LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — Tactics all about votes

Barack Obama did an end run around Congress and basically gave a two-year amnesty to illegal aliens. From 2008-2010, the Democrats controlled Congress and had 60 votes in the Senate. They could have given all 12 million illegal aliens amnesty and American citizenship immediately and the Republicans could have done nothing to stop it.

Why do the end run now? It’s an election year and this is standard procedure for Democrats, in my opinion. Democrats need this issue to get votes. Where were Democrats and the Hispanic Caucus during this two year period? I believe the Democrats are pulling the same scam with black people by keeping them dependent on government handouts for control. If their lives improve, Democrats lose this control and the black vote along with the race card. This dependency by Democrats on the government is a form of slavery in itself.

Every election cycle you can pretty much count on Democrats using the race card against Republicans. “If not for us (Democrats) the Republicans would be starving the poor and sending all illegal Hispanics back to Mexico.” Even though in 2008-2010 the Democrats did not do much for Hispanics.

Without these two subjects, the Democrats have nothing to run on. I believe this is about votes. Hopefully in the future these groups will realize that they are being played for fools and make Democrats work for their vote.

KEN SPARROW

Conway

Decision was moronic

Re the Supreme Court upholding the health-care law: The combined IQ of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and the Supreme Court is very close to two digits, in my opinion. I don’t believe those idiots care about the American people. Their health care should be repealed and they should have to have the same Obamacare coverage everyone else will have to have. I’m sure they would definitely think a lot differently.

I don’t have a problem with the folks who are truly in need of welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and such. It’s all the freeloaders-the able-bodied, too lazy to work,second-, third-, fourth-generation welfare folks.

I have a problem with dead folks likely voting in Florida and elsewhere because the Obama administration says it’s against a person’s civil rights to have to show a photo ID to vote.

With these multimillionaires and billionaires renouncing their American citizenship, if this keeps up, who is going to give these folks a free ride? It’s not the 50 percent-plus folks who pay little or no federal income taxes.

JAMES MOONEY

Bryant

Use the power of ‘no’

I recently read an article with very good advice for if you wait to connect with your child when a teenager. I taught parenting classes for many years before I retired in 1990. Power Parenting (do that because I say so) works until your child is big enough to say “Up yours.” Then you have a problem.

Your child needs to understand why “no” is important. It takes time and patience to help a child accept the limitations of childhood, but the dividends pay off when your child grows to be a teenager. I don’t have time and space to explain, but Stephen Glenn had an excellent book on raising responsible children. It is important to start when they are small. I see parents every day who could use parenting classes.

It really is not that hard.

FRANK M. YOUNG

Bella Vista

Mind-boggling views

After reading a recent Voices page, I had to respond.

First, on Rose Mimms’ piece about the Equal Rights Amendment-the proposed amendment reads: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.”

It boggles my mind how anyone could object to that being the law of the land, especially any woman. Oh, yeah, that’s right, Mimms is against it because it might somehow lead indirectly to more abortions. She is so focused on a single issue that apparently she would deny women, including herself, protection from discrimination.

Then Bill Wavering unloads on us poor, addle-pated females who want equal pay for equal work. I don’t believe that all men “work longer hours, with less time off, at more difficult jobs to earn those bigger paychecks.” I know women who are trial lawyers, nurses, doctors and engineers. I don’t think he’ll find many men who work longer hours at more difficult jobs.

Then Don Hamilton goes off on the Arkansas Arts Center for hosting an exhibition about tattoos. I hate tattoos as much as the next senior citizen, but I can see that they are art in the eyes of some beholders. Besides, that exhibit may bring an entirely different demographic to the Arts Center, helping increase its income and support. Fortunately, no one allows Hamilton or me to decide what is “art” or to exclude pieces that are not to our taste.

Whooo, I feel better now.

VICKI FEWELL

Sherwood

Overstepping bounds

The U.S. Senate recently passed a farm bill to spend $100 billion a year. But 80 percent of this money will not go to support farmers, but rather to support food stamps. Shouldn’t this bill be called the food stamp bill? If the House passes the bill, the enactment could be called the “Food Stamp Act,” or simply, the “Stamp Act.”

Wasn’t there another Stamp Act?

And President Barack Obama announced DREAM Act-like waivers to “qualified” illegal immigrants, young people brought here as children by their parents, who must have been illegal immigrants. So it seems to me that all the kids have to do to get the president’s aid is rat out their parents as illegals. Sounds like a “Bad Dream Act” to me.

Finally, Obama has a new campaign slogan for 2012: “Forward.” Obama voters from 2008 should notice that “Forward” has been the slogan for many leftist totalitarian dictators in the modern era. Lenin leaps to mind. Surely Obama and David Axelrod know this. Do you?

Let’s hope for change in 2012.

JAMES McCAFFERTY

Hot Springs