Thursday's letters: garage parties, Ponzi scheme, GOP enablers, more

Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Clean up, and clean out, your garage and hold COVID-19 dinner parties there.

Throw safe dinner party in garage

COVID-19 has meant the end of indoor dinner parties. Instead, many people are dining with others in their garages, with the door up, using social distancing and fans to make it safe.

We have thrown two parties in our garage and it has allowed us to do what we could not do indoors. We provide the food, the drinks and the music and our guests stay seated. 

A Herald-Tribune story on garage dinner parties might inspire others to help get back a sense of interaction with friends. 

Marty Collins, Sarasota

No justice for victims in Ponzi scheme

Joseph Anile II, a former Sarasota attorney, pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, money laundering and filing a false tax return (“Sarasota attorney Joseph S. Anile II gets 10 years in prison for Oasis investment fraud,” Nov. 20).

Brian Payne, the IRS special agent in charge, says that Anile's actions destroyed the lives of his investor victims.

More:How to send a letter to the editor

Anile was facing 30 years in prison, but Judge Mary Scriven reduced the sentence to a mere 10 years for this person who caused unmentionable grief to seniors. 

Anile could serve only six to seven years for a Ponzi scheme that defrauded at least 700 people of $72 million. On a sentence of six years, that is $12 million per year.

To me, hardly justice.

Alan M. Hopkins, Sarasota

GOP enablers should back transition

As I sit here Nov. 22, I am recalling the death of President John F. Kennedy. He was a leader, a man who stood for something greater than himself, and who respected and honored the position of president of the United States.

Today we have a president who has none of the above attributes. This is a sad time in our history and we will pay a price for this tomorrow and many more tomorrows to come.

A sadder aspect of this situation is the enablers, those who have kept quiet while the evil of this election plays out. There is no moral or ethical excuse for them to keep silent while the welfare of the country (foreign relations) and its citizens (COVID-19) is threatened.

It would be so simple for these people to simply state, “It is apparent that Joe Biden is president-elect, but Donald Trump has the right to contest the results in a court of law and by all other legal means.

“In the interim, we should proceed as the election results clearly show and if President Trump prevails, the transition will be halted.”

I urge our senators and representatives and all voters to make this country safe, save democracy as we have practiced it for 244 years and start the transition now!

John Oelfke, Sarasota

Lucky to have Trump in charge of vaccines

For months before the election, Joe Biden touted that President Donald Trump was mishandling the coronavirus.  Biden said that he had a plan and he would stop the virus. 

Now he is crying foul that he isn't getting enough information on the distribution for the vaccine. Does it matter? He has a plan. 

Or was that all talk and no show? Where were his plans during the SARS and H1N1 epidemics? 

President Trump got so much done so quickly because he didn't do it the way Washington does everything. We will be lucky that Trump was at the wheel steering this ship when we get a vaccination in record time.

And, like most things, the Democrats will claim it happened under their watch.

Sadly, the swamp is already filling back up. We had four years of prosperity, but Biden will set us back so far we may never dig our way out. 

Just remember whom you voted for when you start losing all your rights and freedoms, and our economy tanks under the enormous debt the Democrats plan to run up.

Patti Butzlaff, Osprey

Letter threatens freedom of press

I was appalled by a letter that implied a threat to the Herald-Tribune’s continued circulation success for publishing columns and articles that were critical of President Donald Trump, or showed him in an unfavorable light (“Stop insulting president’s supporters,” Nov. 21).

The letter was an indirect threat against two of our First Amendment rights, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.  It was an attempt to signal a potential loss of circulation to the paper that might happen if the paper didn’t “tone it down,” or selectively edit criticism of Trump. 

Yes, Sarasota County did vote overwhelmingly for Trump, but its citizens did not vote to forfeit the constitutional right to freedom of the press, even though some of the president's supporters and Trump himself apparently think that would be ideal! 

Citizens are always better served by a newspaper willing and able to print the truth and both sides of a story!

Sandra J. Gander, Bradenton