Arizona Republicans embarrass themselves
Arizona’s GOP has now totally made fools of themselves by attempting to deny the reality of who won the election in Arizona. The antics, the recounts and the cases without any evidence to support such silly claims has reduced the party and its leaders to big crybabies in support of the nations chief crybaby. My advice is for them to grow up and begin learning to tell the truth for a change and stop making up stuff that makes them feel good as they make utter fools of themselves over and over again.
Today’s Arizona GOP is but a joke now and will remain so until it gets sane, new leaders. Otherwise they are destined to be the biggest crybabies of all time.
Donald Shelton
Northwest side
Trump’s loss
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is what it is
It took about six weeks for Donald Trump to decide his tact with the virus and upcoming election. Make science the enemy, keep people working despite the virus and maybe, just maybe, win the election.
The “blue wave” disappeared as capitalism reigned. And for the most part, the vote to work over virus deaths won the election in down-ballot states. And, when questioned about his decision and the mounting deaths, our president said, “It is what it is.”
Don’t you wonder what would have happened with a science-based national strategy?
Roger Engels
Oro Valley
Biden right to add nurse to task force
Glad to see Joe Biden has added a nurse to the coronavirus task force. Her state has nurses’ union representation, but unfortunately only 10 states are in that category. Shifting away from “right to work” states like Arizona should be top of the agenda. Corporate power has ruled over nurses’ protection and how we practice our diverse, professional skills.
Stephanie Frederick, RN, M.Ed.
North side
GOP has become
the QAnon party
The Republican Party has become the Alex Jones, QAnon party. Almost 70-80% believe and support the lies put forth in the Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell press conference (Note: Sidney Powell is Mike Flynn’s attorney). They claimed Trump’s “landslide victory” was stolen by an infusion of communist money from Venezuela, Cuba and China. Also, local election officials from Atlanta, Detroit, Madison, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Phoenix and other cities supposedly rigged their elections in a coordinated conspiracy with Joe Biden.
There were other absurd claims. Does this vast majority of Republicans also believe 9/11 was an inside job? That the Sandy Hook school massacre never happened? That Robert Mueller is a demon pedophile and that Hillary Clinton is running a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor?
Republican legislators do not refute this garbage and are complicit in their silence. Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Ike and Ronald Reagan would be appalled.
Rick Klumpp
Oro Valley
What’s important? Democracy is
A letter on Nov. 12 asked if Democrats did not like low unemployment, a high stock market, and a booming economy ... all before COVID. Of course, there has been COVID, and it is now worse than ever, thanks to Donald Trump’s slow and ineffective leadership.
Some things are more important than low unemployment, a high stock market and a booming economy (as wonderful and important as they are). Our democracy trumps them all. Trump clearly desires to institute a “personal dictatorship” in the mold of Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Putin, the Kim dynasty in North Korea, Recep Erdogan in Turkey, Xi Jinping in China and Viktor Orban in Hungary.
Should not citizens in those countries have resisted? A large number of us see Trump as a wannabe dictator and continue to resist giving him that opportunity. That resistance is more important than anything else (other than food, water, medical care and housing, which he and his cohorts have not been helpful with).
Stephen Shawl
Foothills
This Republican is feeling blue
I am a blue Republican. Blue, because I’m sad to see the GOP is now a party of sycophants who enable the worst in our president. They give unabashed support to his efforts to gut the State Department, intelligence services and almost every government agency.
They support Trump’s “America First” agenda which has made enemies of our friends and “friends” of our enemies. They claim that Trump has led a successful COVID-19 fight despite our having the most cases and deaths of any nation. They support his unsupported claims that the election was a fraud despite evidence to the contrary.
Trump’s defeat was fueled by his consistent application of hate, divisiveness, and incompetence. I now vote blue.
Michael Mount
Foothills
It’s time to take
away Trump’s keys
Donald Trump has never been able to deal with the truth and wouldn’t know it if it came up and bit him on the tuchus. But his recent displays of a deranged state of reality raises serious questions about his mental health and the country’s existential state of national security.
For a while yet, he is still in control of our nuclear arms and God knows, in his delusional state of mind, what he’s capable of doing. It’s time that Congress take action. Invoke the 25th Amendment or convince him to resign and give him the opportunity to be pardoned for all past and future criminality by the vice president, a small price to pay in lieu of what international calamity Trump could spark between now and Jan.20.
William Muto
SaddleBrooke
Rollout of vaccine should be cautious
The coronavirus vaccine is an exciting prospect. The FDA is expected to approve it for human use before Christmas, under an “emergency use” authorization. The fact it’s not a straight-up “FDA approval” is a little disconcerting. President-elect Joe Biden says he plans to distribute it to all 330 million Americans in 2021, under the emergency ruling (There could be more than a single supplier).
But without a full FDA approval, and the detailed review that requires, the new president is risking a multitude of potential errors. Run-of-the-mill animal vaccines take five years to get through the FDA. Delivering a never-before-used technology to the entire American population, without the customary back and forth on manufacturing techniques, quality control, reporting, distribution, training, labeling and all the rest — seems hasty.
