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Fireworks ban should be enforced

I am writing to express my opinion about the illegal use of fireworks. No one seems to care that the use and sale has spread to New Year's. I have fireworks from approximately June 25 to July 10, and Dec. 20 to Jan. 5, late into the evening.

We cannot get to sleep. My dog hides under the bed and I have to clean up the debris from my yard and from my roof.

Hernando County law enforcement officials can be concerned about harmless game rooms, but they are not concerned about dangerous and hazardous fireworks.

County deserves to know here Brown-Waite stands

Re: Protesting the war and supporting the troops, Jan. 9 Jeff Webb column.

Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite has decided that a debate about her rationale for the Iraq war is really a denigration of the troops. Her excuse left me coughing due to the smoke behind her screen.

Rep. Brown-Waite's excuse-making is not surprising, considering her fervor to get our troops into combat in Iraq, but our country now faces congressional scandal, an incompetently run war without a finite end and an end to the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. With these issues firmly on deck as cultural flashpoints that can divide or unite people, I would ask Rep. Brown-Waite the following:

Does she favor Sen. Hillary Clinton's proposal to conduct an investigation into a top-secret Pentagon report as to why body armor that was available (and according to the report could have prevented 80 percent of U.S. Marine fatalities) was not delivered to our soldiers? Or is this question "denigrating" our troops?

--Does Rep. Brown-Waite favor the federal government's warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, which the president says he has the legal authority to conduct?

--How did Rep. Brown-Waite vote in a November 2004 Republican caucus that approved the measure to compromise Republican Party ethics rules by allowing the former House leader, Tom Delay, to stay on as leader even if he was (and has been) indicted for money laundering? Rep. Brown-Waite's vote has been mysteriously missing, yet she has taken some $20,000 from Delay's political action committee. Clarity on this point is important as Delay is neck-deep in the Abramoff scandal. The people of Hernando County deserve to know that their elected representatives can operate independently of the leadership of corrupt politicians and their cronies.

While it may inconvenience Rep. Brown-Waite to answer her constituents on these questions, it might help to galvanize, or to divide, our county if we knew her mind on these telling issues. Using our troops to deflect political criticism is one thing; piously citing integrity, morals and ethics, while condoning the opposite through an approving silence, is quite another.

Has anyone prospered under George Bush's leadership?

Re : Criticism of Brown-Waite's record misguided , Jan. 4 letter to the editor.

I'm sure Billy the Kid did at least one good deed during his illustrious career. Let's face it. Ms. Brown-Waite is a 100-percent supporter of George W. Bush and the Republican Party. Who does the Republican Party represent? If you do not know by now, let me clue you in.

It's not the men and women who climb out of bed every morning before dawn to punch in at what, for many, is the first of the two jobs they need to put food on the table and a roof over their families' heads.

In the years George Bush has been in office, what has he done for the working people who elected him? Do we have the largest federal treasury in the history of our country? Do American workers have more and higher-paying jobs? Are we at peace with the rest of the world? How about a good prescription drug plan? Has the federal government stopped borrowing? How about not repaying Social Security and blaming the system's shortfall on the American people? Who has prospered during his time in office?

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. A person long ago said that people get the kind of government they deserve. In America, that statement rings so very true.

[Last modified January 16, 2006, 12:21:14]