Letters to the Editor: June 13, 2012

Liz Farmer’s article implies that due to the recent resignations and guilty pleas of former District Council Chairman Kwame Brown, former Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. and others, thevoters of the District of Columbia will all of a sudden do the right thing and vote for the right candidates this coming November.

I, for one, believe that constitutes wishful thinking. District residents havenot shown the proclivity to vote with other faculties than their emotions, as evidenced by the most recent primary in which all the incumbentswon.

Until voters get over their ambivalence, apathy or ignorance, therewill not be any rebounding from this sordid period. There may be a respite, but it will only last until a new scandal rears its head.

The only way to rebound from this nonsense is to start anew, beginning with the expulsion of all incumbents and their staffs. Then and only then will the city begin to move forward inthe manner for which Home Rule was originally intended.

Marvin E. Adams

Washington

Employees — not employers — pay for ‘slacker mandate’

Re: ” ‘Slacker mandate’ lets adults play Peter Pan,” Editorial, June 8

I remember when the health care law was passed and children could stay on their parents’ insurance policies until age 24 while they were still in college. There was hardly any criticism from the media.

This editorial finds it necessary to use the Republican Joint Economic Committee report, which extends the mandate to up to age 31,to further denigrate Obamacare.

In addition, it is preposterous to state that businesses are forced to absorb the billions of dollars in costs associated with the mandate, making them less eager to take on additional workers or increase hours of existing workers as a result.This is completely opposite to common sense, because businesses are in business to make a profit. If they are not making a profit, theycan’t stay in business.

Every bigemployerthat I knowof has passed the increased costs of health care insurance onto their employees.For example, the cost of health insurance premiumswent up by 75 percentin 2012when compared with the cost of the same premiums in2011.

Cargill Kelly

Manassas

Don’t block Ike off with an ‘iron curtain’

Re: “Ike doesn’t deserve ugly ‘iron curtain,'” Local Editorial, June 3

An irony has surfaced in the controversial design of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial, particularly the 80-foot suspended metallic “waves of grain tapestry” as it is referred to by architect Frank Gehry. As The Examiner indicated, critics — including Eisenhower’s family — label it an “iron curtain” instead.

The irony involves the substance of Ike’s role in the penetration of the Soviet Union’s real Iron Curtain during his presidency in the 1950s. How? By his leadership in the development of the U-2 aircraft and CORONA and ARGON satellite reconnaissance imagery programs. Across the way from the proposed memorial, in the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, this story is told via a U-2 aircraft on display.

The far-sighted and long-term vision displayed by our 34th president in terms of our national security cannot be overestimated, to say nothing of his previous military role in Europe. It certainly helped the U.S. win the Cold War and settle the Cuban Missile Crisis, both peacefully.

It also created and still maintains the intelligence and verification knowledge base critical to our strategic defense, deterrence, and arms control and disarmament policy, as well as “spin off” civilian uses.

This important aspect of President Eisenhower’s legacy, not usually discussed or credited to him, should somehow be acknowledged and depicted in any memorial.

Andrew Biache Jr.

Alexandria