The medicine itself looks excellent. But it’s a tricky technology, and brand new. A measured rollout makes more sense.
Walter Ramsley
East side
The circus
continues
Arizona Rep. Mark Finchem and Kelli Ward, chairwoman of the Republican Party in Arizona, continue to embarrass Arizona voters in their desperate efforts to find fraud in Arizona election results. Their plan to hold an unsanctioned “hearing” attended by Rudy Giuliani and his comical circus, attempts to result in selection of new Electoral College voters.
Spurned by Republican House Speaker Rusty Bowers and Senate President Karen Fann, Ward and Finchem ignore both Arizona statutes and the certification of election results by Gov. Doug Ducey, Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Chief Justice Robert Brutinel. No doubt Finchem and Ward hope to get national attention, but joining with Giuliani and his cadre of clowns will demonstrate disregard of factual election results and an unwillingness to address the unemployment, housing and economic concerns of Arizonans impacted by the pandemic.
Roger Shanley
East side
Desert that has been bulldozed is gone forever
The idea that you can divvy up the desert in parcels and bulldoze for high-density housing is an insult to anyone who thinks we should preserve the very limited resource of the Sonoran Desert. If people’s housing needs are important enough to justify bulldozing a healthy desert acreage in parcels, it will become important enough to bulldoze out some more parcels a few years later. Dense housing can currently be built on areas that are fallow fields, not healthy desert.
When used up, we must build upward or find a model of economics that doesn’t demand growth we cannot sustain. History tells us populations will come and go in the Southwest deserts. But land bulldozed will not revert to desert.
Desert gone is desert gone forever.
Martha Lynne
West side
Electoral College past its expiration date
As a retired history teacher, I contend that the Electoral College is way past its sell date. Having the popular vote trumped by the Electoral College twice within two decades I think leads to more suspicion about the fairness of our elections. Beyond that, balancing the larger with smaller states’ interests within the Senate has led to a wildly disparate imbalance, unlike anything in degree, compared to the early years of the republic.
Just the nine most populous states, receiving 18 Senate seats, have populations greater than half of the total population, an astounding disparity. When one considers that the Senate can confirm or withhold confirmation of a president’s Cabinet choices and his or her nominations to the judiciary, I would argue that the less populous states have an impact never originally imagined. The Electoral College process simply adds insult to injury.
Richard Miller
East side
Biden a mask fascist
Joe Biden says that he will mandate COVID-19 masks for all Americans from day one of his administration via executive order.
The Trump administration’s COVID-19 response since day one has been: “locally executed, state managed, and federally supported.”
This political conservative believes that our city and county elected officials, albeit misguided Democrats, will protect me better that any politician in Washington, D.C.
Joe brings us fascism while Donald understands the Constitution at its best.
Jeffrey McConnell
West side
Apparently, virus has a bedtime
So, from this “enlightened” action of the Tucson City Council and the mayor, one must conclude that the risk of viral infection is much greater at night when relatively few people are out than during the day when most citizens go about their work and daily business. I note that the homeless are exempt from the curfew — are they immune to the virus? Will this hysteria ever end?
Will the power of the mayoral office corrupt the officialdom absolutely or just a little bit? Inquiring minds want to know. Additionally, if masks and hygienic precautions worked their wonders so effectively, why is it that in the poorest, least healthy countries of the globe people are not perishing in droves?
Perhaps they are too busy scraping a living to worry about the irrational panic that seems to have taken hold in the Western world.
George Boguslawski
Oro Valley
Understanding Trump acolytes
For years I have been trying to understand Trumpers. How can anybody with even a grade-school education want Donald Trump for president? The best explanation I have heard was from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo while being interviewed by Howard Stern. He said “these people don’t want to govern themselves; they want a king.”
Robert McNeil
Midtown
Overnight curfew solves everything
Just wanted to say “thank you” to Mayor Regina Romero and the rest of the minions on the Tucson City Council for solving and curing the COVID-19 pandemic. In a sheer stroke of genius, they have discovered that you can only be infected with the virus from 10:01 p.m. to 5 a.m. During the remaining hours, feel free to live your lives normally as we did prior to the pandemic.
This curfew is without doubt one of the most ignorant edicts ever derived by the mayor and council. In this case, doing something, even if it’s wrong, is no way to govern a city. However, should I be wrong let me be the first to say thank you for solving and curing the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kevin Acorn
East side
Message to Trump’s true believers
Come on! Give it up! True believers and other Trumpers, it is time for sense and sensibility. The presidential election is over and there is a president-elect. The current occupant will be leaving the White House with his entourage in January.
Our country needs to look to the future and not to the past. Our country needs to look very carefully and thoughtfully as to what we look and sound like to others, even to ourselves. Not only are true Trumpers wasting enormous amounts of money and time to the pursuit of frivolous lawsuits, but also, the media is giving too much time and attention to the the White House. Look forward to the next four years and beyond.
True Trumpers, quit trying to change what has happened. The president-elect is our leader for the next four years, whether you like it or not.
Toni Kane
Oro Valley