Give credit where it’s due
President Joe Biden and his team have done a wonderful job of disseminating the various vaccines throughout the U.S. President Donald Trump and his team did a great job through operation Warp Speed.
Operation Warp Speed, or OWS, a partnership between the Departments of Health and Human Services and Defense, aimed to help accelerate the development of a COVID-19 vaccine.
The Government Accountability Office found that OWS and vaccine companies adopted several strategies to accelerate vaccine development and mitigate risk.
Millions of lives have been saved.
The media in general, has refused to acknowledge this fact.
Should we not give credit where credit is due?
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Thomas McGorry
Northwest side
Time to repeal 2nd Amendment
Another mass shooting, this time in St. Louis. We have the most guns per capita in the world and one of the worst records of gun deaths for any civilized society.
The reason behind the number of weapons we have is the aggressive push by the NRA and gun rights advocates who interpret the Second Amendment as advocating and protecting the right to keep and bear arms.
What is seldom expressed is that right is predicated on the first part of the Second Amendment, the need for a well-regulated militia for the security of the State. Since the National Guard provides that capability today, it renders the second part moot.
Why not repeal the Second Amendment? Perhaps then we can begin to bring gun sanity back to our nation.
Michael Mount
Foothills
GOP fraudsters can’t win fairly
Republicans all over the country are working hard, not on economic relief, not on climate change, not on helping their constituents in any way, but on making it harder to vote.
They allege voter fraud as their excuse, but they themselves are the big fraudsters. They know their policies are not favored by the majority, but rather than try to make policies that the majority does favor, they just try to silence the majority instead.
This is corruption, and there is no other way to say it.
Marian Weaver
Sierra Vista
Momentous attack on our democracy
Re: the June 23 article “GOP filibuster halts voting bill.”
Senate Republicans successfully blocked the new voting rights act, a continuation of the widespread attack on our right to vote. Certainly this is the biggest attack on our democracy since the Civil War.
It seems that these actions and laws, including in Arizona, affects all Democrats, Republicans and independents. But their purpose is clear: interfere with and restrict voting rights of people of color and Democrats.
While disheartening and ruthless, we must stand against these acts and no matter what it takes, exercise our right to vote. Of course the reasons for these attempts to interfere with our right to vote stem from the “big lie” that so many Americans have been conned into believing.
Americans must stand for truth and reality if we are to remain a democratic society that believes in truth, justice and the rights of citizens.
Randy Kautto
Downtown
The filibuster is just a trick
We have already had a war between the states over the extent of federal jurisdiction. The subject is the real separation of powers, powers granted the Congress, powers denied states, powers denied the Union, etc.
We also have “checks and balances” within the federal system, with laws made by Congress, executed by the president and the executive departments (four of which predate the Constitution) and adjudicated by the lower and Supreme courts.
As president, Donald Trump did not mind any of the constitutional bounds, on authority nor on compensation. While Trump was president, the members of his party, for the most part, ignored or excused every Trump violation of law or Constitution.
Sen. Mitch McConnell in particular was able to circumvent the checks and balances by using party loyalty and manipulating the Senate rules. The Constitution gives Congress the power to alter state election rules. The filibuster is just a trick.
David Vernon
East side
Help us get past this pandemic
I am tired of the anti-mask, anti-testing, anti-vax folks citing “personal choice” and “individual freedom.” You can’t claim such rights here, but deny other “freedoms” elsewhere.
Your “freedoms” don’t come with a “right” to infringe others’ freedoms and rights. If a business wants to keep its employees and customers safe requiring masks, vaccinations, etc., why does your “freedom” trump their freedom?
What about the freedoms of those who have no choice, the very young for which there is no option beyond masks, testing and social distancing? What about those who are immunocompromised? Don’t they have freedoms too?
We as a nation have always given up some freedoms for the greater good; it’s why government exists. If you don’t feel obligated to help society get past this pandemic, fine. Go find your remote mountaintop and have at it.
Norman Patten
Midtown
Filibuster needs to be eliminated
Re: the June 23 article “GOP filibuster halts voting bill.”
Watching the motion to allow debate on HR 1 (the For the People Act) go down in defeat based simply on the filibuster in the Senate, I am now convinced of the need to eliminate or at least modify this unnecessary U.S. Senate rule.
As stated in a recent column in this newspaper, the argument that the filibuster is there to protect the minority in the Senate is simply not true. The constitutional construction of the U.S. Senate already protects the minority.
Every state has two senators. This is regardless of the population. California (population of 39,512,223) and Wyoming (population of 578,759) each have two votes in the Senate.
That a bill to protect the voting rights of all U.S. citizens can be stopped with a 50-50 vote when, with the vote of the vice president, the Democrats have a majority to pass it, is unacceptable. Our two Arizona senators voted with the Democrats. Keep an eye on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.
Brian Templet
East side
Tucson doesn’t want my business
The city of Tucson has decided to promote discrimination and raise water rates to a special group of customers. Well, in the future I’ve decided to discriminate also and will, unless there is no option, no longer patronize any business within the city of Tucson. Can you say “hello,” Marana and Oro Valley?
William Long
Foothills
