Tucson Speaks Out: March 23

MAGA, have you had enough yet?

Enough of an administration that looks less like a government and more like a loyalty pyramid scheme. Trump’s first term saw over 90% turnover among senior officials, one of the highest rates in modern history. Competence didn’t last. In this term, loyalty appears to matter more than ability.

The Director of National Intelligence shrugs off responsibility for intelligence. The Defense Secretary comes off like a weekend TV host (because he was), now handed an $800+ billion military to project toughness. This isn’t strength; it’s amateur hour with global consequences.

Follow the money. Billions are tied to Trump family ventures, branding deals, and foreign entanglements, much of it from the Middle East, while ordinary Americans get slogans and inflation.

And Congress? The same Republicans who once preached checks and balances now offer little more than silence. They don’t check power; they shield it.

So again, MAGA — have you had enough?

Or is this exactly what Trump said “winning” would look like?

Lawrence Mazin

SaddleBrooke

Trump-ery and effrontery

Remember “All that glisters is not gold,” from Shakespeare’s "Merchant of Venice," Act 2, Scene 7? One of Portia’s unwanted suitors chooses the gold casket (fancy box, not coffin), only to find the message above inside, not Portia’s portrait, which would have allowed him to marry her.

The Executive’s arrogant move to have an outsized 24-carat gold coin with his portrait minted to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary (Star, March 21) displays the opposite: All that’s gold does not glisten. First time ever a sitting president has appeared on a coin, using a technicality to circumvent the law prohibiting same. Despite the gold, it’s all “trumpery,” from Middle English and Old French root words meaning “deceit” and “to deceive.” In other words, fake finery.

Citizens, please don’t purchase this affront to 250 years of independence from kings, tsars, and tyrants.

Ila Abernathy

Midtown

Hope for the future

Cesar Chavez, labor leader and civil rights activist, has been found to be a rapist and sexual predator. Thus, cities are removing his name from streets, buildings, holidays, etc. We have another rapist and sexual predator who is still alive and whose name has been splashed on buildings, monuments, merchandise and coins. It might not be until he dies that his despicable name is removed from everything to cleanse our country and, hopefully, open the way to kindness and peace.

Sandra Katz

Foothills

SAVE Act consequences

If the SAVE Act is enacted as now written, one would no longer be able to use their "Real ID" driver's license (such as we have in Arizona) to pass security checkpoints (such as TSA facilities at airports) because one would need an "Enhanced Driver's License" to do so. After hearing this, my wife is frantically searching for her birth certificate, because that form of ID is permitted under the provisions of the SAVE Act. During her search, my wife suffered a fall from a stepladder and was subsequently taken to the hospital.

Alan Roehl

Green Valley

Skin in the game

Why isn’t 19-year-old Baron Trump enlisting in the military?

Donald is saying our Allies should open the Strait of Hormuz — it would be easy. Why doesn’t he put Baron on one of the ships to show how easy it is? No one in the Trump family has ever been in the U.S. military. I don’t think bone spurs are hereditary, and Baron would show the whole country that he is willing to fight in his father’s war. He would get real-world experience and know how it feels to put your life on the line for your country.

It’s time Donald put some skin in the game. If his own son won’t show his patriotism and be willing to fight in his father’s war, then neither should any other American put their life on the line for an illegal war started by Trump’s “feeling in his bones.”

Elaine Pawlowski

Northeast side

The 'but' party

I am in complete agreement with Loyal Johnson that the Democratic Party is the “but” party. While supposedly “progressive,” they are consistently against anything that’s reasonable and traditional. I have been too busy to read the editorial page for a while, but now that I have recently, I realize that the liberal wackos are still dominating the editorial page echo chamber, constantly defaming their duly elected President and offending his supporters.

Having been completely “turned off” by the Red Star’s blatant liberalism, business owners, conservatives and Christians do not read the Red Star (and therefore do not write LTEs), leaving the appearance that Tucson is totally liberal. It isn’t. There are hundreds of thousands of right-thinking folks in Tucson who love The Lord and love America.

John Evans

Vail

Particularly pathetic

It's a mystery why Mr. Loyal Johnson continues submitting letters that repeatedly embarrass himself by rehashing the same old, always-debunked falsehoods he employs to bash Democrats. His latest missive, referencing Democrats as "the party of 'but,' is particularly pathetic. It reveals that Mr. Johnson does not have the slightest grasp of critical thinking or nuance required to realize the simple-mindedness of black and white views of complex issues. It is stunning that he always makes reference to the rule of law, which his dear leader, DJT, flouts routinely. In fact, I think one could add to Mr. Johnson's list of "buts" this not unlikely sentence from Trump: "Sure, there's the annoying Constitution and rule of law, 'but' none of those rules apply to me, and I will continue spending my time finding ways to circumvent them."

S. Ross Emmanuel

Southeast side

Truth be told

The Audubon Society says, “The bald eagle is an opportunistic forager; a powerful predator but sometimes a scavenger, taking prey alive, fresh, or as carrion, and stealing food from other eagles or avian raptors…”

The back side of Trump’s 250th anniversary of the United States tribute designed to assuage Trump’s weak ego, shows an eagle standing on the Liberty Bell. Is it a Trumpian slip stating that the USA is an opportunistic, unthinking animal that takes care of No. 1 first and descendants second, if at all? Is it saying opportunistic behavior is subordinate to liberty? Or maybe, it’s a graven image of a bird on a tawdry coin for a tawdry man-child. A coin with no real value and a man-child with no egalitarian values, no humanistic moral compass.

But “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” And a waste of ink.

James Abels

Midtown

Yes or no

After so much deflection by the local orange apologists, can they just answer a few simple questions with a "yes' or a "no"?

After watching a boor and a lout conduct himself as such with the premier of Japan, is this who they want to lead us?

After watching a boor and a lout rejoice at the death of Robert Mueller, they approve of this?

After watching a draft evader call other leaders "cowards," can they stomach this?

Can they understand what a browbeating bully is doing with his hands on a lot of big triggers?

Yes or no?

Tim Canny

Oracle

The President needs a dictionary

I think the President should replace his use of the word “excursion” with “incursion”. According to Webster’s dictionary the definition of “incursion” is “a hostile entrance into a territory.” The definition of “excursion” is “a brief pleasure trip.” Which is it?

Our President has the habit of using similar-sounding words without checking definitions.

Paula Palotay

Marana