Abortion issue alone determines many votes
Re: the Nov. 27 column “Dems already have popular agenda; they just need to amplify it.”
In her column, Catherine Rampell states that “nearly all the Democratic contenders share a pretty mainstream policy platform.” She then listed several economic policies, but she did not touch on social issues. Most conservatives disagree sharply with the Democratic candidates on social issues, most importantly, abortion.
That is the key issue for most conservative Christians. Since we believe that abortion is killing an innocent child (and science backs that up, with current technology showing the humanity of “fetuses”), we cannot compromise on this issue. Almost all of the Democratic presidential candidates support more progressive abortion laws. That issue alone will keep me from voting for a Democrat.
While many conservatives disagree with some of President Trump’s policies — not to mention how he conducts himself — abortion is a life-or-death issue, and that settles it for most.
Trish Kimminau
East side
President’s acts don’t rise to ‘high crimes’ level
Allow me to spin a few scenarios regarding the 2020 election.
The Democrats want to impeach the president on the basis of a quid pro quo for sending the Ukraine foreign aid in exchange for investigating the Bidens. I am a conservative, independent voter and I don’t think this quite rises to the “high crimes and misdemeanors” required by the Constitution. I would say close, but not quite there.
But if they impeach and he is not convicted and removed, will they be able to impeach again if “high crimes” really do come out? Maybe not.
I estimate a 99% chance that the House will impeach, because the Democrats are partisan, not acting reasonably, and not representing us. I also estimate a 97% chance the Senate will not convict, based on the evidence so far presented.
Interestingly, if the president is not convicted and removed, he will run in 2020. And if he is removed, he will run in 2020. I don’t know of anything preventing it.
Michael Armstrong
Three Points
There are many issues on which we can agree
Re: the Dec. 1 letter “Layered thinking transcends labels.”
Writer Golda Velez is onto something in suggesting that “liberal” and “conservative” labels are not useful in confronting issues of common concern. I’m a Republican who has abandoned Trump because he has abandoned the ethical conduct of the office of president in favor of whatever is to his personal gain.
Liberal or conservative, I think we can agree that a medical system where people have to declare bankruptcy because Medicare and private insurance failed to provide bought and paid for insurance coverage is wrong. Many conservatives include conservation of the environment in their program. Liberals and conservatives don’t want the police, or the police powers of government, abusing people.
There are a lot of common issues where we can all unite. We don’t have to love each other, but we should respect each other.
Richard Sipan
Green Valley
Trump understands Americans come first
In America today, we have far overreached globally at the expense of our own citizens. Tens of millions live in poverty, homelessness surrounds us and our safety-net systems such as Medicaid and Social Security are being overrun by the aging of our population. Yet this paper runs an opinion on asylum seekers?
This administration is doing its job for the first time in decades, putting the safety and well-being of our citizens above all others. We are running huge deficits. Congress cannot even pass a budget and we could take 100% of all the money from the country’s billionaires and not put a dent in our spending issues.
So why would we put one dollar or one hour of government time on people other than our suffering citizens? This is not a hard issue. We cannot afford to solve the world’s problems, no matter how tragic the stories. We have thousands of tragic stories right under our noses every day.
TJ Johnson
Northwest side
Tucson has too many unsafe drivers
Tucson now has the dubious distinction of being ranked as one of the least-safe cities in the United States, coming in at No. 162 out of 181 on WalletHub’s latest list. Making the problem worse is the proliferation of unsafe drivers on our streets.
On Nov. 13, three people were killed in two separate traffic accidents, through no apparent fault of their own. In both cases, the fatalities occurred after the vehicles in which the occupants were driving were hit from behind and pushed into oncoming traffic. In one case, the vehicle causing the accident was speeding. The driver fled the scene and was eventually arrested.
Arizona traffic fatalities increased to 1,010 in 2018 from 998 in 2017. The Arizona Department of Transportation states that 90% of those were the result of driver behavior. Pedestrian and bicyclist deaths are also on the rise in our community, with 24 fatalities in 2017 and 28 in 2018.
John Healy
Southeast side
Time is running out
on climate change
Re: the Dec. 3 letter “US must get serious about climate change.”
This letter gets it right in saying we’ll need a new president, and I’d add a new Congress, to deal with the imminent, life-threatening crisis. The reports from the international scientific community keep getting more dire every year, and we keep ignoring them at our peril.
The latest IPCC/National Academy of Sciences report, published just last month, says we must now cut greenhouse emissions not 50%, but 75%, by 2030. If we had listened to the scientists and started cutting our emissions a decade ago, we could have achieved the same results by making 2% cuts every year.
By procrastinating (or being in denial about the climate crisis), we’ve made it much more difficult to reach the goal necessary to prevent catastrophic climate change.
However, we have no option but to make the cuts by the deadline or we’ll face runaway, unstoppable global warming: A doomsday scenario.
Pete Kuntz
Downtown
Bloomberg victory would change the game
Kamala Harris proved one thing by dropping out of the presidential race. It takes an abundance of money to get elected to important offices today.
That’s why Michael Bloomberg is important. He can outspend any politician today pretty much with his own money, and he will garner much more if he asks.
If he should be elected, just watch how quickly the Supreme Court will overturn its own money-flood decision in Citizens United. Then all politicians will join the campaign-finance-reform parade and perhaps we will finally get a more even playing field in U.S. politics. A good start would be to disallow corporations from donating to political action committees, and to do away with the insane 501(c)(3) rules that allow PACs to call themselves nonprofit charitable organizations ... or am I wrong and do they actually give to the food bank?
Jim Waldo
Green Valley
New auto plants
are good for climate
Re: the Nov. 30 letter “Let’s kick clean energy into high gear.”
I agree with the letter pointing out the gains of moving away from fossil fuels and towards an economy powered by clean sources of energy. Coolidge’s Nikola Corp. claims $14 billion in orders for its fuel-cell trucks. On Dec. 3, the Star reported on a billion-dollar investment into Lucid Motors just up the road in Casa Grande.
With transportation being the largest source of climate-damaging greenhouse emissions, this news matters. In Southern Arizona, a grid-charged electric car has the same carbon footprint as a gas-powered auto that gets 62 miles per gallon. And when charged with renewables or nuclear, there are no emissions.
Solar energy could be another valuable source of revenue for our state. We need Sens. Martha McSally and Kyrsten Sinema to support legislation like HR 768 to help push us away from fossil fuels and toward a healthier, more prosperous future.
Amy Phillips
Foothills
