Time for squishy GOP to make right turn

To the editor:

We get it.

The Republican Party has drifted away from its core values. Our governor ran as a conservative but morphed into a tax-raiser, installing ObamaCare and supporting the issuance of driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. The party’s past two presidential nominees were wimps.

Many conservatives, frustrated with party RINOs, have gone nonpartisan or third party. Some of the party base have sat on their hands rather than vote for namby-pamby moderates. I don’t blame them.

Now the architects of the socialist Gulag are trying to divide and conquer the Republican Party, with the help of party moderates.

If conservatives get involved at the grass-roots level and command a majority in the primaries, the party of Ronald Reagan’s freedom agenda will nominate small-government candidates and start winning elections.

Republican tea partiers need every conservative to join the only party that actually gets candidates elected, now more than ever.

Lynn Muzzy

Minden

Opportunists

To the editor:

In every mass shooting case, the story is the same. The bodies are not yet cold when gun control advocates begin salivating over the opportunity to further infringe upon the rights of the citizens to keep and bear arms.

Existing gun control legislation has been an utter failure. Those who wish to misuse firearms have no trouble circumventing laws to acquire their tool. There is a positive relationship between gun control and violent crime because a disarmed populace has little defense against armed perpetrators.

There are nations with lower violent crime rates than ours. If you will notice, they also have fewer restrictions on gun ownership.

If Congress takes up any legislation regarding gun control, it should be to relax or eliminate current regulations. That is the most expedient way to save innocent lives. If the White House attempts to regulate by executive order, as has been threatened, Congress has a duty to sue, because the president has no authority to override the Second Amendment or any part of the U.S. Constitution.

I concur that a civilized society does not need firearms. I have also observed that we do not live in a civilized society. And can anyone explain why all of these mass shooting occur in “gun-free zones”?

Les McKay

Las Vegas

Criminal control

To the editor:

In response to Brian Collins’ Sunday letter to the editor, “Instead of gun control, ammunition control”:

I am so amused at your readers’ lack of firearm knowledge. First, only semiautomatic firearms leave a cartridge behind, and every criminal who uses a semiautomatic has access to a file to remove any bar code or marking.

Only criminal control will work.

James Holden

Las Vegas

Fracking lies

To the editor:

Your Jan. 9 article about oil drilling and fracking in Nevada was very misleading. In the first place, the fracking procedure is only a way to enhance recovery if oil and gas is discovered. A good well does not need to be fracked. There is no such thing as a fracking boom. The article was nothing more than a dishonest attempt to give the procedure of hydraulic fracturing a bad name.

Every state has established laws in place to protect fresh water, and these laws are strictly enforced. You can rest assured that Noble Energy Inc. will follow these laws and that no fresh water zones will be contaminated.

Fracking is not something new. The procedure has been successfully used in the oil game for more than 50 years, and there are no documented cases of fresh water contamination to date that were caused by fracking. It is an old, established procedure which is used in an attempt to increase the porosity and permeability of oil- and gas-bearing formations and increase the flow rate.

Here’s hoping that Noble Energy is lucky and that many gushers come in big and that fracking is not necessary.

On the other hand, if fracking is necessary, don’t worry about it.

JERRY K. PHILLIPS

LAS VEGAS

Silence the minority

To the editor:

By the middle of last year’s presidential race, both sides agreed on one thing: The contest would determine in which direction the electorate wanted to go. That was, both candidates agreed, what the whole election process was about.

With both the electoral and popular votes counted, the result was quite clear: Voters wanted to have President Obama’s vision for the next four years, not that of Republican candidate Mitt Romney. And yet, almost three months later, whining is all we hear from the right side of the aisle.

I may have a solution: We should replace the following apostles of negativity with people who will work constructively and not be obstructionists to progress: Sarah Palin, Lou Dobbs, Grover Norquist, Ann Coulter, Michele Bachmann, Trent Lott, George Will, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Dennis Miller, Rush Limbaugh, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, Haley Barbour, Newt Gingrich, John McCain, Karl Rove and Donald Trump.

Locally, we could also do without casino owner Sheldon Adelson, Review-Journal columnists Sherman Frederick, Vin Suprynowicz and, via syndication, Charles Krauthammer, too.

Get these hate mongers out of the scope of public discourse, and we’d all be much better off.

Smile. Monday is our president’s Inauguration Day.

BOB SULLIVAN

LAS VEGAS