Letters to the Editor: Feb. 11

Humane, no-brainer legislation

Pima Animal Care Center continually pleads for help with desperate overcrowding. Maricopa shelters euthanize massive numbers of healthy adoptable dogs weekly. Exhausted rescues post lists of death-row dogs begging for fosters and adopters, many on the “E-List” simply due to shelter stress.

Yet puppy mills, never inspected due to a lack of inspectors, and backyard breeders are mass-producing dogs imported or locally marketed on Craigslist, retailers, etc., most will be euthanized, suffer from neglect or poorly bred genetic defects.

The Humane Society and ASPCA routinely solicit donations with horrible images of suffering confined dogs but haven’t generated Arizona legislation without loopholes ending irresponsible breeding. With overwhelming public support, these national organizations and legislators can pass bills ending this travesty for animals and rescuers while reducing taxpayer expenses.

The Humane Society and ASPCA should use the donations generated from their emotional advertisements of suffering dogs by promoting Arizona legislation to stop over-production that results in mass-euthanizing. It’s a no-brainer that even hyper-partisans can pass.

Candace Charvoz Frank

West side

Who earned the reward?

Re: the Feb. 7 letter “Not taxpayer money.”

Val Romero’s letter states that “the $25,000 to hire a consultant would not come from taxpayer money” and “this money is ... funded thru incentives, similar to credit card rewards.” Those incentives/rewards were generated by spending taxpayer funds. Therefore, that is taxpayer money. As a credit card user, the rewards I earn are generated by the funds I expend. The rewards are mine. Who in their right mind would think those rewards don’t belong to the credit card holder? Is not the taxpayer the indirect holder of TUSD’s credit cards/debt? I prefer to use twisted logic in jokes, not in reality.

James Abels

Midtown

GOP is insulting

Give me a break! The GOP’s opinions and actions by the far-right are just too much. 1. Not only did the party allow a liar to stay in power but allowed him to be a candidate for another term in the highest office of the land; 2. Kevin McCarthy and the GOP will not remove a man from the House of Representatives even though he lied to his voters. Has the GOP lost its mind? I have not. The party insults my intelligence.

Toni Kane

Oro Valley

Desalination plant: Who benefits?

Re: the Feb. 5 article “Sonoran officials rebuke desalination company.”

“A consortium of private investors led by IDE Technologies” are proposing this $5.5 billion desalination plant in Mexico. The words “private investors” tell us that business interests will be controlling our water — and its price — in the future. That should send shivers down your spine. Big Water will join Big Oil, with its concentration on stock prices above the survival of Arizona’s citizens.

Mexico as the site of our plant leads to obvious questions: Which country controls the construction and repair of the plant and water pipelines? Will cartels dump the fentanyl business for a potentially more lucrative water business?

Business interests and cartels … both looking out for us … how can we lose?

Beth Isabelle

Northeast side

Blatant lies or profound ignorance

The GOP has done it once again, last week compelling the entire Congress to pass a pointless resolution condemning “socialism.” The GOP resolution equates socialism with the regimes of Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Mao Tze Tung and Joseph Stalin, all of them communist. This is either another example of blatant lying or an exhibition of profound ignorance.

Anyone who has taken Political Science 101 knows that political ideologies are on a spectrum. Communists are at the most extreme of the left side. They are totalitarian and do not accept the concept of human rights, while socialists are left of center, democratic, and possess a profound respect for human rights. In reality, socialists are more concerned about human rights than American Republicans, because, unlike Republicans, they believe that education, medical care, housing, employment, and a decent standard of living are basic human rights. In fact, all advanced democracies are socialist, with the exception of the United States. This is another example of GOP fear-mongering and pandering to its extremist base.

Jon Dorschner

Midtown

Capital punishment

Re: the Feb. 6 letter “Death penalty bias.”

The writer states: “To quote a bumper sticker, “Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?” In other words, he says, what part of “Thou shalt not kill” don’t we seem to be getting? I am going to assume that he’s attempting to use the 10 commandments as his argument against capital punishment. The actual verse correctly quoted is “You shall not murder.” Exodus 20:13 NKJV

There is a huge difference between putting an individual to death as punishment for a capital crime (killing him) and that of taking the life of an unborn child (murder).

If we’re going to quote God’s Word in arguing anything, let’s make sure it is used exactly as He wants it to be used!

Bob Wineland

Northwest side

AZ GOP

Failing to elect Punch and Pinocchio, the pouting AZ GOP has prioritized personal position over public interest, and is now obstructing and preventing a smooth-running government. The “Grand Old Party” has become a “Gang Of Privateers.”

James Huble

SaddleBrooke

Private education — dream on!

Re: the Feb. 7 letter “Private education all that’s needed.”

Amazing to read that a retired teacher believes that we should privatize all education, allegedly the perfect solution for a free society. I might like this idea, and imagine the following: In the free and democratic USA, in some areas, Talibans are allowed to set up their schools to educate future terrorists. In other areas, extremely conservative religious groups run their schools and teach that all women should be sent back to the private sphere and serve as men’s chattel. In yet another area, private schools are set up that teach the geocentric worldview and oppose all modern science, including electricity. In states like Florida, the schools might teach that all ethnic minorities deserve to be taken to concentration or labor camps, and that LGBTQ people deserve to be medically treated to make them straight. And in Minnesota, Neo-Nazis prepare the future concentration camp guards. Dear letter writer, this is truly the perfect solution for our free country. But bless your heart and enjoy your retirement!

Albrecht Classen

Midtown

No math needed for this job

Re: the Feb. article “Ballot challenge proposed.”

This article is about a proposal to compare a machine count and a hand count of ballots. Much of the loudest bleating in the last election from loser Kari Lake, et al. had to do with timely results or the lack of them.

The Cyber Ninja debacle used “50 to 100 people working 12-hour shifts” to count 2.1 million ballots which consumed 100,000 hours and showed President Biden still won.

Without hiring the entire population of a small town, how much time would that take? The proposal is to count all 2.6 million ballots in the state or 23% more than the Ninjas.

I would like to see the math involved with counting that many ballots by hand in a timely manner.

Tim Canny

Oracle