THE WASHINGTON TIMES

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: ‘Dempsey rule’ for Marine women’s standards puts all troops in danger

The described "Dempsey rule" has never been anything more than "G.I. Jane" played on a loop ("Pressure grows on Marines to consider lowering combat standards for women," Web, April 19). This was prompted by leftist women's activists to prove what cannot be proved. Now, understand that Gen. Martin E. Dempsey is the same man who goose-steps to President Obama's ridiculous commands. If Gen. Dempsey had any honor as an officer or gentleman, he would resign. However, he seems more worried about his stars than his troops. The "Dempsey rule" did prove one thing: Barack Obama and Gen. Dempsey have no qualifications to run experiments. They are nothing more than quacks.

April 22, 2015

EDITORIAL: One-percenters’ car, jet subsidies don’t help environment

By all accounts, the all-electric Tesla is a dreamboat of an automobile. It looks good, it's comfortable and it's a joy to drive. It has innovative engineering and slick handling, and it's faster than most sports cars. Because it uses no gasoline, it's "environmentally friendly," but like a lot of good things, it costs a lot.

April 22, 2015

EDITORIAL: Earth Day 2015 celebrates solar-powered park benches, delta smelt

America celebrated the planet Wednesday with the gaudy red, white and blue charm guaranteed to turn a tree-hugger green. Earth Day was first observed 45 years ago when most baby boomers were teenagers, and now the candles are dripping all over the birthday cake. It's only natural. Repetition becomes routine, and routine hides the original idea, which is rendered meaningless. It doesn't take a campaign to care for the planet, and some of the Earth Day observances are starting to look a little silly.

April 22, 2015

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Marco Rubio run scares Debbie Wasserman Schultz and others on left

As pundits and politicos of the "progressive" persuasion weigh in with adept analysis and thought-provoking critiques of Republican presidential hopefuls, I preface my remarks with those of Jennifer Harper, whose April 14 "Inside the Beltway" column included a brief titled "The anti-Rubio media get to work." The piece brought a curmudgeonly smile to my phizog.

April 22, 2015

EDITORIAL: Michele Leonhart resigns from DEA

The government announced Tuesday that Michele Leonhart, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, will soon be leaving, and only the potheads of America have reason to grieve. She has had an uncomfortable ride, bucking the Obama administration by relaxing enforcement of federal narcotics law in states where marijuana has become legal in state law. Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington no longer prohibit marijuana under certain circumstances. Neither does the District of Columbia.

April 21, 2015

EDITORIAL: 2016 presidential race opens with hostility

It's the conceit of every generation to think in terms of hyperbole, that nobody has seen the trouble it sees. But the 2016 campaign for the White House promises to be as personal and divisive as any in a long time. The politics of threats, fireworks and innuendo have begun. The Democratic and Republican front-runners have been around for a long time, and have the help of longtime loyalists with a history of using every weapon in their arsenal to cripple and destroy.

April 21, 2015

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Don’t elect based on labels

For a period of many decades, the political class and the mainstream press has pushed onto the public the theory of identity politics, the belief that a person's race, ethnicity, gender, creed, sexual orientation and ideology qualifies him or her to be an effective leader, politician or political candidate. This theory, with some exceptions, has proved at times not to comport with reality. Examples are legion, even in the present time. However, entities continue to push this theory to the detriment of what is real.

April 21, 2015

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Anti-fracking crowd’s last gasp

The article "Fracking boom creates jobs for women — but only as prostitutes and maids, activist claims" (Web, April 20) was well-written and demonstrates how out of touch anti-fracking activists have become.

April 21, 2015

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Iran, Obama real threats to U.S.

According to President Obama, enabling Iran to continue to enrich uranium and thus progress toward a nuclear warhead is fine, because the greatest threat facing life on our planet is unchecked climate change ("Obama: U.S. must secure global climate-change deal 'before it's too late,'" Web, April 18). This does not represent logical thinking, but is an extension of an earlier claim by Mr. Obama that climate change is no longer a theory; it is established scientific fact.

April 21, 2015

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Obama befriending communists

President Obama is getting quite chummy with Raul Castro, the president of Cuba. Cuba is the only communist country in this hemisphere. Apparently Mr. Obama needs to be told that Raul Castro is the brother of Fidel Castro, the man who allied himself with the Russians to nuke the United States.

