This is Viewpoints for Thursday, June 21, 2017

Good guys

Looking at the court officer standing over Micki Brown in the front page photo of the Tuesday, June 20 edition, I’m sure glad he’s one of the good guys.

Right direction

Page two of last Saturday’s Telegraph shows the president at work doing what he was elected to do — “draining the swamp.” Critics say he exaggerates the problem. That may be so; however, he must fight fire with fire. Regretfully, Republicans who wanted ‘anybody but Trump” would never tackle the bureaucracy in government with the same passion. Most of Trump’s team are not career politicians. We must get term limits to solve the problem of the idea that eacj representative must spend most of his or her time raising money for the party to get reelected. Meanwhile, put your fears and grievances behind and get behind our president to get as much done as possible. This may be our only chance to turn our government around and get it headed in the right direction.

Hypocrite

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., recently stated that: “An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.” But he is the author and sponsor of the U.S. House American Care Act, a replacement for Obamacare. According to the Congressional Budget Office this law would force 23 million Americans to lose their Medicaid coverage.

It would also “end the protections of people with pre-existing conditions.” But presidential candidate Donald Trump promised not to cut Medicaid, but this new Republican bill “has $1.5 trillion in cuts with more than $800 billion in cuts in health care plus $600 billion in other savings.”

Rep. Ryan advocates the privatization of Medicare and Social Security and funding Medicaid by block grants to the states which would block enrollment in Medicaid for many of our uninsured.

Rep. Ryan is a hypocrite who doesn’t believe in our federal government’s social welfare safety net. Nor in government-run health care as does our own Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., and every other Republican congressman and U.S. senator from our state.

Bad guys hold the cards

The sentence in the murder trial of the police officer in Forsyth was life without the possibility of parole. Only when I read the article did I find out under Georgia law that the victims’ family is prohibited from expressing their desire for the death penalty during the pre-sentencing phase of the trial.

As a society, have we gone loopy or something? What kind of lawmakers and governors would approve such a law? How can they not allow the family to express their desire for the death penalty! Life in prison without parole does not guarantee this monster will die in prison. What if 20 years from now the prisons are so overcrowded that they pass a law allowing his release? Don’t tell me it can’t happen. We are dealing with politicians here and who can trust them to do the right thing?

What will happen to the two killers (excuse me, alleged killers) of our corrections officers. First of all they will get a change of venue due to their lawyers saying they can’t get a fair trial in Putnam County. There trials will drag on for years and does anyone really believe they will get the death penalty? The bad guys hold all the cards and are now in charge. This should scare the begeezers out of us on the right side of the law.

Do I hear $1 billion?

Y’all remember when the Interstate-75/Interstate-16 interchange renovation was to cost $230 million for four miles of a new (and efficient?) multi-lane highway system? Later it was upped to $270 million, followed by $400 million, and a year ago, $470 million. Now The Telegraph heralds in Saturday’s paper, “Officials say $500 million interstate expansion...” for our latest cost for this project.

Does this new cost include a theme park and a nuclear power plant next to our new highway? And are y’all as electrified as me with this massive cost escalation? Surely there is nothing nefarious happening in this scheme as did with the racketeering and fraud scandal recently revealed with our county education department’s buy of millions of dollars of worthless computers.

Anyway, you remember the 1992 “B” horror/comedy film “Highway to Hell”? The film tells the story of a guy and his gal who are kidnapped by a demon and taken to Hell to become one of Satan’s brides. It sounds like taxpayers are getting a similar shotgun wedding — but for us, we are being paved over with our highway taking us down the road to the poor house.

Yogi Berra said: “You can observe a lot by watching.” Conversely, I do not want to watch this boloney anymore.

What’s the mission?

We have been in Afghanistan since the end of 2001. Three presidents have directed our military efforts. What have we achieved? The government in Kabul is corrupt. Reconstructions efforts are rife with waste and fraud. The Taliban controls almost half of the country. Islamic State extremists control Tora Bora. The number of truck bombs is increasing. The shooting of Americans by the Afghan military (insider attacks) is on the rise.

We are about to send an additional 4,000 troops. What is their mission? Is it to train and advise Afghan forces? Is it to conduct counter-terror operations? Is it to capture and occupy villages? If 140,000 U.S. and NATO forces could not eradicate the Taliban, what can 12,000 troops do? The president has to identify why our troops are there. He has to tell us what is their mission. We have been training Afghan security forces for over 15 years. He has to tell us when our troops will come home.

This is a civil war. The Afghans have to resolve this conflict themselves. As long as we continue to fight, the politicians will not negotiate a peace settlement. As long as we pour money into construction projects, the profiteers will push for the destruction of the Taliban.

I do not know how this will end, or when. I know we cannot continue. It is draining us of personnel and resources.

This story was originally published June 21, 2017 at 9:00 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Thursday, June 21, 2017."