Push the mute button
After the Kari Lake-Karrin Taylor Robson clown show debate, it’s no wonder Katie Hobbs is refusing to debate Lake. Here’s a simple solution: Each candidate is allotted a set time to answer questions and with no interrupting or overriding their opponent’s responses. If this rule is violated, after a firm warning, the moderator pushes a button that mutes their mic. A simple and quick solution.
Jeff Aronson
Northeast side
Royal death obsession
Perhaps President Biden should repeat his speech on the rising tide of authoritarianism in the U.S. while standing next to the Queen’s coffin in the UK. That way, the nation’s TV networks would find it important enough to broadcast.
Linda Stanley
People are also reading…
East side
Sometime voters
Sometime voters, please don’t sit back and not vote in the upcoming election. This year’s Nov. 8 election is different. Your vote is needed now more than ever. The slate of candidates the Republican Party has put forward at both state and federal levels will negatively affect your lives if given the chance. Far-right Arizona state and U.S. federal majorities can wreak havoc with our democratic processes and more and more with the quality of our lives.
Sometime voters, and swing voters too, please be sure you’re registered to vote and arrange to obtain a ballot. As you quietly decide how to mark your ballot, be aware of how your chosen candidates will or will not contribute to far-right majorities that are more and more pushing undemocratic agendas. Don’t sit back because it doesn’t matter — it does matter. It matters a lot.
Donald Ijams
Midtown
Acknowledging our nation’s sins
The Ken Burns documentary, “The United States and the Holocaust,” was exceptional. It described in accurate detail Nazi Germany’s attempt to exterminate Europe’s Jews and the failure of the United States to save more Jewish refugees.
One aspect of the Holocaust story was omitted. In 1951, West Germany acknowledged its sin of exterminating 6 million Jews and offered reparations to Jewish survivors. Reparations continue to be provided in 2022. This courageous and gracious deed should have been included to honor Germany and to provide an example of appropriate behavior for other nations which have committed crimes against humanity, including the United States.
The United States’ treatment of Native Americans and African Americans over the past four centuries has had a destructive impact on millions of human beings. It is time for our country to acknowledge its sins and take consequent action to improve the horrendous conditions in which the majority of Native Americans and African Americans presently live.
Stuart Sellinger
Northwest side
Steller’s turn
Re: the Sept. 25 article “Stop demonizing political opposition.”
Gee, Tim, I really really enjoyed your “turn to the center” article Sunday. Responding to the turn of the screws that the rest of the paper is caving into, or maybe auditioning for the new Trump-friendly CNN?
Joe Reiman
SaddleBrooke
Camouflaging their extremist scam
We know all Donald Trump “mini-mes” have entirely erased their beliefs from websites and replaced them with more centrist views to con the few voters who haven’t heard their racist, anti-semitic, pro-choice stances, cruel, bigoted, misogynistic points of view. Now, they might consider “liberal ideas.” Today, they may be willing to discuss women’s rights and the climate — if elected.
Most aware people know during a Sean Hannity interview on FOX, Trump unknowingly (stupidly?) blurted, “If you’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying: ‘It’s declassified.’ Even by thinking about it. There doesn’t have to be a process. There can be a process, but there doesn’t have to be. You’re the president. You make that decision … I declassified everything.”
Sept. 25’s morning talk shows asked dozens of Republican Senators and Congress members if they believe, “even by thinking about it.” John Barrasso said, “I’ve not heard that one before … I don’t know the rules.”
Not one said Trump’s name.
Sheldon Metz
Northeast side
Medicare privatization
In 2019, Medicare quietly launched a scheme called “direct contracting” that inserts a for-profit company between patients and medical providers.
Companies are paid a monthly fee to cover a patient’s expenses, keeping 40% of the fee not spent on patient care. Beneficiaries can be enrolled without their full knowledge or consent. To opt out, patients must change their primary care doctor.
The general counsel for the Health and Human Services Department warned that it appeared the project was set up to benefit specific companies. Medicare expects to cover all traditional Medicare and Medicare Supplement beneficiaries with this plan by 2030, effectively privatizing Medicare. Medicare recently changed the name of the program to ACO REACH but the same flaws exist as in the Direct Contracting model.
With ACO REACH seniors will have their care radically changed, their choices undermined, services denied and care rationed while increasing the chance of bankrupting Medicare. Health care should be between patients and their doctors, not companies that have profit as their motive.
Mike Gatton
Downtown
Rational Republicans just don’t care
What’s it like to be a longtime, rational Republican watching the party eschew democracy and rally around extremists? Embracing thoroughly disproven claims about 2020 election validity? Welcoming white nationalist partners? Placing party far above country? Usurping the rights and freedoms of all to take control for the minority?
What does the longtime, rational Republican think when their hero ex-president is shown to be a liar, a cheat, a thief, a traitor?
What does the longtime, rational Republican think when they see their candidate slates filled with people committed to perpetuating right-wing lunacy?
What does the longtime, rational Republican think when they watch other longtime, rational Republicans ostracized and berated for not supporting the ill-founded and spiteful party line?
From what I can tell the longtime, rational Republican buries their collective head in the sand and hopes for the best.
Sad for the USA.
Scott Lukomski
Northeast side
Dark money funding Kelly’s campaign
Mark Kelly has denounced dark money in politics and slammed SCOTUS’ decision on Citizens United. Last January, he tweeted, “Twelve years ago, Citizens United v. FEC allowed corporate special interests to flood our political system with dark money, drowning out the voices of everyday Arizonans. Reversing this decision is one of the most important things we can do to strengthen our democracy.” Since August, the leftist PAC Somos has dumped over $300,000 into Arizona supporting Kelly’s campaign. Somos receives millions in funding passed through nonprofit organizations such as North Fund, Change Now, Family Friendly Action Fund and the Sixteen Thirty Fund. All full of anonymous donors aka ‘dark money’ that Kelly has railed against. He is a hypocrite. If Kelly is re-elected his true self will be exposed. He will again vote to end the Senate filibuster and open the gates to the left’s full agenda on gun control, statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico, packing the Supreme Court, climate, immigration, higher taxes and trillions in spending.
Gary Beachwood
Green Valley
Back to 1864
Buckle up, boys. And I mean that literally. It’s going to be a long, bumpy road; 21 years’ worth of long, bumpy road. Yes, that’s how long child support can last. Me? I’m going to ask my broker to find the labs that do paternity testing and buy, buy baby.
Janet Schaefer
Oro Valley
