Appeal to all candidates
As a TV viewer, I ask that all political candidates please, please, please give us TV viewers a break from all those candidates TV ads! I suspect that I speak for many TV viewers when I say that we are sick and tired of ads! They started many months ago and, as the primary date approached, they became all too frequent. Sometimes as many as 20 per viewing hour (by both parties).
Please, all candidates, hold off your ads until mid-October. We need a break!
P.S. — As the primary date approached, we muted the TV every time a political ad was shown.
Karen McKee
West side
Fiscal delusion
I find it curious that so many conservative Republicans are such interested watchdogs on border issues and their financial impacts affecting America’s pocketbook. While, simultaneously, being completely fine with the rampant deregulation that’s allowed endless abuses of power and money to the point of crashing of an entire housing market. Opening the door to private equity to buy everything and leave the rest at their mercy. Allowing no-bid contracts to their cronies. Protecting a system that bankrupts people over medical bills.
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They won’t even allow a child tax credit that could actually lift American children out of poverty. So, what would they do with all that money we would “save” if we sealed the border airtight? You tell me, cause I have little confidence in how they’d spend it.
You may believe the so-called fiscal conservative Republican still exists. I, for one, have seen little evidence they still remain. The costs these policies have on America’s pocketbook far outweigh the border.
Mellow Dawn Lund
Downtown
Living in an oven
Nowhere is it written that Earth is obliged to maintain a livable climate for us. The town of Lytton, British Columbia, experienced temperatures 40 degrees higher than its average summer high during the heat dome of last summer.
Picture Tucson at 40 degrees above its average summer high — roughly 150 degrees. That is not survivable. The power grid would likely crash under the demand and the sheer heat, so there would be no air conditioning your way out of it. So the question is what are we willing to change to avoid being trapped in an oven?
Marian Weaver
Sierra Vista
Reducing use of fossil fuels
Re: the Aug. 12 article “Act won’t deliver on climate, inflation.”
Mr. Carlson, the author of the op-ed piece about the Inflation Reduction Act in Friday’s Star, did not acknowledge any of the emerging technologies in his assessment of the renewable energy industry. Hydrogen fuel cells and vanadium flow batteries will revolutionize energy storage very soon, making it more feasible to reduce the use of fossil fuels that contribute to making our planet uninhabitable for human beings. We need to be optimistic and act to do what we can in order to preserve our home.
Ken Newman
East side
Provisions worse than title
Re: the Aug. 12 article “Act won’t deliver on climate, inflation.”
Mr. Carlson has produced a very substantive and cogent opinion piece that I hope will be read widely. While the title of the bill is shamefully inaccurate, the substantive provisions are even worse because they are provably unrealistic.
James Morrison
Foothills
Probes handled very differently
The U.S. Department of Justice released the federal search warrant done by FBI agents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Reportedly, they seized boxes of documents, some containing classified materials. Here is a list of the federal statutes cited in the search warrant: 18 USC 793 — Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information; 18 USC 2071 — Concealment, removal or mutilation; 18 USC 1519 — Destruction, alteration or falsification of records in Federal investigations. Now, these same statues could have easily been used to obtain search warrants for Hillary Clinton’s residences in New York and Washington, D.C., where she had used a private server to conduct government business. She became the subject of a criminal mishandling of classified materials investigation. She and her staff had deleted 30,000 emails from her private server housed at her residence, claiming them as personal. However, thousands were forensically retrieved and found to be government-related and some contained classified information. No federal search warrants done in her case or charges brought against her.
Marty Jacobs
Green Valley
In the wrong hands
The pro-gun lobby argues that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. The gun is simply a tool in the wrong hands. I would argue that the same case can be made for religion, not confined to the Middle East but here in America as well. Using religion as a front for radical activities has grown exponentially within our government to the point where it is intertwined with the far-right using it to justify their positions on matters directly impacting all Americans. In such cases, religion has become a tool in the wrong hands.
Tony Banks
Oro Valley
Conservatives, step up
Six Conservative Supreme Court justices, including McConnell’s illegitimates (Gorsuch, Barrett) overturned Roe v. Wade. In effect, medically safe abortions (no matter a woman’s circumstances) are now criminalized. Two musts are in order:
1. If a woman forced to carry a pregnancy to full term chooses to keep the child, DNA tests will determine the father. For the next 20 years, the father must pay 55% of his salary to mother and child. Every late payment brings 60 days in jail, and a $10,000 fine.
2. For women who give their baby up for adoption, including babies with various levels of lifetime physical and mental disabilities, conservatives must step up. No matter your personal circumstances (irrelevant, naturally), your family must adopt or foster care up to two children. Naturally, you cannot discriminate based on health, race or any consumerist analytic. Foster care expenses will be funded by increased taxes.
Ron Rude
West side
What fraud?
I’m confused. Why would anybody who believes election fraud is so rampant run for an elected office? I mean, if voting is such a suspicious activity, isn’t the outcome suspicious even if you’re the victor? People like Kari Lake, Mark Finchem and Donald Trump don’t dispute the results when they win, only when they lose. It’s simply poor sportsmanship and reveals an unsavory character. These are people so morally bankrupt they are unqualified to share the road with me, much less represent my interests on a political stage.
