Small-town Stuart commissioners wise to keep out hotel
A hearty thanks to small-town Stuart city commissioners Christopher Collins, Laura Giobbi and Sean Reed for voting no on another developer proposal requesting to overdevelop small-town Stuart with a hotel.
It appears city Commissioner Eula Clarke would vote for any overdevelopment proposal no matter the negative impact on small-town Stuart. Commissioner Clarke just does not get it.
This is a confirming vote by the majority small-town Stuart commissioners that small-town Stuart is not open to being destroyed: What a welcome direction.
If past commissioners Becky Bruner and Troy McDonald had not been removed in the last election, this would have been a 4-1 vote to continue the overdevelopment of small-town Stuart.
Your vote matters.
Bob Ernst, Stuart
Stuart Fire Rescue rapid intervention crews practice down firefighter exercises, Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2023, in the former Aycock Funeral Home at 505 S.W. Federal Highway. In 2025, Stuart commissioners rejected a proposal to put a hotel there.
Florida attorney general: Keep the bulldog, give us a person of honor
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis calls his new Florida attorney general a “bulldog.”
Attorney General James Uthmeier is quoted as saying he will combat “activists.” Is his definition of an activist one who disagrees with his political stance and agenda? If so, then he is diminishing the intent of the First Amendment, specifically the right to petition.
He also said: “We will fight the activists that try to weaken our duly enacted laws.”
I believe he is not taking into consideration a law can be modified, strengthened, weakened or changed. Roe vs. Wade is a prime example of a duly enacted law being changed.
The state of Florida does not need a bulldog. We need a fair, impartial, ethical attorney general.
Ronald D. Roberts, Sebastian
James Uthmeier was sworn in as the new Florida Attorney General with his family by his side at the Florida Historic Capitol on Monday, Feb. 17, 2025.
Don’t take illnesses lightly
Recent articles state the current bird flu scare has only resulted in eye infections.
I learned about the 1918 Spanish flu at an animal welfare conference. Dr. Michael Greger, auhtor of “Bird Flu, A Virus of Our Own Hatching,” was a guest speaker. Astoundingly, I and others had never heard about this pandemic that “in 1918, half the world became infected and 25% of all Americans fell ill. Unlike regular seasonal flu, which tends to kill only the elderly and infirm, the flu virus killed those in the prime of life.”
An estimated 50 million to 100 million people died, according to historians. I don’t remember reading about this in history books like other historic plagues.
Today, we are being told it’s just resulting in eye infections? The following is a description of the 1918 Purple Death:
“What started for millions around the globe as muscle aches and a fever days later had many victims bleeding from their nostrils, ears and eye sockets. Some bled in inside their eyes, some bled around them. They vomited blood and coughed it up. Purple blood blisters appeared on their skin.
“According to historians, the first reaction of most authorities during the 1918 was just flat-out denial.”
So what are we to think of the recent numerous articles about the bird flu?
“I had a little bird. It’s name was Enza. I opened the window. And in-flu-enza.” This was the jump rope rhyme of 1918 children.
This book is about much more than the bird flu, but about our relationship in the world with animals and what we sow and reap, and tells a frightening story of a past event that is hard to believe has been forgotten.
Is this past now to become prologue?
Suan Parry, Fort Pierce
News organizations should stick to the facts
The purpose of this letter is to tell a brief story about news reporting from the past contrasting it with all the various types of news reporting we have today. (I won’t go into detail, but news organizations appear to grow on trees today).
In any event, on Nov. 22, 1963 (the day President John Kennedy was killed), I was in fifth grade at Sebastian Elementary School. The principal came into the room and made the announcement of the shooting and said: “Turn on the television.”.(Yes, Sebastian Elementary had TVs in the classroom in 1963. We received Spanish lessons via TV.)
For the rest of the afternoon, we saw the events unfold in real time, watching CBS and Walter Cronkite until it was time to go home.
One of the things I remember is Cronkite saying something to the effect: “The AP (or UPI, I don’t remember which) have reported that two priests have arrived at the hospital.”
My point is that a major news organization (CBS News) was relying on another, apparently more official news organization (AP or UPI), before reporting the news.
Do we have any unbiased news organizations today? Or do we pick and choose our favorite news organizations out of the many out there to receive our news? It appears that there are news organizations to fit anyone’s taste.
Facts are facts and should be reported without bias.
Doug Kinney, Sebastian
U.S. cybersecurity cuts could imperil local elections
The recent staff cuts at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are a serious concern.
CISA not only guards against foreign and domestic cyber crime against government data assets, but also provides security services to supervisors of elections and counties across the United States through the EI-ISAC and MS-ISAC organizations. Without those services, the costs of securing elections and government systems will rise or could cease altogether, and the multi-state reporting of cyber events will be curtailed.
This situation is not acceptable, and I implore our representatives and senators to take action to reverse the cuts and make a more thoughtful examination of CISA for possible cost savings.
Michael Merker, Stuart
Beware oligarchs, newly elected trying to destroy democracy
Our country is founded on democracy.
The founding fathers very deliberately chose not to set up our government like the monarchy in their native country of England, but thoughtfully chose a democracy. They chose a system where the people decide who represents them and the people get to vote for the best ideas.
Now consider the following: Vice President, J.D. Vance was chosen and bankrolled in his Senate run and his run for vice president by tech billionaire Peter Thiel. What do we know about Thiel besides he is very wealthy? He strongly promotes getting rid of all regulations (remember the great recession of 2008 that happened due to weakening of bank regulations) and creating monopolies (remember the Great Depression).
Thiel also said that, to get as rich as possible, you must destroy free speech. But his most concerning value is that he believes we should no longer have a democracy. Thiel has also invested very heavily in a man named Curtis Yarvin. On a podcast before the most recent election, Vance was asked to name his biggest political influence. He named Yarvin.
