State of Plague

Just when you think things can't get any dumber in the Sunshine State, the crazed Republican leadership that's been pretty much in charge since 1999 prove they can dumb down even further.

The GOP Morans are playing to their conspiracy-driven anti-vax MAGA base by deciding to end vaccine mandates for public schools (via Greg Allen at NPR): 

Florida's governor said he'll be asking the state Legislature to repeal a statute that requires children to receive vaccines for polio, diphtheria, measles and mumps before entering school. If it passes, Florida will be the first in the nation to eliminate all vaccine mandates for children and adults.

Other vaccines, including those for chickenpox, hepatitis B and strep infections, are mandated by the state health department, as opposed to Florida's Legislature. The state's Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said his department will soon issue rules repealing those requirements too.

"People have a right to make their own decisions," said Ladapo, who joined Gov. Ron DeSantis for the announcement on Wednesday. "If you don't want to put whatever vaccines in your body, God bless you. And I hope you make an informed decision. And that's how it should be."

These are, by the by, the same assholes whose anti-abortion stance is to take away all health care choices by women period, so where the "make their own decisions" defense then you bastards.

Public health and child health professionals condemned the move. Dr. Aileen Marty, an infectious disease expert at Florida International University, said, "This will cause havoc."

"It will cause problems for funding free vaccines for the impoverished and issues with vaccines to the rest of us due to insurance-related issues," Marty said. "It is clearly against empirical evidence of what is safest for individual children."

It's more than just the children at risk. It will be the teachers, the parents, the communities at large. Schools can be super-spreaders, which we saw happen during the beginnings of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

And here's the thing: COVID is not over. It's still out there, and not just in Florida.

And it's not just COVID, or "regular" influenza.

We're seeing the re-emergence of measles as an infectious threat after decades of thinking our nation had finally seen an end to it. But after all those decades of our medical and scientific leaders successfully promoting and encouraging vaccinations to reduce the risks, we're now in an age when medical frauds are in charge of our nation's health care and are actively shutting down every agency and means to combat infectious diseases.

It is factual to declare that Robert Kennedy Jr., that sonofabitch, is on the side of the viruses making us sick or dead.

And Florida's elected leaders like DeSantis are happy to assist RFK Jr and the other anti-vax frauds to wage war on our children and families all because their anti-science ideology convinces them their ignorance is superior to decades if not centuries of proven medical practice.

Republicans would rather have thousands of Floridians die than admit their anti-vax stances was poor pandering to their conspiracy-driven MAGA base. We're all going to pay for inept, insane leadership by a party that won't lead towards honest-to-God better health and safety for our communities.

Fighting the Fear in Florida

It's hard to keep track of all the atrocities trump and his thugs are inflicting on the United States, but this one back in June really stood out as they were pulling this shit in my backyard: 

Pandering to the harsh anti-immigrant war on our American communities, Governor DeSantis and his cronies are fast-tracking a migrant detention center in South Florida (via Rachel Treisman at NPR):

Despite resistance, Florida officials are turning an airfield in the Everglades into a migrant detention center, which they've nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz" due to its proximity to the apex predators.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier proposed the project last week, saying in a video posted to X that, in support of the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had asked state leaders to identify places for temporary detention facilities.

"I think this is the best one, as I call it: Alligator Alcatraz," Uthmeier said, referencing the infamous prison island in San Francisco Bay...

If anyone's paying attention to the overwhelmed ICE "detention facilities" right now, there are serious overcrowding, food availability, and wellness problems to where people are dying in custody. Even this horrific attempt to alleviate crowding at existing facilities won't stop this new prison - it's not a detention center, trust me - from being overcrowded itself. Stephen Miller wants his fucking quotas filled, and doesn't give a damn about treating his and ICE's victims with any basic decency or civil rights.

From what people can see happening at the airfield - there are already protestors gathering, bless them - it's looking like a bunch of portable classrooms getting converted into barracks, which I guarantee you will not be adequately air-conditioned. I doubt there will be any serviceable water or sewage considering that abandoned airfield would need months of dedicated construction efforts to make it genuinely livable.

This isn't going to be a safe or healthy place to get imprisoned...

And it turns out I - and the environmental and civil rights activists as well - was right about that hellhole being unsafe, unsound, and inhuman. Last week, federal judge Kathleen Williams gutted the anti-immigrant bastards for their sins (via AP News / NPR):

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams' injunction formalized a temporary halt she had ordered two weeks ago as witnesses continued to testify in a multiday hearing to determine whether construction should end until the ultimate resolution of the case...

The judge said she expected the population of the facility to decline within 60 days through the transferring of the detainees to other facilities, and once that happened, fencing, lighting and generators should be removed. She wrote the state and federal defendants can't bring anyone other than those who are already being detained at the facility onto the property. The order does not prohibit modification or repairs to existing facilities, "which are solely for the purpose of increasing safety or mitigating environmental or other risks at the site.,"

The preliminary injunction includes "those who are in active concert or participation with" the state of Florida or federal defendants or their officers, agents, employees," the judge wrote in an 82-page order.

The judge said state officials never sufficiently explained why the facility needed to be in the middle of the Florida Everglades. "What is apparent, however, is that in their haste to construct the detention camp, the State did not consider alternative locations," Williams said...

DeSantis and Uthmeier never explained why they put the concentration camp there because they didn't want to repeat under oath their gleeful desire to "witness alligators eating any detainees trying to escape." Cruelty may play well on Fox Not-News but not in a courtroom.

While the legal ruling focuses mostly on the environmental impact of the camp, it helps stall the ongoing efforts by the Far Right under trump and Stephen Miller to incarcerate every dark-skinned person they can find in majority-Democratic cities/states. With any luck, it'll at least end that tasteless and profane merch industry that sprang up promoting "Alligator Alcatraz" like it was fcking Disney World.

If there's any good news right now, it's that ICE and the Florida AG aren't ignoring this court order: reports are that camp is emptying out and should be cleared in a few more days.

The bad news is: Where the hell are those poor detainees - most of them honest working people, family members, not at all the criminal rot the fearmongers insist upon - going? There is no way these haters are going to give up the targets of their fear/rage: ICE is most likely shipping these people to the other concentration camps they've been setting up in other Red states across the country. 

This is all going to turn into a sick and cruel game of "hot potato": moving immigrant prisoners from state to state dodging the lawsuits that will get filed in response to any legal abuses the Far Right leaders across those states will inflict on their victims.

If only we had a working Congress that would use its' constitutional powers to rein in a lawless, vulgar, monstrous president shitgibbon. 

Keep fighting. Keep protesting. Stop every concentration camp from getting built. Stop these hatemongers.

Fascism in Florida: Building the Horrors to Come

Update 7/3/25: Oooh, I am so sorry I missed getting mentioned on Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up today. I'm a bit distracted with taking care of an ill kitteh and a few other personal things, sorry. Thank you, Batocchio, for the share. To anybody still visiting, I promise to blog four times for the 4th of July (my Four For the Fourth thing) so I hope to see you tomorrow.

There are times I hate living in this godforsaken deep Republican hellhole that is Florida.

Pandering to the harsh anti-immigrant war on our American communities, Governor DeSantis and his cronies are fast-tracking a migrant detention center in South Florida (via Rachel Treisman at NPR):

Despite resistance, Florida officials are turning an airfield in the Everglades into a migrant detention center, which they've nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz" due to its proximity to the apex predators.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier proposed the project last week, saying in a video posted to X that, in support of the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had asked state leaders to identify places for temporary detention facilities.

"I think this is the best one, as I call it: Alligator Alcatraz," Uthmeier said, referencing the infamous prison island in San Francisco Bay.

