This image posted by Democrats last month on social media shows a suggestive birthday letter that Democrats say was purportedly signed by President Donald Trump. Trump denies signing or sending it.
Epstein files
Is there anyone who doesn’t believe Trump figures prominently in the Epstein files? Speaker Johnson recessed the House early to prevent a vote on releasing the files. Now he’s slow-walking Grijalva’s swearing in, in an attempt to delay the vote. The White House is pressuring Republican House members to change their vote. If there’s nothing there, why all the attempts to stop the release? Trump has stated that he and Epstein broke up variously due to property disputes or Epstein stealing girls from him, as if they were his property.
Craig Miller
Northwest side
Government shutdown
A government shutdown is now upon us. Despite Republican talking points that ridiculously attempt to blame undocumented immigrants, transgender Americans, and Democrats for this mess, the shutdown lies squarely in the hands of the GOP, who hold a majority in both the House and Senate. Taking their marching orders directly from Donald Trump, Republicans in Congress have embraced cruelty in the form of their Big, Awful Bill that will strip millions of their healthcare and have abandoned any need to provide checks and balances for an out-of-control Chief Executive.
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Enabling this situation is Congressman Juan Ciscomani, who has engaged in a nonstop campaign of gaslighting his constituents and sanitizing his own complicity in this mess. Rep. Ciscomani has all but abandoned holding town hall meetings and facilitates the toxic politics of MAGA. We in the 6th Congressional District deserve better representation from our Congressman in Washington.
Rahul Sivaprasad
Northwest side
Partisan politics at the VA
As a Navy veteran entitled to VA benefits, I receive a weekly newsletter from the VA. Today’s edition states that “... Trump opposes a lapse in appropriations ...” and specifically blames the Democrats for “...blocking the Continuing Resolution in the U.S. Senate due to unrelated policy demands.” This is a direct violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits the use of government resources for partisan gain.
Joel Yelland
Northwest side
The ‘N’ word
Nincompoop is another “N” word that the Generals were thinking when they sat there listening to the Big Bozo and his lackey. They sat silent as this was another “N” word that you couldn’t say.
Bozo No. 2 strutted across the stage thinking he was General Patton giving a pep talk. It was like a third-grader who just mastered “times tables” giving a lecture on mathematics to college professors.
Divergent thought among groups is paramount from keeping groups sliding to a right or left direction that ultimately finds the group going in circles. The loyalty demand of “my way or the highway” leaves talent undisclosed.
Placing troops in cities can have a positive effect if the troops shoot grappling hooks onto skyscrapers, rappelling back and forth, up and down, maybe washing windows on the way. The ropes can hold ornaments and tinsel at Christmas.
Wreak havoc where you can and see where this takes you seems to be the direction of this administration.
A Painfully Pitiful Performance.
Ed LeGendre
East side
Antifa
Recently, there was a letter published from one who was praising Antifa. I lived in Portland for years and witnessed firsthand what Antifa is and their tactics. Their legends dress in black with a head covering everything but their eyes. They are an extreme leftist group that hates America and has rightfully been named recently as a terrorist group. Some years ago they burned federal buildings in Portland, beat up a reporter who was hospitalized for his injuries. This group is well funded as they all wear the same color vests, gas masks. For anyone to find any good in this group has to be demented. Now that they have received national attention, hopefully their source of funding will be found and the group will be apprehended.
Bill Dowdall
Oro Valley
How small can one man be?
We need look no further than House Majority leader Mike Johnson, who has yet to swear in Adelita Grijalva, who was duly elected to the US House of Representatives on September 23rd.
Although Speaker Johnson swore in Representative James Walkinshaw based on unofficial results the day after his Sept. 9 election, he has refused to acknowledge Grijalva, who won her seat by a decisive two-to-one margin, nor has he put her swearing-in date on the legislative calendar.
Ignoring congressional bipartisan support for Grijalva, Johnson’s stonewalling is clearly an effort to prevent her from signing a House petition that would force a vote to release the Epstein files.
For his failure to perform a basic function of his office and his willingness to play petty politics and deny 800,000 Arizonans in CD7 the representation they deserve, Johnson is not measuring up to his job. Instead, he is proving himself to be a small, mean-spirited man who should be removed.
J.B. Marshall
Oro Valley
UA’s poor judgment
The University of AZ Provost Prelock reports a 23% loss in out-of-state students and a 9% loss in foreign students for whom the tuition is $43,100. This is in exchange for a 10% increase in AZ students whose tuition is $13,900. I question her statement that this was a plan. The math makes no sense. Also, what thinking, loving parent would purposely send their child to a university far from home that was among the first and few to rollover and axe their DEI programs at Trump’s request?
