PUBLIC FORUM FOOLISH BOXER.

Sen. Barbara Boxer says, ``Do not tell me the facts, I am going to vote against John Ashcroft.''

This is the same refrain from Boxer as during the Clinton impeachment trial when she said, ``I do not need to hear from witnesses, Clinton is innocent.''

- Francis Jansen

Northridge

Ashcroft man of integrity

When President-elect Bush named Sen. John Ashcroft as hisnominee for attorney general, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton andPatricia Ireland started a radical smear campaign attacking Ashcroft,a man of experience and integrity. The left is trying to defeat Ashcroftand scare Bush into appointing only liberals to the Cabinet or thecourts.

Even though Ashcroft is the first attorney general-designee in U.S.history who has served as a state attorney general, governor andU.S. senator, the left continues to make baseless attacks andquestion whether he will uphold the law. Yet they have no exampleto cite to demonstrate his failure to enforce the law.

The left is attacking Ashcroft just because he is conservative. He isknown as a man of impeccable character and has a strong record oncrime. Ashcroft's experience as a lawyer and public servant hasprepared him for cleaning up the Justice Department and restoringAmerica's confidence in the rule of law. Every U.S. senator shouldpublicly support Ashcroft for attorney general and condemn theradical attacks on his character.

- Jim and Brenda Schiefer

Santa Clarita 

Unity of America

I read with interest your front-page article about how one-third of the nation's foreign-born population now lives in California. I wonder how many people who have lived in California for the past 40 years could share your view of how ``wonderful and enriching'' this diversity is.

We have watched our culture, language and history be replaced. We feel as if we are in a foreign country in our own state. We have seen our prisons fill with illegal immigrants. We have watched our children's education deteriorate at the expense of educating Mexico's children, many of them illegal in the first place.

Immigration without assimilation is destroying America. There is too much immigration, too fast. There are whole cities being taken over by one ethnic group over another. There are fighting and gang wars among youths of the different ethnic groups. Immigrants are not coming here and thinking of themselves as Americans. They are coming and setting up their own little country within ours.

Multiculturalism is not unifying America, it's tearing it apart.

Congress makes the laws regarding immigration but it really seriously affects only three to four states. This really seems unfair. Let us hope we will be able to cut immigration back to a reasonable number. The present 1 million-plus for legal immigration is not acceptable.

The unity of America should be stressed, not the diversity of each group.

- Kathleen Hutchison 

Woodland Hills

Cut immigration

There are several reasons to have a moratorium on immigration: We are running out of water, and we are running out of land. When this country was founded we had unlimited land to offer everyone.

I can remember when there was open space between Van Nuys and Reseda and Canoga Park in the late 1940s and early '50s. Now the only undeveloped land between Los Angeles and San Diego is the Marine base at Camp Pendleton.

We once had 60 million bison roaming the plains. Now we have a few thousand on large ranches and the last of the wild bison are in Yellowstone Park. And we let snow buggies in the park during the winter, disrupting the wild life.

If you would like sidewalks all the way to San Francisco, keep letting millions of legal and illegal aliens in. But if you care about preserving some roadless wild areas where you can feel nature, it may not be too late if we stop immigration.

- Howard Knudson

Van Nuys

Conspiracy

I smell a rat. First there were those long gas lines and the odd and even days when you could gas up. Then there was the big water shortage when we all saved so much water that they raised the prices on our water usage. Now we have a power shortage. Hmmm, I wonder . . . .

- Joe Lozano

Mission Hills

Like father, like son

George W. Bush is naming Mel Martinez to head up HUD, the president- elect referred to the Department of Housing and Urban Development as the Department of Human Development. It appears the acorn hasn't fallen very far from the tree - obviously, the slogan for this administration will be: ``Read my lips.''

- Zachary A. Charles

Burbank

Don't blame Bush

Let me see, as soon as George W. Bush was pronounced our 43rd president: the stock market dropped, Montgomery Ward declared bankruptcy, dozens of dot-com companies lost millions of dollars and closed, Sears announced it will close 35 stores in California and unemployment is way up. But please don't blame the team that has led us to such tremendous achievements over the last eight years. No, it's President-elect George W. Bush's fault. Stop your whining, Democrats, and join the rest of Americans who want to unite behind our new president.

- C. Wulff

Sylmar

Don't discriminate

Recent Public Forum letters take issue with our City Council's withdrawing city subsidization of any activities of the Boy Scouts of America. The rationalization? ``That organization's refusal to accept gays into its scouting program.'' So what's the problem?

The basic problem is that as a privately funded organization the Scouts have every right to be selective of both their members and their leadership. However, if an organization wants to receive any financial or other support from the taxpayers of the city of Los Angeles, it must be willing to accept and live with the fact that it cannot discriminate. Remember our city's gay citizens also pay their fair share of the taxes. Ironically, a Scout official may choose to lie about his sexual orientation and then be home free. But would he be trustworthy? It's a Hobson's choice.

The solution to this quandary is very apparent and simple. Don't discriminate.

What a shame the Boy Scout hierarchy can't deal with real issues and work for all boys.

I am a former scoutmaster who together with my sons have previously benefited greatly from the scouting program.

- Louis Robins

Van Nuys

Label that legacy

President Clinton is searching desperately for a legacy. Perhaps I can be of help. George Washington is known as the father of his country. Abraham Lincoln is the great emancipator and Ronald Reagon the geat communicator. For Clinton, I suggest a choice from three: the great philanderer or the great prevaricator or the great proliferator.

The great philanderer is appropriate but not presidential. Although he is a prolific philanderer, he is not a great one - quantity does not make quality. He is a groping, boorish oaf - no finesse.

The great prevaricator is appropriate with reservations. Clinton is a prolific and brazen liar but not an accomplished one - too transparent. To his credit, he is consistent in that he prefers to lie even when the truth would do no harm.

The great proliferator (nuclear) is appropriate - Clinton's greatest achievement. In exchange for campaign contributions, our president transferred (sold) nuclear warhead and rocketry technology, computer programs, communication technology and equipment, and the super computers to evaluate the above to the Chinese communists. He improved the accuracy and reliability of the Chinese ICBM'S targeted at the U.S. The Chinese are recovering their investment in Clinton by selling the technology to other nations.

The great proliferator (nuclear) is most appropriate.

- James H. Steger

Camarillo

Reaganomics

I am sick and tired of Democrats, left-wing liberals and Clintonites praising ``Slick Willy'' for the robust economy we are experiencing.

In my opinion, there are three basic reasons for the economy we now have: Reaganomics, the Republican Congress of 1994 and, most of all, the good old hard-working American people.

Mr. Clinton just happened to be in the Oval Office at the time. I wonder how many people realize that Alan Greenspan is much more powerful regarding the economy than Clinton ever was. If I hear the expression ``Are you better off now than you were eight years ago?'' again, I'm going to be ill.

- John Reilly

Granada Hills

Where did money go?

Before millions of more dollars are appropriated and spent for training of teachers and principals, someone might want to check on where the previous money's gone. Much of it has been wasted.

It works like this: The state develops standards and encourages companies or groups to devise programs that are standards-based. In order to get state money, programs and training to implement those programs are quickly slapped together and submitted for what seems like rubber stamp approval.

In their rush to be seen as innovative, those who devise these programs pay scant attention to research (which takes years) and tend not to rely on time-tested techniques - for these, after all, don't require glossy new programs. One such program makes much of the fact that teachers will input data into the Internet. The teachers I've spoken with say they receive state money to do this and have no faith or even interest in what the data represents. Before more money is blindly dumped into this rat hole, let's hear some specifics. Otherwise, three years hence people will regard (the terms) ``training'' and ``standards-based'' with the same skepticism - or even derision - that's now visited upon ``deregulation.''

- Bill Farrar

Alhambra

CAPTION(S):

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Photo: John Ashcroft, President-elect Bush's attorney general-designate, left, meets with Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., during a series of meetings Friday prior to his confirmation hearing Tuesday.

Dennis Cook/Associated Press