Every Culture War Warrior a Hypocrite

I am no longer surprised by the sexual or violent hypocrisy of the Republican Party - especially here in the Sunshine State - I am only saddened by the lives broken by their misdeeds. That the Florida GOP chair is under criminal investigation for sexual battery shouldn't surprise anyone (via Emily L. Mahoney at the Tampa Bay Times): 

The Sarasota Police Department is investigating an allegation of sexual battery made against Christian Ziegler, the chairperson of the Republican Party of Florida.

In response to a request for a complaint filed against Ziegler, the Sarasota police provided the Tampa Bay Times with a heavily redacted report from early October that only revealed a few words, including “raped” and “sexually battered...”

That it took until the end of November to get this story out is troubling. The follow-up details - via Max Greenwood also with Tampa Bay Times - get messier:

A search warrant affidavit and 911 audio released to news outlets on Friday shed light on a recently surfaced allegation that Florida GOP chairperson Christian Ziegler sexually assaulted a woman with whom he and his wife had had a previous sexual encounter.

The affidavit, obtained by the Orlando Sentinel and ABC Action News in Tampa, offered the most detailed public account yet of the incident, which has roiled Florida GOP leadership and led to calls for Ziegler to resign...

That the state Republicans - who usually circle the wagons to defend their own - are already calling for their chairman to resign should be a huge red flag that what they already know (or suspect) is going to get much worse. Back to Greenwood:

The woman, a longtime friend of Ziegler’s, told Sarasota police she “was sexually involved one time over a year ago” with Ziegler and his wife, and had agreed to have a second sexual encounter with the couple on Oct. 2, according to an excerpt of the affidavit posted online by ABC Action News. But when Bridget Ziegler was unable to make it, the woman told investigators she canceled the plans, texting Christian Ziegler that she was “mostly in it for” his wife.

Minutes later, when the woman opened her front door to walk her dog, Christian Ziegler was standing in the hallway outside of her apartment, according to ABC Action News’ reporting on the affidavit. He then proceeded to enter her apartment, where he allegedly raped her.

According to both reports on the affidavit, the woman said Ziegler did not use a condom during the encounter and told the victim, “I’m leaving the same way I came in.”

By this allegation, we can determine that Ziegler held expectations that HE was to get sexually pleasured, it was all for himself and his ego and his power, and to hell whatever the woman or his wife wanted. Christ, what an asshole.

ABC Action News reported that, after the alleged assault, the victim called her sister and went to Sarasota Memorial Hospital, where a sexual assault kit was performed.

The alleged assault was reported to police two days after the encounter, on Oct. 4. Audio of a 911 call from that day reveals that a friend of the victim had asked law enforcement to perform a wellness check on the woman after she reportedly failed to show up to work for two days...

There is a lot of physical and eyewitness testimony here, enough to underscore that something happened to the woman and it traumatized her.

For all the tragedy that this alleged rape is, this is also high drama considering who Ziegler's wife Bridget is. Bridget Ziegler just happens to be a co-founder of a Far Right censorship group calling themselves Moms for Liberty, who are not about liberty they are going after books and literature they claim are "woke" and "sexually deviant" in our public schools and libraries. Not only the positive LGBTQ+ books but books about racism and our nation's history with slavery.

Bridget is someone who openly railed against transgender people as well as gays and lesbians, yet here she is enjoying a ménage with another woman with the implications they were both into each other (which must have gnawed at Christian's ego). As Zac Anderson at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune quotes ex-Republican pundit Ron Filipkowski, "The hypocrisy is off the charts:"

Filipkowski has known both Zieglers for years. He remembers when Christian Ziegler was a young party activist just starting to make appearances at Sarasota GOP meetings...

Bridget Ziegler had joined the Sarasota County School Board in 2014 and occasionally waded into polarizing issues in the years leading up to the pandemic, including a hot button debate about transgender bathroom use in Sarasota schools.

The pandemic led to a wave of conservative activism around schools, and both Zieglers – who have young children they often highlight in debates about education policies – became leading advocates for the education culture war agenda championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, which attracted the most national attention with a bill limiting discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.

Bridget Ziegler stood behind DeSantis as he signed the legislation, derided by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill – a nickname that still irks its supporters. The governor later appointed her to a board overseeing the special district that governs Disney’s properties in Central Florida. Disney has been battling with DeSantis over the company’s opposition to the measure, now in state law.

Along the way, the Zieglers often clashed with Democrats, LGBTQ activists and other critics of their agenda. Those critics have been quick to bash the Zieglers in the wake of the latest allegations, often pointing to alleged hypocrisy...

What we're seeing with the Zieglers is what Frank Wilhoit observed about conservatism: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. The Zieglers are clearly behaving as the In Group, a part of the state Republican power structure now running things since the 2000s, and eager to enforce a culture war against sexual-identity minorities - gays, lesbians, trans, poly, the Out Groups - to maintain their power status. 

Bridget is more than happy to kick one trans kid off a sports team (if not out of school altogether), more than happy to ban any talk of gay/lesbian relationships (with an eye towards banning such relationships for real), all the while penciling in on her calendar a sexual tryst that violates the religious sanctity of "family values" she and her husband publicly trumpet.

Whether she and the rape victim originally consented to an affair with the husband is not at issue here. What are at issue is Christian's violence towards that woman in the trio, and the hypocrisy of both Christian and Bridget pushing a Family Values agenda they themselves did not respect.

But that hypocrisy is what drives the Far Right in the first place. Their Culture War isn't about what consenting adults - or young adults growing into who they feel they are - are doing. The Culture War is about the power, of maintaining a status quo where only the elites can indulge themselves and everyone else will get punished for "deviancy".

It's not just the Zieglers. The more you look at the holier-than-thou Far Right, you see far too many "religious leaders" and "youth pastors" getting charged as sex offenders towards children, you see far too many elected officials bragging and showing off about their conquests, and you see far too many other elected officials refusing to do what needs doing to protect rape and assault victims or to reform a legal system that doesn't handle rape cases seriously.

Hypocrites everywhere among the Far Right. Any sane nation would express their outrage by voting every last one of those wingnut hypocrites out of office.

A One-Sentence Thought About the Supreme Court's 303 Creative Ruling Against Gay Rights

On this Supreme Court ruling by the six Far Right conservative Justices that okay'ed a private business' preference to not serve gay couples looking for a website design, it's become clear that the goddamn religious wingnuts running our highest court have agreed that Christianity and only Christianity has a license to be hateful, discriminatory assholes in violation of Jesus' own commandment to love each other, and did so in a way that made it clear the religious wingnuts can behave even worse towards fellow Americans using THEIR religious standing to wage war on other beliefs, other ethnics, even other Christians.

It does not help this arch-religious Roberts Court that following their ruling, more evidence emerged that the "gay couple" identified in the plaintiff's challenge weren't even gay and hadn't asked for a website, meaning this whole matter may be in violation of Article III Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution stating that the courts can only hear cases between two sides of a legal issue, also meaning these so-called Christians violated one of God's Commandments against bearing false witness against another person.

I know, that's two sentences, but more had to be said.

Christ, these assholes.

The Mouse Goes To War

Oh it's on.

Via Greg Allen at NPR:

The Walt Disney Company has filed a lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials. Disney accuses DeSantis with orchestrating a "campaign of government retaliation" against the company and violating its protected speech.

It's the latest action in a feud that began more than a year ago when Disney's former CEO said he'd work to overturn a law banning discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in the schools. The law, the "Parental Rights in Education Act," is called "Don't Say Gay" by critics.

At DeSantis' urging, Republican lawmakers passed a bill that stripped Disney of its self-governing authority. But before the law took effect, Disney signed a deal with its outgoing board allowing it to retain development rights on the 40-square mile district. It also included covenants that give Disney final say on any alterations to the property.

At a meeting Wednesday near Orlando, DeSantis' handpicked board voted to invalidate that agreement. Moments later, Disney filed a 77-page lawsuit in federal court, charging DeSantis and other officials with violations of the contracts clause, the takings clause, due process and its First Amendment right to protected speech. In its lawsuit, Disney says, "This government action was patently retaliatory, patently anti-business, and patently unconstitutional." The company is asking a federal judge to declare the board's action "unlawful and unenforceable."

