Tucson Speaks Out: May 17 letters of the day

According to the energy think tank Ember, “Renewables generated a record 30% of global electricity in 2023, driven by growth in solar and wind. With record construction of solar and wind in 2023, a new era of falling fossil generation is imminent. 2023 was likely the pivot point, marking peak emissions in the power sector.”

Juxtaposed against this good news was the account of Trump’s stunning fundraising pitch (bribe) at Mar-a-Lago to major oil company executives that in return for $1 billion he vowed to roll back current environmental policies and prevent new ones from being enacted if he is reelected.

The Biden administration has made tremendous strides in cutting air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. In contrast, Trump has called climate change “a hoax,” and during his time in office sidelined scientists and “weakened or wiped out more than 125 environmental rules and policies.”

Another Trump term would spell disaster for the planet.

Barbara Liguori

Northeast side

Victims in Tucson need a new voice

As a lifelong resident of the south side, I have concerns about the direction Tucson is heading. I ride the bus to work every day. I have grown tired of people doing drugs on the bus, causing trouble for the Bus Drivers, and the drug dealing I see going on. For a guy like me, trying to keep my family safe and pay my bills, I don’t like what I am seeing. I’ve never been political but now I am paying attention and so are my neighbors. Victims of crimes don’t really have a voice anymore. TPD is short staffed so we don’t have enough police officers when crimes occur. I read about the plea deal given to a killer of Isaac Benitez and I feel for terrible for that family. Where is the justice? I think our current Pima County Attorney is not working for us. I think Mike Jette is the best option for Pima County Attorney if we want to start improving conditions in Tucson.

Andrew Taylor

South side

Common sense has left the building

Kristi Noem murders her dog and receives bipartisan condemnation. Israel murders over 20,000 Palestinian women and children and suddenly it’s a partisan issue?

Russia decides to invade Ukraine and we side with Ukraine. Israel decides to invade Palestine (after seizing half of Palestine in 1948, and continuing to seize land and kill Palestinians ever since) and we side with Israel and their refusal to accept a two-state solution?

Right-to-lifers support an out-of-control gun culture that kills over 30,000 Americans every year?

A country comprised of over 99% immigrants or descendants of immigrants objects to immigration, in the face of a severe labor shortage, and a Social Security system that desperately needs more young workers paying taxes to fund SS benefits?

Common sense has left the building, driven out by fear, tribalism and willful ignorance orchestrated by the Right. I’m glad I’m old, so I won’t have to watch the slow-motion collapse of the great American experiment.

Duncan Stitt

Midtown

Pro-Palestine protests are anti-Israel

Support for pro-Palestinian protesters is support for Islamic Jihad: anti-Israel terrorism seeking eradication of Israel. On October 7, Palestinians’ Hamas militants invaded Israel and slaughtered, raped, tortured, over 1,200 Israeli infants, children, women, elders and kidnapped 252. Those terrorists returned with hostages to Gaza to celebrations in the streets. When Israel, justly, retaliated against Hamas, Palestinians shape-shifted into victims. So-called Palestinian Gaza apartheid is self-imposed. Palestinians have three times rejected 2-state peace agreements with Israel: 1947, 2000, and 2008. Palestinians. Their government, Hamas, and benefactor Iran, only want one-state solution, a Palestinian state, requiring eradication of Israel. Hamas doesn’t use Palestinians as human shields; Palestinians embrace victimhood, martyrhood by willfully and collaboratively hiding, harboring Hamas militants in neighborhoods & public facilities with intent of furthering terrorism against Israel. In order to survive, Israeli military must eradicate Hamas militants and strike them wherever they are. If Israel does not, Palestinians’ Hamas will continue its mission to eradicate Israel and establish Palestine as a one-state solution.

Glenn Johnson

Midtown

Letters to the editor

Poor Republicans bellyaching and crying that they cannot get their letters published because the Star has a liberal agenda against them. Yes, the Star is a mostly liberal publication but, when they are written sanely, will publish letters from conservatives. Funny, how I never hear of the hundreds of strictly conservative Fox channels and radio talk shows that won’t even have a liberal guest on. If they do they engage in shouting them down and not letting the guest get a word in edgewise. Now is that fair like you want the Star to be to you? Democrats have few outlets for fair and truthful reporting like the three major networks PBS and NPR. The Republicans even throttled funding for PBS because they said they were too liberal. At least when PBS has a Republican guest on they are cordial and let both sides talk. So, poor whiners, get a box of Kleenex before you open to the editorial page tomorrow.

Daniel Poryanda

Southeast side

Voter turnout

I have heard on the news that there is a lack of enthusiasm for the Presidential election and pundits are predicting a low voter turnout. I have voted in every Presidential election since 1972. Even when I was not enthusiastic about either candidate, I voted. Sometimes I voted for a candidate that I thought would do a good job as President. Sometimes I voted for a candidate that I thought would be less dangerous than the other candidate. Americans should vote out of enthusiasm for a candidate or vote out of fear that a dangerous person will get in the White House. Either way, every American needs to vote.

Richard Bechtold

West side

Open primaries

Re: the May 11 letter “Reject jungle primaries and ranked choice.”

A recent letter objected to what it termed “jungle primaries” on some mis-informed grounds. Arizona’s primaries are only “open” in the sense that non-party “independent” voters are allowed to request only a Democratic or Republican primary ballot. Only about 12% of non-party voters do so. That means our primaries are not very democratic. Candidates who are unpopular in their own parties can win with small percentages of votes, like Andy Biggs who won with 29% of Republican primary votes.

