Letters to the editor for Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Freedom-hating bully

While the far-right DeSantis worshipers in Florida are blinded by their adoration of the guv, seems the rest of the country is not so impressed. It appears his idea of “woke” and the rest of the country’s are very different things. To be woke is to be aware, informed, tuned in. One of the guv’s supporters, an editorial letter writer, actually stated that to take the definition of woke from the dictionary was “insane.” Really? Where would you suggest we learn definitions? Should we call the guv? The fact that our fearless leader has adopted the phrase “Florida is where woke goes to die” is actually as stupid as it sounds. So he wants only ignorant, unaware, mindless sheep in Florida? Must be since he has taken to try to “kill” wokeness every single day.

As for his abortion policies, concealed carry allowance with no training, book banning and firing public figures who disagree with him, or threatening to punish Disney because they didn’t come to heel, shows him to be the freedom-hating bully that he is.

One last note. Let’s take a deep dive into the selection of our state’s surgeon general, Dr. Ladapo. First do a search on America’s Frontline Doctors, a group Dr. Ladapo and one Dr. Stella Emmanuel (educated in Cameroon) belong to. Then do a search on Dr. Stella Emmanuel, an anti-vaxxer who supported taking a horse tranquilizer to treat COVID. She made a speech on the steps of the Supreme Court declaring that “alien DNA was being used in medical treatments” and that “women’s health issues were the result of having sex with demons and witches in their dreams.” This is not a joke. Standing behind her in support, in his white lab coat, our very own Surgeon General Dr. Ladapo. If any of this doesn’t cause you to question DeSantis’ decision-making ability, you are not facing reality.

Janet Carpenter, North Fort Myers

Too much micromanaging

When the Naples Beach Club (NBC) opens its doors, it will be one of the finest resorts in the world, and an economic engine for our city. Let it be known that Vice Mayor Michael McCabe and Councilman Terry Hutchison make the process of developing that property miserable, expensive, and time consuming for the Athens Group (the developer). They continue to do this despite business owners, community leaders, and residents showing up at City Council meetings to speak in favor of the project. No residents have spoken in opposition for months. They abuse their powers of approval for standard architectural variations. They micromanage every aspect of the project disregarding the expertise of city committees, legal counsel, and staff. They subvert the roles of FEMA, OHSA, the State of Florida, and the county government. They dominate and control the City Council meetings. And they coerce the developer by stating in the public record that future variances may require unrelated concessions. They wish to take full political credit for the perpetual open space on the property. Their problem is the election cycle is moving faster than the physics of construction.For those residents that do not vote locally but love this country and this city, you need to pay attention. Mr. McCabe and Mr. Hutchison do not think you will vote the next time either. For now, tell them to approve the variations requested for NBC’s Market Square.

Shawn Connors, Naples

A role model?

I noticed Rep. Byron Donalds' endorsement of the former president 19 months before the election and in the middle of Holy Week. Mr. Donalds' Twitter profile declares himself to be a "Follower of Christ." So either Mr. Donalds believes the former president to be a Christian role model, or he doesn't expect to see a better option coming along in the next year. Either is a scary proposition for the GOP.

James Smith, Bonita Springs

Corrupt institution

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to vote on whether the F.D.A. is the agency that regulates drugs, in this instance an abortion drug, or whether the court takes over that function.

Now we find out that the justices who will decide that issue are allowed to take hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts from someone who has a political agenda to outlaw that drug, with no rules to disclose those gifts.

Because of the First Amendment (freedom of the press), we have learned that Justice Thomas has done just that, yet there will be no way to remove him from voting in that case. Worse, we have no idea who of the other justices have failed to disclose gifts that would have an influence on their decision in this, or any other issue.

All other public office holders work under rules that govern whether they are allowed to make decisions on an issue where there is a conflict of interest, but apparently not the U.S. Supreme Court. As it now stands, billionaires are free to donate millions to campaigns of lawmakers who appoint and approve judges; now we learn they can give undisclosed gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to justices of the U.S. Supreme Court in order to influence decisions that further their political agenda or give them an advantage in business.

Look for the court to twist itself into a pretzel to create reasoning that makes this abortion drug illegal. This is the very definition of a corrupt institution.

