Obama leading U.S. to a socialist state
I hate to say we told you so, but we told you so.
Socialized medicine has become a reality. Can anyone be so naive as to believe that we can add 30 million to the health-care rolls without rationing or bankrupting or country?
Obama has made radical appointments without Congress' approval. Auto companies have been bailed out.
We are beginning to see things happen just as they did in Russia, China, etc.
Will America ignore the evidence again? Obama has been laying the foundation of a socialist state. Will the United Socialist States of America become a reality?
Some will repeat their mistakes of 2008. Let's pray that they will be few.
JACK WILLIAMS
Don't deny crust for the poor
It's interesting what Mitt Romney (Morman) and Paul Ryan (Catholic) are trying to do to the poor of America. They propose to take from the "dissolute" unwashed and give to the "virtuous" 1 percent elite in Ryan's budget that Romney supports.
At the risk of sounding like a poor farm boy who was fortunate to get an excellent education and become a member of the academy that is so hated in Tennessee by Republicans, I'll respond in the Latin the Benedictines taught me.
"Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum" ("How suasive is religion to our bane"), to use the wisdom of the Roman poet Lucretius. Yeah, yours -- and Mitt's bane. Shame on Mitt!
Both the students and faculty at Georgetown (a Jesuit Catholic school) politely allowed Ryan to misuse his Catholic "doctrine" to defend a budget built on the backs of America's underclass before they jumped him -- as he deserved to be jumped. Some bane, huh? Shame on Paul!
Instead of using Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, I'll use another poet. John Keats had it right: "Love in a hut, with water and a crust/Is -- love forgive us! -- cinders, ashes, dust." Aaah, he's English. What does he know? Did the two poets know Jesus?
The laissez-faire zombie has put American society up or sale at the severe embarrassment to free-market ideology. Someone's bane has lost its moral compass when the crust is denied to the poor that Jesus deeply cared for.
B.J. PASCHALL
Sevierville, Tenn.
Littlefield acts like a dictator
Why does Mayor Littlefield want to keep our City Council members from having direct contact with city department heads? It is the council's job to thoroughly research all issues pertaining to city business so that they are fully informed when it comes to making decisions. For the mayor to suggest that the daily operations of the city are too complex for them to understand is absurd. He learned it. This information does not need to be "filtered" by his office with his personal bias, as if they are children who need things "dumbed down" in order for them to understand.
We have heard enough of the mayor's personal bias lately. It is emails like his to the council, his handling of the Strut, and his manipulation of the Election Commission that makes it look like Chattanooga is some sort of dictatorship. It is not. The council is there to represent the people of the city, not to take orders from the mayor.
LYNN ASHTON
Fix Chattanooga State's problems
Chattanooga State is at it again. You take the classes your advisers tell you to in order to get in to the nursing program and then they change it and don't notify you.
You then see people right out of high school getting in with no prerequisites done. They get in, and the ones who have worked hard to take the required classes are left out. In the words of an instructor at the school, "It's all about who you know, not what you do."
Then you go to file you financial paperwork and take your tax return. They tell you after a two-hour wait that they now need another form, that the tax return is not good enough. No notice is given, and you have wasted another day. Another normal day at Chattanooga State. Someone needs to take charge and fix the problems for the people who want an education.
SKIP BURNETTE
Use verifiable facts if bashing the GOP
The letter by Mr. Spittler on May 3 is spot on. He nailed this one.
I counted 20 reasons to vote against Obama. One could come up with more, but you have a 200-word limit. Were the Senate not controlled by Democrats, some of these reasons could border on impeachment.
As Democrats write their letters bashing Republicans, I invite them to give some verifiable facts.
We are going broke. We cannot keep spending more money than we receive.
We soon will be a socialized nation such as those in Europe; but that's what Obama wants. He does not like the United States, in my humble opinion.
HORTON HERRIN
Dalton, Ga.
Big oil, speculators drive up fuel prices
Blaming the president for the high price of gasoline is a phony and cynical political play. He has nothing to do with it.
The supply of oil is higher now then it was three years ago at a national average of $1.90 a gallon. Domestic energy production is at its highest in eight years. The demand is lower than at any recent time.
Who is to blame? OPEC is responsible for the world price of oil. They take into consideration their citizens' support and profits after extraction and may increase or reduce production accordingly.
Yet this is by no means the whole story for American consumers paying the price at the tank. Big oil has earned $1 trillion over the past few years in profits, taking government subsidies and advantage of tax loopholes while sticking it to consumers. House Republicans have approved of this.
Arguably the bigger factor is Wall Street speculators. When gas prices have been at their highest, speculators gambling on gas and oil futures commodity markets have controlled the oil futures market, driving up the price of oil by 40 percent, with dollars flowing from consumers to speculators' pockets.
Romney and other Republican politicians continue to blame everyone but those responsible.
JOHN BRATTON
Sewanee, Tenn.
Use these reasons to support Obama
Below are some reasons to vote for the president:
Our economy is not as bad as it was when Mr. Obama took office. It is not as bad as it will be again if Romney gets elected.
Compare the unemployment rate when Mr. Bush took office with the unemployment rate when Mr. Obama took office.
Change has been nearly impossible when Republicans decide as a political tactic to make impassable any bill the president supports, even bills Republicans originally proposed.
The political bitterness began as a modus operandi during Clinton's presidency. Remember Ken Starr?
Mr. Obama's foreign policy ends wars and saves money.
The governor of Ohio boasted on "Meet the Press" how Congress balanced the budget without raising taxes in 1997. Duh! Rich people paid Clinton-era tax rates then. Mr. Bush's conservatism began to do its work after whopping tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans during two wars.
When did Republicans start caring about black communities?
Mr. Obama does not promote guns as needful things.
Osama bin Laden is dead. GM is alive.
Mr. Obama cares for us and other people of the world.
IAN CLAUDIUS SMITH
Signal Mountain