And it's turning out a lot of the evidence Disney is presenting is coming from DeSantis' own hagiography that's he been shilling on his "Almost Presidential" campaign (he can't openly announce he's running because current Florida law would force him to resign the governorship... so he's getting the State Lege to invalidate that law only for himself).

I mean, not only DeSantis but every one of his allies in Florida's government have been open about their actions against Disney as retaliation for Disney's pro-gay stance:

It has been said before, but Florida Republicans are marvelously stupid. pic.twitter.com/GA0SZdW4kp

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) April 26, 2023

Other than DeSantis failing to promise barricading all of I-4 so that nobody can get to the Magic Kingdom, Disney's got an open-shut case of retaliation here.

We're at one of the craziest moments in the modern Republican / Conservative movement, one that had been supercharged by a fundamental(ist) belief by the Far Right in the sacred rights of large corporations to Do Whatever Thou Will. That cornerstone belief in Capitalism and supporting businesses to be as unregulated and free of government restraint as possible... is now burned to ash as DeSantis wages a Scorched Earth campaign using government power to punish a business. It turns out that businesses making trillions are still liable to the totalitarian fantasies of Far Right political leaders who demand loyalty and meekness from their corporate allies when it comes to Culture War Supremacy.

It turns out that being pro-gay and friendly on other civil rights issues is a great business model as it attracts more buyers than boycotters, but it undercuts the fearmongering and sadism that the Far Right seek to impose on the nation (if not the world).

And so, DeSantis made attempt after attempt to bring Disney to heel, to force them to renounce their gay-friendly activities at the theme parks. He's not just trying to seize control of the Orlando-area theme park and the surrounding properties, he's trying to use his hand-picked board of lackeys to impose control of Disney's own corporate policies and marketing (with threats to censor Disney for everything in opposition to the Far Right's Christianist agenda) outside of Florida.

Disney, trying to avoid getting into a political dogfight, used the legal system however they could as a large corporation - with a literal army of lawyers at their command - to work around every stunt DeSantis pulled. When it looked like DeSantis was going to succeed getting the legislature to revoke the older Reedy Creek special district board with a stack of business cronies and wingnut allies, Disney got ahead of that effort by getting the older board to create a business plan that negated any future attempts by the new board to undermine Disney's operations, and tied it into the British Royal Family as a way to rub it in (God Save Lilibet of Sussex of the House of Windsor, long may she reign as a Dinsey Princess!).

DeSantis should have taken the hint then that Disney could outfight and outlast him. But like any bully - like the Culture War absolutists among the Far Right convinced of their destiny to rule and ruin - DeSantis could not back down.

So now it's a legal battle, where the bloodshed gets nastier.

The Battle of Reedy Creek just escalated. All of central Florida is at risk now.

Stay safe out there, folks. You might get caught in the crossfire (DeSantis shuts down the Disney Village shopping area for asset forfeiture) OH SON OF A BI---

DeSantis' War On the Mouse Escalates to Desperation

Ron DeSantis simply cannot give up his war against The Mouse.

Even as Ft. Lauderdale struggles to recover from this weekend's flooding, DeSantis is laser-focused on bullying Disney World Orlando through threats and demands to break that corporation for their pro-Gay policies.

DeSantis is throwing out there every suggestion he can think of, from getting the state legislature to undo the Law Against Perpetuities that Disney used to block DeSantis' incoming hand-picked board of interlopers to proposing the construction of unwanted projects and buildings in the Reedy Creek district to worsen the tourism value of Disney's parks. Dylan Abad at WFLA has the story:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis teased the possibility of erecting a new state prison near Walt Disney World’s Orlando resort while speaking at an event in the park’s district on Monday.

While the press conference centered around DeSantis’ ongoing feud with the company, the governor took a moment to acknowledge the board’s control over district-owned land...

“People said maybe create a state park, maybe try to do more amusement parks,” DeSantis said with a grin. “Someone even said, ‘Maybe you need another state prison.’ Who knows? The possibilities are endless and that is now going to be analyzed to see what makes the most sense.”

The idea of placing a state prison inside the vast district stems from the political expectations that local communities do not WANT a state prison within running distance of their neighborhoods. The threat of prisoners escaping tends to get an HOA screaming NIMBY, and DeSantis wants to alienate Disney World from the cities - from Polk, Osceola, Lake, and Orange (maybe Seminole) Counties - within that range. DeSantis thinks he can get the locals to blame Disney for the new prison, but everyone can see the idiot proposing this is himself.

Building other amusement parks within the Lake Buena Vista area could go against the land-use agreements for Disney itself, and that's arguably a fight that the courts will side with the corporation vs. the state in every regard (Capitalism cannot be denied).

Thrown into this is DeSantis' open bullying, where he announced his effort to get the state legislature to re-write the safety inspection laws so that ONLY Disney parks undergo special inspections, while the similarly sized theme parks in the area - Universal Orlando, Sea World, and LegoLand - retain the exceptions that large-scale parks have been getting. This kind of intentional focus on just ONE company while letting other similar businesses in the same area avoid it is so obvious a punishment that Disney's lawyers ought to overturn it in federal courts as an unfair restriction on business (Again, Capitalism cannot be denied).

DeSantis keeps digging this foxhole, thinking he can win this war against a corporation that's already shown to have the legal smarts and firepower to punch back in ways to make DeSantis bleed on-camera even more.

I dunno who's more delusional about winning an unwinnable war: Putin or DeSantis.

And having said all that, if Princess Lilibet of Sussex does use her powers under the Laws Against Perpetuity to decree it, we can well see Disney World building their own state prison to counter DeSantis' corrupt version, only this state prison will be the most enjoyable, fantastic prison in the World (the prison with the most water slides wins)!

THE TOP TEN RIDES GETTING BUILT IN DISNEY'S SING SING PARK:

10. The Bitcoin Pirates of Silicon Valley

9. Elsa's Frozen Lesbian Blanket Party

8. It's a Small Cell Block After All

7. TRON's Lightcycle Breakout

6. The Black Hole (aka Solitary)

5. Hall of Alcatraz Escapees

4. Haunted Electric Chair

3. Mickey's House of Pain

2. That Spinning Teacups Ride (EVERY park should have a teacups ride)

And the NUMBER ONE RIDE OF DISNEY'S SING SING PARK:

1. DeSantis' Wild Primary Ride (Closed for Repairs)

DeSantis as Bully and Panderer to Hate

Update: Many thanks to Driftglass for adding this article to Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up. Please do me a favor and help me figure out which blog pieces I should submit to the FWA Royal Palm Literary Awards, thank ye.

There was a time I felt there was no way any human being could be worse as Florida Governor than Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott, who bought and bullied his way into office back in 2010 and immediately mismanaged the state through ignorance and greed.

And then Ron DeSantis showed up.

This week alone revealed how bullying, callous, sadistic, and craven DeSantis can be.

First, DeSantis openly called to permanently block any pandemic prevention efforts that the federal government may mandate in the future (via Steve Contorno, Kit Maher and Chris Boyette at CNN):

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis called on state lawmakers to make permanent existing penalties for companies that require all employees get the Covid-19 vaccination, his latest move to curtail pandemic mitigation efforts.

The proposal would extend indefinitely measures DeSantis signed in 2021 that made Florida the first state in the country to threaten businesses with fines if they required workers to get the Covid-19 vaccine. Those measures pitted DeSantis and Florida against the federal government over President Joe Biden’s efforts to get the country’s workforce inoculated – a standoff that helped boost the Republican governor’s popularity among conservatives.

Now, as DeSantis considers running for president, he is re-instigating that battle.

This time, DeSantis has encouraged skepticism of Covid-19 vaccines altogether, staking out a position far to the right of his top potential rival for the GOP nomination, former President Donald Trump, who continues to count the development of the vaccines as one of his administration’s chief accomplishments...

In addition to proposing permanent prohibitions on strict mask and vaccine mandates, DeSantis also wants to prevent doctors from losing their medical license if they stake out positions that contradict medical consensus. During Tuesday’s event in Panama City Beach, DeSantis welcomed to the stage a local dermatologist who has spread unsubstantiated Covid-19 conspiracies on Twitter...

In other words, DeSantis wants to allow uncertified, decertified, and unqualified "medical experts" to shill anti-vaccination conspiracy bullshit to scare the uninformed away from Covid vaccines that honestly work. This is how DeSantis hopes to win over the QAnon audience away from trump. In the process, he's willing to spread bad information that can get people killed.

