Impose a new tax to discourage those annoying robocalls

Like so many of my friends, I am sick and tired of robocalls. The Federal Trade Commission has been extremely ineffective with its “Do not call” list. The calls continue. Many are scams with people claiming they are from the IRS or FBI, obviously with criminal intentions.

The daily call from the lady at card-holder services — coming from myriad different numbers and area codes — continues along with special offers from carpet cleaners, vacation specials and so on. With the election season warming up, we are going to be inundated with more and more calls.

I have a suggestion — other than finally taking out my land line — that will no doubt stop all these calls: Make every phone call subject to a 1-cent tax. This would be extremely painful for these automatic callers with their millions of calls. The average person would pay $1 a month if he made 100 calls, which would be well worth it if it meant not being interrupted during meals and inopportune times.

With April 15 having just passed, it’s hard to believe I would propose a new tax. But I bet it would be favored by all. Some congressman should propose this as a simple remedy to help his constituents live more peacefully — all at virtually no cost, unlike most government programs.

Don Whitaker

Henderson

Count him out

At one point, Bernie Sanders wins seven states in a row and loses in delegates. Donald Trump has a few million more votes than Ted Cruz, and all you hear is, “Well, that’s the rules.” What the heck is going on in this country?

A GOP worker said on Fox News that the people don’t pick our candidate. We do, he said. With that in mind, why bother voting in this country? We don’t know who the nominees will be yet, but it is probably already settled.

Iran and Iraq don’t have delegates, only people voting. Unfortunately, this shows that our votes don’t count.

Robert Matusiewicz

Las Vegas

Rising up

I used to think America was a democracy where the people elected the politicians and our votes counted. But that doesn’t seem to be the case in this year’s election. This year, the Democrats and Republicans have rigged their primaries. And that’s neither democratic nor the American Way.

In a democracy, the person with the most votes wins the election. On the Republican side that person at this point is Donald Trump. Personally, I despise Mr. Trump, but if he wins he wins. But what I’m hearing is that party insiders want to give the election, not to Mr. Trump or even Ted Cruz, but to some unknown person whom the party insiders will choose themselves. Maybe someone who hasn’t even run or has already dropped out of the race.

On the Democrat side you have a race in Wyoming in which Bernie Sanders slaughters Hillary Clinton by 56-44. You would think that Mr. Sanders would get more delegates than Ms. Clinton, but you would be wrong. When Bernie wins he doesn’t win. Both get half. Why is that? Because the Democrat Party rigged the election in favor of Hillary and made the superdelegates vote last year before the primary season began.

These parties make up the rules and the rules are that the vote of the people doesn’t matter. They are merely giving us the illusion of voting when the elections are rigged from the start.

I’m refusing to participate in a general election that is rigged against Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

The people are rising up. We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore. We have had enough of presidents such as George W. Bush and Barack Obama and we are telling the party insiders we want someone else. And we are not going to allow our elections in America to be conducted under the same rules used by the communists and Third World dictatorships.

Marc Perkel

Gilroy, Calif.