Tucson Speaks Out: May 27 letters of the day

It distresses me that Representative Ciscomani voted for McCarthy’s “Limit, Save, Grow Act.”

How could he support a bill that makes drastic cuts to education, slashing 100,000 teaching positions and eliminating preschool for hundreds of thousands of children? That perpetuates inadequate veterans’ health care, with longer wait times and 30 million fewer outpatient visits? That takes “Meals on Wheels” from a million seniors and increases hardships for them in finding low-income housing.

With his vote, Ciscomani has thrown every category of vulnerable person, adult and child, to the wolves.

The Ciscomani who campaigned for office would have stood up for his constituents and voted “no.” That would have shown real governing, but he went along with the extremists in the Republican party.

When will Ciscomani and his fellow Republicans quit their posturing and find the courage to offer viable solutions to urgent problems facing our nation?

Lois Postil

Oro Valley

Crime

We have a problem with increased crime. The second problem is the underinvestment in our criminal justice system.

The news outlets like to show the bad cops. There are over 800,000 law enforcement officers in the United States. Data shows one percent are bad cops. Police make you feel safe. When you have a safe street you have community, people venture out, talk to neighbors, even strangers, build relationships. When you have crime and violence people retreat, get suspicious of neighbors and folks on the street.

If you care about relationships, equality, diversity, inclusion, civic harmony, then you must feel safe. We need to act on recruiting in the police department. There are times the police put themselves in danger for our safety. The police should be celebrated and praised when they reduce crime. Just a note, chronic criminals belong in jail, it does cost money, but what price do you put on someones debilitating attack or death.

Valentine Ferraris

East side

‘Free’ bus service

Once again, our wise city council and genius mayor has decided riders don’t have to pay for their bus service. We hear that it will be “free.” But we little folks know nothing is free. Now the council and mayor are scrambling for ideas on how to pay for the “free” service. Hmmm …… oh yeah, how about riders pay for it? But no, the rest of us will pay for it one way or another while those in charge pat themselves on the back for “free” service.

The council and mayor think “local partners” are going to enthusiastically pitch in money to continue this entitlement for the free stuff. Really? In the meantime, expect layoffs of Sun Tran workers while the busses serve as shelters for the homeless and people crossing the border illegally. The council may as well put rest rooms and wifi on the busses. “Free” bus service will never survive. Make those who use it pay for it. But I guess that’s just too much common sense.

Nate Baker

North side

Some choice

The Republicans are a wonderment. Against a president who much of his own party isn’t happy with, they proffer a guy who likely will end up in prison (or certainly should) and another guy who as governor just destroyed a $1 billion project from Disney which would have created 2,000 high-paying jobs.

Meanwhile, limping along at under 5% is Nikki Haley, who has more experience, more competence and is more electable than any other republican candidate.

Unless and until the republicans get a clue the only option is to vote for the democrats. Or stay home if you can’t abide that. The day will come when we return to normal order with politicians who will lie as almost all do but not close to the nonsense we currently endure.

Lawrence Fleischman

North side

Deaths

Statistics indicate that 407,000 Americans were killed in World War II. That is not counting the millions from elsewhere murdered through the death camps. Approximately 36,000 American lives were lost in the Korean Conflict, 58,220 Americans were killed in Vietnam. Others with deaths of various number include, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, Kuwait, Libya, Grenada, Afghanistan. Forgive me for missing some.

I am a person of four score years and have lived through all these ghastly periods. While considering the many lost lives I wonder whether I have become saturated with death and carnage. I wonder if the newspaper headlines outlining eight students murdered doesn’t bother me as if should. Yes, I am stunned, horrified and distraught by the news. But maybe, just maybe, my life has been so continuously filled with killing of young people, each with mother and father, that I am conditioned to death. I want it to stop but, if history tells me anything, it simply won’t.

Phil Reinecker

East side

Sensible gun legislation

Re: the May 22 letter “Guns have changed.”

Often, as in the recent letter the basis for many people that favor additional gun control centers around the modern advancement in weapon capacity and efficiency. As well meaning as that may be, the true grounds for opposing the 2nd Amendment is contained in the history and tortured language of the amendment itself. The circumstances were the very real possibility of the Constitution not being successfully ratified in 1791.

Madison whipped out the copy using modern terms on a “bar napkin” so they could satisfy the slave states demand that the states could overrule the Federal Army and use their state’s “Militia” to track down and capture runaway slaves. The additional language was such to appear as a reasoned amendment again satisfying the slave states fear of excessive federal power, language at the time was “The People” meant “the states” having participants in well trained military force. If you were to use the creative editing like the NRA it suggests that now gun owners are all soldiers!

Robert Cozad

Oro Valley

Hard times

Well, because of Trump, no vacation this year — gas prices more than doubled, motels are outrageous, restaurants too expensive, border in crisis, tax money spent on undocumented for food, lodging and transportation. I sell my plasma to make ends meet. Solider killed in Afghanistan, people left behind, millions of dollars of military equipment left for the Taliban, what used to be wrong is right and what’s right is wrong, women truly losing their rights and taken by men. The Bible being torn up and stomped on — why don’t you see anyone doing that to the Quran? Trump did all of this! Oh wait he hasn’t been in office for 29 months. Trump wasn’t so bad — Biden did all of this in only 29 months. Our country won’t last another 19 months with him in charge.

Betty Freyer

North side

Sinema supports environmental devastation

Please contact Sen. Kyrsten Sinema asking why she, together with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto have introduced a bill that would allow Hudbay Mining company to dump millions of toxic tailings on public lands! The environmental damage that a mine in the Santa Rita mountains will do will last for hundreds of years. And this bill totally overlooks the fact that the Colorado river is at its lowest level ever and yet mining is one of the greatest users of water in Arizona. Hudbay is planning on pumping water from the aquifer in Green Valley and replenishing it with CAP water — very short-sighted, and potentially devastating to area residents, as our CAP allocations are in the process of being cut.

Why would she support a Canadian company devastating our environment in order to mine copper to send to China?

Beth Dingman

Green Valley

Smith is right on Ciscomani

Re: the May 20 article “Ciscomani fails to represent CD 6.”

I wanted to second Julie Smith’s editorial. It is not that Rep. Ciscomani is a bad congressman. He would be a perfectly suitable congressman for some deep red district in a deep red state like Alabama or Wyoming. But Arizona is a purple state and the 6th District, as the last election shows, is evenly divided. Ms. Smith correctly argues that the deeply conservative nature of Ciscomani’s views make him unfit to serve an evenly divided district. For example, while some moderate Republicans from swing districts have reached out to Democrats to try to solve the debt crisis, Ciscomani has sided with the hard liners. Fortunately, even with Republican gerrymandering, Ciscomani won his election by a razor thin margin in an off-year election that typically favors the party out of power. The only solace should be that his extremist views will not play well nearly as well in a presidential election year.

Peter Vernezze

East side