Then, DeSantis issued an order to cancel high school programs offering AP African-American classes, claiming they offered no "educational value," all part of DeSantis' attacks on anything teaching our teens about racism as "Woke". From Abene Clayton at the Guardian:

Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, has rejected a new advanced placement course in African American studies from being taught on high school campuses. He argues that the course violates state law and “lacks educational value”.

This move is the latest in a series of actions to keep conversations and lessons about race, sexuality and gender identity off the state’s school campuses.

DeSantis officially banned the course in a letter from the state education department to the College Board, the organization that administers college readiness exams like the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). They also oversee advanced placement (AP) courses, which allow students to earn college credits in subjects like English and chemistry.

In the summer of 2022, the College Board announced a pilot program to “offer high school students an evidence-based introduction to African American studies” would be launching in 60 high schools across the country during the 2022-23 school year and will be set to expand to other campuses the following year.

“Like all new AP courses, AP African American Studies is undergoing a rigorous, multiyear pilot phase, collecting feedback from teachers, students, scholars and policymakers,” the College Board said in a statement.

DeSantis, a one-time Donald Trump ally, plays an active role in stoking social and political anxieties, primarily among white Americans, that stem from conversations about race and gender that occur on K-12 public school campuses. In April 2022, he signed the Stop Woke Act, which severely limits “race-based” discussions at schools...

If DeSantis wants to shut down any AP program - which has educational value by encouraging student research, debates on topics, and college-level study that all earns high schoolers college credit for passing the tests - he better be ready to shut down AP American History. When I took that in high school, AP American covered the factual history of slavery, racism, the causes of the Civil War, the rise of Jim Crow segregation, and the Civil Rights movement. 

This is Republican DeSantis: Refusing to let history be real about the damage racism has done to America, and relying on hitting us all over the head with comforting White Affluence lies.

And this afternoon, it's reported that DeSantis is demanding the public universities give him information on which college students are transitioning genders (AP News via the NBCNews website):

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking state universities for the number and ages of their students who sought or received gender dysphoria treatment, including sex reassignment surgery and hormone prescriptions, according to a survey released Wednesday.

Why he’s conducting the survey wasn’t completely clear. DeSantis has been criticized by LGBTQ advocates for policies seen as discriminatory, including banning instruction on sexual and gender identity in early grades and making it easier for parents to remove books related to the topic in public schools.

The survey is similar to one the governor is forcing state universities to complete regarding spending on diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory programs.

The current memo asks universities to “provide the number of encounters for sex-reassignment treatment or where such treatment was sought” as well as data for students referred to other facilities. It says to protect students’ identities when completing the information.

The survey requires a breakdown by age, regardless of whether the student is age 18 or older, of people prescribed hormones or hormone antagonists or who underwent a medical procedures like mastectomies, breast augmentation or removal and reconstruction of genitals...

One would think that there are federal laws in place - such as HIPAA - that protects individuals' privacy rights regarding their health care treatment.

But this is DeSantis as bully, running roughshod over the rules and regulations in order to score political points with a rabid religious Republican voting base eager to expose, embarrass, and even arrest trans and gay people for simply existing.

If these universities want to curry favor - and not lose any state funds - they will find ways to disclose the information DeSantis wants, and then those poor adults - college students are 18 and thus adults - are going to suffer harassment, discrimination, or worse. Considering most of the college boards and presidents are political appointees, they are beholden to DeSantis and the Far Right already.

This is all happening because the Republicans are obsessed with Culture War bullshit. All because DeSantis wants to out-pander trump in the 2024 Republican Race to prove who can be more sadistic.

Cruelty is not only the point with DeSantis, it's his goddamn campaign strategy.

The Hypocrisy of Pickpockets in Florida

The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two.
-- Mark Twain

Some days, you got to remind yourself that the louder and pious the elected official behaves in public, the likelier it is that elected official is a hypocritical pickpocket.

Case in point: This morning the news let out that the Florida state legislator who authored the odious "Don't Say Gay" law that the Far Right Republicans shoved down our throats was charged by the feds for stealing from the federal COVID-19 bailout funds. Via Edwin Rios at the Guardian: 

A federal grand jury has indicted the Florida state representative Joe Harding, the Republican lawmaker who authored the “don’t say gay” bill, for Covid business relief fraud and money laundering, the justice department announced on Wednesday.

Between December 2020 and March 2021, Harding, 35, committed wire fraud when he took part in a “scheme to defraud” the Small Business Administration and obtained Covid-related relief funds for small businesses under false pretenses, according to a federal indictment.

Harding, whose biography lists him as a “home healthcare executive” and a member of the Chamber of Commerce, allegedly “fraudulently obtained” more than $150,000 in funds from the Small Business Administration...

Harding’s home health agency is located in Ocala. After state redistricting created a new electorate, Harding moved to Ocala to be closer to his job and ran for house district 24, according to Florida Politics. He authored the Parental Rights in Education Act, which prohibits educators from talking about matters of gender and sexual identity in schools, a move that advocates worried would “erase” LGBTQ+ students and their history...

It's not mentioned in the article, but I bet you a couple wooden nickels that Harding is one of those happy Christian warriors, the kind who love to claim they follow all of Jesus' teachings and live by every word they can quote from the Bible. The state-level Republicans are full of such Bible Thumpers who enjoy the sadism of thumping everybody else's heads with the thick Bibles in their hands.

Considering how Harding is openly crusading against Gays and Trans identities, he's likely one of those Christian warriors who'll quote the passages against homosexuality and any kind of gender identity they view as deviancy.

I guarantee you Harding will never quote the parts of the Bible where Jesus commanded us to love each other, the open act of Grace that defines acceptance regardless of race or gender or gender preference. 

Based on the federal charges leveled against Harding, he certainly never paid attention to God's Commandments like, oh:

You shall not steal (taking $150,000 that didn't belong to you).

You shall not covet thy neighbor's belongings (a thief in high office tends to covet the trappings of wealth, the cars, the big toys, the even bigger houses).

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (lying in general - such as falsely claiming workers you never hired - tends to be a violation of ethics as well as faith).

Harding is one of many Republicans who rail on religious grounds against the very existence of gay and trans people, and then hypocritically commit crimes against everyone else thinking that their political and religious status will shield them from accountability.

Well, guess what Harding? Your hypocrisy does not shield you. You are now about to answer to Man's Law with regards to your greed and envy.

Just wonder how you'll excuse all that greed away with the God's Law that you never held true.

P.S. KEEP SAYING "GAY", FLORIDA. Harding doesn't speak for us, that's for damn sure.

Update: That was quick. Harding resigns from his office. It won't change much - the Florida lege is so dominated by Republicans they could lose 20 of them and not blink an eye - but it does suggest he had no room to run.

Fight Back: DeSantis Can and Should Lose

Well, Governor DeSantis signed the bill this Friday ending Disney's special tax district, basically giving every resident of Osceola and Orange Counties the middle finger regarding their property taxes going up 20 percent. He's also violated Disney's Constitutional rights (thank you Mitt Romney - oh GOD did I just say that - for reminding us "Corporations are people, my friends."), if Ian Millhiser has the right info on this (via Vox.com):

Florida’s decision to strip a government benefit from Disney because, in DeSantis’s words, Disney expressed “woke” opinions and “tried to attack me to advance their woke agenda,” is unconstitutional. And it’s not a close case.

As the Supreme Court said in Hartman v. Moore (2006), “official reprisal for protected speech ‘offends the Constitution [because] it threatens to inhibit exercise of the protected right.’” Nor does it matter how the government retaliates against a person or business who expresses an opinion that the government does not like — any official retaliation against someone because they engaged in First Amendment-protected speech is unconstitutional...

The "Don't Say Gay" law that's at the crux of this fight, according to Millhiser, is unconstitutional itself:

The law is unconstitutional because it is so vaguely drafted that teachers cannot determine what kinds of instruction are permitted and what kinds are forbidden — although it remains to be seen whether a federal judiciary dominated by Republican appointees will strike the law down...

So there is a big "If" attached to that possibility, although we've seen Roberts' Court reject some of the more extreme Far Right attempts at legislation due to such vagueness. Back to the fight:

Think of it this way: Imagine that José owns a bar in Orlando. One day, José tells the local paper that he dislikes Ron DeSantis and plans to vote for DeSantis’s opponent in the upcoming election. The next day, the state sends him a letter informing him that “because you disparaged our great governor, we are stripping your business of its liquor license.”

