End of moratorium designed to help endangered incumbents
Re: “Salazar’s sleight of hand on Gulf drilling,” Editorial, Oct. 14
The Washington Examiner is correct to be skeptical over the measured lifting of the Gulf drilling ban shortly before the November elections. The political caveats against actual drilling and production are overwhelming.
This is simply a deceitful campaign gesture by the Obama administration to help fellow Democrats, primarily threatened incumbents. New regulations will be so onerous that they will inhibit most, if not all, offshore oil drilling, even in shallow waters.
The marching orders for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar are painfully clear: Halt and/or endlessly delay permits for exploration, drilling and production of oil, natural gas, and coal while you march ahead with any and all green energy projects no matter what they cost.
Daniel B. Jeffs
Apple Valley, Calif.
When they’re insulted, Palestinians riot
Re: “Not so fast on ground zero mosque,” Oct. 13
Supporters of the ground zero mosque profess scorn for those who are offended by this symbolic insult to the memory of the victims of the murderous 9/11 attacks.
Let us remember that Palestinians rioted when Ariel Sharon merely paid a visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in 2000, even though then-President Clinton and then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had just offered them their own state. The Palestinians showed their revulsion to Mr. Sharon’s visit by launching the Second Intifada, which killed 4,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis.
So in order to prove that we are not Islamophobes, we must celebrate the ground zero mosque and applaud the violent reaction to Sharon’s visit.
Nathan Dodell
Rockville
School closure was based on secret deal
As a huge portion of Fairfax County will be subjected to school boundary changes in the next nine months, parents should know how one School Board member manipulated her constituents to target one of the county’s top-performing schools.
Clifton Elementary’s closure wasn’t about water, topography, declining population, educational specifications or geothermal roofs. It was about Liz Bradsher promising to advance West Springfield High School on the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) queue over many other schools, including Langley, Thomas Jefferson and Falls Church.
Since the School Board controls billions of tax dollars, Clifton residents submitted Freedom of Information requests for data regarding its July 8 vote in an attempt to understand the inexplicable.
Fairfax County Public Schools has engaged in an extraordinary campaign to prevent release of this information. Requests have been lost, unlawfully protracted, circumvented and flat-out ignored. Limited information came with high price tags and was often heavily redacted due to “attorney client privilege” from a time period well before any legal filings.
What little information FCPS has been willing to produce paints a picture no reasonable citizen could imagine. Among many other disturbing revelations, Bradsher promised WSHS supporters — including the school’s principal — a spot ahead in the queue if they advocated for Clifton’s closure. After saying the closure would save money and reduce overcrowding, Bradsher then turned around and proposed building additions at two other schools that will not equal the number of seats lost at Clifton. Trust in government is based on the integrity of the process; subverting it to benefit one community at the expense of another for political gain is bottom of the barrel. Fairfax County deserves better.
Elizabeth L. Schultz
Clifton
