The River Cities' Reader asked ccandidates for Rock Island County Sheriff 14 questions covering four topics and invited them to add an additional comment on any topic(s) of their choice. We greatly appreciate each candidate's participation. One of these three candidates will be the Rock Island County Sheriff for the next four years. Here's your chance to learn how each views the office and their role, should they prevail.

James Hickman's essay "The Media Has Been the Number-One Cause of War Since 1989" cannot be overstated enough. One is reminded of the scene in what Reader movie reviewer Mike Schulz calls “the best movie of all time”: Citizen Kane. The classic film is all about William Randolph Hearst and depicts him effectively starting the War in Cuba that Hickman refers to. In the film, Hearst's retort to the field reporter who told him there was no conflict there is legendary: "You provide the prose poems; I'll provide the war."

Critical thinking and journalistic curiosity were woefully missing in the most recent COVID-19 press briefing hosted by county health workers and local hospital medical directors. In the six weeks since the last presser, a lot of information has come out in the independent media on how unvaccinated are documented in health systems. The devil's in the details, and how our local hospitals and county health officials conduct themselves relative to our local media inquiries has a major impact on how the Quad Cities populace perceives our collective and individual health status.

It's well-documented that two years before his public execution, President Kennedy exposed that secret societies influence and control news organizations in order to conceal their corrupt actions and expand their authoritarian rule. In his April 1961 speech before the American Newspaper Publisher Association's meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel John F. Kennedy stated, “Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed– and no republic can survive.”