José does not have a constitutional right to sell liquor for profit. And the overwhelming majority of Florida businesses do not have a license permitting them to do so. But if Florida strips José of his liquor license because the government disapproves of José’s First Amendment-protected speech, it violates the Constitution.

Disney’s ability to govern the Reedy Creek Improvement District is no different from Florida’s hypothetical decision to take away José’s liquor license. If Florida has a legitimate reason to strip away this benefit from Disney, the Constitution most likely would permit it to do so.

But no one can be punished because they express a political opinion...

If DeSantis and his fellow Republicans had come up with some valid excuse - some evidence of criminal misdeeds involving those special tax districts, financial evidence that removing those districts is a benefit to the state and its residents in some way - then they ought to be able to pass that bill and get it through judicial review.

Problem is, DeSantis and his fellow Republicans have made it clear in public that this law is meant to punish Disney for their public opposition to DeSantis' anti-gay agenda. DeSantis openly accused Disney of attacking him promoting their "woke agenda," and his Lt. Gov. Jennette Nunez admitted on Eric Bolling's Newsmax show that all Disney has to do is change their position on gay rights and they can have their tax district back (it won't expire until 2023). There's no true reform element to what DeSantis is doing: He is straight-up kneecapping Disney as a warning to everybody else to stay out of his way.

DeSantis thinks he's in full control of the situation, and he thinks he's untouchable.

But he's not untouchable. He can lose, not only in the courtrooms where his actions can turn on him. He can lose at the ballot box, especially because he's more vulnerable than he wants to admit.

In 2018, he only barely won election as Governor by barely 35,000 votes, in an election with 8.2 million voters out of 11.5 million or so registered voters.

Orange County has roughly 854,000 or more total voters, Osceola has 245,000 or so voters. Granted, a sizable majority in both are registered Dems (361,000 / 98,000), but how many of them are going to show up to vote now to express their displeasure? How many No-Party Affiliated (NPA) voters (264,000 / 86,000) are now willing to show up and vote their displeasure? How many of them are now willing to join the Democratic Party?

Because what DeSantis and the state GOP did legitimately hurts them, strikes at their incomes and their businesses: They are now looking at the possibility their tourism industry will take a huge hit.

All those county residents gotta do is, they gotta go get their Voter Registration forms - county elections offices have them, your DMV offices have them, your public libraries have them - and get them filed this Monday. Register for the first time, or otherwise re-register and change their affiliation to Democratic. Hell, let's see how many registered Republicans in those counties (214,000 / 56,000) decide to re-register to NPA just to send DeSantis a message?

Because they STILL have a First Amendment right to send DeSantis a message saying "You Suck." He can try to retaliate all he wants, but he deserves to lose that fight if he keeps pushing it.

Punch back, Florida voters. Your votes matter, your voices matter, and DeSantis deserves to lose for what he's doing to our families and to our businesses.

The Battle for Florida: DeSantis Declares War On the Mouse

(Update: Thanks again to Batocchio for adding this blog article to Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please leave a comment below and peruse the rest of the blog, thank ye!)

When my family moved to Florida, I was seven. We lived in a part of Florida that had just exploded with new housing and thousands of relocating Americans, at the forefront of the 1980s population boom that turned Florida from a swamp-infested minor state to the third most-populated in the nation.

Part of that boom relied on the development of a major tourist attraction called Disney World, built outside of Orlando by Walt Disney's corporation in an attempt to expand his theme park empire. The popular Disneyland of southern California brought the company fortune in the 1950s but when he needed to add more rides, all the surrounding land had been bought up by developers who added their own businesses to feed off the tourism trade. By the 1960s Disney realized the next time he started a theme park, he needed to buy up all the land possible first, then start the theme park and expand from there.

The best place he could do that was Florida, where land was cheap and few people lived because the heat and humidity of most months made it untenable for non-agricultural or shoreline living. Picking a spot where a big enough airport existed to help with the flow of tourists and near an interstate to handle traffic, Disney quietly bought up as much as possible between Orange and Osceola counties in order to ensure construction of multiple theme parks and associated hotels/resorts under the company's control.

All of that land development still required a lot of corporate control, so Disney's company worked out a deal with the state of Florida by 1967: Reedy Creek Improvement District, a special taxing district run by the corporation. Disney would be responsible for paying and managing the infrastructure costs and constructions, much like its own city/county: In return, Orange and Osceola residents didn't have to pay anything towards the district, which benefitted both counties when businesses grew up around Disney's area and the population/work force grew to fill all those tourism jobs.

Everybody - except for the massive income inequality that non-union labor has to cope with - kind of won with that deal. Today, Orlando is one of the largest metros in the nation, only second behind the South Florida (Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-West Palm Beach) area in the state itself. Florida generates more money from tourism dollars than any other industry. And its allure has drawn in other industries - aeronautics, health care, energy, financial firms - to employ hundreds of thousands more. 

There may be a Busch Gardens theme park in Tampa, a Legoland in Winter Haven, a... well, does Coral Castle count as a theme park? No, it's a roadside attraction my bad. (Big thanks by the way to Neil Gaiman for shouting out the mermaids of Weeki Wachee in his work American Gods) There may be a Universal Studios park in Orlando itself, a Sea World park just down the road, and a hundred attractions along International Drive, but EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING in the Orlando metro revolves around Disney World.

They don't call it Mickeytown for nothing...

This makes it all the more insane that the Florida Republicans running our state - basically operating as one-party rule since 1998 - led by autocrat-wannabe Ron DeSantis have decided to nuke Disney's Reedy Creek Improvement District from orbit.

To the Tampa Bay Times (linking to the Associated Press reporting):

The Florida House of Representatives on Thursday gave final passage to a bill that would dissolve Walt Disney World’s private government, handing Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis a victory in his feud with the entertainment giant over its opposition to a measure that critics have dubbed the “don’t say gay” law.

The move could have huge tax implications for Disney, whose series of theme parks have transformed Orlando into one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations, and serves to further sour the relationship between the Republican-led government and a major political player in the state. Disney did not return an email seeking comment Thursday...

See, what happened is that DeSantis is angling for the 2024 Republican nomination for the Presidency - he's hoping that current overlord donald trump will be in handcuffs by 2023 - so during this legislative year he pushed for a lot of culture war laws he could sign to win over the GOP's racist/sexist voter base.

That not only included a racist "anti-CRT" law that essentially made it illegal to discuss the history of racism in both Florida and the United States, it also included the "Don't Say Gay" law that makes it illegal to "discuss gender identity" to the point where teachers could get fined saying the word "gender" on school grounds in front of students, and regardless of grade level due to an "age appropriate" clause vaguely worded enough to threaten even high schoolers. When that "Don't Say Gay" law was finally discussed in the legislature and passed by the GOP-controlled House and Senate, there was a lot of media discourse about how Disney World - Florida's biggest private employer - would handle the matter.

See, over the years Disney has garnered a reputation for being Pro-People i.e., a megacorporation that actually thinks about marketing to gay/lesbian/transgender audiences as well as the other demographics (yes, there is always a profit to be made). There's been Gay Days organized at the theme parks since 1991. Disney has never openly denounced the appropriation of popular characters - especially Elsa from Frozen - as gay icons, which helped maintain the fanbase. They market it all - even as they sell themselves as "family-friendly" - as an inclusive community where love and acceptance matters more than culture war posturing.

However, Disney is still a business, and a pretty big one at that: So they've always had their eye on keeping their corporate taxes low and government regulation off their backs. This means a lot of campaign contributions to Republicans on a regular basis, especially at the state level to ensure nobody messed with the flow of revenues.

So when Disney's head honchos were all asked about how they felt about Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill, their first response back in March was... well, hem-hawing at best. Which led to a major walkout of Disney employees angered by the spineless owners. Shamed by the public display, the CEO took a harder stance early in April, after which DeSantis still signed the bill into law while accusing Disney and others who opposed it of "grooming" kids, like the theme park was staffed by registered sex offenders.

