On Congress’ low standing among Americans; a bill on immigrant workers; and efforts to combat climate change

Voters’ remorse

Re “Congress hits new low in poll of U.S. voters,” Dec. 10

I’m glad that many Americans are beginning to see where the majority of our government’s power lies. The sad part is that most incumbent lawmakers win reelection easily and will continue to do so.

Many Americans do not put enough thought into whom they elect to Congress, and our country suffers because of it. Congressional committees write our laws, and it is the individual members on these committees who dictate our nation’s policies.

Too often partisan politics causes voters to overlook obvious flaws in their parties’ candidates or to ignore the strengths of opposing candidates. We, as responsible voters, should ensure that the people we elect are actually capable of doing their jobs well.

Travis Smith

Irvine

Interesting how even kids get it.

True story: I teach fifth-grade gifted students in Tustin. We were studying Latin word roots and were doing “gress,” which means to move forward (progress, digress, regress and so on). One of my kids innocently asked me, “Well, then why is it called Congress?” (By the way, “con” means together.)

From the mouths of babes…

Flossie Friedman

Tustin

Americans need the jobs

Re “Immigration fix,” Opinion, Dec. 7

America needs a skilled workforce. With 25 million unemployed, there is a huge trainable talent pool in this country. Rather than importing skilled workers, America should be focusing on training or retraining its domestic workforce.

Students are struggling under mountains of loan debt. The cost of education continues to rise as the prospect of getting a decent-paying job continues to fall. We should be providing incentives for students and qualified unemployed citizens to train for the jobs that the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act would fill with immigrant workers.

What, is it just cheaper and quicker to import talent rather than develop our own?

Robert McIntyre

Dana Point

This act won’t help solve our more basic, deeply entrenched, long-term labor needs, nor will it cap the myriad problems stemming from our excessive population growth rate.

What would help is if more members of Congress had the integrity and the guts to introduce a 2012 version of the 1993 Immigration Stabilization Act. That particular legislation was first introduced by then-Nevada Rep. Harry Reid, now the Senate majority leader.

We need such legislation now more than ever.

Harvey Pearson

Los Feliz

Doomed, and we saw it coming

Re “Global action postponed on climate change,” Dec. 12, and “Climate change deal reached in Durban,” Dec. 11

A sleek spaceship silently lifts off from a desert beside a former city marked by crumbling skyscrapers. Inside, a being completes a long report:

“Though currently lifeless, there is conclusive evidence that the third planet of this star once harbored not only life but sentient life. Records recovered from degraded documents indicate that the sentient species knew they were releasing dangerous volumes of heat-trapping gases, but continued to do so until the process became self-sustaining.

“Evidently, the planet was divided into ‘nations’ headed by politicians, many of whom chose not to agree on mandatory emission limits, concluding that such an agreement posed a threat to their power.”

David Perlman

Laguna Beach

The Dec. 11 article reported: “The deal also set up the bodies that will collect, govern and distribute tens of billions of dollars a year to poor countries to help them adapt to changing climate conditions and to move toward low-carbon economic growth.”

According to other articles in The Times, even the “rich” nations are in financial distress; where will these additional “tens of billions” come from? Was the United Nations climate conference staffed by California legislators?

Who gave the U.N. legal access to my wallet without my consent?

James Stickley

Pomona

Front-page imagery

Re “Carnage on the front page,” Postscript, Dec. 10

Many will find it encouraging that your painfully graphic image of the bombing in Kabul was followed on Saturday by the scene involving a gunman in the streets of Hollywood.

As long as Americans or others are shielded by distance from the reality of violence in the world, their heads will remain in the sand and their obligation to speak out and to vote against its causes will remain unfulfilled.

Many of those causes are highly preventable, but only when citizens face responsible and unflinching presentation of the brutal truth will they become more likely to act in humanitarian defense of the peaceful lives we all deserve.

Cay Sehnert

South Pasadena

Reader Erlin France was wrong when she called The Times “disgusting”; you’re worse than disgusting. The Times has turned into a checkout-counter tabloid.

In any event, we don’t need the local paper of the nation’s second-largest city to remind us how brutal the rest of the world can be, regardless of what your deputy managing editor in charge of photography thinks.

Keith Pittell

Los Angeles

Downed drone

Re “Drone may give up U.S. secrets,” Dec. 6

There are two lessons to be learned from this very unfortunate incident.

First, never use your most “cutting-edge” technology for routine applications unless you are prepared to lose it. Better to use it when you really need it, such as in a real war. Second, complicated machines such as these drones should always be equipped with a self-

destruct option so sensitive secrets will never be revealed.

We have lost some of our nation’s best aircraft in Serbia, China and now Iran, which has cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars while benefiting our imagined and real enemies enormously.

Michael Pravica

Henderson, Nev.

Save the mail

Re “It’s not in the mail,” Editorial, Dec. 7

In the 1960s and ‘70s, passenger rail was in a similar situation as snail mail is today, with the railroads responding in the same way as the U.S. Postal Service: slash service to cut costs. The entirely predicable result: a death spiral in which service cuts reduce demand and drive down revenue faster than costs, necessitating deeper cuts.

I travel a lot, and almost every country I’ve visited has higher postal rates.

Timely and daily mail delivery (including Saturdays, in my view) is a critical service that our country relies on. I suggest we raise postage rates to around 60 cents for a first-class letter and maintain the excellent service most of us receive.

Randall Gellens

San Diego

No watchdog

Re “Public pays the price in war over watchdog,” Column, Dec. 9

Why not call Senate Republicans’ refusal to confirm any nominee to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for what it is: a conspiracy to obstruct justice. They oppose what they call an unaccountable bureaucracy, but the alternative is unaccountable financial institutions, and we saw how that worked.

When they say they want “transparency,” what they really mean is “invisibility,” a circumstance in which consumer protections passed become consumer protections past.

David Mathews

Downey