Tucson Speaks Out: March 18

The SAVE (our seats) Act

Republicans, who have searched for widespread voter fraud for decades, have proven that it does not exist. (See the Heritage Foundation database.) And a majority, possibly all, of the Republicans in Congress are aware of this. Why lie about it then, when proposing the SAVE Act? Because the truth — that they want to keep their majority and that this will disenfranchise millions of qualified voters who they suspect will vote against them — is to be hidden behind a veneer of “concern for the integrity of our elections.” It’s a cynical move that may persuade the gullible.

Voting is the right of every citizen. Setting administrative barriers to suppress certain voters to keep your job is undemocratic, unpatriotic, and frankly lazy. Why not go out and persuade voters? Or is that not doable after Republican politicians have given Trump a blank check, instead of checking his excesses as the Constitution requires? We need to elect people of better character.

Barbara Hall

Midtown

Golfing Donald

There’s nothing more important in a short-term war than a bit of golfing.

After all, Donald, you earned a ride on the fairways because of your stressful week:

1. You had to castigate at least two reporters who were simply doing their jobs.

2. The Strait of Hormuz problem caused by the ill-planned war started by your buddy in Israel.

3. Ukraine let you know Russia is supplying Iran lots of drones

4. Still many questions about the Epstein papers, though you’ve managed to ignore most of them.

Wow! Talk about a needed trip to a golf course.

By the way, Donald, the next time you’re asked to attend a military function to honor killed service members, please leave your baseball cap at home.

Joe Schula

Foothills

Don’t be played: another view

The personnel coming home from Iran are heroes.

Sadly, the president and his administration have overlooked them.

As he did with John McCain. He referred to him as a loser.

According to a report in The Atlantic published on Sept. 3, 2020, Donald Trump made disparaging remarks referring to U.S. service members killed in battle as "losers" and "suckers" during a trip to France in November 2018.

On Feb. 28, an elementary school in Iran was bombed, killing approximately 165 children, mostly girls.

This war is wrong, both militarily and morally, and is not needed.

Resist.

Dan Bannon

Midtown

March Madness

The Wildcats had a remarkable season, were judged to be the second-best team in the country and awarded a No. 1 seed in San Diego. McKale West with lots of nearby U of A alumnae and a 6-hour drive from Tucson. The problem: game time is 10:35 am on Friday. That means those fans living there will need to take the day off, and the U of A folks will have to travel on Thursday. This alone adds a few hundred bucks to the tab. A prime-time game at 5 would have solved all of this. But we all know that the best interests of the fan have long been jettisoned for the financial needs of the University, NCAA and TV.

Thomas Rothe

Midtown

Who's being 'played?'

Let's see if I've got this straight...we're being told by a MAGA cultist whose version of reality stems from hanging on every rant from "President" Felon, Fraud, Liar, Grifter and Con Man (whose intellectual development is that of a spoiled 14-year-old viewing war as a video game) that the rest of us are being "played" by the news media? Does his "information" come from Trump mouthpieces like Karo-lyin' Leavitt or vicious Steven Cheung? Remind me...how many decades upon decades has Iran been chanting "Death to America" (or Israel), and yet, here we still are. Trump is a self-serving fool who never thinks beyond how to make the moment he's in benefit him, and using war to distract from the Epstein files is just particularly grotesque. Trusting someone as ignorant of history and foreign culture as Trump is to have any meaningful understanding of a country like Iran is certainly the definition of getting "played."

Hope Gastelum

East side

The climate has a beef with us

Wildfires ripping through Nebraska have burned hundreds of thousands of acres of ranch land, killed cattle, and tragically taken at least one life as people tried to escape the flames. For ranchers, that means lost livelihoods. For families across the country, it could mean higher beef prices and tighter grocery budgets.

Climate change is not just about the environment. It affects affordability, food supply, and the stability of rural economies that feed the country.

Veterans understand the connection. For decades, America’s reliance on fossil fuels has pulled our military into conflicts protecting global energy supplies. Those same fuels drive the heat, drought, and wildfire conditions hitting ranch communities at home.

Why is this connected to Tucson? Because beef does not come with a state passport. The burger in Arizona can come from cattle raised hundreds of miles away.

When the climate squeezes cattle supply, it squeezes family budgets too. Turns out the climate really does have a beef with us. No need to panic-buy, like toilet paper in 2020.

Melissa Cordero

West side

Burnt toast

Nations don’t die because of skimpy military power and flagging economic accumulation. Our nation did just fine with very little of those supposed necessities in our early days.

Nations die because of citizen ignorance, apathy, self-indulgence, and crime. America has all these nation-killers in spades today.

Today, the U.S. has plenty of military power. The Vietnam War cost taxpayers $3.5 billion a year, but Trump’s little rampage in Iran is costing the American taxpayer $1.9 billion a day.

Our mega-wealthy class has plenty of accumulation, but they and the working class together have a problem of productivity. Americans don’t know how to work anymore.

What is really killing us is spending our discretionary time in sports and other entertainments, debt-spending and gambling, endlessly corrupting social media and video gaming, regular consumption of political and advertising lies, and belief in and acting upon misguided religious theologies.

Our people are no longer an ethical, smart, exemplary citizenry.

Kimball Shinkoskey

Woods Cross, Utah

Save our voting rights

While Trump’s “it was my opinion,” war is killing mostly innocent men, women, numerous children, and American soldiers, “that’s the way it is,” he is trying to strip the voting rights from those who oppose him and his subservient Republication Congress. In a recent speech, he boasted “We will never lose a race. For 50 years we won’t lose a race” if the Safeguard American Voter (SAVE) Eligibility America Act is passed. He has threatened not to sign any legislation until SAVE is passed. It appears the only path for Republicans to secure midterm victories would be to tilt the system in their favor. It is sad to realize that the 250th Anniversary of the United States that will be commemorated on July 4, 2026, marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, will take place with the Constitution shredded by our current president.

Jerry Fay

SaddleBrooke