And at that point, DeSantis called for a special legislative session - usually the state legislature works for six weeks to pass bills, and if it misses anything they have to hold special sessions at taxpayer expense - not only to force the legislature to approve his gerrymandered nightmare of a Congressional map but also to remove Disney's special tax district as punishment. Back to the AP article in the Tampa Bay Times:

The bill passed by the legislature on Thursday would eliminate the Reedy Creek Improvement District, as the 55-year-old Disney government is known, as well as a handful of other similar districts by June 2023. The measure does allow for the districts to be reestablished, leaving an avenue to renegotiate its future. The bill now moves to DeSantis’ office to be signed into law...

Democrats have criticized the Disney proposal as clear retaliation against the company and warned that local homeowners could get hit with big tax bills if they have to absorb bond debt from Disney — although such details are far from clear.

Disney is one of Florida’s biggest private employers, last year saying it had more than 60,000 workers in the state. It is not immediately clear how the company or local governments around its properties would be affected if the district was dissolved...

You can kind of see the carrot the Republicans left in the bill, where they could re-institute the special district if only Disney would behave like a good little puppet for DeSantis' political ambitions.

But the Republicans are risking a lot on this brash and open assault on a major economic revenue source for the entire state. If Disney World is curtailed, shut down, reduced in any way, that's a serious hit to the surrounding hotels and restaurants responsible for the hotel and sales taxes flowing into Tallahassee. 

One noted effect of losing the special district status is that Disney would have to fire the county-level emergency services people - the EMTs, the fire fighters, the police - working within the district. The district itself disappears, meaning the counties it's in - Orange and Osceola - would have to pick up the slack and staff those services themselves. Those counties would start have to paying for all that, not Disney.

Adding on top of that is a bond liability Disney has tied into the Reedy Creek finances, a massive debt worth around $1 billion (it might even be $2 billion) that those counties - not the state, which is really rubbing it in hard - would have to cover. If we refer to that CNBC article by Robert Frank:

Reedy Creek has bond liabilities of between $1 billion and $1.7 billion, according to the district’s financial filings. Under Florida statute, if Reedy Creek is dissolved, those liabilities are transferred to the local governments — either Bay Lake or Lake Buena Vista, or more likely, Orange and Osceola counties.

State Senate Minority Leader Gary Farmer, D-Fort Lauderdale, tried to amend the bill to include further study of the bond debt, but the amendment failed on a voice vote.

Farmer said the bond debt could total more than $2 billion and that tax authorities are increasing their estimates as they learn more about Reedy Creek’s outstanding liabilities.

“This is a very real impact, the extent of which we don’t fully understand yet,” Farmer said.

If the liabilities of $1.7 billion or more are transferred to Orange and Osceola counties, he said, the debt could amount to $1,000 per taxpayer...

In short: If Reedy Creek goes, the state government gets all the money while the local counties are forced to pay the bills.

All of this damage happening all because DeSantis and his fellow Republicans are vindictive assholes.

This is only part of the stuff that can happen if (more like when) DeSantis gets his revenge on Disney.

What happens when the Walt Disney Company, megacorporation generating around $68 billion a year, decides to fight back?

Remember at the beginning of the article when I mentioned my family moving to Florida? We moved to the Tarpon Springs area, and during those early formative years I witnessed up close the Disney company going after a day care center right off Klosterman Road. The day care had painted on the exterior a number of kid-friendly cartoon characters, among them Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Disney did not approve, because they were not affiliated to that day care. I didn't fully understand as a kid what trademarks meant and "controlling the brand" was all about, all I knew was a big business in Disney was going after a tiny local business on the side of the highway.

What I learned back then was something a lot of people understood over the decades that Disney turned into the media behemoth it is today: You do not fuck with Disney. You NEVER fuck with Disney. They go after day care centers, for God's sake.

This is an international company, with a reach extending to nearly every country on the planet. They hire hundreds of thousands of workers at theme parks across the globe. They make movies and television shows every minute of the day. They own the franchises of nearly every cultural foundation - their own animated characters, Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, they just bought 20th Century Fox a couple years ago to seize the X-Men characters for future MCU planning - of modern fandom. They only things they don't own are Star Trek and Dr. Who, and Gods help us if they ever buy those up.

And they have on staff hundreds of lawyers all working to ensure protection of their trademarks, to brush aside lawsuits and damage claims, with a ruthlessness that would impress Sith Lords.

In terms of this retaliatory - and rushed - law DeSantis is about to sign, Disney can easily send an army of lawyers to poke enough holes in the law to where the courts - even the Republican wingnut ones - can invalidate it. 

On top of the legal fight about to ensue, Florida Republicans ought to start realizing that Disney - and a number of Disney's corporate allies - may not be sending fat checks to their campaign war chests, which is an important thing this midterm elections cycle. It wouldn't be logical of Disney's CEO to help pay for a political party that just kneecapped him and stripped one of the most profitable pieces of Disney's corporate empire of its power.

While businesses may think the Republicans are the "Pro-Business" party, what DeSantis and the Florida GOP just did demonstrated that when it comes to pandering to the voting base on culture war issues, the Republicans will sacrifice and abuse their corporate "buddies" for cheap political points. Republicans, it turns out, are NOT really Pro-Business: Republicans are Pro-Power, and they are not going to share that power with anyone...

Would Disney roll over on this issue? I wouldn't expect them to: Show DeSantis or any other bullying politician that you're willing to cave, and all the other state governors and elected officials will pile right on. So I would expect Disney to take stock of the state political landscape, take a deep breath, and begin funding Democratic candidates - especially the centrist Pro-Business ones - with truckloads of SuperPAC funds and ad support and voter turnout efforts.

For all the gerrymandering the state Republicans have done, they are still vulnerable to voter turnouts (DeSantis barely won in 2018 by little over 3,000 votes). This stunt the Florida GOP is pulling is about to hit the wallets of hundreds of thousands of residents - and not just in Orange and Osceola counties - in a way that they'll view as unforgivable. No amount of culture war fearmongering can distract from families coping with higher property taxes and lost jobs.

If the Florida Republicans are kneecapping you with punitive laws to make you suffer, you fight back to make sure those Republicans are out of office by the next election (which is this November).

And that's all the LEGAL stuff Disney can do to punish DeSantis for starting this culture war fight. You might expect some of the illegal stuff like literal kneecapping to happen over the next couple months.

In the meantime... well, in THIS fight between Wingnut Assholes vs. Corporate Overlords, I'm gonna have to side with the Corporate Overlords. 

#GoDisney 

and #SayGayFlorida

Grooming Hypocrisy

In the past month or so - especially as the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation like "Don't Say Gay Florida" got signed into law - we've witnessed an uptick in a particular form of Republican attack, where they go on the offensive (by being offensive) and accusing their political opposition of crimes they haven't proven.

You've probably been overwhelmed by now from the Far Right Narrative that the Republicans are passing all these anti-gay bills to protect our families and children from the dread threat of Communism The Big Scary Blacks Satan Worshipers Feminazis Baby Parts Factories and now Groomers. The accusation is that the gays and lesbians and trans people are infiltrating our schools in order to "groom" the next generation of teenagers to be gay/lesbian/trans themselves.

It's as though the Far Right still believe that homosexuality, or any alteration of gender identity, is a "choice" rather than the personal psychological self-awareness that every person - straight, gay, bi, trans, or fluid - goes through growing up. We've had decades of studies providing some evidence that the self-identity is biological, internal, that you're born to it, and it's not something you can plug into another person like teaching them math or history.

It may stem from the fear/belief that the Far Right has - given their religious absolutism and devout faith - that such sexual identities can be programmed into people the same way churches program people into their dogma. It ignores the hard-wired nature of self-identity, and it's all projection and hypocrisy.

The hypocrisy comes from the facts that 1) there's no proof of wide-spread grooming conspiracy going on (remember Pizzagate?) and 2) the Republicans are willing to overlook how heterosexuals - especially older men - are willing to chase after the younger generation of women to "groom" them as their second (or third) wives / mistresses on the side.

These Republicans yelling and screaming about "Gays grooming yer kids" have no problem rewriting state laws like the one in Tennessee, where they were trying to create loopholes to deny gays right to marry... while at the same time getting rid of the restrictions that protected girls as young as 10 from forced marriages. Nationwide outrage finally pushed the state legislature to re-insert the age restriction, but this was how the Far Right religious bastards wanted to take it (via Jon Skolnick at Salon):

H.B. 233 gives Tennesseans "an alternative form of marriage" between individuals who have a "conscientious objection to the current pathway," according to state Rep. Tom Leatherwood, the bill's Republican sponsor. 

