Debates are now debacles
Re: the Sept. 12 article “Debating over debates: Campaign tradition facing some skepticism.”
The so-called political debates of the 21st century are so far removed from traditional political debates as to be at best worthless and at their worst a potential threat to our democracy. Once a time-honored vehicle used to demonstrate the political and philosophical differences between candidates, debates have devolved into nothing more than opportunities for candidates without solid political policy stances to attack their opponents, spread falsehoods and create chaos. Forget the traditional rules and etiquette of debate, today’s debates are no-holds-barred debacles with moderators having no control over what happens once the cameras are rolling.
It would be much more beneficial to have a single candidate answering questions posed by a panel representing the major parties, in a dignified setting, with no shouting, no name-calling, no circus atmosphere. The rationale that “we’ve always done it this way” no longer stands the test of relevance. It’s time to move on.
Lou Terry
Green Valley
Fantastic local reporting
Re: the Sept. 11 article “Towing company drawing complaints.”
Good afternoon:
I just read the article from Carol Ann Alaimo about A & B Towing. Bravo! This is exactly the kind of reporting of local issues that are invaluable to our community. Of course, COVID, the war in Ukraine, the economy, etc. are all very important issues we all need to be aware of to make intelligent decisions. But accurate, unbiased reporting of local issues will only serve to improve our community. Thank you again!
Lourdes Molina
South side
Bring back the comics
What are you thinking? The majority of people who read the daily printed paper are over 40 years old and want to read our regular comics in our morning paper! We don’t want to read about the TV schedule or the horoscope. We want to read our favorite comics (in bigger print) while we eat breakfast. The printed version of the paper is important to everyone over 40, and perhaps the biggest portion of your subscribers. Please consider the needs and wants of your subscribers and bring back the two pages of cartoons with larger print. We have no desire to sit at the computer or iPad to read our comics every morning while eating breakfast.
Again, what were you thinking?
Patricia Howell
Vail
We are all in the same boat
America is 246 years old. We have always faced problems and threats from outside our borders and inside our borders. We have gone into civil war over enslaving other humans for profit. We have committed genocide on Native Americans. We have polluted our air and water to the point of potential extinction. A society’s greatness is not defined by blaming others for our problems. Our greatness comes from our ability to admit our mistakes and work together to solve problems. America has always been great because of how we work together to solve problems and provide the highest overall standard of living to most of our people. We seem to have lost our ability to solve problems without blaming others for our problems. News flash: Two out of three Americans are white. Protestants, Catholics, Muslims and many other faiths reside in America. We are all in the same boat. We can learn to sail together no matter the weather, or drown together in the seas of prejudice, racism and hate.
Richard Bechtold
West side
Afghanistan withdrawal brave
On the one-year anniversary of the Afghanistan withdrawal, much criticism exists of the president’s decision. I consider it the bravest thing ever done by a president. Knowing it would be chaos, knowing that criticism would come from all factions, and knowing that it would put troops in harm’s way — he did what needed to be done. In the 20-year war, thousands of American lives were lost, more than 20,000 wounded, at a cost of $2.3 trillion, and with no clear objective or strategy defined — withdrawal was the only logical course of action. Would the critics have us stay and fight forever, or take over the government and rule as dictators? I would like to see the critic’s plan for success in Afghanistan and then the contingency plan should that plan fail. The citizens of Afghanistan must fight for their own future society; we cannot be the world’s arbiter of societal norms.
Carl Foster
Green Valley
Biden’s $500B political bribe
Biden announced his plan to forgive $10,000 to $20,000 in college student loan debt for over 40 million current and former students paying their loans. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated the cost to be $500 billion over 10 years. I think forgiving student loans is unfair to students who have paid off their loans, unfair to students who have chosen less expensive community college options, and unfair to taxpayers whose dollars are paying off the loans and who have no college education.
Last year, Nancy Pelosi (D) said: “People think that the president of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness; he does not. He can postpone, he can delay, but he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.” Now she fully supports Biden’s move on this. I believe this massive loan forgiveness scheme is a blatant political bribe to young adult voting students and their parents coming two months before the election.
Ivan Stanski
Marana
IRS amendment in the IRA
During the vote on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in the Senate, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) introduced an Amendment #5404 to the bill stating, “To prevent the use of additional Internal Revenue Service Funds from being used for audits of taxpayers with taxable incomes below $400,000 in order to protect low- and middle-income earning American taxpayers from an onslaught of audits from an army of new Internal Revenue Service auditors funded by an unprecedented, nearly $80,000,000,000, infusion of new funds.” The IRA almost doubles the IRS’ budget and adds about 88,000 new employees, including Criminal Investigator Special Agents and Auditors. Both Arizona Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema voted “Nay” or No on the Amendment, and it failed to pass. Their two votes would have been enough to pass it. Now there is nothing restricting the IRS from conducting more audits and investigations of people earning under $400,000 as Biden had promised. Someone needs to ask them about their vote on this.
Charley Favors
Three Points
Lock him up
Trump’s theft of classified documents is a crime against our country as well as all our allies. Upon finding the documents hidden in his home, as well as empty classified document folders, he should have immediately been arrested as a spy. The damage this crime has done to our country is immeasurable, as none of our allies can now trust us to maintain security on their classified information. And so many of our intelligence community may now be at risk and their lives in danger. This man has committed crimes, and no person is above the law in our country. Justice must prevail.
Deb Childers
Northwest side
Stupidity
We as citizens of this country must be either stupid, ignorant and/or just plain numb to not be actively concerned and verbally outraged regarding the crisis at the southern border. How in the world can any of us be satisfied when the administration is doing nothing, regardless of current laws, to stem the flow of undocumented entering our country. Each of these undocumented is supported with cell phones, transportation, housing, and food with our tax dollars. Except for those bused to New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, we have no idea where the other plus one million people have been transported to. To make this scenario even more surreal, those cities who have received the bused undocumented are complaining that they do not have enough resources to handle the flow, although it is a small fraction of the total entering the country. This is Bizarro World. This administration will not even recognize that there is a problem.
Loyal M. Johnson Jr.
Oro Valley
Right-wing extremists
We refer to extremists as a new phenomenon created by our last, so-called Republican president, #45 (actually an autocrat).
Far-right extremism is not new in America. Lamentably, it’s been around since revolutionaries turned Boston Harbor into a “port of tea.” Take Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his phony anti-Communism campaign from 1947 to 1951. It turned out some people I knew in the “industry,” were labeled as such. Careers were ruined.
One of those people, a beautiful, talented actress and person, Marsha Hunt, died Wednesday at 104. She talked about her experiences speaking on a Peace Panel in Stockholm and protesting the McCarthy hearings. It was a purge against, almost exclusively, Democrats. “Enemies of America!” That was 1947.
In 1962, radicals blew up two fellow panelists’ houses while Marsha was speaking at a forum on extremists.
A false article appeared in “Red Wave” in 1996. But, once again, her offers of work disappeared.
Remove red- and blue-colored sunglasses. Extremism is old news. Use your vote — intelligently.
Sheldon Metz
Northeast side
Separation of church and state
Critics of Christian nationalism and the Supreme Court’s conservative majority decisions on abortion and the separation of church and state point to Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” fearing Gilead is coming to America. It’s even worse than that. The Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and now, per recent Star articles, the Mormon Church, have all had major sexual abuse scandals where church officials knowingly looked the other way.
“Christian” flags were carried at the Jan. 6 insurrection, and polls show a majority, 55% of Republicans support use of force as a means to stop the decline of “the traditional American way of life.” Violence is not “legitimate political discourse.” Christian conservative sanction of violence, pedophilia, sexual abuse and forced pregnancy are not part of Christ’s teaching.
It is imperative for the protection of women, children and our Democracy that we aggressively defend the separation of church and state. True Christians need to vote out Republicans until the scourge of Christian nationalism is defeated.
Dee Maitland
Marana
Use common sense
Re: the Sept. 12 letter “I am a fascist.”
Finally a Trump supporter admits to fascism. Some of your complaints have merit, but true to fascist belief, anything that goes against Trump there has to be something wrong with. The FBI is doing their job because Trump failed to do his. Democratic supporters did not storm the Capitol; “MAGA” Republicans did. In a previous letter, the writer claimed Biden, Harris, Garland and Mayorkas were inept and incompetent and that they were tearing our country apart. Well, I would choose them over Bannon, Flynn, Barr, Stone, Giuliani, Alex Jones, Qanon, Proud Boys, etc., all people and organizations to be proud of. Really, those our your chosen leaders? C’mon!
As for climate change policies, you say use “common sense.” I ask you to do the same. If you don’t feel we have an impact on the environment, then you have never been in a major industrial city on a smoggy day. That air you’re tasting is not natural. Do you know what science is?
Nick Nicholas
Catalina
Let’s go further on drug pricing
I saw recently that the Arizona Independent Pharmacy Coalition released a poll showing nearly nine in 10 Arizonans feel that Pharmacy Benefit Managers, the ones that decide how much a drug cost and whether it is on an individual’s drug insurance plan, should be required to pass the discounts they receive on those medications to consumers. I guess the other 10% work in the pharmacy benefit manager industry, because this solution is a no-brainer. How is it even remotely fair that a middleman gets to step in and keep the rebates and coupons meant for consumers? The reason is because the industry has become so large and complex, it has become extremely difficult to untangle PBMs shady tactics. Now that Congress has seen that, they can actually pass large, complex pieces of legislation, I hope they do the will of Arizonans and reform the PBM industry.
Jeff Payne
Green Valley
Threat to our democracy
I started my own business over 30 years ago, paid all my taxes, raised three daughters (all independent by their early 20s with one graduating from UC Berkeley), coached girls softball for 20 years, regularly go to church, and have been married to the same woman for over 40 years. I am a threat to the soul of this country (and probably the Star).
Scott Langpap
Sierra Vista
