Nation looks to Senate to put country ahead of party
“Deconstruction of the administrative state.” Trump and his allies promised this, and have launched the crusade to do just that with his disastrous Cabinet picks.
Our country’s future depends on a Senate that must confirm these people. We can only hope enough of them put country over party to avoid this dystopian future for the United States.
LARRY CARVER, ATLANTA
Will president-elect have unchecked power?
Who will win the battle of questionable Cabinet appointees? Congress or the president-elect?
The Constitution is written to give each of the three branches — executive, judicial and legislative — powers to check the other two from dominating. Or do Americans want their president-elect to have power unchecked by anyone?
MIKE WEST, MARIETTA
Life was good when kids walked to store rain or shine
Times have changed. Back in the 1930s, my mother would have been jailed on a regular basis if she had been locked up each time I walked a mile to the store.
We had only one store, and my friends and I had reasons to walk to the store every day, rain or shine. That’s saying our parents trusted us because they raised us right. We knew that if we misbehaved out and about, there would be hell to pay when we returned home.
Life was good, and there was no social media, no phones or TV.
JACK FRANKLIN, CONYERS
Children are better off outside and off social media
Bravo to Brittany Patterson for refusing to sign the so-called “safety plan” (“Lost track of your kid? Not a crime). Sounds like the Fannin County Sheriff’s Office needs to stay out of people’s business.
This oversight is such a hypocritical tactic by a county that claims to want the government out of our lives. This case of the “rogue mother” who supposedly doesn’t know how to raise her children is an example of an administration that thinks it has the corner on the market for morality. I think that we have totally come unhinged from reality. We have no idea how to prioritize what real risk is; as Lenore Skenazy pointed out, “Statistically, you would have to keep your child outside, unsupervised for 750,000 years for them to be likely to be (kidnapped).”
The first steps back to sanity are to get off social media, get outside, and engage your community.
JOHN E. DUKE, COLLEGE PARK
First president warned us this might happen
The first president of the United States warned us of the risks of partisan politics.
In his 1796 farewell address, George Washington warned that political parties might enable “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men to subvert the power of the people” to gain control of our government. Stated more plainly, Washington warned that voters are likely to vote for a particular party rather than responsibly choosing the right candidate for the office.
Isn’t that exactly what happened in the 2024 presidential election? Weren’t we so overwhelmed by party propaganda that we failed to exercise individual judgment in choosing the candidate with the character and abilities to be our president?
If so, we failed to fulfill our responsibilities as citizens. Then, sadly, the political cartoons in the Nov. 14 AJC graphically illustrated what we have done. The accusatory stares of the Founding Fathers in the Michael Ramirez cartoon reflect their disgust with our failure. If we didn’t elect the best candidate, “the enemy is us,” as the little guy in the Luckovich cartoon says.
ARNOLD C. MCQUAIDE JR., BERKELEY LAKE
