Lawlessness on I-95, Vero Beach streets: Add speed cameras. Get Congress on health care
Law enforcement needs to up game against dangerous speeders
One can’t go for a car ride without witnessing dangerous driving. People are running red lights, speeding, making illegal lane changes, passing in no-passing zones, failing to use turn signals, texting, breaking noise ordinances (if there are any) and generally doing whatever they want as long as they don’t get caught.
What are our police doing to correct this? It is rare to see offenders being stopped. Interstate 95 and even the streets of Vero Beach appear to be lawless. It would be interesting to compare the tickets issued per capita now versus years past or against other regions.
I asked three law officers about the apparent lack of traffic policing. All three gave me the same reason: not enough manpower.
If they don’t have enough manpower, how about using Multanova radar cameras that can issue tickets? I have lived in cities which use them, and speeding stops. If you speed, you get a ticket. Period.
Bad accidents are reported on an almost daily basis. Can we not up our game on the enforcement front?
John D.H. Smith, Vero Beach
Thinking about health care when choosing new member of Congress
Here are some alternatives to answerless politicians.
Receiving a copy of a news release from Dan McDow, regarding the Democratic candidate running to replace Rep. Bill Posey, (retiring from Congress, it appears), I was struck by the difference.
Here is a man, McDow, running on helping half of his constituents, women, with one who years ago had no answer to the question posed in a town hall format: "Why don't the American people deserve basic health care?"
McDow says he was "unfazed" with news that Posey was suddenly dropping his bid for re-election. Posey is backing former state Sen. Mike Haridopolos.
“This race has always been about one thing and one thing only: Women’s health care,” said McDow, a West Melbourne city councilman and longtime Democratic activist. “Haridopolos is just as much a hard-right extremist as Posey; he’s just younger and has better hair.”
“I don’t care about his hair, I care about the health care of women in Florida and the fact that these abortion bans are endangering the health of women and girls.
“I will fight to guarantee access to appropriate health care and make sure the government isn’t interfering with private, medical decisions that are the purview of a woman and her health care provider.”
So, Florida women and thinking men, wake up. More silence to your questions about health care, or someone publicly telling you they will look out for your health or your daughter's or granddaughter's?
Nancy Richards, Vero Beach
Ignatius gets it wrong on world affairs
Having read in this space a review of David Ignatius' talk at Temple Beit Ha Yam in Stuart last month, I was relieved I missed it. I was planning to attend and, as Ignatius writes for the Washington Post, I was curious as to how he would treat Israel's position after the massacre that occurred on Oct. 7, where the atrocities were vicious and those captured are still being held.
Peter Degen summed up the author's "turn the other cheek" attitude with Ignatius's slam at Benjamin Netanyahu. Ignatius' attitude is like someone saying after Pearl Harbor: “Don't be too hard on the Japs.”
We know the two-state solution is a fantasy. Hamas has made that abundantly clear by their actions on Oct. 7 and every day since.
As far as Ignatius's support of the United States handing billions of dollars — without proper accounting — to the Ukraine leadership: This is a slap in the faces to U.S. citizens. We are protecting Ukraine's border, but leaving our own unprotected from the diseased, enemies, deviants, communists, etc.
Ukraine is not a democracy. Its leader suspended elections. No male Ukrainian between 16 and 65 is allowed to leave the country. They are assigned guns (no Second Amendment or its equivalent exists there) and conscripted.
Audrey Taggart, Hobe Sound
Here's why sea-level rise must trump issues such as gay rights, abortion
As sea levels rise along the Texas coast, the Army Corps of Engineers has a $57 billion plan to build a new, higher dike around Galveston due to higher tides and stronger, more frequent hurricanes.
Why the urgency? Because Antarctica is “undergoing massive changes on land, sea and in the atmosphere above,” according to The Economist.
While the Arctic has been warming four times faster than the global average for over a decade, Antarctica is catching up. That means it, too, is a significant “driver of global warming.” The most extreme heatwave ever recorded on Earth happened in Antarctica in March 2022.
Collectively, the surface area of Antarctica’s ice sheets is 1.5 times larger than the United States and “holds 90% of the world’s land ice …. Water and ice flowing out of Greenland’s and Antarctica’s ice sheets will soon be the biggest driver of sea level rise.”
Warming seas melt ice sheets, and warm water “melts ice 10 times more quickly than atmospheric heat,” according to Dr. Martin Siegert of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change.
Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and The International Coral Reef Initiative issued a joint statement April 15 warning that record-breaking ocean heat this year could become “the worst bleaching period in recorded history,” according to CNN.
The slow melt of Thwaites glacier alone contributes approximately “4% of global annual sea level rise.” However, Siegart notes, “if Thwaites (collapses entirely) it’s pretty much the whole of the West Antarctic ice sheet that follows.”
Such a catastrophic collapse would raise sea levels by meters.
Significant, immediate worldwide efforts to reduce burning fossil fuels must become a top priority. Yet Americans argue about book bans, gay rights and abortion availability. American priorities are an international embarrassment.
Cray Little, Vero Beach
Nation will implode with debt while China watches
Let’s see if I have this straight.
As of today, the federal government is $34.6 trillion in debt. That’s $267,000 debt per taxpayer.
