FLORIDA 2

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see felony activ suppress desantis, SYG

BAK 124

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DESANTIS QUITS 1 24

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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.

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

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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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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.

FL House Republicans want to require health insurers to cover anti-trans conversion therapy - Alternet.org

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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.”

:{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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Revealed: Florida judge’s son is a neo-Nazi patron

:{Supporters of ultra nationalist party Golden Dawn hold party flag and Greek flag as they demonstrate on February 1, 2014 in Athens, Greece. (Photo by Milos Bicanski/

andRaw Story

December 18, 2023

A 24-year-old man who is the son of a Florida judge purchased a T-shirt supporting a Greek neo-Nazi political party, according to a Raw Story analysis of data leaked from an online store that distributes racist music.

Stephen Whyte of Bradenton, Fla., confirmed to Raw Story that he purchased a Golden Dawn shirt from the online store Midgård in October 2020. The purchase was made only weeks after a Greek court convicted high-ranking members of the neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn, of attempted murder and other crimes.

Stephen Whyte’s father, Matt Whyte, is a circuit court judge in Manatee County, on Florida’s west coast south of Tampa. The leaked customer registry indicates that Stephen Whyte used his parents’ home address to order the T-shirt.

“This is his son. I ordered the T-shirt in 2020,” Stephen Whyte confirmed in a phone text message to Raw Story.

ALSO READ: Nazis bullied a conservative Tennessee town. Locals punched back. Trump should be worried.

After confirming that he bought the Golden Dawn T-shirt in a phone text to Raw Story, Stephen Whyte did not respond to subsequent voicemails and texts seeking an explanation for the purchase.

Matt Whyte, who hears felony criminal cases in Manatee County, declined to comment through a court spokesperson.

“As a general practice, no judge answers questions about anything because someone will find it and say, ‘You can’t preside over this case because you’re biased,’” said Donna Rhodes, the public information officer for the 12th Judicial Circuit Court, which includes Manatee County. “Judges need to remain neutral. Because they’re neutral, no one should know their opinion on anything…. The less somebody knows about judges, the better it is. Nobody can say they’re biased.”

Whyte was appointed to the bench in 2019 by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and ran unopposed in a nonpartisan election to keep his position in 2022.

The leak last week by AFA Sweden, an anonymous anti-fascist group, made public the names, addresses and phone numbers of thousands of customers of the online shop Midgård, which is based in Sweden.

ALSO READ: Neo-Nazi leader says he's banned from U.S. military bases

The manifest includes thousands of customers in the United States who mostly bought recordings of racist bands that play hardcore punk and NSBM, or national socialist black metal. At least one customer purchased an English-language edition of Mein Kampf, the autobiographical manifesto of Adolf Hitler.

The blue Golden Dawn T-shirt displayed on the Midgård website advertises the item as a way to show support for the neo-Nazi group while pledging that profits from the T-shirt sales go “directly to Golden Dawn in Greece.”

Stephen Whyte bought the shirt on Oct. 14, 2020, according to the leaked information. His purchase came a week after NPR and other news organizations reported that Golden Dawn was declared to be a criminal organization by a Greek court, and that 68 party members were convicted of crimes that included murder and attempted murder.

The neo-Nazi party took third place in Greece’s parliamentary elections in 2015 by riding a wave of discontent over the government’s handling of the 2008 global financial crisis.

But by 2019, revelations about its track record of atrocities, including a near-fatal assault on Egyptian fishermen by Golden Dawn members, and the murder of Pavlos Fyssas — a rapper, hip-hop promoter and antiracist campaigner who performed under the name Killah P — caught up with Golden Dawn. Voters roundly rejected the party in 2019, and during the following year, party leaders found themselves facing long prison sentences.

It’s not clear whether Whyte is involved in neo-Nazi activity beyond his apparent support for Golden Dawn, and it is also not clear whether he still lives with his parents. According to his Facebook page, he enrolled at State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota, in 2017, but it’s unknown whether he was awarded a degree.

Beginning in December 2019, his Facebook page lists his occupation as “professional poker player,” and a social media post shows him working in his grandparents’ Greek restaurant in December 2020. The restaurant closed last year.

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FL [Florida GOP chair wants huge payout to quit after alleged rape and three-way sex scandal: report - Alternet.orglawmaker declares 16 year olds are ‘not children’ but ‘youth workers’ amid labor shortage - Alternet.org](https://www.alternet.org/fl-lawmaker-youth-workers/)

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Moms for Liberty reeling and on the ropes after election losses and scandals: report - Alternet.org

rape threesome m4l cofounder wife

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the imagery is dark. The words are defiant. The message is dystopian. An ad for Republican Governor Ron DeSantis‘s presidential campaign, currently “in turmoil,” features the First Lady of Florida, Casey DeSantis, issuing a warning: “They’re coming after our children.”

The ad never quite says who is coming after the kids, but the video (below) includes clips of President Joe Biden and former Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of the war on COVID and the now-retired Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

While it was first released over the summer, it received little attention. Casey DeSantis on Friday reposted her “Mamas for DeSantis” ad. It comes in the wake of the alleged ménage à trois sex scandal involving an unnamed woman who has accused Christian Ziegler, the head of the Florida Republican Party of rape. His wife, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler, who reportedly confirmed the consensual three-way sexual relationship, is Casey DeSantis’ “best friend,” according to Florida Politics publisher Peter Schorsch.

“In America, we’ve witnessed a lot and put up with enough,” Casey DeSantis says in a voiceover at the start of the two-and-a-half minute video.

“We’ve been forced into silence,” she charges, amid a baby crying and a COVID mask being put over a child’s face. “Into compliance.”

“Told that we must ‘trust the science,'” DeSantis continues, in a direct attack on Dr. Fauci, showing him speaking during the height of COVID in the Trump administration.

And in an attack on LGBTQ children and adults, she says: “We’ve been told that we must deny truth. Back down. And look the other way.”

“Enough is enough. When you come after our kids, we fight back. Because there’s nothing we won’t do to protect our children,” she says.

Seconds later, the video shows President Joe Biden declaring, “Our nation’s children are all our children.”

“We will not allow you to exploit their innocence to advance your agenda. We are no longer silent,” Casey DeSantis declares. “We are united. We have finally found our fighter.”

Casey DeSantis praises her husband, saying he will do for America what he did for Florida: “Schools: opened. Parents’ rights: defended. School choice: universal. Critical race theory: prohibited. DEI: stopped. Child mutilation: illegal. Girls’ sports: saved. Communities: protected. Our economy: growing. VIA INFLATION? And freedom: guaranteed.”

In the section where President Biden says, “Our nation’s children are all our children,” Casey DeSantis doesn’t explain that those words came from a White House celebration honoring Teachers of The Year from across the country. The President was praising an Oklahoma Teacher of the Year whose district includes students who speak 62 different languages, so she had to work hard to ensure everyone felt included. She had said, “There’s no such thing as someone else’s child.”

Nor did DeSantis acknowledge that Governor DeSantis’ performance for children has been poor.

The Florida Policy Institute, which says it is “an independent, non-partisan, and non-profit organization,” in September warned “368,728 youth aged 20 and younger” have been cut from Medicaid. “Because Florida has not expanded Medicaid, the vast majority of those losing insurance during this time have been children, parents, young adults, and new mothers.”

Florida ranks 35th in child well-being (with 1 being the best), according WUSF, citing the Kids Count Databook from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Some critics on social media blasted Casey DeSantis’ remarks.

“Republicans refused to extend child tax credits that pulled 2 million children out of poverty. They resist the idea of free school lunches. Yet they come up with bullshit about their opponents ‘coming after our children.’ Yes, we’re coming after them, to give them a sandwich,” wrote former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob.

Watch the Casey DeSantis video below or at this link.

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Douglas Soule @ The Tallahassee Democrat: ‘That’s authoritarianism’: Florida argues school libraries are for government messaging.

Florida’s government is arguing that school districts have a First Amendment right to remove LGBTQ books. Or any book, for that matter.

[Florida professors leaving in droves blame 'very dystopian' environment: report - Alternet.org

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ars tech

Florida man's unexplained case of leprosy last year adds to mounting evidence that the rare and often misunderstood bacterial infection has become endemic to the central part of the Sunshine State—and that it may, in fact, lurk in the environment there, possibly in the soil.

In a research letter appearing in the August issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases,three dermatologists detailed the man's case and their concerns for local transmission. They note that the 54-year-old man, like several others in the state who contracted the disease, reported no established risk factors that might explain their infection. He hadn't traveled abroad, where he could have picked up the infection, or had any exposure to armadillos, which live in Florida and naturally carry the bacteria that cause leprosy. He also didn't have any prolonged contact with people from leprosy-endemic countries or connections to anyone known to have leprosy.

But he did spend a lot of time outdoors; he worked as a landscaper. In fact, many of the recent Florida cases lacked traditional risk factors but reported spending a lot of time outdoors. The similarity "supports the investigation into environmental reservoirs as a potential source of transmission," the doctors wrote.

In an interview with the Sun Sentinel, the authors speculated further that the man could have picked up the infection through contact with contaminated soil. The infectious earth could have been seeded with leprosy-causing bacteria from armadillos that commonly live in the area. Soil samples from India, where leprosy is endemic, have previously been found harboring leprosy bacteria, they noted.

"Could it be in the soil in Central Florida? We don’t know," Charles Dunn, a dermatologist and co-author of the study, told the Sentinel. "It is one of the interesting factors to consider in the thought process. We are hoping the scientific community leans into our report."

In the meantime, Dunn and his co-authors advise dermatologists to be aware of the possibility. "Travel to this area, even in the absence of other risk factors, should prompt consideration of leprosy in the appropriate clinical context," they wrote in the research letter.

No travel advisory

The suggestion has apparently raised undue concerns that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now working to assuage. The CDC recently added an advisory on its webpage about leprosy—aka Hansen's disease—noting that the agency "has not issued a travel advisory for Florida, or any other state, due to Hansen’s disease (leprosy)."

The agency also highlighted a series of potentially comforting facts about the disease, which is caused by the slow-growing bacterium Mycobacterium leprae. First, leprosy is rare in the US, even in Florida. There are fewer than 200 cases nationwide most years. Although Florida accounts for a disproportionate number of those cases, with most concentrated in the central part of the state, the case counts are small. So far in 2023, there have been 16 leprosy cases reported in Florida, nine of which were locally acquired cases.

Leprosy is also not very contagious, despite what the severe stigma and ostracism of the past may have led you to believe. It takes prolonged contact with someone infected—often over months—to contract the bacterial infection, the CDC says. Additionally, researchers have estimated that more than 95 percent of people exposed to the bacterium will be resistant to infection via innate, cell-mediated immune responses.

If an infection establishes, it develops slowly, often with an incubation period of three to five years, though it can be as long as two decades. For some, the infection can spontaneously heal after that point. For others, though, it can progress to damage the skin and nerves, causing numbness and hallmark growths, nodules, lesions, discoloration, and ulcers. If left untreated, it can lead to facial disfigurement, chronic ulcers, blindness, paralysis, and loss of function in hands and feet. The slow progression, rarity, and nondescript early skin symptoms mean that some with the disease are misdiagnosed—sometimes for many years.

Once the infection is correctly identified, it can be effectively treated with antibiotics and completely cured. The treatment usually involves two or three antibiotics taken between one and two years, though.

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raw 1123

Church of Bleach” family gets years in prison for deadly “miracle” solution

A federal judge in Miami has handed down years-long prison sentences to a Florida father and his three adult sons who were convicted in July of using a faux church to sell an industrial-strength bleaching agent as a "miracle" solution they falsely...

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red state brain drain

many liberal and progressive pundits have been predicting a "brain drain" from red states — skillful, college-educated doctors, university professors and teachers leaving because of oppressive MAGA policies. OB-GYNs are worried about draconian anti-abortion laws; teachers and librarians are under attack from the far-right Moms for Liberty.

The New Republic's Timothy Noah, in an article published on November 22, emphasizes that the "brain drain" from red states isn't something that may or may not happen in the future — it's already underway.

"Republican-dominated states are pushing out young professionals by enacting extremist conservative policies," Noah reports. "Abortion restrictions are the most sweeping example, but state laws restricting everything from academic tenure to transgender health care to the teaching of 'divisive concepts' about race are making these states uncongenial to knowledge workers."

Noah continues, "The precise effect of all this on the brain drain is hard to tease out from migration statistics because the Dobbs decision is still fairly new, and because red states were bleeding college graduates even before the culture war heated up. The only red state that brings in more college graduates than it sends elsewhere is Texas, but the evidence is everywhere that hard-right social policies in red states are making this dynamic worse."

Noah cites specific examples, including doctors Kate Arnold and Caroline Flint — a same-sex married couple who left deep red Oklahoma and moved to Washington, D.C. to get away from Republican anti-abortion and anti-contraception activities as well as book bans in their former state

"Kate Arnold and Caroline Flint are two bright, energetic, professionally trained, and public-spirited women whom Washington is happy to welcome — they both quickly found jobs —even though it doesn't particularly need them," Noah explains. "The places that need Kate and Caroline are Oklahoma and Mississippi and Idaho and various other conservative states where similar stories are playing out daily. These two fortyish doctors have joined an out-migration of young professionals — accelerated by the culture wars of recent years and pushed to warp speed by Dobbs — that's known as the Red State Brain Drain."

School teacher Tyler Hallstedt, according to Noah, left Tennessee for Michigan because of GOP education policies. And teachers in Texas, Noah notes, have been "quitting at a rate that's 25 percent above the national average," while South Carolina has "teacher shortages in 17 subject areas this school year, more than any other state."

"With the sole exception of Texas," Noah explains, "red states are bleeding college graduates. It's happening even in relatively prosperous Florida. And much as Republicans may scorn Joe and Jane College, they need them to deliver their babies, to teach their children, to pay taxes — college grads pay more than twice as much in taxes — and to provide a host of other services that only people with undergraduate or graduate degrees are able to provide. Red states should be welcoming Kate and Caroline and Tyler and Delana. Instead, they're driving them away, and that's already costing them dearly."

---

an 11 23

a Florida county commissioner ousted by governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, was exonerated Thursday after being sentenced to three years of probation and community service, and serving 75 days in jail, The Intercept reports.

"He lost everything," Oren Miller's wife Angie Fox said, according to the report. "They took his job away. He had to go to jail. He had to pay for all the expenses and everything. Where we go from here, I don't know. Right now we're just trying to settle down from the news."

The Sumter County commissioner, along with "fellow commissioner, Gary Search, who was similarly prosecuted," but took a plea deal, The Intercept reports, "ran for office pledging to roll back a property tax increase that had been foisted on residents to fund future development in The Villages. They argued that if the developer, which also owned the local newspaper and radio station, wanted to expand the size of the retirement community, they should do so with their own money."

The news outlet adds, "Shortly after Miller and Search were sworn in, the local prosecutor launched an investigation into whether they had violated Florida 'sunshine laws' around transparency and open government. They were never charged with doing so, but as part of the investigation, the state's attorney interrogated both Miller and Search about phone calls they had after the election."

The report notes that "Commissioners are barred from talking about commission business outside of open meetings, and the investigators wanted to know about calls between the two that had happened earlier in the year."

Miller's "repeatedly hazy" reply to questions about when his calls with Search stopped is what resulted in his perjury charge and jailtime.

A panel of judges pointed out "the absurdity" of Miller's charge, and furthermore, The Intercept notes, "The case is shot through with ironies, principally that the prosecutors used an anti-corruption law to prosecute a commissioner who was challenging corruption. In a further irony, the prosecution made obviously false statements while accusing Miller of perjury."

The ruling read: "Reviewing the entirety of the sworn statement made by Miller to investigating authorities, it cannot be said he in fact definitively claimed that there were no phone calls with Commissioner Search after January 2021. Indeed, quite the contrary."

According to the report, "The court took the unusual step of not just vacating the previous conviction, but also instructing the lower court to insert a new verdict of 'not guilty.'"

*The Intercept's full report is availableat this link.

---

FL homeowners buried by skyrocketing insurance costs after DeSantis’ handout to big insurers - Alternet.org

Florida 'Don’t Say Gay' lawmaker sentenced to prison in federal fraud case - Alternet.org

https://www.alternet.org/florida-permits-prageru-materials-classrooms/

https://www.alternet.org/desantis-slave-trade-trade-school/

https://www.alternet.org/education/florida-crt-2659613380/

florida textbook publisher under fire for editing Rosa Parks’ story to omit race

8 23 AN invol admit hosp 2017? desantis booed

'Diary of a madman': Florida shooter with 'several manifestos' originally targeted HBCU

Maya Boddie August 27, 2023

The white gunman who murdered three Black people at a Jacksonville, Florida Dollar General store Saturday night has been identified by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Department.

The Sheriff's Department shared the suspect's name on Sunday via X — formerly known as Twitter — along with a photo, writing, "Sheriff TK Waters holds follow-up briefing to identify the three victims who senselessly lost their lives yesterday during this tragic event. The suspect has been identified as 21yo Ryan Palmeter."

Although department officials noted that the 21-year-old "bought his guns legally and had no criminal history," according to Reuters, "Authorities have described the shooting as racially motivated, saying the man had authored 'several manifestos; for media, his parents and law enforcement detailing his hatred for Black people."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

During the Sunday press conference, Waters described one manifesto as a "diary of a madman."

Reuters reports:

On Saturday, he was spotted trying to enter a local historically Black college, Edward Waters University, before heading to the Dollar General store.

The university said in a statement that a man had refused to identify himself and had been turned away by a campus security officer. 'It was later determined that the individual would be involved in a shooting near EWU campus,' the institution said.

The New York Times reports Palmeter used an "an AR-15-style rifle that bore swastika markings, as well as a handgun" to kill the three victims before turning the gun on himself.

READ MORE: Targeted 'because they were Black': Jacksonville’s state senator reacts to Saturday mass shooting

Reuters' full report is available at this link (subscription required).

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OMG

an 6 23

no lnx

for decades, Florida had a reputation for being an incredibly volatile swing state. Floridians often split their tickets, and President George W. Bush won the state twice before it went to President Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012. Democrats and Republicans had to work extra hard with Florida voters because the Sunshine State was neither ultra-Democratic Massachusetts nor ultra-Republican Alabama.

But that was before the Ron DeSantis era, which has found Florida moving way to the right. Republicans now dominate all three branches of Florida's state government: executive, legislative and judicial.

In a report published on June 20, Washington Post reporters Beth Reinhard and Josh Dawsey describe DeSantis and his allies' campaign to push the Florida Supreme Court way to the right.

READ MORE: Ron DeSantis accuses teachers of 'forcing' students to pick pronouns

"For decades, the ambitions of Florida's Republican governors were stymied by the liberal-leaning (Florida) Supreme Court," Reinhard and Dawsey explain. "That is, until Ron DeSantis was elected. The Court let him erase a congressional district with a large Black population. It opened the door to a law making it easier to impose the death penalty. Now, it's poised to rule on the governor's plan to outlaw most abortions in the third-most-populous state."

The reporters emphasize that theFlorida Supreme Court's "hard-right turn" was "by design" —and encouraged by the right-wing Federalist Society.

"DeSantis seized on the unusual retirement of three liberal justices at once to quickly remake the court," according to Reinhard and Dawsey. "He did so with the help of a secretive panel led by Leonard Leo — the key architect of the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority — that quietly vetted judicial nominees in an Orlando conference room three weeks before the governor's inauguration."

Leo, known for his many years as vice president of the Federalist Society, played a major role in the demise of Roe v. Wade. And Reinhard and Dawsey stress that Leo helped give Florida "one of the most conservative state supreme courts in the country."

