Sept. 25, 2011: Our readers write

Where’s Steve?
Heard of the children’s game Where’s Waldo? Well it looks like we have our own version going on in Kentucky called Where’s Steve? It seems that since he has a comfortable lead in the polls and a large bankroll from the casino industry, Gov. Steve Beshear has decided he can skip the debates and hide behind his many TV commercials. He snubbed our local Brushy Fork Debates in Vine Grove while Sen. David Williams showed up to talk and answer questions.
According to our own The News-Enterprise, both The Courier-Journal and The Lexington Herald-Leader have questioned why our current governor has backed out of a number of these debates. To me the answer is pretty simple. Just look at his record.
Since taking office in 2008, Kentucky has lost more than 100,000 jobs. We have an unemployment record of more than 9 percent and an underemployment rate twice that.
Rather than addressing a $166 million Medicaid shortfall now, he chose to put it off until 2012 — try doing that with your own bills. Small wonder last year Forbes Magazine rated Kentucky as the worst-run state in the U.S. We deserve a different kind of take charge leadership. Just think how much better off we would all be if we had a governor whose main concern wasn’t casinos in Kentucky?
With Sen. David Williams, you will have that choice. I ask you to join me at the polls on Nov. 8 to elect David Williams as our next governor.
Sharon Jern
Elizabethtown

No way
Here are just a few reasons why citizens should vote no to expanded alcohol sales in Hardin County.
Taxes will certainly go up when alcohol becomes more convenient because there will certainly be more crime, more DUI’s, more court cases and more law enforcement eventually will be needed, which means more taxes. Should those people who don’t want expanded alcohol sales have to pay more taxes for the convenience of those who do want it?
Vote no for the innocent children who can’t vote but whose lives surely will be affected in the worst way by increased alcohol sales, including an alcoholic parent or being injured or killed by a irresponsible person who choose to drink and drive.
Vote no for those people who are trying hard to recover from alcohol addiction and don’t need it to be more convenient.
Vote no for those innocent people who have not learned what it is like to walk down a dark street alone in a bar district.
There always will be selfish uncaring people who don’t care about the feeling and safety of others and, for the sake of a little convenience, will push the “yes” vote under the guise of economic growth, which they know is a bunch of hog wash.
But for those who  care about their neighbors, the children and this community, I urge you to vote no to expanded alcohol sales. Let’s not just beat them by a small margin, ,in which case they will come back.
Lets beat the yes group so badly that they will get the message that there  already is too much alcohol in Hardin County and we won’t stand for any more.
Jerry Cooke Sr.
Radcliff

P’Pool for Kentucky
Attorneys general offices throughout America are the only line of defense the people have to defend our commonwealths and states from over burdensome laws and regulations from Washington, D.C.
Our attorney general, Jack Conway, has left Kentucky completely defenseless in this area.
While Conway knows all too well a majority of Kentuckians reject Obamacare, he has been unwilling to defend Kentuckians from the federal takeover of our medical community.
Twenty-seven state’s attorneys general have brought lawsuits to block the takeover and violation of our free choice, but Conway is silent. Why? Because he supports the president’s efforts. Republican nominee Todd P’Poole does not.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., stated about Obama’s EPA that, “it’s decisions like the one made (June 9) that demonstrate the urgent need to rein in government agencies like the EPA, preventing them from overstepping their bounds and imposing regulations that not only cost us good American jobs, but hurt our economy,”
It is Obama’s EPA making regulations against the coal industry. Regulations that have hurt and will continue to hurt Kentuckians. I don’t know what the attorney general of W.Va. is doing to stop Obama’s administration, but I know what our attorney general has done: Nothing at all.
Todd P’Poole will not sit by and watch from the sidelines as Kentucky companies and workers are chased out of business and jobs and commonwealth. He will fight for Kentucky using Kentucky’s legal authority to do so.
I urge your readers to vote Nov. 8 for Todd P’Poole for Kentucky’s next attorney general. In him you will elect an attorney general who will do all within his constitutional power to protect our commonwealth from over burdensome and unconstitutional assaults against our great commonwealth and our great people.
Debbie Bayles
Radcliff