Letters to the Editor for Oct. 17, 2018

Vote for Heller

Jacky Rosen has done nothing – nothing – in Congress but she wants us to award her with a bigger job and more responsibilities? If she had actually run a business, she would see that this is not how the real world works. We don’t promote bad employees who aren’t getting the job done. We fire them. Dean Heller has stood up and delivered results for Nevada’s veterans, for families, for victims of violence and heinous crimes, for women, for children, and the list goes on and on. He has proven he will always put Nevadans first, even if it means fighting the priorities of his own party such as making our state the nation’s nuclear waste dump. This election is about our future. Yeah yeah, we hear that every year, but with such a difference between our candidates, it’s obvious just how true it is in this moment. We have one candidate who serves Nevada and puts our state first, and one who serves herself and her party above all else.

Vote Dean Heller.

Carrol Larsen

Carson City

America needs Marty McFly more than ever

A couple of phrases come to mind: “Now I’ve seen/heard everything.” “I think we’ve hit rock bottom.” After watching and hearing the base of the Trump mob, mostly educationally and economically challenged, no doubt mostly Christians with only love in their hearts scream their go-to slogan “lock her up, lock her up,” with malicious intent toward a victim of sexual assault, I believe those two phrases are definitely in play. It wasn’t the traditional 30-year generational (in their DNA?) hatred of Hillary chant, this was aimed at a new target. A woman, assaulted in her teens by a white, privileged, self-confessed over-the-top beer drinking puking person. She went on to earn a Ph.D, and become a professor at a university in California associated with Stanford. And our clueless President leads his followers in victimizing the victim.

With the 60 percent still out there who have maintained their conscience during this nightmare, we have only one recourse. Our founding fathers got a lot wrong, but the ballot box may be all that we have left. Providing Putin, and the Republicans who control so many state elections (voter suppression anyone?) don’t completely nullify the process, we just might be able to save this ship. The ship called America, that unique experiment in democracy, that is floating without a rudder toward the biggest Titanic iceberg ever seen. And that will be rock bottom time.

Sometimes I believe we’ve been stuck in a Rocky Horror Time Warp, a Doc Brown Space Time Continuum, the Delorean and the Flux Capacitor on the fritz, and no one is able to come up with a device that can generate 1.21 gigawatts to bring us back to normal. Marty McFly, we need you!

Rick Van Alfen

Carson City

Put the ‘x’ in the right box

If you are complacent or apprehensive and do not vote, you will get the government you do not want. Because by not voting, you voted in absentia.

Nevada is only one of a few states which are “right to work” states. It means that union and non-union workers can work side by side on the same job.

An “x” in the wrong box could change that.

We currently have a seated senator with seniority, a valuable asset for Nevada. Each time a senior senator is reelected, he or she gains more seniority. Harry Reid was an example, which benefitted Nevada immensely.

An “x” in the wrong box could ruin this seniority.

Nevada has low taxes, no tax on food and few regulations, a simpler lifestyle and less stress on the body and mind. Nevada has an abundance of unencumbered open space to be explored.

An “x” in the wrong box could change that.

Welcome to you new Nevadans, you will love it here. Most of you are leaving states with high taxes, restrictive regulation, high crime and dangerous living conditions.

An “x” in the wrong box could create the same living conditions you are attempting to escape.

Vote wisely.

Fred Brown

Carson City

Supes roundabout way wrong way

It was recently reported that a majority of supervisors approved approximately $114,000 for an outside firm to design a roundabout to be installed at the intersection of Carson and Stewart streets. The city engineer made a statement that a roundabout could act as a gateway to downtown. He obviously sees this as a positive.

In my opinion, there is nothing positive about traversing a roundabout as one travels along Carson Street. I question the rationale, the necessity, or the benefit. With the planned narrowing from 5th to Fairview, a roundabout would only serve to further inconvenience residents and visitors. I fail to see the logic in creating a problem where absolutely none exists.

Andrea Fischer

Carson City

Byrne is right for controller

At the recent Carson City forum, controller candidates Catherine Byrne and Ron Knecht were a study in contrasts. For Byrne, a CPA with three decades of accounting experience, the controller is the state’s chief accounting officer, a technical role outside the realm of politics. For incumbent Ron Knecht, the office serves as a platform for second guessing the legislature and governor on policy matters.

