Time is urgent to avert world crisis

With a defiantly goading North Korea, we are facing the possibility of the unimaginable. And what are we hearing from our president? Our president tosses out a glib "We will take care of it" and "Who knows?" then gets back to his obsessive tweeting … whining about how unfairly he is being treated, spreading conspiracy theories, insulting our allies, denigrating our institutions, defending sexual predators and bigots, praising Putin and losing at sophomoric trash talk with Kim Jong Un.

Now, when we most need a strong, competent secretary of state capable of diplomatically and decisively working toward averting a war which could only result in horrific loss for all of us - the State Department is in chaos. Our president has shown his scorn toward his billionaire secretary of state pick and our secretary of state has called the president a moron, all while the State Department is crumbling.

Our fear grows with each new delusional tweet. Our president and his "best people" are proving to be self-serving, indifferent, incompetent and criminal. Our complicit Republican Congress has shown an eagerness to put the agenda of their ill-informed and irrational standard-bearer ahead of the security and health of our country. Getting rid of financial and environmental regulations meant to protect us and giving tax breaks to the wealthy seem to be of a much higher priority than protecting us from the threat of nuclear war.

With North Korea gloating about their capabilities while our president tweets little rocket man trash, time is of the essence. Russian interference in our elections is a nonissue to our president; we can't wait until the 2018 elections. We must act now and join forces with a bipartisan Congress and cabinet in defending our democracy and protecting our nation from an unhinged leader and the threat of nuclear war.

Jane Cox

Wheaton