Where’s the column about GOP lobbyists? Re: “Obama’s sleight of hand on lobbyist contributions,” July 21
I know that it is not legal for either the Obama campaign or the GOP to raise campaign funds from unregistered lobbyists. In addition, I appreciated the detailed information senior political columnist Timothy Carney provided the public.
However, in the name of fairness and balanced journalism, I am requesting that Carney also publish an article about the GOP regarding whom their unregistered lobbyists are funding and the amount of money they are donating to Republican candidates.
Cargill Kelly
Manassas
Getting smart means legalizing drugs
Re: “Getting smart, not giving up, is how to deal with illicit drugs,” July 19
In attempting to argue against legalizing drugs, Peter Bensinger and Linden Blue fail to grasp the real harms of our current prohibition policy and the benefits that moving in a new direction could foster.
Contrary to Messrs. Bensinger and Blue, as a former Maryland State Police narcotics cop, I have seen the unacceptable harms of the “war on drugs” up close. I can attest to the fact that continuing the same failed policy only benefits the cartels and gangs that find great financial incentives in the underground world of drugs.
As the title of their article states, getting smart and not giving up is exactly what we need to do. But legalization is not “giving up.” It will allow the government to regulate drugs, fix our overburdened jails, and protect our law enforcement officers from being harmed in senseless violence related to the current illegal drug trade, as too many of my own colleagues have been.
In other words, legalization is the best way to “get smart.”
Neill Franklin
Executive director,
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
White Hall, Md.
Immigration enables discrimination against disabled
As long as there are employers who think people with certain limitations and disabilities do not belong in the work force, immigration will be an unfortunate fact of life for them — and for our unemployment rate.
Employers can always find someone else without those limitations, and there is an endless supply: India alone has 1.5 billion people. Perhaps if immigration was at current levels in Rosie the Riveter’s time, she could have remained in the kitchen while any man did her job. Of course, she worked in the factory because there was nobody else during a national emergency.
Restricting immigration could force us to deal with forgotten sectors of the labor force, chiefly people with disabilities. It would also reduce our unemployment rate and welfare and disability outlays rather than allowing us the liberty to maintain the costly status quo.
Someone has got to start thinking in terms of what all these talented people, plus the not-so-talented, are going to do for a living.
Christopher Marsh
Alexandria
