Trump ‘patriots’ cheer on Putin
Donald Trump, who called Putin a genius, and his “true patriot” American supporters are rooting for the Russians as they deploy a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Tucker Carlson, Trump’s Fox News mouthpiece, echoes this message nightly on Fox News. I think this would be the equivalent of Americans cheering and rooting on Hitler as he invaded Poland in 1939.
Rick Klumpp
Oro Valley
Robson has a border plan
Border Patrol agents have already had more than 600,000 encounters with undocumented immigrants since October alone. They’re not just coming from Mexico; migrants are arriving from dozens and dozens of countries. No wonder we say border security is national security.
I saw a TV advertisement from Karrin Taylor Robson, who is running for Arizona governor, that showed a bus pull up to the border on the Mexico side, and a group of undocumented immigrants walked calmly across the ravine into our country. Amazing! I simply cannot believe it has become that easy for people to enter our country.
We simply can’t wait for the feds to fix this crisis. Karrin Taylor Robson’s plan to act by surging National Guard, giving local law enforcement the resources they need, and finishing the wall, is right for Arizona. That would be a great start to getting this situation under control. I agree with Karrin.
Valeri Bustamante
Northeast side
Bannon returns to Pima County
Re: the Feb. 25 article “Bannon buys home for $1.55M in Oro Valley.”
We just moved from the Quail Creek community to Oro Valley. Unfortunately, Steve Bannon followed us. According to the Daily Star, Bannon bought an Oro Valley home for $1.55 million on Jan. 31. Bannon’s “We Build the Wall” traveling con game visited Quail Creek and raised funds in 2019. Bannon’s “wall” project turned out to be an expensive scam, for which he and partner Brian Kolfage were charged. Bannon earned a presidential pardon, but Kolfage was not so lucky.
Tim Steller wrote that even though Bannon was pardoned by Donald Trump for federal crimes, he could be charged for state crimes in Arizona, including fraudulent schemes and artifices, conspiracy, money-laundering and accomplice liability. Pima County Attorney Laura Conover is interested in investigating financial crimes, so we hope that she would take an interest in this matter. Criminal charges would be a fine way to welcome Mr. Bannon back to Pima County.
Charles Stack
Oro Valley
Putin has a room waiting for him
Good news and bad news for Vladimir Putin. If he needs a welcoming place of refuge, it’s Mar-a-Lago, but the bad news is he won’t be able to travel there.
Larry Gray
SaddleBrooke
GOP doesn’t want us to vote
Alrighty now, so the Arizona Republican Party, standing resolutely firm on an exceedingly slippery slope of moss-covered rocks, doesn’t want us to vote early. Republicans seem to believe that when the electorate votes early, it harms their chances of winning. Likely they have a point. The Arizona GOP has been steadily losing statehouse positions and federal offices as the Copper State turns purple with prevalent independent voter registrations. Yikes!
Those same cunning state Republican legislators couldn’t find voter fraud in their hellbent-for-leather audit last year. Their examination of voter records lasted forever and produced microscopic results that worked against their breathless howlings of voter cheating, fraud, deceit. The Republican belly-up Ninja audit dissolved into gaseous shadows. Nothing here to see, folks. Keep moving.
Jeepers, wouldn’t we all feel reassured and gosh-darn sentimental with that cock-eyed city-slicker cowboy Republican Rep. Mark Finchem as our secretary of state in charge of elections?
Jerry Wilkerson
SaddleBrooke
We have been the invaders
Several letters have debated the hypocrisy of America’s reaction to the invasion of Ukraine. Surprisingly, none mentioned our own invasion of a sovereign nation on a trumped-up pretext. Iraq was under the protection of the United Nations, but that didn’t stop George Bush from grinding it under his heel.
I am in sympathy with the Ukrainian people; I also suffered with the Iraqis. But I don’t claim the moral high ground. To paraphrase Jesus: Let he who is without hypocrisy cast the first stone.
All I ask is that the next time a president wants to invade a sovereign nation, the American people rise up and demand a good reason.
Walter Mann
Marana
Support protests inside Russia
Think about this. Over 6,500 Russians citizens have already been arrested protesting their dictator’s immoral war against the Ukraine. And there are tens of thousands more Russians who despise Putin and his regime for his role in displacing over a million women and children but who live in fear as to what Putin’s government will do to them if arrested. America needs to send a strong message of support to the Russian people encouraging them to continue to stand up against what is going on in Ukraine.
Russian people, stop going to work, shut down your nation from within, it will help the Ukrainian people and build our solidarity with you. The Russian people can bring Putin to a standstill, continue to protest! Russia should be a friend and partner to Europe but what is happening now reinforces the fear and drive toward militarization. Freedom-loving people everywhere support those in Ukraine and Russia who are standing up against the unlawful and immoral use of violence.
Richard Harper
Northeast side
The impulse to be king
The president of Ukraine urged his people to arm themselves and fight to defend their country. Our former president told his mob to “fight like hell” to stop a peaceful transfer of power. The same mob breached the Capitol, looked to hang the vice president and kill the speaker of the House. Meanwhile, our glorious ex-president ran back to the White House and watched the whole fiasco unfold on TV. Now his co-conspirators plead the Fifth.
What a shining example we are to the world.
Wait! Maybe Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump coordinated the Ukraine operation in one of their private meetings where Trump ate the notes. Both of them wanted to be Kings of the World.
Slava Ukraina … until it is free.
Linda and Robert Butler
Foothills
Fitz’s bike ride and our old flag
Re: the March 12 article “On my new bike I’m a kid again, savoring the American dream.”
Saturday’s opinion by Fitz really hit home. I, too, have witnessed houses with the American flag flying upside down in tatters, the ‘don’t tread on me’ flag and the blue and white Trump 2024 flag waving in front of houses I pass. Thanks to the inspirational column by Fitz, I dug out my American flag and it’s now proudly flying in front of my house. Right-side up, of course.
Elaine Spindler
Green Valley
Leave cancer patients alone
As a former cancer caregiver, now researcher, I am gravely concerned about the impact SB 1164 would have for cancer patients in Arizona if passed, possibly this week, which has received little attention. My mother was diagnosed with leukemia at age 37, when her youngest was 6 years old.
Historically estimated at 1 in 1,000 pregnancies, cancer incidence during pregnancy is rising as childbearing is delayed. There is a good chance someone you know — perhaps even your own daughter — will be diagnosed with cancer while pregnant. SB 1164 would prohibit her from obtaining an abortion 15 weeks after her last period, denying her treatment in the early stages of disease when therapies are most effective.
Your daughter should have the right to decide for herself whether to terminate a pregnancy to begin treatment and improve the odds she survives to raise your grandchildren. With prompt therapy, my mother survived long enough to see my brother reach high school before she died — and he got to know and remember her.
Susan Massey
North side