The goddamned trumpshirts can't give up their fantasies about Alcatraz, can they?

Uthmeier told the right-wing podcast The Benny Show on Monday that the federal government had approved his plan that morning, with the facility on track to open the first week of July. He said it would have 5,000 beds — half of its total capacity — by "early July."

"Alligator Alcatraz will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida," the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) later wrote on X.

DeSantis is using emergency powers to take over the site, which is owned by Miami-Dade County.

But not everyone is on board.

Environmental organizations and immigration advocates have expressed concerns about multiple aspects of the project, from the potential consequences on the fragile Everglades ecosystem to the well-being of the people who will be detained there, especially in the hot summer months.

If anyone's paying attention to the overwhelmed ICE "detention facilities" right now, there are serious overcrowding, food availability, and wellness problems to where people are dying in custody. Even this horrific attempt to alleviate crowding at existing facilities won't stop this new prison - it's not a detention center, trust me - from being overcrowded itself. Stephen Miller wants his fucking quotas filled, and doesn't give a damn about treating his and ICE's victims with any basic decency or civil rights.

From what people can see happening at the airfield - there are already protestors gathering, bless them - it's looking like a bunch of portable classrooms getting converted into barracks, which I guarantee you will not be adequately air-conditioned. I doubt there will be any serviceable water or sewage considering that abandoned airfield would need months of dedicated construction efforts to make it genuinely livable.

This isn't going to be a safe or healthy place to get imprisoned.

And the majority of people getting sent to this forsaken swampy Alcatraz aren't going to be gangbangers, or criminals, or violent people. It's going to be nurses, mothers, veterans, families, honest-to-God citizens.

This isn't even really a prison: it's a goddamned concentration camp, and the first of many under trump.

This is ethnic cleansing, the likes of which we've seen in Nazi Germany, and the Balkans in the 1990s, and dozens of other places we used to pretend we'd never be like. Except that is for the history of us punishing Native Americans in the 19th Century and Japanese residents during the Second World War.

This is us at our worst, America. We need to fight back against what trump and Miller and their ICE thugs and their wingnut allies are doing to our communities and our neighbors. 

Addendum: JFC the Florida Republicans are selling t-shirts promoting this! This is akin to Nazis shilling merch promoting Dachau! Yes I went there, because these goddamn wingnuts are blatantly rounding people up just like 1930s Germany.

The cruelty is not only the point, the cruelty is not only policy, the cruelty is open vice signaling to their fellow haters. GODDAMN THEM.

An Anecdote Involving Air Conditioning

Update: Thanks again to Batocchio for sharing this blog at Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Just remember to save up your pennies, kiddos, 'cause trump's tariff rollercoaster ain't done yet.

Last week, I needed to replace my air conditioner.

The unit was as old as the duplex, built in the mid-1990s. I bought the place - with my parents help, as I was still recovering from long unemployment - in 2014 with the understanding that things were 20-plus years old and at some point will age out and die on me.

The AC compressor had been a problem for years, barely generating enough air to cover the two-bedroom place. The far ends of the house - which happened to be the master bed and bath - wasn't getting much air at all the last five-six years. The AC repair guy told me the last two annual checkups that the compressor was doomed sooner rather than later. This winter, it finally doomed.

The repair guy came out and checked, and showed me the points of failure in the compressor that meant getting a replacement. Problem is, the whole unit was thirty years old, and replacement parts - even compressors - were no longer available. The whole thing needed switching out.

And the cost was going to be around $7500.

Any homeowner will tell you things can get expensive - have been even before the housing booms of the 1980s and 1990s, and the housing market crash of 2007-08. It was still something above my annual income, and it was something I had to get further help from the parents, who were understanding because they knew I lived alone and had no other options other than an equity loan that would cost me a lot more later down the road. They had already helped to clear my mortgage, so replacing the AC was something they could help.

Also, this is the middle of Florida, heading into April and the goddamn heat wave that is April through November anymore (fuck you deniers, climate change is REAL). Air conditioning should not be a privilege, it should be a constitutional right in this state.

So I put in the repair order, the AC guys came out with a three-person crew, they worked on it early Thursday morning well into noon, finishing an hour early, and got the system turned on and pumping clear air. I checked: the new compressor is strong enough to get air to the back rooms of my duplex. At last.

While showing me that new compressor, pointing out what I need to look at in case there are any issues during the limited warranty period for it, the three AC guys all complimented me on spending $7500 on the whole thing.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because," the lead guy responded. "Next week, our company has to raise the price on these units by 20 percent."

Basic math told me 20 percent (.2) of $7500 (and change) was $1500 (and change) meaning a cost spike to $9000 (and change). THAT would have even made my parents give pause and suggest I just live with the ceiling fans on full blast for the rest of my life. 

I had to ask this. "Is this because of the trump tariffs?"

All three of the repair guys - where at least one of them had to have voted for that shitgibbon trump in 2024 - said "Yup!" while shaking their heads in discomfort if not alarm.

And this was just as trump unleashed his "liberation" Retribution tariffs on every country and territory on the maps - save for his buddies in Russia - to where we've started trade wars with the entire planet - again, save for Russia - even the islands populated solely by penguins (no, I am not making that up).

I could go into the illogic of trump - and his handlers' - math regarding how his tariffs are "fixing" any trade deficits we have with penguins and most of humanity, and I would argue that trade deficits we've had since the 1970s aren't damaging our economy the way trump claims. Hell, it's not trade deficits that have caused recessions, it had been reckless deregulation of financial markets; the upending of our housing markets; and a global pandemic that our political leaders - especially trump himself - barely took serious.

But I'm sticking to this anecdote as an example - that I'm certain is repeating across many households  this weekend - that right now, the American economy as we know it - our industrial capacity, our supply chains, our ability to provide goods and services, our ability to get reliable air conditioning - is doomed by trump's irrational and aggressive push for high tariffs.

The U.S. economy is not ready for any of this. And all the other damage trump and his lackeys are inflicting on us - the dismantling of our federal agencies, the theft of revenues, the growing job losses - is turning this all into the early stages of an economic depression. It won't even be a recession long enough to ease the coming fall off the cliffs.

Gods help us.

In The Matter of Allegations Relating to Gaetz

Update: Io Saturnalia to Steve In Manhattan for tagging this article for Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up. I hope everyone's safe and healthy and enjoying whatever there is of the holiday spirit. Except for Matt Gaetz. I hope he rots.

I need to get back into the blogging mindset, and what better way to get at it than to report on the nastiness of Florida's Worst Scuzzbucket (AKA Matt Gaetz)?

After all the storm and fury over the House Ethics' investigation into his misconduct with underage women - where the House voted to suppress the committee's report while trump was offering Gaetz control of the Justice Department, all of it rendered moot when Gaetz dropped out after a disastrous meeting with angry Senators poised to deny him the post - the committee decided to leak that report this week anyway.

Going by the summary, here are the things that Gaetz did that crossed a whole bunch of lines (skip to page two):

In sum, the Committee found substantial evidence of the following:

• From at least 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him.

• In 2017, Representative Gaetz engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl.

• During the period 2017 to 2019, Representative Gaetz used or possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on multiple occasions.

• Representative Gaetz accepted gifts, including transportation and lodging in connection with a 2018 trip to the Bahamas, in excess of permissible amounts.

• In 2018, Representative Gaetz arranged for his Chief of Staff to assist a woman with whom he engaged in sexual activity in obtaining a passport, falsely indicating to the U.S. Department of State that she was a constituent.

• Representative Gaetz knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct the Committee’s investigation of his conduct.