READ MORE: Ron DeSantis vows to 'destroy leftism' and 'woke ideology' if elected president

"(DeSantis) repeatedly points to his overhaul of the state court as a sign of how he would approach the (federal) judiciary if elected (president)," the reporters note. "He has called Justice Clarence Thomas 'our greatest living justice' and pledged to move the U.S. Supreme Court even further to the right than President Donald Trump did."

READ MORE: 'Boxed in': Why Trump’s 2020 fixation is a 'fundamental problem' for Ron DeSantis

Read The Washington Post's full report at this link (subscription required).

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7 23 badash an

florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis says if elected president his plan to address climate change will be to throw out President Joe Biden’s Green New Deal.

Last week on Monday planet Earth suffered the hottest day on record, a record that it broke on Tuesday.

Fox News Business’ Stuart Varney, who has attacked climate change activists as “juvenile” and declared it is “ridiculous” that “the western world is obsessed with climate change,” on Monday asked DeSantis if he has a plan to address the climate crisis.

“The headlines are just full of stories about wildfires smoke, extraordinary temperatures in the southwest and the Southeast to some degree. Do you have a climate plan?” Varney asked.

“It’s going to be to rip up Joe Biden’s Green New Deal,” DeSantis bragged. “I think at the end of the day, we need to embrace American domestic energy. This could be a huge source of national security, economic vitality can build our industrial base in Florida.”

DeSantis’ claim echoes **Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy**‘s, who last Thursday said God has blessed America with largenatural gas resources, and the United States should use them to make two of the world’s largest countries and largest economies, China and India, “dependent on American natural gas.” He suggested doing so would “make us economically stronger but geopolitically the world safer,” while falsely claiming it would make the world “environmentally sound.”

The Florida governor bragged to Varney about Florida’s reduction in emissions, which happened, he admitted, through “market forces."

"We’ve actually had a huge reduction in emissions but it was done through innovation,” DeSantis said. “It was done through market forces, not command and control. So we’ll go about that in a much different direction than, than Joe Biden, I think ultimately, Biden’s policies andBidenomics is really about making the average person poor and reducing their standard of living. That is not the way you go about it.”

Last year, a Tampa Bay Times opinion piece noted, “2018, the last year for which [emissions] data is available, Florida utilities had decreased emissions by 19%, the research shows, while tailpipe emissions grew 12%.”

DeSantis was sworn into office in 2019.

Also last year, the Miami Herald warned Florida was not addressing the causes of climate change.

“The last time the Legislature addressed the root cause of climate change — greenhouse gas emissions — it was in a law that effectively blocked cities from cutting emissions,” the paper reported.

Watch DeSantis below or at this link.

no lnx 7 23

a federal judge on Monday blocked a provision of a recently enacted Florida law that the ACLU characterized as a "clear and brazen attack on civic participation in our democracy."

S.B. 7050, which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law in May, would have imposed $50,000 fines on community organizations for every noncitizen individual who collected or handled voter registration forms for the groups—even if the people were legally authorized to work in the United States.

In a scathing 58-page order granting rights groups' request for a preliminary injunction, Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker of the Northern District of Florida called the law "Florida's latest assault on the right to vote" and agreed that the voter registration provision would have "substantially interrupted" community groups' outreach efforts.

"Tomorrow, Floridians across the state will commemorate our nation's birthday," Walker wrote. "They will endure the heat of the Florida summer to celebrate the Fourth of July with family and friends at barbecues and picnics. They will gather with their communities at public parks for music and fireworks. They will cheer and sweat at parades and block parties. And amid these patriotic festivities, some may feel moved, for the first time, to embrace their solemn privilege as citizens by registering to vote."

"That's where plaintiffs come in," the judge continued, pointing to the testimony of Veronica Herrera-Lucha, a lawful permanent resident who works as the Florida state field director for Mi Vecino, a nonprofit voter registration group.

"Absent the challenged provisions at issue in these cases, individuals like Ms. Herrera-Lucha and [third-party voter registration organizations] like the Florida NAACP and Hispanic Federation would be engaging with their communities and registering new voters," Walker wrote. "Ms. Herrera-Lucha, a noncitizen who, herself, lacks the right to vote, has spent years registering and encouraging citizens to exercise that solemn right. She may, at least for now, continue to do so andadd more voices to the millions of others singing a more perfect union into existence."

Frankie Miranda, president and CEO of the Hispanic Federation, celebrated Walker's ruling as confirmation of "what we knew from the very beginning: Florida's latest voter registration law was unconstitutional and served no other purpose than to silence our communities."

"This ruling is a win for all Floridians—especially for underrepresented communities who rely on nonpartisan organizations like us to help make their voices heard," said Miranda. "We applaud this ruling, and will not rest until everyone's right to participate in our democracy is protected."

The Hispanic Federation was one of several groups that sued the state of Florida over the provision targeting noncitizen voter registration advocates, part of a broader voter suppression effort by the state's governor and dominant Republican Party.

In addition to its sweeping attack on voter registration groups and restrictions on mail-in voting, S.B. 7050 includes a provision that allowed DeSantis to run for president without resigning as Florida's governor.

Walker wrote in his order Monday that Florida's political leaders in recent years have struggled to govern "within the bounds set by the United States Constitution."

"When state government power threatens to spread beyond constitutional bounds and reduce individual rights to ashes, the federal judiciary stands as a firewall," Walker added. "The Free State of Florida is simply not free to exceed the bounds of the United States Constitution."

Daniel Tilley, legal director at the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement that Walker's ruling "fortifies the idea that all Floridians have a right to participate in building a stronger democracy through civic engagement."

"While this is a step in the right direction, our work is not finished," said Tilley. "People in our communities, including noncitizens, work tirelessly to assist in voter registration efforts to empower Floridians to vote on issues that impact their daily lives. We applaud the court's decision, but we must ensure this harmful law is struck down altogether."

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~ naacp warning? an 623

no lnx

sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) on Tuesday became the object of widespread ridicule on Twitter after he posted a video warning "communists" that they should not even think of coming to visit his state.

"If you're a communist or a socialist... I would think twice if you're thinking about taking a vacation or moving to Florida," Scott said in his video.

Scott went on to state that Florida residents know communism is "not good for anybody" and then added that "we like freedom liberty, capitalism, things like that."

Many of Scott's followers were quick to pile on the senator's video.

"These people are clowns," wrote Brian Klaas, an Associate Professor in Global Politics at University College London. "Every aspect of modern Republican politics is geared toward performative pandering to the extremist base. The idea that a senior US politician would take the time to record a video telling 'communists' not to vacation in Florida…is just absurd."

David Simon, the creator of the acclaimed television series "The Wire," had a comical warning of his own for Scott to stay out of his hometown of Baltimore.

"I'm warning you not to set foot in Baltimore, where when we get the scent of a... submoronic demagogue, we cease all intramural violence and converge in socialist frenzy on the f---er, capture him, then sell him off in parts to pay for our crack vials and Utz crab chips," he wrote.

Princeton historian Kevin Kruse, meanwhile, found it ironic that Scott railed against left-wing totalitarianism but found no time to condemn the neo-Nazis that have been marching at Disney World in recent days.

And Shannon Watts, the founder of the gun safety advocacy organization Moms Demand, pointed out how many residents of Florida benefit from the "socialism" that Scott decries.

"Florida is the second highest state in the nation with the most welfare recipients - including SNAP, TANF and Medicaid - and the second highest number of social security beneficiaries," she wrote.

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https://www.alternet.org/corporate-conventions-flee-florida-hostile/

https://www.alternet.org/

an ah 5 23 no lnx

hen the election returns for the 2022 midterms came in, Democrats were pleasantly surprised by how well they performed in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and other key swing states. Far-right pundits at Fox News, confined to a MAGA bubble, spent months predicting that 2022 would bring a massive red wave; instead, Democrats increased their small majority in the U.S. Senate and narrowly lost the U.S. House of Representatives.

Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer enjoyed an 11 percent reelection victory over far-right MAGA Republican challenger Tudor Dixon. In Pennsylvania, the ultimate swing state, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro defeated GOP conspiracy theorist Doug Mastriano by 15 percent.

But there was one state where Democrats seriously underperformed in 2022: Florida. GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis ran a far-right campaign and was reelected by 19 percent, while Republican Sen. Marco Rubio defeated Democrat Val Demings by 16 percent. The news across the board was terrible for Democrats in Florida, inspiring many pundits to say that it had gone from swing state to deep red state.

READ MORE: 'Persistent affordability crisis': How DeSantis’ plan to sell his 'Florida blueprint' could backfire

Veteran Democratic strategist Steve Schale, who served as President Barack Obama's Florida director in 2008, examines his party's misfortunes in the Sunshine State in an article published by The Bulwark on June 1. Democrats have lost so much ground in Florida, Schale laments, that percentagewise, they now hold more positions in the Montana State Legislature than they do in Florida's.

"What happened in 2022 was a perfect storm," Schale explains. "A decade's worth of decisions to intentionally defund the state party had left it an empty shell. Republicans had an incumbent governor in Ron DeSantis who was incentivized to run up the score to support his presidential ambitions. An unpopular Democratic president was facing his first midterm election, and Democratic donors were both tired of Florida and focused — rightly — on maintaining a majority in the U.S. Senate and defending key governorships."

The Democratic strategist continues, "All the ingredients were in place for a wipeout, which is what Florida Democrats got."

That "wipeout," Schale observes, went way beyond "Hurricane Ron's" reelection. Most of the U.S. House and state legislature victories in Florida in 2022 went to Republicans.

READ MORE: 'Make him own this': Florida’s 'atrocious' abortion ban could derail DeSantis’ presidential hopes

Nonetheless, Schale doesn't believe that Florida has become far-right ideologically, but rather, reflects the Democratic Party's poor organizing in his state.

The Floridian writes, "I believe Florida remains today what it was when Obama won it: essentially a center-right state, where Democrats, as Obama was, have to be smart in how they talk to voters…. National Democrats can't afford to let Florida become a one-party state, not if they want any margin for error in the Electoral College. Which is why, for Democrats everywhere, the Florida Democratic problem is everyone's problem now."

READ MORE: Ron DeSantis vows to 'destroy leftism' and 'woke ideology' if elected president

Read Steve Schale's full article for The Bulwark at this link.

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AG ~ legal pot

https://www.alternet.org/drugs/moody-florida/

some gop offers to pay move $

https://www.alternet.org/openly-hostile-toward-african-americans/

ladapo

https://www.alternet.org/ron-desantis-surgeon-general-altered-key-data-on-19-vaccines-safety-report/

https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/federal-judge-guts-ballot-restrictions

an 3 23

ft. Lauderdale, Florida was recently pounded by torrential rain and severe flooding. And according to WPLG-TV Local 10 (Ft. Lauderdale's NBC affiliate), some residents are criticizing Gov. Ron DeSantis for not showing up and seeing the damage in person.

WPLG reporter Andrew Perez notes that although DeSantis "sent help" to Ft. Lauderdale, homeowners affected by the flooding are wondering if the Republican governor has been distracted by a possible presidential campaign.

Cheryl Lovejoy, a Ft. Lauderdale homeowner, told WPLG, "I don't think they realize how bad it is. Our whole house is devastated. I've got elderly and sick people still in the home. I'm waiting on insurance to kick in. Still no funds yet. I haven't heard from anybody."

Lovejoy also told the station, "He's the governor. This is our home. This is what he governs. He should be interested and on point with what's going on here."

Although the Florida governor has yet to make an official announcement, he appears to be gearing up for a presidential run. And if he enters the 2024 presidential primary, he will be competing in a field that includes former President Donald Trump — the frontrunner, according to polls — Nikki Haley (former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations), former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and talk radio host Larry Elder.

View WPLG Local 10's full report at this link.

https://www.alternet.org/ron-desantis-2659688691/

quirky --> neg

4 23 rww

April 20, 2023

David McAfee @ Raw Story:Judge who denied abortion to teen over bad grades may become next Florida Supreme Court justice.
Kate Riga @ Talking Points Memo: Major Anti-Abortion Organization Attacks Trump For Wanting To Leave It To States.
Josh Dawsey and Amy Gardner @ The Washington Post: Top GOP lawyer decries ease of campus voting in private pitch to RNC.
Sara Murray @ CNN: My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell ordered to follow through with $5 million payment to expert who debunked his false election data.
Nick Corasaniti @ The New York Times: A Super PAC Targets Greene, Gaetz, Boebert and Others on the Far Right.
Justin Baragona @ The Daily Beast: Fox News Parts Ways With MAGA Blowhard Dan Bongino.

Tags: Cleta Mitchell Dan Bongino Jared Smith Mike Lindell Round-Up Susan B. Anthony List

no lnx

'I'm tough on crime': Trump and DeSantis duke it out over pro-death penalty stance

Alex Henderson April 17, 2023

When it comes to the death penalty, the United States is out of step with many of its allies. A long list of countries in the European Union (EU) have long since abolished capital punishment, from Italy to Sweden to the Republic of Ireland — as have the United States' neighbors to the north (Canada) and south (Mexico). Australia hasn't had an execution since 1967, and in 2010, the Australian Commonwealth Parliament voted to prohibit any state from reintroducing the death penalty.

Yet in the U.S., some far-right MAGA Republicans not only want to see the death penalty used more often — they want to expand it to include crimes other than murder. Two of them are former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who appears to be gearing up for a 2024 presidential run even though he has yet to make a formal announcement.

Journalist Gary Fineout, in an article published by Politico on April 17, stresses that Trump and DeSantis are both making a concerted effort to show fellow Republicans how pro-death penalty they are. Trump, Fineout notes, proposes expanding the death penalty to include drug trafficking; some DeSantis' allies in the Florida State Legislature, according to Fineout, want "the death penalty to be imposed on" anyone "convicted of raping a child despite a narrowly-decided U.S. Supreme Court decision from 2008 that found such punishments unconstitutional."

READ MORE: Tim Scott’s presidential committee got off to a 'weird' and 'grossly dishonest' start: conservative

"Ahead of a likely presidential bid," Fineout reports, "Gov. Ron DeSantis is leaning into a reliable campaign message: I’m tough on crime…. DeSantis' record on criminal justice is something that allies of formerPresident Donald Trump have already hit the governor on. They criticized him for signing a bill in 2019 that raised the amount that must be stolen for someone to be charged with a felony. The Make America Great Again PAC, last month, claimed that 'while President Trump is the only presidential candidate calling for the death penalty for drug dealers, DeSantis is giving a pass to thieves.'"

Much of the U.S., however, has been rethinking the death penalty. In 2022, according to France's Le Monde, only six U.S. states carried out executions: Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Mississippi and Arizona. Florida didn't have any executions in 2022, but Fineout notes that DeSantis has "signed three death warrants so far this year."

Mother Jones reporter Noah Lanard, in an article published on April 15, stresses that DeSantis opposes Florida's current requirement that a jury be unanimous in order for the death penalty to be imposed.

"Gov. Ron DeSantis is on the verge of signing a bill that would allow people in Florida to be executed without a unanimous decision by a jury," Lanard reports. "Instead, an 8-4 vote would be enough for someone to be put to death in the state. The bill passed the Florida Senate last month and passed the House on Thursday, (April 13) by an 80-30 margin. The bill has been a priority for DeSantis, who opposed the decision not to sentence to death the Parkland school shooter who killed 17 people in 2018. Three jurors voted against the death penalty in that case."

READ MORE: Conservative preacher calls for abolishing the death penalty after jury spares Parkland shooter's life

In the U.S., the legality or illegality of the death penalty varies from state to state. According to the Washington Post,27 states still have the death penalty — and out of that 27, only three allow the death penalty without a jury's unanimous approval during a trial's penalty phase.

In 24 of those states, a jury could find the defendant guilty of first-degree murder but spare the person's life if one of the jurors votes against imposing the death penalty. In that scenario, the jury could be unanimous with the guilty verdict but have a hung jury with the penalty phase — which would likely mean life without parole but not execution for the person convicted. That is why pro-death penalty prosecutors, during jury selection or voir dire in capital murder cases, often ask prospective jurors how they feel about capital punishment.

READ MORE: 'What do you think of firing squads?' Trump hopes to 'put fear of God into violent criminals' if reelected

View Fineout's full report at this link. Explore Lanard's here.

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florida man

an 3 23 $

https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/cdc-fda-eviscerate-doctor-antivax/?anplus

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo went mask-off (so to speak) at a press conference in Winter Haven, Florida, Thursday, revealing himself to be an unvarnished antivaxer.

"These vaccines have a terrible safety profile at this point in the pandemic," Ladapo said of the covid vaccines, "You know, I'm not sure anyone should be taking them and that's the honest truth."

"Respectable" antivaxers are normally at pains to convince the public that they're only concerned about the mRNA vaccines, or the use of vaccines in certain populations. For example, they'll say they're not against covid vaccines per se, they're just worried that the risks don't justify the benefits for young men, or for boosters, or whatever. That was Ladapo's tack until the CDC and the FDA eviscerated him in a letter last week, debunking his insinuation that an uptick in reported adverse events is an indication that the covid vaccines are unsafe.

Last month, Ladapo wrote to the heads of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Like so many antivaxers, Ladapo has been doing his own research. Unlike most cranks, he briefly came under investigation for allegedly falsifying the data his department put out about covid vaccines. In his letter, pointed out that reports of adverse vaccine events to the CDC's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database had risen since the covid vaccines were introduced.

Judging by his grumbling about federal health agencies at the press conference, Ladapo's feelings were hurt by the reply he got last week from FDA Commissioner Robert Califf and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. Anyone would be. The two agency heads neatly dismantled Ladapo’s claim that an increase in adverse event reports since the advent of the covid vaccines is an indicator that the covid vaccines are unsafe. The two agency heads also accused Ladapo of fuelling vaccine hesitancy and undermining public health.

"The claim that the increase of VAERS reports of life-threatening conditions reported from Florida and elsewhere represents an increase of risk caused by the COVID-19 vaccines is incorrect, misleading and could be harmful to the American public," the commish and director wrote. They went on to explain exactly why Ladapo's inflammatory statistics are misleading.

"Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination do not mean that a vaccine caused the event," Califf and Walensky said, zeroing in on the logical fallacy behind Ladapo's inflammatory claims, and adding that "The Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) for the COVID-19 Vaccines require sponsors and vaccine providers to report certain adverse events through VAERS, so more reports should be expected."

In other words, anyone can submit a report to VAERS if they think there's any connection between a vaccine and a symptom. Moreover, covid vaccines are special because healthcare providers are required to report adverse events even if they don't believe there's any link between the shot and the symptoms. This extra-low reporting threshold is part of the most intensive vaccine safety monitoring program in US history. As Califf and Walensky pointed out in their letter, the CDC and FDA are already well aware of the VAERS reports and that they've been actively looking into them to make sure they're not signs of a larger safety problem.

"Both FDA and CDC have continued to collect outcome data from multiple sources that demonstrate the clear benefit of COVID-19 vaccines in preventing death, serious illness, and hospitalization from SARS-CoV-2 infection, along with indicating a modest benefit in the prevention of infection and transmission that wanes over time, even as new variants have emerged."

ladapo's shift to a hardcore antivaxery may also reflect the presidential ambitions of his boss, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. DeSantis believes that antivax is the fast lane to the White House, and Ladapo is his eager co-pilot.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

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https://www.alternet.org/ron-desantis-2659533898/

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1316

no lnx

How DeSantis declared war on the last century’s 'most important 1st Amendment decision': legal analyst

Alex Henderson March 08, 2023

Gov. Ron DeSantis and his MAGA Republican allies in the Florida State Legislature have made no secret of their disdain for the mainstream media. During a roundtable discussion that he hosted in February, DeSantis argued that it should be easier to sue journalists for defamation. And a Republican ally, Florida State Rep. Alex Andrade, later proposed a bill that would do exactly that: Florida House Bill 951.

