Regarding the May 17 story “Warren County teacher charged with assault of 8-year-old Dayton boy,” how messed up is this country when an unruly aggressive child who hits a teacher is set free but the teacher trying to control him is charged with assault? What should have happened is that the child’s parents should have been called in to the school, the child paddled then expelled; but in this country the teacher is charged with assault. As long unruly children/students are coddled, the schools and society will continue to deteriorate.
- Jack Barnard
I continue to be dismayed by the actions of Ohio’s Republicans in the state legislature. I never dreamed in my long tenure as an Ohioan that things like these could happen. Not long ago they decided that there would be no more August special elections, since there was a low voter turnout and it cost a lot of money to hold them. Now they are placing an amendment on the ballot for this August so that they can attempt to stop an abortion rights amendment. In 1997, the Ohio Supreme Court declared that public school funding methods were unconstitutional. How did they respond? They ran campaigns to get rid of justices who had ruled that way. It has never been fixed as a result. In 2015, a vast majority of voters in Ohio voted to end gerrymandering. How did they respond to that? They ignored it and just kept producing gerrymandered maps that were ruled unconstitutional until they were able to replace the deciding justice who kept ruling that they were in violation of that law. The end result is that the maps are even more unfair than they were before. Frank LaRose is saying that the goal of 60% approval by voters is needed to keep outsiders from coming into Ohio to influence our laws. Illinois billionaire Richard Uihlein has put 1.1 million dollars into the August campaign to back this super majority amendment. Even if the amendment does fail and the abortion rights amendment passes, they will find a way to avoid adhering to the wishes of the people, as they did with the gerrymandering amendment. I am a reformed Republican of over 40 years who now does not recognize this party. I never dreamed I would see government officials ignore the wishes of the majority of citizens in this state.
- Thomas W. Billing, Springfield