Comment Archives
Re: “Guest Commentary”
Why not release those records detailing the relationship between TREO and the City of Tucson?
Closed door, "self-appointed clique" decision-making style politics and politicians have got to go!
Re: “Defending Congressman Trent Franks' Comments About Rape and Pregnancy”
If abortion was treated like tubal ligation or vasectomy i.e. a medical procedure between a patient and physician, the "Gosnell situation" would have never existed. Defending anti-choice politicians, who keep moving the goalposts for a safe, legal medical procedure, isn't a good look on you Tucson Weekly.
Re: “AZ House Passes Budget, Medicaid Expansion”
^ I had the same thought! ^
Re: “Grant Road Rage”
Sorry, Peter J., I'm not a fan of your idea.
There isn't enough traffic in this town to justify it...
I've been involved in opposing this Grant Road nonsense since moving down here from the S.F. bay area -- where there IS A REAL TRAFFIC PROBLEM. But thanks to a rigged election paid for by Click, Diamond and the rest of the growth uber alles characters and a cowardly Council we're still facing the threat...
In all likelihood though, after the next economic collapse and the inevitable population flight from Tucson, they'll run out of money before getting to our neighborhood...
Of course, that doesn't help our neighbors in this article whose lives have been degraded by RTA FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) and the execrable few who profit from "growth"!
Re: “Under Arrest”
Yes, it is true boys and girls.... The police totally disregard the patient protection laws concerning medical marijuana and arrest you anyways. The money you spend for the doctor's prescription ($100-200) combined with the registration fee for Arizona Department of Health Services ($150) is all for nothing. Recently, the police without permission, probable cause nor search warrant entered into my friend's house and discovered a a small amount of marijuana and 5 small plants being cultivated. The amounts found and seized were well below the allowable limits of marijuana set forth in ARS.36-2801. Further, the police ignored ARS.36-2811 which are suppose to protect Medical Marijuana patients from exactly this type of abuse by authorities. Obviously, the police don't enforce, recognize, nor obey these laws because they don't like them because they prefer to loot and take whatever they please from a Medical Marijuana Patient's home without any culpability. If any other individual or group entered into a person's home without permission, and acted as the police did, they would be charged with everything from burglary, theft, robbery, breaking and entering, trespass, etc... but since it was the police it's okay to trash the patent's personal items and take whatever they wish (even though ARS. 36-2811 prohibits such action by police). The next or following day the police obtained a search warrant after already searching the house and arresting my friend the day earlier. I thought police were suppose to obtain a search warrant signed by a judge before searching and not the other way around? Please remember that this all began when a police officer arrived outside my friend's house to investigate something else completely which appears to have happened outside in front of his house on the street. My friend was not involved whatsoever, nor did he have any knowledge of what happened earlier outside on the street of his residence. My friend was only standing on the front porch of his residence curious as well to what had happened. The police officer asked my friend questions but my friend had been asleep in his bedroom located in the back of his house further away from the street. In fact, he told me he was awaken by the noises of whatever took place outside the front his home. According to my friend, by the time he got out of bed, went to the bathroom, and walked to the front of his house, the street appeared quiet until a few seconds later when the police arrived. My friend had absolutely no idea of about what had happened earlier in front of his residence, in which the officer was now investigating. The police officer asked if there was anyone else inside my friend's home and my friend responded "no, I live alone and there was no one else inside". However, to my friend's surprise the officer promptly marched up the stairs onto the porch, pushed my friend aside, then opened the front door of his house so to verify no one else was inside the residence. According to my friend, the police officer then entered into his house and said that he could smell marijuana odor inside the residence. The police officer swiftly handcuffed my friend (thereby arresting) by putting him into the back of his police car. My friend possesses a current Medical Marijuana Card with Authorized to Cultivate for that address and told the officer the MMJ card was in his wallet on the table inside his house and he would have no problem getting it for the officer. The officer said no he will find it and re-entered my friend's residence. My friend was helplessly handcuffed in the back of the police car. The police officer had already once pushed my friend aside to open the door and entered the house to look if others were inside, without requesting permission, so my friend believed the officer was looking for his MMJ card to verify my friend's story, so he believed that the officer would return momentarily to take off the handcuffs and release him after verifying his patient status. However, again to my friend's surprise, the officer returned only to tell my friend he was going to charged with possession and cultivation of marijuana. The officer said that he discovered 5 marijuana plants growing in 5 gallon buckets in the back of the room of the residence. My friend lives alone and normally keeps his plants locked away in a private room of personal residence when he receives visitors. My friend had less than one half of the amounts allowed patient's so to comply within accordance to Arizona Medical Marijuana laws. Yet, he was still arrested and charged possession and cultivation.... so folks don't think the Medical Marijuana card protects you... because it does not stop the police whatsoever from arresting and charging you with it anyways. The police will only do what they do best, "protect and serve" their own interests and can care less about you, your civil rights, nor any laws protecting patients against illegal arrests, search and seizures. Moreover, it apparent by their actions that the police believe that the law does not apply to them, and in most cases it appears they are correct. How many times have you heard of a police officer actually being held accountable for any illegal actions they may have committed while conducting an investigation? Police do whatever they want to do to the average person without fear of punishment because they are the enforcers of law, so therefore above being held accountable if they were to break them, because they are certainly not going arrest themselves if they did violate any laws. Think for a moment on how many times do you hear about the police arresting police for stealing money from a drug bust? I have never read in the paper or heard on the news even once of this happening. Have you? Yet, everyone has heard and\or knows someone who the police have taken money from, but before it got checked into evidence, it became a much smaller amount than was actually confiscated from a suspect. If your life depended on the following question, which would you honestly choose as your answer. There is a drug bust of a member of one of the drug cartels. The cartel member tells his boss that the police confiscated $1,500,000 and this was also verified by three other cartel members who assisted in counting the money. However, when the police checked the money confiscated at the drug bust into evidence there was only $1,152,000. Again, your life depends on the correct answer; honestly, who would you choose took the money? Or maybe, you believe that criminals are really bad accountants and don't know how much they have collected? Therefore, it should be no big surprise to hear that the police then more or less robbed my friend's house by taking unrelated items, such as TV's cameras, money, jewelry and his prescriptions issued 3 days earlier by a local hospital for his heart and blood pressure. I really wish that I could say that this isolated occasion by police and a rare abuse of police misconduct, unfortunately it is the norm and not the exception of what happens to our possessions if police enter into our homes. Nowadays, we have only the right to think we are protected with civil rights... but trust that it is nothing less than an illusion or a fairy tale. The checks and balances set forth in the scripting of the US Constitution no longer exists within the democratic system of today. The Bill of Rights is just that... an invoice of what it will cost you to keep or protect what is rightfully yours. The founding fathers of this country intended to protect individual rights against oppression and tyranny by the ruling body of government in power. The average american individual is powerless to protect themselves from being tyrannized by government agencies serving their own agendas and interests. Face it, unfortunately, "We the people" only receive justice if we are one of the few in power which can afford to buy it, or one those in power which decides on whom the laws, shall or shall not, be applied and enforced against. Taxpayers, please have no doubt about one thing; Regardless of how frivolous the case and how it may unjustly devastate a person's life, some government agencies will have no problem spending large amounts of your tax dollars to justify their paychecks. I wish to end this opinion by stating that there are many good police officers and government agencies out there which serve the public admirably. Please understand, I intend no disrespect towards them for the abuses of power committed by some of their colleagues that make them look bad. I applaud their efforts and believe they have a very difficult job in which they perform daily with integrity. I thank all of those deserving for their honorable service and dedication in maintaining public well being. Thank You for your Service!
Re: “Grant Road Rage”
Face it, folks. Get ready for this town to eventually empty out -- down to a sustainable population before long...
This WILL happen because, thanks in no small part to Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Climate Destabilization, the WATER IS RUNNING OUT and there will be more, hotter days per year...
To widen Grand Road at this time, when traffic counts are GOING DOWN and the regressive sales tax money is NOT there is pandering to a mythical "future" pushed by the growth lobby...
This town will not get to ONE MILLION population let alone the 2 million that PAG, the growth lobby and CofC and other fantasists think it will...
STOP the madness now! Begin with Broadway and Grant Road. Repair and improve but DON'T WIDEN THEM!
Re: “Guest Commentary”
Does Salomón think if you assert something passionately enough, you don't need to provide evidence?
Among the many claims being made here is this whopper: "Grand Canyon University, via TREO (Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities Inc.), was a vehicle to destroy El Rio and its historical memory and the political activism it represents.
If this sinister speculation were really so, the situation would be a genuine scandal. And I don't doubt that Mr. Baldenegro really believes it. There are probably dozens of people on the west side that imagine similarly sinister forces behind the recent El Rio proposal. But if he's intent on persuading a crowd larger than his circle of friends, he's going to need to put some evidence behind his claims.
How does Salomón know "Romero got one person to attack El Rio golfers at a City Council meeting...?" Because he states this as a fact. He says "the real agenda" behind the GCU proposal "is to do to the westside what was done to the downtown barrios in the 1960s." If he's so confident about this theory, where are the facts to support it? (Lemme guess, the Big Bad City of Tucson is hiding them all?)
And who, anyway, appointed Salomón spokesman of the "West Side?" Last I checked, thousands of people live on the west side. Most of those who voted in the last election, voted for Mayor Rothschild and Council Member Romero. And most probably would be happy to again.
Re: “Guest Commentary”
So this golf course must be maintained in perpetuity as a symbol of a political movement? Ludicrous
Re: “Best Upscale Cuisine”
Had the Thanksgiving buffet at Hacienda del Sol last year. Just felt like taking a year off from the all day cooking. If this is representative of their usual fare I have to say we were immensely unimpressed, especially considering the $65 a head they were charging. The desserts were provided by an outside vendor, the turkey was dry as toast, a scallop appetizer dish was obviously previously frozen and was being kept at a dangerous lukewarm temperature. If this is the acme of Tucson fine dining than this city deserves the reputation people in Phoenix like to heap upon it.
Re: “Clown Time Is Over: Brewer Calls Special Session To Finish Budget, Medicaid Expansion”
Even though there may be a few crumbs in the ACA that will help some folks, the fact that Brewer, the Chambers and the corporate Sick-Care-Industrial-Complex are pushing for the expansion should give pause to many of you Obama-defenders.
The ACA was WRITTEN by the USAmerican Sick Care Industry and was designed around these major principles:
1) Continue tinkering with the corporate for-profit sick care model in the face of the fact that EVERY OTHER advanced industrialized country has abandoned that failed experiment.
2) Shovel more hundreds of billions into the coffers of the Sick-Care-Industrial-Complex -- a large portion of which will be used for more lobbyists and to buy more politicians...by forcing people to purchase a defective corporate product...
3) Push off a real solution (Improved and Enhanced Medicare For All) for at least another decade ("wait 'till' it's all in place and then we'll see", say the Obama-bots) meanwhile leaving tens of millions of USAmericans out in the cold...
Re: “Buzzfeed Report: Flake Apologizes for Son's Racist and Anti-Gay Tweets”
Awfully christian of him, isn't it?
Re: “Best Pizza”
Vero Amore. Ballparks and lunch counters are all the majority of New Yorkers know about pizza. Vero Amore is the real deal like what you'll get in the best places in Little Italy.
Re: “Antenori on Special Session: "The Base Is Furious. This Is Awesome!"”
Doesn't Frank have some varmints to hunt or something?
Re: “Antenori on Special Session: "The Base Is Furious. This Is Awesome!"”
Antenori -- the gift that keeps on giving...
For lovers of self-parody...
Re: “Smith Smacks His Head”
Mr. Smith, it is not often we get to enjoy in print a raving maniac such as you. If you don't want to wear t-shrits and display bumper stickers to avoid enraging the cops, that is your wise choice. I don't wear them either. Here is Houston cops are part of the drug trade. They might think I was trying to cut in to their territory. Or I might be a prospective customer. But mostly they work for the big boys. However, I do enrage cops, military types, and religious crazies with a "War is Not the Answer" bumper sticker.
(I was charged nearly $400 for a dollar fuse for my air conditioner at an auto repair shop just outside the entrance of Davis-Monthan because I had this anti-war bumper sticker. The testosterone rose to such a level I thought the macho/wussie war-mongering owner was going to attack himself.)
If you think grass is carcinogenic, why do you smoke it every day?
You are a very confused, hysterical person. I hope grass is not to blame.
Here is Texas we think of 4/20 as Willie Nelson's birthday. And happy hour usually starts for us a little after 4 pm, so 4/20 works for us every day and we are a happy lot, except for the hate-filled teabaggers and right wing religious crazies. If smoking pot were mandatory for them I wonder if they would light up, loosen up, and become sane. That might be too much to ask of one beloved, magical plant.
Re: “Danehy”
I'm almost entirely sure he is...and that's before I even read your article.
Re: “Defending Congressman Trent Franks' Comments About Rape and Pregnancy”
There is no rational defense for what this idiot is trying to get passed into law.
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Re: “Grant Road Rage”
Sweet piece, Mr. Nitzel.
Although, I'm dismayed that, so far, none of the comments I've read seem to acknowledge what was your central point.
Which was, "In the meantime, the Garcias are huddling in a small bedroom with their kids while they wait for their insurance company to decide what it's willing pay to replace the wall."
What a cold, heartless place Tucson is becoming.