Where focus must be

It seems our soon-to-be-impeached obstructer-in-chief is at it again. Lying in plain sight. We know he lies. When has he not? We know he cheats. Where are the tax returns to prove he doesn’t?

We know he vilifies his opponents and demeans those he considers “losers” like John McCain or those “happy” Kurds he betrayed and then abandoned.

My generation was taught basic civics and American history in school. We learned about the three branches of government and the system of checks and balances built into the Constitution by the founding fathers. We are now faced with a rogue president—unchecked and unbalanced— who refuses to follow those principles and who tries at every turn to obstruct Congress from fulfilling its constitutional responsibility of oversight.

But I refer to Congress as though it were a monolith, a body acting in unison to carry out its constitutional role. That is not the case today, since the Republican faction of that body is politically paralyzed.

It has abandoned its duty to the Constitution, broken the oath of office and enabled this Fifth Avenue flimflam man to pursue his personal ambition at the expense of our national interest.

It is Trump and his conspiracyminded cohorts who are fixated on the 2016 election and determined to debunk the Mueller Report. How petty and pathetic, like Trump himself. What we should be concerned about are his clandestine efforts, now made public, to illegally affect the 2020 election. DAVID ELI COCKCROFT

Little Rock