To the Editor:

Scott McLeod hit the proverbial nail directly on its head July 12th in his assessment of our representative (ww.smokymountainnews.com/opinion/item/20350) and I use that term very loosely), Mark Meadows, “fighting the wrong fight.’ Rep. Meadows is one step ahead of our President (but only marginally) in the thinking before he speaks department and in regard to the southern border wall, any thinking at all on Meadows’ part, is a stretch.

With no respect due what-so-ever, Rep. Meadows is pursuing a personal agenda of advancing his own power, wealth and influence through association and a quasi leadership position with a misnamed and ill-conceived “Freedom Caucus.” I have no respect at all for people willing to shut down our government (which hurts our economy locally and nationally and directly hurts the common citizen) while in pursuit of wrongheaded ambitions such as a wall between us and our neighbors to the south.

With health care in total disarray due to the GOP's lack of concern for their fellow Americans coupled with their fixation to destroy everything Obama tried diligently to accomplish, plus our national debt of over $20 trillion, the student loan ripoff, a faltering national infrastructure, and other serious problems, to obsess over an unneeded border wall is a slap in the face to men and women of good conscience and affirms yet again how far the Republican Party is willing to drift from the foundation of “representative government” many of us once believed was the fundamental underpinning of this once great nation.

David L. Snell

Franklin