GOP sends message by denying food aid

Regarding the potential stoppage of SNAP benefits and food aid due to the government shutdown, here is the Republican message to American citizens: If you don’t let us take away your health care, we have no choice but to take away your food.

Maureen Gismondi Mount Dora

Outlawing sharia law upholds integrity

I support efforts to ensure that Florida’s laws remain rooted in the U.S. Constitution and not influenced by any foreign or religious legal systems, including Sharia law.

Our state’s judicial system is built on principles of equality, individual rights, and due process — values that protect every citizen regardless of faith or background. Upholding these standards is essential to maintaining fairness under one system of law for all.

A “No Sharia Law” measure is not about targeting any religion; it is about preserving the integrity of our constitutional framework (“There’s no sharia law in the state, but South Florida lawmaker files bill to outlaw it anyway,” Oct. 25). In a diverse society, it is vital that no set of religious or foreign rules overrides the rights guaranteed to Floridians under state and federal law. This ensures consistency, unity, and protection for all residents.

Florida must continue to stand firm in its commitment to one law under one Constitution. Safeguarding that principle is not exclusion — it is equality.

Roger Agness Orlando

Drilling off coast threatens tourism

Wait until climate scientists dig into the effects of the 2025 “summer furnace” we’ve just suffered through. Hard to believe 2023 ocean temperatures were warmer then (“2 more Florida corals are ‘functionally extinct’ after 2023 heatwave,” Oct. 27). Unfortunately, preventive measures that have been spoken about for decades seldom, if ever, find their way into enacted policy. It’s all about the money, folks. So, let’s talk about the money.

Florida could join the list of oil-drilling states, which would be a death knell for Florida tourism, which is all about the money. If you think tourists won’t notice oil-drilling platforms within sight of Florida beaches, something once again being proposed in Tallahassee and in D.C., maybe you’ll notice when an oil-drilling platform breaks apart and leaks oil on your vacation beach.

Another Category 5 hurricane has just formed as I’m writing this. They’re commonplace now.

Any legislation that causes Florida politicians to approve oil drilling anywhere on Florida’s coasts must be considered a direct threat to Florida’s DNA and its world-leading tourism economy that relies on environmental tourism that oil-drilling states can never match. There’s a reason they’re cheaper. And why would you want to ruin the place you’ve chosen to visit or own a piece of?

Will Graves Winter Park

Communism begets oligarchy

The Sentinel’s article “‘Anti-communism’ curriculum criticized as propaganda” (Oct. 28) is correct. The reason is that there has been no example of actual communism at a national level to discuss.

In most every case where the workers have risen, as Karl Marx supposed, the effort has been hijacked and forcibly turned into an oligarchy headed by a brutal dictator.

The propaganda is meant to familiarize and equate communism with (gasp) socialism.

The problem we face, in my view, is a wannabe dictator as president chipping away at and ignoring the Constitution. The goal appears to be the ruler of an oligarchy in the manner of his pal and role model Vladimir Putin.

James Weatherspoon St. Cloud

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