Letters to the Editor: March 3

Thanks to the Dominion voting machine lawsuit we now know that the so-called “journalists” at Fox News, Hannity, Carlson, Ingraham, et al, and their employer knew full well that there was no merit to Trump’s claims that the 2020 election results were fraudulent, yet they pushed the lie constantly on television.

What can be done to traitors like these? Hopefully, Dominion can push Murdoch back into the slime from which he emerged, along with the liars who intentionally deceived their audience and continue to do so today. The First Amendment offers them no protection, nor should it. Their audience — and this country — deserve far better.

Larry Fleischman

Northeast side

Arizona water

It’s indisputable that we have a long-term water issue in Arizona, it’s why we must ensure that the water we have is used wisely to its best use and for the benefit of the maximum number of Arizonans.

FICO, the pecan farmer in Sahuarita, uses on average 20,000 acre feet of water per year. That’s 6.5 billion gallons of water to produce a few million pounds of pecans. The proposed Copper World project by Hudbay plans to use less than 6,000 acre feet of water and will create thousands of new jobs and billions in economic activity. The economic output and number of jobs at a pecan farm don’t come anywhere close to what a copper mine will produce. And from what I understand, the majority of the pecans are shipped out of state for processing.

Companies using Arizona’s water should be required to explain how their operations will not only benefit them economically, but also the local community where they operate.

Dennis Fischer

Vail

Rodeos, keep the good, drop the bad

The pageantry, horse parades, the bands, etc. are the good parts of the rodeo. Using electric wands to prod the hind quarters of the animals to force them to jump up and down in a frenzy is ugly abuse. The horse and bulls with a rider on their backs suffer as the cowboys chase the prize money. Picture a calf after being prodded running terrified into the arena. A cowboy on a horse chases the calf, lassos it by the neck. The animal is thrown in the air and lands with a thud on the arena’s floor. Some years ago, here in Tucson, a calf died after having its neck broken. In the newspaper photo the owner was standing over the dead calf. What were his thoughts, pity for the animal or disappointment that he didn’t collect any money. Animal cruelty is a crime. Why do the rodeos get a pass? If the rodeos don’t stop the cruelty, they should go the way of the circuses.

Jerome Shulec

Foothills

Fare-free transit

Re: the Feb. 19 article “Time to find a solution for fare-free transit.”

I applaud the writer for his enthusiastic support of continuing the very popular free transit policy, which was adopted by our Mayor and Council almost three years ago. By doing so, our elected officials made transit in Tucson a public good, similar to roads, police, fire, parks and schools, i.e., no one can be excluded from using transit.

Now, it is difficult to imagine those who voted for it would now reject it. But thus far most of our elected leaders have been silent on the matter.

Annually, the city has a total revenue of well over $500 million, compounded with annual increases. The task is to either find less than 2% of that revenue or find other revenue sources to underwrite the annual operations budget.

Budget season is upon the city now. Why leave the over 50,000 daily riders in the dark? Vote now to be in the vanguard of U.S. cities and renew — forever — no-fare public transit.

Richard Kaiser

Midtown

Cons

Constitutional omission

Our Constitution simply says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” It says nothing about state legislatures, the Supreme Court, other agencies forcing religious doctrine on us. There is no constitutional protection against these and other ways of weaseling such beliefs on us. There is no law that allows us to live our lives without others’ religious beliefs being forced upon us. Many of us have believed there are such constitutional protections, but recent events have shown that is not so. One would hope a religion would be good enough to not try such moves. But apparently such religious goodness does not exist, and we are heading back to the days of the Crusades.

Thad Appelman

Northwest side

Tax dollars for subversive teachings

Our brilliant, self-ennobled Republican Legislature thinks they’ve pulled a fast one on their “woke” friends by stripping public schools of tax dollars in favor of a massive expansion of the state’s private school voucher law (ESA-Empowerment Scholarship Account). While public and charter schools are mandated to follow state curriculum requirements, recipients of voucher money are not required to do so and are free to offer whatever academic program they prefer with little to no oversight by the Department of Education. Do Tom Horne and the state Legislature realize that our tax dollars are going to ESA recipients who can teach utterly subversive subjects, such as real science, evolution, sex education, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ issues and above all critical race theory, with no state oversight. There is hope for our children’s education after all. Can’t thank you enough, Tom!

Pamela Aronson

Northeast side

National debt

Re: the Feb. 20 letter “Debt grows under Biden.”

This writer snidely noted that President Biden stated that he lowered the budget by a large amount. (fact check: absolutely true.) Then he laments that “No one has pointed out that in 2 years Biden has increased the national debt by almost 50% from 21 to 31 trillion.” The reason no one mentions that is because it is categorically false. (in common parlance, “a blatant lie”) Fact check: Donald Trump drove the national debt up by $7.8 trillion (from $19.95 to $27.75 trillion), a 39% increase even though he entered office during an economic boom. Biden entered office during a fierce pandemic recession and national debt has increased by $3.7 trillion to a current $31.5 trillion.

Gary Susko

Midtown

Disheartening hindsight

Imagine how different the situation in Ukraine would be right now if, when the invading Russian convoy ran out of fuel, Ukraine had had possession of a dozen A-10 “tank killer” aircraft.

Rick Cohn

West side

Dealing with Dem governor

I saw a story in the Star recently that Arizona Republican state legislators are having trouble figuring out how to deal with a Democratic governor. Seems they’ve gotten their way for so many years with Republican governors that they don’t know quite what to do. They might want to try the following: consultation, collaboration, communication, consideration, cooperation and compromise. Now I know these concepts are foreign to most Republicans, but they should at least give them a try. What’s the worst that could happen? There might actually be some bipartisan legislation passed that benefits all Arizonans.

Douglas Maul

West side

Fox News, Fox Noise

Rupert Murdoch, the owner of lyin’ Fox News, just confessed that the network intentionally broadcast lies about “election fraud” and about Dominion voting machines. News hacks Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham also confessed that they knew the fraud claims were lies.

Next month, when the jury awards $1.6 billion in damages against the propaganda network, the FCC should crack down on Fox. Then the network will truly be known as Fox Noise.

Larry Bodine

Foothills