Voters

Voters are smart enough to see through the GOP smoke screen. Boo Hoo Bob, former Gov. Robert Ehrlich's weekly whine fest about how no one seems to love conservatives, hit a new low this week ("For Republicans, a not so happy New Year," Jan. 6). His advice? Take more Fox News and send a check to the Heritage Foundation. Conservatives lost not, as Mitt Romney said, because people want "free stuff," but because people are smart enough to see through the Republican smoke screen. On the GOP's signature issue, lower taxes, Americans have seen that what Republicans say simply isn't true.

We live in a world of sports that is broadcast in full color and high definition. We try to view it through a prism of moral and ethical absolutes. And still, when faced with the great issues of our time, everything ends up being cast in shades of gray. If you doubt that, you might want to take a look at the ballot that will determine who will be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2013. It is, more than any before it, a snapshot of baseball's steroid era, for the first time adding Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa to a list of candidates that already included Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and a handful of other players who fell under suspicion during one of the darkest periods in the history of the sport.

Richard Seymour cannot understand why more than 50 percent of the electorate voted for President Obama ("Difficult to find an explanation for why voters chose president," Catonsville Times, Nov. 14). He cannot understand why people would vote to increase taxes on themselves. I'll try to explain and I'll use small words so he can follow along. During the last 11 years, we have been fighting three wars (Iraq, Afghanistan and the "Global War on Terror") and we didn't pay a dime for any of them.

I'm writing in response to an opinion article in the Nov. 22 Laurel Leader by Gwendolyn Glenn titled "Voters' Determination on Election Day Overcomes Frustrations at the Polls. " I appreciate Ms. Glenn's opening statement regarding the importance of every single ballot being counted. Then she mentions that leading up to the election, laws were pushed to make it harder for people to vote in some states. I'm guessing Ms. Glenn is referring to attempts to have a law passed that requires voters to provide an ID. Some people do not support voter ID because they believe it is racially motivated.

The Catholic hierarchy is, sad to say, shamefully deficient in the theology of their own church. During the recent election campaign, some bishops embarrassed themselves by their loathsome meddling in partisan politics. They presented their opinions as the "teaching of the church," in opposition to both a growing consensus among theologians and the developing belief of the faithful. Unremembered, apparently, are the failures of their predecessors who spoke out against the women's suffrage amendment using the same fantastic arguments of danger to children's welfare and peril to family structure and harmony.

Republican pundits and voters alike are scratching their heads trying to figure out why their candidate lost ("For GOP, was it the message or messengers?" Nov. 12). We're hearing a lot about how America just isn't white enough any more, or how the country has lost its way. A lot of Republicans are saying their candidate was just too stiff and unappealing. And a large number are wondering if the Republican Party simply had the wrong message. After decades of being able to distract the attention of middle-class voters by saying "look over here, it's about guns," or "look over here, its about Jesus" - or more recently, "look over here, its about immigration" - it seems a majority of voters have stopped falling for the same old tricks.

Maryland voters are supportive of health care reform even though some still haven't grasped all the details, a new survey has found. The survey sponsored by independent health philanthropy The Horizon Foundation and advocacy group Maryland Health Care for All! Coalition , found that those who would gain the most from health reform seemed to know the least about it. The study results were based on a telphone poll of 1,413 voters conducted September 14 to 23. Fifty-nine percent of respondents support health reform, compared to 19 percent who oppose it. The other 22 percent are unsure.

In the wake of an accusation he "accosted" a voter, Anne Arundel County Councilman John Grasso on Monday apologized to people who watched him "draw a line in the sand. " Grasso gave a three-minute speech at the start of Monday night's council meeting apologizing to witnesses of a confrontation between himself and a voter who later complained to elections officials that the councilman berated him and called him an idiot while his kids stood nearby. It was one of several complaints elections officials said they received about Grasso's behavior outside a Glen Burnie early voting center in October.

The truth is that the only thing worse than a Republican is a Republican bully with an obvious anger issue. The reference is to Anne Arundel County Councilman John Grasso, who took some joy in berating some of the voters at North County High School who stood in line on Election Day ("Arundel councilman said to bully early voters," Nov. 14). Mr. Grasso, with all due respect, keep in mind that we live in a civilized society where juvenile behavior like yours is simply not acceptable.

Editor: The 2012 elections are over and the voters have spoken. We have four more years of Class, Race and Gender warfare. I hope the Mayan calendar is right because our country won't be recognizable after the next four years. We will look like a third world Banana Republic, aka Cuba and Venezuela. Obama can complete the Communist takeover of the executive and judicial branches of the Federal Government. When Obama and his czars get done we won't have any God given freedoms left.