A bad week In Congress
To the editor:
Last week was a disappointment in our government at every level. It started out looking better because the U.S. House of Representatives passed a clean bill to fund the Homeland Security Department through Sept. 30.
Then on the very next day, a representative who chaired the Infrastructure committee announced that any bill to provide jobs to repair our long-neglected roads, bridges and water systems, would have the Keystone Pipeline attached to it. Just another attempt to force President Obama to sign for a pipeline that he had already vetoed. So let’s call it another attempt to blackmail the president.
By the way the only reason that the U.S. House passed the funding bill was because the U.S. Senate gave them no other choice – I am truly glad it got passed; the alternative would have been a shutdown of Homeland Security. We need to get back to a better, more sensible way to govern!
Then the week’s news that followed eclipsed the above with two issues; Hillary’s emails and the letter to Iran sent by 47 Republican U.S. senators.
Hillary’s use of a private email account was an acceptable practice for her position at the time in the State Department and the emails were on a private secured server for her use and the former president’s use. She stated at a press conference that her emails were sent to .gov recipients to conduct State Department business, thus ensuring that all work related correspondence would be immediately archived when received even though she used a private system herself.
She answered many questions. Some reporters were satisfied, but some were not. This saga will definitely continue until the 2016 election is over.
Now to the ill-conceived letter to Iran signed by the 47 Republican U.S. senators. It was intended to inform Iran that the Senate would review any agreement that the State Department signed to limit Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear bomb with intense oversight. Since only the framework of this agreement is due by March 24, this was an unwarranted attempt to undermine the current negotiations of the president.
Israel’s prime minister also jumped in about Iranian agreement. No one knows just what will be the outcome of the negotiations so everyone is just passing judgment prematurely and it will affect the current negotiations.
The question that is the elephant in room is: What lengths will congress go to in putting their party loyalties before their patriotism? I would like to remind both parties that until ISIS is defeated, we are a country at war.
Joan Patterson
Lehigh Acres