Letters to the editor

Keep the change

The federal deficit has quadrupled and the unemployment rate has doubled. Yep, that's change you can believe in (and cry and scream over, too)!

CATHY STARNES

Plant City

An all-weather fan

It goes without saying how terrible a season the Bucs are having. Now, however, is the time for Tampa and all the fans throughout Florida to rally around the team. Loyalty in sports comes with a price. The Bucs were world champions once and one day will be champions again. Stay for the journey.

CHARLES TRUJILLO

Lake Placid

Stretching the truth

In response to "Voter Fraud" (Letters, Oc. 21): I cannot complain about the right to say anything in print because the First Amendment is why I can write and send this comment. Our nation is blessed with freedom of speech. It is still a shame that words that speak lies, or continue to spread biased rumors, get printed over and over.

The author of Voter Fraud states a truth about the Afghanistan elections, proving he does read or watch some factual news sources. But he then slides into fiction perpetuating a lie by stating that ACORN was President Obama's employer. Check your facts. He then slides into the ridiculous fabrication that ACORN had anything to do with the Afghanistan elections. Creating or spreading mistruths is not impressive.

ALICE OLDHAM

Sebring

Needs a hero

What has to happen for Americans to admit we made a huge mistake in electing Barack Obama? This man is not who we all believed he was, but if we say it out loud, we will be called racist.

He spends money with no concern at all for the mounting deficit. He surrounds himself with Marxists and other extremists, yet no one shows any concern. The ones who do voice opposition are considered enemies of the White House and deemed radical right-wingers.

Day by day we are watching our country and our Constitution being dismantled piece by piece, and no one is even paying attention. We need a hero to emerge from our midst just as Ronald Reagan did following the Jimmy Carter era.

JOHN MINTON

Odessa

Peace prize lesson

Several readers have criticized the Nobel Peace Prize committee for awarding the prize to President Obama. I would agree that the award was presented to the president much too early in his first term.

However, some people have also commented that the committee had given the same award to Yassir Arafat, which it did in 1994, suggesting that that makes the award illegitimate. Those people neglect to mention, however, that the committee also awarded the prize to Menachem Begin in 1978.

Begin, as the leader of the terrorist organization, Irgun, in the formative years of the Jewish state, was as much a terrorist as Arafat. Irgun, in taking over land inhabited by Palestinians, was responsible for killing innocent people, including women and children.

Yet, Begin was accorded the full respect due to a head of state when he visited the United States. This is certainly not to say that the state of Israel is not legitimate. But when Americans embrace organizations like the U.N. and the Nobel committees when they agree with them, and denounce them when they do not, it does make us look narrow-minded and partisan in the eyes of the rest of the world.

ROBERT MONROE

Tampa

Outrageous claims

Gov. Charlie Crist is running radio spots for his U.S. Senate Republican primary campaign in 2010. "Conservative" Charlie says while the president is spending more money in the face of the bleak economic conditions facing the nation, Crist cut spending in Florida.

There is no mention in the ad that the state is required by the constitution to have a balanced budget. No mention that actually the Republican House and Senate in Tallahassee did the heavy lifting on the budget cuts.

As for the president increasing spending, I recall Crist arm in arm with Barack Obama when the president was stumping for the stimulus bill in Florida. Now Crist has changed his tune regarding the president's programs.

Radio spots like the one Charlie Crist is currently running should have Republican voters outraged.

LEE GETTER

New Port Richey