Voting, GOP leadership, D-Day

Clinton news spoiled my vote

Re “Clinton has clinched, delegate survey finds” (Page 1A, June 7): I have spent hours reading political articles on the presidential nominee process and its players. I joined the Bernie Sanders’ movement, helped finance his campaign with a few bucks each week, and believed his ideas would address the problem of campaign funding by the rich and powerful.

Alas, I woke up and read The Sacramento Bee front-page headline and discovered I didn’t have to vote. The headline informed me that Clinton had won the nomination. I wonder how many potential Sanders’ voters actually decided not to vote.

Trying to ruin voter turnout

I was astounded to see The Bee’s front-page story saying Hillary Clinton had clinched the Democratic nomination on the morning of the California primary. In the past, the nomination was all but decided by the time Californians got to vote. This is a blatant attempt to discourage primary voters, especially those voting for Bernie Sanders.

False equivalencies against Sanders

Re “Trump, Sanders’ strange attraction” (Insight, Erika D. Smith, June 7): One sentence in Erika Smith’s column piece tarring Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders with the same brush speaks volumes to her failing to make a comparison based on unbiased inquiry and informed judgments.

Claiming that Sanders has repeatedly “thrown Clinton under the bus,” and that Trump has taken his cue from him, she quotes Trump: “Like he told the crowd in Sacramento last week, echoing some of the short-sighted things that Sanders has said: ‘The Clintons were crooked from the beginning. … These are crooked people.’ ”

Innuendo. Sanders has never said or implied such remarks. His criticisms of Hillary Clinton are closer to her own oft-spoken doubts about Barack Obama’s qualifications in the 2008 campaign.

There is no mention of the high level of bitterness of Clinton’s supporters after June of that year and their threats to likewise act irrationally come that November.

GOP leaders sacrifice principles

Re “Trump adds Muslims to list of those he thinks may be biased as judges” (Page 1A, June 6): Donald Trump would exclude judges with Mexican heritage, as well as Muslim judges from presiding in a lawsuit against him. Though they say they disagree with Trump’s pronouncements on racial issues, Senate leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. John McCain and House Speaker Paul Ryan still voice support for Trump for the sake of Republican Party unity. When did unity of the party become more important than unity of the country?

It is one thing to support Trump if you agree with his positions. However, I fail to see which Republican program is of such great import to warrant supporting Trump, unless one truly agrees with his statements. Which other Americans would the Republican leadership spit on and sacrifice for the sake of “party unity” to win an election?

Whereas Trump is a self-serving, divisive hatemonger, McConnell, McCain Ryan, et al., are worse for they know what they are doing.

Many died fighting intolerance

It is sad, yet somehow appropriate that Donald Trump’s latest attack on the judge handling the Trump University case came on the anniversary of D-Day – a day on which thousands of Americans died to protect us from a racially-driven ideology. The courage shown by the D-Day soldiers stands in sharp contrast to the behavior of Republican leaders who are afraid to repudiate Trump because it may cost them some votes.

D-Day fades in memories

I found it interesting, and disheartening, that The Bee let Snoopy alone commemorate D-Day.

This story was originally published June 8, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Voting, GOP leadership, D-Day."