Drag races, noisy cars affect dog walks
I echo the two recent letters to the editor about drag racing in South Sarasota (“Sarasota streets have become drag-racing strips,” Jan. 8)
We live near McIntosh Road and Tamiami Trail in Osprey and face the drag racing as well as exhaust pipes popping as the vehicles accelerate. It can be nonstop and has been going on for a number of years.
Walking our dog is even a problem as we try to time it in between the noise, which is impossible. We don’t understand how this continues.
The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office should be notified. Something should be done.
Laura McConnaughay, Osprey
Trump promotes bold agenda
President-elect Donald Trump talks of acquiring Greenland. This Arctic island is in a strategic location.
President Harry Truman offered $100 million for it in the 1940s. The U.S. has a base on the island. If not a purchase, a deal is possible for increased U.S. presence.
The Panama Canal is also on Trump’s agenda. The president of Panama agrees with China’s claims to Taiwan, and China has established ports at both ends of the canal.
To supplement the Pacific fleet, U.S. ships would have to transit the canal.
The treaty ceding the canal has provisions for U.S. security. Trump is justified in protecting our security, even going as far as taking back the canal.
Canada is also a topic, and a union with our amazing neighbor would create one nation comprising virtually all of North America.
Trump is on the job, even before being sworn in, and the world is taking note. Hamas is at last rushing to a deal before Trump takes office.
What a change from the inertia of the last four years.
Richard D. Paolillo, Nokomis
Biden leaves weak foreign policy record
As President Joe Biden prepares to leave the White House, he is taking stock of his foreign policy legacy. Unfortunately, he is full of boasting, not willing to admit a single policy mistake.
In a farewell speech at the State Department, he argued that he is “leaving the next administration with a very strong policy hand.”
This reminds me of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ firsthand observation of then-Vice President Biden in his book “Duty: Memoirs of Secretary at War”: “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Unfortunately, the past four years of President Biden’s poor foreign policy record has only validated Gates’ assessment.
In Afghanistan, Ukraine, China, the Middle East and elsewhere Biden is handing incoming President Donald Trump not a “strong policy hand” but a weak one.
Meeting many world leaders − Biden’s frequent boast − cannot be equated with making sense of a very complex world and taking bold strategic decisions instead of cautiously seeking a middle course.
America’s greatest leaders were defined not by balancing in the middle and seeking the sweet spot. They were defined by making bold choices.
Istvan Dobozi, Sarasota
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