FLORIDA 3
EST 5 24
MERRI OK
SEE SOUTH CONFEDERACY
SEE RED STATES
SEE VAXX
SEE ACAD SUPPRESS
see heat death
SEE VAXX IVERMECTIN MAGIC THINK?
SEE LADAPO
court VENUE SHOPPING AILEEN CANNON
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an 7 25
cosplay alligator alcatraz w desantis
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AN 9 26
An exclusive Talking Points Memo investigation by Christopher Mathias reports that a Republican candidate for House District 10 in Florida was photographed marching with white supremacists at the infamous Charlottesville, Virginia, rally that left one woman dead and 35 injured.
Marshall Rawson attended the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally alongside members of the League of the South, which is a white nationalist, neo-Confederate organization.
TPM spotted Rawson and his wife arriving at the rally in archived video footage. They're greeted by fellow members of the League. Footage and photographs reviewed by the outlet reportedly place him carrying a League of the South flag and marching with neo-Nazis, including James Alex Fields Jr. He was the man who later killed counterprotester Heather Heyer by driving his car into a crowd of people.
Rawson has never denounced the League of the South, apologized for his participation in the violent rally or spoken out against many of the people he marched with.
The League has a documented history of white supremacist, antisemitic, anti-immigrant, homophobic and secessionist advocacy, and its leaders have openly promoted the idea of a white ethnostate in the South, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center's database of hate groups.
TPM cited a 2025 Facebook post in which Rowson claimed, “I am happy to talk about my past advocacy and activism on any issue. I am also proud of the advocacy work that I have been involved with for the past 13 years.”
Rawson's ideology is a close match to the League's values, particularly when it comes to LGBTQ people. A 2023 statement from him, cited by TPM, expressed his support for the death penalty for gay people in Uganda.
“This is how you would run the pervs and miscreants out of Florida," he said.
“A one-way ticket to no more sexualizing of children and the LGBTQ+ agenda in Florida!” he added.
The investigation by TPM alleged that "there are indications Rawson may have still felt the need to operate a pseudonymous social media account where he could express even more extreme sentiments. There are several data points linking an X account that posted from 2017 to 2020 under the handle 'RockOfDixie' to Rawson. Some of the posts from this account compiled by researcher ShermanMarching seem to have since been deleted, and the account’s most recent post is from 2020."
The account "features a bodybuilder flexing on stage," which is the same image in an online gallery of photos from the 2016 National Physique Committee’s Galaxy Championships. The researcher found that the bodybuilder in the image was identified at that time as Marshall Rawson. He finished fourth out of six.
One of the policies he advocated for is to bring back lynchings.
“Multiculturalism kills and public lynchings worked," said the "RockOfDixie" account.
Fellow League of the South members have opened their checkbooks in support, TPM found. So far, he's received more than $15,000 from dozens of people the report said are tied to the League of the South, neo-Nazi circles, white nationalist groups or other extremist activism.
One of the donors is a former Klan lawyer, and others also attended the Charlottesville riot. When asked about it, Rawson said he doesn't "screen" his donors or their views before he takes their money.
Rawson won the August Republican primary by just over 2,000 votes and is widely expected to win the November general election in the heavily conservative district. TPM argues that his candidacy illustrates how ideas once associated with fringe white-nationalist groups have gained a greater foothold within Republican politics.
Neither the Florida GOP nor the national Republican Party responded to TPM’s requests for comment.
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herALD
After a grand jury report found that Florida misappropriated $10 million in taxpayer money, the DeSantis administration is arguing that the anonymous leak of the report was the only crime committed. And that reporters asking about its contents may be breaking the law. “Let’s do a little exercise, here. Pull out your phone,” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier told a reporter Thursday who asked for comment on the report, which had been sealed for months before CBS Miami reported on it Wednesday. Leaking a grand jury report is a first-degree misdemeanor.
Uthmeier, who refused to discuss the report beyond calling it a politically motivated hoax, told the reporter to look up a Florida statute banning criminal solicitation. “Are you trying to solicit a crime here in violation of the law?” Uthmeier asked, smiling. “I did not think so.” The report found that $10 million from a Medicaid settlement was funneled through the DeSantis-aligned charity, Hope Florida, to two nonprofits and ultimately sent to a political committee fighting Amendment 3, a proposal to legalize marijuana.
The report did not find enough evidence to bring criminal charges for anyone involved, which includes some of the highest echelons of Florida’s political system: a current U.S. senator, the attorney general, DeSantis’ chief of staff, and an appellate judge. Those officials moved into these elevated positions in the months following the Herald/Times’ reporting on the scandal engulfing the embattled charity. The DeSantis administration, meanwhile, has bitterly rebuked all accusations of wrongdoing, maintaining that the investigation has been politically motivated and a “debunked hoax.”
They’ve maintained that the $10 million gifted to Hope Florida by Medicaid contractor Centene as part of a $67 million legal settlement was a “bonus,” not Medicaid dollars — despite the grand jury report finding that all of the money belonged to taxpayers. Although Gov. Ron DeSantis, at an unrelated news event in Lake City, agreed with Uthmeier that leaking the report was the only crime committed in the Hope Florida saga, he took the most offense to the media tying the scandal to his wife, Casey DeSantis.
Florida’s first lady for years was the face of the organization, touting it as one of her key initiatives. Gov. DeSantis on Thursday demanded the press take down articles and images using her picture, accusing the press of “smearing ... good people.” “I think the people that were behind the smear, in the political arena, were disgraceful,” he said. “We’ve got cancer in the Legislature — some of these people are bad actors.”
The charity was created to connect needy families to churches and other community groups to help move them off of government assistance. Since the grand jury report was issued in January, Casey DeSantis has not promoted Hope Florida. This story was originally published August 27, 2026 at 2:24 PM.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article317033347.html#storylink=cpy
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donors get big healthcare and dental contracts
Florida CFO Patronis and the case of the curious $50,000 donation
mike fernandez
AN 7 26
A MAGA civil war is brewing in a key state's governor race
KEN GRIFFIN BIG FUNDER FLORIDA, MOCED BIZ 2022? BEFORE BILLION TAX NY MPU? INDIAN ISLAND BUNKER MPU?
10 MOVE IN 9 NOVE OUT; REGRESSIVE TAXES; 13 CS 6%? NO MIN WAGE?
AN 7 26
A new report has revealed that top Florida officials had a 77-year-old Army veteran investigated for mailing a postcard to the state's chief financial officer that said nothing but "You lack values."
According to Reason, “James O'Gara, a resident of Largo, Florida, was interviewed by detectives from the criminal division of the Florida Department of Financial Services (DFS) last September after he mailed the postcard to Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia's office. The police encounter led to accusations of First Amendment retaliation and government bullying by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration… An audio recording of detectives' interview with O'Gara shows that they didn't think there was anything wrong with his statement and quickly closed their investigation.”
But when word of the incident began to spread, so did O’Gara’s message. Soon, Ingoglia's office received dozens of postcards from across the country bearing the message: "You lack values."
The investigation was launched on September 15, 2025, when the then-director of the Criminal Investigations Division, Simon Blank, emailed the division's assistant director and lieutenant colonel, saying, “The attached was mailed to the CFO. Can you have someone look into the name and do a threat assessment?" Two weeks later, Lt. Col. James Evangelina wrote to Darrell Wilson, the former chief of the division's Bureau of Fire, Arson and Explosives Investigations, “I'd like a member of our team to arrange a meeting with the individual mentioned to discuss potential avenues for assistance. Additionally, if possible, please verify the sender's identity and evaluate any potential threat level associated with the information provided."
Two detectives visited O’Gara a few days later, telling him, “Look, you didn't do anything wrong. I understand that right now our country's in a very interesting position politically. Everything's polarized and whatnot."
"I have a right to voice my opinion, and I will do so all the more reciprocally because they sent you guys out," said O'Gara.
"I completely support the First Amendment, 100 percent,” the detective replied. “Just being how things are polarized right now politically, anything that's going on with anybody disagreeing with whatever, they're having us check things, stuff like that."
According to Reason, “O'Gara said he'd sent 200 similar postcards to other politicians but had never had any problems before. The detectives remained courteous throughout the interview, comparing Army service records with O'Gara and repeating several times during the conversation that they hadn't seen a threat in his postcard.”
"Yeah, like I said, they're making us check up on things," said one detective. "I looked at your postcard and was like, you didn't do anything wrong."
"I'm pissed that they sent you here," noted O'Gara. "I know it's not your fault. This is totally inappropriate, totally inappropriate."
The detectives left then interviewed two of his neighbors, asking about his behavior. In their report, they said they found “no credible threat,” noting O’Gara’s “displeasure” at being investigated, and concluding, “As a result, he will be sending further correspondence to express his 1st amendment right. He has no intention on escalating to actual threats and will continue to let the CFO know this is wrong."
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an fla phoenix 5 26
“Convenient mythologies require neither evidence nor logic.” —*Edward S. Herman, “Manufactured Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media”
In a number of articles on its website, PEN America explains in striking detail the right-wing Trojan horse of “parental rights,” illuminating the threat caused by policymakers focused on this theater in the culture war.
PEN — which has gained a global reputation for standing “at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide” — argues that “parents’ rights” is not a source of freedom as claimed, but the crux of an ideological rigidity exercised by MAGA Republicans.
Replace the terms “books” and “literature” with “vaccinations” in the narratives, and the poisonous effects of “parents’ rights” and “medical freedom” on Florida’s public health system becomes clear.
Under the guise of “freedom,” the DeSantis administration including Surgeon General Joe Ladapo has established policies that have directly contributed to the measles outbreak that has spread across the state.
Yet, despite the proliferation of this disease, which has placed Florida fourth in the United States with 152 confirmed cases in 2025-26 and 145 confirmed cases so far this year, state officials have acted as if “there’s nothing to see here.”
Collier County is the center of an outbreak that began in January at Ave Maria University. The number of reported cases out of Collier has remained steady at 106, with most cases affecting those aged 15 to 24. According to the Florida Department of Health, Florida is up to 150 cases this year as of the week ending May 2. Officials note that there is “a continuing slowdown in infections after outbreaks earlier this year.”
Contagion
Measles is one of the most contagious communicable diseases on record. With the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, measles is easy to control. The MMR vaccine is credited with saving the lives of millions of people globally over the past 50 years.
Traditional medical experts warn that unvaccinated children need to stay home after measles exposure to stop transmission of this highly contagious disease. If not, chances of a prolonged outbreak increase significantly. Among unvaccinated people, nine of 10 who’re exposed will get infected.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, Republican legislators, and some health officials might have avoided the outbreak had they treated it as a strictly health-related issue not a politically charged one. And if DeSantis and Ladapo weren’t so cavalier about tossing around inaccurate data, taking problems out of context, or selectively presenting information, Florida wouldn’t be in this situation.
Experts point to vaccine hesitancy and fear sown by MAGA Republicans as reasons why fewer parents are interested in vaccinating their children. According to Politico, vaccine hesitancy has “evolved into a central pillar of the MAGA movement’s health policy, often blending medical skepticism with a desire to dismantle public health regulations.”
Skepticism of COVID-19 vaccines, and a growing distrust of traditional childhood vaccines, are “closely tied to the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) agenda led by figures such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” Politico writes.
The publication cites a 2023 Morning Consult poll showing that “as the number of voters more doubtful of vaccines has risen — despite scientific evidence that they’re safe and effective — it has come almost exclusively from one political party. While opposition to more established vaccines is still far from a majority position among Republicans, significant numbers question their safety and say Americans shouldn’t be encouraged to get them.”
Hubris
Katelyn Jetelina and Kristen Panthagani capture perfectly the hubris surrounding Florida’s widening measles epidemic.
Jetelina, an epidemiologist, and Panthagani, an emergency physician at Yale University, have written that by ignoring common sense and medical advice, Florida’s health officials risk a mushrooming measles outbreak. Negligence by Lapado, DeSantis, and the MAHA crew has endangered citizens and inflamed the outbreak.
“This is happening in a state with a growing skepticism of vaccinations and an ongoing debate between individualism and the good of the larger population that came to a head during the COVID pandemic,” the authors write in a 2024 opinion piece in Scientific American.
“But containing measles, which can spread quickly, should not be up for debate. Yet this is what is happening in Florida, and it’s putting children’s health at risk.”
A 2025 study from the Cureus Journal of Science and Medicine, published in PubMed, examines how “declining vaccine uptake and growing vaccine hesitancy created pockets of susceptibility that enabled the outbreak.”
DeSantis and Lapado are vigorously pushing to make it easier for parents to opt their children out of mandatory school vaccines — a proposal the Florida House refused to pass in the 2026 regular session and the just-completed special session.
‘Parental rights’
“Since 2021, the Sunshine State has led the country in advancing the parental rights agenda. Contrary to its name, this agenda has used fuzzy, coded language to manufacture moral panic, and to deliver control over what students can read and learn in schools not into the hands of all parents but to a particular segment of citizens — some not even parents but community members,” PEN America officials and researchers said.
“The cumulative effect has been to privilege some parents’ ideological preferences above all others, tie the hands of educators, and limit students’ access to information through curricular prohibitions and book bans.”
The same dynamic applies to health care and vaccines.
In its report on “parental rights” legislation, PEN cautioned that despite the fact that encouraging greater parental involvement in schools can seem like common sense, “these bills have an ulterior motive driving them: to empower a vocal and censorship-minded minority with greater opportunity to scrutinize public education and intimidate educators with threats of punishment.”
In Florida, the DeSantis administration and Republicans in the Legislature have taken up the battle cry. Ladapo and DeSantis announced in a press conference their intention of eliminating childhood vaccine mandates. Medical experts note that all 50 states enforce childhood vaccine mandates, with all states allowing medical exemptions and more than half — including Florida — allowing religious exemptions
Lyndon Haviland of the CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy blames the “perfect storm” of vaccine skepticism, failed leadership, and broken trust as the core reasons for the outbreak.
The eruption of measles in Texas, Florida, and elsewhere, she contends, aren’t isolated events.
Manufactured distrust
“Cases have also surfaced in Alaska, California, New Mexico, New York City, Georgia, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Concern that reports will continue to grow is rising,” she writes.
“It’s especially worrisome considering that the measles virus was completely eliminated in the U.S. as recently as the year 2000. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attributed this achievement to a “highly effective vaccine program in the United States, as well as better measles control in the Americas region.”
So, how did we get here?
“The answer: distrust. Distrust in health experts, who years ago were revered as national authorities on serious medical issues. Distrust in public health agencies, the CDC, and the Food and Drug Administration specifically, once respected as credible information resources. Distrust in the strength and rigor of vaccine testing protocols, the pharmaceutical industry itself and the broader politicization of public health.”
Haviland and other health experts fear ‘America, which was once considered a world leader in public health, has lost decades of progress in preventing the spread of a deadly disease with a provably safe therapy that has successfully saved millions of American lives.”
The focus on vaccine hesitancy “underplays the significant backlash against vaccines and the flood of anti-vaccine misinformation to which many Americans have been subjected,” Haviland continues.
“The reality is that Americans are increasingly adopting a more dismissive mindset in the way they view vaccine efficacy. Skepticism, rather than hesitancy, is a more accurate term to describe America’s perception of vaccines — and it shows no sign of slowing down.”
A certain arrogance
There is a certain arrogance the MAGA multitude carry. They act as though they have a direct line to God and the divine right to determine what’s best for the rest of us. Hence, the series of seemingly endless toxic, selfish crusades that former youth pastor and author John Pavlovitz argues “amplify baseless anti-science propaganda.”
This poisonous mindset has a human cost. Almost 90,000 people in the Sunshine State have died because of COVID; others have succumbed to preventable diseases like the flu.
There’s no telling when this measles outbreak will end but many in health circles and elsewhere will not stop fighting to protect America’s people against this destructive public health crisis.
Kevin Griffis, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy’s director for media relations and public affairs, in an April 22 opinion piece wrote, “Americans can handle hard truths. What they should not have to tolerate is selective concern dressed up as science. … Public health depends on trust. Trust depends on honesty.”
“When the nation’s top health official pretends otherwise — or claims ignorance when it is politically convenient, so as not to raise the ire of MAHA activists — it is not public health leadership. It is yet another example of politics and ideology trumping evidence.”
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AN 4 26
In recent years, Florida has been a major source of frustration for Democrats — from Gov. Ron DeSantis winning reelection by 19 percent in 2022 to President Donald Trump carrying the Sunshine State three presidential elections in a row. Florida is home to a who's-who of MAGA, including DeSantis, Sen. Rick Scott, former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, influencer/conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, and Trump himself. And while Trump carried Georgia, Florida's neighbor to the north, by only 2 percent in 2024, he won Florida by roughly 13 percent.
Once considered a swing state, Florida is now a GOP stronghold. But according to Politico reporters Mia McCarthy and Calen Razor, Florida Republicans are worried that Trump's moves against mail-in voting could hurt them in the 2026 midterms.
In an April 7 column, McCarthy and Razor explain, "Here is what's not-so-sunny lately for the Sunshine State Republicans. Mail-in voting: Trump, last week, signed an executive order that would limit mail-in voting after a months-long push to include such restrictions in a GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act. But millions of Floridians voted by mail in the last general election, and Gov. Ron DeSantis, last week, signed Florida's own version of the elections bill without mail voting limits."
A Florida Republican, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told Politico that could "absolutely" hurt Republicans in the Sunshine State.
That Republican warned, "It's going to really hurt the turnout. What we saw before is Republicans will say, 'OK, we will vote. We will do that.' And then, they just don't all get around to going' (to the polls to vote in person)."
According to McCarthy and Razor, Florida Republicans are also worried that redistricting could "backfire" and hurt them.
Rep. John Rutherford (R-Florida) told Politico, "They'll never create five more Republican leaning (districts) unless they just really hamstring several other Republican-leaning districts.
I think we've got to be careful with that, because I think it certainly can hurt Republicans."
Another thing that could hurt Florida Republicans, McCarthy and Razor report, is Trump's immigration policies — as the Sunshine State attracts a lot of conservative Latinos.
"Some Republicans also have started to push back on Trump's immigration policies as polls show GOP support among Hispanics weakening," the Politico reporters explain. "Rep. María Elvira Salazar, who represents a large Hispanic community, is leading that charge. She recently signed onto an effort with Democrats to force the House to vote on reinstating immigration protections for thousands of undocumented Venezuelans. And she was one of four Republicans who recently crossed party lines to force a vote on reinstating the same Temporary Protected Status for Haitian migrants."
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rww
03/30/2026
by
- Kathryn Wilkens @ Mediaite: ‘Trump Is Winning’: FCC Chair Boasts He’s Remaking the Media by Pushing Out Left-Leaning Figures
During a Friday CPAC appearance, FCC Chair Brendan Carr bragged that he’s remaking the media by pushing out left-leaning figures, declaring, “[President Donald] Trump is winning.”
- Patrick Marley @ The Washington Post: He took Pelosi’s lectern on Jan. 6. Now he’s running for office.
Adam Johnson has rarely voted and embraces his role as clown prince of Jan. 6. Floridians will decide whether a man who tried to upend democracy can help lead one.
- Hafiz Rashid @ The New Republic: January 6 Rioters Pardoned by Trump Sue Over “Emotional Distress”
January 6 insurrectionists say police used excessive force while trying to stop them from storming the Capitol.
- Jason Wilson @ The Guardian: College Republicans director made racist and sexist remarks on live streams
Review of Kai Schwemmer’s broadcasts undermines claim ‘process of growth’ had led him to abandon bigoted views.
- Lydia O'Connor @ HuffPost: A Running List Of The Totally Real, Not At All Fake Awards Donald Trump Has Received
The president is the "undisputed champion of beautiful clean coal," and he has the trophy to prove it.
- Amogh Dimri @ The Atlantic: Nick Fuentes’s Strategy is Working
Viral clips of the far-right white supremacist are growing his audience.
- Ben Jacobs @ Slate: CPAC Now Has No Trump and No Swag
CPAC was never cool, but it was once exciting. In 2026 the conference was no longer a hotbed of insurgents against a Republican establishment, let alone a place where factions of conservatives maneuvered for dominance. It wasn’t even an out-and-out MAGA pep rally that celebrated the ascension of Trump. It didn’t have a clear function anymore. Instead, it just felt like an event held out of habit.
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PENSION PLAN TRUMP PARDON
an 3 26
Conservative Dispatch CEO and editor Steve Hayes visited Bonita Springs, Florida, during campaign season and says he found the kind of political personalities you get in “Trump country.”
Former U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn was one of the first personalities Heyes shined a light on trying to nab Florida’s 19th Congressional District. In his article, titled “Meet the Has-Beens, Never-Weres, and Felon Locked in a Trumpy Primary,” he makes clear he is not impressed.
“That Cawthorn is a viable candidate — indeed, given his name recognition and MAGAworld celebrity status, he’s considered a real contender—says a lot about the contest in this dark red corner of Florida’s Gulf Coast and about the state of the Republican Party in the Trump era,” said Hayes, recounting Cawthorn’s congressional service beginning “with a rousing speech to the pro-Trump mob at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021,” where he praised the mob’s “willingness to fight, declared the 2020 election fraudulent, and later voted against certification.”
But that same career ended with “a flurry of bizarre and discrediting moments over the weeks leading up to the GOP primary for his reelection campaign,” said Hayes.
“A week after he lost that primary contest, the House Ethics Committee announced it was investigating the congressman for a possible improper relationship with a staffer and for a potential conflict of interest in his promotion of the LGB (Let’s Go Brandon) cryptocurrency,” for which he was ultimately fined $15,000,” said Hayes.
Another Trump Republican with a legal background would be former New York U.S. Rep. Chris Collins, who was charged with lying to the FBI in 2018, on top of charges related to insider trading. Republican leaders stripped Collins of his committee assignments. And even though he initially insisted on his innocence, two months later he accepted a plea deal. Three months after that he confessed his guilt at his sentencing hearing.
“Jonathan Barr, another lawyer for Collins, told Judge Vernon Broderick: ‘He accepted responsibility for his crimes, he has demonstrated sincere remorse. There is no excuse for the conduct. He doesn’t make any excuses for the conduct,” reports Hayes.
At the community meeting in Florida Hayes said Collins “used his opening remarks to emphasize (again and again) his coziness with Trump, [but] he left out the best evidence of their close relationship: Trump pardoned Collins after his guilty pleas and let him out of prison just two months into a two-year sentence.
But being an ally of Trump is what really matters in this deep-red Trump district, said Hayes. In fact, of all the candidates (and there are many more than Cawthorne and Collins) the only candidate whose website didn’t lead with Trump is Jim Oberweis, said Hayes. But of course his campaign—like all the others—is “nudging the White House political team for a Trump endorsement.
Every candidate is allied on policy, so the only advantage is which one gets the presidential nod, said Hayes.
“Nobody’s really campaigning — except to campaign to Trump,” said Francis Rooney, the former representative for the district. “The idea of Trump, the impact of Trump and MAGA is so overwhelming right now that the people want to be in that tent. And so they’re focusing on the things that are going to get the attention of the MAGA leadership.”
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sidney kraken georgia ballots 1 26
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rww
James Fishback Says Don Lemon Is 'Lucky That He's Not Getting Executed In The Public Square'
01/30/2026
by
James Fishback is a far-right Republican candidate for governor in Florida whose campaign has overtly appealed to the white nationalist movement, with Fishback making multiple appearances on programs hosted by virulently antisemitic white nationalists and voicing his admiration for white nationalist Nick Fuentes and his "groyper" movement.
On Friday, Fishback appeared on the American Family Association's "Jenna Ellis In The Morning" program, hosted by one of President Donald Trump's former attorneys, where he opened the interview by praising the Trump administration for arresting independent journalist Don Lemon for his coverage of a group of anti-ICE protesters who invaded a church in Minneapolis earlier this month.
"It is a good day for law and order in America," Fishback declared. "A man ransacked a church during Sunday service with BLM and antifa thugs. If our Founding Fathers knew that a bunch of thugs, led by Don Lemon, had ransacked a church on Sunday morning while parishioners were praising our awesome God, they would have likely called for his public execution."
"Don Lemon should be lucky that he's not getting executed in the public square for his little stunt, his violence, his aggression," Fishback continued. "It's time that Christians stand up for our rights in this country. We cannot be bullied. We cannot be pushed around, least of all by Don Lemon, and so it's a good day for law and order. I'm proud of what President Trump and the DOJ are doing and let's see that justice is served in this case all the way through."
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an 12 25
Florida cops wanted to arrest Epstein victims after they came forward: grand jury doc
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President Donald Trump is quickly losing support from those in his home state of Florida.
Bloomberg opinion columnist Mary Ellen Klas penned a Sunday piece where she revealed that many of the people she knows who are supporters of Trump are privately uncomfortable with his actions in the first year.
The Florida resident described the MAGA voters "queasy" over "brazen corruption" coming out of the second Trump administration.
The invasion of Venezuela is the most recent example. While ousting former President Nicolás Maduro was supported overwhelmingly by both sides of the political aisle, there is still a need for transparency about what the U.S. intends to do there and how much tax payer dollars will be used to fund what Trump wants.
"Yet, they don’t feel right calling out Trump for this or his other transgressions, so they dance around it — often trying to find some equivalent outrage under a Democratic administration," Klas said.
The problem they're finding, she wrote, is that there are no equivalences. While Trump's Cabinet officials have taken a "wrecking-ball" to the U.S. government, she noted GOP lawmakers "have remained virtually dormant." The administration has taken over Congress' power to control budget and spending, appointments to independent agencies and demote the power of other branches of the federal government.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is trying to prosecute Trump's opponents. All the while, Trump is taking advantage of "self-enriching deals, the firing of Justice Department watchdogs, the sweeping use of the president’s pardon power to free his allies — regardless of the seriousness of their crimes — and the frightening near-abandonment of the rule of law," wrote Klas.
From those she's spoken to, Klas said that many MAGA supporters bought into his 2024 campaign messages. Now, however, Americans are "afraid."
“My parents fled an authoritarian regime and that’s the type of government that instills fear and puts people in jail and punishes them for their viewpoints,” said Marcos Daniel Jiménez, a former US attorney under former President George W. Bush told Klas.
“That’s exactly what this president is doing — maybe not to that level — but the retribution and the attacks by the president and his cronies have caused many people who own businesses and have families to be afraid," Jiménez continued.
In fact, several Cuban Americans told Klas that they see parallels between Trump and former President Fidel Castro. Jiménez was the only one who would go on the record with her. Others were afraid of retaliation from Trump and his allies.
"Those who have experience with life in an authoritarian regime know best what will happen if the Trump administration continues down its current path. But they don’t see it in their self-interest to speak out. Social scientists call this the 'collective action problem,' when individuals acting in their own self-interest contribute to a worse outcome for the entire group," she continued.
In an essay for his students, Associate Professor of Law Dakota Rudesill advised Americans to consider their personal values and refuse to lower their standards.
Rudesill explained to Klaus that often when people see things that conflicts with their values they try to explain it away rather than standing up for what they believe in.
“But if everybody just looks to their immediate self-interest, then we are all just going to consent to transaction, submission, intimidation and threat — which undermines everything we believe in," Rudesill said.
Sometimes, she closed, it only takes one voice.
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trump lawfare press suppress
court VENUE SHOPPING AILEEN CANNON
an 12 25
Donald Trump is suing the BBC for defamation over a Panorama documentary from October 2024, but according to an analysis of the suit's claims by Britain's The i Paper, the "audacious" effort could be undone by a "massive presumption" the lawsuit has yet to prove.
Trump's legal team accused the documentary Trump: A Second Chance?of “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 presidential race by way of a “false, defamatory, deceptive, inflammatory and malicious depiction" of him. The BBC previously conceded that the president's main sticking point with the film — an edited version of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech at The Ellipse in Washington D.C. that made it seem like he directly told the crowd to "fight like hell" ahead of the Capitol Riots — was the result of an "error of judgment" by the production and offered him an apology.
The network did, however, argue that there were no grounds for claiming defamation due to the documentary. Trump disagreed and is now seeking $10 billion in damages, or roughly £7.5 billion.
In an analysis of the legal filing, The i Paper's Simon Marks noted that Trump's suit is lacking one crucial piece of evidence at the heart of its argument: proof that any actual person changed their vote after watching the Panorama film.
"The lawsuit notably fails to identify a single viewer of the documentary in Florida who might have been misled or aggrieved by its content," Marks explained. "Instead, it relies on a massive presumption that someone, somewhere in the state, must have seen it, speaking of 'the immense likelihood that citizens of Florida accessed the Documentary before the BBC had it removed.'"
Marks also noted that the suit attempted to paint "the BBC as a broadcasting powerhouse in the sunshine state of Florida" in order to justify its claims.
Trump is suing the network in a Florida court, with his and the BBC's legal teams having gone back and forth over whether or not there is legal standing for this venue. Trump's side argued that since the BBC News website is available in Florida, the case could be brought in the state. The network pushed back, claiming that the Panorama documentary was not available in the US due to geoblocking. Trump's side countered that the film was available on the BritBox streaming platform, and could potentially have been viewed by Florida residents using a virtual private network (VPN) service.
"Trump’s legal team will be aware that Grand National-style hurdles lie ahead for the US President before any trial gets underway," Marks wrote. "The lawsuit’s failure to identify a Florida viewer who either complained about the documentary in the immediate aftermath of its transmission or changed their vote as a result of seeing the film could prove to be the complaint’s Achilles heel. Further, the US Constitution’s First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech applies to all the speakers interviewed in the documentary, and past evidence suggests that Florida judges may not be impressed by the lawsuit’s grandiose claims..."
Marks further noted that a prior Trump defamation suit against the*New York Times*, to the tune of $15 billion, was tossed out by a Florida judge.
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10 25 an
SARASOTA, Fla. — Florida plans to end nearly a half-century of required childhood immunizations against diseases that have killed and maimed millions of children. Many critics of the decision, including doctors, are afraid to speak up against it.
With the support of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on Sept. 3 announced his plan to end all school-age vaccination mandates in the state.
“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” he told a cheering crowd of vaccination foes in Tallahassee. “Who am I, as a government or anyone else,” he said, “to tell you what you should put in your body?”
History shows that mandates increase the use of vaccines. Lower vaccination rates will mean increased rates of diseases like measles, hepatitis, meningitis, and pneumonia — and even the return of diphtheria and polio. Many of these diseases threaten not just the unvaccinated but also those they come in contact with, including babies and older people with weakened immunity.
But that scientific fact is being left unsaid in Florida. Health officials have largely been silent in the face of Ladapo’s campaign — and not because they agree with him. The University of Florida muzzled infectious disease experts, said emeritus professor Doug Barrett, formerly the university’s chief of pediatrics and senior vice president for health affairs.
“They’re told not to speak to anyone without permission from supervisors,” he said. University spokespeople didn’t respond to requests for comment.
County-level Department of Health officials across the state got the same message, said John Sinnott, a retired professor at the University of South Florida who is friends with one of the county health leaders.
Sarasota County’s health department referred a reporter to state officials in Tallahassee, who responded with a statement that vaccines will “remain available” to families who want them. The state did not respond to other requests for comment or for an interview with Ladapo.
Many pediatricians are silent, too, at least in public.
“A lot of them don’t take a strong stance on whether kids need to be vaccinated,” said Neil Manimala, a urologist and the president-elect of the Hillsborough County Medical Association. “They don’t want to lose business. And there are enough anti-vax people who can lambaste you on Google, spreading stories about clinicians who ‘want to instill the poison jabs.’”
History of Modern Vaccine Mandates
Several states ended vaccination mandates early last century when smallpox was the only widely given vaccine, said historian Robert Johnston of the University of Illinois-Chicago. None has done so since other vaccines were added to the schedule. (Routine smallpox vaccination ended in 1972).
In the 1970s, persistent measles outbreaks provoked officials to strengthen child protection with enforced school mandates in every state. Today the partisan split on vaccine policy in the wake of the covid outbreak has changed the equation. This is nowhere more the case than in Florida, although legislators in Texas and Louisiana are also considering ending mandatory vaccination, and Idaho enables parents to get an exemption just by asking for it.
“This is really going to be a watershed moment for families who already were not sure they want to do vaccines and now are being told they don’t need them,” said Jennifer Takagishi, vice president of the Florida branch of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
It’s hard to know how fast vaccine-preventable diseases might return if Florida ends its mandates — or how the public will respond. Asked
whether his office had modeled disease outcomes before his September announcement, Ladapo said “Absolutely not.” Parental freedom of choice isn’t a scientific matter, he said. “It’s an issue of right and wrong.”
Ladapo’s Department of Health did not respond a month later when asked whether it was making contingency plans for outbreaks. During a 2024 measles outbreak in Broward County, Ladapo sent parents a letter granting them permission to send unvaccinated children to school, defying the science-supported advice from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 1977, a measles epidemic that killed two children in Los Angeles County spurred a dramatic crackdown on vaccine-shunning across the country. But during an epidemic this year that killed two Texas children and 14 people in Mexico, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas signed a bill making it easier for parents to opt out of getting required shots.
“When are we going to have enough of a groundswell of people dying or becoming severely ill that leads people to push back and say, ‘No, no, we want the vaccines?’” Takagishi said. “I don’t know if we know the tipping point yet.”
“I don’t have the answer,” said Emory University emeritus professor Walter Orenstein, who worked on measles for many of his 26 years at the CDC and led the agency’s immunization program from 1988 to 2004. “Measles resurgences created the political will to support our overall immunization program. For some reason it hasn’t worked this time. It’s just sad.”
Youngsters in Florida are already among the least vaccinated in the nation, because of relatively lax enforcement, the post-covid backlash against shots, and the libertarian attitude of state officials. Statewide, only about 89% of kindergartners are fully vaccinated, with Sarasota County having the lowest rate, at about 80%. To be safe from the spread of measles, a community must be 95% immunized.
With Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cutting vaccine research, filling the health agency with anti-vaccine activists and spreading doubt about vaccination’s safety and value, little stands in the way of decisions by Florida officials that are likely to cause rates to sink further.
Ladapo’s department is ending mandates for shots against hepatitis B, chickenpox, and the bacteria causing meningitis and pneumonia. Early next year, the Florida Legislature is expected to take up reversal of a 1977 law requiring kids at school and day care to be vaccinated against seven other diseases that can kill children: whooping cough, measles, polio, rubella, mumps, diphtheria, and tetanus.
After Measles, Which Disease Returns Next?
In the face of these attacks, scientists are attempting to predict which diseases are likely to make a resurgence and when.
A study published in April by Stanford epidemiologist Mathew Kiang and colleagues estimated that even at current vaccination levels, measles, declared eliminated from the United States in 2000, is likely to become a routine illness again. If measles vaccination rates drop by an additional 10%, there could be an average of about 450,000 cases yearly, with hundreds of deaths and cases of brain damage.
But the study may exaggerate the threat, said Shaun Truelove, an epidemic disease modeler at Johns Hopkins University who said he’s worried about losing public trust with alarmist predictions. Still, he said, an intensification of measles outbreaks seems certain. The country is already in the midst of its worst measles year in three decades, with more than 1,500 cases and current outbreaks in South Carolina and Minnesota.
“You don’t really need to model measles if vaccines stop,” Truelove said. “In the pockets where there are outbreaks, every kid who isn’t vaccinated will get infected.”
Measles is the “canary in the coal mine” for other vaccine-preventable diseases, said Sal Anzalone, a pediatrician with Healthcare Network in Naples, Florida. “When you start seeing measles, there’s more to come behind that.”
People who want vaccinations will still be able to get them if mandates are eliminated, Ladapo has said.
But the state’s message confuses parents, especially the poor and underserved, Anzalone said. It’s typically hard for them to get children to appointments unless they have to, he said, noting that 80% of his patients are insured through Medicaid. If policies put more of the payment burden on parents, fewer will vaccinate, he said.
And if vaccinations fall and infections increase, children won’t be the only people affected. Cancer patients and people in Florida’s numerous elderly communities would be at risk. Schools and businesses would be disrupted. Disease could disrupt the tourism industry, which brought 143 million people to the state last year. (The Florida Chamber of Commerce did not respond to requests for comment.)
“Infectious diseases don’t stop with the people who say they are willing to bear the risk,” said Meagan Fitzpatrick, a University of Maryland vaccinologist. Because of their unpredictable spread, she said, “with an infectious disease, vaccination is never an individual choice.”
Clinicians fear that an end to mandates could allow hepatitis B, a chronic liver disease, to return with force, since an estimated 2 million Americans carry the virus. They also foresee a return to the days when infants with high fever had to undergo a painful and risky lumbar puncture and blood draw to rule out meningitis, as well as a blood infection caused by the bacteria Haemophilus influenzae type B that routine vaccination has prevented since the 1990s.
Barbara Loe Fisher, who co-founded the modern movement against vaccine mandates in the early 1980s after her son suffered a reaction to the pertussis vaccine then in use (and since replaced with a safer shot), is skeptical that Floridians will abandon vaccination en masse, despite the end to mandates.
Fisher, president of the National Vaccine Information Center, moved from Virginia to southwestern Florida in 2020. She said she believes that vaccine injuries are undercounted and that children are vaccinated without informed consent. She acknowledged that mandates have increased coverage but said their removal will increase trust in public health and medicine.
“It is time to allow biological products like vaccines to be subject to the law of supply and demand,” she said, “just like any other product sold in the marketplace.”
Sinnott, for his part, anticipates measles will come roaring back, along with intensified whooping cough, influenza, and covid outbreaks.
“They think nothing will happen. Maybe they’re right,” said Sinnott, the retired professor. “It’s an experiment.”
Polio could return, and that is not an abstraction for Sinnott, 77.
He was 7 years old when he contracted the disease, spending six months in a wheelchair. In recent years he’s suffered from post-polio syndrome — difficulty swallowing, and tightness and pain in his limbs.
The first polio vaccine was licensed in 1955, the year he got sick. “I remember one time my mother telling me, ‘The line was too long,’” he said.
Sinnott forgives his parents, and parents today who waver on vaccination. He’s less tolerant of certain public health leaders. They should know better, he said.
*KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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October 29, 2025, edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show
CALLER (GUEST): I understand all the people that are trying to leave states like New York, California, Illinois. I'm just hoping that they don't bring their politics with them.
SEAN HANNITY (HOST): I say that all the time. If you're going to move to Florida, Texas, the Carolinas, Tennessee, don't bring your idiotic left-wing radicalized policies with you and destroy the state you're moving to. There ought to be a political litmus test, seriously, because those states are thriving.
My free state of Florida is thriving. I mean, now they're going to put a referendum on the ballot to reduce property taxes because they've gone up exponentially since Covid, and if they cap that, forget it. I mean, Florida is golden, good to go. They've dealt with the insurance issue that's been a problem down here, and that's going to get better. So, you know, every state has their issues, but law and order is real down here.
MMA
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AN 10 25
In a split from earlier rulings, Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeals on Wednesday turned down a bid by Republicans to alter how county commissioners are elected in Alachua County — a move that would have significantly shifted the region’s political balance.
PBS affiliate WUFT TV reportedthat the challengers, including former state Senator Keith Perry (R) and three co‑plaintiffs, had asked the court to block the county from electing its five commissioners through a so-called at‑large system, in which every voter in the county votes for all commissioners. The appeal supported maintaining or restoring single‑member districts, where only voters in a given district cast ballots for their respective commissioner.
Because of Wednesday’s decision, unless the Florida Supreme Court steps in, next year’s commission elections in Alachua will proceed under the existing system — a model in which Democrats have long held sway.
Ken Cornell, vice chair of the county commission and a Democrat, told reporters, per the report, that the ruling helps safeguard citizens from fragmented representation.
He argued that under district systems, “they had no representation, because they couldn’t go to another commissioner because they weren’t represented by another commissioner.”
He added that district elections tend to narrow the scope of issues commissioners focus on, turning governance into horse‑trading over countywide priorities.
The report highlighted that the legal battle traces back to a 2022 state law mandating district elections in Alachua Co., backed by then‑Rep. Chuck Clemons and Perry, which passed narrowly by voter referendum.
The law required that commissioners be elected by voters in each district rather than countywide.
In 2024, voters overwhelmingly approved a switch back to at‑large elections by more than 70 percent. But opponents sued, claiming the ballot description was illegal.
A circuit court judge agreed, finding that the ballot language failed to conform to statutory requirements; nonetheless he allowed the election to proceed.
Republican plaintiffs argued that the at‑large system makes it nearly impossible for GOP candidates to win in the county
Perry testified that “we’ve had two Republicans elected to the county commission since Reconstruction,” both serving only one term, and said the dominance of Democratic and student voters in Gainesville further obstructs Republican prospects.
He also claimed that at-large elections diluted Black voters’ influence in the city — asserting that those voters say the system disenfranchises them.
The three judges on the panel — Joseph Lewis, Stephanie Ray and Adam Tanenbaum — were respectively appointees of Republican Governors Jeb Bush, Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis.
To date, all five county commissioners are Democrats. The last Republican to serve, Sue Baird, left office in 2014.
Alachua County remains one of the few solidly Democratic strongholds in Florida — it was among just six Florida counties to vote against President Donald Trump in 2024.
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AN 9 25
As the debate over vaccine mandates heats up in Florida, there’s a push in the Legislature and the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis to broaden the use of ivermectin.
A Republican legislator from Spring Hill has filed legislation to allow the over-the-counter sale of ivermectin suitable for human use even though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not authorized or approved ivermectin for use in preventing or treating COVID-19 in humans or animals.
Ivermectin is an effective treatment for parasites in animals and for use by humans to treat parasites such as head lice and scabies, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The FDA has not approvedIvermectin for treatment or prevention of COVID-19, and so far recommends against taking it for COVID-19, instead suggesting people get vaccinated for protection.
Nevertheless, there was buzz during the pandemic about using it for treatment for COVID-19.
HB 29 sponsor Rep. Jeff Holcomb, R-Spring Hill, did not immediately return Florida Phoenix’s request for comment. If approved, Florida would join the ranks of Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Idaho, and Texas in approving the medication for over the counter sales.
The governor, First Lady Casey DeSantis, state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, and Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Shevaun Harris held a press conference at the University of South Florida Health College of Medicine to recognize World Cancer Research Day and to highlight $60 million in new cancer research grant opportunities.
There, the first lady said she expected some portion of the new grant funding to be used for cancer research on ivermectin.
“I know we should look at it. I know we should look at the benefits of it. We shouldn’t just speculate and guess,” DeSantis said.
Ladapo, seconded the idea.
“There’s been a lot of chatter about it, and this very simple drug that happens to be very safe, by the way, has unfortunately, you know it’s so much it’s been weighed down by all this politics, especially during the Biden administration.”
Ivermectin is not approved by the FDA for cancer treatment.
The FDA also warns large doses of ivermectin can be dangerous. “Even doses of ivermectin for approved human uses can interact with other medications, like blood-thinners. You can also overdose on ivermectin, which can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hypotension (low blood pressure), allergic reactions (itching and hives), dizziness, ataxia (problems with balance), seizures, coma, and even death.”
Ladapo and DeSantis defend no mandate push
Meanwhile, Ladapo and his boss DeSantis defended their push to eliminate vaccine mandates from Florida law, rules, and regulations.
“I hope that we continue to reject the normal and we pursue a path that feels righteous, that feels like we’re actually, you know, aiming toward the thing that we want to improve,” Ladapo said.
“That opportunity is there. Thankfully, we have leadership, uniquely in this state, to do it. And I hope it spreads like, like all those minor viruses that my critics are afraid of, or something.”
The minor viruses Ladapo referred to includes measles. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 1,514 confirmed measles cases this year as of Sept. 23. Six of those confirmed cases were in Florida. There were 11 confirmed measles cases in Florida in 2024.
Measles and other disease outbreaks occur as the percentage of school-age children in Florida who are vaccinated against measles, mumps, and rubella dips. While the target rate for MMR vaccination is 95%, Florida’s 2024-2025 rate was 88.8%.
That’s a near 5% point change from the 2019-2020 year, aKFF analysis shows, and well below the targeted 95% needed for herd immunity.
Ladapo and DeSantis avoided directly answering whether their children have been vaccinated. Ladapo said reporters should be asking substantive questions and likened the questions about the children to “silly games.”
“I actually don’t care about sharing information about that. I really don’t care at all. But I won’t. And I won’t because I’m not going to participate in the silly games that so much of the media chooses to partake in instead of the substantive parts of the issues.”
In addition to defending his anti-vaccine mandate push, Ladapo appears on board with the Trump administration’s announcement that autism rates are up because pregnant women are taking acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, during their pregnancies.
“They acknowledge that not all the studies show harm, but some of them do show relation. And it’s not a total explanation for autism by any means, but it does appear to be that it’s reasonable to conclude that it may be contributing to the prevalence of autism in children,” Ladapo said.
When asked whether he intended to issue any guidance he said: “We’re still looking at it. So, we may have some more guidance, but it would probably be very much in line with where the FDA is.”
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an 9 25
Florida Attorney GeneralJames Uthmeier (R) has announced the launch of a new tool for members of the public to report “acts or threats of political violence" as well as social media posts of public school teachers, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Uthmeier, chairman of the ironically named far-right "Florida Freedom Fund" political action committee associated with Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL), has the backing of Florida Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas, who, recently sent a letter to public school superintendents threatening teachers who publicly express negative opinions about deceased far-right activist Charlie Kirk.
In a statement attached to Uthmeier's announcement, Kamoutsas said that “any educator who makes vile, despicable comments celebrating and encouraging violence in schools will be investigated and held accountable.”
According to The Tallahassee Democrat, Uthmeier said that "while the First Amendment will be upheld, threats of violence won’t be tolerated."
In the wake of Kirk's death, several Florida public school teachers have lost their jobs and status or been put on leave, including Karen Leader, an associate art history professor at Florida Atlantic University, placed on leave for posting about the right-wing podcaster's history of hate speech.
A retired University of Florida professor lost his honorary title after posting about Kirk, “I did not want him to die. I reserve that wish for Trump," and other professors' posts are under investigation by the state along with teachers at several K-12 schools throughout the state.
“I didn’t say anything or do anything that encouraged violence at all,” Leader told Hyperallergic.“I did not say or do anything that celebrated his death, that said he deserved it, that in any way, shape or form, condoned violence.”
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mma
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AN 9 25
Citing state policy on tenure, elimination of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and the cost of living, Florida faculty laid out their frustrations in a recent survey.
In a Faculty in the South survey conducted by various conferences of the American Association of University Professors, 31% of Florida respondents said they have applied for a job outside of Florida since 2023. That number was 25% among all survey respondents in the South.
The same, 31% of Florida respondents, said they plan to seek employment in another state during the next hiring cycle.
“The governor of Florida threatens at every turn to take funding away so administration at colleges don’t stand up to him or board of education. I no longer have any motivation or creativity to make courses better,” a tenured professor at a public community college wrote.
The survey focused on policy affecting employment, including whether faculty would recommend working in their state to up-and-coming academics, and trends in applications for faculty positions. It included nearly 200 responses from Florida faculty among its nearly 4,000 responses across Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
The survey concluded with an open-ended question asking faculty to provide examples of how “attacks on higher education are directly impacting your work.” It did not report respondents’ identities beyond basic demographics like gender, race, tenure status, years of experience, and type of institution they teach at.
‘Walking on egg shells’
“Students report any classroom discussion they don’t like directly to the Governor’s office. Everyone is afraid all the time,” one woman teaching at a public four-year school wrote. “I have stopped teaching books that might be in any way controversial. I don’t open up general discussion in class but ask only direct questions that will elicit non-controversial answers. I need health insurance so I can’t just quit.”
The state scanning course materials for disfavored viewpoints was a widespread stressor for many faculty.
Florida DOGE to ‘deep dive’ into state universities, ‘prune’ ‘ideological study stuff’
“Most of the courses I’ve taught for decades now violate state and university mandates,” a man teaching at a Florida tier-one research university said.
As of earlier this year, Florida institutions’ general education courses no longer contained “indoctrinating concepts,” State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues proclaimed in January.
Florida universities have conducted a review, required by a 2022 law, of general education courses to ensure that they do not “distort significant historical events or include a curriculum that teaches identity politics.”
“I’m continually worried that the content of my clases [sic] will be flagged as “DEI” because I am a historian of the Caribbean, a region mostly populated by non-white people,” one professor said.
One women’s studies professor described the effect as “Constant anxiety, walking on egg shells trying to anticipate what would be used against me/us.”
More than a third, 34%, of Florida respondents said administrators have questioned syllabi or curricula choices for their courses. Among all states surveyed, half as many, 17%, indicated administrators questioned their curricula.
One professor said that since the state and federal government have made illegal “a wide range of Constitutionally protected components of speech and expression,” “I must break the law in order to tell the truth. Because I’m hired to tell the truth, and because I’m much more committed to the truth than to the law, I break the law. This means I am expecting to be arrested in front of a classroom any day, for actions that are illegal only as a result of the right-wing fad of the most recent decade.”
Nearly three in four, 71%, of faculty in Florida who were surveyed said they would not encourage a graduate student to seek employment in Florida.
“I am going to take early retirement despite a great job and salary. The threats are real and I am exhausted, between fighting this and fighting AI and poorly prepared, lazy, unethical students,” a tenured professor at a four-year public university wrote.
Higher education funding cuts have been the subject of nationwide political debate, including Florida State University reporting that it lost $100 million in federal grants, although $83 million of that has since been reinstated, the school’s president said last week.
About one-in-10, 11%, said they have had a federal contract ended by the Trump administration.
“The loss of vital federal grants has removed opportunities from me and my colleagues,” one professor wrote. “Attacks on LGBTQ students, immigrants, and diversity have also made it difficult to recruit promising graduate students or to guarantee their health and safety. Florida colleges being forced to remove diversity languages has destroyed years of valuable work, overturned an incredible general education curriculum, taken power and governance away from faculty, and wasted a lot of valuable time.”
Tenure troubles
Since 2023, professors in Florida with tenure have been subject to post-tenure review, graded on standards crafted by university trustees relating to research performance, teaching, service, and compliance with state laws and university policies.
Of the nearly-one-third who recently applied for an out-of-state job, tenure and DEI issues, academic freedom, the political climate, and cost of living were among the most common concerns.
Respondents said the number of applications for coworkers’ positions, as well as the quality of applicants, have decreased.
“Our department is trying to improve, but we have had several failed searches in recent years because candidates don’t want to move to Florida because of the broad political climate and the fact that tenure protections functionally no longer exist here,” a tenured public university professor said.
Some faculty said they have not experienced problems with “attacks on higher education,” one stating, “I haven’t felt any — Florida is great!.” Another said, “They’re not, and freedom in the classroom still persists, and I am at a public university in… wait for it… FLORIDA…”
“I find that I’m having to spend more time explaining to students why they need to use evidence to support their views and why clear arguments are important,” a professor at a private institution wrote.
One professor complained that “our board of trustees stacked with heritage foundation members, our president was forced out and replaced by a republican politician.” Course materials face heightened scrutiny, this professor added.
“The climate of persecution, retaliation, and ideological imposition makes it impossible to teach my discipline accurately or well without opening oneself to disciplinary measures,” that professor said. “While New College got a lot of headlines, similar invasions of public universities are happening with no national press, leaving those of us who work here isolated and vulnerable to attack.”
‘Academic freedom is on life support,’ say professors surveyed on tenure, censorship
Gov. Ron DeSantis orchestrated a shake-up of the University of West Florida Board of Trustees in a more conservative light earlier this year and that institution is now led by a former GOP lawmaker.
Results for the survey were collected throughout August and more than 60% of respondents said they are tenured. Last year’s iteration of the survey featured responses from about 350 Florida professors.
“There is a lower threshold of critical thinking because everyone is fearful about what is ‘allowed’ vs. ‘banned’ by law. The fear and the self-censorship is widespread. Our administration, now saddled with a governor-imposed, unqualified hire as a President, is understandably more cautious rather than vocal about protecting academic freedom,” one professor wrote.
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AN 8 25
For many years, Florida was considered a volatile swing state that, depending on the candidate, could go either Democrat or Republican in statewide races. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both carried Florida twice, and in the state's 2018 gubernatorial race, Democratic former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum just barely lost to Republican now-Gov. Ron DeSantis.
But since then, Florida has taken a deep-red turn. DeSantis ran as a far-right culture warrior in 2022 and was reelected by 19 percent; Donald Trump carried Florida by roughly 14 percent in 2024. And Florida has become a bastion of MAGA politics, from DeSantis to conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer to Sen. Rick Scott to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi (Florida's former state attorney general) to Trump himself.
In an article published by The Guardian on August 6, journalist Oliver Laughland describes a 400-mile journey across Florida —where he took a close look at the state's MAGA machine.