As WKRN ​​reported, the GOP bill, first introduced in January, establishes a common-law marriage between "one man" and "one woman" but omits any age requirements for the union, an omission that Democrats have blasted.

"I don't think any normal person thinks we shouldn't have an age requirement for marriage," said Democratic state Rep. Mike Stewart. "It should not be there as it's basically a get out of jail free card for people who are basically committing statutory rape," Stewart. I mean it's completely ridiculous, so that's another reason why this terrible bill should be eliminated..."

The measure is a significant step back from a Tennessee law passed in 2018 that prohibited minors under the age of seventeen from getting married. 

According to Unchained at Last, Tennessee ranks the 13th highest state in child marriages per capita. Nearly 10,000 children were granted marriage licenses in the state between 2000 and 2018... 

While the original intent of that law - which is still getting voted on - was to get around the gay rights to marriage, the fact that the Far Right didn't care they had removed the protections for children vulnerable to older sexual predators spells out their utter hypocrisy when it comes to "think of the children". The fact they didn't address this as a problem until 2018 (!!!) and were happy to undo what they had done just six years prior ought to horrify people.

Republicans - especially the religious wingnuts - look at gays and lesbians and bi and trans going public with their gender identities and scream "THEY'RE GONNA BRAINWASH YOUR KIDS INTO TEH GAY." Those same Republicans will then look at hetero men in their 20s and 30s chasing after 14-year-olds to get them pregnant and proclaim "Well this is the natural order of things as God intends."

Statutory rape means nothing to them. Actual rape - where the young girls are abused one way or another (physically or emotionally) into submitting to those men's wills - means nothing to the Far Right. The age differences between the sexual predators going after teen girls means nothing to them. Republicans pushing their religious wingnut agenda are going to make sure rape victims are forced to bear babies they didn't want for the glory of the sons-of-bitches who raped them. All they see is their sexist "make 'em barefoot and pregnant" agenda regain its "proper place" in the goddamned Patriarchy.

They've been like this for decades. We've seen their behavior in public over and over again. This blog has railed against the likes of Roy Moore - who was chasing after teenage girls while in his 30s, so much so a local mall had to trespass him to stop him stalking girls there - and other religious extremists like the Duggar family, which had sided repeatedly with their sexual predator son Josh who molested his own sisters (the parents' own daughters!) and was convicted in 2021 for possession of child porn. 

That is all young women are to these forced-birth zealots: Sexualized targets regardless of age, whose only purpose in their Christian Utopian is to breed. As often as possible, as early as possible.

The threat of "gay grooming" is a fake news story compared to the real threat girls and women from the ages of 10 to 50 are facing from the wingnut Religious Right the very minute Roe v Wade gets nuked by this ultra-conservative Supreme Court.

Gods help this nation the minute we turn half of our population into cattle.

DeSantis Just Declared Hunting Season In Florida's Public Schools

Welp. Nothing was stopping Florida Governor DeSantis from signing the odious "Don't Say Gay" bill, and by Gawd he signed it today (via Kirby Wilson and Jeffrey S. Solochek at the Tampa Bay Times):

On Monday, surrounded by Republican legislators, the governor signed House Bill 1557, called the “Parental Rights in Education” bill.

Critics have dubbed the measure Florida’s “don’t say gay” legislation because, although the bill does not mention the word “gay,” it prohibits instruction related to gender identity or sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade and potentially restricts such instruction for older kids.

The measure allows parents who believe a teacher is violating the rules to sue a school district for damages and attorneys fees. It takes effect July 1...

This is essentially a bounty program for angry Far Right parents to file lawsuit after lawsuit against every school and every teacher, an long-term attempt to bankrupt our educational districts and drive our teachers out of the classrooms before they lose their wallets.

DeSantis signed the bill at Classical Preparatory School in Spring Hill. The charter school was started in 2014 by the wife of education commissioner Richard Corcoran. The governor has signed several education measures this spring at charter schools, despite the fact that the bills do not apply to charters...

So, guess what Florida: Private schools are protected but the public schools - where the lower-income families have to send their kids - are not. While these Republicans push for more children to get enrolled into charter schools - which have little regulatory protection and are not proven to offer the best education - they are doing nothing to hold those charters equal in accountability, which screws our legally mandated public schools even more.

In short: This is now hunting season and our teachers are the targets.

But it's not only the teachers who are going to suffer here.

By signing this into law, DeSantis is signaling that the very idea of homosexuality or differences in gender identity is illegal. We dare not talk about it, it is verboten now: Thus anybody who IS gay, or lesbian, or trans, or genderfluid, or still trying to figure themselves out, they are verboten as well. As the Times article summarizes:

When it was originally filed, the legislation restricted “classroom discussion” about gender identity and sexual orientation. The bill’s language later changed to prohibit “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties” about those topics in K-3 — or in older grades in a way that is not “age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards...”

The law may say it affects only elementary grade levels, but this law is still vague enough about age-appropriate that ANY grade level discussion is subject to lawsuit. 

That opens up the likelihood of wingnut parents suing well up into middle-school and high-school grade levels. This opens up the likelihood that these parents are going to push their children to "set the issue" and trick as many teachers and students as possible to make sure someone somewhere does say something about their sexual identity, or what sexual identity even means.

What is going to happen now is the likelihood of these wingnut kids taunting and bullying all the other kids to trigger them into saying something they'll regret. And then making the schools over-react into something the administration regrets.

Do YOU remember what it was like to survive middle school? Those awkward years when puberty kicked in and your hormones were on overdrive? Remember how a lot of the taunts and accusations you endured from the other kids were if you were "gay" or not?

It happened to me, among all the other bullying - the use of my back for spitting practice, the head slaps on the bus, getting pushed while walking the stairs, the unwanted nicknames - was the occasional confrontation if I was gay or not. I wasn't, but there wasn't much I could say or do - other than date a girl or two, which I wasn't good at doing alas - to convince the other kids. The taunting subsided when I got to high school, but a number of them kept asking me if I was gay well into my senior year.

It's awkward when you're hetero, but what if you are really gay, or lesbian, or realizing your gender should be different, or that your gender isn't set in a box? What happens to those kids.

There are studies that show how the suicide rates for gay/lebsian/trans teens are higher than normal because they are emotionally traumatized by the social stigma they face, and that was even after gay marriage and being gay in public became more accepted for adults.

By making it impossible for teachers or school counselors to talk to teens about this, DeSantis and the Florida Republicans are making it more likely these teens will not get the help they need to grow up. This is horrifying.

By monetizing attacks on teachers and schools over which kids are gay or lesbian or trans, DeSantis is encouraging bad behavior to flare up so that the gay/lesbian/trans kids are forced to fight back and the wingnuts can feast on the prize rewards. That means you're going to see more kids get encouraged to bully the other kids, start the whisper campaigns and back-stabbings and hallway fights that will trigger an incident that would ruin lives.

In short: DeSantis just signed a bill allowing bullies free reign to attack all the other kids in schools.

How many lives will DeSantis and Florida Republicans ruin all to pander to their fear and their hate?

You know what? Screw the law.

Every kid should walk out of schools in protest. Every kid should wear rainbow colors every day in class. Every kid should shout "Say Gay!" every chance they get.

Force the Republicans and the goddamned wingnuts to face the reality that their hate laws suck. That it will all collapse and they'll be forced to scramble to repair the damage they caused, that the bills for this won't fall on the rest of us.

#SayGay Florida.

Republican Cruelty Still Ongoing March 2022 Edition

Just your constant reminder that Republicans are assholes and want everybody else in America to suffer.

The Florida legislature passed that "Don't Say Gay" bill, which would effectively muzzle any discussion of gender identities (yes, even hetero stuff, that's how vaguely worded this mess is) and encourage the spread of bullying and harassment of kids and teachers for any perceived Other-ness. Now it's up to DeSantis to sign it, and that SOB is eyeing his Presidential chances in 2024 knowing this pandering to the GOP voter base is how he can win them over. Damn him for the damage he's about to inflict on our school kids.