“University of Arizona President Suresh Garimella acted quickly to comply with Trump administration orders to end DEI programs.” AZ Daily Star
To their credit, 91% of the faculty voted non-support for their president’s action. To add insult to injury, the AZ Board of Regents just awarded President Garimella more than $250,000 bonus for less than a year’s efforts. In my view, the citizens of Arizona deserve better for their tax dollars.
David Rollins
North side
Organ donation
The letter reminding us to become organ donors was so important. It is the final act you can do to respect others in this age of disrespect. Our son, whose life was serving others, would go on. Walking the Honor Walk the day of our son’s passing was the most difficult as well as the most rewarding walk ever taken. Knowing he would live on in the recipient made us happy. His was the only donation in the state of Arizona that day. That made us sad. Please become an organ donor.
Sandy Mason
Northwest side
Immigrants not taking American jobs
On the contrary, immigrants help and facilitate American jobs. This is from the Brookings Institution, Economic Policy Institute and the American Immigration Council. Plenty more sources are available. Americans pay less thanks to the immigrants.
President Trump needed something to run on. He even admitted it. Conservative republicans were extremely mad at Trump for ruining a bipartisan bill that favored conservatives. Trump said he was worried it would help Biden. The Bill was called S. 4361, the Border Act of 2024. This was almost identical to a previous one written by the Republicans.
The rhetoric suggesting so many immigrants are murderers or rapists or criminals is false, do your research. Yes, many are suspected of breaking misdemeanor laws, but we will never know without due process and the lack of following the “rule of law” and who cares about misdemeanors. Trump failed to bring down costs.
This is a con. Just like the tariffs. Follow the law and resist.
Dan Bannon
Midtown
Antifa are those against fascism
Trump declared “Antifa” a well-organized terrorist organization, funded by Soros and “Democrat terrorists.” He blamed Antifa for everything during his first term, believing they were a Black terrorist group. There are no antifa-ists at protests, just people holding signs saying Antifa.
So he’s reestablishing his hallucinatory “Quixote’s windmill ‘giants’” If he actually attended classes and took the exams his stand-in did, he might have understood that Quixote was a fictional person and Antifa means Anti-Fascism.
The irony: the demented, schizophrenic, child-president is illegally setting our American military upon American cities and citizens, claiming the “enemy is within.” You and I are the enemy? Who owns the guns? Who attacked Congress? Who told generals to use American cities for military combat training? Trump and Hegseth instructed our generals to feel free to attack citizens on our soil. He especially wants to capture Antifa’s leaders.
Trump sends troops against anti-fascists protesting against fascism, without realizing — he’s the one they’re protesting against.
Sheldon Metz
Northeast side
MAGA values
Recently, a woman asked me why I was wearing my “resist” button as I entered the grocery store; I responded, “Because many Americans can’t afford the Felonious Occupant’s tariffs.” She said, “Things are just fine in my world.”
One of today’s LTEs reminded me of that chat. The writer argued that it’s not “worth it” to hold up the spending bill for the benefit of JUST 20.8 million of his fellow Americans.
Both remarks reflect the way most MAGAs view their world: They can afford to absorb huge tariff-induced increases in the cost of everything, so who cares about some single mom working as a waitress? They aren’t worried about losing their medical coverage, so who cares about older people who go without a doctor’s care?
They’re not affected by ICE raids. There are no armed soldiers patrolling their neighborhoods. They’ll get by just fine after cuts to Medicare. Who cares?
MAGA world, courtesy of the Felonious Occupant.
Resist.
Jim Christ
East side
The final harbor
Recent LTEs about the cost to Tucson’s environment if a data center became our reality were spirited and heartfelt. One in particular, from a writer I normally disagree with, was prescient. He wrote that our unwillingness to give up our gadgets and new technologies is why we need data centers at all.
We are the problem.
His letter reminded me of a weekend in upstate NY I spent in our then country house when the power went out. I kept warm and cooked by a Franklin stove, using candles to read at night while yearning for the power to be restored. And I wrote about humankind’s quest for power, knowledge and conquest. The final stanza agreed with the letter writer:
“Through galaxies of time and space
They quested past each wondrous place
They soared and sailed and quested farther
Oh when and where the final harbor”
There is no final harbor I fear.
Our egos won’t allow it.
Karen Papagapitos
Northwest side