READ MORE: 'Living in a fantasy world': Critics pounce as Trump interview goes off-the-rails
Laughland describes a Turning Point USA event at the Tampa Convention Center, where, in July, a who's-who of MAGA — including British comedian Russell Brand — could be found and "conspiracy theories, grievance politics and Christian nationalism" were on full display.
"Ahead of me, Russell Brand sits on a white sofa, broadcasting live on the conservative video-streaming service Rumble," Laughland explains. "His guest is the 'alt-right' influencer Jack Posobiec. To the left, along an alleyway lined with small broadcast booths, is the longtime Donald Trump adviser and self-proclaimed 'dirty trickster' Roger Stone, who is holding court on a podcast. To the rear, on a large metal scaffold, is Steve Bannon’s 'War Room' channel, busy cutting between live footage of a small protest outside the event and adverts for various Trump-aligned products….. In the arena next to the mezzanine, a conveyor belt of MAGA superstars walk out to deliver keynote speeches, accompanied by spitting-flame cannon, pounding dubstep, spinning lasers and strobe lights."
Laughland continues, "Brand delivers a bizarre diatribe — part standup comedy, part evangelical sermon — about his newfound conversion to Christianity in a word salad of alliteration and non sequiturs…. He is immediately followed by Tom Homan, Trump’s loudmouth border czar."
But that Turning Point USA event in Tampa was only one of the MAGA-related things Laughland observed in Florida. Four hours south of Tampa, he notes, is the "Alligator Alcatraz" detention center. And Palm Beach is home to Trump's Mar-a-Lago, home to countless MAGA events.
READ MORE: 'Open civil war': Retired federal judge calls Trump a 'tyrant' and MAGA 'anti-rule of law'
"My colleague Tom Silverstone and I came here as the first stop on a journey across…. Florida," Laughland notes. "Once the quintessential swing state, it is now solidly Republican — and home to some of the president's vast sources of personal wealth, including his beach club, Mar-a-Lago. It is also one of the hubs of his mass‑deportation program."
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an sn 7 25
Al Capone liked to relax in Miami Beach.
Ex-dictators, junta leaders, and death squad commanders from Cuba, Nicaragua, Peru, Honduras, Venezuela, and Panama have moved here when things got too hot at home.
Then there are the dodgy New York billionaires, including the felonious current occupant of the White House and his erstwhile pal, the late Jeffrey Epstein, who installed themselves in ocean-front mansions and became Florida Men.
Epstein’s girlfriend/posh pimp Ghislaine Maxwell made herself a Florida Woman, too, shopping for young girls in Palm Beach County.
Then she moved north, although not by choice: She was sentenced to 20 years for sex trafficking and imprisoned at FCI Tallahassee.
Now the feds have whisked her off to some tennis prison in Texas.
If you’re a halfway rational human being, you probably haven’t given much thought to her over the past six months, what with the attacks on science, the attempts to wreck higher education, the dismantling of environmental protections, and destruction of the rule of law.
Obsession
Our brothers and sisters in MAGA, however, just can’t get her out of their heads.
They’re fixated on her, Jeffrey Epstein, and these alleged files which may or may not still be sitting on the attorney general’s desk.
They’re convincedthe files contain mighty secrets about nefarious cabals, Pizzagate, Lizard People, and sex island dirt on the Clintons.
Pam Bondi claimed on Fox “News” she would “review” the files then put Epstein’s stuff out there for everyone’s delectation.
Yet no files have been forthcoming, and boy, is MAGA mad.
Recently some “personal finance” website voted Tallahassee the ninth most boring cityin America.
Unfair!
Until last Friday when Maxwell left us, everybody wanted to visit Tallahassee.
Florida’s capital was the focus of the political world, an object of slathering fascination especially among podcast hosts, news junkies, cable TV reporters, Never Trumpers, Ride-or-Die Trumpers, and people on psychotropic medication.
Call that boring? We hadn’t gotten this much attention since the Great Presidential Vote Count Screw-Up of 2000.
Trump acolyte Todd Blanche (his side-hustle is being Bondi’s deputy AG) recently descended upon the United States Courthouse in downtown Tallahassee to interview Maxwell in the presence of her Miami attorney David Markus.
Look over there!
Blanche and Markus admit they are good friendsbut swear there’s no conflict of interest, no sir, nothing to see here.
We don’t know what they said, but Ghislaine-o-mania isn’t going away.
Hoping to distract us, the regime keeps hollering “Squirrel!”
The FBI just released 230,000 files on the assassination of Martin Luther King.
National Security Tsarina Tulsi Gabbard has accused Barack Obama of treason, claiming he cooked up a coupagainst Trump in the 2016 election.
Speaker Mike Johnson was all for releasing the Epstein files until he wasn’t (maybe there was a phone call from the Oval Office?), so he adjourned the House early to avoid a vote on it.
Trump himself has been slinging delusions around like a chimp with a barrel of feces, claiming the Epstein files were created by James Comey or Joe Biden or maybe sinister Greenlandic elves.
When that didn’t seem to work, he started barking about changing the names of NFL teams in Cincinnati and Washington back to “Indians” and “Redskins.”
Then he tried to change the subject by flouncing off to Scotland (where three-quarters of the population heartily despise him) to (in order of importance) 1. Play golf; 2. Make a “trade deal” with the EU that will cleverly raise costsfor Americans.
The Scots and the international press made sure nobody forgot how the president and Florida’s favorite pedophile used to be bosom buddies, dogging him with questions and snark.
There’s a grand sign at the entrance to his Aberdeenshire golf course proclaiming “Trump International Golf Links.” Underneath, somebody placed a smaller, quite official-looking sign which said, “Twinned with Epstein Island.”
Overboard
Neither heat domes nor killer floods nor ICE agents nor gloom of nightwill stay Americans from their fixation with Epstein and Maxwell.
And so — inevitably — back to Florida, always the humid center of bad behavior, back to Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach palace of horrors, and back to Ghislaine Maxwell, surely the most uptown inmate in FCI history.
She was once an heiress, the youngest child of megabucks London newspaper baron Robert Maxwell. As a student at Oxford, she was described as a “shiny glamazon.”
But her father was not only physically and emotionally abusive, he was embezzling from his own company and defrauding its employees.
In 1991, they found Robert Maxwell face down in the sea.
He’d been sailing near the Canary Islands on his yacht “The Lady Ghislaine.” Nobody ever figured out whether he jumped or was pushed.
Next thing you know, Ghislaine is Jeffrey Epstein’s arm candy, hard at work procuring young girls for him.
Like Trump, Epstein was a New Yorker trying to be a big deal in Palm Beach. In 1990 he bought a 14,000 square foot mansion and partied at Mar-a-Lago.
Like Trump, noisome stories about sexual abuse swirled around him like a nasty cocktail of skunk spray and dog poop.
Enabling Epstein
You will not be surprised to learn that the state of Florida played a major role in enabling Epstein.
Having amassed vast evidence he’d raped and sexually assaulted at least a dozen under-age girls, Palm Beach County cops searched his Palm Beach mansion in 2005, only to find his six computer hard drives had disappeared.
Epstein finally got arrested, and though a federal grand jury returned a 60-count indictment, he was allowed to plead guilty only to “soliciting a prostitute.”
In 2008, he was put into the private wing of the Palm Beach County jail. He had his own television room. His personal driver arrived every morning to take him to his office.
Turns out the Palm Beach County state attorney, the FBI, prosecutors and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida — a man named Alex Acosta, later appointed Secretary of Labor by Donald Trump — colluded to give Epstein the sweetest of sweet deals: a 20-month sentence.
He served about a year.
This is corrupt even by Florida standards.
When he got out in 2009, Epstein went back to living the lifestyle of the rich and infamous while the young women he assaulted and exploited were forgotten.
We might never have known all this were it not for the relentless and brilliant work of journalist Julie Brown, whose 2018 series in the Miami Heraldgave voice to his victims: She tracked down more than five dozen of them.
‘Pyramid scheme’
Brown’s reporting detailed how he’d prey on homeless girls or especially vulnerable kids, paying them to bring in other girls.
This sex-trafficking “pyramid scheme,” as Brown calls it, was run by Ghislaine Maxwell.
Maxwell would visit South Florida gyms and spas, telling petite blonde high schoolers — apparently Epstein’s “type” — they could make big money giving massages to “this old guy.”
She encountered 17-year old Virginia Giuffreworking at Mar-a-Lago’s spa and convinced her to “work” for Epstein.
Virginia Giuffre said Epstein passed her around to various men, including Prince Andrew and prominent lawyer Alan Dershowitz, instructing her to have sex with them. Prince Andrew denied the allegations but he wound up reaching a settlement with Giuffre. Dershowitz has also repeatedly denied allegations. Giuffre dropped her allegations against Dershowitz in 2022 and said she “may have made a mistake.”
Trump claims he had no idea what his good friend Jeffrey was up to back then, variously insisting he ditched Epstein for being “sleazy” (insert your own pot-and-kettle joke here) or they quarreled over Epstein’s “stealing” his pretty young Mar-a-Lago employees.
Brown’s attention to the shady nonprosecution deal in Palm Beach eventually led to his 2019 New York arrest on federal sex trafficking charges.
Epstein, of course, is now dead, most likely by suicide — though lots of MAGAs don’t believe that.
Virginia Giuffre is also dead, definitely by suicide.
Ghislaine Maxwell, however, is still here.
She wasn’t exactly living her best life in Tallahassee, spending her days giving yoga classes, teaching etiquette(even criminals want to be ladylike!) and, no doubt, explaining over and over that her name is not pronounced “Gizz-Lane.”
MAGA (and quite a few Democrats) want her to talk; she wants out of prison.
She may be about to get lucky.
Pardon
Thanks to Trumpists’ rich fantasy life, in which everything is a conspiracy of the Deep Swamp, she suddenly has some power.
She says she’ll testify in public as long as Congress agrees to a few little provisions as spelled out by her lawyer, chiefly immunity and a chance to see the committee’s questions in advance.
She also doesn’t want to appear before them until after the Supreme Court hears her appeal, in which she makes the thoroughly bizarre argument that the nonprosecution deal the Southern District of Florida cut with Epstein should apply to her, too.
Classic Florida move: The rules are different here.
Anyway, if they don’t comply, she’ll take the Fifth.
Trump keeps saying he’s “allowed” to pardon her, though he evades the question of whether he actually would.
That, no doubt, depends on what kind of dirt he thinks she has on him and whether that outweighs dirt she might have on his perceived enemies.
Here in Tallahassee, we’re feeling a little sore, a little mad at Texas for stealing our celebrity sex offender.
But once a Florida Woman, always a Florida Woman.
Texas will never take that away from us.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE. SUPPORT
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
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an 7 25
'Done everything they can to avoid hearing from' us: Veteran interrupts GOP celebration in Florida
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an sn 7 25
If you’re wondering what happens when history is bowdlerized or suppressed, lies are enshrined, free enquiry stifled, empathy ridiculed, education crippled, and hatred valorized, take a look at Preston Damsky, racist, antisemite, and top law student at the University of Florida.
Damsky’s now notorious for receiving a “book award” as the best student in his “Originalism” seminar. Seems the professors were dazzled by his capstone essay arguing the Constitution’s “We the People” means white people.
Only white people.
Non-whites should have their voting rights protections removed. What he calls “criminal infiltrators at the border” should be shot on sight.
Amendments 13, 14, and 15, the ones abolishing slavery and enshrining citizenship, equal treatment under the law, and the right to vote are illegitimate.
According to Damsky, “The United States was founded as a race-based nation-state for the preservation and betterment of White Americans(the People), as clearly laid out in the Preamble and revealed by our history, it is difficult to see how these amendments (or at least the way they have been interpreted in the post-World War II era) do not amount to unconstitutional, revolutionary usurpations by the constituted government power.”
There’s a touch of truth in this: The 18th Century iteration of our Constitution was indeed written by white men for white men.
But much as he’d love for American society to look like it did in 1788, when the Federalist Papers were published, times have changed. We fought a bitter war over slavery, marched against segregation, demanded rights for the disenfranchised, and eventually legislated our way — slowly and partially — to a more equitable nation.
The post-Civil War amendments are just as valid, just as much a part of the Constitution of the United States, as the earlier ones.
For now, at least: it’s unclear whether this will continue to be the case.
At home in Florida
Most Americans once celebrated our heterogeneity, our pluralism, and our tendency to expand freedoms. We valued knowledge and tried to foster understanding; we welcomed the new.
Not so much these days, not here in Florida. Trump and DeSantis have made ignorance great again.
This state now has statutes forbidding teaching the truth about slavery and Jim Crow, threatening educators who discuss gender, sexuality, systemic racism, and other disfavored topics.
Universities are scrubbing their websites of words that might upset the governor and his goons: “women,” “Black,” “colonialism,” and “diversity” — even if it’s “biodiversity” — anything seen as threatening to white, male Christian hegemony.
No wonder Preston Damsky, who was raised in the alarmingly multicultural world of Southern California, feels at home in here in Florida.
Florida is also alarmingly multicultural, of course, but our governor — while not an avowed white supremacist — is nonetheless an anti-immigrant, anti-civil rights, Viktor Orban-wannabe whose definition of “American” leaves out an awful lot of people.
DeSantis’ Florida is big on book bans, removing from schools books with LGBTQ characters, books about civil rights, books questioning American exceptionalism, books that tell painful truths about the world.
Toni Morrison’s “Bluest Eye,” Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five,” William Styron’s “Sophie’s Choice,” Khaled Hosseini’s “Kite Runner,” Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale,” Judy Blume’s “Forever,” and Anne Frank’s “Diary” have all been challenged or deep-sixed by parents and school boards who want to suppress stories that might deepen and complicate students’ knowledge of the country they live in or expand their understanding of ways to be human.
In Escambia County, they’ve yanked the dictionary off the shelf.
Seems Merriam-Webster might harbor smut and subversion.
‘Institutional neutrality’
But nobody’s censoring Preston Damsky’s weird, warped take on who counts as a real American, and nobody is punishing him for being a white supremacist.
When asked why Damsky’s paper was not only acceptable but worthy of an award, the interim dean of UF’s law school cited “institutional neutrality” and said professors must not practice “viewpoint discrimination.”
This is actually as it should be: Contrary to right-wing talking points accusing the academy of “canceling” the insufficiently “woke,” universities are places where you can express unpopular, even vile, racist, exceptionally stupid opinions.
But “institutional neutrality” doesn’t seem to apply to all exceptionally stupid opinions — as Preston Damsky has now discovered.
Virulent racism is OK: The Trump regime is not yanking funding from universities for anti-Black discrimination.
Antisemitism, however, unleashes a firestorm.
The Trump-DeSantis axis has ginned up such hysteria over perceived antisemitism (which the rational among us can see is often principled support for the Palestinian people and horror at the murderous Netanyahu government), that anyone who criticizes Israel is treated like Heinrich Himmler, architect of the “Final Solution.”
Mohsen Madawi, Rumeysa Ozturk, Mahmoud Khalil and other student protesters detained for exercising their First Amendment rights are not Nazis. Preston Damsky, on the other hand … well, he has said calling him a Nazi “would not be manifestly wrong.”
His social media posts call Jews “parasites” and declare they must be “abolished by any means necessary.”
In a neat triangulation of white nationalism, antisemitic paranoia, and (somewhat understandable) disdain for the whole U.S. government, one of Damsky’s X posts castigates Donald Trumpfor inviting rapper (and Florida native) Kodak Black to the White House.
This, Damsky said, serves to “normalize and glorify the mongrelized stupidity that is modern Jewish-produced ‘popular’ ‘culture.’”
‘Warrior culture’
You’d think the guy would notice Trump is not exactly devoid of his own antisemitism, accusing Jews of being money-grubbing and “disloyal” to America. In Iowa the other day, he invoked one of the oldest and nastiest Jewish stereotypes, calling bankers “shylocks.”
And surely Damsky would give the Trumpists credit for their own racist projects, restoring Confederate names to military facilities and starting the process to take Harriet Tubman’s nameoff a Navy ship.
Defense Secretary “Good Hair” Hegseth bleats about restoring a “warrior culture” to the military, obviously unaware that Harriet Tubman spied for the Union Army and led the 1863 Combahee Ferry Raid into Confederate territory.
Look it up, Pete. She was a warrior.
UF hasn’t expelled Damsky, but the university has made clear he’s not welcome on campus. If he trespasses, he could be charged with a second-degree misdemeanor.
It’s not the racism, it’s the antisemitism.
While Damsky shares many of the sentiments of Trump’s team of white nationalists, especially Stephen Miller, who wants to deport anybody with brown skin, Damsky despises Trump for being a tool of our old friend, the International Jewish Conspiracy.
Damsky’s X account is a crazy salad of the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend pro-Iranian screeds, demands for a Palestinian state (has he noticed that Persians and Arabs are not, according to his definition, white?), attacks on conservatives deemed insufficiently pro-Caucasian, and ranting about “Black criminality.”
He’s a Florida man, all right — an antebellum Florida man.
‘Illegitimate revolution’
His law school papers echo Confederate Ordinances of Secession: “The negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”
At times he sounds like South Carolina’s Jim Crow Sen. Ben Tillman, who thundered in 1900 that Black people had no rights: “We of the South have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will.”
Census projections show the U.S. will be a majority minoritynation in about 2045. Appalled at the thought, Damsky calls this “an illegitimate revolution” and says white folks “cannot be expected to meekly swallow this demographic assault on their sovereignty.”
The 14th and 15th Amendments must be repealed; non-whites, who cannot be citizens, should be given 10 years to leave the country; political violence on behalf of white hegemony is not only acceptable, it’s desirable.
Preston Damsky is not a cause, he’s a symptom, yet another white man terrified of losing the power he assumes is his God-given right.