Andrade's bill would be a blatant violation of New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision that set a tough standard for proving defamation. Under Sullivan, defamation must involve "actual malice," which is very difficult to prove. Dominion Voting Systems is trying to show "actual malice" in its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against right-wing Fox News, and ironically, the voting technology company would have an easier time proving its case if the High Court overturned Sullivan and agreed with Andrade's bill. Andrade and DeSantis believe that Sullivan was wrongly decided.

Meanwhile, Florida State Sen. Jason Brodeur (another Republican DeSantis ally) has proposed a bill that would require bloggers who write about state officials to register with the state government and file regular reports on their activities. Even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) has slammed the Brodeur-sponsored Florida Senate Bill 1316 as unconstitutional, tweeting, "The idea that bloggers criticizing a politician should register with the government is insane. It is an embarrassment that it is a Republican state legislator in Florida who introduced a bill to that effect. He should withdraw it immediately."

READ MORE: Civil libertarians slam Ron DeSantis’ 'brazen and blatantly unconstitutional' war on press freedom

In a scathing op-ed published by The Guardian on March 7, journalist Trevor Timm — executive director and co-founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation — warns that DeSantis and his allies have declared an all-out war on the U.S. Constitution's 1st Amendment. And Timm is as critical of Andrade's bill as he is of Brodeur's.

"Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, and his cronies, not content with destroying free speech in public schools, have set for themselves a new target: destroying press freedom and every Floridian's right to criticize public officials," Timm argues. "Along the way, they aim to overturn the most important 1st Amendment U.S. Supreme Court decision of the 20th Century."

The decision that Timm is referring to is, of course, New York Times v. Sullivan. Timm notes that DeSantis and his allies are hoping to "weaken the 'actual malice' standard from Sullivan, to make it easier for public officials to sue newspapers or critics."

"Now, can states just pass laws that blatantly ignore Supreme Court precedent? Of course not," Timm explains. "Any responsible judge would strike this down as unconstitutional right away. But DeSantis may be hoping for a friendly appeals court ruling from a Trump-appointed judge or Supreme Court showdown to revisit the Sullivan ruling — following the same decades-long Republican strategy that finally overturned Roe v. Wade. And in the meantime, DeSantis can burnish his anti-media bona fides for his presidential run, and Republican legislatures around the country can use the opportunity to copy the bill or one-up him."

READ MORE: FL GOP bill would 'allow government officials to harass and bankrupt' opposers with defamation lawsuits

Timm points out that "many legal scholars consider" Sullivan the greatest 1st Amendment victory of "the last century" — a victory that DeSantis and his allies would like to roll back.

"It is one of the primary reasons newspapers in the U.S. can aggressively report on public officials and powerful wealthy individuals without the constant fear that they are going to be sued out of existence," Timm observes. "And up until a few years ago, when Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch started criticizing it, everyone assumed it was settled law."

Timm compares Brodeur's blogger bill to a draconian law that was passed under President Vladimir Putin in Russia in 2014.

"The proposed law, authored by state legislator Jason Brodeur, would — I kid you not — compel 'bloggers' who criticize the governor, other officers of the executive branch, or members of the legislature to register with the State of Florida," Timm observes. "Under the bill, anyone paid to write on the internet would have to file monthly reports every time they utter a government official's name in a critical manner. If not, they'd face potentially thousands of dollars in fines. It's a policy so chilling that it would make Vladimir Putin proud, and I wish that was hyperbole."

Timm continues, "In 2014, Russia's autocratic leader signed a very similar provision, then known as the 'blogger’s law.' As The Verge explained at the time, 'under it, any blogger with more than 3000 readers is required to register with the Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media oversight agency."

The agency that Brodeur has proposed would be similar to the pro-Putin Roskomnadzor, Timm argues.

"DeSantis has turned Florida into a national laboratory for speech suppression," the journalist warns. "And every American, Republican or Democrat, should be horrified."

READ MORE: How an overtly 'authoritarian' Florida GOP bill is designed to silence anti-DeSantis bloggers: journalist

Read Trevor Timm’s full op-ed for The Guardian at this link.

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New Florida bill aims to limit legal protections for news media ›

Florida bill would require bloggers who write about governor ... ›

Florida's Anti-Political Blogging Bill Is Just as Crazy as It Sounds ›

Florida GOP State Senator has proposed a bill that would officially abolish the state's Democratic Party, NBC reports.

Sen. Blaise Ingoglia filed "The Ultimate Cancel Act," which according to the Tallahassee Democrat, "never mentions the word Democrat or Democratic, but would decertify any political party that ever included a plank to support slavery in its platform, something the Democratic Party did between 1844 - 1864."

Furthermore, according to NBC, the bill "would require Florida officials to notify all registered voters who belong to any canceled parties that their parties no longer exist. It would also change their voter registrations to 'no party affiliation' and 'provide procedures' for those voters to update their affiliations to 'an active political party.'"

NBC reports:

Ingoglia suggested in a news release that his bill was designed to get back at Democrats and 'leftist activists' who he said had 'been trying to 'cancel' people and companies for things they have said or done in the past,' including 'the removal of statues and memorials, and the renaming of buildings.'

Florida's Democratic Party responded to the proposed measure in a statement saying, "Presenting a bill that would disenfranchise 5 million voters is both unconstitutional and unserious. Under Ron DeSantis, Senator Ingoglia is using his office to push bills that are nothing more than publicity stunts instead of focusing on the issues that matter most to Floridians."

Although deemed "unserious" by the Florida Democrats, many Twitter users are unamused by the proposed legislation.

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A columnist at The Palm Beach Post highlighted what he believes is the “real problem facing Floridians,” arguing the most pressing issue in the state is "not trans swimmers, unvarnished Black history or diversity training at your job," but the right's ongoing effort to gut Social Security.

According to Frank Cerabino’s column, Florida relies on social security payments to its residents more than any other state. He reported that more than 1 million residents look to the program to keep "from living below the poverty line."

But even with that knowledge, Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) has his sights set on eventually cutting Social Security payments as he claims the program is "going bankrupt."

Cerabino counters Scott's assertion with a statement from the Social Security Administration.

“After the projected trust fund reserve depletion in 2034, continuing income would be sufficient to pay 78 percent of program cost, declining to 74 percent for 2095,” the administration confirmed.

Scott's ideas around the program approaching bankruptcy are outlined in his "Rescue America" plan, which Cerabino asserted could "gut" Medicare and Social Security in five years.

As of now, Floridians can receive Social Security payments if they're at least 62 years old, and "as late as 70." But Scott's fellow GOP lawmakers are considering raising the "retirement age" — or "the point that the monthly payments are paid at 100 percent of the primary insurance amount" — from 67 to 70.

Matt Bruenig with The People’s Policy Project explained that "there are really 96 retirement ages in Social Security, one for each month between the ages of 62 to 70." Further, "the earlier you take your benefit, the less you get; the more you wait, the higher the monthly payment," Cerabino reported.

"A proposal to raise the retirement age to 70 is just a proposal to cut monthly benefits by around 23 percent at all 96 retirement ages," Bruenig said.

The AARP Policy Institute studied the number of people who use Social Security at age 62 versus the number of “later claimers,” and found that “early takers have less education and are more likely to live in rural areas and less likely to have IRAs or other defined-contribution plans.” They also are prone to live with a “work-limiting health condition.”

As a result, Cerabino reports that cutting their Social Security willresult in povertyfor many.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said, “Without Social Security benefits, 37.8 percent of older adults would have incomes below the official poverty line, all else being equal. With Social Security benefits, only 9 percent do.”

Research done by the center highlighted that over 1.3 million Floridians, or 6 percent of Florida's population, aged 65 and older can live above the poverty line with the help of Social Security.

Cerabino concludes his analysis by once again drawing attention to the issues Florida lawmakers are focusing on, such as "peril from asylum seekers in Texas, drag queen story times or felon voters." Perhaps, the sunshine state's lawmakers and those voting for them should instead turn their attention to the stealth "retirement" of Social Security.

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the 2022 midterms went much better than expected for the Democratic Party, with Democrats slightly increasing their U.S. Senate majority and winning key gubernatorial races in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona. Republicans flipped the U.S. House of Representatives, but their new House majority under Speaker Kevin McCarthy is only in the single digits — not the 40-seat or 50-seat supermajority that pundits at Fox News and Fox Business were predicting.

However, two states where Democrats suffered major disappointments were Florida and Texas. Florida is known for close elections, but Gov. Ron DeSantis campaigned from the far right and was reelected by 19 percent. MSNBC’s Joy Reid has argued that Florida shouldn’t be considered a swing state anymore — it has become a full-fledged red state.

Texas has long been a red state, but Democratic strategists believed they were making headway when their candidates only lost in Texas by single digits in statewide races in 2018 and 2020. President Joe Biden lost the Lone Star State by about 6 percent in 2020 compared to the double-digit losses Democrats typically suffered in statewide races in Texas during the 1990s and 2000s. But in 2022, incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott defeated Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke by 11 percent.

Journalist Luisita Lopez Torregrosa, in an article published by the Texas Observer on January 4, offers a Texas/Florida comparison. Both states, she notes, were bad for Democrats when it came to statewide races in 2022. But Torregrosa stresses that from a demographics standpoint, there are major differences between Florida voters and Texas voters.

Texas, Torregrosa observes, is a state in which non-Hispanic whites are now a minority. Democratic strategists have long fantasized about flipping Texas, based on its demographics. But so far, that hasn’t happened.

“Texas has been a majority-minority state for close to two decades, but Latinos command far less political and economic influence here than they do in Florida,” Torregrosa notes. “Non-Hispanic white Texans make up about 39.4 percent of the state’s 30 million population. Latinos account for nearly half, around 40.2 percent, with Blacks making up 13.2 percent, Asian-Americans 5.5 percent, and American Indians 1.1 percent.”

A Florida/Texas comparison, according to Torregrosa, underscores the fact that there is no “one-size-fits-all” model where U.S.-based Latinos are concerned. Florida has a large Cuban and Cuban-American community, while Texas’ Latino community is heavily Mexican and Mexican-American/Chicano.

READ MORE:**Where woke goes to die': Why Florida is now a red state**

“With a dominant contingent of conservative Cubans and Venezuelans, Florida Latinos enjoy more power in their state and in Washington than Latinos do in Texas,” Torregrosa explains. “Florida’s 27-member congressional delegation is 26.5 percent Latino. Latinos occupy high-level statewide and county posts and make up around 20 percent of the state legislature in Tallahassee. By comparison, Latinos are under-represented in Texas. Only 19 percent of the state’s congressional delegation — the second largest in the country — are Latino. The state legislature is 61 percent white, though the state is only 39.4 percent white. There is, to be sure, Latino local political power in many Texas communities, especially around the Rio Grande Valley, but the state is run by primarily white Republicans.”

For Democrats, one of the most discouraging things about the 2022 election results in Florida was the fact that DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio fared well in some of the state’s most heavily Latino counties.

“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, with a 19-point reelection landslide, got about 77 percent of the vote in the ten precincts with the heaviest Latino populations,” Torregrosa observes. “The only notable exception came in Central Florida, where Puerto Ricans continue to support Democrats. The Puerto Rican population in Florida has grown substantially since Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017, and thousands migrated to Florida.”

During the 2016 GOP presidential primary, Donald Trump chastised former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for speaking Spanish on the campaign trail (Bush is a fluent Spanish speaker who has had no problem being interviewed in Spanish on Univision). But in 2022, GOP groups in Florida aggressively targeted Latino voters with Spanish-language ads.

“Abbott and DeSantis each orchestrated the right-wing agenda with an eye beyond their states,” Torregrosa says of the 2022 midterms. “Abbott has done so relatively quietly, DeSantis visibly and volubly all over the country. Both men easily won reelection, but DeSantis’ landslide has more repercussions. He turned Florida crimson red and polished the Republican brand, giving himself a springboard to the 2024 GOP presidential nomination should he decide to defy his former mentor and now rival, former President Donald Trump…. For now and the foreseeable future, Abbott and DeSantis will continue to advance their brand of radical conservatism.”

Surg gen vxr fla

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/politics-masquerading-as-science-dangerous/

girl athletes recall rt xian natl are fine with big gubmint to go after enemy or threat

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/florida-history-of-mentrual-periods/

see am oversight on activist suppr hit and run

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Florida Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott recently called on Senate leaders to approve more disaster funding in the wake of Florida's devastation due to Hurricane Ian.

According to Axios, the lawmakers' request is important because of their previous stance on Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding.

"Several members of Congress from Florida previously voted against a short-term spending bill that includes aid for disaster relief," the news outlet reported.

The lawmakers penned a joint letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee chairs as part of their request for "much-needed assistance to Florida."

“Hurricane Ian will be remembered and studied as one of the most devastating hurricanes to hit the United States,” the Florida senators wrote. “Communities across Florida have been completely destroyed, and lives have been forever changed.

“A robust and timely federal response, including through supplemental programs and funding, will be required to ensure that sufficient resources are provided to rebuild critical infrastructure and public services capacity, and to assist our fellow Floridians in rebuilding their lives.”

However, the problem is that Florida lawmakers already expressed opposition to additional major disaster relief. The news outlet notes: "The Senate passed a stopgap bill Thursday to fund the government through December that included an $18.8 billion fund for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help states with natural disasters."

In a statement released on Friday, September 30, Scott stated that the continuing resolution (CR) in the legislative measure "contains no funding for Florida’s response to Hurricane Ian."

“Prior to Ian’s development, l made clear that I fully supported the proposed disaster funding for other states," the lawmaker said in a statement. "This CR failed to fund the federal government until the new Congress begins in 2023, and that is why I could not support it.”

Manny Diaz, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, also criticized Republican lawmakers for their decision to strike down the measure.

“The same week that Hurricane Ian brought so much chaos and destruction to Florida, not a single Florida Republican cared enough to vote in favor of Hurricane relief for the people in their own state hit hardest by the storm," he said, per the Democrat. "That is a level of callous indifference and political opportunism that boggles the mind."

https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/florida-law-discriminates-against-black-voters-to-gain-partisan-advantage-doj-filing/

hayes recs

Constellation of Anti-Voting Groups Threaten Democracy

By Marc Elias

August 18, 2022

https://www.democracydocket.com/news/a-constellation-of-anti-voting-groups-threaten-democracy/

republican leaders of the anti-voting movement recently held a “gourmet dinner” at an “undisclosed location” to discuss my voting rights litigation. The event was billed as the inaugural leadership dinner for a group called the Honest Elections Project. I was not invited to attend.

There is a constellation of well-funded, right-wing groups that use the legal and political system to make voting more difficult and free and fair elections less likely. They range from mere vote suppressors to full-on election deniers. Most oppose expanding voting rights and support strict voting laws. Many seek to gut the Voting Rights Act entirely; others want it interpreted so narrowly as to be ineffective. None of these organizations supported Congress’ efforts to enact new pro-voter legislation.

These right-wing groups work closely with the RNC and with state legislatures to advance anti-voting legislation.

The American Constitutional Rights Union, Foundation for Government Accountability, Judicial Watch, Lawyers Democracy Fund, Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) and Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections are just a few of the groups fighting against voting rights in court. America First Legal Foundation, Election Integrity Network, Heritage Foundation and True the Vote also support anti-democracy legal efforts. The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council advances model anti-voting legislation for state legislatures.

We recently got a preview of how these groups will operationalize their legal efforts in court in the future. Earlier this year, a Florida federal judge struck down most of the state’s “Big Lie” voter suppression law. In doing so, the court found that Florida Republicans had intentionally discriminated against Black voters and had violated the constitutional rights of Floridians seeking to participate in the democratic process. On appeal, six national anti-voting groups filed separate “friend of the court” briefs opposing the lower court’s decision — in addition to the briefs by the state defendants and the Republican Party.

For many years, the Republican National Committee (RNC) was legally barred from participating in election monitoring or voter suppression efforts as a consequence of the GOP’s ugly history of targeting minority voters in the 1980s. When that bar was lifted in 2017, the RNC picked up where it had left off and ran so-called “election integrity” programs with state parties.

These anti-voting legal groups offer a path for Republicans to wield majority political power without majority support.

Now, in the post-Trump era, the RNC directly partners with voter suppression groups and efforts that two years ago would have been unthinkable. The party’s dismal court results following the 2020 election coupled with MAGA supporters’ distrust of the party establishment has left the GOP operating in the penumbra of the current stars of the election denier and voter suppression movement.

It’s not just what these groups do, but who runs them.

On PILF’s board of directors, for example, are Cleta Mitchell and John Eastman,both of whom served as lawyers for former President Donald Trump. Mitchell participated in the infamous telephone call during which Trump demanded that the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) find 11,000 votes and declare Trump the winner. Eastman, who has been in the news recently for having a search warrant executed against him, helped craft the January 2021 insurrection plan.

The Honest Elections Project — the host of the secret dinner — was formed in February 2020 and is connected to Federalist Society founder Leonard Leo.

The newest of these groups, Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, was co-founded by former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr (R) and Karl Rove, who served as former senior advisor and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush. Casino billionaire Steve Wynn provides the organization’s financial backing as its finance chair.

This group is notably more competent and well-resourced than the legal buffoonery who led Trump’s post-election antics. Though I am no fan of Barr, he is unlikely to hire lawyers who claim Hugo Chávez rigged elections from the grave or threaten to release the mythological Kraken. With Rove on its board as well, Barr is almost certainly not going to hold press conferences in a landscaping parking lot.

Notably, the infrastructure on the right is eclipsing the organizations on the left.

Historically, most organizations and resources dedicated to protecting the right to vote were connected to the left. Today there are still many important civil rights and voting rights organizations that bring litigation to protect the right to vote. Their work is invaluable. But most of those groups have broader portfolios that extend beyond voting rights and have insufficient resources to meet their growing needs.

What is notable about the right wing’s approach is the scope and interconnected nature of their legal efforts to undermine voting rights and free and fair elections.

Right-wing legal groups work in tandem with Republican legislatures dominated by election deniers. These organizations can help generate the most effective voter suppression policies that Republicans turn into laws. When those laws are challenged in court, the conservative legal groups then help defend them.

This brings me back to the “gourmet dinner” at an “undisclosed location” that I was not invited to attend. The right wing holds these events and funds these groups because they know that they cannot win fair elections. These anti-voting legal groups offer a path for Republicans to wield majority political power without majority support. They know that they lost in 2020. They are embarrassed that Trump was routed in post-election litigation. Some are upset that his coup failed on Jan. 6.

They set up new groups, hold secret dinners and create new voter suppression laws hoping that we will give up. I’m not sure what gave them that impression. After Trump was defeated in 2020, his team fought dozens of times in court — and lost. We didn’t give up then, and we certainly aren’t giving up now.

NEXT UP

Conservatives Have Been Packing the Courts for Years

We deserve a forward-thinking judiciary filled with movement lawyers who want to see progress for our nation.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/voter-fraud/

ProPublica

His last night as a prisoner in North Florida, Kelvin Bolton couldn’t sleep. Fifty-five years old, with a wispy goatee the same color as the gray flecks in his hair, he was about to get out after serving a 2 1/2-year sentence for theft and battery. The last time he’d seen his brothers and sisters at a big family gathering, he’d marched onto the dance floor ostentatiously, turned away and wrapped his arms around himself to caress his own back. As he swayed goofily to the music, everybody laughed.

Now Bolton was so close to being free and seeing his family again. The next morning, a bright Wednesday in April, he was already dressed in his street clothes and cleared to go when the woman processing his paperwork stopped him.

“The lady said, ‘Hold on, you can’t go anywhere,’” Bolton remembered in a recent phone call.

Confused, he asked her what was going on, he recalled. There was a warrant out for his arrest for incidents in 2020, she explained gruffly. But that was impossible. He’d been in jail at the time, awaiting his prison stint.

Guards loaded Bolton into a van, then drove an hour and a half south to deposit him in Alachua County Jail.

