President Bush recently nominated Stephen L. Johnson, a 24-year veteran of the Environmental Protection Agency, to be the agency’s new administrator.  Mr. Johnson has been the acting administrator since January, and prior to that oversaw the EPA office handling pesticides and other toxic substances. In nominating Johnson, Mr. Bush described him as “a talented scientist” and having “good judgment and complete integrity.”

Yet his record as the Assistant Administrator for Toxic Substances casts serious doubt on whether he is suited to lead the E.P.A., an agency directly affecting Americans’ health and many significant industries, including automobiles and agriculture. During President Bush’s first term, Johnson was a strong supporter of pesticide testing on humans.

Byrd equates Bush with Hitler.  Senator Byrd is right I was 12 years old when World War 11 began and I remember the newsreels showing the people hailing Hitler.  The 50% of people who voted for Bush are doing the same for Bush.

I would not be surprised if the next election is suspended for some unknown reason and Bush will remain in power for years to come.

The American people have their heads in the sand and refuse to see the writing on the wall. 

Alice Dartt
Greenville, Alabama

Beware the stranger bearing gifts. Or as the law teaches, caveat emptor, buyer beware. Look before you leap. All these warnings apply to the emerging Republican positioning on the Voting Rights Act.

Forty years ago, after the bloody march in Selma, Ala., Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which requires that states with a history of discrimination get pre-approval from the Justice Department for any changes in their voting procedures.

This was a great victory for the movement that Dr. Martin Luther King led. Give us the vote, King taught, and we can begin to change America. As African Americans were able to register and vote and segregation slowly came to an end, a new South was created. The New South became a center of investment.

Politics changed, too. As Lyndon Johnson predicted when he signed the Voting Rights Act, Democrats paid a great price for being the party of progress. In the South, Republicans made themselves the party of white sanctuary. The current Republican majorities in the House and Senate are founded on the racial politics of the South.

I just cannot see for the life of me how the majority of citizens here in Ohio, and America are buying into the deceitful antics of the Republican Party, including the ones who are so hard right on their American views and standards. Look at what's going on, gas prices are higher than ever before. The president is talking about "adjusting" the socialk security system by privatizing it. Our schools and libraries are losing their funding. And we're still losing jobs. Worse yet, religion-oriented people care more about abortion, national security, and stem-cell than they are about the future of our children, the poor, the underemployed, the unemployed, the underprivileged, and the uninsured. What is this country coming to? As I recall, in a political campaign ad put on by the Bush Administration and conservatives like "best-selling journalism author" Ann Coulter and 300-lb Southern GOP-supporting "shock jock" Ben Ferguson (who wrote a book tiled "It's My America Too", Republicans were blaming John Kerry and his "liberals in Congress" for the cause of job loss, underfunded education, and outrageous gas price inflation. Wrong, I don't think so!! I think the GOP

Without his make-up, Dan looked like hell warmed over: old, defeated, yet angry. And he told our television audience something that just blew me away. Dan Rather said that American reporters may not ask tough questions about George Bush or his wars.

"It's an obscene comparison," Rather said, "but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around peoples' necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be neck-laced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck."

Talking to another reporter, Dan told it straight about the careerism that keeps US journalists in line. "It's that fear that keeps [American] journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to continue to bore-in on the tough questions so often."