A large tent structure along Highway 242 on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024, in Concord, Calif.(Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.
We should start holding
homeless accountable
Re: “County’s homeless population spikes” (Page B1, June 5).
When are enough people around here going to figure out that the more free stuff you give homeless people, the more homeless people will be drawn to where they get free stuff, including housing? It’s not complicated, people.
And when are we going to go back to requiring people to take personal responsibility for their lives, rather than excusing them and just giving them hand-outs? Countries like Japan don’t have a homeless problem because they don’t tolerate homelessness. Neither should we.
Christopher Andrus
Dublin
It is up to voters
to preserve democracy
History shows that those intent on overthrowing government will cause chaos, discredit existing institutions and offer an autocratic solution where all powers belong to one person. Over the last 20 years, Congress has been turned into a clown show seemingly incapable of legislating. The Supreme Court has become a joke as so-called unbiased justices take “bribes” and openly support candidates. Media beats the drum of failure.
In fact, our institutions are not failing. Laws are getting passed. The economy is healthy, despite the greed demonstrated by big business and paid for by we the people. It’s another way to sow chaos.
There is one, proven way to save democracy. It is possible to replace chaos with order and not have a dictator do it. In our democracy, you are the decider. Please vote.
Nancy Thornton
Concord
Third-party pipe dream
brought us Trump
Re: “Voters need a choice that’s not a lesser evil” (Page A6, June 5).
The pipe dream of a successful third-party presidential candidate infects our politics like a virus every four years. An independent presidential candidate has not won the presidency since George Washington.
A vote wasted on a third-party presidential candidate is usually a vote for the greater of the two remaining evils. It’s the sort of thinking that got Donald Trump elected president in the first place. The result of that error is a country so deeply divided it may not be possible to unify it.
Structural reforms regarding campaign finance and the two-party system will be necessary before we can elect a president not identified with one of the two major political parties. Until then, voting for a third-party presidential candidate in the upcoming election is not only pointless, it is dangerous. Trump does not follow or respect our laws. If returned to the White House, why would he ever leave?
Jay Chafetz
Walnut Creek
Remember those who
sacrificed for freedom
On the 80th anniversary of D-Day, we should remember the 9,388 souls interred at the American Cemetery in Normandy as well as all the other souls lost in Europe and the Pacific.
They made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve freedoms that are now being taken for granted or eroded.
Barry Gardin
Hayward
Hillary has no one
to blame but herself
Re: “Hillary chides Dems on abortion” (Page A1, May 26).
Hillary, blame yourself. Blind incompetence lost a national election to Donald Trump. Like a bad penny, the only person to accomplish that disastrous feat has returned to complain about Democrats?
It’s not bad enough that people have to pay the price for Clinton’s coasting through the 2016 election, she condescendingly chastises her former colleagues. Had she actually listened to the electorate before beginning her unsuccessful campaign, neither that run nor loss would have occurred. But she, Debbie Wasserman and their cabal of power-hungry acolytes forced Hillary onto the ticket, and history continues to suffer the result.
As another reader pointed out, from the beginning, media unconscionably gave Trump an untold amount of free advertising. Now it’s picking up the gauntlet for Hillary? No thank you. Keep these losers out of “news” stories that are nothing more than their cries for attention. Voters need answers going forward, not recriminations about a devastating past.
R Cote
Castro Valley