Australia and Ireland have been using this method as well as ranked choice voting for more than one hundred years. Two states and many municipalities already use it with no problems. The method of determining votes is no more opaque than our current system. It’s the idea of changing to a different system that frightens people. More people participating in our elections means a representative democracy that actually represents more Americans’ choices.

Gail Kamaras

East side

Mail in ballots

Forget Election Day. It’s now Election month or month and a half. I’ve been standing in line at a polling station and witnessed people showing up with their mail-in ballots in hand. It seems to me if you can binge watch a show or just hang out at home it stands to reason that one could mail in their ballot by the deadline. I’m a Boomer and can recall when national elections were decided in one day. Not so today. Solution: mail in ballots are ONLY for those people unable to vote in person. While in the USAF I would let my home of record know here I was so as to receive my mail-in ballot (pre-internet.) Waiting days for election results ensures mistrust in the system. Also, make Election Day a national holiday.

Mark Moral

East side

Gazans suffer

Re: the May 14 article “Misery deepens in Gaza’s Rafah.”

Per your May 14, 2024 headline, of course “ye shall reap what ye sow!” Palestinians spend decades supporting “Death to Israel” and terrorism, so it’s no surprise that the IDF forces them to pay the price. Not as harsh as American atomic bombs on Imperial Japan, but serious. Consequence of Palestinian terrorism. The Gazans have been warned through multimedia, but have been unable to force their friends and relatives in Hamas to unconditionally surrender.

Barney Popkin

Northwest side

Judaism and universal justice

I have no use for Hamas or Israel’s Netanyahu because they view both Palestinian civilians and Israeli hostages as expendable collateral damage. Hamas counts on Israel’s indiscriminate violence against Palestinian civilians as a weapon to turn world opinion against Israel and create the next generation of resistance fighters.

As explained in “Judaism and Justice,” by Rabbi Sidney Schwarz, the Torah calls on Jews “to adopt a sacred purpose, spreading righteousness and justice in the world.” This admirable “repair of the entire world” means seeking justice for “the vulnerable of all nations,” not only Jews. Schwarz says, “The Jewish community cannot realize its fullest potential to become a people of the covenant ... if it remains in its tribal camp ... consumed by its perceived need to defend itself from every threat, real and imagined.”

I implore local rabbis to enlighten us on how Israel can repair the world by finding justice for the vulnerable Palestinians instead of railing against antisemitism.

Ronald Pelech

Midtown

Democrats’ political prosecution of Trump

Democrat Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg campaigned on a promise of getting Trump, even before any alleged crimes were known. Judge Merchan is an elected Democrat. He has ruled against almost every motion presented by Trump’s defense team and instituted a gag order against Trump. Meanwhile, prosecution witnesses like Michael Cohen have been on TikTok denouncing Trump and raising money off the trial. Merchan’s daughter is a Democrat activist and has used the trial to raise money for Democrat political candidates. The lead prosecutor in the case is Matthew Colangelo, is a former high official in Biden’s USDOJ. He has previously been a paid political consultant to the Democrat National Committee. It is alleged that he left the USDOJ and joined Bragg’s office specifically to prosecute Trump. Then there is the jury, that based on New York City demographics, is highly likely comprised of Trump hating Democrats, just looking for any basis to convict Trump. Add to this, are the ludicrous unprecedented felony charges brought against Trump. Fair justice?

Dorothy Monroe

Sierra Vista

Far left vs. far right

Re: the May 15 letter “Far Right extremists.”

People to the far left follow Communism while people to the far right follow Naziism. One favors human rights and the other favors property rights.

Dan Beamer

Northwest side

This is really getting old

Every letter posted praising Trump for this, that and another thing is followed by multiple letters pointing out how screwed up and wrong the post is in reality. Please try to find something good Trump actually did and not just make up stuff like this COVID nonsense.

James Galvin

Sahuarita

VP candidate for Republicans

Since the Republicans are getting ready to nominate Donald Trump as their candidate for President, they will also need to have a candidate for Vice President. I haven’t heard who they will choose yet. So I am suggesting that they consider Stormy Daniels. After all, she knows much about his interests.

Alan Roehl

Sahuarita

The two-country solution was never real

If by some miracle there was to be a Palestinian country, the future of such a country would be temporary.

Every country has a department of war, though for PR reasons most call themselves the department of defense. As Israel has nuclear weapons and has the capacity to deliver such weapons through its work with the apartheid South Africa in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the proposed new Palestinian country would work to obtain those capabilities through its own means or with its new allies like Iran, Russia or North Korea.

Knowing this, Israel will never allow a Palestinian country. Religion, as history shows, is a tactical war weapon to gain supposed moral authority to kill or control others. Religion must grow or die. The Judaism-Islam war in Palestine is seen by both sides as a war to the death.

Politics is the art of compromise. As the two-country solution can only work with compromise, a two-country solution in Palestine has never ever had a chance.

Matt Somers

Midtown

Tucson potholes

This is not another complaint about the proliferation of potholes and degraded asphalt that we all encounter daily on our streets. I found one bright spot dear readers; the Tucson 311 app yielded an immediate pothole repair. I downloaded the app, sent a picture of the pothole on my street and within a few hours it was repaired. Thank you City of Tucson for creating a service request portal, now if you could just do something about the trash.

Marcy Tigerman

Midtown