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Dangerous panhandling

The city of Tucson has passed a law prohibiting panhandling on medians at busy intersections. This has met with mixed results. Check out any busy intersection — you’ll see people illegally and dangerously panhandling. It’s only a matter of time before one of them is killed and the City faces an expensive lawsuit at taxpayer expense. Why not take a proactive approach by placing signs on medians prohibiting the act? That message would be a direct public safety reminder to panhandlers as well as enablers. There are more responsible and safer ways to donate money in the fight against homelessness without the danger.

Mark Anderson

West side

LTEs

I love this newspaper for its in-depth stories of important issues, but the LTEs are priceless: a nice mix of well-reasoned, logical, fact-based content interspersed with hilariously ignorant rants that are nothing more than a pastiche of spoon-fed sound bites. Regardless of the actual, dire news, the LTEs are entertainment at its finest.

Sally Wasielewski

East side

A lost art

There was a time when I looked forward to reading letters to the editor. When the Star had an editorial staff they printed a variety of thoughtful letters on subjects both local and national. While I agreed with some and not so much others, there were those who sent in their thoughts based on facts, informed opinion and experience. While we still occasionally see such letters, the LTE section is now mostly the same individuals attacking one another over their political beliefs. We see writers simply mocking another writer who has a different political position. It’s hard to know whether the Star simply finds this more entertaining or that there is no one left to screen and select letters that are more meaningful. The section has devolved into a social media type post. It’s quite sad.

Rick Unklesbay

Midtown

LTEs are opinions, but should be based on facts

LTEs are published on the Opinion Page for a reason.

I subscribe to the printed edition of The Star and encourage everyone to keep “our paper” alive. No other publication is interested in scrutinizing local politicians or institutions. Thank you, Mr. Steller! We also have a Department of Journalism at the U of A, and Pulitzer Prize winners have started their careers here. Every day, I read the LTEs and thank the Star for consistently publishing the contributions of our right-wing triumvirate. I remind their critics that the opinions of these individuals are just that, opinions! LTEs do not require being based on facts, but should be. These three have adopted their leader’s technique of flooding the public with words, which makes responding to each of their claims challenging. My recommendation to all three: You might garner respect by addressing one topic per letter at a time, supporting it with independent data. And everyone, please keep it civil.

Uwe Manthei

Midtown

Clean Elections Commission

The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission purports to be a strictly nonpartisan organization that “seeks to improve the integrity of Arizona state government and promote public confidence in the Arizona political process.” Yet on its website of the current candidates running for U.S. Representative in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District, every Republican and Democratic candidate has their campaign statement from the Arizona Secretary of State’s listing included, while those of the two Green Party candidates and the one No Labels Party candidate (myself) are excluded and do not appear. This is a clear example of what hypocrites this so-called Clean Elections Commission are: They are obviously favoring some candidates over others and should no longer be trusted. Not all Arizona voters are registered with the two major parties.

Richard Grayson

West side

The three monkeys

It seems that Tucson is blessed(?) with our own version of the three monkeys. Our local MAGA stalwarts must spend an inordinate amount of time avoiding seeing, hearing or speaking evil about their feckless leader. What always baffles me is their own ability to ignore the fact that their letters actually reflect the deficiencies of their own party and Trump in particular.

A letter in today’s paper by another MAGA-ite decried the fact that people aren’t giving Trump a chance since he has only been in office five months. I seem to remember that Trump was going to solve all the world’s problems on Day One.

Trump makes Charles Ponzi and cult leaders like Jim Jones look like rank amateurs and makes the GOP look like fools. The world is pointing at the emperor with no clothes.

George Ball

Midtown

Liar, liar, pants on fire

The Honorable Juan Ciscomani, Republican Member of Congress, lied to me. He lied to us. Our Representative voted against us and in favor of the Bank of Trump, exploding our national debt by another $3.8 trillion.

Ciscomani prioritized his own political ambitions over the needs of the people he represents in AZ CD6. He abandoned ethical principles and disregarded the well-being of society when he voted to slash our Medicaid health care for the vulnerable ill, slice away SNAP food stamps for hungry children, and sever hard-earned Veterans benefits at the VA. You betrayed our trust, Congressman Ciscomani, and we will never forgive you for that.

Jerry Wilkerson

SaddleBrooke

Re: Deduction redux

Both opinion pieces neglect an important fact. Their high-tax state examples send more to the federal government than they receive back, and their frugal states receive more than they send. In 2023, for example, New Yorkers paid about $89 billion more to the federal government than they received back. California paid

$78 billion more.

We can, as suggested, let the states live within their means and not have the federal government “redistributing tax dollars ... for local services that should be funded and managed locally.” New York, Massachusetts, Washington, New Jersey, California and Delaware, among others, could use the amount they normally lose to other states to reduce their tax rates.

Arizona received $40 billion more from the federal government than it sent in. If we take away this redistribution so the state can live within its means, who’s voting to raise taxes to make up the difference?

Barbara Hall

Midtown

Destroyers of life

After the George W. Bush White House requested Congress to cut counterintelligence as mentioned in the Sept. 11, 2001 New York Times, Bush arrogantly invaded Iraq in 2003, against the advice of his military leaders and General Zinni, Commander of the Pentagon’s Centcomm. This invasion cost trillions of dollars.

The Bush White House then screwed up the economy with trillions of dollars in tax cuts.

After the Obama White House and Congress finally stabilized the economy, Trump’s White House in 2019 slammed the Federal Reserve for not lowering interest rates below 0%, which would make Trump’s assets more valuable and ran up inflation. Trump then caused over 450,000 extra deaths due to COVID, a disease that nearly killed Trump in October 2020. Then trillions more in tax cuts. Biden came in and fixed this.

The new Trump administration will eventually kill millions in poorer countries due to cuts in USAID and other programs. His new tax cuts will cost trillions more.

Republicans: Destroyers of life and children’s futures.

Matt Somers

Midtown

Take back our values

Our elected officials are not doing what most of the people want. All they do is blame each other and accomplish nothing. The only way to remedy this is to demand Congress and Senate set shorter term and reelection limits. Two-year terms and 2-time service, except for the president. A change in service term for the Supreme

Court is also called for. That way, the people can vote out elected officials who are not doing what they want within a term period to avoid major damage to the people and to the country.

Hal Brown

East side

Our Agent Orange

What makes our country “great?”

Americans are free to act, speak and think as we like, to travel, vote and pray (or not) as we please. Our rights are legally protected and, thanks to robust public education and a fluid class system, we can advance. We are risk-takers who innovate and improve lives. We are also perceived to be friendly and generous, people who live in a land as diverse and open as we are.

So if a foreign adversary aimed to weaken us, they might unleash undercover agents to erode our freedoms and goodwill. They would take a chainsaw to our environment, institutions and norms, weakening our health, safety and futures. They would pit us against one another, breeding fear, anger and distrust.

No foreign adversary or secret agent has done this. By re-electing a reckless and petty man, we have damaged ourselves and our exceptional country. To restore any semblance of greatness, we must do everything we can to stop him. That would be great.

Leslie Kanberg

Downtown

The most incompetent choices in history

Donald Trump decries DEI, pretending that minorities cannot be intellectually gifted and fit. Yet history will unabashedly show that his Cabinet and other appointments are the most incompetent and corrupt confirmations ever. Moreover, those around him are reflections of his personal insecurities because he is clearly too afraid to have competent experts around him who care more about the national interest, more than showing him obeisance.

Barbara Benjamin

Foothills

City vs. TEP electric grid

I have a concern with the current environment wherein our fellow citizens are determined to give responsibility for the power grid to the City of Tucson. How a municipality that is unable to maintain its roadway infrastructure believes it can provide consistent and sustainable electricity. There are currently few, if any, roadways in this city that are not in poor or failing condition. Do you really want to trust City of Tucson to provide for your electricity needs during the hot summer when demand soars, or through monsoon season when wind and rain cause damaging outages, or during the winter when your electricity is needed to keep you warm and cook your food? Seriously, think about it, please. How in blazes can they pay for and operate a successful power grid? I for one would appreciate lower rates for power, however not at the expense of having a failing power delivery system. Maybe TEP is high-priced. Like they say, you get what you pay for!

Jonathan Altman

Midtown

Lifo-Fifo

To reduce the size of the Federal Government requires cutting departments, agencies and other inflated personnel from the government payroll. The payroll reduction should happen on a LIFO-FIFO concept. Last in, first out or first in, first out.

Aging baby boomers will retire, and nobody should be hired to fill that position. The workload should go to the mid-managers. They get one-fourth of the retired person’s wage, and the government get the other three-fourths.

This is a good deal. Do this over and over, and departments shrink. The “first in” should be let go first. The “last in” are the new personnel that will take the agencies to the next level, “lean and mean.”

Trump should be getting rid of the bloated upper-level managers first, since they were mainly responsible for the expansion of their “kingdoms.” These people are getting paid the most while delivering little through delegation of duties to the chain of departments below them.

First in long ago, first out now. Fiscal harmony at its best.

Ed LeGendre

East side

Boulder attack on Jews

The war between Palestine and Israel has come to American soil. If Hamas can’t kill Jews in Israel, then they will come to our shores and commit acts of terror. The fact that Trump and Rubio can’t stop the slaughter of Palestinian women and children demonstrates the ineffectiveness of Secretary of State Rubio trying to implement Trump’s lack of competent foreign policy. Rubio has visited the Middle East and met with everyone but the Palestinians. Trump’s vision for a “Riviera on the Gaza strip” as a bribery approach to solving this problem is laughable. Now Rubio is so busy chasing Chinese students out of our universities that he has no handle at all on the transfer of hostilities to American soil. I have no doubt that there are Palestinian terror cells and sympathizers in the U.S. planning for future opportunities like the recent attack on American Jews in Boulder, Colorado. Trump, get off the golf course and get busy, we are drowning in your incompetence.

Richard Harper

Northeast side

The definition of woke

On June 3, Loran, one of the triumvirate of letter writers who staunchly defend all that is Republican, did so again. In the last five or six sentences of his letter, he perfectly gave the definition of the word “woke.” Being the ability of analyzing a past action, admitting a mistake and correcting for it. Wow, how woke you are, sir. If only the people in your party had the same revelation, things would be so much better. I’m still trying to count the number of feet that a Republican can stuff in its mouth.

Daniel Poryanda

Southeast side