There, he found out what he’d done wrong.

He’d voted.

In 2018, Florida voters overwhelmingly passed Amendment 4, in a historic ballot initiative that restored the right to vote to most state residents with felony convictions. Until then, Florida had been one of only four states — the others were Iowa, Kentucky and Virginia — where people who had committed felonies needed to petition the governor to have their voting rights restored. It was a grim legacy of 19th-century laws passed after the 15th Amendment granted African American men the right to vote.

Supporters applauded the law as restoring voting rights to what experts estimate is over 1 million people in Florida, about 5% of the population of the state.

But the state’s dominant Republican lawmakers quickly installed a financial hurdle to those new rights. The following year, they passed a law to clarify that people convicted of felonies could only vote if they first paid off any money they owed for committing their crimes. The penalty for registering or voting without doing so: a felony charge for voter fraud.

On the surface, the mandate seemed reasonable: Even advocates for Amendment 4 agreed that requiring paying off fines and restitution to victims was just. In Florida, however, that task proved a sometimes insurmountable challenge — one that disproportionately hit Black people. Florida has no centralized database to allow people to figure out what legal financial obligations they owe to the state. Instead, its 67 counties and various state agencies each maintain their own databases. The state also does not track information for federal or out-of-state convictions, which people are also required to pay off before voting.

On top of the fines and restitution, Florida layers on court fees that can run into the hundreds of dollars. Together, a voter’s debt can run into the thousands, a financial hole that some may never climb out of.

“That’s kind of the bottom line of the absurdity of this — it’s Kafkaesque,” said Dan Smith, chair of the political science department at the University of Florida. “It’s very troubling that we would have state attorneys prosecuting individuals who did not know their status, and there was no way for them to determine their status.”

Florida’s voting hurdles are part of a national pattern. For years across the country, Republican state lawmakers have been implementing new restrictive voting laws, including reducing access to vote-by-mail ballots, stricter voter identification rules and limits on early voting. These efforts have accelerated since Donald Trump promoted the false claims that Joe Biden stole the 2020 presidential election. Democrats, meanwhile, have pushed to expand voting access.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis boasted that in 2020, Florida, a swing state with a history of contentious elections, “held the smoothest, most successful election of any state in the country,” while he also signed a flurry of voting law changes that he said would further strengthen the integrity of future votes. And DeSantis has tacitly endorsed prosecuting people convicted of felonies for voter fraud. In April, he signed a bill establishing the Office of Election Crimes and Security, which will investigate alleged election violations.

Despite the increased scrutiny, voting fraud remains so rare in Florida that it hasn’t come close to altering election outcomes. The Florida Department of State in 2020 received 262 election fraud complaints, just 75 of which were referred to law enforcement or prosecuting authorities, according to the agency.

“Florida is an outlier, because the intentional targeting of citizens with felony convictions as a way to undermine democracy has been a throughline in that state,” said Nicole Porter, senior director of advocacy for the Sentencing Project. “And the attempt to address that, by popular vote, has been undermined by the legislature.”

In 2020, a representative of the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections conducted a series of outreach efforts at the local county jail to let inmates know of their new rights and offer to help them add their names to the voter rolls.

During three visits to the jail, the official helped sign up at least 10 inmates, including John Boyd Rivers, Dedrick Baldwin and Bolton.

Rivers, 44, felt a visceral thrill at the prospect. Sitting in his cell in February 2020 facing a battery charge for hitting his wife, he was told by the county representative that he could register to vote. The official, he said, told him that he could disregard the check box on the form that asks whether the applicant has a felony conviction because he didn’t have a disqualifying felony. That seemed odd to Rivers, since he had a previous felony conviction. (He subsequently was sentenced for the battery charge.) No one told him anything about needing to pay off his financial obligations before registering to vote, Rivers said, and the jail didn’t give him an accounting of those debts when he was later released.

Back at home, Rivers was excited when his voter registration card arrived in the mail. He’d lost his right to vote at 18, he said, after voting just once. Now he could vote in a presidential election. He and his wife went to their polling place, and he cast his vote for Donald Trump.

Bolton, too, was excited to sign up. He also said no one told him he’d need to pay off his debts before casting his ballot. Although he registered as a Republican, he said he decided to vote for Biden.

In all, 10 of the men who the official helped register to vote have been charged with voter fraud on the grounds they were ineligible.

Their alleged illegal voting was first spotted by a citizen who analyzed Florida’s voting rolls and then shared the information with the state. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement subsequently launched an eight-month investigation, after which it identified the 10 inmates.

State investigators found that some jail employees remembered the elections official giving clear directions to inmates about having to pay off financial obligations, while others did not. The investigation concluded that the jail visits were “lacking in both quality and longevity” and “showed a haphazard registration of inmates.” But the state prosecutor nevertheless proceeded with charges, although not against county officials.

Officials at the Alachua Supervisor of Elections office declined to comment to ProPublica. But Supervisor of Elections Kim Barton denied any wrongdoing in a statement released in June.

Brian Kramer, the state attorney for the Eighth Judicial Circuit of Florida, defended his office’s prosecutions to ProPublica, saying he believed the 10 men knew they were committing fraud. “I’m not going to say I will prosecute or not prosecute because it’s politically popular or unpopular,” he said.

Four of the 10 have pleaded guilty and have been sentenced to between 364 days and three years in prison. Bolton and three others have vowed to go to trial, while the remaining two await arraignment. They face charges that carry a penalty of up to five years in prison, five years of probation or $5,000 in fines. Eight of the men are Black, and two are white.

Critics say the charges are unjust and, at a bare minimum, excessive. In nearby Lake County, the state prosecutor declined to bring charges against sex offenders who had registered to vote despite the law prohibiting voting rights restoration for those charged with sex offenses or murder. In April, two white men living in The Villages in Sumter County, an overwhelmingly white county in central Florida, pleaded guilty to each casting two ballots for Donald Trump during the 2020 election. Rather than face prosecution, they entered a pretrial intervention program, under which they must serve 50 hours of community service and attend an adult civics class, among other requirements. Because the men in Alachua County have prior felony convictions, they are ineligible for pretrial intervention and face harsher sentences.

“I’m thinking I’m doing something good for the community, so that’s why I chose to try to do it,” Bolton said. “It was not malicious — I was not trying to commit a felony of voting fraud. I never would have voted.”

Baldwin, 47, who is in prison on a manslaughter conviction, was sentenced to an additional 364 days. He felt “set up,” he said, since nobody told him he wasn’t eligible.

“There’s no way Biden was that important to me to vote for him,” he said in an email to ProPublica from prison. “We were flat out tricked into voting.”

The elections official who visited the jail denied telling the men that they could disregard the check box and said he warned them that they’d need to pay off their financial obligations, according to a person familiar with the matter who declined to be named because he feared reprisals. The elections official declined to comment to ProPublica on the record.

The voter fraud charges were especially bitter for Rivers. By the time they were filed, Rivers said, he had already used part of his federal stimulus check to pay off more than $3,000 in costs related to his criminal record so he could reinstate his driver’s license and return to work.

“I should have known there would be some kind of catch,” Rivers said.

Florida’s history of felon disenfranchisement dates back to 1838,when the state’s first constitution prohibited people convicted of bribery or assorted “high crimes and misdemeanors” from voting. After the Civil War, faced with the prospect of formerly enslaved Black men voting, the state expanded the law so that anyone convicted of a felony lost the franchise. But in 2018, 64% of Florida voters approved Amendment 4, allowing people convicted of felonies, except for murder or sexual offense convictions, to vote.

This embrace of new voters became more complicated the following year when the state legislature passed its law. It required that people convicted of felonies must determine their own eligibility before registering to vote. The Florida Department of Corrections and county detention facilities are required to provide notice to inmates at the time of their release of their outstanding financial obligations.

But it is unclear if all of the facilities do so.

Florida charges those convicted of crimes with an array of fines and fees, some of which statutorily cannot be eliminated or reduced. Defendants facing felony charges are assessed $100 to use a public defender, as well as a $100 prosecution fee. At least one person already sentenced in the Alachua County cases has been charged an additional $671 for his voting fraud charges on top of the financial obligations he already owed.

Finding out what someone owes is time-consuming and expensive. An analysis led by Traci Burch, a political science professor at Northwestern University, tried to determine the legal financial obligations owed by a random sample of 153 Florida residents convicted of felonies and found consistent information for only three of them. Counties often keep poor records, have cumbersome websites and employ unhelpful clerks.

What’s more, it can cost money merely to find out how much money you owe. Four in 10 Florida counties charged either a payment or processing fee to look at their databases, and 15% charged a fee to access certain records, according to Burch’s research.

In 2020, Smith, the Florida political scientist, estimated that just over 1 million people would be eligible to vote under Amendment 4. Of that number, about 77% had outstanding legal financial obligations, rendering them ineligible to vote under Florida’s new law until they paid their debts. Four out of five Floridians with felony convictions owed at least $500 in fines and fees, Smith’s analysis found. More than 59% owed more than $1,000.

The state legislature immediately disqualified about 750,000 people from being able to vote when it passed its law requiring people convicted of felonies to pay their debts first, Smith estimated. And the new law’s impact was felt much more harshly by Black people, who faced greater fines and fees: 26% of white Floridians with a felony conviction would be eligible to get their voting rights restored under the new requirement, but only 18% of Black people, according to Smith.

In May 2020, a district court judge ruled that parts of the law were unconstitutional and that the law had established a pay-to-vote system. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the ruling the following September, saying it was in the state’s power to require the payoffs and the law didn’t violate people’s rights. The state Supreme Court has also issued an advisory opinion that deemed the law legitimate.

Unsurprisingly, the number of people with felony convictions who have registered to vote has fallen far short of what supporters hoped. More than 85,000 such people registered in Florida ahead of the 2020 election.

Supporters of the law say that it’s only fair to have people fulfill their full sentences, including paying any crime-related debts. Some state attorneys, including Kramer, the attorney prosecuting the Alachua cases, have also developed processes within their jurisdictions by which people with felony convictions can verify their voting eligibility or request to reduce their fines and fees.

Felons who have not yet registered to vote can also appeal to the state to have certain fees reduced or eliminated, said Republican State Sen. Jeff Brandes, the sponsor of the law demanding the payoffs before voting rights restoration.

“We truly believe there are people who are indigent that will just simply never be able to pay,” he said. “The court only collects a fraction of what is given out anyways. And so there should be a way for the state to grant some grace or for the court to grant some grace and provide people flexibility.”

Kelvin Bolton has been sitting in the Alachua Council Jail since April, waiting for his case to proceed.

He’s been in and out of the system since he was 16, piling up a long record of mostly nonviolent crimes, most recently for stealing a car, groping a woman in a store and taking cigarettes from a Dollar General.

He aims this time to keep a vow he made to his family and himself to stay straight. He said he is frustrated that the prosecutor subsequently created a program for people convicted of felonies to check their voting eligibility while he and the others are still facing charges.

“Why would they want to keep charging us for something that they’re in the wrong for?” he said. “The state is in the wrong for what they did to us.”

DEEP thermal MIT plasma 90 days to go 6 mi?! bolt onto 8500 coal turbines?! sequester --> limestone --> cement

https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-june-22-2022/

yikes another kind of bad buffer: Peltzman Effect / risk compensation

The Effects of Automobile Safety Regulation Author(s): Sam Peltzman Source: Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 83, No. 4 (Aug., 1975), pp. 677-726. Sam Peltzman criticises the quality of his own analysis here. (seat blts? --> graham air bag BS? --> risk asses?

I kinda forgot about this until

https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-june-22-2022/ nordhaus fraction of % gdp 2100 now 14%/yr much earlier, he got nobel; state CA fla pick up wind damage when mkt bails, perfect design to go over cliff?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qkpBizCFYo apr 2022 commonwealth

Fire and Flood: A People’s History of Climate Change, from 1979 to the Present

https://www.harvard.com/book/fire_and_flood/

Eugene Linden wrote his first story on climate change, for Time magazine, in 1988; it was just the beginning of his investigative work, exploring all ramifications of this impending disaster. Fire and Flood represents his definitive case for the prosecution as to how and why we have arrived at our current dire pass, closing with his argument that the same forces that have confused the public’s mind and slowed the policy response are poised to pivot with astonishing speed, as long-term risks have become present-day realities and the cliff’s edge is now within view.

Starting with the 1980s, Linden tells the story, decade by decade, by looking at four clocks that move at different speeds: the reality of climate change itself; the scientific consensus about it, which always lags reality; public opinion and political will, which lag further still; and, perhaps most important, business and finance. Reality marches on at its own pace, but the public will and even the science are downstream from the money, and Fire and Flood shows how devilishly effective moneyed climate-change deniers have been at slowing and even reversing the progress of our collective awakening. When a threat means certain but future disaster, but addressing it means losing present-tense profit, capitalism’s response has been sadly predictable.

Now, however, the seasons of fire and flood have crossed the threshold into plain view. Linden focuses on the insurance industryas one loud canary in the coal mine: fire and flood zones in Florida and California, among other regions, are now seeing what many call “climate redlining.” The whole system is teetering on the brink, and the odds of another housing collapse, for starters, are much higher than most people understand. There is a path back from the cliff, but we must pick up the pace. Fire and Flood shows us why, and how.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/desantis-2657239126/

fla most $ to live

https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/ron-desantis-black-congressional-seats/

gerry is // voter suppression/steal

https://redgreenandblue.org/2022/03/21/rooftop-solar-attack-florida-gov-desantis-signs-bill-gutting-solar-net-metering/

an 3 22 ukraine

On Monday, March 7, the Republican-controlled Florida State Senate sent House Bill 741 — which removes green energy incentives for Florida homeowners — to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk for approval. Because MAGA Republicans are dogmatic in their disdain for green energy and love of fossil fuels, DeSantis is almost certain to sign HB 741 into law. But in an op-ed published by the Miami Herald on March 14, Mark Hertling — an Orlando, Florida resident and retired U.S. Army officer — argues that DeSantis should veto HB 741 because it’s the type of bill that helps Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“(DeSantis) is likely to sign HB 741, which would negatively affect the solar industry and eliminate any incentive for individual Floridians to generate their own power at a time when we should be finding ways to expand homegrown energy,” Hertling explains. “To a degree,Florida’s decision to rapidly curtail available and cheaper domestic energy sources gives Putin money in his pockets and leverage over the West.”

Only a fraction of the oil and gas used in the United States has been coming from Russia. So, when President Joe Biden banned Russian oil/gas imports, it was a symbolic way to take a stand against Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. But Western Europe gets a lot of oil from Russia, and Hertling argues that European countries have been much too reliant on Russian oil.

“For those of us who spent most of our professional lives in the U.S. Armed Forces, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not a complete surprise,” Hertling explains. “When I served as the commanding general of the United States Army-Europe, Vladimir Putin’s expansion was something we tracked and reported on daily, given his invasion of Georgia in 2008, his takeover of Crimea and the Donbas in 2014, and his other adventures in Moldova and Azerbaijan. We also understood why the world let Putin get away with it: The Europeans — and to a lesser degree the U.S. — depended on Russian fossil fuel.”

Hertling adds, “In the last three weeks, we have managed to cripple Russia’s economy, which is almost singularly based on its oil and natural gas industry. In the future, many nations, the U.S. included, must find ways to exploit alternative energy sources.”

Hertling goes on to explain why solar panels have been beneficial to Floridians.

“When I retired in Orlando eight years ago,” Hertling notes, “we put solar panels on our new house.… When we put solar panels on our home, our electric bills were cut by two-thirds. With tax exemptions, we paid for the panels in just a few years. And returning power to the grid while we were paying less gave us the knowledge that we were contributing to the community and an improved environment.”

Hertling continues, “In sunny Florida, we always wondered why most of our neighbors didn’t do the same. In all likelihood, HB 741 would significantly reduce the demand for rooftop solar power generation in Florida, taking roughly 1.5 million kilowatt hours of energy offline each year.”

In light of the crisis in Ukraine, Hertling writes, the last thing DeSantis should do is sign HB 741 into law.

“I am not suggesting that HB 741’s proponents support Putin’s criminal actions,” Hertling writes.“I am suggesting that any claim that rooftop solar is regressive — which is a dubious claim, as most Florida rooftop solar users make less than $100,000 a year — is counter-intuitive.Yet impact matters more than intent.… That DeSantis would pick this moment to support this is baffling. If he wants to be on the right side of history, Floridians, and our environment, he must veto HB 741.”

pink pill hype fear conspiracy qanon

https://www.mediamatters.org/laura-ingraham/fox-news-chyron-liberals-are-sexually-grooming-elementary-students

3 22

fox News propagandist **Laura Ingraham** has been called a “monster” by her own brother, who is gay.

“Our father was a Nazi sympathizer, racist, anti-Semite and homophobe,” Curtis Ingraham wrote, as NBC News reported in 2018. “Like father like daughter?”

Last year the highest-ranking Republican elected official in North Carolina came under fire for declaring LGBTQ people are “filth.” Not only was it vile and anti-American, but it was also done by dredging up an old trope, a disgusting lie, suggesting that gay people are pedophiles.

Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, a Christian nationalist, said: “there’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth.”

Last week the taxpayer-paid press secretary to Florida Republican **Governor Ron DeSantis** went all-in on the pedophilia lie, defending the anti-LGBTQ legislation her boss is expected to soon sign.

“The bill that liberals inaccurately call ‘Don’t Say Gay’ would be more accurately described as an Anti-Grooming Bill,” **Christina Pushaw** announced.“If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of four eight-year-old children. Silence is complicity. This is how it works, Democrats, and I didn’t make the rules.”

The anti-LGBTQ and anti-left lies are back, being promulgated now by some of the most powerful propagandists in the country. Things are getting dangerously worse for LGBTQ people across America.

Freedom for All Americans, a “bipartisan campaign to secure full nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people nationwide,” lists dozens of anti-LGBTQ bills currently in state legislatures across the country. Their passage becomes increasingly assured when propagandists like Laura Ingraham promote vile, hateful tropes about LGBTQ people, even when they mask them by extending it to “liberals.”

Wednesday night Ingraham once again proved her brother right.

“LIBERALS ARE SEXUALLY GROOMING ELEMENTARY STUDENTS” read the chyron on an “Ingraham Angle” segment.

Watch:

Ingraham began by airing clips of two people who viewers likely were expected to believe are school teachers, even though they apparently aren’t. One is just someone on a streaming service who never says she’s a teacher. The other says she’s “in pre-school,” so not a public elementary school teacher.

Those facts don’t matter to propagandists, like Ingraham, who ran those clips then immediately says:

“When did our public schools, any schools, become what are essentially grooming centers for gender identity radicals?” Ingraham asks (video below), as Media Matters reports. “As a mom, I think it’s appalling, it’s frightening, it’s disgusting, it’s despicable. Florida just passed a bill to keep this type ofsexual brainwashing out of schools. Democrats, though, claim the bill is bigoted, branding it as the ‘Don’t Say Gay Bill.’ Well, nice try. The real controversy, though, isn’t this bill. It’s that schools are peddling gender ideology when our international rankings in math, science, and reading are down across the board.”

As she introduces her guest, the chyron changes to read: “DEMS HAPPY TO RUN ON PRO-GROOMING PLATFORM.”

No facts, nothing to back up those claims, just outrageous, dangerous defamation.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/florida-pediatricians-slam-ron-desantis-irresponsible-surgeon-general-for-opposing-vaccines-for-kids/

3 22

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/jack-petocz-florida/

suspended for handing our gay flag

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/alarm-grows-as-florida-gop-advances-plan-to-gut-ballot-initiative-process/

citizen initiative process that gave Floridians the power to raise theminimum wage and restore voting rights is under grave threat after the state's House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday advanced a Republican proposal to dramatically limit the scope of future ballot measures.

Led by state Rep. Mike Beltran (R-57), House Joint Resolution 1127 would alter Florida's constitution to limit citizen initiatives to "matters relating to procedural subjects or to structure" of the government—a restriction that likely would have blocked $15 minimum wage, voting rights, medical marijuana, and conservation amendments.

"Lawmakers should respect the will of the people and Floridians' right to participate in our democracy."

Having passed out of the GOP-controlled judiciary panel, the proposal is soon expected to receive a vote in the full state House of Representatives. If the Florida Legislature passes Beltran's resolution, voters will have to approve the amendment for it to be added to the state constitution.

Final approval of the resolution would effectively spell the death of the state's citizen initiative process, theACLU of Florida warnedin a statement Tuesday evening.

"These proposed changes to the citizen initiative process are not about fixing problems—they are about interfering with the will of Floridians," said Kara Gross, the group's legislative director and senior policy counsel. "Through ballot initiatives, citizens have been able to improve the lives and well-being of Floridians."

Gross characterized the Florida GOP's attack on the citizen initiative process as part of a broader trend of "politicians trying to rewrite the rules because they do not like it when voters use their power is a trend that must come to an end."

"Florida lawmakers should respect the will of the people and Floridians' right to participate in our democracy through the citizen initiative process," Gross added. "They should vote no on these proposals and end the crusade of sabotaging the right of the people to be heard."

House Joint Resolution 1127 is hardly the Florida GOP's first attempt to gut the citizen initiative process, which empowered voters to enact broadly popular policies that would've gone nowhere in the GOP-dominated state Legislature.

In 2020, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill containing a number of new ballot initiative restrictions, including an increase of the signature requirement. Last year, DeSantis signed a measure limiting donations to citizen initiative campaigns—a limit that was later blocked by a federal judge.

Aliki Moncrief, executive director of Florida Conservation voters, told a local CBS affiliate on Tuesday that the state GOP's efforts are "basically about limiting the power of people to raise important public policies and important public issues that they don't feel the Legislature is considering."

"So, it's horrible in a word," Moncrief added. "If the people really wanted this done, they would have done it."

Florida senators walk out after DeSantis' surgeon general refuses to answer if vaccines are good

David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement

January 26, 2022

Democrats on a Florida state Senate committee walked out of the confirmation hearing of Governor Ron DeSantis’ Surgeon General nominee, **Dr. Joseph Ladapo**, a far right-wing anti-science extremist after...

fired for rec vaccine; recall disaster head wacko aa

https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/florida-health-director/

// https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/election-police/update?

And the GOP has embraced Hungary, and they really see Hungary’s present as America’s future. And so, Tucker Carlson, you know, had whole week of broadcasting there. And even Mike Pence, who’s not the most worldly person, trotted over to Budapest and talked about how he hoped that abortion rights would be taken away soon. So, Hungary is this model of white Christian supremacy, anti-trans, homophobic. It checks all the boxes of what the GOP is actually today.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, we talk about him as a model and him modeling himself on autocrats around the world. But what about him as a model at home for people like Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor? You lay out, in a very chilling piece, this image of DeSantis surrounded by the people he wants to basically deputize as what his opponent in running for governor has talked about as his “secret police.”

RUTH BEN-GHIAT: Yeah, Ron DeSantis is an example — so, when you have somebody like Trump who imposes this kind of authoritarian party discipline, the system populates with mini-Trumps.They used to be called mini-Duces and mini-Hitlers, and now we have these mini-Trumps. And so, what we’ve seen is, in places like Texas and Florida, states are becoming laboratories of autocracy.

And DeSantis is particularly disturbing, because, you know, he wants to have his own civilian National Guard. And many states have those, but I discovered, doing research, that he’s also establishing an office for, quote, “election integrity,” which is code speak for election fraud, where it’s going to have its own prosecutors and investigators. So, anybody who — if there’s like an election result in the state that DeSantis doesn’t like, he can have his goons go after them and accuse them of violating election law. And they’ve made what used to be misdemeanors into felonies, so these people could be put in jail.So this is an example of the kind of authoritarian system at the state level that DeSantis has planned.

AMY GOODMAN: Ruth Ben-Ghiat, I want to thank you for being with us, expert on the psychology of authoritarianism and fascism. She is the author of Strongmen: How They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fall, a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University, and she publishes Lucid, a newsletter on threats to democracy.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/central-florida-sheriffs-department-draws-sharp-criticism-for-advanced-surveillance-program-report/

desantis ~ cruise line vax, law exempts corps with them pk?!

These days, social media posts are being used more and more in law enforcement investigations — and that includes probes of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building. Social media, according to Business Insider reporter Erin Snodgrass, was a factor in the arrest of right-wing activist Jody Tagaris — who is facing four misdemeanor charges for her alleged role in the January 6 insurrection.

Tagaris, who was arrested in May, is facing charges that include entering a restricted building without permission and disorderly conduct in a federal building. Snodgrass describes the 67-year-old Tagaris as "a former prominent player in Palm Beach County's conservative circles" in South Florida.

"In mid-January," Snodgrass reports, "the FBI was alerted to a Facebook post under the name Jody Echevarria-Tagaris, that featured a photo of the defendant which indicated she had entered the U.S. Capitol during the pro-Trump attack earlier that month, according to court documents. The photo showed a woman dressed in distinct clothing, including an American Flag scarf, a unique U.S. Olympics American flag jacket, and a red 'Make America Great Again' hat, posing in the frame of a broken window next to the Senate Wing Door at the Capitol with the caption, 'The Capital ... back at hotel safe! Got tear gassed but okay!'"

Snodgrass notes that FBI investigators also saw that Tagaris, on Facebook, had announced her plans to be in Washington, D.C. on January 6 to attend then-President Donald Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally. And video taken on January 6 also confirms that she was in D.C. that day.

According to Snodgrass, Tagaris has been quite active in Republican politics in her state.

"During the early 2000s, Tagaris played a prominent role in Palm Beach County's Republican community, according to the Palm Beach Post," Snodgrass explains. "Then Jody Warmack, she served as a member of the executive committee of the county's Republican Party, associating with top lawmakers like the late U.S. Rep. E. Clay Shaw."

Tagaris, Snodgrass notes, ran for Palm Beach county commissioner in a 2002 GOP primary but lost by a landslide to incumbent Mary McCarty. In 2005, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that Tagaris planned to challenge McCarty again. McCarty was later sentenced to prison for fraud, and Trump gave her a full pardon on December 23.

cyber ninjas, thx fla

spr brk covid surge variant

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/florida/

Proud Boys and Black Lives Matter clashed in this Florida town — and only BLM faced charges: report

Alex Henderson

Some members of the far-right Proud Boys are facing criminal charges in connection with the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building, but the Proud Boys were violent long before...

see whistle sci supp desantis (covid maga rally 1220)

cops pt guns at kids in raid, she arrested 1/21 2x? rebeckah jones

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/desantis-2649425591/

forward Majority Action	$10,195,000.00
Keep Our Constitution Clean Inc	$9,010,146.76
Citizen Voters Inc	$8,296,943.55
Surterra Holdings Inc	$5,943,199.00
Florida Crystals Corporation	$5,040,700.00
United States Sugar Corporation	$4,813,625.00
Florida Power & Light Company	$4,691,014.77
Coalition for Energy Choice Inc	$4,647,077.48
The Morgan Law Group PA	$4,256,803.28
Win Justice - Federal PAC	$4,126,532.00
Aggregated Unitemized Contributions	$4,117,120.68
Mbf Family Investments Ltd	$3,903,000.00
Family Friendly Action Fund	$3,794,450.00
Disney Worldwide Services Inc	$3,788,809.38
For Our Future - Federal	$3,460,000.00
Miguel B Fernandez	$3,218,060.25
Mm Enterprises USA LLC	$3,058,500.00
The People Over Profits Florida Inc	$2,711,385.88
Democracy PAC	$2,663,000.00
Teco Energy Inc	$2,338,000.00
Florida Blue	$2,227,000.00
Publix Super Markets Inc	$2,167,500.00
Geo Group Inc PAC	$2,098,500.00
Marsha Z and Henry Ben Laufer	$2,018,500.00
Miriam and Sheldon G Adelson	$2,000,000.00

https://www.transparencyusa.org/article**/floridas-top-10-state-level-pacs**?state=fl

Florida, the perennial swing state, is considered one of the top battlegrounds in the nation by both the left and the right. It is perhaps no surprise, given its history for close elections, that a number of political action committees (PACs) have invested heavily in the governance of the Sunshine State. Here are the top 10 PACs spending money on Florida state-level politics during the 2020 election cycle, as of the most recently available data:

1. Republican Party of Florida – $17,932,281

The Republican Party of Florida holds the top spot on the list of PACs in Florida, reporting $17,932,281 in contributions. The Republican Party of Florida supports Republican candidates up and down the ballot in Florida.

2. Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee – $16,495,608

The Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee follows the state party’s organization on this list, reporting $16,495,608 in contributions. The Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee’s primary goal has been to elect Republicans to Florida’s State Senate.

3. Keep Our Constitution Clean PC – $9,010,147

Keep Our Constitution Clean PC is next up on the list of the top 10 PACs in Florida, with $9,010,147 in contributions reported. This organization’s primary function is to support Florida Amendment 4 in the 2020 election, which would change the way constitutional amendments are added to the Florida Constitution. Under the proposal supported by Keep Our Constitution Clean PC, constitutional amendments would require approval in two separate elections to become effective.

4. Make It Legal Florida – $8,369,093

Make It Legal Florida holds a place among the top PACs in the state with $8,369,093 in contributions. Make It Legal Florida’s primary goal is to support a proposed constitutional amendment to allow “adults 21 years or older to possess, use, purchase, display, and transport up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana and marijuana accessories for personal use for any reason.” The amendment may appear on the 2022 ballot, according to Ballotpedia.org.

5. Florida Citizen Voters – $8,294,553

Florida Citizen Voters is also supporting a constitutional amendment in the 2020 election cycle in Florida, reporting $8,294,553 in contributions. Florida Citizen Voters’ primary goal is to support Florida Amendment 1, which would change wording in the Florida Constitution to state, “only a citizen” of the United States can vote in Florida.

6. Florida Democratic Party – $6,590,784

The Florida Democratic Party earns its spot on the list of the top 10 PACs in Florida with $6,590,784 in contributions. The Florida Democratic Party’s main goal is to help elect Democrats in Florida elections.

7. Realtors Political Advocacy Committee – $6,258,931

The Realtors Political Advocacy Committee is next up on the list of Florida PACs with $6,258,931. This group’s primary goal is to support candidates recommended by realtors in Florida. The group is currently supporting a group of state legislative candidates for the 2020 election cycle.

8. All Voters Vote, Inc. – $6,140,171

All Voters Vote, Inc. is next up on the list of the top 10 PACs with $6,140,171 in contributions. All Voters Vote, Inc. is supporting Florida Amendment 3 on the 2020 ballot in Florida, which would allow all registered voters in Florida to vote in a single primary featuring all candidates from every party, regardless of party affiliation, with the top two candidates in the primary advancing to the general election.

9. Citizens for Energy Choices – $4,875,270

Citizens for Energy Choices takes the next spot on the top 10 PACs list with $4,875,270 in contributions. Citizens for Energy Choices was supporting a constitutional amendment initiative to declare wholesale and retail electricity markets as “fully competitive.” The item will not be on the 2020 ballot.

10. Florida For A Fair Wage – $4,480,421

Rounding out the top 10 PACs in Florida is Florida For A Fair Wage. This organization has reported $4,480,421 in contributions, with a goal of supporting Florida Amendment 2, which would incrementally increase the Florida minimum wage to $15 per hour by September 2026.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/florida-voter-registration/

broken promises 501c4

A Florida group is at the center of scrutiny for its alleged use of dark money to fund political expenses and campaigns for phantom candidates despite being categorized as a "social welfare organization."

On Thursday, Dec. 17, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) submitted a written complaint to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) urging the department to launch an investigation into the group, Broken Promises.

CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder outlined a number of potential violations the group is responsible for as he explained why the group appears to be a political organization masquerading as a social welfare non-profit. It was also reported that the group has spent a whopping 99.6% of its funding on politically-linked endeavors.

Bookbinder also reiterated the legal requirements for tax-exempt organizations to receive tax breaks and benefits.

"Broken Promises blatantly misled the IRS about its primary activities and exploited our federal tax laws to get the benefits nonprofits are entitled to while secretly acting as a political organization," said Bookbinder. "The law is clear that tax-exempt organizations that receive tax benefits and do not disclose donors cannot spend the majority of their money on politics, but that is exactly what Broken Promises did."

The report also breaks down expenditures from the group's 2018 tax documents highlighting: "the dark money group spent a total of $161,010, though it failed to disclose that $160,470 of it went towards political activity. Most of the money was in-kind contributions of advertising or direct mail provided to the political committee Friends of Charles Goston, which supported an independent candidate whose state Senate race candidacy was directly backed by donations from Republican lobbyists."

He also noted that the contributions raised speculation about the tactic being a way 'to split the Democratic vote to help Republicans.'"

Instead of admitting to the IRS how the funds were actually used, the group denied any allegations of wrongdoing insisting any "direct or indirect political campaign activities on behalf of or in opposition to candidates for public office."

Bookhinder concluded by expressing concern about the long history of dark money and its improper impact on American elections.

"For far too long, dark money groups have secretly wielded their influence to overshadow the voices and interests of the American public, and it is past time for the IRS to ensure that nonprofit groups do not abuse their tax status to improperly influence politics," said Bookbinder. "The IRS should open an investigation into Broken Promises' behavior and should they be found in violation of the law, act swiftly to reconsider their tax status."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

- Florida GOP-Led Voter Fraud Investigation Finds Nothing - Except ... ›

no lnx vid

This year, one of the GOP victories in Florida came when Ileana Garcia, co-founder of Latinas for Trump, defeated incumbent Democrat José Javier Rodríguez in a state Senate race. It was a narrow victory, however, and Miami Herald journalists Samantha J. Gross and Ana Ceballos are reporting that Rodriguez has demanded an investigation of a third-party candidate, Alex Rodríguez.

In that race, Alex Rodríguez (unrelated to José Javier Rodríguez) received more than 6,300 votes, which was a big deal given how close the race was. Garcia defeated José Javier Rodríguez by a mere 34 votes, and there has been speculation that Alex Rodríguez was planted as a spoiler to take votes away from the incumbent Democrat.

"Alex Rodriguez' candidacy appeared to exist for only one reason: to suck votes away from incumbent José Javier Rodríguez, who shares the same surname," according to Gross and Ceballos. "The incumbent lost by just 34 votes, and he is now calling for an investigation into Alex Rodriguez — and whoever may have put him up to run."

"Shadow candidate" Alex Rodriguez, the Herald reporters note, has "drawn the attention of law enforcement."

"Sources with knowledge of the investigation tell the Miami Herald that Miami-Dade state prosecutors are now probing the mysterious candidacy, which has also led to a series of investigative reports from the Herald and other news outlets such as WPLG-10 and Univision, whose reporters found Rodriguez renting a home in Palm Beach County — not in Miami-Dade County, where he filed to vote and run for state office," the Herald reporters explain.

In a video posted on Facebook, José Javier Rodríguez argued, "Democracy requires transparency. In order to achieve that, I believe this election requires a full investigation so that those who may have violated the law are held to account and so that such tactics are not used in future elections."

Garcia defeated José Javier Rodríguez in Miami-Dade County, which is one of the more Democratic-leaning areas of Florida. And that loss wasn't the only disappointment that Democrats suffered in South Florida this year: Joe Biden underperformed among Latinos in Miami-Dade County compared to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Florida's 29 electoral votes were called for President Donald Trump on Election Night — although Bided ended up winning the election, with 306 electoral votes and a lead of more than 6 million in the popular vote.

According to Gross and Ceballos, Florida-based elections attorneyJuan Carlos Plana plans to file an ethics complaint against Alex Rodriguez and alleges that his financial disclosure form is "improper."

Plana told the Herald, "There are more questions than answers, but the questions don't seem like they will lead to a good place. People like this don't pop up and say they are going to run for state Senate."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Florida paper blasts GOP Sen. Rick Scott's 'full partisan' defense of ... ›

State senator sounds the alarm about Florida's concealment of ... ›

Report traces the 'dark money donors' that funded Florida Senate ... ›

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

U.S. Senate: States in the Senate | Florida ›

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an 1120 also red tides last year?

climate crisis is the primary cause of 98% of dead Florida coral reef: NOAA research

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/florida-democratic-party

...Permanently Red Florida?

While many pundits have placed Florida in the red state column, there were some highlights suggesting, as was the case in Texas (where Biden was briefly leading on election night), that Florida's Democrats are not permanently exiled. The state adopted a $15-an-hour minimum wage, a union-backed campaign. Miami-Dade County elected its first female mayor, Democrat Daniella Levine Cava. In 2018, voters re-enfranchised more than a million ex-felons, which Republican legislators subverted before 2020's election.

But the observations by Sancho, the longtime supervisor of elections in Leon County, where Florida's capital Tallahassee is located, underscored that the task of turning a demographically purple state blue cannot rely on top-down or last-minute campaigning, but takes ongoing organizing that meets voters where they are.

In every election, there are always voting blocs that become the fulcrum even in states with millions of voters. In 2020 in Florida, the various Latino communities, led by refugees from Cuba and South America, were targeted early on by Trump's campaign. Most visibly, Trump started with Spanish radio ads in June that accused Democrats of being "radical socialists." The smears went unanswered for weeks, which, in retrospect, showed that the Biden campaign and the national party were not staking out Florida's tipping-point communities.

"They had no idea what they were doing—there was no Latin campaign at all," said Sancho, who believed that South Florida's Latino communities could have been persuaded to vote for Democrats, and had coattails that would have broken the GOP's lock on statewide power.

Sancho listed a series of big lapses, starting with not responding to Trump's Spanish ads. A lack of support continued throughout Florida's August primary, whose late date makes it hard for winners to launch a fall campaign unless a vast field campaign is waiting in the wings. But Biden's campaign did not want Florida volunteers talking to voters in person due to COVID-19, Sancho said, and did not support alternatives suggested by Latino Democratic officials. When Biden finally visited, Sancho said that he did not invite enough local leaders and did not mention local issues—such as raising the minimum wage or restoring remittances and travel to Cuba. Post-election media analyses echoed these points.

"You can't replace hard work with anything else," Sancho said. "You need a message. I saw nothing that they did in South Florida with Latinos."...

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/report-traces-the-dark-money-donors-that-funded-florida-senate-candidates-who-pulled-votes-away-from-democrats/

A new report released by Florida's Local 10 lays out evidence to suggest three political candidates in three Florida Senate district races were nothing more than decoy candidates added to the race with one purpose: to pull votes from Democratic candidates.

Investigative findings also determined most of the candidates appear to have ties to the "same dark money donors."

One of the races has resulted in a runoff due to the close call between the Democratic and Republican candidates. It has been reported that there was only a difference of 31 votes, with more than 6300 voters cast ballots for the third-party candidate. The third-party candidate in that race is Alexis Rodriguez, who happens to have the same last name as the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez (D-Fla.).

Alexis Rodriguez reportedly provided a false address when he completed his campaign filing forms back in June. Another oddity about his campaign is that he did not even have a candidate headshot. When reporters arrived at his place of business to confront him about the mysterious campaign, he lied about his business affiliation and posed as a partner for the company. He was asked about his seemingly abrupt decision to enter in District 37 race, but no direct answer was given.

The other candidates' platforms were eerily similar to Rodriguez's. All of the campaigns list one contribution: "$2000 self-loans, presumably to pay the filing fee."

Even their email addresses were created with the same name and number sequence: "first initial, last name and district number and 2020," according to the publication. The candidates are also all affiliated with the samepolitical action committee (PAC) known as Proclivity.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/vote-for-trump-or-else-florida-voters-receive-threatening-emails-linked-to-overseas-servers/

Dozens of Florida voters and others residing in heavily-Democratic counties across several states have received threatening emails warning them to vote for President Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election or suffer consequences.

Ahead of early voting, Democratic voters in Alachua County, Fla., began receiving the disturbing emails. Voters in Alaska and Arizona also reported receiving the same message.

The subject line for the email reads: "Vote for Trump or else!"

Targeting voters registered as Democrats, the email message opens with a disturbing statement telling potential voters all of their personal information has been exposed as the sender claims to have infiltrated the "entire voting infrastructure."

The sender also warned Democrats to vote for Trump or they would "come after" them. Voters are also being told to change their political party affiliation so it can serve as confirmation of agreement to the terms of the threat.

"We are in possession of all your information (email, address, telephone… everything)," the message stated. "You are currently registered as a Democrat and we know this because we have gained access into the entire voting infrastructure. You will vote for Trump on Election Day or we will come after you. Change your party affiliation to Republican to let us know you received our message and will comply. We will know which candidate you voted for. I would take this seriously if I were you."

Although initial investigative findings suggest the emails were sent from the right-wing group The Proud Boys' official email address "info@officialproudboys.com," a review of the source code embedded in seven of the emails suggests the messages were sent from an overseas server linked to "IP addresses linked to servers located in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Estonia," according to CBS News.

However, Dmitri Alperovitch, former chief technology officer of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, explained why the IP addresses do not necessarily reveal the exact location the emails were sent from. He also weighed in on the verbiage in the email.

"It could be that they are simply relaying through this infrastructure," Alperovitch told CBS News in an email. "In fact, given how this email was sent, using their web interface, that's most likely the case — that the people behind this found a vulnerable server in Saudi through which they can route lots of emails."

The latest developments come just two weeks before election day.

an 10/21/20

It's Civiqs' first look at Florida, and it's finding what most other pollsters have found: a slight Joe Biden lead.

Civiqs conducted the poll October 17-20, sampling 863 likely voters, and an MoE of 3.5%

PRESIDENT	10/2020
DONALD TRUMP (R-INC)	47
JOE BIDEN (D)	51

The Economist's poll aggregator (which strips out undecideds), has the Florida race at 51.9 to 48.1 Biden, a 3.8-point advantage. So this is well within the polling consensus.

Florida will count its ballots by election night, so if Donald Trump hopes to sow fear and confusion over uncounted ballots in Michigan and Pennsylvania, this isn't going to help. In fact, election-night loses in Florida, North Carolina, or Georgia will immediately signal Trump's inevitable loss, and take the wind out of any attempts to sow chaos and uncertainty.

Also of note, Biden is over 51%, meaning that if the numbers are accurate, undecided voters can't flip the election to Trump.

Down ballot, voters appear set to overwhelmingly approve a $15 minimum wage, 57-38, garnering the support of even 25% of Republicans. Meanwhile, the effort to institute an idiotic top-two jungle primary system (like the one we're saddled with in California and Washington too) looks headed toward comfortable defeat—36-51.

Of further note, Republican and former party savior Sen. Marco Rubio has an approval rating of 39-53, making him the least popular politician in the state. That should make for a fun 2022, when he is up for reelection. By comparison, the state's incompetent and odious governor Ron DeSantis, who has killed thousands by refusing to the COVID seriously, has a distressingly okay 46-49 favorability rating. (Which also shows that the sample isn't overly liberal.)

Luckily, we don't need Florida to win the White House. If we need it, we are bound to be disappointed by it. But the fact that this poll confirms a slight Biden lead gives hope that all the presidential drama can end early on Election Night, so we can enjoy the rest of the evening counting victories instead.

:{https://www.alternet.org/2020/10**/miami-dade-is-one-storm-away-from-a-housing-catastrophe**-nearly:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{-1-million-people-are-at-risk/:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:

mIAMI herald — As the tail end of one of the most active hurricane seasons in history nears, Miami-Dade County appears once again poised to emerge unscathed. The region dodged hurricanes and tropical storms that posed a potential threat to South Florida. But what will happen when that luck runs out?Housing advocates have long feared that the city is one storm away from disaster; nearly a third of all housing structures in Miami-Dade County built before 1990 are at risk of wind damage, mold contamination and even complete devastation from a hurricane.According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, nearly 1 m...

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/transparent-political-ploy-florida-attorney-general-asks-fbi-to-investigate-bloombergs-efforts-to-restore-felon-voting-rights/

florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, a Republican, has asked the FBI and the state’s Department of Law Enforcement to investigate former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg‘s efforts to help felons in the state regain their voting rights by paying their court fees, citing “potential violations of election laws.”

Bloomberg has over the last week raised more than $16 million from individuals and private organizations, which he said would go towards paying down fines and fees for nearly 32,000 Black and Latinx Florida voters with felony records. A controversial Florida law forbids former felons from voting unless and until they pay off all money they owe the courts or other legal parties. Critics have called it a “modern day poll tax.”

Florida attorney general Ashley Moody said in the letter that the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis had asked her to look into the issue, CNN reported Wednesday.

“After preliminarily reviewing this limited public information and law, it appears further investigation is warranted,” Moody wrote in a letter to the agencies....

dn 920

Florida Voting Rights Activist Denied Pardon He Needs to Join Bar Association

DN 9/15/20 McConn flip 11th district so vote down felony re-enfranchise (fees = poll tax); 8 more judges this week

Bloomberg raises $16 million to pay fines of 32,000 former felons so they can vote again in Florida: report

Alex Hend

see desantis fail denial

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/pandemic-parties-rage-on-across-south-florida-despite-growing-coronavirus-crisis/

an 820

florda sheriff announces ban on protective face masks for deputies and visitors as COVID-19 ravages his state: ‘Not up for discussion’

620 an

https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-plans-to-unleash-offshore-oil-drilling-in-florida-after-the-election/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/voting-rights-roundup-court-axes-florida-gops-poll-tax-restoring-voting-rights-to-roughly-775000/

kos

florida: In a historic victory against Republican voter suppression, a federal district court struck down a law that Republicans passed to impose a modern-day poll tax that disenfranchised would-be voters who had served their felony sentences but still owed court fines and fees. The judge ruled that the law established a “tax by any other name” in violation of the 24th Amendment’s ban on disenfranchising voters “by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.” The court’s decision means that hundreds of thousands of disproportionately Black voters will regain the right to vote.

Republicans passed their law last year after voters amended Florida’s constitution in 2018 to end lifetime voter disenfranchisement for up to 1.4 million people who had served out sentences for all but the most serious crimes. An expert witness for the plaintiffs estimated that 775,000 citizens would be unable to pay the poll tax, in large part because Florida levies onerous fines to fund its court system. The court noted, for instance, that one county charges a minimum of $668 for a public defender—and $548 even for defendants who forgo one. Furthermore, 43% of the disenfranchised are Black, roughly three times the African American share of the state’s overall adult population.

Before voters passed the 2018 initiative, Florida disenfranchised 1 in 10 adults, the highest proportion of any state, including 1 in 5 Black adults—five times the rate of white adults in Florida. This racial discrimination was no accident, either, since Florida’s lifetime voting ban was a product of the Jim Crow era.

In striking down the poll tax, the court’s ruling means that it’s unconstitutional to condition voting rights upon the payment of court fees and costs. While requiring the payment of fines and restitution to victims can be constitutional in certain instances, the court said, it’s unconstitutional when applied to citizens who are genuinely unable to pay the costs or who owe an amount that cannot be determined.

indeed, the state effectively makes it impossible for many voters to even find out the exact amount owed because Florida lacks adequate records. In light of that situation, the court ordered Florida officials to tell all of the affected citizens whether they’re eligible to vote. Would-be voters can request an advisory opinion on their eligibility from the secretary of state that must detail the exact amount owed, and they must be allowed to register in the meantime if they don’t hear back within 21 days. Voters also won’t face perjury charges for registering through this process, something that had chilled registration drives before the court ruling.

Florida Republicans have vowed to appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, but they may not have much success: The 11th Circuit refused to reverse the lower court’s previous ruling that had blocked the poll tax from being enforced on the particular plaintiffs party to the case, a decision that relied on reasoning similar to this latest one. However, it appears likely that this litigation will ultimately end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, particularly since 10 states have similar financial requirements and 30 states impose such requirements in at least some cases.

Furthermore, Florida’s conservative-dominated state Supreme Court issued an advisory opinionin January holding that the constitutional amendment does in fact require the payment of fines and fees, even though its text makes no mention of them. While that ruling is not binding, it could be a signal that the state court could strike down the entire amendment if the federal court ruling limiting the new requirement survives....

520

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/more-evidence-emerges-that-ron-desantis-is-deliberately-under-reporting-covid-19-deaths-in-florida/

federal judge demolishes Florida law barring felons from voting — rules it a ‘poll tax’

Hunter / Daily KosMay 25, 2020

In a Sunday order, a federal judge has struck down in large part the Florida state law passed by Republicans that denied felons the restoration of their voting rights if they had…

run on beach re-open?! other covid fails? see desantis

an 420

florida is now blocking medical examiners from releasing COVID-19 death totals

an 420

florida blocks COVID-19 information from public as Gov. Ron DeSantis touts transparency

desantis covid fail

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/gop-governor-is-more-worried-about-pleasing-trump-than-protecting-the-health-of-his-state-cnn-reporter/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/this-is-horrible-florida-republicans-furious-after-unemployment-system-they-mangled-puts-trumps-re-election-in-jeopardy/

no lnx

‘This is horrible’: Florida Republicans furious after unemployment system they mangled puts Trump’s re-election in jeopardy

Written by Travis Gettys / Raw Story April 3, 2020

Republicans are furious that Florida’s broken unemployment system was working exactly as former Gov. Rick Scott intended — and it could help kill President Donald Trump’s re-election chances.

The coronavirus outbreak has sent thousands of suddenly unemployed workers to the state’s byzantine system to apply for help, and Republicans privately admit the $77.9 million system was designed to discourage jobless claims to keep numbers low after the great recession, reported Politico.

“It’s a sh*t sandwich, and it was designed that way by Scott,” said one advisor to Gov. Ron DeSantis. “It wasn’t about saving money. It was about making it harder for people to get benefits or keep benefits so that the unemployment numbers were low to give the governor something to brag about.”

Jobless Floridians are encountering dropped calls and busy signals in the Department of Economic Opportunity’s “Connect” system, and even those who get through are finding they’ll get just $275 a week for a maximum of 12 weeks.

“Everyone we talk to in that office when we ask them what happened tells us, ‘the system was designed to fail,’” one DeSantis adviser told Politico. “That’s not a problem when unemployment is 2.8 percent, but it’s a problem now, and no system we have can handle 25,000 people a day.”

The system was implemented on the promise that it would lower unemployment taxes for Florida businesses, and a 2011 analysis by the state legislature estimated the changes would save business owners more than $2.3 billion between 2011 and 2020 — but the COVID-19 outbreak has exposed its deficiencies and made it a political liability.

“This is horrible for people, I don’t want to minimize that,” the DeSantis adviser said. “But if we have to look past the crisis, it’s bad for the president and it’s bad for the governor.”

spring brk party beaches

an 320

as derelict as the president’: Miami newspaper editorial board slams ‘timid leader’ Ron DeSantis in a scathing editorial

Many states in the U.S. — from Pennsylvania and New…

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/florida-got-all-the-emergency-medical-supplies-it-requested-while-other-states-did-not-heres-why/

bunch of loons

no lnx

Here’s how a conspiracy theorist banned from Twitter made the journey from the ‘alt-right fringe’ to a GOP congressional candidate

Written by Alex Henderson February 28, 2020

Far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, known for her anti-Muslim posts on social media and claims that mass shootings are false flag operations, is so extreme that she has even been banned from the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). But that isn’t preventing the 26-year-old Loomer from seeking the Republican nomination in South Florida’s 21st Congressional District, where she is hoping to run against incumbent Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel in 2020’s general election. And Amanda Carpenter takes a look at Loomer’s journey from the “alt-right” fringe to congressional candidate in a February 28 article for The Bulwark.

Carpenter, who is a CNN contributor in addition to her work for The Bulwark, is no liberal: she formerly served as communications director for Sen. Ted Cruz and a speechwriter for Sen. Jim DeMint. But Loomer, as Carpenter explains, is not a run-of-the-mill conservative — other Republicans shunned her in the past, and she has been banned from social media platforms ranging from Twitter to Facebook to Instagram.

As a candidate, Carpenter notes, Loomer’s “plan” is “to present herself as a politically incorrect social media martyr” — and she has reached out to President Donald Trump for help, declaring herself to be a staunch Trumpista.

“Whereas Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Lyft, Venmo, GoFundMe, Medium, Uber and UberEats have standards of behavior for members, the United States Congress does not,” Carpenter asserts. “‘Member of Congress’ is one of the few jobs where Loomer’s anti-Muslim tweets, musings that mass shootings are false flag operations and outlandish protests aren’t automatic disqualifications. In fact, those positions will probably help her attract a committed, albeit nutty, base of support.”

In May 2019, Carpenter recalls, Loomer appeared on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ show — where she “sounded like a woman on the brink” and “wailed like a teenager” after her inflammatory posts got her banned from Instagram and Facebook. But now that she’s running for Congress, Carpenter laments, Loomer’s claim that she is a political martyr “seems to be working. Loomer has transformed from a fringe member of the alt-right internet to someone embraced by people in the highest levels of GOP leadership.”

Carpenter goes on to list some of the Republicans who are now supporting Loomer’s campaign — including Trump, whose Mar-a-Lago resort is in her district.

“President Trump has tweeted supportively of her race, his presidential campaign is renting out her e-mail list — and Trump’s 2016 Florida director, Karen Giorno, is managing her campaign,” Carpenter reports. “Republican Rep. Jim Jordan appears to have rented out her list too. And Loomer claims endorsements from high-profile personalities and friends of Trump, including Roger Stone, Jeanine Pirro, Bo Snerdly and Michelle Malkin.”

Moreover, Carpenter adds, Republican Joe Gruters (a Florida state senator and chairman of the Florida Republican Party) “held a press conference with her (in January) to promote legislation that he said was inspired by Loomer. The bill, Stop Social Media Censorship Act, would allow people such as Loomer to sue Twitter for damages if their speech is censored or deleted. It’s commonly known as ‘Loomer’s Law.’”

According to Carpenter, Loomer’s campaign “has raised more than $350,000 and had $115,000 cash on hand.”

“Take Laura Loomer’s name out of the picture here,” Carpenter laments, “and you have what appears to be a well-connected, establishment campaign designed for a rising party star.”

The good news is that if Loomer does win the GOP nomination, her chances of defeating Frankel in the general election are slim: Florida’s 21st Congressional District, Carpenter points out, “is safely Democratic” — and in 2016’s presidential election, Hillary Clinton carried that district by 19%. Had the entire state of Florida voted like the 21st Congressional District in 2016, Clinton would have won Florida’s electoral votes hands down.

But Loomer’s “longshot” campaign, Carpenter stresses, is a publicity stunt — and her chances of actually defeating Frankel should she win the nomination are “almost beside the point.” Plus, Trump now claims Florida, not New York City, as his primary residence and can vote in Florida elections.

“If the president of the United States votes for her in 2020,” Carpenter asks, “what further validation does she need?”

ransomware

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/feds-reviewing-previously-unreported-cyber-attack-on-florida-elections-office/

update: 1/20 https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/voting-rights-roundup-floridas-top-court-validates-gop-poll-tax-on-voters-with-felony-convictions/

florida initiative, then rolled back by gop legislature?

key on bush 2020 win FLA?

Federal court blocks Florida Republicans’ modern-day poll tax 1019 Stephen Wolf / Daily Kos

In Michigan, for example, Republicans gerrymandered the state so well that the party held nine of 14 congressional seats after 2012, 2014 and 2016, even in years when Democratic candidates won 200,000 more votes. Democrats have also dominated the statewide vote for the state house since 2012, but have not been able to translate a majority of votes into a majority of seats during this entire decade.

In response, the nonpartisan Michigan-based group called Voters Not Politicians successfully led a statewide ballot initiative to end gerrymandering by removing the power to draw state and congressional district maps from politicians. A simultaneous grassroots effort to expand the franchise culminated in another victorious ballot initiative that included automatic and same-day voter registration.

In response, GOP officials filed a lawsuit to prevent the voter-approved independent redistricting commission from going into effect and made it more difficult to run ballot initiative campaigns in the future.

Last year in Florida, the Second Chances campaign won a ballot initiative for a state constitutional amendment that brought together liberals and conservatives with the goal of re-enfranchising those convicted of felonies who have completed the terms of their sentence, excluding murder and sexual abuse perpetators. (Ex-felons meeting those criteria in Florida — approximately 1.4 million of them at this moment — had lost voting rights permanently unless granted clemency due to a Jim Crow-era constitutional provision.)

Republican officials, immediately following this victory, approved a new law restricting enfranchisement to those who paid fines, fees and restitution — a modern-day poll tax. The state legislature, in recent years, has additionally sought to make voter registration drives harder, limit early voting on college campuses and curtail language accessibility. Right now, there is a campaign to make ballot initiatives almost impossible to win.

In Texas, partisan gerrymandering likely cost Democrats five Congressional seats in 2016, according to election expert Stephen Wolf. Equally disturbing, the state GOP has passed strict voter registration hurdles and implemented discriminatory voter ID laws, all of which primarily targeted minorities and communities of color.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/floridas-gop-governor-approves-repugnant-new-law-that-could-ban-up-to-1-million-from-voting

Florida’s GOP governor approves repugnant new law that could ban up to 1 million from voting

Floridians voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights for as many as 1.4 million citizens who had fully completed their felony sentences by a 65-35 landslide last year, but on Friday, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantishas signed a new lawthat will keep the vast majority of those citizens disenfranchised and also bans early voting on college campuses. Republicans also recently passed another law to stymie similar ballot initiatives in the future that DeSantis has already signed.

To thwart the will of Florida voters, Republicans are imposing a measure straight out of the Jim Crow playbook: poll taxes. This new law would require the payment of all court-ordered restitution as well as any court-related fines or fees before voters can regain their rights.

Florida’s felony disenfranchisement system itself is a remnant of Jim Crow: It was given its modern form shortly after the Civil War as part of a series of changes intended to disempower black citizens in a state that was nearly one-half black at the time. Before 2018’s ballot initiative passed, the Sentencing Project estimated that one in ten Floridians were disenfranchised, including one in five black voters—five times the rate of those who aren’t black.

Imposing a requirement to pay off all court costs is especially draconian because of the predatory ways in which Florida courts and law enforcement derive funding from harsh fines imposed on criminal defendants, above and beyond restitution to crime victims. Indeed, a recent report found that Florida overall levied $1 billion in fines and fees from just October 2017 to September 2018. Even worse, the new law mandates the payment of fines that have been converted into civil liens, meaning that some who have paid all of their criminal penalties still won’t win back the right to vote.

Those who’ve served felony sentences could still regain their rights if a judge converts such debts into community service hours or if the owed party waives it, but one former judge told the Miami Herald that if the hundreds of thousands of affected Floridians apply for such waivers, it would create a massive backlog in the justice system.

By demanding that citizens pay all court fines and fees, Republicans could effectively roll back most of the 2018 amendment. It’s unclear just how many people would have had their rights restored by the new amendment, but one analysis estimates Republicans’ actions could keep roughly four-fifths of them from voting—keeping up to 1.1 million more people permanently disenfranchised—all because they’re too poor to pay court costs. Black defendants in particular are considerably less likely to be able to pay off all their court costs than white defendants, according to one study....

fac so

Southern legislatures take aim at direct democracy

After voters approved a constitutional amendment restoring the franchise to people with felony convictions, Florida lawmakers are trying to make it harder for citizens to put amendments on the ballot. Legislators in Arkansas, the only other Southern state that allows citizen-initiated amendments, did likewise after voters passed a minimum-wage hike.

[also have to pay any fees/fines to get vote back

sue s facing so

https://www.facingsouth.org/2019/03/institute-index-south-pays-dearly-nuclear-industrys-failed-renaissance

In the decade after the meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, which took place 40 years ago this week, number of nuclear plant orders that U.S. utilities canceled nationwide amid skyrocketing costs: about 100

In today's dollars, estimated amount those abandoned plants cost taxpayers and ratepayers: over $40 billion

Amount ratepayers shouldered in cost overruns alone for the approximately 100 nuclear power plants built around that time: over $200 billion

Year in which Forbes magazine called the U.S. nuclear power program "the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale": 1985

Year in which the nuclear power industry began using the term "nuclear renaissance" to hype a hoped-for revival of reactor construction: 2001

Between 2007 and 2009, number of applications for new reactor construction projects submitted to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission by utility companies: 18

Of those proposed projects, number that were in the South, where electricity markets are dominated by the monopoly utility model with guaranteed profits, and where some states allow utilities to force customers to pay in advance for construction projects: 13

Of the 18 proposed reactor projects, number that are still proceeding today, with others canceled amid skyrocketing costs driven in part by the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan: 1

Amount Duke Energy wants to charge its South Carolina customers for a decade of planning for two reactors that were never built at its Lee plant in Cherokee County: $240 million

Amount Florida Power & Light has already charged Florida ratepayers for two new proposed reactors at its Turkey Point plant in Miami-Dade County, construction of which is on hold and may never resume: over $300 million

Amount South Carolina ratepayers must pay for SCE&G's and Santee Cooper's now-canceled project involving construction of two new reactors at the Summer plant in Fairfield County: $2.3 billion

Number of powerful 5 kilowatt home solar electric systems that could be installed with $2.3 billion: more than 65,000

Initial cost estimate for the one commercial nuclear project that's still proceeding, Georgia Power's construction of two reactors at Plant Vogtle in Burke County: $14 billion

Current cost estimate for the Vogtle project, now set to finish in 2022: over $27 billion

Because of Georgia's nuclear prepayment law, approximate amount the Vogtle project has already added to the average annual Georgia Power electricity bill: $120

Year in which Democrats angered by the prepayment scheme's economic injustice and Republicans upset over its violation of free-market principles united in Georgia's legislature to quash similar deals for any other commercial reactors built in the state: 2018

Amount in additional taxpayer-backed federal loan guarantees that were announced for the Vogtle project last week amid a visit to the plant by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who called it "the real new green deal": up to $3.7 billion

Total amount in federal loan guarantees the Vogtle project has received to date: $12 billion

(Click on figure to go to source.)

...

The second and more morally relevant factor is that Florida is in the midst of a major mental health crisis and has been for a long time. According to the Orlando Sentinel, “Florida ranks 49th among the states for mental-health programs, spending $37.28 per person last year.Mississippi spent four times as much on its mentally ill.” Additionally, according to one life insurance company study,Florida ranks 41st in support for those affected by drug addiction. From its lack of mental health and drug treatment programs to its laws that barred thousands of people from voting due to felony convictions to its push for drug testing the poor for welfare benefits, Florida is notorious for having some of the country’s harshest systems for those on the margins of society.

The reason Florida seems to have more “bizarre news” stories is because it leaves tens of thousands of people with financial, mental health and drug problems to fend for themselves, and then, under the banner of transparency, hands over the inevitable result of this lack of support to a click-hungry press. To paraphrase another viral tweet, it monetizes the rot.

“Florida man” isn’t an accident. It’s the logical byproduct of a state whose politics have been defined by cruel, racist indifference to the poor for decades.

The privileged, as a general rule, love proxy language that permits them to engage in bullying and mockery that would otherwise be socially frowned upon. For decades, white sports writers have criticized “spoiled,” “lazy” basketball players because they can’t openly attack “uppity” blacks—with nary a word on the shortcomings of billionaire white owners. The viral “Thug Kitchen” sensation from five years ago allowed white liberals to openly mock African-American Vernacular English until, one day, we realized it was super racist. White men love to use “white women” as a punchline, frequently as a pseudo-woke means of simply mocking women. I am, I admit, guilty of doing so myself.

...

1 mill voter reg fla

Andrew Gillum has a brilliant plan that could thwart Trump’s hopes for re-election

On Wednesday, POLITICO reported that former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum,…

oprah and BO for andrew

https://www.ecowatch.com/red-tide-florida-2626179993.html

A Record 589 Sea Turtles Killed By Florida's Toxic Red Tide

Florida's longest red tide in more than a decade has killed scores of the state's most iconic marine animals.

The current outbreak, which began in October 2017 off southwest Florida, has been tied to a record 589 sea turtle deaths and 213 manatee deaths, the Herald-Tribune reported, citing figures from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

As of December 20, 127 bottlenose dolphins have been stranded along the southwest coast, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The mammals showed positive results for the red tide toxin, brevetoxin.

That's not to mention the massive fish kills that resulted from the toxic algae bloom.

Sea turtle species that have been affected by the poisonous brew including loggerhead and Kemp's ridley sea turtles, both of which are federally protected. Kemp's ridleys are considered the world's most endangeredmarine turtle.

Local turtle patrollers, including Suzi Fox, the director of Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch & Shorebird Monitoring, told the Herald-Tribune that the outbreak could affect next year's sea turtle nesting season, an unfortunate turn after several record

...

https://www.alternet.org/election-03918/republican-operative-goons-are-trying-pull-another-brooks-brothers-riot-floridas

However, this time, it appears the angry Republican supporters of President Trump and Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who only leads by a shrinking sliver as absentee ballots keep getting processed—15,000 votes out of 8 million cast across the state—and is facing a recount, could not get anywhere near the ongoing ballot review inside the Broward County Election Center, which, like election offices across the country, has hardened security protocols following Russian hacking attempts of the 2016 election.

Nonetheless, an eyewitness to the demonstration described a scene of partisan vitriol aimed at Brenda Snipes, the Broward County Supervisor of Elections—who has been sued by Scott and is the subject of a Scott-ordered state investigation—because her populous county has been slow to report its counts; as well as the revelation that its apparently poor ballot design led to 30,000 people not voting in the Senate race.

“When I drove up to the Broward County Election Center, I saw all these rental trucks parked bumper to bumper and circling the front door,” said John Brakey, a nationally known election transparency activist who was monitoring how the county is using digital images of every ballot to verify the vote count. “I didn’t know what was going on. I saw people demonstrating. I assumed it must be Democrats.”

Brakey said there was one four-foot-wide gap between the parked trucks where people could enter and exit.

“When I walked through and got in front, I noticed that everybody had Trump signs, Trump buttons, Scott signs, Trump hats—it turned out it was a Republican bunch of protesters,” he said, adding that he started taking pictures and videos. Those photos show signs that said, “Don’t STEAL our election,” “FAKE VOTES don’t count,” “Supervisor of Corruption,” “Sneaky Snipes,” and the Hillary Clinton-like chants of “Lock her up!” and “Put her in jail.”

“I’m an American. I believe in the American way. What this does is it makes us look like a Banana Republic,” protester Bill Wheelen said in a Miami Herald video. “If their guy wins, it’s fine. If our guy wins, they do this. This has happened over and over again in Broward. You know what, I love Rick Scott. He should have fired her in 2012.”

“The police were there. It was a stalemate,” Brakey said, who watched for a while and then went inside the election center building to get away from the broiling temperatures. When he went outside, he thought the police might remove everyone, so he left through the only opening between the trucks to leave. “It looked like everybody could get caged by the police—and the only way out was through the exit or under the trucks. I went away.”

Why a Slow Count andTilt AwayFrom the GOP

There is an explanation for why the county’s vote count is slow—as well as why late-breaking additions to the vote total in Florida tend to boost Democrats—which Wheelen noted. But it is not because Snipes, who runs for her office as the county’s election director, is a Democrat. (Former GOP Gov. Jeb Bush first appointed her to office.)

Simply put, some large Florida counties are late in reporting their totals because the high-speed scanners used do not read every ballot. As a result, a small percent of the ballots—which have been mailed in from voters and must be counted—end up being duplicated manually, an elaborate and labor-intensive process. In Pima County, Arizona, where Brakey lives, the county uses a similar system as Broward County for this process. During its early voting this fall, Pima County’s official report said that 9,501 ballots, equal to 3.6 percent of the 263,327 ballots cast, had to be “duplicated,” because they couldn’t be read by ES&S scanners.

In other words, Wheelen is correct that there is a structural issue behind the slow processing of Broward’s vote. But it is not caused by partisan election administration; it is caused by the technology used. However, the reason that these late-counted absentee ballots tend to favor Democrats is the counties with longest delays tend to be the most populous counties—which is where Florida’s greatest concentration of Democrats live.

But those shouting “lock her up” are not about to stop and think about what is really causing the vote counting delays and incremental shifts favoring Democrats. In any event, the vote counting continues, to be followed by a recount under state law.

This article was produced by Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/1/18052666/john-bolton-troika-tyranny

N ational Security Adviser John Bolton’s ultra-hawkish speech on US foreign policy toward Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua scheduled for delivery this afternoon in Miami is, in part, about John Bolton’s longtime ultra-hawkishness. But the timing of the speech is all about cynical politics.

There’s a certain irony in Bolton appealing to a community that fled oppression in Cuba and found prosperity on American shores even as President Donald Trump’s closing argument in the 2018 midterms is demagogic fear-mongering about would-be asylum-seekers from Central America. But Bolton’s charge against the “Troika of Tyranny” encompassing Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua comes today not despite Trump’s anti-immigrant rantings, but precisely because of them.

After all, while an effort to put anti-immigrant themes front and center is a plausible strategy for shoring up the GOP’s position in a boatful of Midwestern races, it’s also a potential problem in the Sunshine State.

Republicans have relied for generations on the loyal support of Cuban-American voters in South Florida, and the risk of alienating them with nonstop politics of racial fear-mongering is very real. The Cuban vote is influential in a troika of South Florida House seats — FL-26 (currently rated as a tossup), FL-27 (currently rated as likely Democratic), and FL-25 (currently rated as leaning Republican). These three seats, all currently GOP-held, would on their own represent more than 10 percent of the gains Democrats need to secure a majority in the House.

Meanwhile, Democrats have also opened up narrow leads in the statewide races for both governor and senator in Florida.

This is all just one slice of the overall midterm battleground. And across the country as a whole, a focus on immigration likely does work in the GOP’s favor — which is exactly why Democrats are trying to keep attention on health care. But there’s enough at stake in Florida that Republicans can’t afford to just write it off, and the anti-Latino themes the president is emphasizing are likely counterproductive in these key races.

A renewed emphasis on the Latin American Cold War to help remind Florida’s Cuban-American population of why they became Republicans in the first place and to try to convince them that the GOP is still the party of Ronald Reagan could be just what the doctor ordered.

It’s unusual to deliver a major foreign policy speech not pegged to any particular external event right in the closing days of a political campaign. But it’s also unusual to be dispatching thousands of soldiers to the border to stop a caravan that is still weeks away from arriving — if it ever does arrive.

Drastic last-minute moves on both fronts — moves that invoke contradictory themes — are confusing and likely unproductive from a foreign policy standpoint. But Trump is not one to put the niceties of the policymaking process over the partisan political needs of the moment. And he’s certainly not one to worry too much about whether or not he is putting forward a coherent agenda regarding the merits of people who flee bleak conditions in Latin America to seek a better life in the United States.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/betsy-devos-and-family-bankroll-florida-governor-candidate-desantis-a-school-voucher-enthusiast

Betsy DeVos and Family Bankroll Florida Governor Candidate DeSantis, a School Voucher Enthusiast

ByAdele M. Stan | October 24, 2018 5:54 pm

The third in our three-part series on the right-wing players around Ron DeSantis, the Republican candidate for governor of Florida.

When Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican candidate for governor, found himself in hot water—once again—over his beliefs about black people and America’s racial history, a handful of wealthy donors swooped in to try to rescue his campaign.Polls showed him in a dead heat against Democrat Andrew Gillum, who is African American.

Among the angels to alight in his coffers was the heiress Betsy DeVos, who currently leads the U.S. Department of Education, and whose family enriched a pro-DeSantis political action committee this month with hundreds of thousands of dollars. The DeVos family has long invested in the project of building a right-wing political infrastructure that is designed to elevate the policy prescriptions of white evangelical leaders, as has DeVos’ family of origin, the Princes. (Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, is DeVos’ brother. Her parents, Elsa and Edgar, helped found the Family Research Council, which is classified as an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.)

It’s not surprising that DeVos would want to rescue DeSantis. Take a look at the education agenda he has put forward and you’ll find a wish list of goodies for Religious Right leaders and other “small-government conservatives.” And even more than that, the specter of a progressive Democrat like Gillum leading education policy in a state as populous as Florida (20 million) could create a significant pocket of resistance to any federal policy imposed by DeVos.

While DeSantis may not be especially involved with the evangelical community, he knows on which side his bread is buttered. DeVos, champion of the privatization of education, and the Trump administration’s secretary of education, descends from Religious Right royalty. When Trump chose DeVos for that spot, it was because he knew on which side his base is buttered—the evangelical side.

Right-wing evangelicals and Catholics favor school voucher plans and supports for homeschoolers that siphon money away from public schools, as well as from the public-sector unions that represent teachers and other school personnel, all positions DeVos advances. The vouchers amount to tax dollars applied to tuition at private schools and those run by churches and other religious organizations. (For more on DeVos’ record as a school privatizer, see PFAW’s 2017 report, A New High Water Mark in Right Wing’s Long War on Public Education.)

In fact, on a visit to New York City last spring, the U.S. secretary of education seemed to go out of her way to insult public-school students and teachers by choosing two religious schools for a visit, but none of the city’s public schools. From a May 18 New York Times report:

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos toured two New York City schools on Tuesday and Wednesday, but the city’s public schools, with their 1.1 million students, were not among them.

Instead, Ms. DeVos visited two Orthodox Jewish schools, and offered her strongest comments to date in support of public funding for religious schools in a meeting with Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan and other Catholic dignitaries.

In addition to his pro-voucher position, DeSantis stood behind Amendment 8—a measure ultimately struck from the 2018 ballot by the Florida Supreme Court for being “misleading”—which would have yanked control of charter schools from local school boards and handed it to the state—through changes to the state constitution. Conservatives have found certain localities to be unwelcoming to charter schools.

The measure would also have imposed eight-year term limits on local school boards. Absent the ballot measure, DeSantis has folded those positions into his own education policy agenda.

The court’s actions stirred right-wing ire about the ideological balance of the state’s highest court. Governor Rick Scott, who is currently challenging incumbent U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson for his seat, had planned to replace three of the court’s justices just hours after he leaves office, but the court overruled his power-grab. Because of term limits on the state’s Supreme Court justices, three retirements will kick in automatically in January, leaving the next governor to determine the shape of the court.

SINCE WINNING the Florida GOP gubernatorial nomination, DeSantis’ attitudes towards African Americans have attracted scrutiny, beginning with comments he made at the outset of the general election campaign, when he urged Floridians to “not monkey this up” by electing Democratic opponent Andrew Gillum, who is black. Something of a steady trickle commenced, with DeSantis having to ditch a fundraiser, state Rep. Ralph Arza, who had used the “N” word in threatening voicemails to a colleague 12 years ago, and who has a reputation for using racial slurs. Next, the Washington Post published a report on DeSantis’ participation in the far-right conferences convened by David Horowitz, where he appeared on the same stage as the professionally offensive, white-nationalism-sympathizer Milo Yiannapoulos, and other far-right figures. Then, on October 8, the American Ledger blog published by the American Bridge super PAC unearthed a book he authored that made excuses for slavery in the U.S. The DeSantis campaign was losing momentum, virtually tied with Gillum in the polls.

Three days later, the candidate’s PAC, Friends of Ron DeSantis, received a total of $200,000 from four members of Betsy DeVos’ family, as well as infusions from others in the donor network created by the billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch.

Each of those donors no doubt has his or her own checklist of expectations and demands, but DeSantis’ school privatization agenda seems robust, hitting all of the key constituencies: the homeschoolers, the religious schools, the union-haters.

Some of the candidate’s education agenda, as posted on the Ron DeSantis for Governor website:

Support School Choice Options. To ensure that all Florida students can go to a good school and empower parents to make educational decisions for their children, Ron DeSantis will support school choice options such as public magnet schools, district & non-district managed public charter schools, Florida Virtual School, home education, and the various other choice options. DeSantis will also look at the possibility of creating Education Savings Accounts for more Florida students including those from low-income and working-class families.

[…]

Ensure Equal Access for Parents Who Home School Their Children.To support the families of the nearly 90,000 students in Florida that are home schooled, Ron DeSantis will ensure that these children have equal access to resources available to other students, such as dual enrollment and extracurricular activities. The decision on how a child should be educated is best left to their family, as no far-away bureaucrat could ever understand a child the way a parent does. For many Florida families, homeschooling provides the best opportunity to educate their children.

DeSantis also embraces a so-called “merit pay” scheme that seems designed to pit teacher against teacher, and teachers against non-teaching staff, by pledging to cut “wasteful” spending on the education “bureaucracy,” and funneling that “savings” into merit increases for selected teachers.

Like DeSantis, DeVos is a fan of charter schools, which also draw their funding from tax dollars, but exist outside the traditional public school system. In April 2017, DeVos visited the Excel Academy, a public charter school in Washington, D.C., describing it as a “shining example of a school meeting the needs of its students, parents and community.” By January 2018, the school had closed because of its poor performance.

Of course, there are reasons beyond DeSantis’ education agenda that make him an attractive repository for DeVos dollars. The family owns the Orlando Magic basketball team, a business, like any, that could always use a friend in the governor’s mansion.

Read more in our series on DeSantis and the right:

**Ron DeSantis’ Appearances at Horowitz Events: Even Worse the Closer You Look**

**Ron DeSantis Embraces Right-Wing Plan to Rewrite U.S. Constitution**

Tags: Andrew Gillum Betsy DeVos Edgar Prince Elsa Prince Erik Prince Ron DeSantis Election 2018 Amway Department of Education Family Research Council Southern Poverty Law Center

Florida Supreme Court Just Thwarted the Republican Governor's Underhanded and Desperate Plot to Grab Power

big issue 2018 election

https://www.ecowatch.com/red-tide-plagues-floridas-coasts-2610279647.html

mma

Natalie Martinez reported that two Republican Party officials are administrators of theprivate conspiracy theory Facebook group Florida Republicans United.Lou Marin and Kathy Gibson are the vice chair and state committeewoman, respectively, for the Orange County Republican Executive Committee. Gibson recently came under fire for posting a racist meme targeting Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum, which she claims was posted by someone who had hacked into her Facebook account.

Numerous far-right conspiracy theories have been pushed in the group:

Administrators shared posts about the 'QAnon' conspiracy theory, which claims that there is a secret pro-Trump effort fighting against widespread sex trafficking.
Marin alleged that the mass shooting in Parkland, FL, may have been "Just Another FALSE FLAG Designed to Take YOUR Guns."
Another administrator alleged that the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, VA, was a false flag. Another post defended the neo-Nazi who killed counterprotester Heather Heyer when he drove his car into the crowd.
Marin and others shared conspiracy theories about murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich.

Numerous Florida Republicans are listed as members of this Facebook group, including state Attorney General Pam Bondi, who recently spent a week as a guest host on Fox News.

Martinez has previously reported about top Republicans who were administrators for a racist Facebook group.

Also: Eric Hananoki reports that Dale Mensing, a congressional candidate who’s backed by the California Republican Party, wrote that the chemtrails conspiracy theory "is one of the three primary issues” of his campaign and used a video from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as evidence.

