Presidential debates
American citizen voters deserve to see all the candidates’ cards face up on the table before voting starts for our president. American citizens want more than glossy ads; scripted read speeches; few, if any, open-question press conferences; constrained interviews; and pre-scripted or controlled one-way public contact with voters.
Given the policy and procedure (regulation) differences between the political parties and independents for November’s presidential election, to fully vet each candidate who qualifies to be on the presidential ballot in a majority of states, debate is an absolute imperative and nonnegotiable.
There should be a minimum of three, two-hour-plus prime time national presidential candidate debates. Additionally the nature and breadth of the issues on the table for the “leader of the free world” to govern and solve, are all at a crisis stage inclusive of national security to include China, Russia, Iran, terrorists and North Korea; the economy, inflation, prices and interest rates; energy policy to include gas prices, and fossil fuel and electric vehicles; illegal immigration and open borders; narcotics i.e., fentanyl; U.S. infrastructure; and increased crime, law enforcement funding, and lax prosecutor and court bail enforcement.
Voters deserve to know what each candidate’s track record and current policy positions are, what he or she will accomplish in his or her four years across all these major policy issues and what leadership principles he or she brings to governing the USA.
No debates would be flat wrong for all qualified voting Americas. It is a must-do for 2024.
John R. Baer, Yorktown
Skill games
It would appear that the nabobs who occupy the seats of government in Richmond have discovered a nascent talent in the commonwealth’s citizens who patronize casinos with slot machines and retail outlets that sell the many scratch-off games of chance.
It would appear that these citizens have an uncanny skill when utilizing these opportunities not available to the balance of those who patronize skill games in restaurants, bars (Yes, Virginia, there are bars in our beloved commonwealth), truck stops and convenience stores, so sayeth Richmond.
Norm Carrick, Virginia Beach
What is life?
The late Sen. Barry Goldwater vacillated on the subject of abortion until later life, when he became an advocate of making it a purely medical decision. His wife, Peggy, was founder of Planned Parenthood of Central and Northern Arizona. Now having “personal choice” can apply to not wearing a mask during a pandemic and becoming a danger to your neighbor, but not for a woman like Kate Cox, who according to a lawsuit was not allowed to abort a danger to her own life and to protect her ability to become pregnant in the future. I don’t think that government at any level is capable of making that decision.
In the movie “Swing Vote,” starring Andy Garcia, which begins in a world where Roe v. Wade has already been reversed, a woman from Alabama has been accused of murder by having an illegal abortion. The decision in this fictional case before the Supreme Court is centered around the real “elephant in the room,” the unwanted children who would be born and neglected by the states who have passed anti-abortion laws and demands that the states take responsibility for these children.
Pro-lifers (and everyone else) should view the YouTube video of the scene where Garcia delivers the court’s decision. Life should have at least imitated the art of “Swing Vote,” but didn’t.
Mannie Smith, Norfolk
