Letters to the editor for Wednesday, June 18

The recent Supreme Court ruling to support the Constitution of the United States on habeas corpus has the right wing -- including Republican presidential candidate John McCain -- running in circles shouting in effect, "The sky is falling, we're all going to die." What a bunch of blatant fear-mongering.

The right wing is claiming that this ruling is an open invitation for terrorists to attack us. Do you honestly think that a suicide bomber cares how our legal system works? Because they are scared out of their wits by the possibility of a terrorist attack, they are willing to give up everything that makes this country great.

That means the terrorists have already won. Of course, they had a lot of help from President Bush. They couldn't have done it without his and the right wing's fear-mongering.

DAVE HAJICEK, MINNETONKA

Gitmo guests I wish to thank the Supreme Court for upholding constitutional rights for our guests at Guantanamo Bay. I just wish that those who died in the cowardly attack on 9/11 and those who died in the USS Cole bombing and all those who died in the attacks on our Marines in Beirut had the same opportunity to say thanks.

Oh, yeah, they can't because they're all dead.

THOMAS KAYE, EAGAN

Drop your average highway speed by 15 miles per hour and avoid sharp acceleration, and you will save at least 10 percent of your gas cost. That's 40 cents with $4-a-gallon fuel. If we all did this, a few of us would live longer as well.

The remarkable thing is that cruising at 75 mph vs. 55 mph saves very little time. Try it, and you will find it is true. Just be sure you stay alert and are courteous to the drivers who have more money to spend.

CHARLES TURPIN, MINNEAPOLIS

Explore more Enough is enough. The $1.25 a gallon gas that was in the pumps back when the Congress passed restrictions on where drilling could take place is long gone.

Like the $1.25 gas, it's time for these restrictions to be gone. Recent public opinion polls indicate most my fellow citizens agree with me on this.

JAMES VAN HOUTEN, MINNEAPOLIS

Bachmann's pipe dream Rep. Michele Bachmann's fantasy of $2 per gallon gas is laughable (Star Tribune, June 17). Her plan to expand drilling overlooks the fact that oil is a limited resource. We cannot continue to fool ourselves into thinking that the world's oil supply is infinite.

Drilling is a lengthy and expensive process, and Americans need relief now. Oil companies are raking in record profits, and they will receive more taxpayers' money if new drilling efforts are approved. Bachmann's proposal will ultimately only benefit the oil industry and prolong America's dependence on oil.

MATT ROZNOWSKI, MINNEAPOLIS

Why are officers from our chronically overworked, understaffed Minneapolis Police Department leaving our city neighborhoods to go work in Iowa? Isn't that what the National Guard is for? Oh, wait, they're busy keeping us safe by serving in Iraq, right?

Why should the Rev. Gus Booth's church lose its tax-exempt status just because he expresses his political views from the pulpit? Barack Obama's Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago didn't lose its tax-exempt status when the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was preaching his politics. What's good for the goose ...

GREGG EIDE, SAVAGE

I had to laugh at Neal Justin's June 15 media column ("Media reform takes all voices"), which was nothing more than a defensive rant trying to make mainstream media look good.

I attended the National Conference on Media Reform in Minneapolis, and I left the Convention Center excited and inspired by the speakers and panelists I'd heard for three days.

Bill Moyers -- whom Justin mentioned only as having "a heated exchange" with a Fox News producer, rather than quoting from his inspiring hour-long address to the 3,500 conferees -- summed up the central theme running throughout the conference: "As journalism goes, so goes democracy."

So the Minnesota Department of Transportation is working on a plan to replace 11 highway and freeway bridges in the next decade. Now if the Legislature had not overridden the governor's veto on the transportation bill, what would we be doing with those bridges? Hope, pray and roll the dice?

DAVID MINDEMAN, APPLE VALLEY

It strikes me as ironic that, had our government had John McCain's view of foolish and futile military ventures in the early 1970s, we would still be stuck in the quagmire of Vietnam and he would be spending his golden years at the Hanoi Hilton.