Tucson Speaks Out: November 18

If the President of the United States has nothing to hide, then why pray tell doesn’t he release the files? “The greatest transparent president in modern history,” his words not mine, is hiding the truth from the American public who deserve to know everything. And We the People of the United States have heard all the excuses; there are other folks and victims that do not want their names out in public, we are protecting them. No, it couldn’t be further from the truth. The victims want the American Public to know the truth and POTUS and his cronies don’t want you to know the truth, simply because he might be exposed. But don’t worry my Republican friends and voters, the FBI is working overtime to redact and destroy videos of his Majesty from the files just in case they ever become public. The redactors will be given bonuses and high-fives all around for their silence.

Curtis Urban

Vail

No to 50-year mortgage fantasy

Arizona’s housing crisis isn’t mysterious, it’s arithmetic. Pima County alone is short more than 40,000 homes while Tucson home prices have climbed over 160% since 2012. Yet wages in Southern Arizona have grown only about 40%. That math doesn’t work for first-time buyers, retirees, or working families.

And into this real crisis strolls Donald Trump with his latest “big idea”: 50-year mortgages, the policy equivalent of selling desert sand as beachfront property. Stretching a mortgage across half a century doesn’t make a home affordable; it just means lenders cash in while families get stuck paying longer than most democracies survive.

Tucson’s real issues are simple: decades of underbuilding, zoning rules that lock up more than 70% of residential land only for single-family homes, and out-of-state investors who snapped up nearly one in five entry-level homes last year. Instead of addressing supply, affordability, and infrastructure, we keep getting gimmicks, slogans, and economic snake oil.

Lawrence E. Mazin

SaddleBrooke

Transgender

Maybe I don’t understand the argument that certain people have against transgender, but I’d like them to consider the following: AIS or Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome is a congenital condition where a “Male” with an XY chromosome is born without proper receptor sites for testosterone. They develop as female and indeed some of them were only discovered when they were tested prior to entering upper level beauty pageants. They won lower level ones. So isn’t this evidence that God is OK with transgender? I mean they didn’t even know this was a thing until they were diagnosed and now they can’t play women’s basketball because they have a Y where they are supposed to have an X. Isn’t physical capability the basis for gender specific sports not chromosomes? Oh what do we call an XXY? Can they do both?

Dan Pendergrass

West side

Murder on the high seas

Trump would like us to see him, as our great savior, by blowing up alleged “drug boats” and thus saving thousands of lives here in the US. The reality is that prior to his military attacks, these “drug boats” had been intercepted on a routine basis by the US Coast Guard. It is documented, that of the “drug boats” the Coast Guard has stopped, only 75% had drugs on board and 25% did not. If drugs were found these individuals were arrested and the drugs confiscated. Lethal action was a last resort and only in response to being attacked. Currently, Trump has attacked 20 “drug boats” killing 80 individuals. According to Coast Guard data, Trump has killed 20 (80x.25) individuals without cause. Also, the Coast Guard is still stopping “drug boats” despite Trump’s efforts, announcing a record number of cocaine seizures. The US Coast Guard is the true savior here, not Trump. It makes you think, what is Trump’s real motive here? Resist.

Peter Morales

Midtown

Beware of park ‘improvements’

Residents of Tucson, beware, if your local park is chosen to be closed for “improvements.”

My local park, Palo Verde Park, was closed for nearly a year and a half for this reason.

What we got was a huge reduction of green grass, many beautiful mature trees cut down, and a park full of weeds. The only real work that was done was relocating and expanding basketball courts, and removing tennis courts, replacing them with pickleball courts. Waste of time, waste of money and loss of a once-beautiful and accessible green space. Poor planning, Tucson Parks.

Daniel Egan

East side

Post-shutdown sensibility

Now that our government is back in business, it’s time for Congress to concentrate on issues important to most Americans. Much talk has focused on Epstein emails mostly written 20 years ago. Do we really care or is this just another way to get revenge against political enemies? The issues for most Americans include affordability, inflation, healthcare costs, drug addiction and gun violence. Politicians who focus on these issues will do what they are elected to do.

Republicans claim they can’t make difficult votes because they have a narrow House majority, but the real reason is only a few brave souls have the courage to speak unless it has the blessing of the Commander in Chief.

President Trump’s tight grip on the GOP stifles original thought and innovative ideas that alienate the MAGA crowd. Until this changes, the GOP-controlled Congress will continue to be “agenda-less” and focus on bickering, investigations, name-calling and trivial matters while ignoring real issues important to most Americans.

Ronald F. Eustice

Northwest side

What I would call animal abuse

Ahhh, so “Cruz, the 13-year-old mountain lion at the Arizona- Sonora Desert Museum, was put down on Thursday due to ongoing medical issues.” How very sad. But … not sad because he was euthanized. Sad because he had to spend his entire life in a make-believe world called a cage. I first saw him in 2014, when my husband and I first moved here. At that time, he just appeared to be bored and sad. Yet the Daily Star tries to make us all feel better by their description of his “wonderful life.” After seeing him in 2014, I stopped attending zoos. It’s a moral issue with me.

Sue Thompson

SaddleBrooke

Thoughts on Goldwater

I was delighted to read May Beth Schneider’s comments about AZ Senator Barry Goldwater’s meeting at the White House with Nixon that convinced him that Nixon’s resignation from the Presidency was the only appropriate option given his Watergate involvement.

As a former conservative Republican I am quite certain that Senator Goldwater would be appalled by the current Republican congressional subservience to the barely literate, despicable, rude individual who serves as our President as well as by the ignorance of so many of today’s American voters.

Katrina Hass

Foothills

Too much talk

I’m quite tired of reading LJ’s regular rants about Americans receiving SNAP benefits or almost any government assistance. The average minimum-wage worker in Arizona makes weekly $442.50 (gross) for 30 hrs, $590 for 40. That salary is not enough to pay rent, utilities and food, never mind transportation or child care costs. Food insecurity programs provide some support but government-funded programs like SNAP are lifelines. I challenge LJ to leave his comfortable home and join us in serving the homeless or those Americans who don’t make enough to even “get by.” Meet these citizens one on one to see how life circumstances can change in a minute. Find a list of locations online and you won’t have to go far from home.

Sandra Beecher

Marana

Healthcare improvements

Many people in this nation have considered medical tourism as a means to alleviate the high cost of medical care domestically.

If we consider the cost of a monoclonal antibody drug treatment over a two year period, we can easily see a cost of $745,000. Not only is this unaffordable without insurance but even with insurance, it becomes a burden. When people can no longer afford healthcare, even with insurance, we need to look at other approaches.

Having spent a month in Taiwan, I saw their healthcare system first-hand. The nation is capitalist but their health care system is single-payer. Their spend on healthcare is 6% of their GDP; ours is 24% of GDP. They do not have a medical debt bankruptcy problem; we do. Taiwan and other nations are doing health care more efficiently than we are, so it behooves us to use countries like this to benchmark off of. By not doing so, we are mired in mediocrity.

Steve Rasmussen

Foothills