He and the white nationalist Trump regime are unable to accept that the indigenous peoples our European ancestors displaced, killed, or locked up on reservations; the Africans kidnapped and forced into slavery to enrich the likes of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of the Dred Scottdecision (and apparently one of Damsky’s heroes); and the immigrants from all over the world who risked everything to get here, are what make America great.
These scared people should get out more — and read more, say, W.E.B. Du Bois’ “Black Reconstruction” or Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” or Percival Everett’s “James” or Marie Arana’s “Latinoland.”
Education is the enemy of hatred.
Most of the time.
Nevertheless, those of us who teach must keep trying to blast the Preston Damskys out of their sad, cramped little worlds by showing them the many and wonderful ways to be an American.
Damsky’s probably enjoying all this attention. That’s fine. He will no doubt go on to become an intellectual star in the white supremacist world.
He may even get an invitation to dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
But he won’t get what he wants. America never was, and never will be, a “white man’s country.”
And thank God for that.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
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AN 6 25
This Saturday, June 14, the No Kings movement will be holding large protests all over the United States — from Seattle to Chicago to Philadelphia — to express opposition to President Donald Trump's military parade. And Brevard County, Florida Sheriff Wayne Ivey, a far-right MAGA Republican, is drawing vehement condemnation for remarks that critics say are threatening nonviolent protesters with violence.
At a press conference on June 12, Ivey told reporters, "If you spit on us, you're going to the hospital and in jail. If you hit one of us, you're going to the hospital and jail. And most likely get bitten by one of our big, beautiful dogs that we have here. If you throw a brick, a firebomb or point of gun at one of our deputies, notifying your family where to collect your remains at. Because we will kill you, graveyard dead. We're not going to play."
Ivey's comments are drawing a lot of negative reactions on X, formerly Twitter.
READ MORE: 'Scams, corruption and cover-ups': Republicans just declared 'open season for wealthy tax cheats'
The Grio tweeted, "Florida Sheriff Wayne Ivey had quite the message for protesters expected to hit the streets ahead of an anti-Trump rally on Saturday: 'We will kill you.' The law enforcement official's rhetoric has been condemned and comes amid ongoing protests in LA."
X user MeloDramatical wrote, "White supremacy is the greatest threat we face as a nation."
Another X user, Auntie Smartassey posted, "No one should become violent, Sheriff Wayne Ivey. Explain why the president pardons cop beaters? What validates their violence in your eyes? People who fight for human rights should face prison or death? But violence in the name of Trump is okay?"
Florida resident Kirsty Johnson posted, "This is Sherrif Wayne Ivey from my home county, his being an a------ isn't new, but openly & unapologetically saying he will brutalize and even MURDER folks is f------ sick. Pathetic, pathetic men and 'officers.'"
READ MORE:Trump's reckoning is the final chapter of a horrifying old movie
Democrat Kim Brideau wrote, "F--- the fascist sheriff."
Douglas E., @DouglasE4True, a self-described Antifa supporter, posted, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. How many times must the cops show themselves as white supremacist thugs/goons to be believed?"
READ MORE:'I have to go through hell': Trump complains about 'No Kings' protests during his parade
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an states n? 5 25
Why are right-wingers so scared of ideas?
Are their minds so weak that mere exposure to certain books will infect them with what Elon Musk calls “the woke mind virus”?
They don’t want you inoculated against measles, but they’re doing their damnedest to inoculate Americans against knowledge.
Novels upset them; poetry upsets them; science upsets them; history upsets them; art upsets them; questioning of authority upsets them.
Universities really, really upset them — all that interrogating norms; all that challenging orthodoxy; all that critical inquiry.
To that end, Donald Trump’s going to war with Harvard, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, even Penn, his alma mater.
Ron DeSantis beat him to it: The governor’s been trying for years to regulate speech, impose restrictions on what teachers can teach, and decree which books the state of Florida finds “acceptable.”
While he’s had some success in K-12, enabling Moms for Liberty and their ilk in their book-banning crusade and threatening educators with dire consequences if they mention the existence of gay and trans people, some judges, unsurprisingly partial to the First Amendment, have slapped him down.
DeSantis, nothing if not energetic in his rage, is now determined to shield our precious college students from Dangerous Thoughts.
Choose the administrators. Choose the presidents. Control the universities.
The University of Florida needs a new dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences — with 40 majors and more than 10,000 students, it’s the largest college at UF.
They got as far as interviewing four highly qualified candidates: two mathematicians — UF’s own Kevin P. Knudson and Maggy Tomova, dean of UCF’s College of Science; Ryan Schroeder, dean of Georgia Southern’s College of Behavioral and Social Sciences; and Robert Brinkmann, a professor of Geology and dean of Liberal Arts and Science at Northern Illinois University.
‘Radical DEI progressives’
But two weeks ago, the governor blew up the search. Demanded UF stop it.
Seems the finalists, admired scholars and seasoned leaders, are crypto-Marxist, Trump-hating eggheads bent on destroying America.
An anonymous social media account calling itself “Commies on Campus” ran shrieking to Bryan Griffin, DeSantis’ communications director, calling all four “ radical DEI progressives.”
The Commies posted slick, selectively edited videos of candidate interviews, slamming Brinkmann for stating the obvious: “We have people in charge of things in our country that don’t have any business being in charge of those things,” and Knudson for being proud that as head of UF’s Honors Program “we were able to increase the number of African American and Hispanic students in the program.”
As if that’s somehow shameful.
Kent Fuchs, UF’s invertebrate of an interim president, sent out a memo pretending “terminating the search” was the only thing to do, what with the university also in the middle of hiring a permanent president.
Fuchs has never said no to DeSantis.
He does as he’s told, facilitating the hiring of our data-challenged surgeon general at UF’s medical school and trying to stop professorsfrom testifying on voting rights.
Academic freedom doesn’t matter; the professors’ expertise might pose a “conflict of interest to the executive branch of the state of Florida.”
As if serving the interests of the executive branch should somehow be the mission of a university.
UF remains a distinguished institution, though slipping in national rankings of public universities. It was No. 5 a couple of years ago but is now No. 7.
Still pretty good, especially given DeSantis’ obsessive attacks on higher education in the state.
But allowing some trifling X account to dictate policy at Florida’s flagship university won’t exactly burnish UF’s reputation.
All-purpose insult
Whoever the “Commies on Campus” may be, they weren’t paying attention in political science class.
They call anything they don’t like “communist:” LGBTQ, feminism, secularism, programs for the poor, addressing the climate crisis, taxing the rich, giving anyone without one of those useful White Man Cards a fair shot in life.
“Communist” is MAGA’s all-purpose insult.
Read a book, kids: While real live commies like the ones in North Korea, Cuba, or China may think religion is the opiate of the masses and rich folks (except the leaders of these countries) shouldn’t exist, they’re not keen on stuff like feminism, they persecute gay people, and they sure as hell don’t favor DEI.
Ask the Uighurs.
Yet DeSantis, a man educated beyond his intelligence, takes what these nameless chuckleheads say at face value.
There are in fact a number of well-regarded Marxist scholars at American universities. Yale, the governor’s alma mater, has a reading group studying Marxism and Cultural Theory.
Nevertheless, DeSantis emerged from the Red Menace of New Haven untainted.
He’s also unimpeded by understanding what universities are supposed to do.
An academic’s job is to research everything from the Roman Republic to astrophysics to Norse sagas to gene structure to the ideology of slavery to economic and political systems, which requires reading across the spectrum from “Das Kapital” to “ The Road to Serfdom“ and presenting their data and knowledge to students.
We call this “education.”
It’s embarrassing how MAGAs deem Hungarian (or Putinist) authoritarianism OK, even admirable, while “communist” is the gravest of insults and socialism is a mortal sin.
Perhaps they’re unaware socialism is viewed favorably by around 36%of Americans.
That’s almost the same number who say they strongly support Donald Trump.
Ideas are not viruses
The point is, ideas are not viruses: Mere exposure to communist thought doesn’t turn you into a communist, any more than reading James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room” makes you gay, any more than reading “The Wealth of Nations” ensures you’ll become a rabid capitalist.
But MAGAs don’t do high-level thinking: It makes their heads hurt. They simply react.
Loudly. Ignorantly. Irrationally.
Commies on Campus now has a new project: trying to influence who will become the new president of the University of Florida.
UF has announced a finalist.
One finalist. Chosen in secret.
He is Dr. Santa Ono, a Canadian American immunologist.
The Commies say he’s some kind of woke monster who, as president of the University of Michigan, created “THE LARGEST #DEI EMPIRE in the country.”
Their evidence? Christopher Rufo, the febrile New College trustee last heard claiming immigrants were eating cats and dogs, calls Ono “left-wing” and points to a 2023 commencement address in which he made the unimpeachable statement, “The climate crisis is the existential challenge of our time.”
Florida gubernatorial candidate and Trump acolyte U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, never losing a chance to ingratiate himself with MAGA voters, demands UF “ go back to the drawing board.”
Donalds’ hair is on fire because Ono once said, “Racism is one of America’s original sins.”
Deep breath, people: 1. Both of Ono’s statements are perfectly true; and 2. Rufo, Donalds, and the Commies need to update their intel.
Ono has changed his tune. No longer a champion of diversity, he’s now singing from the DeSantis Hymnal, declaring himself in “total alignment” with the governor’s anti-woke crusade.
“I have the same views as this governor,” Ono said.
Bend the knee
During his three years at Michigan (the shortest tenure of any president in the university’s history), Ono initially won praise for prioritizing sustainability and anti-racist projects. Students say he was personable and accessible.
Then Trump happened, and, like too many university administrators, he bent the knee, shutting UM’s DEI office, cracking down on student protest, and creating, as one faculty member said, “ a surveillance state.”
Seems he deployed plainclothes officers police to trail and photograph people on UM’s campus.
No wonder DeSantis likes this guy.
Santa is a real scholar, a proper scientist, with academic and administrative qualifications that could have been a great fit at UF. He’s streets ahead of DeSantis’ last hand-picked president, the empty, in-over-his-head Ben Sasse, whose one discernable talent was spendingother people’s money.
In a Trump-free world, Ono might have become the leader who could protect the institution. He might have pushed back against the governor’s determination to reduce Florida’s universities to football factories with libraries curated by the likes of Christopher Rufo and courses insisting on the divine greatness of America.
Alas, Ono has made clear that’s not him, not anymore.
This is what you get when one incurious, anti-intellectual, and perpetually angry man chooses university presidents in secret.
This is what you get when there’s only one finalist.
Yes, the trustees officially make the job offer, but there’s no chance they’d hire someone DeSantis didn’t like.
This is the reality of higher ed in Florida today.
FIU has one finalist for president. No shock that it’s DeSantis’ former lieutenant governor and Interim President Jeannette Nuñez.
In its presidential search, FAU announced three finalists. Maybe this would be a real contest?
Two had Ph.Ds. and solid higher ed experience. One was a Republican political hack.
You can guess who got the gig.
A ‘plant’ at FAMU?
Florida A&M, still in the process of choosing a president, has four finalists.
Promising, right?
There were initially three on the shortlist, all with extensive university experience. Then a fourth candidate, a woman with ties to top Republicans, appeared.
She’s Marva Johnson, a communications company executive, appointed by then-Gov. Rick Scott to the Florida Board of Education and chosen by Ron DeSantis for the Florida Scholars Academy Board of Trustees.
Commies on Campus have not yet weighed in on this one.
FAMU alumni say she’d be a terrible choice, calling her “ a plant” and likening her to a Trojan Horse hostile to the university’s mission.
But what the alumni want, and what the university wants, probably won’t matter.
What DeSantis wants matters.
As everyone in the unfree state of Florida knows, all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE. SUPPORT
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
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an 4 25
It’s always been like this: Al Capone wintered in Miami Beach; Richard Nixon escaped to his Key Biscayne compound so he could hang out with his mob-affiliated pal Bebe Rebozo; Charles Ponzimade a name for himself for selling Florida swampland — impossible to build on— to unsuspecting Yankees.
More recently, another shady real-estate type, found liable for sexually assaulting journalist E. Jean Carroll and accused of sexual abuse (and worse) by dozens more women, bought a Palm Beach estate and now claims Florida as his home.
So, it’s hardly surprising “influencers” Andrew and Tristan Tate, British-American brothers facing charges of human trafficking and rape in Romania, flew to Florida the minute their travel restrictions were lifted last month — possibly because Trump’s special envoy pressured the Romanian government.
The Tates have fans in TrumpWorld, including lawyer Alina Habba (on the losing side of the E. Jean Carroll case) and Donald Trump Jr., who called their detention “absolute insanity.”
Elon Musk, too: He says Andrew Tate, a former kickboxer who believes women exist only to serve men, should be U.K. prime minister.
But in a rare moment of good sense, Gov. Ron DeSantis bucked TrumpWorld and told those stars of the manosphere they’re “not welcome” in Florida.
Moreover, the state attorney general is investigating certain accusations, including claims they lured a Florida woman to Romania and tried to coerce herinto sex work.
Andrew Tate responded by taunting DeSantis on X: “Your wife will never win governor unless you arrest me, @GovRonDeSantis,” calling the governor a “communist” and declaring, “When Americans who are unfairly imprisoned abroad return home you betray them. You better nail me now.”
At least none of our institutions of higher learning have invited the Tates to speak on campus.
Yet.
Socratic dialog
You might keep an eye on New College, though.
Our once-renowned honors school has not exactly covered itself in glory over the past few years, what with dumping top-tier faculty, tanking in the rankings, admitting low-scoring jocks, mismanaging funds, and grossly over-paying its under-achieving president, but inviting British “comedian” Russell Brandto appear its “Socratic Stage Series” adds insult to injury.
Brand was supposed to be “in conversation” with NCF president Richard Corcoran on April 12.
New College announced the Brand appearance in February. On April 4, the British Crown Prosecution Service charged himwith one count of rape, one count of indecent assault, one count of oral rape, and two counts of sexual assault.
In a press release, New College defended bringing in Brand, wrapping itself in the flag of free speech: “After thoughtful consideration, we have decided to move forward with Russell Brand’s scheduled appearance,” citing the institution’s responsibility “to ensure a space where ideas — especially those that invite dialogue such as the topic of cancel culture and free speech, can be explored with respect, critical thought, and intellectual integrity.”
Not quite 48 hours later, New College thought better of it, announcing this “important and possibly never more relevant” conversation would be rescheduled at a later date.
NCF blamed problems with the venue (problems which apparently didn’t exist a few days ago) and those pesky journalists: “the current media climateis a distraction from the deeper purpose of the event to explore free speech.”
Brand has a court date in London on May 2.
Magic amulet
Now, you might be wondering exactly what qualifies Brand to be a guest lecturer for a public college in Florida.
He’s best known as host of a “Big Brother” spinoff called “Big Brother’s Big Mouth,” as the star of several films, including “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” often-fired radio host, and general provocateur.
He used to be a progressive (of sorts), praising Barack Obama, meeting with the Dalai Lama, and saying rude things about George W. Bush, but has lately become a conspiracy theorist who, in 2024, took to selling a $250 “magic amulet” which supposedly keeps you safe from “all sorts of evil energies.”
Right.
There’s this thing we do in higher ed called “research.” You’d think a few minutes perusal of Russell Brand’s baby talk-titled memoir, “My Booky Wook” with gleeful accounts of spitting in a woman’s face and furiously smashing a sex worker’s phone because it kept ringing while they were in flagrante (a service “for which,” says Brand, “I’d paid a lot of money”) might suggest perhaps he’s not someone likely to enrich the culture.
None of this proves Brand is a rapist, but it’s pretty clear he’s a misogynist jerk.
Brand insists that while he was once epically promiscuous, all his liaisons were “consensual,” even the ones with teenagers.
Besides, he says, he has now been washed clean by the Holy Spirit, baptized last year in the River Thames by adventure reality TV star Bear Grylls.
Criminal investigation
Well, the Lord may have forgiven him, but the justice system doesn’t work like that: In addition to charges in the U.K., Brand faces a U.S. civil suit and possible criminal investigation into allegations that he exposed himself and assaulted a woman on the set of the film “Arthur.”
The question remains: Why is New College spending taxpayer money on this guy?
Other “Socratic” speakers are (mostly) defensible: Steven Donziger, who famously sued Chevron over oil operations in Ecuador which wreaked monstrous environmental damage. (The oil company accused him of misconduct in the case; he spent three years in home detention for refusing to turn over his phone and trial records; Amnesty International fruitlessly urged former President Joe Biden to issue a pardon.)
Also scheduled for appearances at New College are Judith Butler, the distinguished gender theorist, and Stanley Fish, lawyer and literary scholar, disliked by both the right and the left.
There is also, as you’d expect, a bunch of conservatives ranging from the intellectually respectable — Mollie Hemingway, editor of “The Federalist” — to the anti-vax doctor Scott Atlas.
But casting Russell Brand as some free speech hero is flat out stupid.
Milton intervention
It’s not the first time NCF has embarrassed itself. In 2024 the college invited white supremacist “eugenicon” Steve Sailer, who says Black men are in thrall to a “primal African cult of fertility,” to “debate” Black historian Dr. Marvin Dunn.
As if you can argue “both sides” on racism. There are not two sides — unless you think the KKK makes a lot of good points.
When Hurricane Milton forced the cancellation of what promised to be a particularly unlovely spectacle, you could almost believe in the wrath of God.
Despite MAGA hissy fit-pitching and anti-DEI squawking over “censorship” and “indoctrination” on campus, conservative ideas are not suppressed or censored.
FSU recently hosted economist and Reagan acolyte Glenn Loury; the University of Florida’s Hamilton Center has showcased Republican pollsters and American Enterprise Institute luminaries.
This is as it should be.
But there’s a difference between a university fostering honest discussion of academic freedom, ideology, and prejudice, and promoting a man who could soon be convicted of sexual assault.
