Tucson Speaks Out: Jan. 5

Supervisor Christy’s opinion

What “open border” policy? With 190 miles of barrier fence, official check points, pop-up check points on highways coming north from Mexico, 460,000 apprehensions from October 2023 to Sept 24, 2024, the term “open border” is political propaganda. In a city of 1/2 million people in a metro area of 1 million, it is hardly shocking that 6,000 people have managed to stay in Tucson. Incidentally, are those 6,000 adults or 6,000 individuals, including children? How could mass deportations of the workforce in agriculture, construction, manufacturing, the hospitality industry and others not cause “deep concern” to every taxpayer?

Perhaps Mr. Christy is so wealthy that inflation is not a concern, nor is the cost of arresting, processing and warehousing pending deportation. As to the problems with the current asylum law, none of his local “gaslighting” targets have the ability to change those federal laws.

Sally Wasielewski

East side

Name-calling

He is not in office yet, and the name-calling has started. Musk is blasting the MAGA followers who are not on board. President Elect Musk is vowing to go after Social Security, Veterans, Medicare. Let the chaos begin for four years.

David E Leon

Vail

A cacophony

My first realization that this new administration is going to be a crime spree from the first brought a sense of panic. The citizens of our nation also feel it when they are about to enter a veil of troubles, courtesy of Donald Trump.

Under his baton, he is already creating a cacophony of sound with his one-note symphony, Me, Me, Me. The whole ensemble of his Cabinet is playing a jarring version of their own one-note, dough, dough, dough.

There seems to be a variety of lawless schemes in the works, including breaking into the social programs’ cash box and letting it flow into friendly pockets.

Whenever Trump speaks, he uses a nice selection of vulgarity to shock the audience. He can do anything he wants because he suffers from Egomania, as do those around him.

Many folks are saying the country is acting crazy. I agree, and at least we have the leaders to match.

Ron Lancaster

North side

God’s warrior?

Mr. Evans contends that Trump, despite his wanton immorality, is doing God’s work. That is hyperbolic BS. Predicting that Trump will eliminate abortion only demonstrates that Evans has succumbed to Trump’s lies.

Abortion foes believe their SCOTUS victory will ultimately result in legislation that eliminates abortion. Prohibition proved that, instead of the intended goal of eliminating immoral behavior fueled by alcohol consumption, the achieved goal was the meteoric rise of organized crime. Creating national anti-abortion legislation WILL NOT eliminate abortions. The anti-abortionists’ victory would be as fallacious as their thinking that legislation is the way to end abortions.

Meanwhile, they denounce and renounce education, which is the only potential solution. There is none so blind as those who will not see.

Rick Cohn

West side

Mass deportation effects on the hotel industry

First let me say that I am in favor of immigration – legal immigration. My great-grandparents were immigrants in the mid-1800s or earlier.

The article Sunday on mass deportations tells only part of the story. The rest of the story is that many employers of undocumented immigrants have these people working “off the books.” No employer portion of Social Security or Medicare taxes. Also, no unemployment taxes and no workman’s compensation taxes. Some less scrupulous employers also pay less than the minimum wage. Most undocumented immigrants have no Social Security numbers (or forged). There are no taxes lost because there are no wages documented. The unreported tragedy here is the lack of employment protection for these workers and lack of social security credits for future years.

Congress needs to get off its bipartisan buttocks and fix immigration.

David Germain

East side

Biden’s lies

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Track Biden’s 50 years in politics and chronicle his lies. It starts in his class standing at law school. He stated he was the top of his class, actually he was 76 out of 85. Most recently, it was confirmed he repeatedly lied about his connection to Hunter and the Chinese. After suing, photos show Biden, Hunter and Chinese business partners. Biden’s pardon of his son is self-inclusive as Joe received money from dummy companies that filtered money from the Chinese. The past 4 years have been a sad episode for America. Trump, in the short time since the election, has done more domestically and on the world stage than Biden in years. Mar-a-Lago has seen a constant stream of industry leaders, our allies and adversaries know exactly what is coming. For those Trump haters, you are going to have a bumpy ride for the next four years. All of us will witness the resurgence of America’s greatness.

Bill Dowdall

Oro Valley

Chicken Little, Three Little Pigs, Big Bad Wolf

Recently, Chicken Littles have been declaring, “the sky is falling, the sky is falling.” They all ran into a straw house with a little pig. The Big Bad Wolf came and huffed and puffed and blew that house down. They all then ran into a stick house with another little pig.

The Big Bad Wolf came and huffed and puffed and blew down that stick house. All the critters then ran into a brick house where the Big Bad Wolf huffed and puffed and could not blow down that house. The Big Bad Wolf ran out of air. After a while, he joined all the critters in the brick house, and they all lived happily ever after.

Chicken Littles do not fear, all will be well. Piggys will let all the Chicken Littles in.

Straw houses are a waste of time and effort. Stick houses are better, but some have too many sticks. Brick houses are the best, standing the test of time.

So let it be with our nation.

Ed LeGendre

East side

Editorial rants

Many Star subscribers have been asking for more moderation in reader letters and “opinion” editorials submitted by readers for publication. And then along comes the Star and publishes Ross Beins’ amazing rant. It isn’t that Beins clearly supports Donald Trump. It’s that his rant did not inform, but was in full attack mode in making emotional assertions he doesn’t even try to support with any reasoned discussion. Message to the Star’s editorial board: We’re tired of this; shame on the Star for continuing to promote dissension through publishing rants.

Michael Price

Midtown

UA Sports on ESPN+

I have followed University of Arizona sports since moving to Arizona in 1997.

Since moving to the Big 12, almost all of their games are on ESPN+, a paid-for streaming service not seen on local TV stations because the Big 12 does not have its own TV Network like the Pac 12 used to have.

I saw one or two games which aired on ESPN or ESPN2. I found that I did not know most of the players on the men’s or women’s basketball teams anymore and have stopped following them. Arizona should note that loyalty goes both ways.

Goodbye, U of A sports, since you don’t care about your viewers, and I found I can do very well without Arizona games and have changed my viewing habits to other things.

Al Gordon

East side

Bad n

ews

Where, oh where is Anne Murray and her hit song “We sure could use a little good news today?” Seems like all the news is bad or sad anymore.

Gail Powell

Northwest side

So what else is new?

Not surprisingly, the Thursday, Jan. 2 edition of The Daily Star had no mention of the Peach Bowl. It was a rousing game between Texas and our rival Sun Devils. What a game! It was decided in the second overtime period, which was sadly won by Texas. But imagine ASU’s Skattebo winning the Offensive Player of the Game award! What a game, and yet not anything about it in Thursday’s paper. Oh, wait, the Star goes to press at 6 p.m. The Peach Bowl was over by 3:30. I guess ASU wasn’t the only one to drop the ball.

Susan Maynard

Green Valley