Educate yourself and vote

Learn about judicial choices

Too many voters pick judges without knowing them. Money, glossy photos and catchy phrases influence our choices.

Those with backgrounds as prosecutors talk about being “fair” in terms of holding people accountable. Of course, prosecutors know that being tough on crime is a traditional value. Unfortunately, working as a prosecutor can limit a person’s compassion to the first person claiming victimization, while the accused become victims of our prosecutorial system.

If voters want a judge who believes prosecuting the accused is the best way to hold them accountable, how can we know which judge came up through the prosecutor’s office?

If voters believe addressing the causes of crime is the best way to address society’s ills, how can we know which judge has the well-rounded development of a broader practice?

Electing judges who are smart on crime means knowing more than candidates’ names.

Vote to save country

I spent 18 months in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam as a reporter and editor for a U.S. Army battalion newspaper, I witnessed more than anyone should in a lifetime. To say I was a broken man is an understatement.

I have never become deeply involved in politics until now. I strongly believe we have the makings of a tyrant in our country and he lives in the White House. Someone who belittles virtually everyone and expresses disdain for those who are different, thinks he is above making mistakes, lies, believes the media is the enemy of the people and that all should worship him, as he publicly stated.

If that doesn’t sound a lot like someone else in history we all know painfully well, think again. If you wish to save our democracy then please, vote. Vote for a unified and revitalized America and not for hate.

Conservative catastrophes

Conservatives have one theme: The “left” is responsible for all the world’s problems. All their conservative core values are failures.

Trickle-down economics has been a disaster time after time. The tax cuts don’t stimulate anything except political contributions. Wages stagnate and government debt grows, while the rich get richer at everyone else’s expense.

Climate-change denial is debunked daily. The world is growing hotter, and floods, fires and severe storms are becoming the norm, exactly as predicted by the climate change models.

President Donald Trump’s only accomplishment has been to give himself a massive tax cut, while conning his middle-class followers into believing they got one too. Trump only changed the middle-class tax withholding tables so his followers’ weekly paychecks got a little bigger. They give it all back on their tax returns because Trump eliminated the personal exemption.

Big heads, big problems

Falsely enlarged egos in Congress constitute a genuine threat to America. Many of our afflicted politicians and their special-interest paymasters place themselves, their political parties and the status quo above America and our way of life.

The threat has been visible since President Donald Trump took office. For example, Rep. Maxine Waters said, “I am not about to let this country go the way of Donald Trump.” She used the pronoun “I”, as in “I will not let our duly elected president...”.

Big heads elevate politicians to a false reality. They think they know what is best for America and for their constituencies. In 2008, they demonstrated a typical example of their superior knowledge with the “shovel-ready jobs” that would be unleashed by the $700-billion tax-dollar bailout of big banks. What about the $21.4 trillion national debt and the burgeoning $3 trillion annual interest payments? They are outcomes of self-enlarged heads.