Blame Obama for hurting middle class
The news reports that the Canadian middle class is now richer than the American middle class. America is getting more like Mexico everyday. You have a few rich people, everyone else dirt poor. Welcome to the New America! The Obama nation.
PAT MURPHY, FAYETTEVILLE
Poor children suffer while we vilify Beverly Hall
Andre Jackson’s editorial full of righteous, pious indignation (“Journey toward truth,” Editorial, April 20) left me feeling slightly ill and begs the question whether anyone including Paul Howard and the AJC’s Editorial Board really care about the children in your unyielding quest for revenge and retribution against former Superintendent Beverly Hall.
While the children may have been cheated, not once have I heard anyone suggest how these so-called broken lives will be repaired. The truth is in the test scores and the erasures; that seems to be simply and easily quantifiable and it is unlikely that anyone will get another “truth” from a trial or what I believe is an inquisition.
If you really care about the children don’t focus on destroying the lives of teachers and administrators. The focus should be on bringing inner-city schools up to the financial level of their suburban counterparts. Instead of cutting Head Start and tutorial programs while thousands of dollars are being spent on this “quest for justice” tell those outraged parents to put their money where their mouths are to rectify the harm that was done to the children.
DARRYL A. HINES, DULUTH
President Barack Obama may be the greatest chess player ever to grace American politics. His deliberate procrastination of approving the XL Pipeline may be a brilliant move. Fear of losing the Senate in November to the Republican Party has caused him to be even more creative.
Consider that there are several Democrats seeking re-election to the Senate. They are vulnerable to defeat and as a result so is the Obama administration if the Senate is lost to the Republican Party. These Democratic Senators are attacking Obama on not approving the XL Pipeline, plus claiming they want to reform the Affordable Health Care Act. Brave people to buck the administration, it seems.
So, Obama approves the XL Pipeline in September or early October — just in time to help these Democrat senators stay in office. They’re rewarded by their constituents for bucking the Obama administration and getting re-elected. Obama maintains control of the Senate and continues on his ideological quest.
The Republican Party hasn’t a clue that this guy can play that far ahead!
CARL ENGELBERT, MARIETTA
Shelters should have priority over sports
I have just completed a week on the streets of Atlanta with the Open Door Community’s annual Holy Week Vigil with the homeless. At our Easter service, Pastor Ed Loring announced the closing of two homeless shelters reported in that Sunday’s AJC (“Women’s shelter among 2 to close,” Metro, April 20).
In the middle of Easter joy, it was a hard reality to accept. After being on the streets for the past week, it is hard to fathom another 300 homeless to be cast out from shelter. How can Atlanta afford a new stadium and not afford to keep the shelters open? If a new stadium must be built, could it not wait a decade?
DAVID BUER, TUCSON, ARIZ.
