A practical choice to lead America

Democrats and Republicans bicker while our country falls apart with huge debt, lost jobs, a shrinking middle class, rampant illegal immigration and global disrespect.

U.S. lawmakers are more devoted to their ideologies than to serving our country. It’s time for a practical leader who recognizes the problems and takes a pragmatic approach to solving them.

Donald Trump has his faults, but he is not an ideologue. He could not be any worse than our previous political leaders.

Meg Whitman clobbers Christie

Re “HP executive Whitman blasts Christie for endorsing ‘demagogue’ Trump” (Capitol & California, Feb. 29): How refreshing to see Meg Whitman blast Gov. Chris Christie for endorsing Donald Trump. It is about time for responsible Republican leaders to speak the truth.

Perhaps Christie is looking to score a place on the Trump ticket. If so, he will become the 2016 version of Sarah Palin, and the Democrats will have a field day during the presidential race.

GOP has only itself to blame

Re “Rubio, Cruz keep up attacks on Trump as Super Tuesday looms” (Page 2A, Feb. 28): If the Republican Party leaders really wanted to defeat Donald Trump, they needed to eliminate every candidate except the one who was getting the most votes other than Trump.

Sens. Cruz and Rubio have spent too much time tearing each other to shreds and solidifying Trump’s message that the politicians have done nothing of note during the past few years and it’s time to let someone else try.

Trump favors full disclosure

Whenever I hear or read something outrageous uttered by Donald Trump, I’m reminded of the story about the emperor who had no clothes.

The homeless conundrum

Re “Are Seattle’s tent cities a fix for homelessness?” (Page 1A, Feb. 28): Of course tent cities are not a fix for homelessness. But they can be a valuable stopgap measure to take homeless people off the streets. Placerville built a homeless tent community three years ago that was successful at no cost to the taxpayer. In fact, Hangtown Haven was so successful that the city’s power structure shut us down and threw 40 men and women out onto the street.

No one needs to go to Seattle to see how it’s done. We did it right here in El Dorado County.

California’s a homeless magnet

Re “Activists push capital to consider tent cities” (Local, March 1): Having worked for the state, I know whereof I speak about the chronic homeless problem. Word gets out around the country that California provides more freebies, food, health care, education, housing and so forth than any other state. We need to put people in power who will put a stop to this absurd situation.

What is student doing there?

Re “N. Korea puts tearful American on display for ‘anti-state crime’ ” (Page 10A, March 1): What was this 21-year-old student doing in North Korea? Now the United States has to negotiate his release and give worldwide attention to this awful government. How much money, time and resources is it going to take to get this student released?

Winning takes time and patience

Re “Owner does great job on arena, not on team” (Sports, Feb. 29): Since Vivek Ranadive purchased the team, the Sacramento Kings have improved, slowly but surely.

The Kings have a nice young core of players that can evolve into something special. The team’s won-loss record may say otherwise, but winning takes time. Remember when the Golden State Warriors only won 23 games four seasons ago, and now they’re the best team in the league.