Republicans out of touch
with the working poor
The president and his Republican backers can’t seem to imagine what it is like to live from paycheck to paycheck, even though people are working two or more jobs. They think if a few workers get a few more dollars from unemployment than from their previous job that ended due to the pandemic, no one will want to work. With six workers unemployed for every job available, how are they supposed to work?
If you make $175,000 a year as a senator, you probably can’t imagine that. Nor can you imagine what it is like to be homeless. If homeless, where do you prepare food, where do you wash, where do you go to the bathroom, where do you sleep?
Whether you can or can’t imagine that, where is your compassion for the homeless and the millions of workers a paycheck away from homelessness? Your millionaire and billionaire friends probably can’t imagine or have compassion either.
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Donald Ries
Southeast side
Vested interests
attack voter initiatives
American democracy is under attack. In addition to gerrymandering and vote suppression, we in Arizona face well-organized attacks on our constitutional right to citizen initiatives and referendum. First, the Legislature enacted Section 19-102.01 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, requiring that “persons using the initiative process must strictly comply with the constitutional and statutory requirements” and then enacted no fewer than 67 strict statutory requirements.
This year, four citizens groups each collected an average of 420,000 signatures of voters dedicated to placing initiatives on the ballot. All four of these initiatives were hit by lawsuits by vested interests intent on preventing Arizona citizens from voting on them. Shady organizations declare that they are “exclusively for the promotion of social welfare” and, under 501(c)(4) of the IRS code, don’t have to pay taxes or disclose the names of their donors.
Filing a lawsuit to strike an initiative from the ballot is an attack against American democracy.
Brooks Keenan
Oro Valley
COVID spreaders must be held accountable
My friend was out walking her dogs when her maskless neighbor approached her to chat. His reply when asked why he was coughing? “COVID, but don’t worry, it’s a mild case.” She is now very ill and has been hospitalized twice. How can anyone at this point in the worldwide pandemic, with 170,000 deaths in the U.S. alone, believe that one needn’t worry about transmitting a “mild” case?
In 34 states and several countries, laws against criminal transmission of HIV result in the perpetrator charged with murder, attempted murder, manslaughter or assault regardless of whether it was done knowingly or intentionally, or if any transmission even occurs. By extension, is it a crime to expose others to a confirmed case of COVID?
Is disbelief in masks, or science for that matter, a plausible defense for transmitting a potentially lethal disease? Should they not be held accountable for the harm they cause?
TJ Marsh
Northwest side
Mail slowdown imposes a poll tax
Perhaps you’ve thought something like, “wouldn’t it be great if the president just told the truth?” Well, he recently did, and I’m here to tell you that it wasn’t so great. President Trump said he would slow down the mail, and he did.
I’m a disabled senior citizen. As such, I do not drive. I rely on mail-in ballots to participate in our elections. The Arizona primary election was Aug. 4. I received my ballot through the U.S. mail on July 30. I knew there was no way that I could fill it in and send it back in time for it to be counted in the election.
As I feel that voting is important, I paid the poll tax (in the form of Uber fares, nearly $34) to deliver my ballot to the nearest polling place. The 24th Amendment to the Constitution banned poll taxes.
David Stein
Foothills
Executive orders have no teeth
Don’t be fooled. Trump’s orders have no force of law. He cannot spend funds that have not been appropriated.
He cannot spend appropriated funds for anything else. Appropriated funds must be spent within 45 days of the appropriated date or objected to in writing to the House. The president does not have the power to choose whom to investigate, whom to prosecute, or to whom to grant federal contracts. He neither writes nor edits acts of Congress, which automatically become law if ignored for 10 days.
The president may demand written reports from executive departments, but he is not authorized to edit them. He does not command the government, only the military, and only lawful orders must be carried out. The only real executive orders are instructions to a specified bureaucrat to carry out a specific statute in some particular way.
Anything else, no matter the title and signature, is no more than a press release, a campaign promise in writing which the signatory lacks the authority to keep.
David Vernon
East side
Steller keeping them honest
Re: the Aug. 7 article “Grijalva quarantines in DC; McSally, Kelly spar over debates.”
Tim Steller is keeping them honest; he deserves our thanks. His story about the McSally-Kelly debates gave me a chuckle. McSally chiding Kelly about the importance of Arizonans hearing directly from the candidates is laughable given her last town hall appearance was in February 2017 — when she was our representative for CD2. Her extended absence from Pima County has earned her the moniker Martha McMissing in this household.
In his Aug. 9 column, Steller goes on to debunk McSally’s recent campaign ads alleging Kelly lined his pockets with Pima County tax dollars. Thanks Tim, for the legwork and honest reporting.
