GOP once again comes out against fair voting

It should not be surprising that Republicans, again, oppose a free and fair national election. The RNC just announced that they are putting considerable financial resources into fighting the mail-in vote. There is absolutely no evidence that this is a β€œfraud ridden” process, but the Republican Party wants to suppress this form of voting. I believe that the vast majority of Republican voters can see through this un-democratic ploy, but will you continue to vote for a party that disregards true democracy?

Mike Dai

Midtown

Murder hornets need a strong defense team

Murder hornets? Perhaps. But I’ll bet that a good criminal defense attorney could get them down to β€œmanslaughter hornets.”

James Nesci

East side

Some COVID testing not what it appears

Arizona’s Department of Health Services recently began a β€œtesting blitz” campaign wherein they hope to test 10,000 to 20,000 Arizonans over the next few weeks. This is great news, considering Arizona is 45th in testing, at 16.5 tests per 1,000 people. As both a father and first responder, I thought it not only prudent but incumbent upon me to get tested in order to best protect my family, my crew and the citizens I serve.

But Arizonans must also be circumspect when getting tested. While some agencies and institutions provide COVID-19 testing and anti-body testing for free, others have begun to practice predatory medicine, charging inflated fees for tests of dubious reliability while falsely promising the costs will be covered by insurance. Sadly, I fear that such carpetbagging clinics are more prevalent than we suspect. I’ve experienced it first-hand. Caveat emptor.

Stephen Sweat

Midtown

Racism in America still alive and well

Re: the May 10 article β€œGeorgia man’s death raises echoes of US racial terror legacy.”

I wonder if it was purposeful or coincidental that the article printed immediately adjacent to the story of a sheriff’s deputy who, in search of a missing teen aged girl, led a group of armed white men to break in to the home of a black man. The girl was later found safe elsewhere.

Racism in America is not a thing of the past that echoes in our ears. It is an ever present thunder clap that reverberates loudly to all but those who are purposely deaf to it.

Jack Garner

Southeast side

Some ways you can help those who are vulnerable

Our daughter is a single mom who barely made ends meet when working full-time in the hospitality industry. She has no health insurance. The business closed due to the pandemic. She applied for unemployment and public benefits immediately. Seven weeks later she has seen nothing and she qualifies for help. She is worried.

Individuals who earn low wages and don’t qualify for government benefits are more worried. Essential workers like undocumented farm workers, citizen grocery workers with an undocumented spouse and DACA residents who are frontline health-care workers will get no government benefits.

Solutions? We can open businesses cautiously, we can ask legislators to promote living wages for all workers, we can share our blessings by donating to organizations offering direct help to worried workers: The Mobile Health Program, a UA program for the uninsured and under-served, and MHC Healthcare (which are patient-centered clinics with a sliding fee scale); Movimiento Cosecha’s Undocumented Worker Fund, which was established by immigrants, and the Arizona Undocumented Workers Relief Fund.

Susie Sanders

Green Valley

Masks protect you and me

After what I saw yesterday, I think now would be a good time to remind everyone about the purpose of those annoying facial masks. I went inside Fry’s to quickly pick up something I forgot to put on my grocery pickup order. First, I heard and then saw a person, not wearing a mask, sneezing numerous times without covering his mouth and then putting back the packages of bacon he had in his hand.

I would have said something but just didn’t know where to begin. I did get the meat counter person (who also wasn’t wearing a mask!) to remove those packages. That mask doesn’t protect you from someone else’s coronavirus germs, it protects others from yours. Because the virus can present as asymptomatic in some carriers, you can be infectious and not even know it!

Let’s all show respect by working together to keep each other safe so we can get back to normal as soon as possible.

Merry Mungo

Green Valley

People should decide when business opens

When I was a kid I contracted mumps, measles and chickenpox. At the time there were no vaccines available. Nor was there a vaccine for polio, which everyone really feared. Television PSAs said to β€œavoid crowds to avoid polio.” Good luck with that in New York.

I am in a high risk category for the coronavirus. I wear a mask and face shield when I go grocery shopping about every 10 days. The rest of the time I stay home. I am retired so I don’t have to worry about a paycheck but a lot of people do.

Let businesses open and let me decide where I want to go. We don’t close the country waiting for a flu vaccine that is 100% effective. According to the CDC 80,000 people died last winter alone due to the flu. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said recently that 66% of the new virus cases were contracted at home. Let’s open for business.

Andrew Gullo

Three Points

Fitz’s Mother’s Day column was sweet

Re: the May 10 opinion β€œA Mother’s Day shrine filled with Polaroids, memories.”

As a mother and a certified Graphologist (Handwriting Analyst) I read the sweet tribute by David Fitzsimmons, a card written by his mother, Artha, on his college graduation in blue cursive words. Handwriting reveals your conscious thoughts, but how it is done reveals your subconscious motivation.

