But in a country where mental health services are sparse for those who need them and nearly everyone has ready access to guns, the overheated rhetoric in the public arena is increasingly dangerous — and those who desire to lead must do better.

On Sunday, the U.S. Secret Service thwarted what it termed an assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump as he played golf at his country club in West Palm Beach, Florida. That incident follows one in July in which a gunman opened fire on a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, killing one person and injuring others, including the former president, who was struck in the ear.

Details are still emerging about the alleged gunman but, as with the shooter in July, his political views appear chaotic and hard to discern. He claims to have voted for Trump in 2016 before shifting allegiances to other Republican presidential candidates this year, and he appears to have been animated by Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Reporting suggests he also has a lengthy criminal record for weapons violations, calling into question how he was able to obtain the AK-47 Secret Service officers say they recovered at the scene. However, it is a fact of American life that those determined to access firearms can do so, even when they are a demonstrable threat to themselves and others.

Couple that with mental health services that are difficult for those in crisis to access, and together they form a volatile stew for those with ill intent. Wave after wave of disinformation, from domestic and international sources alike, seeks to divide the American electorate, pitting neighbor against neighbor and causing otherwise reasonable citizens to view others as a threat to their way of life.

Worse, though, are candidates and officials who peddle in disinformation as a pathway toward election. Those who willfully traffic in lies do not have your best interests in mind. They do not care about you or your families. And they are unconcerned by the effects of their poisonous rhetoric.

On this, no side is blameless. Both Republicans and Democrats have the opportunistic among their ranks who convince themselves that doing anything to win is simply how the game is played, consequences be damned.

That is why it’s so important, especially at such a fraught moment for our republic, that those seeking elected office and those who hold sway in the political arena seize this moment to elevate the tenor of our debate — to inspire rather than degrade, and to appeal to the better angels of our nature instead of the lowest common denominator.

Case in point: Only hours after the Secret Services detained the alleged gunman on Sunday, Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance baselessly blamed Democratic rhetoric for inspiring the suspect in Florida. He said this even as his hateful attacks on Haitian immigrants — which he admitted on Sunday were fabricated — inspired bomb threats that paralyzed the town of Springfield, Ohio.

Such lies and baseless speculation are incredibly irresponsible. It’s a lack of judgment that those on the campaign trail should wholly reject rather than emulate, and the sort of talk that could make a perilous situation far worse.

We can be thankful that those who represent Virginia, and many of those who seek elected office this year, have responded thoughtfully to these events, including this week after the incident in Florida. All Americans should be thankful that Trump again avoided serious injury this weekend.

There are deeply troubled individuals in this country who need guidance away from violence and back to the realm of respectful, honest debate. They are smoldering with rage, and those worthy of our trust — and of our vote — will dampen those embers with water rather than dousing them with gasoline.

In particular, changes in regulation and legislation have allowed MA health plans, such as Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia, more flexibility in designing specially tailored benefits that support a person’s overall health and wellbeing. These supplemental benefits are unique to MA and can help address gaps in traditional Medicare. Supplemental benefits historically included “primarily health related” benefits such as dental, vision and hearing services, and more recently include services that support health-related needs, such as help purchasing nutritious food and transportation to access plan benefits.

According to the National Academy of Medicine, what’s typically considered “medical care” only accounts for 10-20% of contributors to health outcomes. Other factors that have an impact on health include a person’s access to grocery stores, relationships with friends and family, and home and workplace environments. These are known as social drivers of health, and they account for the remaining 80-90%. Recognizing the profound impact of social drivers on a person’s health, it’s important to shift the lens through which we view health care. Addressing these aspects will help us transition toward a more holistic view, one that takes into account our whole health.

Whole health is an approach to health care that recognizes health must be evaluated as a bigger picture, one that includes physical, behavioral and social drivers. We must move beyond the traditional scope of simply addressing physical health and find ways to positively influence behavioral and social drivers of health. This involves a focus on health equity and using data to tailor our efforts to individuals, taking a big picture view of their health needs. Only by understanding this big picture can people start to view their own health as something that is both influenced by the world around them and within their control to shape and change.

Thanks to the expansion of MA supplemental benefits, plan members are now better able to get the help they need to improve their whole health. For example, while medically tailored meals have been offered as a conventional supplemental benefit for a while, some MA plans are now able to offer additional nutrition benefits such as grocery cards, which provide a monthly allowance that give members the ability to purchase produce and other food items at participating grocery stores.

A study published last year found that a vast majority of a MA health plan’s members used at least one supplemental benefit in 2022, with many accessing more than one benefit. In addition, members who used at least one supplemental benefit were more likely to live in areas with fewer resources, such as food deserts and areas with lower socioeconomic status, suggesting that these benefits are helping to address social drivers of health.

Another recent study suggested that use of supplemental benefits is associated with an increased likelihood of having a preventative screening or annual wellness visit and a decreased likelihood of having a hospitalization or emergency room visit for a non-emergent issue.

Today, more than 32 million people have chosen to enroll in a MA plan. That’s more than half of all eligible Medicare members, showcasing the critical value that MA plans, including supplemental benefits, provide for older adults and people with disabilities.

With the Medicare Annual Enrollment Period fast approaching, from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7, it’s a crucial time for all Medicare-eligible individuals. Take this opportunity to review your options carefully to ensure that your MA plan is working for you. Don’t overlook the supplemental benefits, as these can significantly contribute to overall health and wellbeing.

Neil Steffens is Medicare president of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s East Region, which includes Virginia.

All residents of 757 are fortunate to live near the water, especially the Atlantic Ocean and the beautiful Chesapeake Bay. My wife and I, and our neighbors, are particularly grateful for living at the bayfront and having the daily experiences of watching diving osprey and pelicans, dolphins and people enjoying all kinds of water sports.

Residents and tourists alike are attracted to the beach for those same reasons plus the sunbathing, fishing, crabbing, beach games, cookouts and beverages.

On Sept. 10, a good-sized crowd of 30 or so young people spent the day with three big tents and cookout equipment, and did lots of beach games and swimming. They all appeared to be having a good, well-behaved time. Most of them spent the entire day, late morning to early evening, laughing with some pleasant music and general good behavior.

The next morning was a real shock. The beach was littered with beer cans, debris, garbage and even a table littered with more trash.

Seriously. These folks did not seem underprivileged, ignorant nor oblivious to the beauty of the bay. Why by any stretch of imagination would these young people desecrate a thing of beauty enjoyed for free? They know better, and their behavior is inexcusable. It’s sad they have no respect for something that most of the rest of our country envies.

John Baggio, Virginia Beach

Security

Re “Classified documents” (Your Views, Sept. 15): I am responding to questions in the letter asking what would happen to federal workers who handled classified documents poorly. When I was a GS-4 clerk working at Fort Monroe during the Vietnam War, our office received many classified documents for which I was responsible. I had to sign for each one and track every movement a document took when out of the secure file cabinet. Had I failed to account for any one of those documents at the end of the day or even left one unattended on my desk, I could have lost my security clearance and therefore my job.

Though among the lowest-graded civilian employees, I understood my responsibility completely and complied to the letter. That the highest-ranking civilian in the country could act so cavalierly about our national security is appalling. That he might end up back in the White House and once more in possession of national secrets is terrifying.

Bonnie Kashouty Nealon, Toano

Orange wimp

The debate Sept. 10 between Vice President Kamala Harris and the orange felon was an epic beatdown. If it had been a prizefight, the referee would have stopped it and former President Donald Trump would have been administered smelling salts.

Now the cowardly Trump indicates that he will not debate Harris again. If Trump refuses to debate again, Harris needs to publicly call him out for being a chicken because he is afraid to get beaten by a woman again. Don King would be ashamed. How can the “cowardly lyin'” be expected to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin if he is afraid to get beaten up by a woman?

Christina Anne Knight, Newport News

JD Vance

I’m sure Ohio Sen. JD Vance didn’t realize when he made his “single cat ladies” comments he would tick off one of the most popular women in the world. However, someone in former President Donald Trump’s campaign should have known that Trump re-sharing artificial intelligence-generated pictures that falsely showed Taylor Swift endorsing Trump, would lead her to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris.

There will be 8.3 million Generation Z youth who will have become eligible to vote in 2024, according to circle.tufts.edu. In one day, many of them registered to vote. Thank Vance.

Joseph Ketron, Williamsburg

The money coming to the organization is part of $421million awarded to a coalition of environmental groups in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Maryland. In a laudable feat of interstate collaboration, the groups worked together to apply for one of the highly competitive awards and was one of 25 winners nationwide from nearly 300 applications.

North Carolina’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources led the effort, called the Atlantic Conservation Coalition. The aim is to use established science to take advantage of natural processes in wetlands and forests to reduce the carbon emissions that drive dangerous climate change.

The Nature Conservancy Virginia will use the money to improve forest management in southeastern Virginia and help restore tidal wetlands on the Eastern Shore. It will work with forest restoration and protection in the western part of the state, and planting trees in cities and preserving farmland and open spaces across Virginia.

Here in the eastern part of the state, there will be special emphasis on restoring and rehabilitating salt marshes and peatlands, which, like forests, naturally store carbon that would otherwise be polluting the atmosphere.

Peatlands are boggy areas where waterlogged conditions keep plant material from fully decomposing. Peat, a surface layer of soil made up of partially decayed plant and other organic material, including sphagnum moss or peat moss, naturally sequesters carbon.

As when forests are cut down, when peatlands are drained, the carbon is released into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. Restoring peatlands is a natural way to reduce carbon in the atmosphere.

The Nature Conservancy’s plans draw on more of the kind of collaboration, public and private, that will be necessary to make real, lasting progress in the battle against climate change.

The millions coming to Virginia and the other states in the coalition come from Climate Pollution Reduction Grants, a program created by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. It would be hard to overstate the importance of the Inflation Reduction Act, as it funnels billions of dollars into programs and tax incentives to promote cleaner energy, increasing resilience and cleaner air. It also helps people in economically depressed areas and places that have been dependent on the fossil fuel economy adapt to new ways of doing things.

It’s critically important here in Hampton Roads, where rising sea levels threaten our way of life and economy as well as the military bases that are essential to national security. And, of course, restoring wetlands and forests also helps reduce the threat of flooding, another serious threat in Hampton Roads.

Virginia’s departments of energy and environmental quality also received one of the EPA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grants, $100 million that will be used to cut emissions of methane. Carbon dioxide makes up the largest part of the detrimental emissions in Virginia but there are other problematic greenhouse gases. Methane, often a byproduct of agriculture, wastewater treatment plants and landfills, is far more powerful than carbon when it comes to trapping heat in the atmosphere.

Virginia’s environmental officials will use the grant money to capture methane from active and abandoned coal mines in southwest Virginia and from landfills around the state. Methane is the main ingredient in natural gas, and captured methane can be used to produce electricity and as fuel for a variety of uses.

The state also will use some of the money to fund programs at colleges and universities to compost food waste while saving edible food for needy people rather than throwing it away.

The millions coming into the state through the Inflation Reduction Act will pay for important projects that will help Virginia do its part to combat climate change — all while making local communities and the economy stronger and more resilient. It’s good news all around.

The 922-page plan authored by The Heritage Foundation details what former President Donald Trump’s administration will do if he becomes president again. The agenda is sweeping and would change our nation as well as our commonwealth: raising taxes on working- and middle-class people; gutting Medicaid, veterans benefits and funding for schools; and replacing members of the civil service with Trump loyalists. These policy proposals are extreme and deeply unpopular, but they could be very real very soon and have profound impact on Virginia.

A majority of Virginians make less than $87,500 per year and are particularly in the crosshairs of the plan. Simply put, your income taxes are going to go up. At the same time, if you get health insurance through your job, your benefits and coverage will go down. As conceived, the plan calls for the federal government to tax health insurance and other related benefits. These “Trump taxes” would squeeze already tight middle-class family budgets.

The most vulnerable Virginians, many of whom rely on Medicaid and Medicare as a backstop for health care costs, would lose critical benefits or be kicked off their plans altogether. Project 2025 puts time limits and lifetime caps on Medicaid, which could kick 900,000 Virginians out of the program. If you’re on Medicare, prices are going up. Under the Biden-Harris administration, Medicare is finally able to negotiate prescription drug prices, saving seniors (including the 1.3 million Virginians on Medicare) $1.5 billion in prescription drug costs. Project 2025 would reverse this historic achievement.

Virginia has a significant military population. Sadly, your service to the country would not shield you from this plan, which calls for reducing spending on veterans, arguing that some conditions covered by the Veterans Administration are only “tenuously related” to military service and thus should not be the government’s responsibility. These cuts would be devastating for the 12% of Virginians who are veterans but they plan to go further, calling for ending “concurrent receipt of retirement and disability payments.”  The plan’s authors believe that honoring the debt to those who served our nation and came back with a disability is simply not worth the expense.

Project 2025 would also eliminate the Department of Education, moving programs to different departments and cutting others entirely. One program, known as Title I, provides funding to low-income schools, sending $277 million to Virginia in 2020 — funding that would be cut under Project 2025. This might only be the beginning. Trump has proposed cutting all federal funding to school districts with vaccine mandates — which includes every school in Virginia. The lack of federal funds in our schools would likely be offset by local taxes that would be passed onto all Virginians.

One throughline of Project 2025 is a deep skepticism of the nonpartisan federal civil service. Trump believes that federal employees should be loyal to him over the country. At the end of his term, Trump signed an executive order to give himself more control over positions that are currently nonpartisan and nonpolitical. This was reversed by President Joe Biden but will return under a second Trump term putting tens of thousands of civil service employees in Virginia at risk of losing their jobs. Even if you survive these cuts, Trump believes that government workers make too much money and have health insurance and retirement benefits that are too generous. The 140,000 federal employees who live in Virginia, would be directly affected by these cuts.

The authors of Project 2025 have a worldview that is fundamentally at odds with the values of Virginians. From the elimination of the civil service to higher taxes on the middle class, cuts to health care and education, and less funding for our nation’s veterans, the commonwealth cannot afford to participate in this draconian experiment that fundamentally changes who we are as Virginians and Americans.

Nick Rathod of Arlington is the director of the Virginian Peoples PAC. 

Re “Representation” (Your Views, Aug. 16): The letter proposed a disingenuous analysis of Congressman Rob Wittman’s voting record by stringing together select fractions of various omnibus bills while disregarding the many positive contributions he has made throughout our community.

Consider the great opportunities our region offers to those who possess various trade skills. Wittman recognizes the importance of making these skills available to citizens of all demographic and economic backgrounds. I was proud to see Wittman’s work on the 529 education savings accounts. Wittman’s Freedom to Invest in Tomorrow’s Workforce Act expands the use of 529 plans to cover post-secondary training and credentialing programs. This bill is a game-changer for families in our district, making higher education and vocational training more accessible and affordable. To suggest Wittman works only for the wealthy is to ignore his efforts to provide better educational opportunities for all our children and grandchildren.

The letter also blatantly ignores Wittman’s commitment to veterans’ issues despite the fact that he is among the most pro-veteran members of Congress. His staunch support for the Veterans Choice Program, which ensures timely and quality care for our veterans, and voting for the final version of the Protecting Our Gold Star Families Education Act demonstrates his dedication to those who have served our country.

Wittman’s role on the House Armed Services Committee allows him to have a say in national priorities while addressing local needs. His efforts to strengthen our national defense and support military families have far-reaching benefits, including at home. His record is filled with achievements that directly benefit every facet of our community.

Michael B. Watson, former Virginia House of Delegates member, Virginia Manufacturing Development Commission member, Gloucester

Shootings

We are beating our heads against the brick wall thinking Congress will act upon shootings. To date — January to September — at least 139 incidents of gunfire on school grounds have occurred, according to Everytown.

As more families have to learn to deal with their shattered lives, their “new normal,” we shake our heads and experience a type of tragedy paralysis. We as citizens cannot pass laws, impose restrictions and do much to stop the possession of assault weapons.

Congress needs to face the reality that people outside of law enforcement and the military do not need assault weapons nor equipment that can turn a rifle into a fast deliverer of bullets.

All we can do is appeal through our elected officials to vote more strongly for gun control. Notice I did not say gun abolishment. Gun control, gun regulations and gun registration must come into effect.

Congress needs to know in any and all ways possible that the laws are in the hands and in the moral conscience of each elected official. The shattered families deserve no less.

Sharon M. Haring, Virginia Beach

Agreed

Re “Rename it” (Your Views, Sept. 11): The letter writer said we should change the name of the USS John C. Stennis to the USS Ben Franklin. I agree. We had a ship named in honor of Benjamin Franklin, the USS Bonhomme Richard. It’s time to honor this Founding Father again. He was a true genius and a very great man.

Barry Pollara, former chairman, WHRO Board of Directors, Norfolk

Justice?

