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Stop electing judges
who are soft on crime

Re: “Triple homicide allegedly tied to domestic violence” (Page A1, Sept. 20).

I read the article about the triple homicide on Chynoweth Avenue. Why was Mr. Vicencio not in jail — especially after emptying an automatic pistol into the front window of the MLK library in 2019? Now three people are dead.

“We charged him with 11 felony counts and asked for him to be sent to prison for nine years. We recognized that he was a dangerous person,” Rosen told reporters. “The judge granted probation in that case over our extremely strong objection.”

Who was the judge who granted Joseph Charles Vicencio probation? It’s difficult to tell, but it should make us all wonder how these people get elected.

Surely someone must realize that the liberal policies of these judges do not work.

The next time you receive your ballot, read it carefully; you may be voting for a judge who allows a killer to walk.

Thomas Baker
San Jose

Good journalism is
censorship antidote

Presidents have often blasted the media for perceived unfavorable reports in the media. A difference today is that Congress is acting on the president’s wishes to eliminate the sources of these reports … clearly a free speech right the original Constitution writers wanted to preserve. What goes around comes around, and it won’t be long before we have a Democratic president doing the same, and a Democratic-majority Congress mimicking the present Republican Congress.

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How to bring us back to the intentions of the First Amendment? The Supreme Court is not helping. Violence is not helping. Conversations, led by the media, are a way forward. Please support responsible journalism. We need it desperately now.

Joe Margevicius
Palo Alto

Trump has winner in
$100,000 fee for H-1B

Re: “Trump OKs $100K annual fee for H-1B visa applications” (Page A1, Sept. 20).

President Trump signing an executive order to charge for visas is great news for the American people.

American tech companies generate trillions of dollars in annual revenue. That’s great for executives and wealthy shareholders, but by utilizing H-1B visas, they are failing our kids. In Chicago, the number of kids that can do math at grade level rounds down to zero percent at 55 public high schools. In Baltimore, 40% of public high schools have zero percent of kids doing math at grade level. Left or right, this must stop.

Charging for visas forces Oracle or Adobe to care about the problem instead of ignoring it. Hopefully, the Trump administration will next cut funding to universities that take foreign students for higher tuition payments. We cannot continue subsidizing elitist institutions by leaving our kids behind.

Logan Ross
San Jose

Trump’s authoritarian
plan is unfolding

The Trump administration’s plan is to use authoritarian political and legal power, including the executive branch, government agencies, the Justice Department, the military, and a complicit Supreme Court majority, to intimidate, silence, disempower or concretely punish those who disagree with the administration’s views and policies, effectively suppressing dissent and free speech except for a courageous few.

Then, for those remaining dissenters and demonstrators, when any degree of civil disturbance or violence is expressed or manufactured, including that incited by anarchists, nihilists or provocateurs from the far right, such will be used to justify an additional oppressive governmental and military response. Should subsequent civil rights and voter suppression fail to produce desired election results, that response will escalate to martial law, ensuring that the authoritarian supporters currently in power remain in power.

Authoritarianism will then have triumphed over our currently eroding constitutional democracy, bringing a near limitless abuse of power and public-private financial corruption.

Steve Baron
Cupertino