Trump airport shouldn’t be committee’s focus

Thanks to Scott Maxwell for pointing out the taxpayer-wasting priorities of the Florida Senate transportation committee (“Citing ‘Trump International Airport,’ Florida legislators want power to rename all major airports,” Jan. 29).

Most of I-95 in Brevard County is listed as a “high-injury corridor,” one of the most dangerous stretches of highway in the nation. We are ranked the 14th most hazardous county in America for cyclists and 11th in a study of the worst 100 metro areas for pedestrians.

At the same time, a priority of Brevard County’s Sen. Debbie Mayfield appears to be a “transportation” bill she introduced. Senate Bill 706 proposes to rebrand Palm Beach Airport in the name of our president and also gives the state the power to do similar with every major airport.

I called Mayfield’s office and requested she focus on my list of real-life concerns. Everyone who is worried about what is happening within our state and country should do the same with their legislators.

Kathy Ojeda Merritt Island

Orlando should be sanctuary city

I am a gentle, angry person feeling wounded by my city of 52 years bowing to and in thrall of Donald Trump. Orlando, please become a “sanctuary” city. Quietly continue to protect us. My heart is broken.

Our police department knows how to keep the peace. Their presence is calming because they are good at it due to the training for tourists, I think.

Please do not take the coward’s way. Please do not take the Project 2025 way. Please be human. Please be empathic. Please love us enough, we your people, to do the right thing… right now. In my experience, if we are upholding our generosity and helpfulness throughout the world, the universe will rise up to carry all of us.

Sandra Lilith Cawthern Orlando

Iran is atrocity more than Minnesota

Here in the U.S. we have news-media commentators talking about, questioning and decrying the shooting of two lone individuals in Minnesota. One came to a protest with an automobile they might have used to block immigration officials’ actions and the other came, supposedly to film them, with a loaded gun.

Listen to and read what we write about such things today. Have some of us lost our minds? What happens to common sense when everyone involved gets so stoked up by a public conflict that they can’t function rationally?

The same commentators decrying ICE actions which they say are in America to remove dangerous criminals also talk somewhat less prominently about the tens of thousands of Iranians being killed, halfway around the world, who in my opinion, obviously have a far more legitimate reason to protest.

All we know is that the folks killing them en masse are part of a theocratic dictatorship that otherwise encourages its citizens to chant “death to America” and pours money, sometimes U.S. taxpayers’ money, into doing it all around the world. Here in “Trump-Land,” as I see it, the government isn’t trying to silence dissent, just manage the mess being made by the fools who are using it for their own benefit politically. The truth, in my opinion, is that most of us just don’t really care for having dangerous criminals as neighbors.

Maurice McCoy Bokeelia

Concentrate on U.S., not Iran

Among his worst utterances, is Donald Trump’s threat to take unspecified actions if the Iranian government starts killing its citizens. In my view, any military action by Trump would likely kill more innocent civilians than those killed by the Iranian government. Instead of fixating on Iran, he needs to stop his misguided punishment of immigrants based on the lies he uses as a broad brush to blame all immigrants for the crimes of a few. The axiom about first getting one’s own house in order before pointing to the fault of others is appropriate here. The catch to that is that I believe it might take him several lifetimes to do that.

James Weatherspoon St. Cloud

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