Oh how happy you have made me!

Joan Rodgers | Via e-mail

I started reading your newspaper about two months ago. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You have restored my faith in the sanity of the human race. Truly I was beginning to think that our country was filled with nothing but left wing liberals who want to tell us all what is Politically Correct (according to them).

Going to the mailbox and finding your paper makes my day. I go home, stop what ever I was doing and read "My View" and then "Opinions."

The frustration that I have been feeling listening to CBS and NBC and the mainstream media in general has made me furious. I enjoy what you say and the way that you say it. It is called "telling it like it is," which people today seem to have a problem with UNLESS it is from the Democratic Liberal point of view, for then you can say ANYTHING you want. Seems to me, you lose that freedom if it’s a Conservative view point or, you are called a racist even if what you are saying is fact.

Your article on Obama’s questionable citizenship was just fabulous, please explain to me why nothing seems to be done about this grave and compelling situation. Where is the government and, where is McCain?

What is it going to take? In my lifetime I have seen people march on Washington DC for a lot less compelling cause.

Our freedom is ebbing away and, I speak with so many people who tell me that they are considering living out side of this Great Country! Is it not worth fighting for or should we all just pack and go. Leaving this nation to all the third world people who Ted Kennedy has worked so hard to bring in from 1964 to date, with his legislation. While this has gotten Ted many new voters it has broken the back of the middle classes who have been supporting the majority of them. We now have millions of people who have come across our borders illegally and no one does anything about it. Perhaps we should select a country that we would like to invade … oh well just a thought.

Thank you for your paper, thank you for "My View" and above all thank you for keeping my sanity. I am looking forward to your next publication.

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Notable quote

Howard Caplan | Scottsdale

I read your column in this week’s Sonoran News and noted your quote – “Except for talk radio and Sonoran News, there is no conservative media in the state.”

Do you suppose this is because the Republican majority in Arizona will not support newspapers, magazines or TV stations?

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EPA moves to regulate our entire way of life

Tom Jenney | Americans for Prosperity
www.americansforprosperity.org

The EPA is asking for public comments on its intention to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, something the Act was never designed to do. We need your voice to be heard.

Over the past year, AFP has been warning you about global warming alarmism and the environmental political correctness that it has spawned. One of the greatest dangers this alarmism presents is the continued rise of unelected bureaucrats and their attempts to grab power from the people. The proposed regulation by the EPA is a clear example of the regulations this panic will produce.

After the Senate rejected a plan to regulate greenhouse gases, the EPA decided to go ahead and do it anyway. The extent of their plan is truly terrifying. If this proposal becomes law, 33 programs within the EPA would be empowered to, among other things:

• Impose Grass Mileage Standards for Home Lawnmowers.
• Put Speed Limiters on the Commercial Trucking Fleet.
• List Large Single-Family Homes as Carbon-Polluters.
• Require Carbon Permits for Retail, Restaurant, Hotel and School Construction.

We need your help to tell the EPA this is unacceptable. Environmentalists will be stuffing the comment box with their opinion; we need you to make your voice heard.

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Gateway to a Ghost Town

Shari Davis | Carefree

Even before moving to Arizona, I had heard of a town called Cave Creek – where people had great pride in their western heritage and a greater pride in the preservation of the surrounding desert. They actually raised money and then voted to tax themselves to save Spur Cross from development.

It was a town where people would drive bumper to bumper down Cave Creek Road just to breathe the air, listen to the wind blow through a saguaro, or to observe the most spectacular sunsets in the world. They wanted their children to absorb the flavor of the old west: a frontier city, cowboys on horseback, rodeos and hometown parades and pageants. As they drove home, most likely, someone in the car would be wearing a purchase from one of the many unique shops, and the children would still be excited about the ducks and turtles swimming in a pond, believe it or not, right in the middle of a Mexican restaurant!

Do you think people will still come when the gateway to Cave Creek has been replaced with miles of strip malls, local shops have been closed by big commercial development, and the western spirit has evaporated into a ghost town?

