our system leaves millions of Americans vulnerable to illness and suffering because they cannot get health coverage, either due to "pre-existing conditions" (a disgraceful tactic used by unscrupulous insurance companies), or because they cannot afford the escalating premiums demanded by insurers. All together, 46 million Americans lack health insurance. As a result, 60 Americans die every day.

I have two sisters who are being ill-served under this health care system that many of our Republican legislators call "the best in the world." One of them cannot get insurance for her rheumatoid arthritis because, in changing jobs, her condition was labeled a preexisting condition. The other, who suffered depression during a pregnancy and sought treatment, later saw her premiums go through the roof because the insurance companies subsequently considered her a risk. Predicaments like theirs are the reason that 60 percent of all bankruptcies in the United States are medical bankruptcies. America’s insurance companies are typical of the kinds of corporations that the Republican Party likes to laud. To me, they are unethical and un-American. Just look at how they treated hurricane victims in Florida: They took many homeowners’’ premiums for years, but refused to pay out when some of these hurricane victims needed them most. These “insurers” are greedy, callous, and altogether deserving of the pariah status with which more and more Americans regard them.

By the way, our medical system wastes $460 billion per year in administrative costs. That could fund half of the public option that is being discussed currently. Please rethink this issue. Think of how you would feel if some of your relatives were as vulnerable as many of mine are. And then stand with the millions of Americans who desire reform.



Matthew Richard

Naylor



It’s time to become involved

Bailouts; fast-tracking costly legislation through Congress; legislation which would infringe on our guaranteed rights and paint a bleak picture for our children and grandchildren; the federal government existing on borrowed money as of the end of April.

When will we have enough and become intimately involved? Washington, D.C., is practicing “fractional banking,” where our bank (Federal Reserve) has only a fraction of the assets to back up the credit (bailouts) and paper money which it has issued. Paraphrasing a statement by Thomas Jefferson, ‘if we allow our national bank to control the issuance of currency by inducing inflation followed by deflation, then the banks and corporations will deprive the people of all property until their children will be homeless in the same country that their fathers occupied. The issuing power of money should be returned to Congress and the people.’

We, the people, will only see governments returned to constitutional principles, if we become involved from the municipalities to the federal level.

TN912P is a non-profit, non-partisan grassroots movement whose principles are to educate leaders and members on how the influences on the Framers and their thought processes led them to developing the U.S. Constitution.

Through education, we can unify the ranks, starting at the local levels, to build membership so that we can intelligently select and support individuals running for any office who will work within the Constitution, something that has been lacking for a long time.

Through elections, we can make a difference within our state and within our nation. If we don’t become more involved, then we will have to live with a bleak future ahead.



William Conant, Valdosta

Georgia State Leader

www.thenational912project.org



Yours is some kind of town

From Iraq, I can sit and read where the banks and the well to do in this city, have more concern for a dog, than for the poor and hungry or a homeless vet.

When was the last time a poor homeless family was picked up, given a bath, a free medical exam, or for that matter, a peanut butter sandwich and a place to stay while you searched for permanent shelter for them? (Humane Society)?

Where is the compassion and humanity for the people in this city? Oh yeah, in the check-out line behind me to see what I pay for with food stamps.

Valdosta Times, I double dare you to print this. Think you can do it Humanely?



Ric Walton

stationed in Iraq