Tucson Speaks Out: May 23

Qatari Embassy payment for mayor's trip

Looks like Qatar wants to provide funds to corrupt U.S. politicians at all levels with their payment for Tucson's mayor to attend their Economic Forum in Doha. While it's no $400 million plane, I don't see how the local mayor can justify it with any integrity.

Speaking of lack of integrity, your article mentions that there are "ethical concerns about accepting a foreign gift and other issues" concerning the President accepting a gift of a $400 million 747 from Qatar for for "use as Air Force One", despite 747s already existing and in service for use as Air Force 1. This is not a mere "ethical concern." To accept such a gift is flat-out unconstitutional without approval from Congress, for obvious reasons. The trouble with 47 is that he is totally blind to his own habitual corruption. May Tucson's mayor avoid her own such blindness.

Paul Reese

Southeast side

MAGA DEI

The recently-fired Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, a black woman with a Ph.D. in Library Science, years of library management experience, and past president of the American Library Association, was replaced by Todd Blanche, a Deputy Attorney General who represented Donald Trump in his 2024 criminal trial in New York City.

Kristi Noem, Homeland Security Secretary, testifying earlier this week before the Senate, could not accurately provide an explanation of Habeas Corpus.

Noem and Blanche represent MAGA DEI hires: Dumb, Entitled and Ignorant.

Fran McNeely

Northeast side

Building a resistance movement

If passed, the proposed Federal budget will strip many, already stressed, of health coverage, devastate public land management, eliminate clean energy programs, give billionaires a permanent tax break, and fund even more cruelty toward people who seek our mercy.

Everyone join us June 14 for a peaceful, non-partisan celebration of democracy: No King's Day at the Reid Park band shell. We will overwhelm coverage of the military-style parade in D.C.

The United States Constitution guarantees citizens the right to assemble and voice our will. Nonprofit groups will table and inform. Please bring crowns and signs. There is a car caravan from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., but, for the morning event, we encourage you to walk, bike, bus, Uber, and carpool.

See you there. Saturday, June 14, 8:30 meet and greet, 8:30-930: demonstrate along 22nd and Country Club, 9:30-11 a.m.: entertainment. Can you hear the drums?

Gaye Adams

Midtown

Bright, shiny objects

Lately, the Trump regime has been throwing bright, shiny objects at the people and the media and we have been chasing after them like greyhounds racing after mechanical rabbits. Examples: The tariff blitz and retractions, $400 million 13-year-old airplane, buying and then attacking Greenland, making Canada the 51st state, confiscating Panama, ordering a $45 million dollar parade on Trump's birthday, disbanding NATO, abandoning Ukraine, turning Gaza into a Gold Coast, and the outrageous list goes on.

Everyone, take note of these distractions, file lawsuits, but we need to laser focus on the only guardrail we have remaining against authoritarianism: the courts. We are already in a Constitutional crisis because court orders are being ignored. Judges and their families are being threatened. A Trump official stated, “I don’t care what the judges think.” This seems traitorous, doesn't it? Well, if you think so, defend the courts with all your powers. Support organizations like Mark Elias's Democracy Docket and fight Trump's looming Putinesque kingdom in America.

Peter Bakke

SaddleBrooke

Took my words

A quote: “These are people that, on the basis of their race, are having their properties taken away from them, and their lives being threatened and, in some cases, killed.”

Sounds like a "bleeding heart liberal" talking about black and brown people who want to come to the US. But it isn’t. It’s Senator Marco Rubio on "Meet the Press" on May 18.

And he was talking about white people from South Africa, the state that invented Apartheid. Now, "these people" are claiming they are the victims of racism. How ironic and disgusting. Another example of male white privilege.

Catalina Hall

West side

River Road

I want to congratulate the organization who redid River Road between Swan and Pontatoc. They did an excellent job. While driving on it, I thought I was in a city other than Tucson, as the road was so nice.

Thanks again for a great job.

Jose Salgado

Northeast side

Men over 70 should get PSA blood tests

Recently, we learned that President Biden did not have a PSA blood test since 2014, which follows the NIH recommendation that men over 70 should not have the PSA test. In 2019, I was diagnosed at age 75 with advanced, aggressive prostate cancer, based on PSA tests. Had I followed NIH recommendation, I'd be dead today. I was successfully treated with hormone and radiation at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. No treatment for the last 4 years with PSA undetectable. In 2020, I wrote a letter to the Arizona Daily Star urging men over 70 to take the PSA blood test. Had Biden read the letter and followed it, in 2020, he probably would have a much easier treatment and prognosis. Please do not follow NIH recommendation. Blood test is easy and less costly ($100) to the Medicare program than my cancer treatment (billed at $250,000).

Joel Alpert

Foothills

A free press

All citizens, Independent, Republican, Green, and Democrat alike, be afraid, be very afraid. A fascist, draconian action by the authoritarian leader of the free world to limit the freedom the press is abhorrent. A very slippery slope that during this administration we are already well on our way down. Public media through National Public Radio and PBS stations throughout our communities are independent voices for the distribution of local and national news and cultural programming. A free press is one of the key foundations of a democracy. We must all fight this very shocking action. What would be with the next administration's actions? Pulling the plug on Fox News. I vote that both NPR and Fox and all news outlets should enjoy our freedoms. Give me your opinions and let me decide.

John (Jay) Van Echo

West side

Democracy in trouble

Trump, the authoritarian president, is ruling by executive order while at the same time ignoring the rule of law and the courts.

The courts can do nothing about it.

In the Oval Office, Trump's bombastic and ambush style of talking to foreign leaders is a disgrace. Trump's constant barrage of vague statistics and outright lies works for him.

Why would any world leader come here to get ambushed on the world stage?

He uses fear to keep opponents in line and it is working.

There may be little we can do about it until it gets so restrictive that the majority protest and are put down by Trump troops, and then in 10 years rise up again. Look at other countries that try protests.

Trump thrives on dramatic reality TV as a governing system.

Will we soon look like Hungary and its dictator?

Donald Plummer

Northwest side

Another leap towards autocracy

Cadet bone spurs was at his bloviating, blustering best recently, while lacking any self-awareness. His comments on N.J. Rep. McIver being charged with assaulting an ICE officer: “She was out of control…We’re going to have law and order”.

Fact: Rep. McIver and two other Members of Congress were at an ICE detention facility under Congressional authority, allowing them to inspect any such facility.

When denied access, they joined a group of protesters in a public space, outside the detention property. A scuffle ensued where Members, protesters and ICE all pushed and shoved each other.

On day 1, this paragon of “law and order” pardoned 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters, including over 100 who were convicted of or pled guilty to assaulting police officers. Some officers injured so badly, they retired. That’s assault.

Arresting opposition party members is yet another leap towards autocracy. All in less than 5 months. What remains of our democracy in another 43 months is difficult to imagine.

Dan Gipple

Southeast side

Genocide fatigue?

Israel continues to commit daily atrocities in Gaza. Israel has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, most of whom are innocent women and children. Using starvation as a weapon is a war crime. There is no excuse for genocide, and the U.S. is complicit.

Stanley Steik

Midtown

The massacre of American science

America has long been the unquestioned world leader in science and technology. Look, for example, at the U.S. dominance in Nobel Prizes in science. That leadership is a direct result of investments by government agencies such as the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and NASA and in the role played by scientists at U.S. universities. But current plans by the Trump administration to make drastic cuts in the budgets of those agencies and institutions will rapidly and directly cede that leadership and hand it off to China. For example, China is already overtaking the U.S in patents. The U.S position in science and technology isn’t just a matter of pride; it’s a matter of national security and economic strength. We urgently need our members of Congress to stop Trump’s foolhardy sacrifice of U.S. science and preserve the resources that ensure that our future investments serve us as well as they have in the past.

Joseph Alexander

Oro Valley

Who is a refugee?

About the time that our president was welcoming 59 white South African "refugees" and then subsequently berating the South African leader with false white genocide claims I was sitting down with a young man from Afghanistan who fled the Taliban with his wife and 4 young children. He had been a State Department contractor and was surely targeted for death. We were completing his request to Senator Kelly to expedite his asylum. The U.S. has just revoked the TPS for nearly 15,000 Afghans residing here. The DHS' laughable rationale is "notable improvements in the security and economic situation such that requiring the return of Afghan nationals to Afghanistan does not pose a threat to their personal safety." Yet the State Department website on travel to Afghanistan reads, "Do not travel to Afghanistan due to civil unrest, crime, terrorism, risk of wrongful detention, kidnapping, and limited health facilities." Can even the most politically conservative of you reconcile this treatment of others with your religious belief in compassion and love?

Mark Hanna

Foothills

Moving forward

When the leading Democratic politicians are asked questions regarding the cover-up of President Biden’s health, the current answer is “we are moving forward”. How convenient, avoiding any responsibility, so typical for Democrats. For years, we have been blasted by the January invasion into the Capitol Building, couching it as a terminal threat to democracy. Realistically, although the episode was stupid, there was absolutely no way where those unarmed people were going to take over the government. And the perpetrators were punished severely. Compare that to the entire cover-up of President Biden’s inability to carry out the duties of the President. Instead, a group of his advisors decided to run the government on their own, hiding the true facts from the public. If there was ever a threat to democracy and the Constitution, this coup was it. The people responsible for this unmitigated breach, the White House staff members, the senior Democratic politicians, and the liberal press must be held accountable for this massive breach of fundamental Constitutional law.

Loyal M Johnson Jr

Oro Valley

Appalled at budget vote

As someone who works daily with vulnerable populations in Southern Arizona, I am appalled that Rep. Juan Ciscomani voted for President Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” This legislation slashes Medicaid and social supports while giving permanent tax cuts to billionaires. Over 158,000 people in his district rely on Medicaid — including many rural families, seniors, and veterans — for access to basic healthcare. These cuts threaten clinics like Chiricahua and hospitals like Copper Queen, putting both care and jobs at risk.

What’s worse, nearly 24,100 Arizona veterans depend on Medicaid, and recent proposals also target VA funding, risking the loss of 83,000 VA jobs and up to 30 million appointments nationwide. Why would Rep. Ciscomani vote to strip critical care from the very people he pledged to serve?

He knew the risks. He expressed concern. And then he voted yes anyway.

We need leaders who put people — not party — first.

Aggie Hart

Southeast side

Ciscomani sellout

Re: House Republicans pass Trump’s big bill, 5/22/25

Juan Ciscomani’s Yes vote sold out the rank and file residents of CD 6. Nov. 3, 2026, will be a day of reckoning for him.

Bill Shipp

Marana