Scrubbing the record
Florida’s Republican junta has convinced itself higher education turns innocent students into tree-hugging transgender Marxists who read nothing but books on critical race theory.
Terrified they’ll be penalized financially and every other way, colleges and universities have busied themselves scrubbing websites of incendiary words such as “women,” “Black,” “institutional” and “trauma.”
FSU has deleted and “archived” its posts on high-achieving students before 2023, claiming, in fluent bureaucratic nonsense-speak, they did it to get rid of “outdated information to enhance user experience and ensuring our webpages load quickly and efficiently on all devices.”
In case you’re not buying that one, they’re also calling it “routine maintenance.”
A cynical person might think this is really about obscuring official praise of students who might be queer or working in currently disfavored fields of study.
A cynical person might also wonder if state government wants to use higher education to return us to an imagined past when white Christian men were in charge of everything and everything was absolutely great, especially for white Christian men.
One of the governor’s picks for the Board of Trustees at University of West Florida, an institution he calls “a left-wing college,” wanted to take us back to the 1950s.
Scott Yenor, an academic nonentity at Boise State in Idaho, thinks only “non-Jewish white men” should be in leadership positions.
He says “independent women” are “medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome” and proclaims, “If we want a great nation, we should be preparing young women to become mothers,” not have successful careers, certainly not in the manly fields of science, medicine, and the law.
Even some of Florida’s loudest and proudest reactionaries objected to Yenor’s weird ideas about women and obvious antisemitism.
Sen. Randy Fine, the state’s only Jewish Republican legislator (until he was elected to Congress on April 1) raised the alarm.
Back to Idaho
Indeed, Yenor is so out there that several hundred citizens, including students, alumni, former trustees, and donors, held a town hall in Pensacola — deep red Pensacola — urging the Florida Senate to reject his nomination.
Former Republican legislators, business leaders, donors, local officials, and members of the Jewish community expressed dismay. UWF President Emerita Judy Bense urged people to tell the governor “this is wrong.”
The amazing thing is, they won. Yenor, who had not yet been confirmed by the Senate, withdrew from consideration.
Sen. Don Gaetz, father of the egregious Matt, celebrated Yenor’s decision: “Gentlemen don’t go where no one wants them.”
Unacquainted with what gentlemen do, the governor is throwing a tantrum, blaming Fine, whom he describes as “repellent,” snarling, “Let’s just consider the source. I mean, that same senator called me antisemitic,” and accusing others of distorting Yenor’s record, “trying to dredge up statements” he calls “flimsy.”
Booting Yenor back to Idaho is a small victory for UWF and the basic decency we should expect from Florida’s state institutions.
“Rescheduling” Brand is, too, although New College is probably beyond redemption: Opening the campus to white supremacists and accused rapists does not demonstrate a commitment to vigorous examination of social norms and political pieties, or a bold assertion of free speech.
It’s evidence of decay.
NCF is now an educational ruin, lovely buildings perched on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, intellectually and morally empty.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
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TALLAHASSSEE — If you’re one of the 900 new people who move to Florida every day, you may not know this crucial secret of Florida government. I’m a Florida native, so let me clue you in. Lean in close and I’ll whisper it in your ear. Are you ready?
The Florida Legislature contains more cuckoos than a Swiss clock factory.
Now that you’re aware of this fact, how are you holding up? How’s your blood pressure? Can you handle the truth?
You want some evidence? Just last year, a legislator claimed his new anti-bear bill was necessary because there were bears on crack invading people’s houses. This was, of course, a complete fantasy. Yet his colleagues didn’t question his sanity or call the paramedics. They just passed the bill. It’s the law now!
This year there’s one that’s even kookier. I am referring to the so-called “chemtrails” bill.
In case you’re unfamiliar with that debunked conspiracy theory, the folks who believe in “chemtrails” are convinced the government (or maybe it’s the Illuminati) is dispatching planes to fly over us unsuspecting Americans and spray chemicals on us.
Why? The chemtrails can change the weather, say the diehards. Or maybe they can control people’s minds. Or maybe they’re just going to poison everybody they don’t like. Who knows? After all, it’s a secret, like the 1947 UFO crash landing in New Mexico.
Anyway, there’s a bill in the Legislature to track and attack chemtrails. Instead of being laughed out of the Capitol building, as it deserves, the bill was just passed by the full Senate, because that’s what our state’s elected leaders are like right now. I wish I could tell you
played while they voted.
“The measure (SB 56), sponsored by Miami Republican Ileana Garcia, would prohibit the injection, release, or dispersion of any means of a chemical, chemical compound, substance, or apparatus into the atmosphere for the purpose of affecting the climate,” my colleague Mitch Perry reported in the Phoenix last week. “Any person or corporation who conducts such geoengineering or weather modification activity would be subject to a third-degree felony charge, with fines up to $100,000.”
The bill would require the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to set up a hotline so anyone concerned about streaks in the sky can call and report them. I’m sure the DEP will jump right on those reports, just the way the agency has jumped on reports of rampant water pollution that fuels toxic algae blooms, kills seagrass, and leaves manatees to starve.
I tried calling Sen. Garcia to ask her some questions about her bill. While I waited to talk to her, I was struck by a subversive thought:
What if the chemtrails bill becomes law and we folks who still live in the real world use it to flip the script? What if we employ its provisions to go after the people who really ARE changing the weather — with their greenhouse gas emissions?
A healthy skepticism
The most shocking thing about this chemtrails bill is not that it was filed — filed, I should add, by a senator who won her seat by just 32 votes, thanks to an illegal ghost candidate scheme backed by Florida Power & Light.
Nor is the most shocking thing that it passed one house of our Legislature by a vote of 28-9 and now is headed for the other.
No, what’s shocking is that it was endorsed by Senate President Ben Albritton and Gov. Ron DeSantis, two allegedly well-educated people. At this rate, they’ll next endorse a taxpayer-funded expedition to explore how we ended up living inside a Hollow Earth.
Actually, DeSantis’ endorsement isn’t that much of a surprise. He’s happy to appease the Tinfoil Hat Brigade if it gets him a mention on Fox News or its imitators.
Remember, DeSantis is the guy who appointed as his surgeon general the world’s biggest vaccine skeptic and now lets him run around the state trying to convince everyone to stop preventing children’s tooth decay. I sometimes wonder if he and RFK Jr. share a brain worm.
But Albritton’s comments threw me. He’s a longtime citrus man who’s familiar with the need for accurate weather forecasts. Yet he actually called this lunacy “a great piece of legislation” that would address “real concerns from our constituents.”
If some of those constituents also think their elected politicians are all lizard people, presumably he’d be fine with legislation requiring a reptilian DNA test before administering the oath of office.
“I have heard the conspiracy theories out there,” Albritton said about Garcia’s bill, “but the fact is we should not be shutting down legitimate concerns. Healthy skepticism is important. There’s a lot we don’t know in this field of science and people are rightfully concerned.”
Because I grew up in Florida, I have a healthy skepticism toward anything Florida politicians say. Albritton’s statement suggests that I’m right to be skeptical because there’s a lot that’s wrong with his comments.
We actually know quite a lot about the weather modification attempts. We know they don’t work and have mostly been discontinued.
Florida law currently requires anyone who wants to modify the weather to get a permit first. A Senate bill analysis of SB 56 points out, “There have been no applications for weather modification licenses in the past 10 years.”
Four years ago, eight Western states tried cloud seeding to produce rains to end a lengthy drought. However, Scientific American reported, “there is little evidence to show that the process is increasing precipitation.”
Yet “weather modification” is what our Legislature chooses to tackle instead of lowering property insurance rates, boosting educational test scores, or any one of a dozen more important issues. Maybe they’re under some bizarre mind control method that requires them to be ineffective at good governing.
Legitimate concerns
Albritton’s statement about people being “rightfully concerned” about chemtrails sounds like he’s endorsing the bogus claims that spread last year that the government steered two hurricanes to clobber specific communities ahead of the election.
Those rumors were, of course, lies spread by the unscrupulous to fool the gullible. They became so pervasive that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had to put out a press release denying it.
“NOAA does not modify the weather, nor does it fund, participate in or oversee cloud seeding or any other weather modification activities,” it said.
Given how Elon Musk is rapidly dismantling the agency now, I doubt they can control the thermostat in their office buildings, much less the weather.
I wish Albritton were as supportive of the “legitimate concerns” many of us Floridians feel about climate change.
We’re on the front lines of it, with our rising sea levels, more intense hurricanes, higher storm surges, and increased temperatures even at night. It’s hurting everything from our seafood industry to our sea turtle nesting. Heck, it’s even hurting Albritton’s own industry, agriculture.
Hard-headed property insurance companies recognize the dangers and disruptions of climate change. Why can’t our state officials?
“If lawmakers want to protect Floridians by addressing substances affecting the temperature, weather, and climate, they should hold power companies and the oil and gas industry accountable,” said longtime Florida climate activist Susan Glickman of the CLEO Institute, a non-profit dedicated to climate education and advocacy. “The pollution they release is warming the climate in increasingly extreme and deadly ways.”
But last year the Legislature voted to delete most references to climate change from state law under the well-known scientific theory of “If We Don’t Talk About It, Surely It Will Go Away.” Given how we were all beaten up by intense hurricanes and big storm surges last year, I don’t think it went away.
Fortunately, I see a way to take this “chemtrails” bill and turn it into a “let’s fight climate change” bill. Let me explain.
Contrail confusion
I have a confession to make: Every time I read someone’s rants about chemtrails, I always crack up. That’s because I always picture
which is the silliest and most inefficient murder method ever attempted.
Was the pilot supposed to crash into Cary and kill himself too? Cut Cary’s head off with the propeller, which would make the plane stop flying? Or maybe force him to cough up a lung because of all the pesticide he was inhaling? None of these options seem practical.
Similarly, the whole chemtrails theory falls apart on practical questions. How often and how much do you need to spray those chemicals in the sky to affect everyone? There are 23 million people in Florida alone. That’s a lot of folks to spritz with your mind-control concoction.
Seems to me you’d need WAAAAAY more chemical spraying than what we’re seeing if you plan to coat every single one of us with the goop. You’d need to dump it out in quantities like the helicopter pilots dropping[pix]
Nope, what we’re seeing up in the sky are simple contrails — droplets of water vapor clinging to particles of soot that were emitted by an airplane’s engine.
So imagine my surprise when Rafe Pomerance of Rethink Energy Florida told me, “Water vapor is a greenhouse gas.”
“Say what now?” I replied, displaying my usual incisive intellect.
“You warm up the earth, and one of the effects is an increase of water vapor in the atmosphere,” he explained. Then the vapor traps heat in our atmosphere just like carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases do. The heat that created the vapor gets amplified by the vapor.
When I expressed that old healthy skepticism, he referred me to a scientist named Adam Boies of Stanford University. He’s an expert on contrails. He confirmed that chemtrails are bogus and also confirmed what Pomerance told me.
Some of the contrails disappear in minutes after the plane that created them leaves the area, Boies said. But some, say about 20%, linger longer. Those are the dangerous ones that can trap heat in the atmosphere.
Airplane engine manufacturers are worried about this so they are working on engine designs that will stop producing contrails, he said.
“The airlines are so concerned about this that they’re willing to try new fuels or rerouting flight patterns to try to avoid them,” Boies told me.
Thus, for once, the Legislature might do the right thing for the wrong reason — asking people to report something that actually is a cause of climate change. That’s why I think we should embrace this silly chemtrails bill and join DeSantis and Albritton in pushing it forward.
Then, once the bill passes, I say we all start contacting that DEP hotline to report, say, Florida Power & Light and its fellow utilities for burning fossil fuels to produce electricity. They’re building a lot of solar farms now, but they ought to replace their older plants too.
The same goes for all the municipal incinerators across the state, too, and the Big Sugar companies burning their fields and sending billows of thick smoke into the communities south of Lake Okeechobee. I say we report every one of these folks messing up our state.
“Hello, DEP,” we can say, “there’s a chemical plant in Pensacola that’s altering the weather with its nitrous oxide emissions. The clouds of pollutants are going up in the atmosphere and trapping heat here! You should do something about that, pronto.”
Or how about, “Hello, is this the DEP? I want to report someone for altering the weather. It’s the Florida DOT. They’re building a lot of roads for heavily polluting cars and trucks and doing nothing for mass transit. No electric vehicle charging stations, either. Can you get after them for that?”
By the way, I never did reach the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Garcia. It’s too bad. I was ready to congratulate her for doing more to combat climate change than either DeSantis or his predecessor, Rick Scott. Of course, to hear me speak, she’d first have to unwrap all that tinfoil from around her head.
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Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
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In 2023, Target's Pride Collection became the subject of an intense legal battle between Republicans and Democrats. Seven GOP state attorneys general sent Target a letter attacking the merchandise as "obscene," claiming the company featured "anti-Christian" designs on t-shirts. But 15 state attorneys general, in a letter to Target CEO Brian Cornell, vowed to stand up for the retail chain and its gay-themed merchandise.
The letter read, "As Attorneys General with a strong commitment to protecting the civil rights of LGBTQIA+ individuals, we write to express our resolute and unequivocal support for the LGBTQIA+ community as well as our concern regarding recent events in Target stores involving intimidation and destruction of certain Pride-related merchandise and Target's resulting decision to remove some Pride merchandise from its stores."
READ MORE:'This will kill people': GOP blasted for gutting Medicaid to pay for $4.5 trillion tax cut
Now, in 2025, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is attacking Target's Pride Collection in a new lawsuit.
The lawsuit, according to Miami New Times reporter Alex DeLuca, accuses Target of "defrauding investors" with the merchandise and accuses the company of "not properly disclosing to investors the risk" of "offensive" products.
"In a 163-page lawsuit filed in federal court last week," DeLuca explains, "the (Florida) State Board of Administration, which manages Florida's pension fund and other investments, alleges that Target — which it describes as the 'self-proclaimed store of the boomer mom who drives a minivan and lives in the suburbs' — 'betrayed' its core customer base of 'working families and investors' by 'making false and misleading statements about Target's Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) mandates that led to its disastrous 2023 children-and-family themed LGBT-Pride campaign."
Attorney Ari Cohn, lead counsel for tech policy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), is a scathing critic of Uthmeier's lawsuit.
READ MORE:'Grave moral evil': Republicans are moving to impeach judges over anti-DOGE rulings
In a February 20 thread on X, formerly Twitter, Cohn wrote, "This is asinine, performative buffoonery and an attack on the First Amendment Uthmeier has a problem with products (described in my article linked downthread) based on the messages they convey — all of which are First Amendment-protected, and none of which 'sexualize children.'"
Cohn also tweeted, "It's beyond question that these expressive items are protected, as is Target's decision to sell them. That Florida's retirement fund holds shares of Target is irrelevant and meaningless. Government does not gain the power to regulate speech because it's a shareholder."
READ MORE:WSJ blasts Trump for threatening swing state's economy with tariffs
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Florida has the worst passing rate on national nursing exam in the country
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Federal assessments show reading and math performance drop in Florida, nation
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desantis fla
"He wants legislators to pass measures on illegal immigration to support Trump's executive orders and mass deportation plans, and to enact sweeping changes that could make ballot initiatives more difficult to pass,"
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over rep in trump trans train wreck
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FL sues company that pocketed overpayment after CEO 'loaned herself $6.2 million to win' House seat
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A top Florida Republican running for Congress asserted this week that the GOP has been drawing congressional districts to benefit Republicans, a move that brought criticism from one of his primary rivals.
At a campaign event in North Florida on Monday night, Florida Chief Financial Officer and District 1 congressional candidate Jimmy Patronis acknowledged that the district was gerrymandered by state Republicans in the 1990s, and that the party has continued to maintain that practice ever since.
The remark came at a candidate forum hosted by the Niceville Republican Women Federated.
Patronis is one of ten Republicans running to win the GOP nomination for the seat in the special primary election slated for Jan. 28. The seat is considered one of the most conservative congressional districts in the state, with the winner of the primary slated to face Democrat Gay Valimont and other write-in and non-party affiliated candidates on April 1.
Screenshot of video of Jimmy Patronis speaking at a campaign event in Niceville on Jan. 6, 2024 (video courtesy of the Patronis campaign)
“Let me give you a little civics lesson,” Patronis says to the audience in a video clip obtained by the Phoenix. “Do you know why District 1 is where it is? It’s because a Republican Legislature is in charge right now – and this is what we’ve done since Daniel Webster was speaker of the House as a Republican – we try to create as many Republican congressional seats as possible. Okay? So what happened? You get gerrymandered lines.”
Daniel Webster served as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives in 1996-1998. He’s served in Congress representing districts in Central Florida since 2010.
Gerrymandering is the practice of a political party dividing or arranging election districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage. As a way of stopping that from happening, Florida voters in 2010 overwhelmingly approved what were called the Fair Districts Amendments to the state constitution to stop elected officials from manipulating voting maps to keep themselves and their party in power.
In the case of Florida, Republicans have controlled both chambers of the Florida Legislature since 1996.
Patronis is from PC
In a statement, Joel Rudman, a physician and former legislator who resigned from the House of Representatives to run in the GOP primary in District 1, blasted Patronis’ comments.
“I resent the accusation that Republican leadership would embark on anything unethical or unconstitutional when creating district lines, when in fact, the most gerrymandered district in history (CD-5) that stretched across the Georgia state line from Tallahassee to Jacksonville, was actually Democrat. The fact remains that, for his entire political career, Mr. Patronis has been synonymous with Panama City, which is squarely in Congressional District 2.
“I am disappointed that the candidate would blame others for his lack of residency in our district. I vehemently denounce those comments accusing Republicans of gerrymandering and respectfully ask the candidate to apologize for that statement casting aspersions on our Republican leadership.”
