President should be uniting, not dividing

To the editor:

The debate over whether President Obama was talking about bridges or businesses when he said “you didn’t build that” is immaterial because it doesn’t change the message he was conveying. If he truly “misspoke” and he was talking about the roads and bridges, he is still diminishing what the successful business person has done.

Didn’t everyone have access to the roads and bridges? Didn’t everyone have access to the public-school system? Did the people who built the roads and bridges agree to do the work and weren’t they paid for it? Weren’t they paid with tax dollars from successful people? So why diminish the success of these hard-working entrepreneurs? They clearly had to do what others were unwilling and/or unable to do.

Yes, you have to be smart and hard-working to succeed. But you also have to be willing to take a chance, invest your money, work long hard hours, sometimes go years without making a profit.

Enough of dividing people. We are all Americans. We should celebrate success and not demean it. We should unite people and not divide them.

Will Nabhan

Las Vegas

Ends and means

To the editor:

Your Thursday story about Democratic congressional candidate Dina Titus discussing President Obama going around Congress to achieve some of his policy goals brings up a question (“Titus defends president’s actions bypassing Congress”).

Although she is uncomfortable with the president taking these actions, she understands he is doing so out of frustration with a Congress that has not passed pieces of his agenda. So is there any action violating our Constitution that President Obama could take that former Rep. Titus couldn’t rationalize as being necessary?

Jim Brown

North Las Vegas

Two sides

To the editor:

Why do liberals such as Steve Sebelius always talk as though there is only one side of an argument (“Naysaying Republicans to middle class: Drop dead,” Friday column)?

Had Mr. Sebelius focused on Democratic reticence, he could have written, “Democrats don’t care about the middle class, and if they can’t deliver a tax increase on the wealthy, then everybody gets a tax increase.”

So who exaggerates more, Republicans who are for lower taxes or Democrats who’ve never seen a tax they didn’t like?

Victor Moss

Las Vegas

Red scare

To the editor:

In his letter published Thursday, Robert Stanelle, who comes from Wisconsin, says he “cringes” when he hears the name of Wisconsin’s late Sen. Joseph McCarthy mentioned.

For the same reason, as a Nevadan for almost 40 years I cringe when I see the late Sen. Pat, McCarran’s name on our airport. We are unjustifiably honoring one of Joe McCarthy’s greatest supporters.

The xenophobic, racist, anti-Semitic homophobic bigot McCarran laid the groundwork for McCarthy’s actions in his 1950 Internal Security Act and his 1952 Immigration Act.

When members of the Las Vegas Convention & Visitor’s Authority meets on Aug. 14, I hope they will consider recommending that McCarran’s name be dropped from our airport. I hope they consider the worthiness of the man rather than what he has done for Nevada through his pork barrel legislation.

Mel Lipman

Las Vegas