Voting for a king or a president?
For those who think it makes no difference in their lives on who is running the country, the choice is President Joe Biden or King Donald Trump. Trump’s first actions were to ignore immigration laws and start building a wall. When Congress refused to give him money for his wall he took it from the military and FEMA. He started trade wars by instituting tariffs (taxes) that ended up being paid by Americans. Tariffs are supposed to be implemented by Congress.
He asked high-level government officials to swear personal loyalty to him and then fired those he considered disloyal or who began to investigate the wrongdoing of his administration. He told his subordinates to ignore laws and regulations on pollution, the environment and finance. He violated the constitution by taking money from foreign governments through his hotels.
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He filled government posts with temporary appointments, so he doesn’t need the Senate’s consent, another violation of the Constitution. Are you voting for a King or President?
Richard Spitzer
SaddleBrooke
Saddened by everything the border wall ruins
Re: the Oct. 18 article “Future of border wall about to be handed over to voters.”
Thank you, Mr. Curt Prendergast, for your excellent story on Donald Trump’s border wall now being constructed in Arizona and other states.
The destruction of vegetation including thousands of trees, saguaro cacti, many archaeological sites including prehistoric and historic burial sites significant to Native American tribes, is appalling. In many cases the location of these sites was provided to the Border Patrol and their contractors ahead of time, and these notifications were ignored.
Having worked on the border for 30 years or more, I am saddened and angry about the destruction of the cultural and natural landscapes of our borderlands to satisfy the political objectives of President Trump.
Equally distressing is the manhandling of peaceful protesters by the Border Patrol, National Park Service Police and the Arizona Department of Public Safety. It is time that you serve the people, not function as President Trump’s Praetorian Guard.
Peter Steere
West side
Romero regrowing Tucson — literally
Kudos to Mayor Regina Romero for proving to be the forward-thinking mayor the vast majority of us voted for. Her long-range plan to keep Tucson, the city we love, healthy and thriving deserves recognition and cooperation and support from all of us. Trees are the lungs of our planet, and I am so proud to be part of a community that recognizes this fact, well grounded in science and common sense.
And, she is bringing this project in on a reasonable budget, not awarding millions of dollars to some overpriced, top-heavy, out-of-town organization.
Chris Angle
East side
Growing realization: Green beats orange
Re: the Oct. 19 article “Tucson hires forestry manager to lead ‘massive’ million-tree planting initiative.”
I wept when I read the front-page article announcing Tucson’s new Million Trees initiative. Hopeful tears to celebrate fabulous news versus scary news of Trump’s Tucson visit Monday. Natural environments protect, soothe and heal versus Trump’s unrelenting COVID-19 disregard that will cost more lost lives.
Stephanie Frederick, RN, M.Ed.
North side
Untethered
to reality
Donald Trump recently alerted us to the horror that, if elected, Joe Biden will “listen to the scientists.” Science pushes no political position; it is not Democratic or Republican. Science is not a belief or a set of beliefs.
Science is simply a system of discovering, organizing and explaining truths of our natural world. Science is the process of unearthing reality. To reject science is to reject reality and to embrace fantasy. It is not an intelligent way to run a country.
Jim Walworth
Northeast side
Your vote has power; use it
Your vote can restore dignity and the rule of law throughout our government and its agencies by electing candidates who will ensure that our civil and human rights are universally protected. Your vote can save lives by electing candidates who will support affordable health care for all of us who depend on it. Your vote can revitalize our economy by electing candidates who will reinvest in small businesses and the public schools and colleges that support them.
Your vote can protect our increasingly fragile environment from further damage by electing candidates who support clean, renewable energy. Your vote can increase our national security by electing candidates who will regain the respect of our allies and reclaim our voice in international affairs and peacekeeping. Your vote has the power to make the world a better, safer place for all of us.
Now more than ever, we need you to exercise the power of your vote.
Karen Harris
Northwest side
County recorder
runs a tight ship
I’m a permanent early voter. On Oct. 13 I put my ballot in the ballot box at the recorder’s east-side location. On Oct. 17, hoping to track my ballot, I went to the recorder’s website, recorder.pima.gov, I discovered they were working overtime and two shifts on Saturday and Sunday to process the many early ballots.
The page also has a video showing how they process the ballots. I tracked my ballot, learning it had passed all checks and was ready to be counted. I even know what batch it’s in. I’m so impressed with the competence and professionalism of the recorder, her staff, and all others, including the polite police officer at the east-side office, helping us vote safely and securely.
Katherine Shindel
Foothills
Trump supporters fall into 3 camps
As a retired civics instructor I have concluded that Donald Trump supporters can be assigned to one of three groups. One is the MAGA hat-wearing “true believers” who would vote for him even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight, as he once boasted he could do. I pity them for their ignorance.
The second group consists of those voters who sincerely believe in the historic policies of the GOP regardless of who is in the Oval Office. I respect these voters for their political honesty during tough times.
The last group includes those who may dislike or even despise Trump, but who will vote for him with their pocketbook. I have little respect for this line of thinking because they have allowed greed to overrule their conscience.
