ICE must go, Orlando protesters urge<\/p>\n
I was in attendance at the Sunday gathering at City Hall, the Orlando-area response protest in the wake of the Renee Good execution due to the over-the-top ICE presence in the city of Minneapolis over this past week. Here, in our own backyard, sanctuary city or not, we took notice. At City Hall there were protesters on one side of Orange Avenue, and police on the other. An all-too-familiar scene.<\/p>\n
Some feel that the ICE agent who fired three times at the 37-year-old mother of three as she tried to drive off and was turning her car away from officers to leave the scene, committed an unjustified killing of an innocent U.S. citizen. Some questioned how the agents on the scene could turn down the volunteered assistance of a physician. Some expressed concern of the rush to judgment of some government officials. Then there\u2019s the vehicle that Good was fatally shot in being hustled away on a flatbed truck. What of the practice of having an uncontaminated crime scene?<\/p>\n
Of course there are those that I\u2019ve spoken to, on the other side of the coin, who point out that if she just got out of the car as she was ordered to (with coarse language) \u2026 none of this happens. And what better idea than to allow yourself to be arrested by federal agents taking orders from an administration with a long and storied history of falling short on delivering on civil liberties, human rights and due process to its citizens?<\/p>\n
Rhonda Holmes Winter Park<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s campaign of retribution<\/p>\n
There are Republican politicians who have stood up to President Donald Trump, but their names are mostly known only to political science professors and political junkies: Bob Corker, Jeff Flake, Mitt Romney, Thom Tillis \u2014 and former University of Florida president and U.S. senator Ben Sasse. Curiously, leaving office seems to act as a kind of truth serum for GOP politicians.<\/p>\n
Such is the power Trump wields. Not since the 1960s has so much authority been concentrated in the executive branch.<\/p>\n
Now we learn that the Trump administration is prosecuting the sitting chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell. That is not normal. It is the kind of behavior associated with tin-pot dictators and banana republics \u2014 not the United States of America.<\/p>\n
The White House communications director, Steven Cheung, often dismisses such actions as mere \u201ctrolling\u201d of Democrats or the press. During Trump\u2019s first term, we were told not to take him \u201cliterally\u201d or \u201cseriously,\u201d that it was all part of \u201cowning the libs.\u201d<\/p>\n
If this is meant to be humorous, the joke is lost on me. And for the targets of Trump\u2019s campaign of retribution, it isn\u2019t funny at all.<\/p>\n
George Devitt Maitland<\/p>\n
Legislators, answer call on vouchers<\/p>\n
A lot is being written about public schools and vouchers. We know what is happening but no one explains why.<\/p>\n
Do legislators think voters want vouchers?<\/p>\n
Do they think, without proof, that private schools provide a better education?<\/p>\n
Do they think they should follow DeSantis\u2019 plan?<\/p>\n
Do they think about the cost of vouchers, taxpayer money that should go to public schools?<\/p>\n
Are there other reasons?<\/p>\n
Why legislators vote for vouchers is a question that should be answered. The public has a right to know.<\/p>\n
Beth Brewer Altamonte Springs<\/p>\n