My View
BY DON SORCHYCH | March 23, 2016
PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM
by Sam Steiger
Open letter to Sen. McCain
Sonoran News printed this editorial on Sept. 2 - 8, 1998. Sam was an exceptional individual and an accomplished writer. From time to time we will revisit his thoughtful editorials.
Dear John: This is a genuinely sad moment for me. I voted early last week and I did not vote for you. In the faint hope that there are many like me who want to send you a clear message, you have gone too far down the traditional Washington path of non-principle and all focus on politically correct behavior. Your patently offensive support of a tobacco bill that did nothing but penalize smokers for the sins of the tobacco companies was almost certainly the last straw, I thought. But you have compounded your problem with the most insulting radio ad l have heard In my many decade relationship with Arizona politics. Your own kindness to me notwithstanding, your continued employment of Jay Smith as one of the many straws, the reason that your vote totals in the primary will lag behind other unopposed Republicans at the state wide level is because there are a lot of us who feel as I do.
Guest Editorials:
By Greg Allen | March 23, 2016
Totalitarians in disguise
Has there ever been common ground among opposing factions? Maybe, but it’s seldom, for light cannot dwell with darkness nor can oil cohere with water.
Nowadays there’s a war raging for the realm of ideas, tradition, and beliefs. For many, there’s no tolerance for such things anymore. It's human nature to want to live by definition. We’re defined by this or that and labeled. We’re born naked, yet undefined. We’re taught our thoughts, instructed by an outside world. No one’s born a liberal or conservative, a decent human being or monster, a Genghis Khan, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, or a Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, a conformist or subverter.
By Dr. John Sparks | March 23, 2016
No need to consider Judge Garland
With the death of Justice Antonin Scalia the Supreme Court is left with one chief justice and seven associate justices. President Obama has nominated Merrick B. Garland, chief judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, who was a Clinton appointee and clerked under liberal Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. Even before the nomination, the vacancy produced urgent calls for a replacement to be nominated based on claims that an eight-person court would not be “fully functioning,” would “hamstring the judiciary,” and would amount to “partisan understaffing.” With Obama’s nomination of Garland, the clamor for immediate action will increase.
By Thomas L. Knapp | March 23, 2016
Election 2016: "One Person, One Vote" kills real choice
As you may have noticed, we're in the middle of yet another American presidential election (our 57th). The news is full of musings about party primaries and delegate counts and possible brokered conventions, but if things proceed as usual, as many as 130 million Americans will cast votes in November. A winner will be declared based on popular votes in the states as transmuted into a total of 538 electoral votes (if no candidate receives at least 270 such votes, the US House of Representatives chooses the next president).
By Robert Romano | March 23, 2016
GOP: Stealing nominations (and losing) since 1912
In 70 percent of instances when Republican voters selected one candidate at the primary polls by popular vote, and the party selected somebody else at the convention, the GOP lost the general election. What could go wrong?
All the buzz in Washington, D.C. is about the possibility of a contested convention in Cleveland, Ohio for the Republican nomination in July, presumably to stop GOP frontrunner Donald Trump from securing the nod.
