Tucson Speaks Out: November 26

A gift to Russia

The peace plan proposed by the White House to end the Russia-Ukraine War is a gift to Russia. Why does Trump think he can give away the sovereignty of a foreign country? Putin has played Trump for a fool. Trump seems more concerned with appeasing Putin than securing real peace. Putin wants Zelensky out of the picture so he can install a puppet regime in Ukraine similar to what exists in Belarus. Control of Ukraine will give Putin access to Moldova, a landlocked nation between Ukraine and Romania. Rewarding Russian butchery would be disastrous. A capitulation like Biden’s abandonment of Afghanistan would be catastrophic to a legacy of peace through strength. Why aren't our elected officials screaming. Appeasing aggressors only leads to more aggression. Instead of a Nobel Peace Prize, Trump deserves the Neville Chamberlain award for cowardice. Chamberlain signed an agreement in 1938, ceding the German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany to prevent WWII.

Ronald F. Eustice

Northwest side

Ukraine peace proposal

Recently the United States submitted a peace plan to Ukraine. In the terms of the plan if they were attacked by Russia again the US may decide to provide military assistance. Even if the wording was changed from “may provide” to “will provide” it is not enough. We have seen this before. After the collapse of the Soviet Union atomic weapons were found to be stored in the Ukraine. There was an agreement then that if the Ukraine gave up the atomic weapons, and if they were ever attacked, the US and others would come to their defense. They were attacked by Russia but no one came to defend them. If the US wants the Ukraine to make serious concessions it must be willing to back any promise of defending the Ukraine with troops, either US or NATO allies, on the ground permanently stationed in the Ukraine. Anything less than that and any promise is not worth the paper it is written on.

William Brandt

Oro Valley

WISeR privatizes Medicare

Starting Jan.1st, Traditional Medicare (TM) patients in AZ & 5 other states, will have to get Prior Authorization (PA) for certain common treatments. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' WISeR program will let private for-profit companies profit from AI denials of PA requests.

Even without AI, PAs create a conflict of interest (investor profits vs patient needs), but private for-profit Medicare Advantage (MA) plans use PA routinely. TM almost never requires PA, which is why most medically needy patients choose TM.

In 2024, per patient cost was 22% less under TM than under MA. And MA's fraudulent up-coding robs Medicare of $88-100 billion yearly. So, instead of WISeR, if they eliminate MAs and move all seniors into TM, it will save enough to eliminate TM premiums and deductibles, with money left to help cover vision, hearing, dental, etc. for all TM patients!

In fact, M4A House Bill HR 3069 would expand TM to everyone in the US, saving us hundreds of billions/year!

Lee Stanfield

East side

Giving thanks

Thursday is a day of Thanksgiving and in this spirit, I offer my thanks to God for his blessings in my life. My deep thanks for the men and women of the military protecting our nation, our law enforcement officers, fire fighters, our medical professionals, our professional educators, legal professionals, business owners, civic leaders, clergy, non-profit organizations, childcare agencies, and government agency employees and their families. I am thankful for those who work behind the scenes to help the impoverished and the oppressed. I am thankful for the AZ Star staff for their efforts to bring all of the important news and issues to our attention. Thank you to the Star’s editors who I think fairly select a variety of letters that give us all a voice causing us to consider all of the different points of view representing the similarities and differences we have. Finally I am thankful for my wife, children and grandchildren and my friends. Their love enriches my life beyond measure.

Richard Harper

Northeast side

Nursing not 'professional?'

There should be outrage over Trump’s bill reclassifying nursing as not a "professional degree" for college students.

Nursing organizations warn limiting access to student funding "threatens the very foundation of patient care."

Working for the people seems impossible to fathom. President Trump, through orders, firings and other changes, is remaking the existing system of checks on the president. He doesn't seem to have anything presidential to do and needs to delve into anything and everything which is not in his duties as president. There is a Congress for a reason. BTW we have a nursing shortage.

Peter Bisschop

East side

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving, it gives me a chance to review all that I am thankful for. I am very much thankful

For a loving wife and family

For neighbors who are congenial and friendly

For a town that cares for the homeless

For my health at my age of 89

For a good cup of coffee, a favorite melody, a beautiful sunset,

a soft desert rain.

For the many acts of kindness shown to me

For our first responders and all they do

For my fellow veterans and their love of country

For my many doctors whose care is amazing

For the gift to live in the greatest country in the world

For a home that I own and cherish

For worshiping in a church that serves the poor

For so many wonderful memories and an active mind

For a daily newspaper with its bridge column, funnies,

crossword puzzles, sports pages and opinion page.

For another day of life.

Tom McGorray

Northwest side

TEP guest opinion

As one of the critics TEP referenced, I eagerly awaited their response. Maybe I'd hear their side of the story, taking issue with what Dr. Hendrickson's book "The Air They Breathe" scientifically documented as the serious adverse lifelong health effects on Arizona's children from burning gas to make electricity.

But there was no response. Instead TEP basically just said, we're the good guys, critics are just plain wrong about the true cost of solar, and anyway we're bringing more renewables to you soon.

Not facing the hard question and responding, but instead addressing what you see as low-hanging fruit — that works well in politics. Pretty much everyone does it in that arena.

But we are talking here about developing children's bodies and brains being uniquely unsuited to cope with the pollution unequivocally caused by burning gas to make electricity. This just cannot become political theatre.

Evading any response to this serious health issue — and instead taking issue with the costs of solar energy? That's just saying you don't care.

Rick Rappaport

Oro Valley

Water, water everywhere

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The legion of learned ideas aimed at artificially bringing water to Tucson each are Rube Goldberg candidates. What time for a 400-mile pipeline trenched from Baja California? It couldn't be routed on the surface. Considering drug cartel occupation and midnight water poachers? Then another 100 miles of truly aggressive litigation past Mexico. Crossing the Tohono Reservation with sacred mountains. Nearly 3 million acres. Untold critter habitat. Surely the home to jaguars, coyotes, snakes, and squirrels. All who warrant protection. As far as the eye can see, endangered organ pipes. Bisecting a national park and countless numbers of individual private landowners to obtain right of way from. This is a multi-generational conservation lawyer's 401K. Opinions then appeals and appeals of them. A litany of ever more far-fetched objections. We would all suffer the fate of the dinosaurs before desalinization could simply be adjudicated. It is a fool's errand nothing more.

Michael Sevier

Oro Valley

City Council

The City of Tucson held a public forum in the Ward 2 office on Nov. 17. As a resident and concerned citizen, I attended hoping to finally meet with Councilman Cunningham with three related questions. Although asking for six years, he has refused to meet or answer questions regarding nuisance drug houses. Mr. Cunningham was there, but after introductions, he left. He abandoned an opportunity to work with 30 or so constituents on some very important issues. It became immediately clear that Councilman Cunningham is not an accessible representative. Efforts at digital, phone, personal, and public meetings have all failed me over six years. If one is not part of his inner circle, you have no voice that he hears. Mr. Cunningham runs and hides from his constituents. There is something very, very wrong with this willful ignorance. He owes us a rational, diplomatic, unemotional defense of this practice. He shouldn't leave his own meetings.

Jeremy Vaughan

East side