Sheldon Clark
Vail
Democrats could learn
from Lincoln Project
Democrats would do well and save a few bucks if they canceled their Biden ad campaign and used the savings to broadcast the Lincoln Project anti-Trump ads. The latter are so effective, to the point, and way overshadow what so far the Democrats have produced. Maybe the savings could be donated to community food banks.
David Tammer
Midtown
Mail delays have consequences
About that package you sent your grandson for his birthday — two weeks late, oh, well.
About those bills you thought you paid by mail in plenty of time — guess what, they’re late and you’ll be charged extra!
About that medicine that you count on to arrive the same time every month — tough, ration what you have or do without, consequences to your health be damned.
We can’t have decent mail delivery anymore because our president feels so threatened by mail-in voting that he’s willing to ruin the Postal Service to prevent it. Are we great again yet?
Marian Weaver
Sierra Vista
Appreciative
of testing sites
Kudos and many thanks to the Pima County Health Department for its testing center in Udall Park. The experience was reassuring. Staff were welcoming and professional.
The process was efficient and we will get our results in 48 hours. Even though we have been self-isolating, we will now know for sure that we are healthy. What a relief!
Barbara Benjamin
Northeast side
Hoffman owes Romero an apology
Re: the Aug. 9 opinion “Rules don’t apply to our partisan, activist mayor.”
Hey Jonathan Hoffman, I’ve got a news flash for you, our mayor was 100% correct in denying the painting of the “thin blue line.”
Here’s the rub, Jonathan: to paint the thin blue line in front of the Police Department, here in Tucson, sort of makes sense now, seeing as their union asked Mike Pence to come and accept their support for Donald Trump in the November election.
How ridiculous, when they are already having trouble proving to the public that they are not racist, to support the most famous racist of our time. Maybe you ought to apologize to our wonderful mayor.
Mary Bradley
Midtown
Voting by mail
is provably secure
Our president is very familiar with lies and false information, having provided us with over 20,000 examples during his presidency. The most egregious of these is his attack on voting by mail, which, contrary to his assertions, is the safest and most convenient voting method. Rather than relying on studies as the most accurate foundation for a conclusion, he depends on statements of his own, such as “many people are saying.”
To the contrary, studies universally prove that voter fraud is almost nonexistent, occurring only between 0.00004% and 0.00009% of votes cast. Never before in the history of this country has such a false and dangerous attack been made on the right to vote. It is even more cynical, because it is made by our president and joined in by his appointed sycophant attorney general, the chief law enforcement officer of this nation.
As voters we cannot countenance this nefarious attack, and must remove this president permanently from any elected position.
Harry Peck
Tubac
You want rights? You’ll get rites
Republican politicians in general and supporters of Donald Trump in particular are ignoring the advice of medical authorities, demanding their right not to wear masks and to ignore social distancing.
The rest of the world took the advice and have controlled the pandemic. This country (about 4% of the world’s population) has roughly 25% of confirmed worldwide cases of the virus that killed over 160,000 Americans.
Many lives could have been spared had the federal government, that has no national plan, acted instead of claiming the virus will disappear. Republican legislators are fighting and/or suing Democratic governors who try to mandate protective measures.
Seventy-four year old Herman Cain, a 2012 presidential contender, attended the June 20 Trump rally in Tulsa without a protective mask or practicing social distancing. He died July 30 from the virus. Yes, he got his rights, his last rites.
Dave Glicksman
Northwest side
A quote to sum up America’s situation
I saved a newspaper article from years ago. I never knew the author, so I can’t credit him/her. I think it fits the problems in America today.
It goes “In Germany, first the Nazis came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and again I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came after me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.”
You can change the characters to fit any situation in America.
John Thomas
SaddleBrooke
McSally ads reveal
her unpleasantness
Don’t be fooled. Political lies will destroy our democracy faster than any pandemic might. Our upcoming election is the most important in the history of this republic.
Martha McSally, I suspect, knows she is lying. In her heart, she undoubtedly acknowledges that Mark Kelly is someone who has dedicated his life to his community.
Witness his devotion to his wife, and then consider the risk to his own life while hurtling through space. The slippery falsehoods she is spreading in her attack ads against Mark Kelly have no factual basis in reality.
The actual truth that underlies most attack ads is the disgraceful truth it reveals about the attacker, not the attacked. Her recent attack ads are shameful in their disregard for the facts.
One of our most important ideals, the one thing that shouts I’m an American louder than any other, is fairness.
Martha McSally is violating that quintessential American ideal by putting out her lies. She therefore no longer deserves our trust, let alone our sacred vote.
Jerry Greenberg
Foothills