Opinion articles provide independent perspectives on key community issues, separate from our newsroom reporting.

Letters to the Editor

U.S. Senate is a disgrace and needs to be restructured

Nurse Ratched, we have found your escaped inmates. They made their way into the U.S. Senate hearings for the Supreme Court nomination.

Apparently Sen. Chuck Schumer thought they were from the Boy’s and Girl’s Nation (if those organizations are still so named) and invited them in. However, half of the crazies that performed were U.S. senators. What dishonor they have brought upon our nation.

As originally constituted, each state legislature sent two senators to Washington to represent their respective states. The states could recall them at-will. One hundred years ago, big government progressives wanted to strip the states of that power. The 17th Amendment abandoned the states’ rights and provided for the direct popular vote of Senators. In my most humble opinion, that was a mortal blow to the structure of our republic. These same people gave us the 16th Amendment as well. Need I say more?

Today’s senate confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh are a great example as to why we need to repeal the 17th Amendment. This present batch of “senior statesmen” would be recalled by their state legislatures had this been the old days.

The Founders wanted the states to be represented in the federal government and today they are not. The present makeup of the U.S. Senate is a disgrace and it needs to be restructured. Repeal the 17th Amendment. Take the 16th with it.

More than one flew over the Senate cuckoo nest.

Nurse Ratched, get your people out of here.

Richard W. Walker

Seabrook

Graham’s flipflop scary

Last summer, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham threatened “holy hell” if President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, saying it could amount to the end of Trump’s presidency.

On Aug. 28 – in the week that his good friend Sen. John McCain, who, like Graham, had often been critical of Trump’s hateful divisiveness, was being memorialized for his heroism and service to our nation by most Americans of all political leanings – Graham reversed his position, saying that the time to fire Sessions could come “sooner rather than later.”

Trump’s critics were concerned last summer and remain concerned now that Trump’s reason for firing Sessions would be to replace him with an attorney general who would stop or limit the Russia probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller.

To date, Mueller’s team has charged four Americans once affiliated with Trump’s campaign or administration, 13 Russian nationals, 12 Russian intelligence officers, three Russian companies and two other people. So far there has been no proof of collusion, as the president is constantly reminding us; at least none that has been made public – yet.

We also now know that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election by hacking computers, and stealing and releasing documents in an effort to hurt Democrats and their presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. That fact was attested to by the FBI, CIA, and the National Security Agency, which in a January 2017 report said, “Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.”

Frank Flaumenhaft

Hilton Head Island

Choose people over alligators

Yes, the gators were here first, and yes, they belong on Hilton Head Island. That said, don’t you think that gators over a certain size, say six feet, should be relocated? Animals have rights, but people have a right to feel safe when they walk their dogs on Hilton Head.

Roger Elmore

Beaufort

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