As Rudman noted, Patronis’ voting address is in Panama City, which isn’t in District 1. However, under the U.S. Constitution, candidates aren’t required to live in the U.S. House district in which they run so long as they are a resident of the state. He has been endorsed in the race by President-elect Donald Trump.
The seat had been held by Matt Gaetz from 2016 until this past November. That’s when Gaetz resigned from congress after he was nominated by Trump to serve as his attorney general. But a week later Gaetz announced that because of growing doubts that he could be confirmed because of a House Ethics panel investigation about alleged payments for sex, he would withdraw his name for consideration to head the U.S. Justice Department.
Patronis’ campaign did not respond to the Phoenix’s request for comment.
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Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
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Geoff Duncan, the former Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, on Monday was expelled from the state's Republican Party over "alleged disloyalty," according to Fox 5 Atlanta.
The Georgia Republicans announced Duncan's ouster via X, writing: "MEDIA ADVISORY: Geoff Duncan having been formally expelled, we ask that you refer to him as 'expelled Republican Geoff Duncan' or 'ousted Republican Geoff Duncan' when you go to him for quotes trashing President Trump and the Republican Party.'"
The party tagged CNN and the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) in its announcement.
READ MORE:'Actually lay out some proof': Ex-GA GOP Lt. Gov. skewers Ted Cruz over baseless election claims
Aiming his response at party Chair Josh McKoon, Duncan replied, "Hard to believe this is a good use of time for a party that’s only got a limited amount of time to figure out mass deportations, world peace and global tariffs. Learn how to take a victory lap not light another dumpster fire @JoshMcKoon"
According to Fox 5, the Georgia GOP's "resolution outlines a series of allegations against Duncan, including accusations of undermining Republican candidates, endorsing Democratic opponents, and leveraging his GOP affiliation for personal gain."
Weeks before President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, the former Republican lieutenant governor announced that he planned to vote for the president's reelection.
"Unlike Trump, I’ve belonged to the GOP my entire life. This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass," Duncan wrote in an op-ed published by the AJC.
READ MORE:'Herds of Republicans' may flock to Harris in hopes of saving party: Georgia Republican
The ex-GOP leader took his criticism of President-elect Donald Trump further when he announced that Vice President Kamala Harris would get his vote.
*Fox 5 Atlanta's full report is available here.
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Florida leads the nation in Obamacare sign-ups as Republicans fight Medicaid expansion
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Florida once had a reputation for being a volatile swing state that, like Pennsylvania, could make or break a presidential candidate.
After the U.S. Supreme Court ended a vote recount in Florida in the 2000 presidential race, then-Vice President Al Gore gave a concession speech and congratulated Republican George W. Bush on being president-elect. Bush won Florida twice, but so did Democratic former President Barack Obama.
But Florida has since taken a very Republican turn. Far-right Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was reelected by 19 percent in 2022, and President-elect Donald Trump carried the Sunshine State by 13 percent in 2024.
READ MORE:[How Don Jr. is making sure Trump picks 'absolute warriors for the movement' to his Cabinet
Pennsylvania was close in 2024, with Trump narrowly defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in the Keystone State. Florida wasn't close at all.
In an article published on November 28, Politico's David Kihara stresses Florida has become the epicenter of Trump's MAGA movement and will play a prominent role in his incoming second administration.
"Florida is America's punchline, a state that exports as many memes as it does oranges," Kihara explains. "It's prone to hurricanes and presidential hopefuls — at least six in the last 50 years — and now will be Donald Trump's power center and the ideological wellspring for his administration."
Kihara **lists some of the Florida residents who could be a part of that administration — a group that, if they are confirmed, could include Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff, Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of state, Rep. Mike Waltz as national security adviser, and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi as U.S. attorney general.
READ MORE:'Encouraging decision': Here are the Trump Cabinet picks Russia is most excited about
Before Trump nominated Bondi, he had another Floridian in mind for that position: Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida). But Gaetz withdrew from consideration.
Trump himself is a Florida resident, living on his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.
"If anything, Florida is a place of contradictions," Kihara explains. "It's economically lax and also morally overbearing, freewheeling and uptight. It's home to two cities — Miami and Orlando — that, according to the Census Bureau, have some of the highest concentrations in the U.S. of gay-coupled households. But at the same time, the state restricts how teachers, even up to high school, can teach LGBTQ+ issues."
According to Kihara, Trump's second administration could make Florida's agenda a national U.S. agenda.
"And now, the rest of America could become a little more like Florida," Kihara observes. "Trump's pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, former Florida Rep. Dave Weldon, is a vaccine safety skeptic; Rubio is a traditional hawk with a from-the-cradle hatred of communism but a desire to negotiate a quick end to the Ukraine war; Bondi wants to go after 'bad prosecutors' much like DeSantis did with two state attorneys. They have the potential to being much more than Florida vibes to the country and could reshape the country in the image of the Sunshine State."
READ MORE:['Up to us to stop him': Petition to block Trump Cabinet picks gets 44K signatures in 5 days
*Read Politico's full article at this link.
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Mother Jones' Ari Berman has described ballot measures as the "last line of defense" for "fundamental rights" in states where civil liberties are under attack from far-right MAGA Republicans, and that includes ballot measures for protecting abortion rights.
One such measure is Amendment 4 in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban into law.
According to Florida Phoenix reporter Barrington Salmon, DeSantis and his allies are resorting to "brazen" tactics to "game the system" and "combat the referendum" — including "using state agencies and law enforcement."
READ MORE:Dems 'going on offense' against 'vulnerable' Republicans in FL and TX to save Senate majority
"State police are showing up at Florida voters' homes to question them about signing the abortion petitions and the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) has launched a website targeting the initiative with politically charged language," Salmon reports in an article published on September 27. "Critics have castigated DeSantis for using these instruments to actively resist the ballot initiative and attempt to subvert the will of the people."
Salmon adds, "By his actions, he may be violating a statute prohibiting the state 'influencing' a person's vote, as the Phoenix has reported."
But Florida Democrats, according to Salmon, are "fighting back against" DeSantis' "assertions and his claims to have found evidence of fraud."
"For example, Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried and two private citizens filed criminal complaints against the (DeSantis) Administration," Salmon explains. "And a South Florida appellate attorney has asked the Florida Supreme Court to stop DeSantis, AHCA Secretary Jason Weida, and Moody from interfering in the voting on Amendment 4. The state's highest court has agreed to expedite that case."
READ MORE:[McConnell warns GOP 'it’s over' for Republicans if Harris wins and kills Senate filibuster
*Read Barrington Levy's full Florida Phoenix report at this link.
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icn 8 24
North America’s only barrier reef is withering from heat and disease. Can efforts to preserve and propagate the corals at land-based facilities in Florida save them?
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public citizen
Local Efforts to Protect Workers
In states without occupational heat standards, some local governments have tried to create ordinances to protect workers from heat stress. However, strong lobbying by corporate interests has blocked those efforts, turning life-saving worker protections into a political tug-of-war. Espousing the goal of creating consistent statewide policy, Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed aggressive preemption laws that have steam-rolled efforts by local governments to protect workers.[[79]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn79)
Texas
Texas is one of the hottest states in the country and the impact of heat on workers there is undeniable. For example, data from the Houston Health Department on ER admissions for heat-related illness in 2022 showed that 58% of the illnesses occurred while working and the patients were largely construction workers, warehouse workers, and firefighters.[[80]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn80)
The cities of Austin and Dallas attempted to address the dangerous conditions facing construction workers. They passed ordinances requiring that construction workers to be given 10-minute water breaks every four hours.
:{:{But in July of 2023 Governor Greg Abbott signed HB 2127, the sweeping “Death Star Law,” which bars local governments from issuing regulations across a wide range of categories without approval from the Texas Legislature, including labor regulations}:.[[81]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn81)
The legislation went as far as specifically preempting rules on rest breaks. In a legal challenge to the new law brought by Houston, El Paso and San Antonio, Travis County Civil District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble blocked the Death Star law as unconstitutionally vague under the Texas Constitution.[[82]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn82)
The Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately appealed the ruling and the Appellate Court temporarily suspended Judge Gamble’s ruling, allowing the law to go into effect on September 1, 2023, as planned.[[83]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn83) It may be 2025 before the Texas Supreme Court issues a final ruling on the statute.[[84]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn84)}:
Florida
For 46 straight days in 2023 Miami’s heat index exceeded 100°F.[[85]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn85)
In March of 2024, Miami-Dade County was just weeks away from instituting employer requirements to protect workers from heat-related illnesses, injuries and fatalities. In a preemptive strike, fueled by the the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the powerful agriculture and construction lobbies,[[86]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn86) Florida lawmakers passed HB 433[[87]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn87) to prevent it from happening. Taking a page from the Texas Death Star Law, the legislation prohibits local governments from instituting protections for workers. However, the Florida law is much more narrowly targeted.[[88]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn88)
Instead of prohibiting local governments from instituting a wide range of regulations, the cruel Florida law very specifically attacks heat stress protections. It details a list of prohibited workplace requirements — basic protocols to prevent heat stress including hydration, rest breaks, acclimatization, and any form of training for workers about the dangers of heat illness and how to prevent it. It even prohibits requirements for employers to have the first aid and emergency response protocols necessary to save lives. Finally, the law undermined all pretext of maintaining consistent requirements for employers throughout the state by prohibiting the state government from passing workplace heat stress protections for the next two years.
The law is expected to impact nearly 1.8 million Florida workers, having a disproportionate impact on Latino and undocumented immigrant workers.[[89]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn89) In Florida, 40% of outdoor workers are Latino, whereas Latinos make up only 30% of the total workforce in the state. While undocumented immigrants make up only 12% of the Florida workforce, they make up 22% of outdoor workers.[[90]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn90) This pattern of heightened exposure to heat stress is broadly reflected in the national outdoor workforce.
Phoenix, Arizona
For millions in the American South and Southwest, intense heat waves lasted for weeks in the summer of 2023. Phoenix, Arizona experienced a record-setting 31 consecutive days above 110°F[[91]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn91) with only a brief intermission — two days with highs of 108°F and
109°F — before suffering through another week surpassing the 110°F mark again.[[92]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn92) The scorching Phoenix daytime highs were accompanied by 16 consecutive days when overnight lows didn’t sink below 90°F.
:{:{On March 26, 2024, the Phoenix City Council passed an ordinance to protect all outdoor workers of city contractors and subcontractors from heat stress.[[93]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn93) The definition of outdoor work environments is work conducted on city-owned, city-leased or city-licensed outdoor property and includes greenhouses, sheds, tents, and jet bridges to aircrafts.[[94]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn94)}:
The ordinance requires employers to provide — (1) regular breaks and necessary breaks as needed in the shade or air-conditioning; (2) free, accessible and cool drinking water; (3) air-conditioning in vehicles by May 1, 2025; (4) effective acclimatization for newly assigned or reassigned to outdoor workers.[[95]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn95) And it requires detailed comprehensive training for all employees and contract workers with required elements similar to those found in the Washington heat standard.[[96]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn96) Failure to comply with the requirements of the Phoenix heat standard could result in cancellation or suspension of the contract.[[97]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn97)}:
Conclusion...
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alternet-no lnx
Home | Republicans have been lying to their voters for years — and now those same voters are dying
Thom Hartmann June 14, 2024
This is a climate change story that fossil fuel billionaires and their GOP lackeys would rather you didn’t know.
As more and more people are killed by extraordinarily severe weather in places where it used to be unusual it’s going to get harder and harder to keep Red State citizens from finding out how badly they’ve been screwed by the unholy alliance between Republicans and oil barons.
Severe weather in the United States is not only getting worse, it’s moving.
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
There’s a reason L. Frank Baum placed his 1901 novel The Wizard of Oz in Kansas: the worst and most frequent tornado activity in the world at that time was in the American Great Plains states — particularly Kansas.
Now that’s changing, as weather extremes are moving to the Midwest and the South. Recently, deadly tornadoes — some with wind velocities in excess of 200 mph — have ravaged Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois, Georgia, Ohio and Indiana.
This new burst of unusually extreme weather is driven by global warming and its impact on the Arctic, our oceans, and the Gulf of Mexico.
And it’s going to be America’s new normal, although in all probability this is just the beginning and over time it will get a lot worse.
America has always had the most extreme weather of anyplace else on Earth, according to Susan Cutter, director of the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute at the University of South Carolina.
China has more people and a larger landmass than we do, but, Cutter told ABC News, “they don't have the same kind of clash of air masses as much as you do in the U.S. that is producing a lot of the severe weather.”
The severity of America’s Great Plains states’ historically extreme weather was the result of geography.
While there’s a massive amount of land on either side of the European/Asian land mass, the United States is bracketed by two giant bodies of water, the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. We also have a huge mountain range — the Rockies — that helps determine where turbulent air from the west ends up, particularly as it encounters colder air from the north and warmer air from over the Gulf of Mexico.
As North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello told ABC News, it’s because of “where we are on the globe,” adding, “It’s truly a little bit ... unlucky.”
But now, as the Gulf of Mexico is heating up faster than the oceans on either side of us, combined with “bomb cyclone” cold weather coming down from Canada because melting ice in the Arctic is making the Jet Stream less stable, that severe weather is moving to the Midwest and South.
This appears to be one of the most consequential outcomes of climate change, severe weather-wise, for the United States.
As Victor Gensini, associate professor in the Earth, Atmosphere and Environment Department at Northern Illinois University, told The Chicago Tribune, the Midwest and South are replacing the Plains states as the epicenter of severe weather.
“That’s a really, really big deal for human exposure and vulnerability,” Gensini told Ezra Maille. “A tornado that goes through a wheat field in Kansas is not a big deal, but a tornado that goes through southern Cook County is a huge deal.”
He added that the Great Plains will probably continue to experience more and more severe drought while tornado activity is shifting toward the East and South.
The fossil fuel industry has known with a high level of certainty how severe weather was a probable outcome of America’s dependence on their products ever since the 1970s.
Yet for the fifty years since then — and continuing to this day — they fund phony “science” and shills to deny climate change or try to spin it as a positive, all while pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the campaign coffers and personal bank accounts of mostly Republican politicians.
We’re at least 40 years behind where we should be in dealing with the fossil fuel/global warming crisis because giant oil companies have run massive disinformation campaigns while funding the political careers of hacks in Congress willing to lie to the public for them.
President Jimmy Carter declared a national crisis in 1979 and proposed legislation to create “this nation’s first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.”
FDR had sold bonds to the public to fund a government corporation that would develop synthetic rubber for fighter plane tires back in the day, and Carter wanted to do the same to end our dependence on fossil fuels:
“Just as a similar synthetic rubber corporation helped us win World War II,” Carter said, “so will we mobilize American determination and ability to win the energy war.”
In that same July 15, 1979 speech, he proposed the government issue bonds that would fund:
“[T]he creation of an energy security corporation to lead this effort to replace 2-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day by 1990. The corporation will issue up to $5 billion in energy bonds, and I especially want them to be in small denominations so that average Americans can invest directly in America’s energy security.”
But it all came crashing down 43 years ago when the fossil fuel industry’s candidate, Ronald Reagan, replaced Carter, killed the solar bank and the bond program, and even took Carter’s solar panels off the roof of the White House.
The big question now is how long the GOP will be able to keep up their climate change denial in the Red states currently being hammered by extreme weather before their citizens catch on to what’s happening and demand action to reduce our carbon emissions.
As Dr. Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media (PCSSM), told me yesterday:
“It is rather ironic that many of the states that are seeing the worst climate change impacts—Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida—are red states, with governors and legislatures that are far more interested in doing the bidding of polluters than representing the people they’re supposed to be representing.
“Unsurprisingly, these states are all among the lowest when it comes to per capita spending on public education. The alliance of rightwing politicians and polluters prefers a poorly educated electorate, ignorant of the environmental health damage being done to them.”
So, what can be done other than offering subsidies for electric cars?
Number one on the list is to put a price on carbon, which will bend market incentives toward green and renewable energy as a replacement for fossil fuels.
According to the World Bank, there are currently 70 carbon pricing programs in place around the world, covering a bit over 23 percent of all emissions. Some are outright carbon taxes, typically with a rebate program to low- and average-income consumers, and some are cap-and-trade type programs (like President George HW Bush put into place to deal with sulfur dioxide emissions).
Canada’s carbon tax, which they put into place in 2019, is working so well that they actually sped up the process of implementation this year.
The original plan called for the initial $10/ton carbon tax to go up $10 every year until it hit $170/ton. The money collected is then recycled back to low- and average-income consumers to compensate them for the extra costs they’ll incur driving and heating their homes. But the program has been such a success that Canada’s government announced this week they’re raising the carbon tax by a full $15 this year.
They can pull this off because the rebates represent, for most Canadians, far more money in their pockets than the cost of the carbon tax. The brunt of the tax is instead borne by Canadian businesses, which is the group that's been designed to push toward green -- and tax-free or even green-subsidized -- energy sources.
An average taxpayer in Alberta province, for example, now gets a $386 check or bank deposit from their government every three months. It’s $340 quarterly in Saskatchewan, $328 in Newfoundland, $248 in Nova Scotia, and $264 in Manitoba.
This is a system that could work very well here in the US, if only there was the political will to make it happen. And, as we cut emissions and figure out new and better ways to pull existing carbon out of the air and oceans, we may be able to dial back on the increasing severity of storms that are ravaging Red states.
The obstacle to pricing carbon in the US is widespread ignorance of how severe our problem is and its origins in fossil fuel emissions. Fully 58% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters say climate change is “not an important concern” and a mere 17% believe human activities like burning fossil fuels “contribute a great deal to climate change.”
Hopefully the deadly disasters sweeping Red states now will wake up Republican voters and motivate them to demand their Republican politicians stop taking money from fossil fuel billionaires and do something now to stop climate change from getting any worse.
