Religious faith no way to pick president

(PNI) Regarding "The race issue vs. the religion issue" (Republic, Sunday):

When I take the opportunity to vote for my next president, it will be with full knowledge of what he stands for where the American people are concerned, not his particular religious affiliation.

Those who judge based on their disagreement with a presidential candidate's religion will be held accountable for their bigotry.

Narrow-mindedness is not a "Christian" attitude, nor should it be preached from the pulpit.

A good man is a good man.

Vote your conscience, not your preacher's contempt for another person's religion.

--Connie Cushing, Sun City

Railing by Montini is misdirected

Regarding "Politicians exempt themselves from 'real world'" (Valley & State, Friday):

There are times when I read E.J. Montini's columns and it makes me want to double up with laughter. The problem is, I think he's serious.

While he's right that the firing policies for legislator and governor are different from others, the criterion for "hiring" these personnel is quite different from the average clerical or bureaucratic employee. If the majority of voters are not satisfied with the work they do, they are dismissed through the power of the ballot.

As an employer, retention of good personnel is not something done as capriciously as your columnist would like us to think. As a retired civil-service worker, who also was a union steward for many years, I can state that 95 percent of disciplinary problems were confined to less than 5 percent of the employees.

With progressive discipline principles as part of bargaining contracts, it is virtually impossible, short of committing a felony, to discharge bad employees.

Montini rails against those in elected office like a banshee on a rooftop.

Maybe he should realize his beef is not with those who were elected, but with those who in ignorance and indifference continue to elect these sorts.

--Marvin Jarecki, Glendale

Just a reminder on GM bankruptcy

Responding to those who are saying that Barack Obama saved GM while Mitt Romney wanted to allow it to go bankrupt:

General Motors filed for bankruptcy in July 2009. Just want to keep it real.

--Denny Miller, Phoenix

Voters, are you tired of this yet ?

Let us ask the wise leaders of our state how they can sanction what they do:

How can they even consider approving the use of taxpayer dollars to reimburse a disgraced senator money he spent to fight his recall election ($261,000), especially when the money was donated and did not come out of his personal funds?

How can they, yet again, threaten to sue over the redistricting maps that were drawn up by a voter-approved commission and just recently put into action?

They are of the opinion that they, the legislators, can do a better job than the voter-approved commission.

How can they redirect $50million, over half of the total amount intended by the federal government to help Arizonans save their homes from the mortgage-foreclosure debacle and not become homeless? The $50million will go to general fund, never to be seen again.

How can they continue to pull these shenanigans that trigger costly lawsuits paid with tax dollars and wonder why our state is broke?

Voters, are you tired of this behavior?

--Jonae DeLong, Paradise Valley

Good riddance to animal-test lab

Word that Covance is closing its animal-testing lab in Chandler is the best news I've heard in years.

It is a single step in the right direction for humans and the rest of the animals and our planet.

--Mary Durst, Gilbert

Obama just doing what Grant did

Regarding the public discussion about the "politicizing of the presidency," particularly during the first anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden ("Hail to the braggart in chief," Letters, Friday):

Get over it. Barack Obama is the president, and he is politicking for the position again.

Ulysses S. Grant rode his war-hero robes into election and re-election.

Woodrow Wilson campaigned for re-election in 1916 on the theme, "He kept us out of war." Of course, we were fighting in World War I a year later.

President Dwight Eisenhower's 1956 re-election theme after bringing the Korean War to an end was "peace and prosperity."

For good or for bad, Obama is the president, he was the president (when Osama bin Laden was killed), and he wants to be president again.

--John J. Hoffman, Gilbert

Today's Republicans are the RINOs

Regarding "Old Republican values destroyed" (Letters, May 2):

How many other readers identify with the woman disappointed that the Republican Party no longer supports her values?

I was a Republican until age 61. But when President George W. Bush spent so recklessly in his first term, I changed parties hoping for a return to sanity.

The Republican Party has been usurped by a rapacious batch of plutocrats, who are anything but conservative.

They complain about RINOs, but the current party leaders are the actual "Republicans in name only."

--Yvonne Clark, Phoenix

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