I read the four letters to the editor in the Dec. 6 paper, and I’m surprised how people do not appear to understand why Joe Biden pardoning his son was bad for the country and for the Democratic Party in particular.
First, Biden lied when he said numerous times that he would not pardon his son because he believed in the rule of law. By pardoning Hunter, he damaged his own credibility and dug a deeper hole for the Democratic party. That’s why the party is upset with him.
Naturally, it is the departing President’s right to pardon anyone, as Clinton, Bush, Trump, and others did.
The difference is, none of the previous presidents lied about it. Most importantly, Biden’s pardon covered the period from 2014 to 2024 when Hunter was involved with the Burisma board, and had dealings with Ukraine that could have left him open to prosecution. This is an unheard-of type of pardon.
Two of the aforementioned letters faulted the media for highlighting the pardon, forgetting that the media (other than Fox) is Democratic-leaning. The letter writers were upset that the media was telling it like it is.
Rob Berg, Boynton Beach
Send DeSantis far, far away
An Open Letter to Donald Trump:
I read with interest you might choose Gov. Ron DeSantis to replace Pete Hegseth as defense secretary. As a Floridian who has seen how DeSantis has governed this great state, I applaud the suggestion, and encourage you to put DeSantis where he belongs — far, far away from Florida.
He has done more than his share of damage to us, his constituents. While I have concerns about what he may inflict upon the morale of our armed forces, we could sure use a break down here.
Let’s see how he does in battles against real soldiers, not the unfortunate people of Florida.
Bruce Miller, Fort Lauderdale
SAT scores a failure
With Florida in a clear race to the bottom with regards to public education, nothing screams failure like the newly announced SAT scores. Florida now ranks tied for 47th place among all states.
The third most populous state in the nation is about to hit rock bottom. While it’s clear that Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz, Jr. and Gov. Ron DeSantis have spiked the ball at the 40-yard line, the students in Florida are the real losers.
Republican leadership, if you can call it that, has had years to fix problems like this but leadership has failed students over and over. The average national SAT score is 1024, and in Florida, it’s 948.
Tallahassee tries to blame Covid every chance it can, but this problem has been looming for a long time, and education experts have told reporting agencies that Florida’s vouchers-for-all program could be partially responsible for the latest SAT drop.
It’s no secret, Republicans are looking to somehow opt out of SAT testing but to do that is a very heavy lift. It seems to me that when you hire (elect) someone to fix a problem and year after year it never gets fixed, you fire (un-elect) that person. The problem with Florida is, they like it when things stay broken.
PJ Whelan, Orlando
An end to annoying ads
The elections are finally over, and all of the candidates’ political commercials are gone from the airwaves. Great!
Also, the Dec. 7 enrollment date for Medicare supplement plans has passed, and all those plan commercials are gone, too. Tremendous!
Now, let’s eliminate all of those annoying prescription drug commercials that Big Pharma is paying millions of dollars a day to blanket the airwaves. Only doctors need to have that information, no matter how you dress it up with pretty pictures. And listen closely: Have you ever heard all of the possible side effects?
W. Rick Garr, Fort Lauderdale
Originally Published: