GOP against voting system
Re: the May 4 letter “One good idea.”
In this letter, the reader said the GOP plans to put code numbers on ballots so the voter can track his ballot being counted and ensure ballot security. I want to point out that any Pima County voter who votes by mail can already track their mail-in ballot all the way through the vote-counting process. If you vote by mail, you can track online when your ballot is received, opened and counted. If this is really an important task, the obvious answer is not to change the whole system but to encourage people to vote by mail.
It seems the entire GOP is trying to make it as hard as possible to not only vote, but to ensure the entire voting system is broken. I guess it is a lot easier to steal elections if you corrupt the voting process first.
Graeme Williams
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Southeast side
Supreme injustice
As of this writing, the leaker of the Supreme Court decision draft to overturn Roe has not been identified. That hasn’t stopped people from both sides assuming the worst about their opponents and accusing them for the leak. Regardless, it has been a useful event to help highlight the court majority’s desire to impose their religious convictions upon the majority of the nation.
The belief that conception is the point at which their god grants life is the basis for their entire argument. It’s clear they don’t care about the living. For them it isn’t about right to life; it’s about their right to impose their belief system on the rest of us.
Rick Scifres
Green Valley
Supreme Court is broken
Re: the May 4 article “Leak shows Supreme Court is broken.”
It is true, as Noah Feldman writes, that the abortion case leak shows that the Supreme Court is broken, but it is not hard to figure where and when it was broken. Under the last president, the Republican Party rammed through three ideologically conservative Supreme Court justices by ridding the approval process of the filibuster (so they could get the appointee through on a party-line vote) and by voting in Amy Coney Barrett just weeks before the 2020 election when they had refused to even consider Barack Obama’s pick in the months before the 2016 election. Having become such a blunt tool of political power, it is hardly surprising that the Court can no longer escape from the political shenanigans, such as leaks, typical of the rest of D.C. politics.
Greg Evans
West side
What it’s all about
The legalistic nattering about abortion misses the point. I think this is all part of the never-ending story of men telling women what they can and can’t do. The whole MAGA movement, from Trump to Carlson, has taught men how to be bad boys again, and misbehave (some women like that). The GOP has turned into a great gender reveal party, grabbing women’s and tanning men’s private parts. Many on the Supreme Court have followed the election returns.
Men don’t want to give women any rights in the area of sexual opportunism: They have long had that as their own prerogative, but they see chaos if women ask for it. This will not be settled by lawyers, though it would be good if the the Court threw out bounty hunters as law enforcement (as in Texas). Vigilantism has gone way too far already.
Herbert Schneidau
Foothills
Roe v. Wade
As a nurse at Harlem Hospital in New York City before Roe v. Wade, I witnessed the disasters of illegal abortions — from painful deaths to infections that rendered infertility. And with Roe v. Wade, our maternal mortality from botched, illegal abortions ended. Women were finally released from cruel and inhuman laws.
I believe that Supreme Court decisions should move our country forward in synch with relevant issues and not take us back to the “dark ages” of maternal death, pain and injury. It has been said that “you can’t go back again.” Thus, I believe that after 50 years of women’s control of their bodies, chaos will reign. How sad!
Susan Hetherington
Northeast side
Divulging arguments
The Supreme Court has operated in secret since our beginnings, and I never thought much about it. It was just one of those things.
But, even as a strong conservative aligned with the views divulged in this instance, this matter has me thinking a bit harder. Why indeed should the deliberations of the justices be kept behind closed doors? I am concluding that is an error and should be changed in all cases.
In close cases or in vigorously disputed cases, we often have a ‘minority’ report from the court. Why should that not be the case for all matters that come to the Supremes?
Do secret deliberations somehow protect justices from undue criticism? Such criticism is unimportant anyway because of lifetime tenure.
No, let all court deliberations be open and public. We need to know!
Charles Josephson
Midtown
Migrants come for economic reasons
In November 2021, a report on migration was released by the Migration Policy Institute, the World Food Programme and the Civic Data Design Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They conducted an in-depth study of migrants coming to America from Central America. Their report reflected that over the last five years, Central American migrants have paid a whopping $1.7 billion annually to smugglers to be brought illegally to America. The report also showed that 92% were motivated by economic reasons. The researchers interviewed thousands of households in the Central America region in compiling their report.
For me, this report raises serious questions about thousands of Central American migrants now claiming asylum based on some type of persecution, when the study showed 92% are coming for economic reasons. I think this report points to mass abuse of our asylum system, with many migrants likely making false verbal or written statements to immigration officers, a federal felony in violation of 18 U.S. Code 1001. The Biden administration does not seem to care.