Judy Freiberg, Naples

Wake up, Republicans

Battle lines are drawn; brute force versus law-and-order. Busloads of militias from Naples attacked Congress January 6 to sustain Trump as president. Recently Trump demanded of his cult members in the House to defund the FBI and the DOJ, America’s front lines of defense.In desperation from losing voter support Republican cult members seek brute force to win control of our government. They seek open carry for cult members of AR-15 rifles, even in schools and McDonalds. They enact laws forcing death to women with all too common ectopic pregnancies. South Korea’s leading economy was from science education and the Republican cult is destroying our public schools by illegal (Constitutional Amendment I) vouchers.

The severity of Republicans’ voter problem was illustrated in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz overwhelming defeat of the Republican cult candidate. Republican Kansas voted overwhelmingly to permit abortions. Unless Republicans dramatically alter their policies and strategies based on the will of the people this will be the typical outcome of forthcoming elections.

Wake up DeSantis, Passidomo, Rick Scott, Marco Rubio, and other legislators. Law and order are being achieved and maintained by careful review of facts systematically by grand juries. If indictments result based on real evidence, proper trials will decide whether Trump is convicted of crimes and sentenced to jail. Responsible Republican politicians should absolutely condemn use of brute force including AR-15s in a civilized America.

William Pettinger M.D., Bonita Springs

Hypocrisy in action

It appears hypocritical that the Republican controlled Community Affairs Committee backs this bill allowing people to sue over removal of monuments such as Confederate monuments with their supporting comments that they are reminders of the racist social hierarchy that can still be felt today, but these same Republicans ban books about this country's racist past! Even Senator Baxley states the bill "may force us to confront our failures of the past ... but to condemn other people's memorialization, when they're not even here to explain themselves or their role, I think it's very disrespectful." Rosa Parks was Black but that fact was removed from the book. So explain Republicans!

Richard Quist, Estero

Punishing political opponents

If Governor DeSantis uses the power of the state to punish his political opponents (Disney), what type of president will he make holding one of the most powerful offices in the world?

Scott Nichols, Fort Myers

Undeterred by anonymous caller

I am a frequent writer to the letters to the editor section. I have always felt that if you truly believe your opinions are relevant, supportable and worthy of sharing with others, you should be willing to take the time to put them in writing and sign your name to it. Social media and to a lesser degree, even cell phones, allow too many to be electronic cowards who spit out frequent, anonymous, unsupported, indefensible, vitriolic opinions which they cannot defend and which would not stand up to even minimal scrutiny. To that point, recently I was left an anonymous voicemail from a restricted number during which the female caller lambasted me in a profanity-laced tirade for a recent opinion piece I wrote questioning Mr. DeSantis’ motivation and judgment for bringing costly taxpayer funded litigation against Disney. I also questioned the not-insignificant amount of taxpayer money (mine and yours) being spent to defend the thin-skin governor against other non-issue crusades he has embarked on to burnish his MAGA credentials. The caller ended by telling me, “we don’t want you here in Southwest Florida.” I really thought this line captured the essence of MAGA which has proven itself to be a group not inclined to hear the truth for fear it might conflict with their already formed opinions. For more on that I refer you to the lawsuit, Dominion Voting Systems vs Fox “News”. Oddly, as a Black American and a retired Marine, the words of the caller resonated with me in another way as they were almost the exact ones used by the Commandant of the Marine Corps in 1941 when told by Congress to accept Blacks into the Corps. General Holcomb, the leader of the Marine Corps at the time, famously said, “we don’t want them, let them join another club.” Well, here I am after a successful 30-year career culminating in retiring as a colonel of Marines. Being woke to that history, I think I will stay in Southwest Florida, ma’am.

Thomas Minor, Bonita Springs

This is what we have become

Our country, in only two disastrous years, has become an absolute disgrace. Criminals, Blacks, and the LGBTQ+ have been elevated to a protected class by liberal/Marxist/fascist law enforcement officials and judges. Men who could not compete amongst their own have been declared women, and now dominate biological females. Children, once protected from evil, are now being groomed by sexual deviants. Our military leadership has surrendered to our enemies and instead promotes new goals of proper pronouns and the climate hoax. They cannot meet their recruiting goals and have "cleansed' their ranks of conservatives who actually love and would defend our great country. We went from energy independence to begging others for oil. Food prices have soared. We have major supply shortages and inflation eroding our savings.