Many residents spoke about similar things at the Cave Creek Planning Commission meeting on October 16th – but to no avail. Their emotional words fell on ten deaf ears.
These commissioners were given the opportunity to slow down the nightmare of traffic at the intersection of Cave Creek Road and Carefree Highway, and at the same time, resist the ugly, big box development which has already encroached on the tranquility of Cave Creek.

Instead of using their positions, effort, and energy to redirect and promote the local businesses in the town core, they recommended 5 to 2 that 24 acres along Carefree Highway be changed from desert rural to mixed use (which includes commercial.)

Why? …
1. Because Phoenix, Scottsdale and Carefree had already allowed commercial development in the area.
2. Because they too should be collecting the revenue even if the revenue might be ten years down the road.
3. Because everyone should be able to sell their land for what ever they wish. (Then why do we have zoning?)

Have these people even thought about the fact that by requesting a change to commercial, they are leaving their neighbors in an even worse residential situation?

Well, the five commissioners that have already recommended the rezoning will certainly be remembered for a long, long time. Bill Allen, Steven LaMar, Ted Bryda, Bob Williams and Dan Baxley are names that will be forever associated with the selling of the soul of Cave Creek.

This is only the beginning for the Cave Creek Town Council. There are other land exchanges for more intensive development presently being negotiated.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our elected officials made only public decisions and took actions that added enrichment and quality of life for the majority of the people they represent?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we, the people, could vote on all larger issues that so dramatically affect our lives?

Remember it is your vote that elects our leaders, from small communities to the president of the United States, and your vote that allows them to remain in office.

Let your voice be heard where ever you live, and let your vote be counted!

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The Bailout – Where are the champions of liberty?

Roy Miller | Phoenix

This past weekend, while I was waiting for Congress to “do something” about the ongoing financial crisis, I happened to rent and watch the old Clark Gable movie “Command Decision.” This movie tells the story of a WWII Air Corps Wing Commander, Clark Gable, who is faced with the dilemma of knowing that a decision to send his B-17s deep into German territory to bomb the production facilities of a new and very powerful fighter jet, is the right decision in the long run because it will shorten the war but it is a difficult decision in the short term because it will mean the death of many crew members and will incur the wrath of Congress. When he decides to make the right long term decision he is relieved of command and replaced by a general who is known to be more “compliant” and “politically astute.” The conclusion of the movie, happily, shows the newly assigned general accepting his grave responsibility and making the right “Command Decision.”

Unfortunately for the American taxpayers and their children and grandchildren, neither Clark Gable nor Barry Goldwater nor Ronald Reagan was in the negotiations last weekend.

The “politically sensitive” group that was there decided to do the expedient thing and go for the short term solution, that is, more government intervention in the financial markets, precisely the action that caused the problem in the first place. Unlike the result depicted in the movie, those entrusted to make the “Command Decision” for the country failed us and, if their recommendations are accepted, the loses down the road will be horrendous. Those losses, however, will occur long after the current group of “deciders” is gone. It is a sad day for the cause of liberty.

We will now have to be less critical of Hugo Chavez or Vladimir Putin when they nationalize another company in Venezuela or Russia.

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What a mess! Any ideas?

Scott Haberman | Cave Creek

For the first time in 58 years I am losing faith in this Country's ability to right itself in times of great peril.

I have witnessed first hand the turmoil and dissension caused by the Viet Nam war, the injustice of racism, the assassination of a President and a Presidential candidate, inflation, deflation, the AIDS epidemic. I have seen 18 percent mortgage rates and 4.5 percent mortgage rates, stock market crashes, Katrina and 9/11. Through all of these years and trials I still held the fundamental belief that this country was simply too great, too strong, and too well governed to fail and that we could overcome almost anything.

I have been a registered Republican since Jimmy Carter turned me into a Conservative, but I am so sick and tired of all the political rhetoric and BS that is coming from both sides of the aisle that I think they should all be voted out of office. We should start over.