• Representative Gaetz has acted in a manner that reflects discreditably upon the House.

Based on the above, the Committee concluded there was substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress.

This is the stuff that the House Ethics committee uncovered in spite of a Justice Department's investigation into Gaetz's criminal behavior back in 2021 that ended up going nowhere. The DOJ argued at the time that they couldn't proceed to criminal charges on Gaetz because their witnesses were either unreliable on the stand or unwilling to testify. You can see that as well in the committee's work where most of the teenage girls claimed their Fifth Amendment rights to avoid self-incrimination, but even then the congresscritters and their staffs were able to put the pieces together that would have made a legitimate criminal case. Goddamn.

One of the horrifying elements of these reports is how much of Gaetz's misconduct was openly known. Not so much the prostitution, but his eagerness to sex women far younger than his own age range and his often drunken (now allegedly drugged) state of mind. Stories were rife about fellow legislators at both the state house and congressional levels how Gaetz would brag about and share pictures of his sexual exploits in the public forums. For all that his fellow congresscritters were bothered by his vulgarity, none of them cared enough to stop him until his business buddy Joel Greenberg got caught and revealed the nastier stuff hiding under the Florida GOP's foundations. 

While a solid number of our Republican elected officials DO care about their own personal conduct and ethics, they do happily turn a blind eye to a lot of this bad behavior because of two reasons: Some of them fear "rocking the boat" and disrupting their party's access to power; and Some of them honestly don't see the harm of sexually exploiting / abusing young women - even underage - because their own conservative philosophy - that women and the young are not part of their elite status and thus exploitable by their laws - allows it.

Granted, Democrats in power get caught in their own sex scandals and misconduct towards young women as well, but on this scale? With this level of disdain and disregard that Gaetz kept displaying towards his targets? You can feel from just reading the report the contempt he had, the lack of emotional connection to most of the girls he manhandled.

When you expand your view to examine the sexual misconduct we've seen over the years, you should notice that when it comes to Republican sex scandals there's an open display of misogyny and toxic masculinity driving most of that behavior. It's at a point where a more nonpartisan government would require full drug testing and ID checks of women under 40 at every Republican-based country club and convention gatherings just to make sure they're not violating laws.

And we STILL haven't seen a full accounting of Jeffrey Epstein's Client List containing the names of Men Of Power - both Republican and Democrat and CEO billionaire alike - who "flew the Lolita Express" engaging in sexual misconduct with seriously underaged girls.

Do us a huge favor, Joe Biden: Just before you leave office this January 20th 2025 PLEASE release the Epstein Client List (redacting the names of victims ONLY) not only to the general public but to every law enforcement agency on the planet.

Women remain abused as long as Men of Power retain that power to abuse them. THIS NEEDS TO END.

And ship Gaetz to the nearest prison for breaking drug use and statutory rape laws, please and thanks this Saturnalia season.

This Isn't Entirely Good News, But For the Moment We'll Take It (w/ Update)

So I've been struggling over the past week trying to write up about the dangers of trump's incoming Cabinet picks - a number of them absolutely unqualified for their positions and arguably dangerous in those offices - when the most notorious and ill-advised pick - Matt Gaetz for Attorney General - found out this morning how screwed his chances were and opted to withdraw his name (via Elena Moore, Deidre Walsh, and Lexie Schapitl at NPR):

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., is withdrawing his candidacy to be President-elect Trump's attorney general, after sex trafficking and drug use allegations threatened to imperil his confirmation.

After meeting with Republican senators to discuss his nomination, Gaetz, a conservative firebrand from Florida and a loyal Trump defender, wrote on social media Thursday that "it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition."

Trump's pick to lead the Department of Justice has faced concern and questions from Republicans all week. His decision to bow out puts some of those to rest.

When trump announced Gaetz as his Attorney General pick, the original response from most congresscritters - the ones who knew Gaetz and knew full well how much of a scuzbucket he is (allegedly) - was a mixture of shock and horror. Never mind how he had absolutely zero experience in law enforcement or legal jurisprudence to serve as the top federal prosecutor: Gaetz was facing a major ethics probe ordered by former Speaker McCarthy of his own party - the details of which kept leaking even as the Republicans on the committee voted not to release it to the public - which made it difficult for the Republican senators to happily back the move.

One horrifying thing is that while Gaetz is no longer up for an important Cabinet position - one that trump wanted twisted to serve his plans for revenge - he is still going to sit in the same U.S. House of Representatives that investigated him for his sexual and drug abuses. He had resigned once trump offered him the AG post as a means of squashing that incoming ethics report, but because he'd been re-elected by a Florida district that doesn't fucking care that their representative is an alleged sex offender Gaetz is going back to get sworn in to the next session. Surrounded by colleagues who know how much of a pervert he is.

(Revised Update 11/27: It turned out Gaetz will not return at all. Apparently he did read the room and realized he was doomed if he went back to Congress. DeSantis ordered up a speedy special election in 30 days, as the GOP hold on the House is insanely slim and they need every wingnut they can forcibly gerrymander into Congress. Gods help us though, there's rumors Gaetz is going to run for Florida Governor next cycle...)

The other horrifying thing is that trump still has a roster of loyalist Republicans willing to do his dirty work of turning the Department of Justice into his personal Department of Vengeance. Deciding to stick with picking someone from the Insanity State, trump tabbed former Florida AG Pam Bondi for the spot. While Bondi has the legal experience to serve at that job, she's better known as one of the state attorney generals who refused to pursue fraud charges on Trump University even after it became known she solicited trump to donate to her re-election campaigns. This cost the victims in Florida a chance to recover their money from the $25 million settlement trump agreed to avoid the court ruling. She is bought and paid for, America, and trump will insist she prove her loyalty by attacking everyone he wants destroyed.

If there's any good news from all this chaos, it's how the Senate Republicans made it clear they weren't going to roll over and beg for mercy the way trump and his MAGA supporters wanted. Befitting his role as the bully, trump had been signaling he wanted all of his Cabinet selections - as bad as they are, Gaetz was just the most noticeable disaster - regardless of any senatorial objections. he's out there threatening to use an obscure recess maneuver to circumvent the Senate's role of approving appointments. he tried getting his loyalist Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott elected to Senate Majority Leader (if there's any real good news, Scott didn't even make it out of the first round of ballots). One of trump's loudest lackeys, Sen. Tuberville, tried to threaten retaliation on his fellow senators should they refuse to accept trump's picks.

But if there's anything about U.S. Senators - regardless of party - it's that senators enjoy the power they wield within the federal system. Being a senator is almost as good as being a President, with just about the same number of perks and with fewer headaches. Those powers to "advise and consent" on things like Cabinet/Judicial appointments and foreign policy are things senators will not give up willingly.

While a Republican-controlled Senate will likely grant trump most of what he's asking - much like they did when they approved the likes of Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court - even they have to abide by their own standards, to which many of trump's other Cabinet appointments - some of them like Pete Hegseth getting exposed with their own scandals as I write this - are going to face a hard public review.

This isn't going to get easier. It's going to get crazier, as trump keeps looking for ways to blow this all up.

Gods help us. Again.

Think Happy Thoughts

I woke up Tuesday morning to a bad thought that if I waited until Election Day itself - November 5th, kiddos! - that I could show up to my precinct and find out the local Republicans somehow submitted a fake ballot in my name and take away my vote. 

Paranoid as I was - they can't really do that, right? - I decided to forgo the tradition of voting on the day itself. I went to the Bartow Early Voting location to go ahead and get my vote in the machine.

At the Polk Street Community Center

As I talked about earlier, there were key matters to vote on this 2024 election cycle, above all making sure donald "34 Felony Counts" trump won't cheat his way back into the White House and voting for a saner, competent Kamala Harris:

BALLZ TO THE WALZ, AMERICA

I made sure to vote for the Senate seat:

FCK YOU, "MEDICARE FRAUD" SCOTT

I made sure to vote Democratic for the Congressional, State legislative, and county seats by the by.

And of the six Florida Amendment referenda, here's my votes YES on Three (decriminalizing marijuana) and Yes on Four (Abortion rights for women).

Damn, the ballot sheets are longer than my arm...

Let there be no confusion: This is about letting
women control their own bodies instead of the
Culture War wingnuts

Part of me is worried I didn't ink that completely filled...

So now at least for myself, it's all over except waiting for the ballot counts.

And GODS HELP ME, I'm still stressed about it. And I know I'm not the only one. 

So let's try to look for the positivity reflected in how there is a better mood among Democratic and Left-leaning Independent voters heading into November. Anne Laurie over at Balloon Juice shared some good vibes via a post on Substack from Kevin Dillon:

My texts are full these days of “are we gonna be okay?” and, then, a beat later, “are you really sure?” Over and over, my answers are basically “yes” and “as sure as I can be...”

So, to save some time and in the spirit of “to hell with it,” here in one place is what data and my gut tell me I believe: she’ll win and outperform the polls. Trump will be rejected, as he has been in every election since he first became president - 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 - either where he was on the ballot directly or by proxy through candidates closely identified with him, including in multiple of the same swing states we’re all obsessing over now.

His campaign’s relentless focus on anti-trans ads will come to be seen as an epic strategic blunder, in addition to unforgivably morally repugnant. We’ll acknowledge that the supposedly disciplined, well-planned campaign to beat Biden never quite found its footing ever again once the candidate changed. We’ll remember that his one and only, and very close, win in 2016 came when he was, despite controversy, new and fresh and funny (to his people at least - and no small amount of journalists.) He was energetic, went EVERYWHERE, and was able to at least occasionally give the impression of being in on the joke and enjoying himself. In 2016, he had an underrated strategic ambiguity on what kind of Republican he was, whether promising to protect Social Security or maintaining a wink-wink ambivalence on abortion, aided by voters’ inability to truly imagine him doing the most outrageous things, or the horror of Roe being overturned. In his own way, he had a kind of disciplined, positive and constructive message about what he would do: make America great again, build the wall, drain the swamp. In 2024, he has none of it, much less the vitality and clarity of eight years ago.

We’re going to see afresh what’s been staring us in the face since 2022: Dobbs was a political earthquake, with aftershocks still reverberating out. It wasn’t just digested and processed in 2022 and now behind us. As much as Roe catalyzed a new movement for its opponents, brought in new groups of voters (many crossing old partisan lines), and energized activists for decades; Dobbs is doing the same here and now.

To the extent poll error happens, I believe it is likelier to be in her favor than his after eight years of pollsters obsessively focused on how to not miss Trump supporters. We are all understandably so traumatized by 2016’s loss, and so many were surprised by 2020’s margin (though notably, not the Biden campaign itself) that, even though there are fairly convincing theories for how each happened, we’ve become hostages of superstition and anxiety - even when we can’t quite articulate a good theory for why it would happen this time. And all this despite the various modeling geniuses gently and repeatedly reminding us there’s no iron law that every error happens in the same direction cycle after cycle, indeed that it might be a little weird for it to happen three cycles in a row...

We have to remind ourselves that trump's NEVER won the popular vote, that he's incredibly unpopular among the broad range of voters (even among some Republicans). We need to remember that unpopularity hurts him against Harris whose popularity numbers have gone up during the final stretch of the campaign (much like Obama's in 2008). I've said before people tend to vote for the candidate they like the most - it's not rational but emotional - and similar to Biden (who was popular then) outperforming trump in 2020 Harris can do the same this 2024.

Like Dillon noted, a lot of us on the Center-Left of the political spectrum were emotionally scarred  watching trump grab the Electoral College away from the popular vote winner Hillary (her unpopularity due to decades of hathos was a major factor in her loss). A lot of us still can't comprehend how 74 million people voted for trump in 2020 after all of the incompetency, aggression, open graft, and failures of his administration; and we're arguably terrified of the possibility he's convinced even more to vote again for him after his felony convictions and civil court fraud and rape findings.

We have to look to the sizable number of Republican voters showing signs of refusing to vote for trump again. There is hefty opposition by former GOP officials and former members of trump's own Cabinet, publicly denouncing him on a scale never before seen. We never had a similar number of aides and Cabinet Secretaries do this to the likes of Nixon or Ford or Carter or Reagan or Bush the Elder or Bill Clinton or Bush the Lesser or Obama; even when those administrations - especially Dubya's considering the failures of the economy and the mismanaged War on Terror - were clear disasters. These are things even disconnected voters will notice as they make their choice.

We need to enjoy the reality of how Harris and her Veep co-runner Walz are conducting themselves in this last mad dash to the finish line: With joy and exuberance and feistiness and hope. We need that hope to convert into turnout by the millions - higher than the 81 million Biden secured in 2020 - and to regain a kind of spiritual balance we lost 8 years ago.

Let's get the vote out, everyone, and vote for the right things: Vote for sanity and stability in the White House with Kamala. Vote for women's rights and freedom from wingnut cruelty. Vote for better representatives in our legislatures both state and federal. Vote FOR the bright future of 2025 and not the darkness of a trumpian dystopia.

(Hands still shaking while drinking iced tea) I'm calm... I'm perfectly fine... I AM A CENTER OF PEACE AND SERENITY! Ahem. Sorry.

I Survived Hurricane Milton But

Milton tore the roof off of Tropicana Field.

 

Image from CNN

The hurricane took the tarp cover but left behind the damned catwalks! NOOOOOOO.

LOOK HOW THEY MASSACRED MY BOY.

Seriously, Milton's caused a lot of damage, there's a number of horrifying deaths - most from a tornado that spawned on the Atlantic coast (Palm Beach Gardens) when the outer bands reached there - and as of Friday afternoon a lot of Hillsborough and Polk Counties are out of power.

Especially where I live. I'm doing this from my library workplace - Bartow had their grid back pretty quick this time - and part of me doesn't want to go home right now because they'll be no air conditioning or Internet access waiting for me.

Gotta go feed the kitties though.

Hopefully by tonight they'll have the power fixed. Hoping.

Florida 2024 General Election Ballot: LET'S EFFING GOOOOO

So here I am coping with the outer bands of Hurricane Milton crossing overhead, finding the Sample Ballot for the 2024 general election sitting in my mailbox.

I don't do mail-in, I tend to vote on Election Day itself, but in the meantime here's the information my fellow Polk County residents need and for my fellow Floridians to consider whenever they submit their votes to the ballot boxes.

(The nine regular readers of this blog probably already know how this is gonna play, but it doesn't hurt to refresh)

President

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AMERICA APPLE PIE AND EVERYONE YOU HOLD DEAR: do NOT vote trump. Considering everything I've written in the past eight years, my tune has not changed. trump is the most dangerous, self-absorbed, greedy, wrong-headed, racist, sexist, hate-driven son of a bitch this nation ever produced.

On the positive side, Kamala Harris has a record and reputation for competency, empathy, focus, commitment, sheer will. There is every GOOD reason to vote for Kamala.

Ballz to the Walz, people.

Meanwhile, RFK Jr is noticeably not on the ballot - which is funny in its own way - but he is on the ballot in other states, desperately trying to draw votes away from the Democratic tickets. Pay him no mind: His anti-vaxxing stance and his troubling personal misdeeds make him unlikeable to the liberal base. I'm asking all the independent voters (or the ones thinking to hold a protest vote re: Israel's genocide of Gaza) to just don't. The primary objective is to not give trump any advantage. HE'S the real threat.