The Republican-controlled states are rushing to pass harsher anti-abortion laws, getting ready for the expected announcement from the 6-vote Far Right majority of the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade. Among these new bills is one from Missouri that would punish any woman who leaves the state to get an abortion as well as anybody who helps them. Worse, that bill would ban any abortion of an ectopic pregnancy that can be lethal to the woman enduring it.

Let's take a moment to talk about what an ectopic pregnancy is (via the Mayo Clinic): 

Pregnancy begins with a fertilized egg. Normally, the fertilized egg attaches to the lining of the uterus. An ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilized egg implants and grows outside the main cavity of the uterus.

An ectopic pregnancy most often occurs in a fallopian tube, which carries eggs from the ovaries to the uterus. This type of ectopic pregnancy is called a tubal pregnancy. Sometimes, an ectopic pregnancy occurs in other areas of the body, such as the ovary, abdominal cavity or the lower part of the uterus (cervix), which connects to the vagina.

An ectopic pregnancy can't proceed normally. The fertilized egg can't survive, and the growing tissue may cause life-threatening bleeding, if left untreated...

Anybody with a passing knowledge of human anatomy - or at least access to an anatomy book at the library - can tell you that a fetus growing in a fallopian tube will rupture that tube. That's massive internal bleeding. The fetus itself won't last long. The fatality rate of U.S. women suffering ectopic pregnancies is around 10 percent, and it's the leading cause of first trimester fatalities.

The guy in Missouri - Brian Seitz - pushing this bill is claiming that an ectopic fetus can get surgically replanted into the uterus, but guess what? He's lying. They tried selling this lie in Ohio when that state passed a similar law, and the doctors still had to explain to them that it's medically impossible.

And yet these Far Right, religiously-pandering, painfully ill-informed if not outright moronic politicians don't care about any of that. All they care about is banning abortion under ANY circumstance, which is why they laugh away rape and incest as a reason for women to need abortion, it's why they ignore the medical reality that pregnancies are high-risk for women in even the most advanced nations on Earth (and the U.S. isn't one of those nations in the first place).

So if a woman in Missouri gets pregnant, and it turns out to be ectopic, growing in her fallopian tube, and the only way to survive is to get an abortion, she can't get it in Missouri. Worse, she can't even leave the state to go to one - Illinois I think would still be pro-abortion in a post-Roe America - because the goddamned wingnuts will arrest her for trying to save her own life.

We saw similar "Can't Leave" laws pass in Georgia and other states a while back, and I think the latest situation about those laws is that they're pending SCOTUS decisions, which again does not bode well.

As I wrote back then, these anti-abortion bills are a replay of the Fugitive Slave Acts, only now geared to punish poor women who can't afford to leave their states to end life-threatening pregnancies. It is horrifying how far these religious assholes want to go to punish women, to the point they are happily agreeing to commit mass murder in the glory of fetuses that won't survive anyway. It's madness, and too many women are going to die because of it.

Rounding out this weekend of Far Right madness is this little gem from one of my state's Senators, Mr. Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott who came out last month with an 11-point plan to take the United States back to 1950 1850 The Stone Age. This counts out to more than 11 items, but I broke up some of Scott's rants into separate talking points to highlight each idiocy:

• It would force schools to not teach about racism or sexism or gender identity or any such "wokeness". It would force universities to stop diversifying their student populations, ending "affirmative action" of any kind.
• It would end "wokeness" or diversity training in the U.S. military, pretty much making life harder for women and gays in the military.
• It would increase prison minimums for both violent and non-violent crimes, and guarantee Qualified Immunity to let police abuse the use of force. All legal reforms to reduce our oversized prison population and any attempt to reduce police brutality, wiped away.
• It will finish donald trump's goddamned Wall that nobody else wanted.
• It will give Presidents a line-item veto on Congressional bills, which honestly requires a Constitutional Amendment that Scott or the Republicans won't be able to push through (because it will honestly break Congress' power and even they are not that suicidal). I also doubt Republicans will want that line-item veto in Democratic Presidents' hands.
• It will impose term limits on Congress (also unconstitutional, and would require an Amendment).
• It will weaken the Internal Revenue Service by cutting staffing in half, and pursue the idea of decentralizing the federal bureaucracy by shipping whole departments out of DC. They tried that with various Agriculture agencies and it turned into an expensive, staff-wasting mess.
• It will promote voter suppression even into Blue States by ending same-day registrations, cutting back on mail-in balloting, and enforcing stricter Voter ID laws everywhere.
• It will ban porn (good luck with that, you busybody idiots).
• It will give religious institutions more power to discriminate, violating everyone else's civil liberties just so Republicans can lie to themselves about us being a Godly nation.
• It will go after private social media companies who "violate" free speech by banning the racist Republicans who violate those companies' own rules.
• It will insist that ALL Americans pay income taxes, even those who are too poor to afford paying federal income tax (and who are already paying at the state and local levels through sales and property taxes). Scott's plan also calls on taxing people living on Social Security, who are fixed-income retirees or those too disabled to work for an income.
• It will end financial aid to foreign allies (just as we're coping with a Russian invasion of Ukraine and threatening our NATO allies!), cut off trade with China (the economic damage of that alone would drive Wall Street to go full Democrat), and "treat our enemies like enemies" (which sounds right now like pushing us into open war with Russia, oh no I'm sorry the Republicans think we're at war with Ukraine).

IMHO: A lot of this is just straight-up pandering on Culture War issues, all the while attacking the poor (and minorities) for "not paying their fair share" and pretty much announcing on loudspeakers that the Republicans hate everybody who isn't Rich White and Male.

To quote Jeffrey Billman at Orlando Weekly:

Most of it isn’t new, per se. What’s new is Scott’s attempt to marry the party’s anti-tax, pro-austerity wing with Trump’s populist, authoritarian wing. On the surface, that seems dubious. To the degree Trump had a policy outlook more sophisticated than “Build the Wall,” it was that he promised everything to everyone — cut taxes and increase spending and cut the deficit — and pretended he never made those promises when they became inconvenient. 

Scott, however, wants to reframe the oligarchical (read: deeply unpopular) aspects of the GOP agenda as an extension of the culture wars: The “woke” left is sending your money to “undeserving” others; you don’t have to squint to see the racial subtext. From start to finish, this is an authoritarian document dressed up in the language of freedom. Like all variants of right-wing populism, it focuses the grievances of its target demo (a loss of cultural primacy) at scapegoats (the wokes)...

To quote Rude Pundit:

There's so much conservative extremist fuckery in here that it reads like porn for the Federalist Society, like a bunch of Hillsdale grads are gonna sit around and circle jerk to things like finishing the stupid border wall and naming it for Donald Trump. "Yeah, that'll own the libs," they'll say as they jizz and then immediately feel shame and then immediately start jacking off again when they read the next line about funding the police.

Look at this savagery in attacking the poor: "No government assistance unless you are disabled or aggressively seeking work" (okay, so are you gonna provide child care?) and "Eliminate federal programs that can be done locally" (sounds good if you're in Massachusetts, scary if you're in Texas) and "All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount" (which is raising taxes on the poor instead of forcing million/billionaires to pay their share). There's fucking nothing in there about poverty other than that "socialism" apparently causes it. Not paying shit wages or corporations dicking over workers in favor of shareholders and executives.

On it goes, just a steaming shit pile that you'd just have to be a sociopath, and a fucking dumb one, to buy into. In addition to essentially ending the federal government except for the military, the paranoia over "cancel culture" bullshit and the outright terror over trans people is bizarrely overwhelming. In a weird merging of "science" and religion, the plan declares "Men and women are biologically different, 'male and female He created them.'" And "No doctor will be allowed to perform irreversible surgical or gender-altering procedures on any minor child," going against the advice of every major medical organization when it comes to gender dysphoria (and it's something Texas is already on board with)...

This maniacal shitpost of a declaration is about a nation that simply doesn't exist except in the heated, phantasmagoric delusions of the most MAGA-broken brains and the political garbage humans who exploit them, no matter the consequences. It imagines a country in flames, repressing true Americans, one where the greatest issue facing us is white people not allowed to say the n-word without consequences. It's hyper-Christian, nationalistic, fascistic, and deranged, ignoring all the real problems in this nation, which, to be fair, are mostly caused by Republicans...