Letti Patel
North side
Sex education in schools
It is unacceptable that children K-3rd grades hear anything about sex and sexuality in taxpayer-funded public schools. Fix this issue first and then we can discuss 4th-6th grades because there may be nuanced refinement of my opinion.
Democrats hysterically lump K-12 as “school children” to muddy the debate because they offer no thoughtful dialog.
Jeffrey McConnell
West side
I am horrified
I just turned on my TV to the horrifying news that yet another mass shooting occurred — this time at a Texas elementary school. Nineteen beautiful children and two adults will not be home for dinner tonight or ever again. A deranged killer took them from their families. This, in the wake of another mass shooting just one week earlier in Buffalo taking the lives of 10 innocent citizens just going about their business.
Nineteen children gone! I cannot stop thinking about that. This is the United States of America. What are our elected officials here in Tucson, in Pima County, in Arizona and in Washington doing about gun control? I’ll tell you — not enough! Why are military-grade weapons and automatic weapons available to the general public? Why is not enough attention being paid to background checks?
The right to own a gun is far less important than the right of my four beautiful grandchildren to attend school and grow to adulthood. I plan on asking officials running for office exactly this question. “What is your plan to control the availability of guns?” Their answers will determine how I vote
Floyd Nobler
Foothills
Mass shootings
Have we as a country had enough mass shootings? Are we satisfied that a moment of silence or words of condolence is enough? Are we confident that our children are safe enough? Are we safe shopping at a store, going to church or walking our dog? Have we done enough to protect minorities from hate and malice?
I think America has allowed very sick people and criminals easy access to guns. We have permitted disaffected people easy access to internet sites that further imbues them with hate and isolation.
The gun lobby and frightened gun owners should not dictate gun policies in this country. Laws are needed to strengthen background checks and limit gun ownership. Is there any compelling reason why someone should have a semi-automatic weapon or multiple semi-automatic weapons? There is no doubt that if nothing happens, children, innocent adults and minorities will be killed.
Daniel McDonnell
Foothills
Repeating history
Some unanswered questions concerning the shooter-killer of 21 innocent souls in Uvalde, Texas.
He was a high school dropout; did he have a paying job? Where did he get $3,000 to buy the weapons? Did he pay with a credit card or cash? If credit card, how did he obtain this without a work history? If cash, how did he obtain $3,000? He didn’t have a driver’s license; what did he use for ID for the purchases? Did the sellers of these weapons question the teenager on any of the aspects of the transactions? Did he use his grandfather’s truck to buy the weapons? Has anyone questioned the sellers of these weapons concerning the sales?
Needless to say, history will repeat itself unless the outcry to this disaster and every other one before becomes louder than any bullet from a killer and his weapon.
Washington, D.C. — wake up!
Beatrice (Bea) Cutler
Northwest side
Killing children
Editor,
Regarding the ongoing massacre of our youth. A question arises: What is more important, the poorly written and antiquated Second Amendment or the lives of our precious children?
The answer determines what sort of society we want our remaining children to live (or die) in.
Gavin Kayner
Northwest side
Mental health pros have hands tied
As a professional behavioral health clinician in Tucson, I am extremely tired of lawmakers and officials, the last one being Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, blaming mental health for the sickening epidemic of mass shootings.
The public needs to know how difficult it may be to get parents to engage in the mental health system for a troubled child. It is a family issue, and parents may minimize and deny that their child has a problem. Or when getting a child admitted to a behavioral health hospital due to depression, suicide and/or harm to self or others, oftentimes the patient will recant and then they are released.
When I have had to call police because a teen was threatening to hurt or even kill a peer, it is my experience that the police officer will talk the teen out of their intention, threatening that they will be locked up. Often mental health professionals have their hands tied. This is a complex issue. Having access to guns, especially assault weapons, is one.
Martha Kelley
Southwest side
Children should not be sacrificed
Enough is enough! Our kids should not have to lay their bodies down in sacrifice to protect our right to bear arms! It’s not worth it! We are a civilized country, and we are acting like careless heathens. I urge Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick and Sen. Mark Kelly to do everything in their power to protect our children from gun violence in their schools.
I live in Tucson, and I remember very clearly seeing the helicopters flying overhead on the day of the Safeway shooting years ago. My kids and I looked up and wondered where they were off to, and absolutely horrified to hear of the news. Grocery stores, schools, movie theaters and other public spaces should be safe at all costs.
Freedom means the ability to live without fear of being shot in safe spaces.
Jessie Mance
Sierra Vista
Bravo
Re: the May 26 letter “God not same for everyone.”
Bravo for expressing why someone else’s opinion has to be the “law” of the land. And written by who exactly, some person living up in the sky? Believe what you want, but kindly leave me to believe what I want without labeling me as a nonbeliever, and therefore a less of a person.
Bruce Yost
Northeast side