Scott Dreisbach
West side
Inflation Reduction Act
Analysis by several nonpartisan groups such as the Tax Foundation Policy Research Center (TFPRC), Penn Warton Budget Model and the Joint Committee on Taxes (JCT), have deemed the Manchin-Schumer Inflation Reduction Act, drafted behind closed doors, to have serious problems. It places a 15% tax on large corporations’ public earnings income. Manchin had previously rejected that, saying it would reduce economic growth and worsen inflation. The TFPRC estimates 27,000 jobs will be lost and lower wages. Penn Warton projected the act would not reduce inflation and would lead to higher short-term deficits and higher inflation. The JCT projected it would raise taxes on almost all income tax brackets, especially lower-income folks. The act spends taxpayer money on reducing cows’ methane gas emissions. Nothing included for reducing human methane gas emissions. It places taxes on imported oil, natural gas and on domestic mining of coal, all likely to be passed on to consumers in higher prices for gasoline, natural gas heating and electricity.
Terry Garland
East side
MAGA hypocrisy
I know members of the MAGA cult aren’t known for critical thinking, but this week showed the hypocrisy or lack of understanding by Trump’s followers. Hillary Clinton used a private server and Trump led chants of “lock her up.” Trump tore up, flushed and didn’t safeguard classified documents, now it’s a “witch hunt.” Conservatives were rightly upset at the defund the police movement by some on the far-left. Now the same people want to defund the FBI and IRS. Some consistency of thought would be welcome as opposed to blind belief in dear leader.
Craig Miller
Northwest side
Democrats vs. Trump
I believe in law enforcement and our legal system and fully support those who dedicate their lives to protect us and our freedom.
But when politicians use the system for political power we all lose.
I see this head hunt of the Democrats pursuing Trump, it is like the old Roadrunner versus Wiley Coyote cartoons. The Dems throwing everything Acme has at Trump. He “Beep beep” and zooms away.
Pols, let the legal system handle it.
Terry Ford
Catalina
A million children counting on us
As a taxpayer and retired Arizona educator of 35 years, I am deeply offended that the money I pay to fund our public schools is being systematically denied them year after year. In 2021 alone, Arizona collected $10,392 per pupil in local, state, and federal taxes for K-12 public schools. Our Legislature released only $8,770 per pupil, depriving our public schools serving over a million children of $2 billion. Last session our legislators passed a universal voucher bill to deduct an additional $1 billion from K-12 schools this year. No wonder we are 49th in the country for per pupil spending.
Please sign one of the petitions currently being circulated by Save our Schools to prevent this additional $1 billion loss. Check your local libraries and organizations for times and locations. For the sake of our children, this defunding of public education in Arizona must stop.
Rachel Rulmyr, Ed.D.
Oro Valley
Voting day went flawlessly
I am a Pima County poll worker and worked the Aug. 2 primary election for 2022, my civic duty.
Here are a couple of takeaways from the day:
The new voting center was busy beginning at 6 a.m. and continued till closing at 7 p.m. Throughout the entire day, voters were extremely civil, polite, thankful to our staff and pleased with the ease of voting using the new voting touchpad system.
The new system of using laptops is linked to the Pima County Registrar’s Office and performed flawlessly. The touchpad system gave voters instant voter information and access, to vote Republican or Democrat.
Voters were overwhelmingly happy with the replacement of precincts with “voter centers.” We did not turn a single voter away.
Lastly, on a much lighter note, a gentleman wanting to vote for Trump was dressed in MAGA red, head to toe. He was informed that he was registered as a Democrat and that Trump was not on a primary ballot. The system works.
Tom Staab
Northeast side
Climate change
Re: the Aug. 7 article “Hard-nosed Arizonans can lead way on climate change.”
Professors Russell and Jacobs tell us that unless we devote billions of dollars to climate change, which they maintain is “the biggest threat facing our generation,” that we are doomed. They claim that our drought is related to climate change but offer no proof of that. In any event, most Americans worry far more right now about inflation, the economy, the cost of health care and violent crime than they do about global warming. And they neglect to tell us that anything we do here in Arizona to reduce carbon emissions will have basically zero effect on global warming, as China, India and Russia continue to build more coal-fired power plants, thus more than negating anything we do to rein in carbon emissions in this state or even the country. Their war on fossil fuels has at least doubled the price of gas and contributed mightily to the number one issue in America today — inflation.
David Pearse
Foothills
Recovered Trump documents
Former President Donald Trump took boxes of documents and photos to his private residence in Florida after leaving office. They did not belong to him. They belonged in their proper storage container for classified material and/or turned over immediately to the National Archives. What possible reason could he have for keeping these documents? Did he use them for leisure reading? Was it to let them rot in a basement storeroom so they never come to light? Were they material for a new book? Maybe they were to negotiate with agencies within our government? Maybe to negotiate with a foreign government? So many unanswered questions. Only he can stop the speculation by explaining what he was going to do with the documents.
Antone Hagen
Sierra Vista
