Torpy’s column suffers from bad timing
Bill Torpy’s recent foray into the topic of immigration enforcement and amnesty met with some excruciatingly bad timing “Nuanced views on immigration? No way!,” News, July 9.
He wrote three more-noble-than-thou tear-jerkers about a Marietta illegal immigrant church deacon and his illegal immigrant wife (both apparently with 19-year-old deportation orders) being taken into custody by ICE for deportation. Before the ink was dry, we saw news stories about an illegal immigrant being captured and charged after an attack that involved the rape of a mother while her young son looked on. The attackers also threw boiling water on the helpless woman. Then an obviously deranged illegal immigrant in Gwinnett has been charged with stabbing her husband and her children to death.
Then it was illegal immigrant prostitutes in Canton. And then it was illegal immigrant meth dealers with illegal weapons in Gainesville. A busy two weeks in “looking for a better life.”
Torpy also takes note of the 1986 “one-time” 1986 Republican immigration amnesty and pushes for a repeat. We can’t help but wonder how often he thinks we should conduct “one-time” amnesties for victims of borders. Or if American borders and immigration laws will be allowed to apply to “church deacons.”
D.A. KING, MARIETTA
Glimmers of hope shine amid partisanship
Last Sunday’s edition included an editorial and some op-ed columns pertaining to the gridlock due to hyper-partisanship. There are a couple of glimmers of hope in this darkness. One is No Labels, a citizens’ movement of Democrats, Republicans, academics business leaders and ordinary citizens dedicated to a new politics of problem solving. They do not agree on everything, but do agree that in the words of the No Labels motto, it is time to “stop fighting and start fixing.”
In the House of Representatives, there is also a bipartisan group of 40 members, equally divided by party, called the Problem Solvers Caucus, which is committed to bipartisanship, collaboration and mutual respect. At this time the focus of the group is on tax reform and infrastructure. To my knowledge there are no members from the Georgia delegation.
JOHN TITUS, PEACHTREE CORNERS
Where is the outrage against Korea?
I see people marching everywhere every day for every possible reason. They are marching for higher minimum wages, women’s rights, LGBT rights, children’s rights, health care rights, housing rights, you name it. But, who is marching for Otto?
Otto Warmbier came home to America after spending 17 months in North Korea on a trumped-up charge for taking a poster out of a hotel. Yes, Otto finally came home, but in a coma where he had been for months and no one in our government or his family knew about it. He lived only a short time after he arrived home. Now, the North Koreans have launched a dangerous intercontinental missile and still no one is marching. Please tell me, where are America’s principles and morals and who is marching for them?
LYLE M. SCHROEDER, CUMMING
Reps need to put voters needs first
Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Georgia’s request for an average 40 percent increase in premiums and threat to withdraw from the health insurance exchange embodies why Congress cannot act responsibly on health care legislation. The focus of Congress is on maintaining high profit margins for health insurance companies instead of ensuring the best possible health for our nation’s people. The hypocrisy in this is that every senator, every member of the House of Representatives, has access to a great health insurance plan. I know because it is the same as I had when I was an active federal employee, and I took it into retirement. Why no support for a single payer plan, i.e. Medicare? Because they know the insurance companies will have to compete for those contracts, likely reducing profits. What does it take for our representatives to put the needs of the people who elected them first?
BRUCE GARNER, ATANTA
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