Tucson Speaks Out: June 7

Time for accountability

Congressional representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mike Flood are now sorry they voted for the “Big, Beautiful Bill” because they didn’t realize that it included measures like not allowing Trump et al to be held accountable in some courts. Other unnamed representatives are also bemoaning their vote. Do they think their excuse that “1,000 pages were too much to read” or “I didn’t have time to really investigate” are legitimate? Do they think we will take pity and reelect them for their, as Flood put it, “not running away from the truth”? Have we become so complacent and apathetic as members of the electorate that we accept this behavior? In the “real world,” where most of us live and work, such excuses would result in our being fired for not doing our jobs. It’s time to hold ourselves and our representatives accountable.

Barbara Benjamin

Foothills

How about some cheese with that whine?

Several Letters to the Editor on June 4 made mention of the MAGA contributors to the page, denigrating their contributions as mere ignorance and blind fealty to the wannabe king and, even worse, that there are three of them. Three!

Meanwhile, dozens upon dozens from the left use the same forum to preach to the proverbial choir that the sky is falling and that either dictatorship, fascism or monarchy (we never seem to be quite sure which, though we can agree they’re all bad) will replace our republic/democracy (again, not sure which).

The LTE page has become almost nearly unreadable, and the repeated scornful mention of the Trump-loving triumvirate reminds one of the “Let’s all gang up” comment section of a bad Facebook post. Gross.

Jump on your bed, scream into your fluffy pillow, kick your slippered feet and, once you’ve had a good cry, gather yourselves and try to find a worthy candidate for 2028. There will be fair elections then, by the way.

Richard Peddy

East side

Another Trump projection

Trump, like all narcissists, is a master at projection. He accuses anyone he doesn’t like or he feels has slighted him of all his own worst faults. He has always been fixated on Joe Biden ever since Biden defeated him in the 2020 election.

His latest projection is that Biden was not in charge during his administration due to cognitive issues. If you have ever listened to one of Trump’s rambling, incoherent, and nonsensical diatribes, you can certainly sense that there are mental issues at work. Trump may be in cognitive decline, but his ignorance, bigotry, and narcissism are all firmly intact. This might not be a problem if there were people in the administration who could keep him in check, but this time he has surrounded himself with sycophants who are as incompetent as he is. Meanwhile, he’s sitting in the Oval Office doing immeasurable harm to this country. By the way, he also has the nuclear codes.

Mary Zimmerman

SaddleBrooke

Tariff tax and Social Security

CBO determined the tax cuts will increase the deficit by $2.4 trillion over the next ten years. They also determined that the tariff tax will increase revenues by $2.8 trillion over the next 10 years. There has been no mention in the “Big Bill” about the purpose of the tariffs, other than in reference to income taxes. The “Big Bill” needs to make the tariff and corporate tax (2 % increase) as a “designated revenue source” only for Social Security/ Medicare/ Medicaid (to help reduce the deficit).

President Trump has called for a national boycott on consumer spending due to the economy/tariff uncertainty. He believes the boycott on spending (limit of two pencils and three dolls at the dollar store) will ease prices on goods and lessen the burden on the consumer. There has also been a rise in credit card debt. This spending boycott may help reduce the use of credit cards. Build the emergency fund and essentials, such as food.

Be prepared, hope for the best.

Ray Bynum

Northwest side

Trump lies

Periodically, the various English dictionaries add a new definition of a word. I offer the following for the word “outlier”: “Donald Trump”.

Larry Gray

SaddleBrooke

OTT YMCA skate park

Hi, my name is Matthew Schwartz. I’m 12 years old and a native Tucsonan who is a skateboarding enthusiast. I go skateboarding every day. I am a Boy Scout working on my communications merit badge, and writing a letter to the editor of my local newspaper is one of the requirements, requirement 7a.

There are not a lot of options for entertainment for kids in Tucson, which is surprising it being such a large city and all.

I have been skateboarding for two years now. It’s a great sport! My local skate park is awesome, but in need of repair. The coping is very worn, and we really need lights, especially with it being so hot in the summers. If we had lights, we could skate in the evenings when it’s cooler.

Matthew Schwartz

East side

Teaching antisemitism

So, the Arizona Legislature wants to hold teachers responsible for teaching antisemitism as a byproduct of teaching about history or other subjects. OK. How about if the State’s legislators held themselves responsible for their own comments and actions? In particular, several of the state’s legislators have proudly taken funds from antisemitic groups in their election bids. Let’s censure them and demand that they return funds from those groups. Before holding teachers responsible for the wrongs in this state, legislators need to clean up their own house.