Senate

There is a Senate seat open this cycle, the one occupied by Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott who is most deserving to get kicked out of it. Partly because it'll be funny to watch his ambitions to become the Senate Republican caucus leader crumble to ash; Mostly because Scott has been a terrible Senator and a destructive presence in Floridian politics.

Running against him on the Democratic ticket is Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a one-term congresswoman (who had won as part of the 2018 Blue Wave) with a background in academics and social work. She's mostly focused on gun background checks and relief efforts for Venezuelan refugees. She's solid and she's cool. VOTE FOR HER.

Congress

There's 28 House seats up for election in the state of Florida and 20 of those districts are ridiculously gerrymandered towards Republicans (Go FUCK yourself, DeSantis) so it would be an absolute delight if enough Democratic and Indy voters turned out the vote to where Democratic candidates can win about 14 or 15 of those seats to give DeSatan BOTH middle fingers. Please and Thank You.

If there's good news, it's that state party leader Nikki Fried worked to get a Democratic challenger in every congressional district, giving local voters incentives to show up and vote. So let's do that, Florida. Flip the Sunshine State Blue.

State Legislature

I know it's hard going at the state level, but with every House seat up for vote and half the state Senate seats up for vote, it sure would be nice for Democratic turnout to break the near-absolute hold the Republicans have held on Tallahassee since the 1990s. Given all the lobbyist corruption and calcification - the failures by the GOP to fix our homeowner insurance regulations and lowering of costs has become painful to residents and HOAs across the state - we need a shift in the power alignments to force through needed reforms that one-party rule will never seek. This is serious, Floridians. Pay attention to the state officials who need to get swept out of the legislature for failing to serve our needs.

State Supreme Court

Our state uses a retention voting process for appellate and Supreme Court positions, and in this cycle two state Justices - Renatha Francis and Meredith Sasso - are up for consideration after being on the bench one year (retention will earn them a six-year term). 

Both Francis and Sasso are DeSantis appointees: On that alone, voting them out would be a huge - and deserved - black mark on DeSantis' standing. Francis in fact was denied an earlier appointment to the high bench back in 2020 (!) but it was more procedural - she hadn't been on the state bar for the 10-year requirement - than political. However, Francis has had a troubled history as a circuit judge even before her appointment in 2023, and she was clearly a partisan hire.

Both Francis and Sasso were part of the ruling upholding a horrific "six-week ban" - which is medically impossible - and dissented on the decision to allow the Abortion referendum - which would codify women's rights to get the health care they need, undoing that six week ban and requiring more sensible state laws - so their position on abortion rights are pretty clear. Kick them off the bench, vote No. While it's likely DeSantis will replace them with other Far Right appointees, the signal needs to be sent to the Republicans that Floridians want their rights over our own persons upheld.

County Sheriff

For Polk, it means Grady Judd is up for re-election (where are the damn term limits?) but at least this cycle he's facing a challenger in Theodore Murray. Judd, I swear, is more of a media hog than DeSantis, and whether he's good at his job or not he's been in that seat for too long (five terms since 2004!). Vote for Murray. It's time for fresh leadership.

Supervisor of Elections

Well, Lori Edwards does such a good job of mailing out notices and providing information and offering proper electoral services. Also she's NPA and the other choice is a Republican. Keep up the good work, Lori!

State Amendments

I've posted about the 2024 referenda earlier, but here's a recap:

Amendment One is allowing Partisan School Board elections. I'm of a mind to allow it because it means we'll see who the Far Right Republicans support, but the common consensus is that this will make an already fraught electioneering for vital community offices - especially as the wingnuts are warring on teen reading and trans students - more combative. I was leaning the other way - not because I'm pro-Party but because I'm pro-:Let's See Who The Crooks Are" - but by now I've decided to vote No on this.

Amendment Two is over the Right to Hunt and Fish, which would open up more hunting seasons - and hunting targets - across Florida. This would be a massive disruption to already fragile ecosystems and a severe threat to many of the endangered animals still in our open lands. This ought to be a huge No from all us voters.

Amendment Three is to Legalize Marijuana for recreational use. We had a medicinal use amendment pass earlier, but now - especially as the federal government is looking to reschedule pot as a lesser banned substance - there's the need to reduce the criminalization and incarceration that's become a gross injustice in our War on Drugs. Again, I don't encourage drug use, but I also don't see why we're over-pursuing punishments for a non-lethal drug like marijuana. We should be treating pot use as a health issue, not a criminal one. I'm a Yes on this one.

Amendment Four is the biggie: Protecting Abortion Rights for women. This would enforce the right of access to the medical procedure for women at-risk and ensure the bans are set at more appropriate time limits (say 23 weeks instead of 6). DeSantis and the other hard-liners are fearmongering like crazy to stop this one from passing, but it's polling above the 60 percent supermajority needed to pass and in order to save the lives of thousands of at-risk women we need to vote Yes for this.

Amendment Five is another Homestead Exemption bill, this time to Adjust exemptions to Annual Inflation. It'll basically use the Cost of Living Index to increase tax cuts to homeowners with dire impact to city and county governments that NEED property tax revenues to balance their budgets. This is a hard No, even coming from a Florida homeowner, because I'm tired of these Republican tricks to gut tax revenues.

Amendment Six offers to Repeal Public Financing for Statewide Campaigns, which would essentially allow PACs and dark money to overtake the costly campaigning at the state level where candidates who can't afford to run will be shit out of luck. We need to go the other way and require public financing for ALL campaigns, to get the goddamn corrupt forces of lobbyists and the uber-rich dominating our electoral choices. This should be a hard No, everyone.

Polk County Amendments

There is one item for the county Charter - Merging the Efficiency Commission to the Charter Review Commission - which would clear out some of the committee requirements and extend the Efficiency commission's work cycle from 8 years to 12 years. I don't know, this doesn't seem all that efficient to prevent the commission from working in closer cycles to keep up with the constant changes and demands on county services and resources. This could increase the bureaucratic logjam instead of lessening it. I'm inclined to vote No unless someone can show me honest projections of costs and improvement.

Pasco County Mosquito Control Board

You know, when I lived in Pasco County this was a big deal. I even had people show up on this blog because it was the only thing posting any information about the choices. Well, alas, I don't live there anymore so I can't be sure. I do know there's two seats open (One and Three), all of the candidates are from New Port Richey (seriously, Land O Lakes?) this cycle and the best I would suggest is voting for the candidates with the coolest names (owstophittingme).

--

As I wrap this up, the hurricane weather is picking up, I'm hearing thunderstorms in the distance, and I know damn well the local McDonalds is closed. Gods help me, Milton is coming.

If I don't make it out: Promise me. PROMISE ME NED. Promise you will vote Kamala Harris and Democratic party straight down the ballot. Promise me, Floridians, to vote Yes on Amendment 4 to save women's lives.

I hope to see you at the ballot this November.

The Oncoming Milton

As I write this, a hurricane formed off the coast of Mexico and is projected to do something few hurricanes do: head straight east towards Florida. The models all predict Milton will hit the Tampa Bay area - between St. Petersburg and Bradenton - by Wednesday night. It's already a Category 5 and threatening to be one of the strongest storms we've ever seen (thank you, decades of climate denialism!). Even if an incoming northern front can break Milton into a lesser Cat, we're talking devastating storm surges along the Tampa Bay shoreline to where everything south of Clearwater and half the landmass in Tampa itself gets washed away forever.

I am living right in the path of that monster. And yet, I have my duty to my workplace: I have to stay and prep the library with my coworkers for any possible damage. By the time we're done with that, I won't have time to get out of the way of Milton. I'll have to do what I've done before: Hunker down with my cats, pray that my place doesn't get destroyed by high winds and that the flooding won't happen in my area, and wait for the power to come back on.

This is going to be a stressful week.

I'll try to blog once or twice before the power goes, but if I don't make it... If you don't hear from me by next week... Promise me you'll vote for Kamala Harris and every Democratic candidate across the board and stop that Shitgibbon once and for all.

(muttering) why the fuck won't that Weather Space Laser flatten the hell out of Mar-A-Lago, huh...?

The Grift in Gainesville

Update: Many thanks again to Batocchio at Crooks & Liars for including this at Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please do your part to support Harris-Walz for the Presidential ticket this 2024, as well as voting out every goddamned Republican hack at the state level especially here in Florida. /rage

Someone pointed this article in the Independent Alligator to me this afternoon, and after reading the lede and the next three paragraphs as a U of Florida alum I am livid (via Garrett Shanley):

In his 17-month stint as UF president, Ben Sasse more than tripled his office’s spending, directing millions in university funds into secretive consulting contracts and high-paying positions for his GOP allies.

Sasse ballooned spending under the president’s office to $17.3 million in his first year in office — up from $5.6 million in former UF President Kent Fuchs’ last year, according to publicly available administrative budget data.

A majority of the spending surge was driven by lucrative contracts with big-name consulting firms and high-salaried, remote positions for Sasse’s former U.S. Senate staff and Republican officials.

Sasse’s consulting contracts have been kept largely under wraps, leaving the public in the dark about what the contracted firms did to earn their fees. The university also declined to clarify specific duties carried out by Sasse’s ex-Senate staff, several of whom were salaried as presidential advisers...

Graft. Grift. Corruption. Paying off cronies and buddies in every direction. There's no other way to describe this.

I wrote back in 2023 how Governor Ron DeSantis was sacrificing Florida's higher education system to pander to the MAGA voters:

It's been noted before that Florida's current Governor Ron "Pander Away" DeSantis is waging a war against "Wokeness," the current catch-all phrase by Far Right wingnuts describing anything that exposes our nation's history of racism, sexism, and bad behavior by conservative elites.

DeSantis has escalated his efforts across every level of education our state can offer. Not only are the classrooms at our public schools been emptied of every book so that DeSantis' foot soldier censors can refuse whichever titles they fear, but DeSantis is happily plugging in conservative political hacks into leadership roles at every major state university...

At the time, the big scandal revolved around DeSantis breaking the rules and hiring practices at New College, an experimental honors-level program that the Far Right anti-education forces wanted to convert into a Christianist Vo-Tech. But UF was getting the treatment as well:

If any of this feels the same as the situation leading to University of Florida - a flagship institution that had become one of the top universities in the nation - hiring an unqualified political hack like Ben Sasse earlier this school year, don't be shocked.

How was Sasse unqualified? Above all, he wasn't even from this state, carpetbagging his way here from Nebraska where he served as U.S. Senator. Where he did have qualifications, it was serving as president of a small college in that state that was facing financial shutdown. Sasse was able to bring in fundraising, and merging in students from a nearby college that did close in order to boost enrollment to a survivable level.

Thing was, University of Florida wasn't facing financial straits when DeSantis brought him on, only political targeting as a primary battleground over diversity hiring and enrollment that the Far Right Republicans like DeSantis wanted to stop. Sasse wasn't needed for any financial acumen: He was a party ally needed to push a political agenda.

And with that political agenda came a cash grab.

One of the things you'll notice about the modern Republican Party - at least from the 1990s, and arguably well back into the Nixon years - is how they view the public sector as a personal piggy bank to raid for their own pockets. Instead of managing revenues and spending for the public trust, the Republicans happily funnel taxpayer dollars to privatized businesses and contractors who happily overbill in order to get millions of money nobody keeps count of. Republicans in office will spend money on themselves and their vacation buddies without concern (or consequence).

Just look at the allegations leveled at Sasse: 

Amid protests over his conservative track record as a Nebraska Republican senator, Sasse promised during his ascension to the UF presidency in Fall 2022 that he would divorce himself from partisan politics under what he called a vow of “political celibacy.”

But the senator-turned-university president quietly broke that promise in his 17-month term at the university’s helm, hiring six ex-Senate staffers and two former Republican officials to high-paying, remote jobs at the university. 

Under Sasse’s administration, two of his former Senate staffers — Raymond Sass and James Wegmann — were among the highest-ranking and highest-paid officials at UF. Both worked remotely from the D.C. area, roughly 800 miles from UF’s main campus in Gainesville.

It's called "No-show jobs" and I doubt these guys even spent any actual minutes working for UF.

Sass, Sasse’s former Senate chief of staff, was UF’s vice president for innovation and partnerships — a position which didn’t exist under previous administrations. His starting salary at UF was $396,000, more than double the $181,677 he made on Capitol Hill. 

Wegmann, Sasse’s former Senate communications director, is UF’s vice president of communications, a position he works remotely from his $725,000 home in Washington, D.C.

They invented new jobs - arguably without any defined duties and responsibilities - just to fill them with cronies.

Sasse appointed his former Senate press secretary, Taylor Sliva, as UF’s Assistant Vice President of Presidential Communications and Public Affairs, a new position. Sliva’s $232,000 salary made him the second-highest-paid employee in UF’s Office of Strategic Communications and Marketing, trailing only Wegmann. 

The remaining three ex-Senate staffers — Raven Shirley, Kari Ridder and Kelicia Rice — served as presidential advisers to Sasse, though their specific duties remain unclear. Rice, Sasse’s Senate scheduler, is listed as a presidential adviser in UF’s salary directory but in practice remained as Sasse’s scheduler, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Sasse raised his former Senate staffs’ salaries at UF by an average of 44% compared to their Capitol Hill pay, contributing to a $4.3 million increase in presidential salary expenses over Fuchs’ last year in office.

Outside of his Senate staff, Sasse also tapped former Republican Tennessee Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn as UF’s inaugural vice president of PK-12 and pre-bachelors programs. Schwinn, with a starting salary of $367,500, worked the newly-created position from her $1 million home in Nashville, Tennessee.

Additionally, Sasse hired Alice James Burns, former scheduler for Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), as Director of Presidential Relations and Major Events. Burns, salaried at $205,000, also worked for UF outside of Florida.

Jesus. I doubt any of them ever set foot on campus except for the occasional photo op with Sasse and to pick up their paychecks (oh wait, they probably used direct deposit). How the hell could any of them claim to know what they were doing when they were NEVER there to do it?

In Sasse’s first full fiscal year at the university’s helm, travel expenses for the president’s office soared to $633,000 — over 20 times higher than Fuchs’ annual average of $28,000. Sasse spent more on travel in his 17 months at UF than Fuchs’ entire eight-year tenure.

Notice how Republicans love to claim they're the party of fiscal responsibility? How can they be, when they're more wasteful with money than drunken teenagers ahold of their parents' credit cards (Gods, this is a phrase I've been using since 2010). In all seriousness, Republicans are fiscally responsible only when it's their money: They will waste other's people's money to their hearts' content.

Remember how I said earlier Sasse had some experience running a college? Well, UF is a university: Vastly larger, more complex, and requiring more skill than Sasse apparently brought with him... because he hired in private consultants at expensive rates to walk him through it:

His track record in higher education administration was limited to his five-year presidency at Midland University, a small, private liberal arts college in Fremont, Nebraska. At UF, which enrolls over 60,000 students and pulls in an annual $1 billion in research grants, Sasse faced a steep learning curve.

He turned to consultants for help.

During his presidency, Sasse spent $7.2 million in university funds to consultants for advice on his strategic planning and to fill leadership gaps — over 40 times more than Fuchs’ total consulting expenses over his eight-year term.

Sasse paid nearly two-thirds of the $7.2 million to McKinsey & Company, where he once worked as an adviser on an hourly contract. The firm carries prestige as one of the “big three” management consulting giants, but is notoriously secretive about its dealings and shielded its work from public view using records laws protecting trade secrets.

A critical “scope of work” attachment, which would outline McKinsey's responsibilities to UF, was redacted from a copy of the contract obtained from a public records request. The redaction, permissible under state public records laws, makes it virtually impossible for the public to know what the firm did to earn its fees...

For all we know, those fees were for covering their tee times and martini luncheons at whatever golf courses they visited. It'd be nice to prove me wrong, McKinsey & Co.

Everything about this situation screams corruption, intentional wasteful spending of public dollars for private use and straight-up greed.

There is no way the crooks at the top of this chain - DeSantis and the state Republican leadership - will do anything to investigate these allegations (and will likely replace Sasse with one of their own corrupt colleagues).

Goddammit. Call in the feds. Get the Department of Education down here, get the Justice Department, bring the U.S. Marshals, whatever it takes. Find out how bad the rot is before it eats at everything else in the Sunshine State that hasn't been broken yet.

And for the love of GOD, Floridians: Vote these corrupt Republican SOBs out of office.

Destroying Justice All To Serve trump

Dear America: I am so sorry I jinxed it.

I wrote this back in February:

We've had other corrupt men in high office before, just that none of them reached the criminal lows that trump has. trump's not facing criminal trials because he's a "great conservative American," he's facing criminal trials now because 40 years of bills over his bullshit are finally coming due.

The civil trials are mostly done, and trump has to pay those dues soon. The criminal trials start March, and the countdown to just even ONE felony conviction begins.

Tick fucking tock, trump.

While the criminal trial regarding hush money and election interference in Manhattan happened and trump answered for that (so far), the other three trials got hit with delays and more delays - trump's favorite legal tactic - to where trump can gamble on lying/cheating/stealing his way into the White House and claim Presidential Immunity (as this corrupt SCOTUS intends it).

And today, trump's run for the Mexican Border for the Presidency got a lot sweeter when his judge Aileen Cannon - there is no other way to describe her - dismissed the Mar-A-Lago classified documents case on the argument that the special counsel overseeing it is unconstitutional (via Carrie Johnson at NPR):

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has dismissed the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump in an order Monday morning over the manner in which special counsel Jack Smith was appointed.

“The Superseding Indictment is DISMISSED because Special Counsel Smith’s appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution,” wrote Judge Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by the former president.

Special counsel Jack Smith had contested this argument, and other federal courts had upheld the constitutionality of special counsels.

“None of the statutes cited as legal authority for the appointment…gives the Attorney General broad inferior-officer appointing power or bestows upon him the right to appoint a federal officer with the kind of prosecutorial power wielded by Special Counsel Smith," Cannon wrote. "Nor do the Special Counsel’s strained statutory arguments, appeals to inconsistent history, or reliance on out-of-circuit authority persuade otherwise...”

Cannon is using a provision offered by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in his Immunity concurrence, something that no other judge or court agreed with... and will require even more appeals back up to the high court before this mess can ever get straightened out. As it is, Thomas' opinion would negate every special counsel matter currently out there at the federal level... including the matter involving Hunter Biden. But hey, this is a deal for trump, so why bother eh?

Going to Marcy Wheeler at her Emptywheel site for comment:

It’s hilarious.

It’s hilarious, because it doesn’t create any delay that Cannon was not pursuing anyway. Indeed, Jack Smith could immediately appeal this and try to get her tossed, so it may hasten things (unless Trump wins!).

It’s hilarious because it is unbelievably hubristic. The only credible future for Judge Cannon now is Trump’s first SCOTUS appointment in a second term.

It’s hilarious because the way she did this, if it were upheld (not an impossibility given how nutty SCOTUS has gotten), it would be even more useful for Hunter Biden than Donald Trump (especially if Trump didn’t win reelection), because the statutes of limitation on Hunter’s alleged crimes have started to expire.

As for Smith appealing, yes he has. This now depends on how quickly the 11th Circuit handles this... and if the appellate court can remove Cannon for her bias and ineptitude.

And it all depends on the American voters coming out in huge numbers to vote for Biden and deny trump any sanctuary from justice.

trump has defeated justice for now, but he ought to - needs to - answer to the law in spite of the conservatives in the judiciary shredding all of it to protect their hold on power. trump is not running to serve the interests of Americans, he is not running for ideology or purpose, he is not running to uphold the public trust. trump is running to save his own ass from jail, and he will burn everything down to avoid that fate.

America cannot survive a criminal in the White House AGAIN.

To the 81 million of us who voted for Biden in 2020, we have a responsibility to return to the ballot and vote for Joe again. And let us bring about 44 million more with us across all 50 states just to make certain of it.

For the LOVE OF GOD AND COUNTRY AND JUSTICE, America. Do not vote trump this year. 

Burning Poe's Books Without Really Reading Them

Update 6/24/24: I would like to thank Steve in Manhattan for including this article at the Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-up... except that, uh, um... he made the link there to a Clippy YouTube video instead. Sigh. It's been that kind of a Monday already.

Irony in America lost its humor a long time ago. That is what makes this current round of book banning across the nation both pathetic and horrifying. Even at the point that the literacy haters in Florida are going after the books about book bans (via Erum Salam at the Guardian (US)):

Ban This Book, a children’s book written by Alan Gratz, will no longer be available in the Indian River county school district since the school board voted to remove the book last month.

Gratz’s book, which came out in 2017, follows fourth-grader Amy Anne Ollinger as she tries to check out her favorite book. Ollinger is told by the librarian she cannot, because it was banned after a classmate’s parent thought it was inappropriate. She then creates a secret banned-books library, entering into “an unexpected battle over book banning, censorship, and who has the right to decide what she and her fellow students can read”, according to the book’s description on Gratz’s website...

So of course a parent objected.

Pippin’s opposition is what prompted the school board to vote 3-2 in favor of removing it from shelves. The vote happened despite the district’s book-review committee vetting the work and deciding to keep it in schools.

Indian River county school board members disagreed with how Gratz’s book referred to other works that had been taken out of school, and accused it of “teaching rebellion of school-board authority”, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.

Pippin is also the chair of the local Moms for Liberty chapter, a far-right organization that has been behind many of the book bans that have swept across the US in recent years. According to a 2023 PEN America report, 81% of school districts that banned books between July 2022 and June 2023 were within or adjoined a county with a local chapter of a group such as Moms for Liberty...

There is nothing liberating about what this Far Right organization is doing. It's restricting. It's limiting. It's taking away from other families their rights to choose what their kids can read. It's taking away from those children the ability to recognize when free thought and free speech - some of the most essential human rights - are denied.

In a statement to the Tallahassee Democrat, Gratz noted the irony of his book being banned.

“They banned the book because it talks about the books that they have banned and because it talks about book banning,” he said. “It feels like they know exactly what they’re doing and they’re somewhat ashamed of what they’re doing and they don’t want a book on the shelves that calls them out.”

Reading as a skill gives us comprehension. Reading from diverse points of view, reading about different cultures, reading about the thrills and dangers of the real world. We read about what's fiction and we read about what's nonfiction and we read about what's human. 

These are things that the book banners would take away, to narrow and limit our skill to comprehend. They want to take away the skill to think, to interpret, to question, to decide in favor of worldviews that the book banners fear and hate.

We've already got problems in the United States when it comes to adult comprehension and decision-making skills, things that a strong literary education could have solved. And now we're dealing with factions in our nation happily denying literacy to our children, to guarantee that freedom of thought and freedom of speech can be easily taken away.

If you don't want your kid to read a book, tell your kid not to read it, and find something else that the kid could enjoy reading without denying that right to thousands of other families.

Defend your libraries, America.

I read Ray Bradbury growing up. I remember his short stories, masterpieces of horror, and recall a story from the Martian Chronicles titled "Usher II" (it was a separate magazine short story from 1950 but reworked to be part of the novel):

“Garrett?” called Stendahl softly. Garrett silenced himself. “Garrett,” said Stendahl, “do you know why I’ve done this to you? Because you burned Mr. Poe’s books without really reading them. You took other people’s advice that they needed burning. Otherwise you’d have realized what I was going to do to you when we came down here a moment ago. Ignorance is fatal, Mr. Garrett.”

And if you've read Edgar Allan Poe in school (or if the book banners would let you), you'd know what Stendahl was doing to Garrett.

Yes, for the love of God!

Getting Ready for the 2024 Florida Ballot Amendments

It's about time to start thinking about the state-level referenda that will be on the 2024 general ballot along with the major races like President, Senator, Congress, and State legislators.

Ballotpedia does a good job of keeping track of these things, so I defer to the information they've got gathered for the six amendment offerings: 

Amendment One: Partisan School Board Elections

This one changes the county-level school board elections from the current nonpartisan (no party listed) to where a candidate has to establish affiliation. The debate around this is a question of transparency: While the ballot currently doesn't say which candidate's issues and ideologies are, you can judge by which company they'd keep if they were openly Republican (vouchers to private schools, doing nothing on teachers' pay, crowded classrooms, etc.) or Democrat (public money to public schools, improving teacher pay, smaller classroom sizes, etc.).

If you ever visit a state or county-level party website, you'll see listings for "Supported Candidates" that will include "recommendations" for school board candidates. They may pretend to be "nonpartisan" but they're really not.

I'm kind of on the fence on this one. You can't avoid the reality that there will be partisan candidates for school boards, especially as the fights over book censorship and transgender/gay rights move to the forefront. If you can tell which candidate is backed by either party, you can at least gauge which will better defend your interests. The problem will be the campaigning: If you make the school board elections officially partisan, the hostility and viciousness that comes with such campaigns could make the local elections more divisive.

On this one, I'm going to err on the side of "better to know which candidate is Republican and thus shouldn't be in office".

Amendment Two: Right to Hunt and Fish

While there is some hunting and fishing allowed in Florida, this amendment seems to expand that right to unregulated levels.

Florida is on a rare environmental stage: a diverse ecosystem relying a lot on water (shorelines, rivers, lakes) and on still-undeveloped geological areas like wetlands, swamps, and forests. There's a number of endangered animals still about - the Florida Panther for example - and a lot of dangerous wildlife - alligators and brown bears - facing more encroachment and threats from humans (not just the hunters). This amendment in my opinion would increase the risks towards a number of those endangered or dangerous animals to where we'll disrupt the Florida environment even more. Those who oppose the amendment also point to the threat of overfishing.

I've never gotten into hunting. My grandfather willed me a hunting rifle as a child and I never accepted it. I don't believe in hunting as a sport or as a natural part of the cycle (there are logical reasons to manage high-breeding animals like rabbits and deer in some places, but not for me). If I wanna stalk an animal I'm using my camera to take pictures, not lives.

Amendment Three: Legalizing Marijuana for adults

A previous amendment had legalized pot for medicinal purposes back in 2016, and this one looks to open the market to recreational use for those 21 and up.

This is coming at a moment when the Biden administration is pushing to reduce marijuana's Schedule status from Class I (dangerous, illegal, and criminal) to Class III (regulated/controlled by doctors). There's been more studies about the benefits and risks of using cannabis and essentially pointing to how it doesn't fit the Class I profile.

Reducing marijuana to Class III lowers it as a priority drug for law enforcement, which should reduce a lot of unnecessary arrests and prison time for otherwise non-dangerous users. Putting it at Class III still requires regulated control, and would encourage upholding penalties for things like Driving Under the Influence much like we do for alcohol.

I am not a drug user. I don't smoke anything. I don't drink alcohol (I've tried once or thrice). I don't begrudge those who do (except for smokers, I hate second-hand smoke, keep away from me ugh), although I advocate for moderation in all things. When I see how the War on Drugs has been a disaster - much like Prohibition that did nothing to stop alcohol consumption - anything that would reduce the prison rate in our nation and change policing habits is a good thing. If we can shift the focus on the War on Drugs away from punishment and towards health care (rehab and detox) we ought to see a reduction in drug use.

Amendment Four: Abortion Rights for Residents, setting a specific timeline and for cases where the woman's health is at risk 

This is the big one, now that the state court allowed for a restrictive six-week ban that essentially negated abortion as a choice for women no matter what.

Previous state court rulings upheld a right of privacy, but two decades of hard Far Right government allowed Republican governors to replace judges with anti-abortion advocates. Given that a solid majority of Americans agree that abortion should be a choice for the woman, this amendment is a strong effort to regain that choice and set the abortion deadline to a more viable 24 weeks.

This is where the Minority Party Rule obsession of the Republican Party is at odds with what the people want (and need). Without access to abortion as a health care right, more and more (poor) women are going to suffer from miscarriages, infections, stillbirths, and worse.

With the supermajority requirement of 60 percent approval for this amendment to pass, there's going to be a lot of fighting between the anti-abortion and pro-choice factions to get the vote out. Here's hoping the pro-choice side gets well above the 60 percent threshold to signal to the Far Right just how serious residents are in protecting their personal rights.

Amendment Five: Annual Inflation Adjustment to Homestead Exemption

This is where the Republican-controlled Legislature wants to add the Consumer Price Index to creating more tax cuts. Essentially adjusting on an annual basis more room for non-school related county/city millage rates. It probably won't be much for most homeowners as a tax savings, but the cities are opposing it because it will cut into their revenues.

I should mention as a city librarian employee, this tax cut could affect my library's budget, which affects all the steamy vampire romance novels we can add to the collection. You don't wanna lose your steamy vampire romance novels, do you? DO YOU?! Save the steamy vampire romance novels, and vote No on this amendment, thank ye.

Amendment Six: Repeal of Public Financing for Statewide Campaigns

There's currently a referendum amendment on the books from 1998 that set up public financing - and serious spending restrictions - for state-level offices such as Governor/Lt. Gov. The Republican-controlled state Legislature is looking - has been for a good while - for ways to undo that amendment and remove the restrictions.

The dangers of private, deep-pocket money getting into state-level elections are very real. The Republicans - deep in the tank for billionaires, land developers, and rich wingnuts - want more of that unregulated campaign money to finance themselves (and their consultant buddies eager for six-figure fees).

We've seen the effect of unregulated campaign financing at the federal level (fuck you, Citizens United). That's the LAST thing we need in the Sunshine State. This better be a hard No, Floridians.

So, to recap: Huge Yes to Amendment Four and abortion rights, Solid Yes on Three to allow marijuana use for adults, Middling Yes on One for Partisan School Board elections, Hard No on open Hunting/Fishing, Huge NO against inflation-adjusting property taxes and against the repeal of public-financed campaigns.

Get the vote out this November, Florida. Elections always matter. Especially the referenda, especially for our rights.