If you have any doubts about Trump’s lack of character, read former White House chief of staff John Kelly’s recent comments about the president. Vote with integrity this election because our governmental institutions and democratic processes depend on it.
Ron Locher
Oro Valley
Originalism
a form of denial
Apparently, “originalism” insists that we must take the words in the Constitution to mean simply what they meant circa 1790. Allow me to point out that in those days “to bear arms” meant to carry muskets, not AR-15s or other equivalents of machine guns. And “a well regulated militia” meant then, as it would now, a body of citizen-soldiers under the command of state and federal governments.
Obviously no one now is going to insist that citizens can own only antiques. But originalism tries to deny that words change meaning. No serious student of language thinks words’ meanings are fixed forever. And legal rulings should not rely only on past senses of words.
Herbert Schnneidau
Foothills
On being a true conservative
I consider myself a conservative. To conserve means to preserve and protect. Conservatism actually values character, compassion, competence and conscience.
I can be as hypocritical as the next guy, but I don’t have to accept what I know are lies, and I don’t have to lie to myself about what is happening to our country.
Intentionally dividing us from each other, turning us against each other, is not a conservative value. For our country and our economy to heal, we must be able and willing to work together. Healing takes time, but we have to allow ourselves to start.
Choose leaders who are willing to lead and take responsibility, rather than those who thrive on distraction and division.
Cooperation, compromise and caring for each other are conservative values.
I’m proudly conservative. I hope what that word means can be reclaimed, in time.
Mark McKinney
East side
Trump’s great policies could destroy us
A number of recent letter writers have tried to justify their vote for Donald Trump by stating that they dislike his personality but agree with his policies. The policies they like are usually lower taxes and deregulation.
But they ignore all the policies that demean our humanity and cross ethical lines, namely separating children from their parents at the border, trying to kill the Affordable Care Act with no replacement in sight, creating unnecessary and costly trade wars, disrespecting allies and kissing up to dictators, bribing a foreign president, ignoring the rule of law including the Hatch Act and the Emoluments Clause, destroying the credibility of government agencies, sowing doubt about election integrity, denying science to such an extent that tens of thousands of people have died unnecessarily from COVID and putting our future at risk by taking no action to stem climate change.
Like these policies? The human mind has an amazing ability to rationalize untenable positions.
Tom Ryan
East side
Put power lines underground
Re: the Oct. 19 article “Tucson hires forestry manager to lead ‘massive’ million-tree planting initiative.”
The planting of additional trees in our city/county should be linked to another infrastructure project: the placing of electrical utilities underground. We have all heard and read of the loss of electrical power that accompanies windstorms. Aboveground power lines are especially vulnerable to being struck by trees and branches, and underground power lines will reduce the chances of power outages during severe windstorms.
So, with underground power, not only will our city be safer and our power source more reliable, our city will be more beautiful.
Richard Demers
Midtown
Your chance to fight COVID, inequalities
COVID-19 has now claimed the lives of 220,000 Americans. Global cases have passed 40 million. This is an excellent example of why every voter needs to show up for Election Day 2020.
It’s time for everyone to stand up and make sure that gender equality, racial injustice, economic disparities and COVID-19 recovery are the most important issues that candidates and voters talk about during this election cycle. I am an advocate for CARE, the humanitarian organization that works alongside a global community to advance gender equality and eradicate poverty so that everyone thrives.
The complicated issues we’re facing globally need clear solutions and strong U.S. leadership. Together, we can build back a more just and equal world.
Anissa Rasheta
North side
A vote for Biden/Harris is a vote for open borders
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, nearly 55,000 people were apprehended by the Border Patrol in September. That’s the single-highest number recorded in fiscal year 2020, and it’s roughly 3.5 times the number of apprehensions recorded in April. The number of apprehensions (57,674) is also the highest number recorded in a single month during the Trump administration with the exception of last summer’s six-month border surge by Central Americans.
Each time that prospects for a mass amnesty improve, as with promises made by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, it results in an increase in illegal border crossings. These numbers will continue and increase if Biden is elected president. Under eight years of Obama/Biden, morale among Border Patrol and ICE agents was at its lowest point.
That was due to the administration not allowing agents to fully enforce immigration laws passed by Congress. That low morale will return again under Biden/Harris. So will the surge in undocumented immigrants!
Rhonda Carmichael
Northwest side
Democrats do
business better
I grew up with the widely held belief that the economy does better with a Republican in the White House, being that they’re considered the party of business interests. According to recent polls, this is still a common perception.
But it is incorrect. After analyzing data from the end of WWII to 2015, economists Alan S. Blinder and Mark W. Watson (“Presidents and the US Economy: An Econometric Exploration,” July 2015) conclude “The superiority of economic performance under Democrats rather than Republicans is nearly ubiquitous; it holds almost regardless of how you define success.”
A recent update of their data was published in June 2016 by the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress, which updated GDP and job growth data, with the same conclusion. Recent comparisons of economic performance in the last three years generally show a continuation of trends begun in the last administration.
Barbara Hall
Midtown