To quote myself: This is what the Republicans have been selling for the past 40 years, ever since the glory days of the Reagan Administration, and trying to pass it off as reforms and benefits to a nation that hasn't seen a steady healthy economy in all that time (the economic boom of the Clinton years did not fix income inequality and was all quickly squandered by Bush the Lesser's tenure anyway). This is all the Republican Party is anymore: A party selling grievance and rage to its voting base and pushing an agenda of cruelty that appeals to far too many angry white folk.

Everything I've wrote here tonight, every last inch of it documenting the cruelty that drives the modern GOP.

Adam Serwer's words should get engraved on top of every Republican officials' tombstones when they pass this mortal coil: THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT.

Say It, Florida. Gays Exist.

(Update: Many thanks again to Batocchio for including this blog in Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please read this and many other articles and please leave comments, I wanna feel the love from time to time...)

Well, this is a pretty sick attempt by the Florida Republicans to take us back 20 years into denial and homophobia. The state legislature is about ready to pass a "Don't Say Gay" bill (via Joe Hernandez at NPR):

Proposed legislation in Florida would restrict how teachers can discuss sexuality and gender in the classroom, the latest effort by Republican lawmakers to remove the teaching of LGBTQ issues from schools.

Supporters say the measure empowers parents who deserve to have a say in what their children learn, but critics — who've dubbed the proposal the "Don't Say Gay" bill — argue that it will strip protections from LGBTQ kids and have a chilling effect on educators...

Under the House bill, a Florida school district "may not encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students." The bill doesn't specify how "age-appropriate" and "developmentally appropriate" would be defined.

The bills would also give parents the ability to sue schools if they believed the schools violated any provisions of the law...

That lawsuit empowerment is tied into the "bounty" concept that the Far Right have championed to go after abortion rights, civil rights, and any other rights by granting haters the ability to bankrupt their targets. Back to the report:

The group Equality Florida, which advocates for ending discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, said the bill is "dangerous" and accused lawmakers of targeting LGBTQ young people.

"This legislation is meant to stigmatize LGBTQ people, isolate LGBTQ kids, and make teachers fearful of providing a safe, inclusive classroom," the group said in a statement. "The existence of LGBTQ students and parents is not a taboo topic that has to be regulated by the Florida Legislature."

All of this is happening even though last decade we saw the Supreme Court guarantee Gay Marriage as a right, even though we've undergone serious changes in our military and other institutions recognizing gays exist and can serve the public trust as well as the heterosexuals.

This isn't only an issue of free speech and free identity for our residents and for our kids. This is going to get worse than just banning books about LGBTQ fictional characters or real-life biographical figures. This is going to get worse than shutting down talk about social roles as our children grow into the adults - hetero and gay and genderfluid - we need them to be.

This law is going to grant license to the bullies and the gay-bashers to let loose, allow them to accuse anyone of even uttering a word about homosexuality or gender identity. This is a license to go after the teens who are gay, who are trans, who are genderfluid, and who aren't harming anyone else by their existence despite what the haters fear.

All the current problems we have in our schools with bullying will multiply as the haters will encourage their kids in schools to harass and punish anyone they deem as LGBTQ/Other and get away with it because we DARE NOT say "gay" in those schools. Teachers will get pressured to look the other way. The kids who are finding themselves LGBTQ as they grow up will suffer emotionally, if not physically. Even the kids who AREN'T gay/lesbian are going to get picked on out of fear and rumor, and will have nowhere to go for help.

Basically, the state of Florida is happy to turn their public schools into even more hostile and violent war zones.

All because to the Far Right running this state the very concept of non-heterosexual identity still terrifies them. Even after all the research that there are biological and psychological factors that are well beyond any religious morality.

Always remember this kids: The imposters, the bullies, the haters, they all will employ force instead of argument, impose silence where they cannot convince, and propagate their character - lack of - by the sword.

The Far Right religious wingnuts are desperate to impose silence about gay rights - about gays existing at all - because they cannot convince us to be as hateful and judgmental as they are.

Fight back. 

Recognize that we should not be bullies to our fellows. 

Recognize that real Christian Faith calls on us to love each other, without restriction or hinderance. 

Recognize that fear is an enemy, it drives us to hate and to hurt others.

Recognize that the Republican Party is running on Hate because they cannot run on anything else.

The March Of History Now Dancing To the Tune of "We Are Family"

Obergefell v Hodges: basically the court case about whether or not gays have the same right to marry as heterosexuals.  There was a previous Supreme Court ruling in 2013, but that essentially said civil unions were possible but did not go further into marriage legal rights.  That was akin to a prelude: this case went straight to the heart of the matter.  On this, let's refer to SCOTUSblog's summary in Plain English by Amy Howe:

The Supreme Court, Kennedy’s opinion explains, has long recognized the right to marry as a fundamental right.  And although until today it has always done so in the context of opposite-sex couples, he continues, all of the same principles on which the Court has relied in cases involving opposite-sex couples apply equally to same-sex marriage and the recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages.  For example, being able to decide whether to get married is an important part of an individual’s autonomy regardless whether you are the same sex as your intended spouse.  Along much the same lines, marriage is a unique way for two individuals – in both same- and opposite-sex partnerships – to demonstrate their commitment to one another.

Justice Kennedy writing for the majority uses the 14th Amendment, arguably the most key civil rights amendment outside of the Bill of Rights, to argue that marriage as a fundamental right needed to apply to all:

These considerations lead to the conclusion that the right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same-sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty. The Court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry. No longer may this liberty be denied to them. Baker v. Nelson must be and now is overruled, and the State laws challenged by Petitioners in these cases are now held invalid to the extent they exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite sex couples.

This is just one more step forward in this moral universe, in that long arc that bends towards justice.

To quote Kennedy's key point:

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed. It is so ordered.

To be fair, this ruling will affect just a significant minority of Americans.  Statistically there's about 3 percent of the population that is gay/lesbian: in a population of 313 million or so Americans that's roughly 9 million.  But by extension of families, of friends and colleagues, this affects so many of us.

This is a moment where a right that should be viewed as universal finally is: much like the right to be free as a person regardless of ethnicity, much like the right to vote for women as well as men, much like the right to be protected before the law, there is a right to marriage that covers so many aspects of our world - of property, of community, of relationships between ourselves, of the simple identity of humanity - that ought to be protected and confirmed by our Constitution.  This ruling makes it so.

This is not the end of the fight.  The Haters who rail against gays will continue to do so.  But now they have one less weapon in their arsenal.  The Constitution - the law of the land - is no longer on their side.  All they have is their stringent religious dogma, stuck forever in Rage mode quoting Leviticus or Romans as though they were the only passages that matter.

Never mind they cherry-pick such quotes, ignoring all other bans of Leviticus and the Bible.  Never mind their cries about gay marriage harming families conveniently overlooking the Biblical warnings against Adultery, which more Americans commit than there are gays in our nation (our Far Right leadership and fear-mongers in the media refuse to punish adulterers like Gingrich or Trump or half their male membership, shame on them).  Never mind the passages in the Bible that speak to Grace, Acceptance, Good Will.  The Haters gonna hate.  That battle will not end today.

But today is a day to feel good.  To feel good about being an American.  To feel good about being Pro-People.  To feel good about being on the right side of history on the right arc bending towards justice.  Like this guy Rich Juwziak at Gawker says, this ruling feels so good:

...All of that fills my heart beyond what I understood to be its capacity. It’s why my mother called me crying happy tears this morning. It’s a beautiful thing to have experienced in my lifetime. I’m so thankful for today.

I can’t help but be happiest, though, about the defeat of the anti-marriage equality crusaders. The defeat of people who signed up to lose, who wasted their time and ours on a platform of animus and contempt. The defeat of people who put principle over the practical, who fought to preserve their limited understanding of an already imperfect institution over the actual human lives that would benefit from it. The defeat of people who did what bigots do: discriminate, vilify, fear-monger, argue irrationally and without respect to human dignity, and then bristle when they’re called out for what they are (bigots).

The jig is up. The world has turned and left you fuming, seething, weeping...

Really should not dance or strut before the Haters.  That's not what Christian Grace should be about.

Better to dance and strut with the Lovers.  With the People who love for the sake of grace and humanity and happiness.  The Four Loves that the Greeks defined for us, love like Agape (for the love of others, for the love of God), Storge (love of family, between parents and children and siblings), Philia (for the love of friends, for companions), and yes Eros (for the love of passion between two people).

So, DJ Agape, give us a beat: