Letters to the Editor by JP Pierce

October 3, 2022

     I found a political flier on our doorstep the other day, placed there by some misguided folks who work for the Pinal County Republican Committee. I shared this propaganda sheet with my family at the dinner table that evening and we found it darkly ironic and highly amusing. Why?       (1) everyone in our house is a registered Democrat. (2) the sheer hypocrisy of this flier — Vote for freedom vote Republican — blew up louder than a Russian tank in a Ukrainian minefield.

     So, let’s parse this one out together, shall we? Freedom. Republican. Vote.

     1) Where’s the Freedom in criminalizing women’s reproductive rights — which is what Republican state legislators have done.

     2) Where’s the Freedom when a Republican state legislature bans books in our public libraries and schools?

     3) Where’s the Freedom in suppressing, intimidating and denying Arizonans their legal right to vote? Why not make voting more accessible to everyone? How’s that for Freedom?

     4) Where’s the Freedom when the very principles of life and liberty this country was founded on are now threatened by Republican hard-liners cowering behind the alleged constitutional right that every American, regardless of emotional or mental or political stability, has the right to own and operate a military-grade assault weapon?

     For the record, my family and I are very grateful we live in a state — and a country — where we have the Freedom to choose our political party and our representatives

August 22, 2022

     Republican paranoia and hysteria have reached new heights (or maybe I should say new lows).

     First, they panicked about the Inflation Reduction Act funding — 87,000 more IRS auditors. They spread fear among average Americans that their odds of being audited will go up. The average American does not make over $400,000 a year. The odds that the average American will be audited remain the same as before. But the wealthy who have avoided paying taxes will be audited at higher rates than before and that is why Republicans are in a panic.

     That panic had not subsided before Republicans panicked again — this time because the FBI, with a valid search warrant, entered Mar-a-Lago to retrieve documents that Trump had no right to possess. They are trying to spread fear among average Americans that the FBI will come knocking on their doors next. This is typical Republican fear-mongering. The FBI needs a reason to come to your door. That reason must be solid enough that a judge will sign a search warrant to authorize the visit.

     Relax. You are not likely a target of the IRS or the FBI. Unless you make over $400,000 a year and do not pay your taxes, or unless you are engaged in criminal activity, your life will not change. Unless, that is, you vote more Republicans into office who will surely intrude on your finances and your privacy in ways you will not like but will be powerless to stop if you fail to stop them now. 

October 30, 2021

     It is interesting how often Republicans criticize Biden for actions (and inactions) that apply equally to Donald Trump. The latest examples, by Edwin De Smith (Oct. 28) include:

1) Media coverage helped Biden get elected; media over-exposure got Trump elected in 2016.

2) Hunter Biden’s questionable investments; Trump and his adult children’s questionable financial dealings are still under investigation.

3) Promised to unify America but instead split us; Trump did more to divide Americans than any other modern president.

4) All about retaining power and creating a one-party system; again, Trump has demonstrated these tendencies ten times over.

5) “Can you imagine a president, any president, saying, “I might get in trouble if I say this”? De Smith apparently has forgotten the numerous times that Trump prefaced a controversial statement with those words. For example: “I shouldn’t say this,” just before praising Montana’s Gianforte for assaulting a reporter, and “I shouldn’t say this because I want to unite … but the fact is we’re driving them crazy.” These are just two of many such statements made by Trump.

     Republicans need to examine Trump’s history, behavior and quotes before hurling charges at Democrats, charges that their idol is guilty of. Otherwise, they may be perceived as hypocrites. (gasp!)

JP Pierce

July 17, 2021

     Sen. Sinema may as well hang a “for sale” sign on her Senate office door. It is no secret whom she is beholden to, and it is not her constituents in Arizona. Her allegiance is to her big dollar donors in the finance, insurance and real estate industries. Her stubborn support for the filibuster is not her first betrayal. In 2019, she was the lone Democrat to oppose net neutrality, and, more recently, she is one of a handful of Democrats to vote against a $15 minimum wage. 

     Her unyielding stance on the filibuster will ensure that our voting rights are compromised in future elections.      While Sinema is big on political theater, she might spend more time on serious legislating. She has missed 63 roll call votes, 6.5% (the median is 1.6%), including one that she called “critical,” the Jan. 6 bipartisan commission vote. I would suggest you write or call her, but I really do not think she is listening to the voters. Whomever she is working for, it is clearly not the people who worked hard to get her elected.

JP Pierce - Coolidge

(The photo above is Sinema giving a "thumbs down" to raising the minimum wage to $15/hr.)

January 25, 2021  

     The efforts of Democrats to make voting easier are met by resistance from Republicans: mailing ballots to all registered voters; same day voter registration; automatic registration; no-excuse absentee voting. Republicans are having none of it. Instead, they actively try to make it harder to vote by passing overly strict voter ID laws; requiring witness counter-signatures on mail-in ballots; reductions in polling places; last-minute changes in polling places; fewer and outdated machines in minority voting precincts; purging qualified voters from voter rolls.     

     In Texas, there will be only one drop-off site per county, meaning that Harris County, with over 4 million residents, 70% of whom are non-white, will have one drop-off site for ballots. This pattern is repeating all over the country where Republican governors or secretaries of state call the shots: make it as hard and as inconvenient as possible for people to vote, especially voters of color, senior and youth voters. And in California, Republicans are illegally putting up unofficial drop-off boxes for ballots in defiance of a court order to cease-and-desist. Recent changes to the USPS are obviously designed to negatively impact the vote-by-mail process. This is just a sampling of their efforts to suppress the vote.     

     Clearly, Republicans are scared and willing to do anything to shift the vote in their direction. It would appear that they are afraid of true democracy, where the people decide the outcome of an election. That scares them because they know that they only win elections if fewer voters turn out to vote. 2020 is shaping up to be a record-breaking year for voter turnout. They have reason to be scared.
JP Pierce - Coolidge 

June 9, 2020

     Do you value your Social Security benefits? The availability of unemployment insurance should you find yourself out of a job? Thank FDR, a Democrat. Do you value Medicare or Medicaid? Thank LBJ, a Democrat.

     Now ask yourself: Who, for decades, has campaigned to eliminate, reduce or privatize these programs? Republicans and Libertarians. Right now, behind closed doors, Mitt Romney is rallying Republicans to support his TRUST Act, which aims to gut Social Security benefits. The Republican response to soaring deficits is to cut benefits to seniors, children and the disabled. Meanwhile, Republicans are the source of ballooning debt and deficits.

     Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act led to reforms in corporate and personal taxes that significantly impacted revenue (negatively) while benefiting the ultra-rich. George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which promised to spur economic growth and “pay for themselves,” instead only escalated income and wealth inequality and reduced federal revenues by $1.8 trillion between 2002 and 2009 while increasing the debt. When Republicans cut taxes, it benefits the 1%, not working people or retirees.

     Now think back over the decades and try to itemize the ways in which Republicans have made your life easier or more successful (assuming you are not part of the 1%).

     Even now, in the midst of a health and economic crisis — with 110,000 Americans dead and counting, with 40 million Americans unemployed and counting — Republicans balk at passing new legislation that would offer additional resources to Americans who are struggling to survive. And our “leader”? He is focused on finger-pointing and name-calling, on ending the ACA, stopping U.S. support of the WHO, silencing the CDC.

     Who is your friend and who is your foe? It has never been clearer than now.

JP Pierce - Coolidge  

May 4, 2020

     While many of us appreciate the fine line that doctors, nurses, and scientists must walk in trying to get reliable information out to the public while simultaneously avoiding the wrath of Donald Trump, few appreciate the fine line that Trump must walk in trying to appease the various factions of his base. For example, in suspending immigration, Trump gains the support of one sector of his base, the white nationalists, while other sectors, business and the 1%, do not embrace that policy. Pity poor Trump, trying to appeal to both the everyday working schmuck and the ultra-wealthy at the same time.

     While blocking immigration appeals to some of Trump's base, just imagine the hardships the rich will face if Trump successfully limits immigration. Businesses may have to pay their workers a living wage with benefits like health insurance and paid leave time, and the rich will suddenly be faced with the challenge of mowing their own lawns, cooking their own meals and raising their own children.

JP Pierce - Coolidge

April 1, 2020

     To those who might believe that the allegations of voter suppression are exaggerated, you now have confirmation from the horse’s mouth. Trump just admitted that if the proposals to make voting easier were enacted, “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” Exactly. This is the real reason that Republicans promote making it as hard as possible to vote. They win when turnout is low.

     And Mitch McConnell says he is opposed to making election day a national holiday because it will result in higher voter turnout and he fears people will vote for Democrats.

     This is not new. In 1980, Paul Weyrich, co-founder of ALEC, said, “I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. … As a matter of fact our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

     So there you have it. Republicans have been winning elections based not on the success of their ideas but on the success of their voter suppression efforts. They may say it is to protect the integrity of voting, to stop voter fraud, but that is a lie. The fraud is theirs. Voter suppression is meant to protect their candidates. Against what? Against the will of the people.

JP Pierce - Coolidge