President Joe Biden recently signed into law a $95 billion foreign aid package, with $60 billion going to Ukraine, $17 billion to Israel, $9 billion for humanitarian aid to Gaza and elsewhere, wherever “elsewhere” is, $8 billion for allies in the Indo-Pacific, whoever those allies are and for what, who knows.
Putting this in somewhat perspective, you have credit card debt of $100,000, while your annual income is $40,000. Your cousin Vinny asks if you can give him, not loan him, $25,000. You go to the bank, borrow $25,000 and hand it over to Vinny.
You don’t ask questions; you hope that he spends the money wisely. Meanwhile, you’re now $125,000 in debt, and the bank you have your mortgage with is about to foreclose on your house.
In the real world, you wouldn’t be able to borrow money with that kind of debt. No problem for the federal government. It just prints more money.
Communist China is very patient. It doesn't have to launch an all-out war against the United States; it is just waiting patiently for us to implode, which our elected government leaders in Washington are more than obliged to let happen.
Bill Fredericks, Vero Beach
Pity the stone-throwing families whose glass houses might be broken
As I listen and watch the cruelty and hate leveled against transgender and LGBT children and others by Gov. Ron DeSantis and other self-proclaimed "Christians," I wonder what will happen if one of their own children, grandchildren or other family members come out as belonging to these groups of God's children at whom they throw hate and cruelty.
I fear for those members of their families.
Joan Fox, Vero Beach
Let's not forget when Trump was president
The Trump years 2016-2020:
Economy:
Remember trying to buy toilet paper during the pandemic?
Remember how many people lost their jobs, especially in the service industry?
Gas prices were down because people couldn’t travel or worked from home.
Inflation:
When the pandemic was over, didn’t corporations try to make up for lost income by socking it to us? They did have a big “reform” tax break under Donald Trump (though not for the little guy), but hey, why not?
Immigration:
Yes, it's a problem, but wasn’t it Joe Biden who would have signed the bipartisan bill that gave the GOP everything it wanted? But then how could the GOP campaign about Biden’s immigration problem if the bill went through, so “kill it,” said Trump.
And then there was the wall that Mexico was going to pay for.
Foreign and Domestic Policies:
Allies? What allies? The ones in NATO? “Why should we defend them if they don’t pay up?” says Trump. Why not get new allies. like Xi, Jinping, Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un? Those dictators really know how to get things done.
Tariffs — lots and lots of tariffs. Wasn’t China going to pay for them? Surely, the American consumer wouldn’t have to pay for the increase. But Trump did give our farmers $28 billion to offset the effect his tariffs had on their revenue, so there’s that.
And then there was the health insurance Trump was going to provide (“In two weeks, I’ll announce it.”) Oh, why wouldn’t Congress remove Obamacare?
Infrastructure Plan: (“In two weeks, I’ll announce it” — that again). Wasn’t it Biden who got a bill through?
“Climate Change”? There is no such phrase in the GOP lexicon.
After the Parkland shooting, Trump promised he would put through gun legislation, but then the NRA … well, you know.
Anne Brakman, Vero Beach
Scott, Posey wrong in opposing Ukraine aid
Nyet!
So said Republican Rep. Bill Posey and Sen. Rick Scott to valiant Ukranians sacrificing their lives for freedom against Russian aggression. Both legislators threw their support to Russian President Valdimir Putin with their votes against desperately needed military aid to Ukraine.
Fortunately, the majority of the House and Senate voted to save Ukraine and protect democracies in eastern Europe. The $95 billion package also included military aid to Israel and humanitarian aid in Gaza.
On this and many other issues, including reproductive rights, Posey and Scott are intractable idealogues. Neither can tell the difference between right and wrong. It's time for them to go.
Posey knows all too well that you can't engage the enemy without ammunition, and you can't wage a war without tanks, artillery shells, missiles, air defenses and technology. Yet despite his longtime service, Posey would allow Russian forces to overrun outgunned Ukrainian fighters and commit heinous atrocities on civilians.
Posey and Scott are hypocrites. Their stated reasons for opposing aid were pure pablum. One was that the aid package did not address the crisis at the U.S.-Mexican border. Another was that it would increase the national debt.
That's rich, given that both opposed a bipartisan border bill that would have given the president and Department of Homeland Security unprecedented power to close the border. And both favored that largest deficit-driver of all: the Trump administration's tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations.
My hats off to Republican House Majority Leader Mike Johnson for moving this bipartisan aid legislation forward in the face of attacks by the far right. He did the right thing. Posey and Scott did not.
Richard Leonard, Vero Beach
Which president generates more revenue with lower taxes?
In 2019 before the pandemic, the U.S. Treasury collected $3.46 trillion in revenue, a 4% increase from 2018. In 2022, the U.S. Treasury collected $4.9 trillion, $850 billion more than 2021.
You can argue Donald Trump's tax cuts are kicking in. You can argue Joe Biden made the right moves.
What you cannot argue whose economy is generating more cash for the government.
The old saying has never been more true: “God forbid will I let facts get in the way of my feelings.” Never have truer words been said.
Don Whisman, Stuart
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Vero Beach streets, 95 like Indy 500; write tickets. Health care needed