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an 6 24
A law Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed after the 2020 election has caused a significant decrease in the amount of voters who can receive mail-in ballots ahead of the 2024 election, according to Politico.
Per Politico, "The plunge occurred after GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a wide-ranging election law in 2021 that required all standing vote-by-mail requests to be canceled after the 2022 elections. Both parties and election supervisors have tried over the last several months to build up awareness of the change, but it’s not clear if that message is sinking in with voters."
Although both GOP and Democratic voters are both experiencing the impact, the news outlet reports the the law "could prove devastating" especially for the latter, :who have embraced mail-in voting since 2020 as the Republican Party nationally has raced away from it."
READ MORE:Election denialism embraced by 'large proportion' of Trump’s followers: report
Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fred told Politico, "It’s definitely inconvenient and unfortunately we have to start all over again. It’s a waste of everyone’s resources to get access to voting."
The news outlet also notes:
Florida used to allow vote-by-mail requests to remain valid for two election cycles, but GOP legislators changed the law in the session following the 2020 elections. Starting in 2023, mail-in ballot requests expired at the end of December following a general election. The law signed by DeSantis was part of a wave of changes that Republicans made in the aftermath of the election where former President Donald Trump made false claims about widespread voter fraud.*
GOP consultant Ryan Tyson — who Politico reports is one of DeSantis' own advisers — has been negatively impacted by the change in the law.
Tyson wasn't able to vote in the Republican presidential primary.
READ MORE:Trump may have to go crawling to DeSantis for help if convicted: expert
"I was in another state the day of the primary," the DeSantis adviser said. "I was in Colorado when I tried to request one and was notified I missed the window."
Politico reports the state's "local election supervisors have tried to alert voters that their vote-by-mail requests had been canceled and that they need to make new requests, but so far have seen only limited success."
Although the change hurts the state's Democratic Party, Politico reports, "The Republican base’s aversion to mail-in voting has hurt the party across the country, both in the midterms and in critical off-year elections. Republicans elsewhere have haltingly started to encourage voters to embrace the method, even as Trump’s attacks continue."
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liz truss cspan 5 24 heritage
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3/24
wASHINGTON (AP) — A new Biden administration rule that sets tougher standards for deadly soot pollution faced a barrage of legal challenges Wednesday, as 25 Republican-led states and a host of business groups filed lawsuits seeking to block the rule in court.
Twenty-four states, led by attorneys general from Kentucky and West Virginia, filed a joint challenge stating that new Environmental Protection Agency rule would raise costs for manufacturers, utilities and families and could block new manufacturing plants and infrastructure such as roads and bridges. Texas filed a separate suit, as did business groups led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers.
“The EPA’s new rule has more to do with advancing President (Joe) Biden’s radical green agenda than protecting Kentuckians’ health or the environment, said Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, who is leading the joint lawsuit along with West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.
The EPA rule “will drive jobs and investment out of Kentucky and overseas, leaving employers and hardworking families to pay the price,” Coleman said.
READ MORE
Watchdog: EPA’s lead pipe fix sent about $3 billion to states based on unverified data
Racial bias did not shape Mississippi’s water funding decisions for capital city, EPA says
US’s largest public utility ignores warnings in moving forward with new natural gas plant
The soot rule is one of several EPA dictates under attack from industry groups and Republican-led states. The Supreme Court heard arguments last month on a GOP challenge to the agency’s “good neighbor rule,” which restricts smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial sources that burden downwind areas.
Three energy-producing states — Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia — challenged the rule, along with the steel industry and other groups, calling it costly and ineffective. The rule is on hold in a dozen states because of the court challenges.
In opposing the soot rule, Republicans and industry groups say the United States already has some of the strictest air quality standards in the world — tougher than the European Union or major polluters such as China and India.
Tightening U.S. standards “wouldn’t improve public health, but it would put as many as 30% of all U.S. counties out of compliance under federal law, leading to aggressive new permitting requirements that could effectively block new economic activity,’' Coleman said.
The EPA rule sets maximum levels of fine particle pollution — more commonly known as soot — at 9 micrograms per cubic meter of air, down from 12 micrograms established a decade ago under the Obama administration.
Environmental and public health groups hailed the rule as a major step to improve the health of Americans, including future generations. EPA scientists have estimated exposure at previous limits contributed to thousands of early deaths from heart disease and lung cancer, along with other health problems.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the new soot rule, finalized last month, would create $46 billion in net health benefits by 2032, including prevention of up to 800,000 asthma attacks and 4,500 premature deaths. The rule will especially benefit children, older adults and those with heart and lung conditions, Regan said, as well as people in low-income and minority communities adversely affected by decades of industrial pollution.
“We do not have to sacrifice people to have a prosperous and booming economy,″ Regan said.
Biden is seeking reelection, and some fellow Democrats have warned that a tough new soot standard could harm his chances in key industrial states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
The EPA and White House officials brushed aside those concerns, saying the industry has developed technical improvements to meet previous soot standards and can adapt to meet the new ones. Soot pollution has declined by 42% since 2000, even as the U.S. gross domestic product has increased by 52%, Regan said.
The new rule does not impose pollution controls on specific industries. Instead, it lowers the annual standard for fine particulate matter for overall air quality. The EPA will use air sampling to identify counties and other areas that do not meet the new standard. States would then have 18 months to develop compliance plans for those areas. States that do not meet the new standard by 2032 could face penalties, although EPA said it expects that 99% of U.S. counties will be able to meet the revised annual standard by 2032.
Industry groups and Republican officials dispute that and say a lower soot limit could put hundreds of U.S. counties out of compliance.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned the White House in January that 43% of total particulate emissions come from wildfires, and called the pollution standard “the wrong tool to address this problem.’'
The EPA said it will work with states, counties and tribes to account for and respond to wildfires, an increasing source of soot pollution, especially in the West, where climate change has led to longer wildfire seasons, with more frequent and intense fires. The agency allows states and air agencies to request exemptions from air-quality standards due to “exceptional events,” including wildfires and prescribed fires.
Besides Kentucky, West Virginia and Texas, other states challenging the EPA rule include: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.
All three cases were filed before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
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AHA NOTE ENABLED BY FOX bs GAS STOVES OFFSHORE WIND
an 5 24
florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday signed a bill that erases most references to climate change in state law, deprioritizes it in policy decisions, and eases regulations for natural gas pipelines while banning offshore wind installations in state waters.}:
DeSantis signed the bill despite the fact that Florida is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to the climate crisis—both from sea-level rise and extreme weather such as heatwaves and hurricanes. Indeed, on the day of the signing, Key West tied for its highest heat index on record at 115°C, heat that was made at least five times more likely because of the burning of fossil fuels.
"This purposeful act of cognitive dissonance is proof that the governor and state Legislature are not acting in the best interests of Floridians, but rather to protect profits for the fossil fuel industry," Yoca Arditi-Rocha, executive director of climate education nonprofit the Cleo Institute, toldThe Associated Press.
The bill's opponents told APthat it exes out nine references to climate currently on the books. It also takes steps to promote fossil gas—which already provides nearly three-quarters of Florida's electricity—and makes it harder to ban gas stoves and other appliances.
Further, AP reported:
The legislation also eliminates requirements that government agencies hold conferences and meetings in hotels certified by the state's environmental agency as "green lodging" and that government agencies make fuel efficiency the top priority in buying new vehicles. It also ends a requirement that Florida state agencies look at a list of "climate-friendly" products before making purchases.
The law, which goes into effect July 1, "is very much out of line with public opinion," Greg Knecht, director of the Nature Conservancy in Florida, toldThe Washington Post.A full 90% of Floridians believe climate change is occurring, 69% of them want the state government to act on it, a Florida Atlantic University survey found.
Florida is already seeing the impacts of the climate crisis from Wednesday's high heat and humidity in the Keys to last year's Hurricane Idalia. Moving forward, Florida was ranked 10th in a list of states or provinces with the most physical infrastructure at risk from climate impacts by 2050.
"This feels like Act 1 of a Greek tragedy," the Environmental Voter Project wrote on social media in response to the signing.
Knecht told the Postthat DeSantis and Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature were willing to address the effects of the climate crisis—the governor earmarked more than $28 million to study flooding vulnerability in each county last year—but would not acknowledge the cause of the problem or discuss solutions that involved reducing emissions.
"On one hand, we recognize that we're seeing flooding and we're seeing property damage and we're seeing hurricanes, and we're conveying to the public that we can build our way out of these problems," Knecht said. "And then on the other hand, we're turning around and saying, 'Yeah, but climate change isn't really real, and we don't need to do anything about it.'"
This may partly be because, as green advocates told Post, the climate crisis has become a culture war issue that DeSantis can use to attract media attention and right-wing voters, as he has done with high-profile attacks on abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights.
Others blamed the influence of the fossil fuel industry.
"Fossil fuel companies don't like competing with clean energy," Democratic Florida Senate candidate Carlos Guillermo Smith wrote on social media. "So they donated to Ron DeSantis who signed a law that bans offshore wind, eliminates energy efficiency grant programs, and deletes any reference to 'climate change' from state statute."
"GOP = Profits over people always," Smith said.
Progress Florida wrote: "While Gov. Ron DeSantis does the dirty work of corporate polluters, Floridians are left to suffer as the state becomes more unaffordable and the natural treasures of the people who have farmed, hunted, and worshipped here for generations are destroyed
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an 2 24
florida public school students start learning about communism in 7th grade. That’s too late for some Republicans in the Florida House, who want teachers to instruct students as young as kindergarteners on concepts such as “cultural Marxism.” But what is it?
The House bill moving in the Legislature doesn’t provide a definition for the term, raising questions about how little kids could understand cultural Marxism.
The Senate version of the bill doesn’t include cultural Marxism in its legislation.
Nevertheless, HB 1349, passed in a House committee on Feb. 1. The bill analysis says that starting in the 2026-27 school year, the history of communism must be included in instruction in grades K-12 in Florida’s public schools. (Currently, there are no standards for the history of communism from kindergarten to 6th grade.) The legislation would include “the philosophy and lineages of Communist thought, including cultural Marxism.”
The bill involves a task force — the governor would appoint the members — to come up with age-appropriate curriculum and academic standards for K-12 instruction of the history of communism and its dangers. The task force would report its findings no later than July 1, 2025, and it “must also make recommendations to the Legislature regarding the creation of a Florida Museum of Communist History,” according to the legislative staff analysis.
The House proposal, from Republican Reps. Chuck Brannan and James Buchanan, gained enough support last week to move forward in the Legislature. But Democrats criticized the inclusion of cultural Marxism as one of the things students will learn about. Brannan represents North Florida counties and a part of Alachua, and Buchanan represents part of Sarasota.
From terrorist manifesto to K-12 curricula
Democratic lawmakers pointed to far-right groups’ usage of cultural Marxism in relation to antisemitic beliefs.
“If you look up the term cultural Marxism, what comes up is the term cultural Marxism refers to a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory, so that’s also concerning to me,” Palm Beach Democratic Rep. Katherine Waldron said during the Choice and Innovation subcommittee meeting last week. “I’m all for kids learning about government and political systems. But I would be against this very specific terminology in training or in trying to educate them on this.”
Marilyn Mayo, a senior research fellow with ADL’s Center on Extremism, said in a statement to Florida Phoenix that antisemites also use the term to reinforce their longstanding antisemitic trope that communism is “Jewish.”
“‘Cultural Marxism’ is a term, typically used by right-wing ideologues, to attack an array of ideas and concepts they oppose, including multiculturalism, globalism, feminism, and LGBTQ+ rights, among others. The term often functions as an antisemitic dog whistle or codeword,” Mayo wrote in the statement.
“Promoters of the term often invoke a conspiracy theory that falsely claims such progressive ideas originated with the so-called Frankfurt School, a leftist intellectual collective active in Germany between the two World Wars. Exploiting the fact that a number of the Frankfurt School intellectuals were Jewish, antisemitic versions of this conspiracy theory link the Frankfurt School, and thus ‘cultural Marxism’ itself, to Jews, claiming that Jews seek to subvert and weaken Western (and Christian) society by imposing their left-wing and politically correct (or ‘woke’) views.”
Over the years, cultural Marxism has gone from being linked with the far-right through terrorists’ manifestos to seeping into the vocabulary of mainstream politicians, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has said he views wokeness as a form of cultural Marxism.
“Most of the most violent, the deadliest acts of hate, perpetrated against Jewish people especially in the United States in the last 10 to 15 years have been by far-right extremists. We don’t have cultural Marxists shooting up synagogues. If it were the case, then we should talk about it, but it isn’t,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. “You have white supremacists, anti-government extremists who are embracing antisemitism. Of course, antisemitism is on the far-left as well. There has been a rapid, marked increase in antisemitic rhetoric coming out of the far-left as well.”
The terrorist who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011 and another who killed a woman in the attack at the California Chabad of Poway synagogue in 2019 left manifestos denouncing cultural Marxism’s effect on Europe and blaming Jews for coming up with it, respectively.
Groups like the Proud Boys have also used cultural Marxism as a catch-all term for anyone they view as an enemy, Lewis said.
“What we’ve seen in recent years has been an intentional effort, by far-right extremists to launder antisemitism, launder white supremacy, launder anti-LGBTQ narratives and hate speech against everyone who’s not effectively in this in-group, which is largely white, largely Christian,” he said.
Dangers of communism
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, published a 45-page report in 2022 about how cultural Marxism threatens the U.S. In it, the think tank states cultural Marxists have infiltrated the country through college campuses and public schools. They also credit DeSantis for showing a path to dismantle cultural Marxism.
“Today’s cultural Marxists believe that the reason economic, social, cultural, academic, and health outcomes (to name just a few) show persistent racial disparities is because of a pervasive, systemic racism that can only be eliminated by smashing the system itself,” the report states.
Subcommittee chair Republican Rep. Alex Rizo of Miami-Dade, last week defended the bill, stating that students don’t learn enough about communism.
“When we talk about antisemitism I equate antisemitism a lot with communism. … I love that this bill will come up with some sort of curriculum to start teaching what communism really does other than an economic theory that was brought up by Marx and Engels, two philosophers, and I use that term very loosely, in the 19th century. Because we do have curriculum in almost every single grade level K through 12 that talks about the sins of slavery, that talks about the horrors of the Holocaust, but does not yet really address the over 100 million people who were victimized, murdered, displaced in about 100 years worth of communism in our society,” he said.
The Florida Department of Education standards related to communism include the evaluation of economic systems in seventh grade and the identification of political ideologies (communism and totalitarianism) that conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy in high school.
Lawmakers also discussed last week how the material would be taught in an age-appropriate manner to younger students. Republican Rep. Thad Altman of Brevard said his wife, a first-grade teacher at a Catholic school, teaches kids through hands-on simulations.
“I think these kids understand capitalism and communism more than a lot of college students, especially if they go to an Ivy League,” he said.
Other things students would learn about through the House bill or analysis include atrocities committed in foreign countries under the guidance of communism, the Cultural Revolution in the People’s Republic of China, the communist policies of Cuba, and the spread of communist ideologies throughout Latin America.
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an 1 24
a Florida Republican’s bill aims to silence accusations of racism, homophobia, sexism, transphobia, or any other allegations of discrimination, making them “defamation” under the law and potentially costing the person who made them up to $35,000 in the state known for its “Don’t Say Gay” law.
The sweeping legislation also appears to void journalists’ right to not reveal sources, and, chillingly removes the long-standing requirement that a public figure needs to show “actual malice” to win a defamation lawsuit.
“In cases of alleged homophobia or transphobia, defendants charged with defamation are not allowed to use the plaintiff’s religious or scientific beliefs as part of their defense. If they are found liable for defamation, the defendant could be fined at least $35,000,” The New Republic reports, noting it “would silence basically any accusations of discrimination.”
“The bill applies to statements made in print, on television, or on social media. It also states that someone who is caught in a viral video engaging in allegedly discriminatory behaviors does not qualify as a ‘public figure,’ giving those people even more grounds to sue.”
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:{:{LGBTQ activist Erin Reed, who first reported on the legislation, writes: “A person could not call, for instance, a fiercely anti-gay or anti-trans pastor transphobic. The pastor would be able to sue their accusers for $35,000 and their accusers could not use the pastor’s ‘religious expression or beliefs’ to prove that the pastor is transphobic or homophobic.}:
Similarly, if a shopkeeper kicks a transgender person out of a shop while citing ‘God’s word’ or their ‘scientific beliefs’ and the video goes viral, the shopkeeper could claim that they were acting under their ‘constitutionally protected religious expression or beliefs’ or their ‘scientific beliefs.’ It would bar anyone from calling that shopkeeper transphobic.”}:
Florida Democratic state Rep. Anna V. Eskamani decried the legislation, writing: “More attempts to chill free speech in the ‘free’ State of Florida.”
Dr Robert Bohan, an Irish artist and scientist who says his “work is about the human condition and understanding how the mind is connected with the body and our environment,” on social media where he has over 300,000 followers voiced concern.
“The US is proud of free speech. The KKK can spit racism, misogynists can attack women & groups can call for the annihilation of Gay ppl,” Dr. Bohan wrote. “Florida is now removing free speech, but just for the Gays. If you can’t name your oppressor how do you call them out?”
Florida State University professor of history Paul Renfro observed, “For these folks, accusations of racism, sexism, transphobia, or homophobia are far more objectionable than the racist, sexist, transphobic, and homophobic policies they enact and support.”
The legislation is being sponsored by Republican state Senator Jason Brodeur, who last year “introduced a bill that would require the registration of bloggers who are critical of the state’s government,” leading a columnist at the right-wing National Review to call him a “moron” and an “idiot.” It’s unclear if that would be considered defamation under Sen. Brodeur’s new bill.
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