The debates have been awful
Having watched three debates this season (letter written before Thursday night’s final presidential debate), I am left with one burning question. Will we ever have a moderator who will be able to control the debate? We have seen the raucous behavior of the first presidential debate, and we have seen the vice presidential debate in which the answers hardly ever seemed to match the questions, and very little attention was given to the time that was allotted to each candidate to answer the question.
The need for a mute button was clearly seen. We also need moderators who are not afraid to use their position to keep the debate on track. The only time that was done was in the Senate debate when the panel of moderators kept on repeating the same question to the candidates in an attempt to elicit an answer. Debates should be civilized and informative. This is not what we have experienced.
Martin Greene
East side
Trump rally patrons should self-isolate
I am more than angry with the 2,000 supporters who turned out at the airport to hear Donald Trump and expose others to COVID-19. This was a super spreader event, people! When have you stopped caring about your fellow citizens?
It is woefully negligent to expose others to the virus and possible death. I want Tucson to thrive. We have many who have chosen to retire here but not to die from COVID-19.
Toni Kane
Oro Valley
We need an adult
in the White House
I am tired of the federal government doing almost nothing to contain and eliminate the COVID-19 virus. More than 220,000 Americans have died.
I am tired of the non-stop parade of scandals and unethical actions of the White House and the refusal of the U.S. Senate to hold the White House accountable for its actions.
I am tired of the administration’s overt profiteering and manipulation of the government to Trump’s personal and political benefit.
I am tired of the audacity and the lies and obfuscations that come out of the White House every single day; tired of Trump’s refusal to condemn hate groups and his inability to contain his loathing of women, minority groups, immigrants, dissenting opinions and even his own appointees and law enforcement officials.
I am tired of a spineless U.S. Senate, and a sycophant attorney general.
Are you ready for an adult in the White House and for a Senate that takes its responsibilities seriously?
Please vote blue.
Jim Sweeney
East side
Thanks so much, Social Security
I was so excited to see that we who worked for 30 years and now live on Social Security are getting a raise. A whopping .013% per year! which amounts to an increase of $16.45 per month for me. Now I can buy a couple more apples each week or pay it all on the medical bills I owe from six surgeries in the last six years.
Darn, I was so eager to give it to Donald Trump to pay for more of the wall but instead I am just going to be glad I no longer work and pay taxes to a president who uses the U.S. as his personal piggy bank.
Jacque Ramsey
Oro Valley
Liberalism has taken hold in AZ
As a former longtime resident of Arizona and a subscriber to the Arizona Daily Star, I am amazed by how liberalism has taken over the newspaper editorials and Letters to the Editor. I have to step back and make sure that I am not reading the New York Times. Is this truly an adequate reflection of the state of Tucson and Arizona? My, how times have changed.
William Harnagel
Sierra Vista
Hunter Biden is corrupt
President Donald Trump placed a congratulatory phone call to the newly elected President of Ukraine. Trump asked if Ukraine could investigate Hunter and Joe Biden related to Burisma Gas. The Democratically controlled House of Representatives impeached Trump over that.
But it looks like Trump has been vindicated in his suspicions. An email found on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop at a computer store revealed an April 17, 2015, message from Burisma board adviser Vadym Pozharskyi to Hunter Biden thanking him for having had a meeting with Joe Biden in Washington, D.C. It was about a year after Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month.
An email from May 2014 showed Pozharskyi, reportedly asking Hunter for “advice on how you could use your influence on the company’s behalf.” Joe Biden later pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor investigating Burisma in exchange for $1 billion in aid. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has stated the emails on Hunter’s computer are not Russian disinformation.
Martin Wagman
Green Valley
Your shirt’s slogan is right
During my 20-year career in the Navy, I spent many of them overseas marveling at the ignorance, gullibility and idolatry with which some citizens of foreign lands approached their national leaders. I was so proud to serve a country that embraced reason and humanity as guiding principles and encouraged — for the most part — those qualities in its political discourse.
Despite the silliness displayed in the quadrennial presidential conventions, Americans didn’t routinely wave placards bearing the images of their chosen ones, chant hateful slogans or actively reject overwhelming evidence in order to believe fantasies they found appealing. Fast forward to the 21st century, and we are now them.
I recently saw a story about people wearing T-shirts reading, “If you don’t like Trump, you won’t like me.” I have never liked bullies, braggards, liars, cheaters, racists, sexists, con men or self-professed assaulters of women. So, you can rest assured that if you are wearing that shirt, you are absolutely correct in that, at least.
Rick Scifres
Green Valley
Napier the best choice for Pima County
To my fellow Democrats, I need to say that even though many of you may have already voted, many of you have not, and I’m pretty sure you’re wanting to vote a Democratic ticket, but heads up, my fellow Dems. The only qualified candidate for sheriff in Pima County just happens to be a Republican. This is a good time to do a cross-over vote.
Sheriff Mark Napier has done an excellent job; he is endorsed by the Arizona Daily Star and by Barbara LaWall, Dr. Richard Carmona and many other individuals and organizations. He has the education, management skills and ability to continue to make the Pima County Sheriff’s organization an example to the nation of fairness to all and excellence in law enforcement.
There is not a whiff of corruption or mishandling of funds in his administration. So from one Yellow Dog Democrat to others, please make an exception, hopefully more than one, and change columns. Vote to re-elect Sheriff Napier. You’ll be glad you did.
Bonnie Edwards
East side
Do not worry:
Change is coming
Re: the Oct. 22 article “When you’re an old woman in America.”
I was so touched by Janice Fingado’s piece about women in America. Janice, you do count, and your vote counts now more than ever. We need voices like yours to raise the practices of gender inequality, and we need representatives who are serious enough to correct the practices.
Not just by law but by example. We all deserve income security, and we all deserve affordable health care and medicines. You saw things very clearly.
I wish you well, and I want you to know that people are listening. I voted for the person I believe respects women and chose one as his running mate. I hope we will all see positive changes in the coming weeks.
Caroline Price
Green Valley
November reckoning
Recently President Donald Trump said, “Suburban women! Will you please like me?” And the answer seems to be “No.” Let’s be sure that “no” is heard even louder in November.
Fran McNeely
Foothills
Biden has quite an immigration to-do list
Joe Biden intends to enact the following liberal immigration actions. Would he do these if 80% of naturalized immigrant citizens voted for Republicans?
Biden would give DACA recipients a roadmap to citizenship and reinstate the DACA program, expand the DACA program from 825,000 to 3.6 million and provide free community college tuitions, legislation in Congress for citizenship for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, rescind Donald Trump’s so called “Muslim travel ban,” rescind the Mexico asylum protocols known as “Remain in Mexico,” greatly expand government resources to asylum seekers, expand chain migration by broadening the definition of an “immediate family member” and approve family visa beneficiaries to enter the U.S. even if a green card was not yet available to them.
He also will increase the refugee cap from 18,000 to 125,000-plus, end the public charge rule for immigrants receiving government welfare benefits, increase the number of H1B visas, and end the border wall construction. These policies will enshrine a Democratic presidency and Congress into perpetuity, as intended!
Rory Smith
Marana
The literary antecedent to Trump’s wall
Re: the Oct. 18 article “Future of border wall about to be handed over to voters.”
Curt Prendergast’s recent article describes the contrasting views of Donald Trump, “build that wall” and Joseph Biden, “There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration.” It also brings to mind Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall.”
In the poem, two neighbors walk along either side of the stone wall that separates their properties as they share in the annual spring ritual of replacing the stones that have fallen from the wall during the past winter. One wonders what force caused the stones to fall: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” the other, moving in darkness “like an old stone savage,” will not go behind his father’s saying, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Of course, Frost’s wall is metaphorical, while the Great Wall of Trump is becoming all too real. Both excite sentiments of separation and division. Both evoke fear of the “other” beyond those walls and dehumanize them and desensitize us to their humanity. Surely we are better than this!
James McIntosh
East side
The consequences of ‘Zero Tolerance’
The media is resurfacing the consequences of the Trump administration’s Zero Tolerance Policy. Children, 545 of them, separated from their parents at the border are still “orphaned.” I wish everyone would close their eyes for a minute and think about this.
Do you have children? Grandchildren? Imagine them losing their parents in a strange land with a strange language. This was no planning for unintended consequences, the Trump administration ran a trial run earlier and knew the consequences. They went ahead nevertheless.
Some say that these parents shouldn’t have put their children at risk. But they were at risk.
Imagine what it would take for you to leave everything behind, traveling thousands of miles often on foot to find safety in the U.S. If that doesn’t move you, imagine what crime children could possibly commit that would be justly punished by the loss of their families?
This horrific policy should be reason enough to throw Trump and his corrupt administration out. Sadly, there are many more.
Sally Reed
Northeast side
Proud of being a taxpayer
Small business owners should pay more in taxes than nonbusiness owners because businesses take more of the public resources. The public is educating their employees for them. Prop. 208 is a smaller tax than the tax cuts business owners have received from the state and federal governments over the last several years.
Besides, public education serves society, allowing for a more educated workforce and voting population. Studies show public money invested into education will bring more to the state economy than tax cuts. Studies suggest Prop. 208 would pump twice as much money into the state economy than the tax would take out.
If there is anyone people should blame for this tax, it is the Republican legislators who have refused to follow the state constitution and decided to cut over a billion dollars out of our education system over the last 12 years.
I’m a mother, teacher and proud Arizona tax payer.
Jeanette Rupel
Northeast side
Barrett the beneficiary of Ginsburg’s work
I wonder if Amy Coney Barret has ever considered this fact: She is being considered for a seat on the Supreme Court because Ruth Bader Ginsburg broke through all the barriers set by conservatives, like herself, that were designed to keep women out of such positions of responsibility.
Paul Czopek
East side
