Re: “Plan to toss shipping act?” (TNT, 6-29).

Sen. John McCain wants to let foreign ships carry goods between U.S. ports.

Trickle-down economics means American workers lose jobs. The American shipbuilders and shipping crews make American salaries and profits that they spend in the United States.

McCain cites a reduced cost for agricultural products shipped to Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. I am sure there are foreign shippers that pay a pittance to their crews and have poor safety regulations that could reduce the cost to the agribusinesses.

The foreign shippers will spend their money in their country, and America …

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I’m more and more convinced that everyone in our state government has gone crazy.

The vice president for business and finance at Washington State University is paid $304,000 per year, plus a state pension of an additional $105,000 for a total of $409,000 per year (TNT, 6-29). For what, I ask? Why so much?

The state Department of Transportation wasted nearly $1 million on an offramp that was built in the wrong place on the new Nalley Valley viaduct. Question: How much is the DOT administrator paid who let this happen?

And the state employees union has filed a grievance …

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This is quite a difficult issue before the public, with very valid opinions on either side of the fence. I find myself riding neatly atop that fence, primarily because I read and hear MANY quite valid arguments both for and against The Right to Bear Arms.

What I DON’T read or hear, are those offering viable SOLUTIONS to TODAY’S problems as regard the availability of guns to the general populace.

Yes, The Constitution guarantees The Right. The issues that led to the 2nd Amendment a couple of hundred years ago are so far withdrawn from the issues of …

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Over the past 15 years, Sprinker Recreation Center has been under the watch of three different Pierce County executives and numerous County Council members. Most ignored it while taxpayer funds were poured into other pet projects.

Over those same years, Sprinker continued to limp along while loyal facility maintenance staff used Band-Aids, duct tape and even buckets in the ceiling, to hold her together.

While Sprinker quietly rotted away, new parks and ballfields were designed, property was acquired and the Foothills Trail built, and the Chambers Bay Golf Course was developed.

And all the while, Sprinker sat grandly out in …

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I hate to say it, and I’m sad to say it, but President Obama is living up to my expectations.

I did not vote for him because I knew he would live up to my expectations. I knew that he would bring America down; that he would weaken her strength; that he would corrupt her courts; that he would take away the rights of her people by ignoring the Constitution; that he would destroy America’s economy and cause poverty and dependence to increase; and that, with his own mouth, he would degrade this nation on the world’s stage with every …

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Re: “Abortion action, not opinion, is the issue” (letter, 6-27).

The writer pitted the rights of fetuses against the rights of women and insisted that those who elevate the former over the latter are not “pro-women” and therefore not feminists.

However, attempting to circumscribe feminism to those who are pro-abortion is not only problematic, but historically inaccurate. Most notably, Susan B. Anthony called abortion “child murder.”

Because feminism has come to refer to both the philosophical idea of justice based on the equality of the sexes as well as to several waves of particular political movements, the term encompasses a …

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Within the last week, mortgage interest rates have dropped to the lowest point in U.S. history – 4.69 percent, according to the Washington Post. Home values are now what they were in 2003. This is fantastic news for anyone who has ever wanted to own a home, or sell and buy up, but for some strange reason this isn’t very newsworthy.

The public is fed a nonstop stream of bad news every day: the slumping economy (could be helped by more home sales), the Gulf oil spill, more war casualties. While this is all true, why can’t there be a …

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According to Kathleen Parker (column, 6-23), Sarah Palin would reframe feminism to include women who oppose abortion. Traditionally the basis of feminism has been equality between the sexes. Palin’s choice to combine career and motherhood is a feminist characteristic, yet how can any woman who opposes reproductive choice call herself a feminist?

Faux feminists and Parker support the pro-life notion of an “abortion as nothing more than a ‘choice’ to eliminate an inconvenience.” Inconvenience is a huge understatement about motherhood, allowing pro-life advocates to ignore the immediate implications of a newborn as well as the lifelong commitment to a child. …

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