Where is the leadership? Where are the committed men and women that will step forward and truely put this country first? Where is the common sense to do the right thing rather than the easiest thing.

The current financial crisis didn't happen over night. It was fueled by government "feel good" plans to make everyone a homeowner with a chicken in every pot. It was encouraged by greed and powerhouse banks like Chase, BofA, and Wells Fargo who were the cheerleaders on the sidelines as their smaller comrades played Russian roulette with the nations entire credit system. Who's laughing now? BofA just picked up Countrywide and Merrill Lynch for a fraction of their value of three years ago. Now those were some awfully quick decisions made by a financial institution in the midst of a potential financial collapse, weren’t they? And after these guys cherry pick companies and assets ... guess who gets left holding the big baggy? You got it, the American public.

As an American, I'm getting tired of being played the fool.

I'm tired of Americans losing jobs while 12 million plus illegal aliens stake claim to the United States and constantly remind us that they have a right to be here.

I'm sick of giving money to countless countries around the world that vote against us in the United Nations.

I'm tired of our troops not having benefit programs that are as good as they deserve.

I'm tired of hearing how inadequate our educational system is and how stupid our children are.

I'm sick of little crappy countries half way around the world dictating our gas prices.

I'm ashamed that my "Baby Boom" generation has so totally screwed up the "Greatest Generations" legacy.

I am sick of our government just printing more money to bail itself out of a jam and I'm tired of the example it is setting for our children and the rest of the world.

I'm tired of the vast majority of Americans walking through life as if they were in the cast of the "Body Snatchers."

And finally, I'm sick of our new role as "one of the guys" in the "New World Economy." What the hell is up with that?

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The United States of Mexico

Lyle Anderson | Apache Junction

The 14th Amendment to our Constitution states partially that, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” This gives the right to anyone here illegally to have American born tax payers flip the bill for them to have a child, and another, and another, and another and so on, as long as they’re on American soil. What? Get the point. If we don’t amend this Amendment no matter how long, tall or big a fence we build or how many guards we have at our borders or how treacherous of terrain or waters ahead of them they’ll find a way to get here. When you got a pot of gold waiting for you, you’ll do what ever it takes to get it. Especially when your homeland (Mexico, South America) won’t support you or provide work, you got to find one that does.

There are at all counts 10 to 20 million illegals here that have come for other reasons than to multiply, it’s called trabajo (work). It’s not their fault (the illegal alien). It’s our see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, high paying government (public servants) officials, uncaring, unalarmed and so called, “visionaries,” dilemma. But we American citizens pay the price ($$$$$).

The big time developers who pay low wages and long hours with no benefits loved the cheap labor, to build their housing developments with the American and Arizona flag flying out front (but no Mexican flag?). But ten years later, “Rip Van Winkle,” finally woke up (the feds and state officials). How many illegals here? Whoa! We got to do something here, “build a fence till we find a solution.” (Didn’t President Reagan say knock down the fence? Just a thought.)

If things don’t change America will be speaking Spanish within 20 to 25 years for their birth rate here in the U.S. by statistics is doubling to tripling English only speaking households.

When the U.S. born children reach 21 years old they can sponsor the illegal immigrant parent so they will too become an American citizen. This is their way (the 14th Amendment and illegal entry) of destroying the fabric of America and they want their land back, recordar el Alamo vecino.

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Thank you Don and Linda

Dennis G. Grenier | Cave Creek

I would like to thank you for endorsing my candidacy for State Senate District 7. As I mentioned in our meeting a few weeks ago, I am gradually winding down my business and putting my efforts into public service. As you can well appreciate, Libertarians have a long way to go in establishing credibility and improving public awareness, however it is something worth fighting for so win or lose I will continue to work towards that goal.

Don, I too fear for my country! I have two daughters and five grand children and wonder what it will be like for them in the ensuing years.

Keep up the good work and continue presenting your excellent editorials and viewpoints on the key issues that are important to us all!

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