Project 2025 has been called “a far-right roadmap for Donald Trump to seize ‘supreme’ powers and radically undermine reproductive rights, LGBTQ equality, racial justice, free speech, and other democratic institutions and freedoms,” according to Rep. Jared Huffman’s press release on his task force to stop Project 2025.

As for abortion, Project 2025 calls for restricting the procedure through placing limits on mail-order pills. Other health care and social services like Medicare and Social Security would be scaled back and or privatized.

Trump has claimed he wants nothing to do with Project 2025, which strains credulity. He habitually says things that prove untrue. In this case, many, if not most, of the authors of this 900-page document worked under Trump during his office term.

Existentially, the most consequential of these horrors is a decision to reduce the efforts to limit climate change and to increase production of fossil fuels, both of which would be a huge blow to humanity and to all of life on Earth as well.

The Department of Justice would be put under the president’s control. Then Justice as we know it would cease to exist because Trump had earlier announced his plans to staff much of his government using the criterion of absolute loyalty to himself, rather than to the Constitution. Therefore, any “justice” meted out by his Justice Department would have to align with Trump’s capricious and grossly suspicious “standards.”

Stan Pearson, Newport News

Vision

Dwight D. Eisenhower’s term as the 34th president ended with great hope for the United States but also with keen awareness of his term’s role in history. In his farewell address in 1961, he remarked, “America knows that this world of ours … must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.”

As we approach the election, it’s important to choose the candidates who will take us down that path.

Marc Katz, Norfolk

During the presidential primaries, a fake Biden robocall urged New Hampshire voters to wait until November to cast their votes. In July, Elon Musk shared a video that included a voice mimicking Harris’ saying things she did not say. Originally labeled as a parody, the clip readily morphed to an unlabeled post on X with more than 130 million views.

More recently, Trump weaponized concerns about AI by falsely claiming that a photo of a Harris rally was generated by AI, suggesting the crowd wasn’t real. And a deepfake photo of the attempted assassination of the former president altered the faces of Secret Service agents so they appear to be smiling, promoting the false theory that the shooting was staged.

Clearly, when it comes to AI manipulation, the voting public has to be ready for anything.

Voters wouldn’t be in this predicament if candidates had clear policies on the use of AI in their campaigns. Written guidelines about when and how campaigns intend to use AI would allow people to compare candidates’ use of the technology to their stated policies. This would help voters assess whether candidates practice what they preach.

AI policy statements can also help people protect themselves from bad actors trying to manipulate their votes. And a lack of trustworthy means for assessing the use of AI undermines the value the technology could bring to elections if deployed properly, fairly and with full transparency.

It’s not as if politicians aren’t using AI. Indeed, companies such as Google and Microsoft have acknowledged that they have trained dozens of campaigns and political groups on using generative AI tools.

Major technology firms released a set of principles earlier this year guiding the use of AI in elections. They also promised to develop technology to detect and label realistic content created with generative AI and educate the public about its use. However, these commitments lack any means of enforcement.

Government regulators have responded to concerns about AI’s effect on elections. In February, following the rogue New Hampshire robocall, the Federal Communications Commission moved to make such tactics illegal. The consultant who masterminded the call was fined $6 million, and the telecommunications company that placed the calls was fined $2 million. But even though the FCC wants to require that use of AI in broadcast ads be disclosed, the Federal Election Commission’s chair announced last month that the agency was ending its consideration of regulating AI in political ads. FEC officials said that would exceed their authority and that they would await direction from Congress on the issue.

It’s likely too late in this election cycle to expect campaigns to start disclosing their AI practices. So the onus lies with voters to remain vigilant about AI — in much the same way that other technologies, such as self-checkout in grocery and other stores, have transferred responsibility to consumers.

Voters can’t rely on the election information that comes to their mailboxes, inboxes and social media platforms to be free of technological manipulation. They need to take note of who has funded the distribution of such materials and look for obvious signs of AI use in images, such as missing fingers or mismatched earrings. Voters should know the source of information they are consuming, how it was vetted and how it is being shared. All of this will contribute to more information literacy, which, along with critical thinking, is a skill voters will need to fill out their ballots this fall.

Ann G. Skeet is the senior director of leadership ethics and John P. Pelissero is the director of government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. They are among the co-authors of “Voting for Ethics: A Guide for U.S. Voters,” from which portions of this piece were adapted for the Los Angeles Times.