April 20, 2015

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Reconsider ‘Lives Matter’ slogans

It's time to praise the police and stop the mindless, politically correct protests and their Al Sharpton-style slogans, such as "Hands Up Don't Shoot," "Black Lives Matter" and more recently "All Lives Matter."

April 20, 2015

EDITORIAL: Social media encourages outrage at police brutality with little thought

Police brutality is real, and there are bad cops among the good. Police brutality and police misbehavior must be swiftly and firmly punished when and where it occurs. A star on a policeman's breast confers responsibility along with authority.

April 20, 2015

EDITORIAL: Repeal the death tax

The House of Representatives approved legislation last week to abolish the death tax, and the vote was not close -- 240 to 179. Democrats joined Republicans for the first vote on the death tax in nearly a decade. This is an issue that must come up every year until the tax is killed permanently and decisively until it is graveyard dead.

April 20, 2015

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Don’t let Boston Marathon bombers mar memories

April 15 marked the second anniversary of the deadly Boston Marathon bombings in Massachusetts. Two desperate men with a horrific plan killed three people and injured more than 260. I can personally remember sitting rigid in my high school classroom watching as the live newscast explained the events earlier that day. I waited with bated breath while the search for the perpetrators began and breathed a sigh of relief when those responsible for the carnage were apprehended. However, the dread I felt in the immediate aftermath was different from that of my classmates. A combination of dread and resignation that has never felt routine surrounded me and I, along with the rest of America, heard the religious background of the culprits: Muslim. Again.

April 19, 2015

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Rethink jobs, tax-cut link

In "To win the White House, talk jobs" (Web, April 11) Donald Lambro writes, "Go to the Gallup website that lists the issues that trouble Americans most and you'll find the economy and jobs are far and away the 'most important problems' they face ... . Republicans should be relentlessly pounding this issue with all they've got." If a Republican is elected president in 2016, he will discover what Barack Obama discovered in 2009: It is easier to run against a bad economy than it to fix it.

April 19, 2015

EDITORIAL: Jeb Bush’s waffling on immigration

Only yesterday Jeb Bush was the Republican flavor of the week, the favorite of the Republican establishment, those wonderful folks who yearn for a nice man who oozes political propriety and respectability. Establishment Republicans — Rockefeller Republicans, they were once called — live in dread of frightening the horses.

April 19, 2015

EDITORIAL: Annegret Raunigk, 65-year-old German woman, pregnant with quadruplets

Many women delay the births of their children, some to get a firmer footing in a career or to take more time to find the right someone with whom to share a blessed adventure. Some women wait until their late 30s or even the early 40s. But Mother Nature did not give women the option of bearing children and enjoying them forever. That's why God invented grandparents.

April 19, 2015

EDITORIAL: Hillary Clinton’s fail Chipotle lunch does not bode well for campaign

If Hillary Clinton can't stage-manage ordering lunch in an Iowa diner, with aides at hand, how can she manage a presidential campaign? This is the question worried Democrats are asking each other after Mrs. Clinton's campaign ventured into the weeds in the Midwest, demonstrating that the feminists and a noisy claque of like-minded allies may be "ready for Hillary," but she does not seem to be ready to persuade skeptical voters that she's ready for them.

April 16, 2015

EDITORIAL: Sexual harassment by Denver TSA screeners

When the Transportation Security Administration installed full-body scanners several years ago the ACLU, privacy advocates and many passengers sounded warnings that this invited sexual harassment, voyeurism and maybe even sexual adventuring. The government routinely dismissed the complaints as "unfounded" and even "paranoid." Would your government do anything like that? "Full-body pat-downs" followed for passengers who raised an alarm going through the scanners.

April 16, 2015

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Peace in the South China Sea

In order to foster regional peace and stability, economic prosperity and sustainable transit by commercial container ships, as well as to seek out a path to coexistence and mutual prosperity, Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou has proposed a peace initiative that provides a viable empirical model for peaceful resolution of territorial disputes in the South China Sea ("Carter chides China over approach to territorial disputes," Web, April 10).

April 16, 2015