Letters: DeSantis’ war on ‘woke’ is nothing but a Trojan Horse to attack the transgender

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Anti-trans rhetoric disheartening

Our public education institution is under attack. DeSantis’ crusade on the “woke” and “porn” in the schools is nothing more than a Trojan Horse. He is heavily funded by donors from the Heritage Foundation, as is Moms For Liberty. Their goal is to cause so much chaos and frustration in the public schools so they can dismantle public schools and turn them into charter schools for profit.

The truth of the matter is transgender people want to be included in society. There are a number of people who are against this. In their attempts to shut down this topic, they have created fear and panic. Transgender people make up less than two percent of the population. They are not a threat to your children. Children are not getting their genitals cut off. This is against the law and there isn’t one case of this happening in this country.

Change is scary and that is what is happening. I encourage you to educate yourself about this topic. Seek out medical professionals that treat transgender people. Get the facts, not the hype.

Vanessa Reynolds, Pensacola

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Disparity in wages troubling

The congressional base salary is around $174,000 per year. They recently gave themselves a $8,000 a year raise (the minimum wage has not been raised since 2009). During this time, the cost of everything has increased due to inflation. Yet, the minimum wage has not been raised or adjusted to compensate for this.

Officially, they work approximately six months a year. That makes it a part time job. If you have the misfortune of working for minimum wage, you earn $7.25 an hour times 40 hours a week equals $290 a week times 52 weeks a year equals $15,080 per year. At this rate, you would have to work almost six months to earn their raise.

How will you ever be able to buy a home, adequately support a family, etc.? At nearly $4 a gallon, you can barely afford to buy the gas to get to that $7.25 job. Our legislators are supposed to be working for us, their constituents. Instead of considering reducing their wages, their first inclination is to reduce social services, for senior citizens, such as social security and Medicare.

Legislators should have term limits and many of the ones now serving should be voted out of office. In reality, you are the modern-day equivalent of indentured servants. You do the work while corporate America rakes in the profits. Wise up and rise up.

Carlton J. Charles, Pensacola

No ‘sane’ candidate to be found

I have just read Dave Burson’s Letter to the Editor in the July 23 edition. Mr. Burson closes with, “It’s time we elect a strong, sane and moral chief executive.” I could not agree more. Mr. Burson, if you can find one please let me know. I would be thrilled to vote for them!

Dale Childs, Pensacola

DeSantis wrong about slavery

The changes made to the Black history curriculum in the Florida educational system are a travesty. The mere fact that Gov. Ron DeSantis made a statement as to the idea that learning certain skills benefited the slave personally shows the lack of any true understanding of the horrors of slavery.

The person was a slave because they had been captured, bought and sold on the coast of Africa only to be bought and sold again here in the US. They had lost their freedom, their family, language and culture. They came from nations with histories of great empires accomplished in both the practical and fine arts. They faced humiliating circumstances at every turn and were treated as goods to be marketed.

American education is Euro-centric because the majority of citizens speak English or other European languages with only a very small minority speaking languages from other continents. We are, as a nation, highly ignorant of the great histories and art of the kingdoms of Africa from which the captured slaves came. Virginia’s earliest slaves came from a commonwealth rich in trade of copper, gold and ivory, raffia cloth and pottery long before the Portuguese came.

They had their own religions, languages, arts and forms of governments. Slaves lost all identity once they came to this country. Stripped of their languages, former occupations, and cultures, they were treated as sub-human. Nothing can ever excuse or compensate for that reality.

Carolyn Joyce Tokson, Pensacola

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Maybe Biden corruption is real

I might understand the Biden family owning dozens of shell companies, because who doesn’t have a few LLC’s just sitting around. And I might understand the Bidens’ over 150 suspicious financial transaction reports from the treasury department, because I’m sure we’ve all had our share of those after large sums of cash just appear in our accounts for no apparent reason.

And I could believe that Hunter’s bank being shut down for suspicion of money laundering wasn’t significant, because I guess banks just randomly get shut down like that and it’s no one’s fault. And I suppose Hunter’s laptop detailing all the illegal financial schemes he and his father were involved in could have been Russian disinformation, even though most of the contents have been verified and the New York Times says it’s authentic.

And maybe the IRS whistleblowers are lying when they claim that the Department of Justice slow-walked their investigation into the Bidens to exceed the statute of limitations so no one could be charged, but more and more witnesses keep saying it’s true.

So, it’s beginning to look like there just might be something to this whole Biden corruption thing.

Robert Sapp, Pensacola

Congress must stop VA madness

In 2016 and 2017, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs received 4,207 complaints related to schools who enrolled veterans. Of those, just 64 met the requirement of a review by the host states’ State Approving Agency. Only 14 of those complaints were substantiated by the SAA, mine from another state were among those that were not substantiated.

Per the current system as told to me by the Veterans Benefits Administration, is that the findings of the SAA are not to be questioned and are to be accepted as an absolute period, even when evidence strongly supports the veteran. The VBA also told me that there is no mechanism in place for the veteran to appeal the findings of the SAA.

For over five years, I have tried without success to bring attention to this matter to many in congress, veterans’ organizations and to the national association of SAA’s with zero interest despite two reports issued by the VA’s Office of Inspector General, who found widespread issues in the VBA’s use of SAAs, which have not only found bad and questionable schools approved by the SAA and funded, but also noted that millions if not billions of your tax dollars are still going to some of these schools both public and private.

Congress must stop this madness and bring accountability to bad actors, a name often used by those in Congress when describing those schools in which some sadly display the infamous yellow ribbon. #notonemoreveteran

Michael Hainline, Pensacola

SAVE does forgiveness the right way

Recently, the Supreme Court of the United States blocked President Biden’s program to forgive student loans. A USA Today contributor wrote a column explaining her point of view on the subject. Unfortunately, her POV had a lot of talking points from the American Enterprise Institute, which Wikipedia calls “a center-right think tank.” I strongly urge USA Today to have its columnists present a balanced view in their columns or have another columnist present the opposing view in a separate column on the same page.

An opposing viewpoint, for example, could include the talking points presented in a Brookings Institution commentary. Wikipedia says that “An academic analysis of congressional records from 1993 to 2002 found that Brookings was cited by conservative politicians almost as often as by liberal politicians.” The Brookings report, (02/12/2021), suggests better ways to target the forgiveness plan and it looks like President Biden’s new SAVE plan makes those changes.

I make one more point. The USA TODAY columnist says that SCOTUS told Biden “…he couldn’t proceed with wiping out more than $400 billion in debt without Congress’ approval” yet the Congressional Budget Office in May said that the Republicans’ Trump tax cuts are going to add a half trillion dollars to the U.S. debt in the same 10 years that Biden’s SAVE program would be helping Americans directly.

The Republicans likely won’t take a giant step for needy Americans and seem likely to shut down our government entirely.

Jeffrey Elliot, Pensacola

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This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Letters: DeSantis’ war on ‘woke’ a Trojan Horse to attack transgender