Rick Scott Has an Insane Plan to Pack the Florida Supreme Court on His Last Day of Office

Hayes tilden backroom deal ended Reconstruction

cascade intersection knock-on 1st & worst: [interesting that algae bloom an issue in senate race, both blame other]

Climate Change Is Creating an Affordable Housing Crisis in Miami

By Jeremy Deaton

Miami ranks among the most valuable real estate markets in the country. Palatial homes astride warm, teal waters sell for millions. But it's not Miami's ocean-front neighborhoods where property values are rising fastest. Housing costs are climbing more rapidly in neighborhoods that lie a little higher up along a ridge that runs parallel to the shore.

These neighborhoods are best protected against climate change.

"That's the ridge where we put the railroad. And that's the ridge where we sent the black and brown people to live. And all of a sudden — because we've got people on the Atlantic low-line getting tidal flooding and people near the Everglades low-line getting flooding — guess where everybody wants to live? On the ridge. So guess who's being displaced? The brown and black people," said Caroline Lewis, executive director of the CLEO Institute, at a town hall on climate change and gentrification in Miami on Monday.

...EW

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/gop-governor-declares-state-emergency-over-algae-pollution-after-cutting-700

GOP Governor Declares State of Emergency Over Algae Pollution After Cutting $700 Million From Agencies That Control It

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11062018/cities-pollution-carbon-footprint-climate-action-renewable-energy-investment-sustainability-report

hope atlanta so fla

NRA’s Nutty Florida Questionnaire Suggests Gun Lobby’s Power May Be Slipping

Is God against gun control? Unhinged Florida questionnaire suggests the NRA may be in a downward spiral

By Amanda Marcotte / Salon June 12, 2018, 2:32 AM GMT

The National Rifle Association (NRA) in Florida, under the state leadership of long-time lobbyist Marion Hammer, has had a death grip on power in state politics for years, even decades. But after two of the most high-profile mass shootings in American history, the Orlando nightclub shooting two years ago this week and the Parkland high school shooting in February — which collectively led to the deaths of 66 people and injured another 70 — the political tide may be turning against America's biggest gun lobby.

In March the nearly unthinkable happened when Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, signed a bill passed by the Republican-controlled Florida legislature that actually bucked the NRA by passing a modest set of restrictions on gun sales in the state, including raising the minimum age on gun purchases to 21, banning bump stocks, and creating a three-day waiting period for gun buyers.

Even this small show of defiance from state Republicans appears to have infuriated the local Hammer-controlled NRA, which sent out a questionnaire to 2018 candidates in Florida that had questions so aggressively worded that they went viral on Sunshine State social media and even got a comedy segmenton "The Opposition w/ Jordan Klepper."

Two questions on the questionnaire strongly suggest that by supporting gun safety regulation, a candidate is opposed to God and religious freedom. One question notes that the "oath of office requires you to place a hand on the Bible and swear to support" the Constitution, which, the questionnaire clearly suggests, can only be supported correctly by adhering to the NRA's fundamentalist interpretation of the Second Amendment.

When the questionnaire asks whether a candidate will oppose a ban on guns in churches, the only two available answers are, "Yes. Churches have a right to make security decisions on their private property," and "No. Despite private property rights and constitutional rights, I believe the State should regulate churches."

Much of the questionnaire is focused on obtaining a promise to repeal the gun regulations signed into law by Scott in March, again with questions worded in such a way that the "correct" answer in the NRA's eyes is unmistakable. The question about the age limit on firearm purchases, for instance, notes that people over 18 "can vote, sign contracts, become law enforcement officers and join the military" but avoids mentioning that they cannot legally drink alcohol until age 21. The question about the waiting period openly denies "empirical evidence" that it protects public safety, an assertion that is flat-out untrue.

"I find nothing at all 'aggressive' about the framing of the questions," Hammer said when asked about the four-page questionnaire. "The fact that some legislators voted in a manner contrary to how they answered questions in previous questionnaires resulted in an effort to be more clear about the importance of being honest with their answers so their constituents are not deceived."

Hammer also indicated the she, personally, had "a significant influence in the preparation of the questions and the questionnaire."

“This is just an attempt to suss which candidate's as extreme" as the NRA's agenda is, Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, told Salon. “The NRA clearly has a litmus test very much in keeping with its agenda, which is to make absolutely no attempts to pass stronger guns laws and, in fact, to make sure that lawmakers who are beholden to them align with their agenda of guns for anyone, anywhere, anytime, no questions asked.”

While the main purpose of this mailer appears to be to intimidate Republican politicians who have signed onto even modest gun reforms, Democratic candidates quickly repurposed it for themselves — to show how eager they are to tell the NRA off. State legislature candidate Anna Eskamani kicked off the trend by posting photos of the questionnaire on Twitter and writing, "Hard pass, and heading to the recycle bin."

Gubernatorial candidate Gwen Graham soon followedwith a video of herself writing, "NO NRA MONEY" on the questionnaire. One of her primary opponents for the Democratic nomination, Philip Levine, posted a video of himself writingNRA-unfriendly answers on a whiteboard. Another state house nominee, Tracy Pratt, also posted a photo of the questionnaire and tweeted, "I will proudly NOT be seeking their support or endorsement! #neveragain."

"Since the Parkland shooting, everyone who is opposed to the NRA agenda feels comfortable coming out against it, and I think that shows that it’s not a third-rail issue anymore," Watts said. "Lawmakers are looking at the polls and they know they can get elected by opposing the NRA, not by being silenced or even pretending to tolerate their extremist agenda.”

The issue of NRA influence over politics only grew more pronounced over the weekend, after the Tampa Bay Times published an exposé about the way state agriculture commissioner Adam Putnam, a Republican candidate for governor, handled the concealed-carry background check system that his office controls.

For more than a year, the office simply "stopped using the results from an FBI crime database" to run background checks, the paper reported, because the "employee in charge of the background checks could not log into the system." In other words, "applications got approved without the required background check."

A story about incompetence, however, quickly became politicized. Putnam has bragged about being an "#NRASellout" on Twitter and has bragged about how he sped up concealed-carry permit approvals in his time as commissioner. Putnam has decried the employee who spent a year not running proper background checks, but it's still a bad look for someone to tout his speed in issuing licenses, in light of the fact that they weren't being processed correctly at all.

Over the weekend, the four Democrats running for governor issued statements denouncing Putnam and suggesting that this failure shows he is unqualified to be governor.

Because of the NRA and Hammer's leadership over the decades, Florida has become one of the easiest states for people to buy and wield firearms. Unsurprisingly, it ranks 18th among states in violent crime, and research links the loosening of gun laws in the state, especially the "stand your ground" law that broadly defines legal self-defense, to an escalation of murder.

But now the tide may be starting to turn in Florida against the NRA. Democrats are campaigning hard against lax gun laws, Republicans are getting wobbly in some cases and there's a level of passion among gun-control advocates that previously only existed on the pro-gun side. Under the circumstances, this NRA questionnaire seems like a panic reaction, an effort to double down from a group whose previously unquestioned power is starting to crumble

https://www.alternet.org/election-03918/florida-election-official-illegally-destroyed-ballots-debbie-wasserman-schultzs

canova 2016

https://www.alternet.org/election-03918/florida-felon-voting-rights-restoration-campaign-threshold-getting-november-2018

A grassroots campaign to amend Florida’s constitution to restore the voting rights of upwards of 1.5 million Floridians who have been convicted of non-violent felonies and completed their sentences is poised to qualify for the November 2018 ballot.

By Wednesday, the Florida Department of State has certified more than 745,000 petition signatures of the 766,000 needed to get on the ballot. The proposed constitutional amendment also has to meet signature thresholds in 14 legislative districts and has done so in 12 of them, campaign organizers said.

“In total, we submitted well over 1.1 million petitions to the supervisors of elections offices all across the state, from Pensacola to Key West,” campaign manager Jackie Lee said on a conference call Tuesday. “And all the petitions, we think, where we needed to verify, were also all in by December 29th, to ensure that we could make the ballot. We all know they needed to be verified by February first. So because of all of your hard work, we had them in on time. We’re... actually even excited to submit a couple right after that date because they kept on coming in from all around the state.”

The felon rights restoration effort is one of America’s most important electoral initiatives in 2018. More than 10 percent of Florida’s voting-age population, 1.7 million residents, have lost their voting rights under the nation’s most punitive felon disenfranchisement law—a statute that has its roots in the Old South’s racist Jim Crow culture.

“This amendment restores the voting rights of Floridians with felony convictions after they complete all terms of their sentence including parole or probation,” the legal petition states. “The amendment would not apply to those convicted of murder or sexual offenses, who would continue to be permanently barred from voting unless the governor and cabinet vote to restore their voting rights on a case-by-case basis.”

Florida is the third most populous state, with slightly more than 20 million people. In 2016, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 1.2 percent, which was slightly less than 113,000 votes, to win its 29 Electoral College votes. Should 60 percent of Floridians—the threshold for passage—who vote next fall approve the constitutional amendment, it could deeply alter the state’s politics as well as its criminal justice system.

The campaign’s organizers, led by Desmond Meade, a former felon who became a lawyer, are casting their effort as a redemption-steeped crusade to give a second chance to all of those who have done their time for non-violent crimes. In a teleconference organized by Floridians for a Fair Democracy Tuesday, he repeatedly emphasized this was a moral crusade and avoided any discussion of the political consequences.

“I want to make sure we are oriented right back where we started from,” Meade told the 150 activists, including clergy, on the call. “When each and every one of you made a decision to be involved in this campaign, it was based around people. It was based around the personal stories of your family members and your friends who were looking for second chances in Florida. And I think it is this orientation that has not only gotten us this far, but will take [us] across this finish line. It’s not about anything else. It’s not about politics. At the core of this, it’s about everyday all-American citizens, who just want a second chance.”

Meade’s framing, which reflects his life story, has resounded because Florida has so many ex-felons who cut across society. Only 30 percent are black, campaign organizers said, and a great many were victims of overzealous drug war prosecutions. Evidence of that deep resonance can be found in the fact that nearly a quarter-million of the petition signatures gathered were collected from volunteers, not paid circulators.

“We are very confident with moving forward with the campaign,” said Lee. “As of right now before the call, we are at 745,000 verified of the 766,200 that we need. So we are approaching that overall number and we are also verified in 12 of the 14 [legislative] districts that we need. So we are marching forward.”

Emphasizing Redemption, Not Political Power

...

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/florida-may-restore-voting-rights-17-million-ex-felons-so-long-republicans

Investigative reporter Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News dropped a small bombshell this quiet holiday week that hasn't really exploded yet but might just explain the GOP's recent full-court press to discredit the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller's team. Rep. Francis Rooney, a Florida Republican, explained:

I would like to see the directors of those agencies [the DOJ and FBI] purge it and say, "Look, we’ve got a lot of great agents, a lot of great lawyers here." Those are the people to see and know the good work’s being done, not these people who are kind of the deep state.

On Wednesday, Rep. Ron DeSantis, another Florida Republican, went on "Fox & Friends" and backed up his colleague's sentiments, saying,"You look at a guy like Peter Strzok [the FBI agent demoted for sending derogatory texts about many politicians including Trump]. If he’s gonna say that it’s his job as an FBI to prevent a certain candidate from getting elected. ... Anyone who turns up in that situation, I think they should get another line of work.”

For what it's worth, Strzok is a counterintelligence agent who appeared concerned that the "certain candidate" might be acting as an agent of a foreign adversary, which was important information the nation didn't have before the election. In any case, from what we can gather, these Republican congressmen identify nefarious "deep state" actors as those who cannot swear that they are not now and have never been a... Democrat.

As one can imagine, the use of the word "purge" brought forth some rather unfortunate historical images. We haven't seen evidence that they plan the usual accompanying show trials, but give them time. Republicans in Congress are working feverishly to prepare hearings on the Hillary Clinton "Russian uranium email treason" hearings so there's a chance we'll see some kind of facsimile before 2018.

The hysteria that's now raging seems a bit of an outsized reaction for this particular phase of the scandal, especially considering that Mueller actually did remove the offending "deep-staters." Isikoff may have come across a different motivation than simple loyalty to President Trump. He wrote:

In just the last few weeks, his prosecutors have begun questioning Republican National Committee staffers about the party digital operation that worked with the Trump campaign to target voters in key swing states. They are seeking to determine if the joint effort was related to the activities of Russian trolls and bots aimed at influencing the American electorate, according to two of the sources.

It would not be surprising if certain Republicans were to become a bit nervous when the investigation into Russian interference turned in that particular direction. It's flown under the radar since the election, but the fact is that it wasn't only the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta's email accounts that were hacked. The intelligence community identified the same group of Russian-affiliated hackers as behind the hacking of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

I've been intrigued by this aspectof the Russian hacking story since the New York Times published an early report about it back in November of 2016. Recall that at first the hacker known as Guccifer 2.0 released personal information that was used to intimidate Democratic candidates, but then he/she/they suddenly became more sophisticated and targeted, dumping valuable tactical information:

The seats that Guccifer 2.0 targeted in the document dumps were hardly random: They were some of the most competitive House races in the country.

People have wondered ever since if the hacker(s) might have gotten some expert assistance.

Perhaps it's a coincidence that so much of the information in question was republished on a website called HelloFLA by a Florida Republican and former congressional staffer named Aaron Nevins, who was connected to Trump associate and longtime political operative Roger Stone. It could be completely random that among the core group of Mueller antagonists, those calling the probe a "coup d'état" and demanding purges of members of the "deep state" are Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who proposed that Mueller's funding be cut off, and the aforementioned Rep. Francis Rooney, who's been all over TV talking about purging the FBI.

Indeed, as journalist Marcy Wheeler pointed out a while back, one of the ringleaders of the movement to discredit the Department of Justice and Robert Mueller, Rep. DeSantis, directly benefited from Guccifer 2.0’s leak to Nevins after the latter published five documents regarding the DCCC’s recruitment of DeSantis’ Democratic opponent, George Pappas. According to The Wall Street Journal, Guccifer 2.0 even sent a link with a HelloFLA article directly to Roger Stone, who told reporters he didn’t forward the hacked material to anyone -- the answer to a question nobody asked,

Donald Trump may think their vociferous attacks on Mueller are all about loyalty to him personally. After all, this group all flew down to Florida together on Air Force One earlier this month. But these guys have skin in the game now and may very well be caught up in the maw of the Russia investigation themselves.If Mueller's team is looking into the digital operation and Roger Stone's interactions with Guccifer 2.0, as one would expect them to do, then these shenanigans in Florida are also coming into view. That may explain why this little circle of Sunshine State GOP congressmen are so anxious to shut him down.

They might not be the only ones. According to The New York Times, material from the DCCC hack was first used by Miami-area Democrat Joe Garcia, a former congressman, to win a tight primary race. Then "the National Republican Campaign Committee and a second Republican group with ties to the House speaker, Paul Ryan, turned to the hacked material" to undermine Garcia and re-elect Rep. Carlos Curbelo,the Republican incumbent.

It should be noted that there were some candidates who refused to use the hacked material against their opponents. This gang of Florida Republicans who are now so loudly attacking the FBI for its supposedly unethical behavior were not among them. As we all know, neither was Donald "I love WikiLeaks" Trump.

digby

prompted in part by TP duelling solar initiatives

another partner:

STATEMENT SUPPORTING THE CONSUMERS FOR SMART SOLAR AMENDMENT

August 13, 2015

by RealEstateRama

WASHINGTON, D.C. – August 13, 2015 – (RealEstateRama) — The National Congress of Black Women, Inc. (NCBW) supports the efforts of the Consumers for Smart Solar. As stated in our Amicus Brief filed at the Florida Supreme Court on June 10, 2015, the NCBW opposes the Floridians for Solar Choice (FSC) Solar Ballot Initiative because the proposed amendment, if approved, will have a recurring detrimental financial impact on Black women, their families and communities in particular, as well as generally upon members of the public dependent upon electric utility service.

Persons who cannot afford solar energy will not have the benefit of solar energy. Yet, those persons will suffer utility rate increases needed to subsidize the use or intermittent use of the utility grid by solar energy users.

As an organization whose mission is to encourage the participation of Black women and their families in the development of public policy that impacts them through political education and involvement, the failure of the FSC ballot summary to fully and accurately explain the purpose and overall effect and ramifications of the proposed amendment, causes an unfair and misleading presentation to the voters.

You can learn more about our Supreme Court Brief by visiting:

http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/pub_info/summaries/briefs/15/15-780/Filed_06-10-2015_Brief_of_Opponent.pdf#search=national congress of black women

Contact

National Congress of Black Women, Inc

Orlando Chapter

P. O. Box 680662

Orlando, Florida 32862

(407) 600-7614

ncbworlando (at) gmail (dot) com

http://floridapolitics.com/archives/188252-floridians-for-government-accountability-latest-group-to-endorse-smart-solar-amendment

A statewide group promoting fiscal responsibility at all levels of government is the latest to endorse the solar energy ballot initiative by Consumers for Smart Solar.

Floridians for Government Accountability, a corporation formed to educate the public on economic issues, is throwing its support behind the campaign to oppose a “consumer unfriendly” initiative put forth by Floridians for Solar Choice.

Opponents of the Solar Choice amendment – which they say is “shady” – call it a poorly worded proposal that, if passed, would end several essential consumer protections and result in higher electric rates. They also contend that Solar Choice, the people behind the original solar initiative, receives most of its funding from a single out-of-state source — the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy Action Fund.

In contrast, the Smart Solar Amendment says it seeks to guarantee those protections while ensuring increased access to the newest solar technologies.

“Ballot initiative language must be clear and easy for voters to understand,” said Floridians for Government Accountability Chair Jim Hart. “That’s why we are happy to support the consumer-friendly amendment put forth byConsumers for Smart Solar.” bogus

Smart Solar, which launched last month, is actively collecting petitions to have the amendment included on Florida’s 2016 general election ballot.

“Unfortunately, the language of the ‘Shady Solar Amendment’ is vague and misleading and could lead to increased utility costs or higher taxes for Floridians,” Hart said. “We support the expansion of solar power, but not at the expense of adequate consumer protections. We want to make sure voters clearly understand possible changes to the state constitution.

“We encourage everyone to review the ‘smart’ amendment that we believe benefits Florida consumers.”

The goals of Floridians for Government Accountability includes hosting volunteer policy committees, issue surveys and forums to discuss issues important to Florida’s future.

Others lining up behind the Smart Solar Amendment include free-market and libertarian groups, as well as the60 PlusAssociation,Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Florida Faith & Freedom Coalition, and former Florida Public Service Commission Chairman Matthew M. Carter II.

http://www.fshcc.com/fshcc-programs-balance-energy

clean coal

As a peninsula, Florida is unfortunately more exposed and susceptible to natural and manmade disasters. Over reliance on any one energy source could lead to disastrous situations. Over half of Florida’s electricity is generated by natural gas. There is a need for the state to explore alternative energy sources that enhance reliability and ensure access to affordable energy. Clean coal, nuclear, and cost-effective energy efficiency are readily available alternatives that can provide for enhanced reliability and affordability.

By providing a reliable, affordable, and environmentally compatible source of electricity, clean coal and nuclear energy keep Florida businesses competitive. Clean coal and nuclear plants also are engines of local job growth, and keep businesses operating expenses predictably low for the life of the energy facility.

Most concerning for our members is that Florida may be 70% reliant on natural gas by the end of 2020, and our members are concerned about relying on one fuel that experienced a peak price of $13.69 per million British thermal units on July 2, 2008. This overreliance on one fuel could undermine recent growth in our economy and burden Florida families with high electricity prices. To combat this overreliance, BEF suggests Florida policymakers embrace alternatives to natural gas that promote and achieve reliable and affordable electricity.