Tucson Speaks Out: Aug. 2 letters of the day

Having traveled recently from Arizona to North Dakota and back taking major highways and back roads, I noticed just how nicely manicured the roadways were and were free of debris, except for our state of Arizona. Overgrown bushes, trees, weeds, dead animals and litter have encroached the roadways.

Why can’t our beautiful state look neat and inviting from border to border instead of messy?

Phyllis Bowcott

Northwest side

Election 2024

Does this administration and the collaborating leftist media take us for idiots?

We’ve routinely seen President Biden’s unfitness for office. We watched this week’s coordinated coup, in which the Democratic party installed Kamala Harris, a capricious, power-craving politician with undefinable moral beliefs, as the backroom-brokered nominee. And on Wednesday night, we cringed as CNN panelists waxed mawkishly after Joe Biden’s withdrawal speech.

They are deifying a man who has fast-tracked this country’s downfall. We won’t be gaslit by teary-eyed eulogies.

We saw Joe Biden eyeing his watch as 13 dead American soldiers were being unloaded from an Air Force cargo plane. We know the names of the women murdered by undocumented immigrants. We remember East Palestine, Ohio, devastated by a train derailment, and the year that elapsed before Joe Biden visited it. And we pray for the Americans in Russian prisons Joe Biden has consigned to oblivion.

We’ve seen the apathy. We have the receipts. We know the truth.

Scott R. Hammond

Downtown

Copper World’s air quality permit

I am sure you are aware of the ongoing issues with Copper World here in Arizona. In the past several months we have seen the further scarring of the Santa Rita Mountains, we know that Copper World is polluting the water of our Santa Rita neighbors and now, we live with poor air quality.

The issues are very simple. Copper World is changing our world. It is impacting the health and welfare of all who live here, the plants, the animals, and people both now and in the future. For at least 45 years Copper World’s plans will impact tourism, our health, and our environment. Unfortunately for hundreds of years after their project is completed, Copper World will continue to pollute our environment.

We and our children will be inhaling toxic particulate matter from Copper World that will be blowing throughout our community and inhaled deep into our lungs.

Now is the time to stand up and let Copper World know they are not welcome here.

Colleen Verge

Green Valley

‘Parents get a bigger say’

Re: the July 24 article “Vance’s ‘childless’ criticisms resurface.”

JD Vance has emerged as an unlikely proponent of “planned” parenthood by proposing a strategy that uniquely exploits procreation for political gain. To his way of thinking the family unit carries supreme priority over individualism and therefore holds a greater stake in our democracy; as he puts it: “Parents get a bigger say in how a democracy functions.” He concludes that parents are legitimately entitled to cast additional votes in elections as their children’s proxies. This inventive populist ploy to confer authority through breeding lays bare Vance’s audacious contempt for all individual freedoms and non-familial societal values.

The doctrine of individual self-determination is lost entirely on religious conservatives. The ideal of freedom proclaimed in our constitution is a nonsectarian principle of universal applicability. No singular worldview commands priority. Specifically, just as freedom of religion entails freedom from religion, freedom to procreate entails freedom from parenthood. Choosing to remain childless in no way signifies willful abandonment of one’s right to the full rewards of democracy.

Robert Gavlak

Midtown

Trump consummate liar

It’s well known that Trump and the truth have never met. What’s wrong that so many people are willing to support a man who lies like he breathes? Thirty thousand lies in office, the weirdness and insanity is increasing. It’s sad that so many are in a cult and don’t

realize it. His most recent claim is that Harris, who went to a historic Black college and is a member of the biggest Black sorority didn’t acknowledge being Black until recently. I would say he has no shame but that’s been obvious for decades.

Craig Miller

Northwest side

Oath of Allegiance

As a career federal government employee, now long retired, I swore an oath to protect and defend this constitutional Republic from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Some who likewise swore this or a similar oath, past or present, including members of Congress, dishonor it in their support of Donald Trump, the gravest threat to the social and political fabric of the nation since the Civil War. This support also demeans the sacrifices of those heroic Americans buried under rows of white crosses here and abroad.

Familiarize yourself with Project 2025, Trump’s blueprint for descent into tyranny and madness, rendering America a mirror image of Putin’s Russia. Recognize also the frightening possibility of J.D. Vance a heartbeat from the Oval Office. The arc of history moves slowly but recent events offer hope for the future. My wish is we emerge from this period of self-inflicted chaos with renewed allegiance to the core values that characterize our Republic.

Joseph Stanley

Northeast side

Just plain weird

A person who is weird, might be funny or just odd. But “weird” is not a desirable characteristic for the Commander-in-Chief. Weird ideas, weird non sequitur comments, weird threats. This behavior by the ex-president and his younger clone would be ineffective with foreign leaders. They would find it both laughable and unnerving. How would weird work with our military leaders, puzzled by bizarre orders? And would weird be a desirable characteristic for the man with his finger on the nuclear button? Weird doesn’t stop at the top of the ticket. Weird is on overdrive with Senate candidate Kari Lake, and all the way down the ticket to the ultra-weird R’s running for the AZ State Legislature. Don’t vote weird. Vote for Harris, Gallego, and the Democrats running for state and local offices. We need serious, stable, and normal people running our state and country.

Eloise Gore

Northeast side

Conover landslide

Congratulations to Pima County Attorney Laura Conover on her landslide victory in the primary election. She ran a fact-based and entirely ethical campaign to earn the privilege to continue her good work in changing the sclerotic and anachronistic culture plaguing this office for several decades. She prevailed against a candidate whose campaign was largely financed by wealthy Republicans and corporate interests together with those who miss the days when prosecutors were required by office policy to pursue grossly unjust, draconian mandatory sentences. The former administration often displayed utter disregard for and opposition to allowing highly experienced judges to exercise their discretion and constitutional duty to impose fair and just sentences. Ms. Conover’s re-election should serve as a lesson to both major political parties to never again seek to bamboozle the voters into electing a candidate in a primary election who opportunistically switches parties to allow themselves to be used as a stalking horse to promote interests and values contrary to those shared by the party’s membership.

Charles Sabalos

Foothills

Vote for Three for the ACC

At a recent meeting of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, I learned that in the last presidential election 433,000 voters did not vote for members of the Arizona Corporation Commission. And In 2022 as many as 11% of people who voted for a US Senator did not vote for an ACC candidate.

The ACC decides how much we pay for electricity and regulates how much fossil fuel gets burned in our state. Choosing candidates who will work toward speeding the growth of renewable energy to build a clean, reliable, and equitable electricity grid will help communities build climate resistance as we continue to face an increasingly hotter climate driven by the burning of fossil fuels.

Three out of five ACC seats are up for election in November. It’s imperative that every Arizona voter learns the policy stance of each of the candidates and votes all the way down the ballot for the three who best address these concerns, being sure to vote for all three.

Barbara Liguori

Northeast side

News media & free markets

Increasing complaints about the Daily Star being “left-wing” are misguided. In a free market economy, we all have the choice to read or purchase any newspaper. If there is sufficient demand for a conservative paper in Pima County’s million-strong population, the free market would provide one. As private entities, newspapers have the right to express their views under free speech protections, including maintaining an editorial stance. For those seeking conservative viewpoints, numerous digital options exist, such as the New York Post (owned by Rupert Murdoch), The Washington Times (founded by Sun Myung Moon), and the Las Vegas Review-Journal (owned by Sheldon Adelson). Instead of repeatedly voicing the same grievances, critics could explore these and many other alternatives. Our community would benefit more from intelligent, constructive dialogue rather than recurring complaints about p/erceived bias.

Ralph Fregosi

Northeast side