Cynthia Schiesel

East side

Thank you, Elon

Musk reported for work wearing a T-shirt saying “Tech Support,” so when your internet isn’t working, he’s the guy you call. On Day 1, there were no confirmed cabinet secretaries so DOGE answered directly to the president; it was ready, fire, and then aim. Oops.

Now, DOGE is embedded within the cabinets and their secretaries are the ones accountable to the president for fixing what’s broken while the Office of Management and Budget now runs the show to connect the dots.

A special government employee can only serve for 130 days, so this nerd who designs and builds cars, rockets, tunnels, satellites, Neuralink, and AI has been fired. His DOGE temporary advisory group will sunset on Independence Day 2026, their birthday gift to America on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Musk’s legacy is $1.2B per day of savings to taxpayers for each day of his service to our country.

Jeffrey McConnell

West side

What am I?

For eight decades, I have been a proud American. Ready to fight and die, if necessary to defend our democracy. Now, I read the paper, and see horrors like our beloved immigrants being ripped from their homes and sent to cruel foreign prisons. Programs canceled that helped the foreign and poor. Things that doctors used to determine, like gender and need for procedures, being mandated by our own government. You know the list. So maybe I can hide as a Mexican? But I don’t speak Spanish; so maybe a Canadian? I do speak some Canadian, eh. Real Americans need somewhere to hide as our new leader fast-tracks his list of atrocities alongside Putin and Netanyahu. I never saw this coming, and am extremely saddened and enraged at having the title “American” snatched from me at my age. And for the MAGA who will gladly write LTEs in response … fire away.

Thad Appelman

Northwest side

H for Horror

Donald Trump must be planning his future career as a continuing reality television host based on the opening actions of his administration. Opening segments could focus on real estate deals like transforming Gaza into a Riviera-style resort, whack-a-mole episodes as a selection process for eliminating funding for USAID recipients or university funding, dartboard scenes to determine which countries and populations would be immigration targets, and then segue into bromance segments like “Vlad doesn’t listen to me,” “Volodymyr is going on his own,” or “Elon hates my big, beautiful bill.” The final segment could highlight sleight-of-hand tricks to justify Medicare cuts for funding tax benefits for the rich that won’t raise the deficit dramatically. Its rating: H for Horror.

Roger Shanley

East side

Makes me wonder

As a retired television writer-producer-director, I’m familiar with the techniques used to create so-called “reality” TV shows. While watching coverage of the Trump/Musk “feud,” I was struck by how staged and choreographed it seemed to be. Lines like “Time to drop the really big bomb” almost sound scripted. It made me wonder, while the nation and the media are totally focused on the bromance breakup, is there something going on behind the scenes that they don’t want us to notice? Am I the only person who thinks this looks as staged as a Hulk Hogan wrestling match?

Thea Chalow

Oro Valley

Open letter to Rep. Ciscomani

I have written to you several times about the recent tax bill as it was being finalized. I will not address the estimates of how it will increase the federal debt, which Republicans always whined about when a non-Republican bill came up for a vote. I will address your claim that this bill “saved” Medicaid. I enclose a copy of Dr. Charles Katzenberg’s opinion piece in the Arizona Daily Star (June 5), which contradicts that.

What planet do you live on? Do you really think that people want to be on Medicaid? It is the last resort for health care for people who are in the direst of circumstances. The wait times to see a doctor are long and the wait times to get treatment are long. Don’t you think that if a person was able to work at a job that could provide affordable health insurance, they would? Those jobs are not usually available to people who are forced to resort to Medicaid. Stop gaslighting your constituents.

Cindy Nachamkin

East side

Choose the best

The Trump administration rails against DEI, (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion), because its practice prevents the best people from being hired. DEI is just the opposite. Its purpose is to choose the best qualified by looking beyond straight, white males. There are talented people of all colors, sexes, religions, orientations and origins. If a straight, white male is the best choice, fine. But if you don’t look at members of other groups, you can miss the best person. To dismiss all other groups is discrimination. Secretary Hegseth is doing exactly that by trying to ban trans people from the military, even when the best at their job. We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to train a helicopter pilot, yet the Secretary wants to fire a Blackhawk pilot from the Virginia National Guard because the pilot is trans. If the person is meeting all the requirements and doing the job, what else matters?

Don Ries

Southeast side