Published Letters from Baltimore County Members
July 2004
Values separate Brooks from 2nd District incumbent
Date: July 21, 2004
Publication: The Dundalk Eagle
Author: Kevin Bruffey, Warren Lodge Court, Cockeysville
Citizens of Maryland's 2nd District have a real opportunity this election to elect a congressperson who truly represents them.
Jane Brooks, challenger to first-term U.S. Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, is a lively, determined individual who cares about preserving the American Sound and understands the importance of respecting human dignity.
With a son serving in Iraq, Jane understands the need to support our troops and provide mandatory funding for our veterans. Jane is both a fiscal and social conservative whose votes in Congress will promote our national and economic security while showing a determination to protect individual worth at all stages in life.
Dutch Ruppersberger's votes in Congress have done none of this. He has been given an 11 and 18 percent voting record, respectively, from the Americans for Tax Reform and the Citizens Against Government Waste. He voted to restore the estate tax and against a $350 billion tax package that included reductions in the capital gains and dividend tax. The tax package has led to the largest growth in our economy in 20 years and significant increases in dividend distributions to shareholders.
Congressman Ruppersberger has also proven to be a foe of free enterprise by opposing a bill to allow small businesses to band together to buy health insurance for their employees while voting against another bill to create a tax deduction for new medical savings accounts, something small businesses have grown to depend on.
The congressman showed that he is a foe of fiscal restraint and decency by supporting grants assisting American Indian transgender research and a study on San Francisco prostitutes/masseuses. He also voted against an amendment prohibiting our tax dollars from assisting the United Nations Population Fund, an effort intended to fund China's population control program, which relies heavily on coercive abortion.
Despite our Second Amendment rights being at constant risk and our growing need to protect ourselves, Congressman Ruppersberger failed to see the need for legislation intended to prevent gun manufacturers from being driven out of business by petty lawsuits.
This election year, I encourage everyone to vote for Jane Brooks, someone with a strong core who will selflessly seek to preserve the strong values we share in the 2nd District that have made this country great.
Leadership
Date: July 7, 2004
Publication: The Arbutus Times and The Catonsville Times
Author: Harry J. F. Korrell, Jr.
I am dismayed that there are people who believe that the opposition of the governments of Germany, France, and Russia to the US led war in Iraq has been based on or caused by some failure of diplomacy or behavior of the US or our president.
Is it not obvious that those nations were criminally responsible for illegitimate "oil for food" deals with the "Butcher of Baghdad?" Is it not obvious that they desperately sought to perpetuate those arrangements regardless of their moral obligation to support their erstwhile "friends" or the fate of the tormented Iraqi people?
When will the citizens of Britain and the US fully awaken to the lessons of history that teach that the corrupt, morally and economically bankrupt governments of continental Europe will choose appeasement whenever they are threatened? Like Spain, France and Germany are terrified of the significant number of possibly militant Islamists resident in their countries. These numbers exist because cheap immigrant labour was greedily sought by those nations to bolster their threatened, sinking, socialist economies, and now those policies have come home to roost. (There would appear to be a lesson here for those in this country who refuse to deal effectively with our own issues of immigration.)
When will we learn that true "leadership" consists of pursuing a just cause regardless of the lack of courage and support of others? If, in the 1930's and '40's, news and entertainment media had existed and functioned as they have since the l960's, I believe the United States and United Kingdom would have lost WW II.
If the political chameleon "Hanoi John" Kerry, staunchly supported by "The hero of Chappaquiddick" and the man who "invented the Internet," could influence the French, German, and Russian governments to abandon their attempts resurrect and preserve their despicable and profitable arrangements with "The Butcher of Baghdad," I would unstintingly support his candidacy for president of France.