Letters to the editor

Budget cuts put most fragile at risk

Planned funding cuts to California’s nearly 100 hospital-based skilled-nursing facilities, including Palomar Health, will leave many patients and their families without the critical long-term and short-term rehabilitative care they need.

Drastic budget cuts will force facilities to reduce services and staffing, turn away new patients, and close. Communities served by these facilities would be harmed beyond repair.

The health and safety of California’s most fragile is at risk. Join us in protecting our patients’ welfare. Ask your legislators to support AB 900 and SB 640 that will reverse the cuts to hospital-based skilled-nursing facilities.

Help us ensure that those who can no longer care for themselves are able to live and die with dignity. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPp-OeNHqKs&feature=youtu.be

Nancy Roy

Ramona

Palomar Health Community Outreach LiaisonAnxious about airport control tower closureI have read with increasing dismay and mounting anxiety regarding the Ramona Airport control tower closure.No one has pointed out that it was not only the forest service plane and private plane and pilots who were tragically affected in the fatal air collision which needlessly occurred before there was a control tower, but also proceeded to crash into a house behind Kmart.Miraculously, the family (at home at the time) escaped.Next time?

Oopah Tieriata Tahiti a vau

RamonaStudent’s perspective of gun-free zoneNearly every public school in our nation has a sign, somewhere on the campus, that reads, “Gun-free zone.” No weapons are allowed on the campus, and finding someone possessing a firearm will result in suspension, expulsion, or even arrest. The law is supposed to protect students from those who would bring guns to the school grounds.How much thought was actually put into these laws? Last December, 26 people were killed at Sandy Hook elementary in Connecticut by a mass murderer. Teachers had to resort to hiding their students and sacrificing themselves to save others. While heroic, these sacrifices were unnecessary.Tell me, how many mass murderers on their way to kill 26 people actually obey the law? Surely murder is against the law already, so who’s idea was it that school shooters would actually obey some law that says they can’t bring a weapon to a school? The shooter had to walk by that sign to get into the school, and it obviously did not stop him.The “Gun-free zone” is, in reality, a “Defense-free zone.” Criminals can do whatever they want, but the teachers who actually obey laws are victimized because of their obedience.A recent Department of Homeland Security video advised teachers what to do in a shooting situation: “...consider trying to overpower the shooter with whatever means are available,” says the speaker, as the video shows a teacher reaching for a pair of — scissors.Are we really making our teachers use scissors to defend themselves in the event of a shooting? If you were being shot at, what would you prefer: a .223 rifle, or some scissors from Office Depot?Want to prevent school shootings? Let teachers bring guns to school, open and visible to all. Do this, and school shootings will all but stop. Teachers will not even have to use the weapons.As of now, shooters choose schools because they know everyone is defenseless, absolutely defenseless. Arm just some of the teachers, and shooters won’t even try, because they know there will be resistance!As a high school student, I would feel much better if my teacher brought a revolver to class. Would you attack a school where you knew that half of the teachers carried guns or had easy access to them?Thoughtless laws such as the “Gun-free zone” have claimed dozens of lives in schools around the country. Stop this madness, and let’s do something that will actually save lives and protect schools.

Grigory Heaton

RamonaCaptivating message of libertyObama has been re-elected by the establishment. Things are going to get bad, REAL bad.Here we go, Marxism, wars, debt and poverty for the USA.We had a guy, his name is Ron Paul, who was drawing five times the crowds to hear him speak than Mitt Romney. For example, 6,000 people showed to hear Dr. Paul speak at UCSD earlier this year, with no airtime or press.Mitt Romney not long after had all the establishment mouthpieces blaring his eminent arrival at the stadium. A few hundred showed. All that were heard were crickets.Ron Paul’s message of liberty was captivating. He was gathering support from voters who were disenfranchised with Obama’s lies regarding ending the wars, closing Guantanamo Bay etc., as well as from Republicans, Independents and Libertarians. He was bringing us together more than any other candidate. That without almost without ANY press, just grassroots as the news corps and TV news blacked him out.Any ink or airtime he did get portrayed him as a weakling or marginalized him as a kook. He was within the margin of error at one point. This was scaring the people who REALLY run this country, the bankers.If you believed the mainstream news as in the larger newspapers, radio and TV, which the crony capitalists own, then you may have that view of him as well. The establishment created a template for you to think in.We in the campaign call the mainstream news the “ding bat” news, because if one takes their “news” verbatim, well--Next foot to fall was the RNC who refused to yield the floor in state after state caucuses. This after Ron Paul delegates won fair and square. The RNC changing their own rules in the process — cheating! Even going so far as to assault delegates physically and having them arrested. Total tyranny. This was the one-two punch for our campaign.Well, the RNC got their guy in and Ron Paul out. Where did that get them? Nullified, that’s where. Good job RNC. What losers.A large following of Dr. Paul were young folk, especially Young Americans for Liberty or YAL. They saw with staring eyes what the Republicans and the Ding bat news did to Ron Paul. They are not likely to ever forget this heavy-handed takeover.They are the new rising star and future vanguard of freedom that will rise up from the ashes of phoney conservatism. They will usurp the blue hairs who are already gone with the wind in their lost cause.Forward!

Tom Stephan

Ramona