The fact that is was in cursive, not printed, showed the writer (mom) wanted to be socially connected to the person. The fact that she used blue ink (as opposed to black ink) showed her message was loving, not harsh. Too bad I couldn’t see the small letter β€œp.” If it showed a spoke going up, it would show a pride she felt in her son, the college graduate. Do not give up your cursive writing.

Joan Belzer

Northeast side

President Trump can’t stop lying

β€œFrustration,” β€œlies” and β€œdeceit” are the words that come to mind when I refer to President Trump in the White House. I always thought we could rely on someone in the White House to show the skills of a leader during a national crisis. Instead we get someone who shows none of the characteristics of a leader but rather a whiner who is more interested in blaming others for his lack of actions in a dire situation.

Good leaders do the work of guiding others to a place they’ve never been before and want to get to. They see the future possibilities and clear the way forward so others can see those possibilities, too. Good leaders don’t leave people behind.

But in Trumps’s case, he has taken to heart a well-known sayings: β€œIf you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Is that what we want in our leader? I think not.

Frank Flasch

North side

Carbon pricing policy must be thought out

Re: the May 9 opinion piece β€œCarbon-tax bill before Congress comes with unacceptable trade-off.”

I was delighted to see Dr. Barbara Warren’s guest opinion.

In the fall of 2018, William Nordhaus won the Nobel Prize in economic science for his carbon pricing model: using market forces to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

This came amidst frightening new reports of imminent danger from global climate change, and offered hope of a powerful first step toward mitigation of that threat.

Nordhaus told the New York Times that he’d like to see carbon pricing understood, embraced, endorsed and worked out as a policy proposal.

My understanding is that HR763’s EPA restrictions are quite narrow, specific to emissions’ warming potential. The EPA retains full authority to regulate all other pollution. Crafting an effective carbon pricing bill is the goal of both supporters and opponents of HR763. So let’s keep talking. Nordhaus would approve.

Greg Lewis

Midtown

Entertained letter writer displays lack of dignity

Re: the May 11 letter β€œStar’s letters to editor never fail to entertain.”

This letter, ironically, was written to condescendingly denigrate those writers. It calls them β€œButtinskies, do-gooders, nannies and wannabe managers of the universe,” implying their concerns, fears and advice is a humorous joke to the writer, which he will ignore .

But how smart is he to treat the advice of several medical doctors’ letters as a joke, treat the advice of former state department worker as humorous nonsense, or the β€œgreatest generation” writers’ advice as something to make fun of? I suspect he has a hard time justifying the actions and inactions of his political icon so in a β€œshoot the messenger” approach, he demeans the writers who point out the facts and truths.

Of course this letter should provide him with uproarious entertainment.

John Kuisti

West side

Fauci is doing a great job leading us through crisis

The nightly President Trump political reassurance and massaging of the his ego is getting really old. I believe Dr. Anthony Fauci, and find him more trustworthy than our own president.

I am witnessing the president neglect, in real time, his duties in organizing and providing the needed logistics for first responders, the men and women on the front line in the medical field.

The president is neglecting to provide personal protective equipment, ventilators and genuine funds to purchase these items. He is being vindictive with local state governors as they are requesting and saying their states are not getting federal support.

The president exclaims he wants to be appreciated or will not communicate with these leaders. All the while he is utilizing extra funds available to build his Mexican border wall and fire political enemies who had previously done their civil duties.

Joseph Miceli

Sierra Vista

Enforcing spitting rules for sports

Re: the May 11 article β€œWill virus put an end to spitting in sports?”

To make my point and show how easy it would be to put a stop to spitting, I’ll take a page out of my life. When I was drafted into the Army in 1961 and was in boot camp our drill sergeant put a stop to spitting in one day.

If you spit on the ground and were caught doing so, you were made to drop to the ground and lick it back up. The practice of spitting stopped very quickly. Maybe a subset of referees can enforce the no spitting rules on and off the field of play.

Maybe fining players a percentage of their pay would be a good way for them to get the message. Or maybe if they just think about if they had to drop to the ground and lick it up, it might be enough for them to just stop spitting.

Phillip Davis

Oro Valley

Sacrificing lives for the economy

Bereaved Mother’s Day was May 3. Women whose children were ripped from them by gun violence, illness or accident, are remembered one day a year, though they feel the loss daily. Now, as the deaths by COVID-19 increase and the CDC warns us that the crisis is not over, the Trump administration and GOP leaders are telling us that the lives of our beloved are fodder for the economy.

How many loved ones are they willing to sacrifice?

With access to testing and medical care that their privileged positions provide, they aren’t planning on losing any. It’s our children and parents that they are offering up on the altar of the economy.

To riff on Leona Helmsley’s infamous statement, it’s only the little people who will die. Lives are acceptable losses to the rich and powerful hungering for more of both. Next May, we may feel the effects of a stronger economy, but, doubtless, we will feel the devastation of many more bereaved mothers.

Linda Petersen-Vargas

Northeast side

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