Yarvin promotes authoritarian one-man rule and advocates toppling the entire government and replacing it with a dictator. This is not an exaggeration. He advocates shutting down media outlets and all universities. He advocates eliminating all government workers and ignoring any legal rulings against that (this is happening right now).
I saw and heard Yarvin say at one of his recent seminars: “America has to get over its phobia about the word, ‘dictator’.”
Our forefathers fought to defend democracy. My grandfather fought in World War II and in the Korean War to defend democracy. We must not let these people destroy the core value of our country.
Christopher Beltran, Jensen Beach
Time to audit Ukraine, congressmen
Perhaps now is the time for U.S. taxpayers to call for an elite group of forensic accountants to perform a complete audit of exactly where our billions in taxpayer dollars have gone that were sent to Ukraine by President Joe Biden’s administration since the illegal Russian invasion began.
This should be a flash audit, with no advance warning to prevent Ukraine from cleansing the books beforehand. Taxpayers want to know where every single dollar went. Until this is accomplished, no more free money for Ukraine from U.S. taxpayers.
If more big dollars are needed by Ukraine, let them knock on the door of the European Union. whose security is more threatened by the Russians moving through Ukraine, much more so than the United States.
Many of our citizens fear millions sent to Ukraine took a U-turn and ended up in a few politicians’ pockets. How else can these same congressional clowns who are paid $100,000 plus per year have financial statements showing net worths of mega-millions?
After the Ukraine audit, the same forensic accountants should begin the same audit with these congressmen and senators who have accumulated millions.
Odds are our country could recover multimillions in taxpayer dollars the first year. Someone get Elon Musk on the phone quickly.
Jack Jennings, Port St Lucie
Trump betrays own nation, Europe, Ukraine
There he goes again!
President Donald Trump is again betraying our allies in Europe, just as he did in Afghanistan in his first term.
Back then, behind the veil of general chaos, Trump went behind the backs of the elected Afghan government and the Afghan army to craft a cynical “deal” with the Taliban for withdrawal of the United States. This exclusion of the Afghan army set up an unrealistic withdrawal situation for when he would be out of office.
Blocking the Afghan army from helping in the withdrawal, Trump’s “deal” pre-set the United States to take the blame for the resulting chaotic withdrawal, resulting in the needless deaths of 13 U.S. soldiers, and leaving President Joe Biden to be blamed for the fiasco.
Now, behind the much greater chaos of his and Elon Musk’s disassembling of our U.S. government itself, Trump has betrayed Ukraine, the United States and our European allies by excluding Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from “peace talks” with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. This is tantamount to urging Ukraine’s surrender and confirms Putin’s war crimes and illegal land grab there.
Trump’s treachery is aided by a supine Republican Congress, and the duplicitous “Deep State” rhetoric that vilified our hardworking U.S. civil servants. This pernicious rubric enables him to get away with illegal firings, “bait and switch” retirement incentives and phony claims of “waste and corruption.”
If Trump were really trying to reduce waste in our agencies, he wouldn’t have fired all the inspector generals who routinely clean up such waste. Rather, he would have increased the IG staffs and budget. History does repeat itself, and it still smells.
Robert A. Gibbons, Stuart
Still remembering Biden, for worse, not better
An article, “A Career of Honesty and Integrity,” appeared on the front page of your newspaper in early January, lauding Joe Biden.
It took until now for me to recover. There was letter to the editor following its publication, scolding the author of the front-page piece. But it was nowhere near the scorn it ought to have used to address Biden.
We remember Biden is the senator who gave us “gun-free zones,” which practically invite crazies to enter schools armed so they can shoot fish in a bucket, which is what happens when we experience school shootings. Think Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Uvalde.
And, remember in 1988, when Biden lifted a speech from another country’s parliament, almost word for word? He was running for president then, in one of his three attempts, but had to leave in disgrace following his failed attempt at plagiarism?
Biden seemingly exploited more vacation days than any president and even was on vacation when he was “on the job,” probably for the good of the country. There was less damage the less awake time he spent in the White House.
Biden seems to have known nothing about his cocaine-addicted son paid millions by a company in Ukraine. Or the many times Biden swore he would not pardon Hunter, until he did, along with Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, etc.
We remember, Biden, even if you do not.
Audrey Taggart, Hobe Sound
Ukraine involved in ‘pointless’ war?
Among Feb. 20 Truth Social activity, the Donald Trump account posted this:
Elon Musk: “The President’s instincts on Ukraine are absolutely right. It is really sad that so many parents have lost their sons, and so many sons their fathers in this pointless war.”
Pointless? Then the American Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, World War I and World War II were pointless. Nations, including the United States, defended themselves against invading countries to fight for their freedom and their right to exist. That was pointless?
I suppose that, if America were to be attacked by another country, the United States would just surrender and accept subjugation. After all, Trump said on Jan. 22, “the easy way is always better.”
Musk and Trump have no allegiance except to themselves, their wealth and the accumulation of power. They choose to ignore that Russia attacked Ukraine without provocation, killed thousands of civilians, kidnapped children, destroyed homes and apartments and schools.
Pointless.
Thomas Knippel, Port St. Lucie
What happened to ‘home of the brave’?
“The land of the free and the home of the brave.”
Please read those words again, because we might not have the former for much longer due to the cowardice of the latter.
The country and our freedom are under assault by Donald Trump and his minions. The Republican-controlled House and Senate do not have the bravery to stand up to this assault on our democracy, for fear of Trump’s wrath. They fear his threat of being primaried next election.
Well, no one should fear that. If we still have a democracy by then, they will all be voted out.
Joseph Dephillips, Stuart
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Stuart small-town charm; Florida attorney general bulldog? | Letters
