Letters to the editor for Thursday, June 20, 2013

Letter misleads about Benghazi, tea party

Robin Christy’s letter published on June 14 is terribly misleading and needs to be corrected. Christy attributes the lack of security for the Sept. 11, 2013 attacks on our consulate in Benghazi to congressional Republicans denying the administration adequate security funding, when in fact the State Department itself refuted that claim and said that lack of funding was not an issue. Christy then goes on to state that the Inspector General’s report on the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservative groups could find “no evidence of a partisan motive ...” Of course, the report did not include such evidence, for the simple reason that the Inspector General did not attempt to address the issue of partisanship in the first place.

Christy also accuses the Tea Party specifically of fraudulently pursuing non-profit tax-exempt status with the IRS when “it was operating like a political action committee,” while completely ignoring the highly political partisanship of extremely Liberal organizations openly involved in political activities like Media Matters and MoveOn.org who seem to have no trouble at all in obtaining tax-exempt status.

Personally, I don’t think any tax-exempt organizations should be allowed to engage in political activities, but it’s not fair to deny one group because of its ideological leanings without applying the same rules to everyone.

Raymond Kechely

Carson City

Columnist provides a valuable perspective

Writer Margaret Konieczny seems to be very disturbed by columnist Ann Bednarski. I would disagree with Ms. Konieczny that Ann is shallow or uninformed. I turn to Ann’s column first thing every Saturday to see what she has to say about current events. And unlike political hack columnists (on both sides of the aisle) Ann points out the “good” when she sees it. I recall particularly her kind words regarding the poetry read at Mr. Obama’s inauguration.

I have been reading political columns for 45 years, Liberals, Conservatives and everyone in-between. Loved some, hated others. Never wrote to a paper to request that they silence those with whom I disagreed.

Since quoting Shakespeare seems to be the latest trend, I will end with this: Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

Kate Sciacca

Carson City