Tuesday's letters: Decisive victory gives governor a mandate, no appeasement for Putin

Floridians voted for, support DeSantis

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, “I met a man so learned that he could name a horse in nine languages, so ignorant that he bought a cow to ride on.”

Franklin was describing common sense, a trait lost on many individuals writing editorials and letters today.

First: Elections have consequences. Gov. Ron DeSantis was re-elected by a margin of almost 20 percentage points, the largest since 1982. However, the daily drip, drip, drip of negative commentaries regarding DeSantis continues to fill the Opinion section of the Herald-Tribune, while his positive achievements are buried below the fold.

Related:DeSantis wants people held accountable for COVID

More: How to send a letter to the editor

Is it too difficult to comprehend that Floridians cast their votes for a governor with a specific vision on major issues? Thus, elections do have real-life consequences.

Second: Interstate 95, Interstate 75 and Florida airports have options that allow for an exit from our “terrible” state with our “terrible” governor.

However, the reverse is true. Thousands of citizens from other states are moving to Florida.

Ron Carr, Sarasota

Republicans need to rethink priorities

It’s a new year. What are Republicans doing?

In Congress, they’re doubling down on ending a woman’s right to choose while raising budget deficits and helping rich tax cheats by defunding the IRS. (The lie about “hiring 87,000 new agents” omits that it replaces retirees over 10 years. The Treasury secretary says only incomes over $400,000 would be affected.)

They're also shutting down the ethics office and investigations into crimes committed by GOP politicians; supporting Rep. George Santos, the only man ever to lie more than Donald Trump; and vow to crash America’s economy by forfeiting on our debt unless Democrats agree to slash Medicare and Social Security.

The GOP will also spend millions investigating a laptop that probably belonged to Hunter Biden, was somehow obtained by Rudy Giuliani and contained files added months later that forensic analysts call “a mess.”

Even so, according to PolitiFact, “Nothing from the laptop has revealed illegal or unethical behavior by Joe Biden.”

Seidman column:New College ‘makeover’ would stifle promising students

Meanwhile, Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to turn New College into Trump University as part of his war on “wokeness.” Republicans never actually say what that means, though when pressed a DeSantis attorney defined it as the belief that injustices in American society should be addressed. Gasp!

Eric Grevstad, Bradenton

Don’t get mad, men, get male M&M’s

Thank you, thank you, Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino, for your brilliant “angry white men” column (“DeSantis is trying to get white men like me perpetually angry,” Jan. 20).

If I didn’t laugh about the terrifying explosion of politicians turned thought police, I’d cry. Now I’m going out to do something I haven’t done in years: Buy a package of M&M’s.

Ilene Denton, Sarasota

Acknowledging painful past at reform school

Regarding “Blood-stained memorial honors boys of Dozier,” Jan. 18: I was gratified to learn of the dedication of two monuments to the thousands of boys, most of them Black, who attended the Dozier School for Boys from 1900 to 2011, where they were abused sexually and physically, forced into slave labor and even murdered.

Black and white students were strictly segregated and treated unequally.

We need to acknowledge our past in order to ensure our future. Proud to be “woke.”

Helaine Hirshfeld, Sarasota

No appeasement possible for Russian invader

I read the letter to the editor Jan. 20 by the gentleman “sickened” by all the carnage in Ukraine perpetuated by the war criminal Vladimir Putin. Aren’t we all?

So let us, the world’s strongest military with a long history of defending democracy, bow out because Putin’s unprovoked attack on a democratic country, that is killing many civilians, “sickens” us (“A way out of Ukraine’s losing battle”).

The writer states that we should stop spending our money on that fight and let Ukraine and Russia split up the country. (What about Taiwan? Give half of it to China?)

In other words, reward a dictator for invading a democratic neighbor country and wreaking unspeakable horror on men, women and children using mercenary troops and long-range missiles launched from the safe haven the West has given him.

This was and is nothing but a vanity war by an aging dictator who would like to restore the Soviet Empire. He is now locked in as the thugs who surround him are circling. He will not settle for anything but annexing all of Ukraine.

Before World War II, millions of Americans said, "Give Hitler what he wants – it's not our problem." They were wrong then and Putin’s appeasers are so wrong today.

Roland Dupree, Venice

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Victory gives DeSantis a mandate, GOP has skewed priorities