Our dollar is on the verge of losing reserve status which causes a financial disaster. Our most important elections are now dominated by fraud, bought and paid for by Soros, Zuckerberg, Gates and China. Politicians in both parties are almost impossible to vote out of office, are beholding to China, and are more concerned about themselves instead of doing what is right for our country. Our federal agencies have been weaponized against one man they fear and are now targeting all citizens who dare to disagree with tyranny. Our news media lies to our faces and refused to cover stories they don't like. They are using every excuse to strip away our constitutional gun rights but refuse to address the root causes of gun violence -- criminals, illegal immigrants, and the mentally disturbed. It is impossible to have a conversation with liberals without being canceled, insulted, or name-calling.They give illegal immigrants and those who refuse to work everything "free" while threatening to cut services to American taxpayers and veterans.

The United States, once the greatest nation on the planet, has become a banana republic, an embarrassment and a betrayal to all who have sacrificed life and limb to protect her.

Thomas Harakal, Naples

IRS not concerned with service

Your April 6, 2023 Associated Press article “New IRS leader promises faster, easier tax filing process” stated that new IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said he would release a Strategic Operating Plan within a week. Supposedly the plan will address changing the IRS into “a more modern and high-performing IRS that provides world-class services to taxpayers.”

I wish him luck with that, but the IRS is not concerned with service.

The U.S. tax system is hopelessly complex, and more hardware and software will not change the tax codes. More than 175 million notices to taxpayers are sent out annually after they have filed their return.

These notices are computer printed (once an IRS employee types in all the information about the taxpayer), provide a call center telephone number (answer less than 15% of the time) and says they are working on your account but need 60 days to send a complete response.

Notices never provide the name and phone number of an employee the taxpayer can talk with directly to resolve an issue. Ironically, Congress passed legislation H.R. 2676 -- Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform of 1998 which states in Section 3705 "any manually generated correspondence received by a taxpayer from the IRS shall include in a prominent manner the name, telephone number, and unique identifying number of an IRS employee the taxpayer may contact."

The IRS unilaterally choses to ignore the clear intent of the legislation by claiming notices they send out are not manually generated. Is it any wonder that taxpayers believe that the IRS views taxpayers as an adversary and not a customer.

Ron Dudley, Sanibel

Allow ranked-choice voting

We seem to take the state's infringement on our free speech rights in the voting booth for granted. Whenever an independent candidate who we prefer to either of the two major party candidates enters a race we are faced with a dilemma. Do we vote with our heart and select the upstart independent democracy champion who has entered the race? Or do we cast our vote with one of the two major party lesser-evil candidates so as not to enable the greater-evil to win?

If you truly support the independent candidate how can you express your opinion on the ballot without enabling the "greater-evil"? The answer is you cannot, your true political opinion cannot be expressed on the "single-mark" ballot, a ballot which only allows you to express your opinion on a single candidate even when three or more are running. This is a clear and blatant violation of our First Amendment free-speech rights and it happens where it matters most, in the voting booth.

There is a simple solution. Preferential voting. A simple upgrade to our voting system where we will be able to express our true preference, our full political opinion on all the candidates. In our example above we would list our preferences as: 1st choice: The independent; 2nd choice: The lesser-evil; 3rd choice: [none]

Free-speech right protected? Check.

Now how to determine the winner. Easy. We use a counting method known as instant run-off voting (IRV).

The votes are counted looking at the first choice on each ballot. If someone has earned over 50% of the vote they win.

In a three-way race as in our example, this may not happen. Let's say the independent has earned 10% of the vote leaving each of the two existing major parties with 45%. How do we proceed? Well, the independent candidate is eliminated from contention. But here is the key: the voters who chose the independent candidate are not. Those ballots listing the independent candidate first are now counted for the candidate listed as the second choice.

Now with only two candidates remaining one is guaranteed to earn over 50% and win the election. The majority has spoken.

Unfortunately, the State of Florida and Gov. DeSantis have outlawed this practice, also known as ranked-choice voting. They wish to continue infringing on your First Amendment rights as a voter.

Herb Tarbous, Bonita Springs

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Letters to the editor for Wednesday, April 12, 2023