Knecht’s main target has been the Commerce Tax, earmarked to boost K-12 education funding. He sponsored a repeal petition, and even released his own state budget, claiming it would preclude the need for the Commerce Tax by making “judicious cuts” to spending.

Such theatrics have gone over about as well as the bill draft Knecht requested before the 2003 session, which called for changing the state’s name to “East California,” making “The Tax Man” the state song, and adopting “the RINO” as the state animal.

Knecht made other news during that session. He joined with Sharron Angle and 13 other anti-tax radicals to keep Gov. Guinn’s education budget from achieving an Assembly supermajority. AG Brian Sandoval sought relief from the Nevada Supreme Court, but in the end John Marvel of Battle Mountain broke with Knecht, averting a constitutional crisis.

We don’t need any more of this tomfoolery. I’ll be voting for CPA Catherine Byrne for state controller — she can be counted on to take the chief accounting officer’s job seriously, not use the controller’s office to play sidewalk superintendent on behalf of any pet political causes.

Rich Dunn

Carson City

Rosen wrong on healthcare

This concerns the aggravating commercials from Jackie Rosen. She is all upset that Dean Heller did a 180 and tried to get rid of Obamacare. She whines about seniors having to pay more for healthcare than people under 50.

In case you haven’t noticed Ms. Rosen, old people get sick more often and for longer periods of time.

And then there is her moaning about those with “pre-existing conditions.” I’ll resort to the automobile analogy. You buy a car. You don’t insure that car. You have an accident. THEN, you buy automobile insurance and expect the insurer to pay for your accident.

I’m a dinosaur, I’ve always believed that medical insurance should be for catastrophic life-endangering conditions ONLY.

The actual purpose of Obamacare, of course, was to drive the insurance companies out of business, thus insuring the road to socialized medicine. That has been tried in the United Kingdom since the end of World War II with dire consequences. I won’t elaborate on that.

Life isn’t fair. It never was. It never will be. Get over it.

There are also a lot of idiotic Nevada Republicans who will not vote for Heller — I guess they want to send two Democrat senators to Washington to help all the other goons there who want to destroy our way of life.

Incidentally, I am 79 years old.

John Frink

Carson City

ObGyns support Sisolak

People in Nevada are getting much better care due to the Affordable Care Act and the expansion of Medicaid by Gov. Brian Sandoval. As a result of these decisions 300,000 more Nevadans now have insurance. These policies also brought big changes for women. Access, to preventable healthcare services and long acting reversible contraception, has greatly improved the health of Nevada’s women. They have better preventative health care and fewer teen pregnancies, fewer unplanned pregnancies and a decrease in unwanted pregnancies.

Steve Sisolak supported the Medicaid expansion and supports the standard that women should have access to and knowledge of all legal methods of birth control. He believes that women should have the right to control their own bodies and is committed to addressing sexual harassment in the work place.

Adam Laxalt was against the Affordable Care Act and is against the expansion. If he has his way 300,000 Nevadans may find themselves uninsured again. He supports institutions that withhold both access and knowledge of all legal methods of birth control and believes that the government has the right to control how women’s bodies are treated.

As ObGyns we care for the women of Nevada and we feel that Steve Sisolak will best serve the interests of our patients.

Sandra Koch, MD, Tim McFarren, MD, James Breeden, MD

Carson City

Let’s limit politicians’ involvement

Perhaps it’s time for us to help all our over-burdened politicians.

They seem so frustrated trying to determine which one of them is the worst they don’t have time to think about statesmanship.

We need to stop demanding so much of them and limit their involvement in so many things, including our entire lives.

We could start with the three main things we do need: a police force, a military force and a decent, realistic, court system.

If we let our free enterprise system handle medical care and lifestyles etc; our charities could handle morality, welfare and food stamps; states could handle the schools with the help of parents.

Unelected, unaccountable administrators wouldn’t have to worry about who enforces their edicts after they’re gone.

Tax collectors could take a break by not having to dream up new things to tax and the ACLU won’t have to bother eliminating constitutions.

Lawyers won’t have to worry about designing the law to benefit their craft alone. Environmentalists could take care of open space and outdoor recreation and politicians could just sit back and enjoy their perks, re-elections, legacies and take credit for it all.

Mother Nature could manage global warming as it has been doing for who knows, how many years.

Granted, all this will need some fine tuning by those who really care, but they have been there and done that before.

I’m not trying to be funny here. I’m trying very hard, to be very serious.

Pete Bachstadt

Carson City