#DeSantis administration

[zinniajones]

FLORIDA HRT CRISIS: SB 254, effective May 17 2023, banned nearly all new HRT prescriptions and refills of existing prescriptions for trans adults, for up to 6 more weeks or until “emergency” state-mandated consent forms are published by the Boards of Medicine.

Trans care bans were never about “protecting children” — they were about making all trans existence completely impossible. See for yourself.

(Full quality version)

Please share to help Florida's trans community survive SB 254!

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

" “Courses with a curriculum based on unproven, speculative, or exploratory content are best suited as [electives].” However, being a truly informed citizen requires awareness of current events, movements, and perspectives. In a high-quality science course, students should learn the latest scientific literature and understand the ways novel findings upend older ones. Scientific advancement requires speculation, so students need to discern trustworthy data and build strong hypotheses based on observations not yet solidified as fact. "

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning (04.25.2024):

On Friday, the Biden administration released its final Title IX rules, which include protections for LGBTQ+ students by clarifying that Title IX forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The rule change could have a significant impact as it would supersede bathroom bans and other discriminatory policies that have become increasingly common in Republican states within the United States. As of Thursday morning, however, officials in at least four states — Oklahoma, Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina — have directed schools to ignore the regulations, potentially setting up a federal showdown that may ultimately end up in a protracted court battle in the lead-up to the 2024 elections.

Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley was the first to respond, decrying the fact that the new Title IX regulations could block teachers and other students from exercising what has been dubbed by some a “right to bully” transgender students by using their old names and pronouns intentionally. Asserting that Title IX law does not protect trans and queer students, Brumley states that schools “should not alter policies or procedures at this time.” Critically, several courts have ruled that trans and queer students are protected by Title IX, including the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in a recent case in West Virginia. In South Carolina, Schools Superintendent Ellen Weaver wrote in a letter that providing protections for transgender and LGBTQ+ students under Title IX “would rescind 50 years of progress & equality of opportunity by putting girls and women at a disadvantage in the educational arena,” apparently leaving transgender kids out of her definition of those who deserve progress and equality of opportunity. She then directed schools to ignore the new directive while waiting for court challenges. While South Carolina does not have a bathroom ban or statewide Don’t Say Gay or Trans law, such bills continue to be proposed in the state.

[...] Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Díaz Jr. also joined in in instructing schools not to implement Title IX regulations. In a letter issued to area schools, Díaz stated that the new Title IX regulations were tantamount to “gaslighting the country into believing that biological sex no longer has any meaning.” Governor Ron DeSantis approved of the letter and stated that Florida “will not comply.” Florida has notably been the site of some of the most viciously anti-queer and anti-trans legislation in recent history, including a Don’t Say Gay or Trans law that was used to force a trans female teacher to go by “Mr.” State Education Superintendent Ryan Walters of Oklahoma was the latest to echo similar sentiments. Walters has recently appointed the right-wing media figure Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok to an advisory role “to improve school safety,” and notably, Chaya Raichik has posed proudly with papers accusing her of instigating bomb threats with her incendiary posts about LGBTQ+ people in classrooms.

At least four states-- Oklahoma, Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana-- are telling schools to ignore President Biden's new trans-friendly Title IX rule changes that protect trans students and staff.

[iww-gnv]

(Reuters) - Florida sued the Biden administration on Wednesday, accusing it of threatening to withhold more than $800 million of funding for transportation infrastructure because of a new state law that some public sector unions have viewed as anti-labor. Signed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis on May 9, Senate Bill 256 prevents unions representing transportation workers, teachers and other public sector employees from having dues deducted from paychecks, and would instead have employees pay dues to their unions. Other provisions require employees who want union representation to sign authorization forms, and require unions seeking certification as bargaining agents to show that at least 60% of eligible employees are paying dues. Florida said the White House is conditioning transportation funding on the state's agreement not to enforce provisions that the Secretary of Labor believes undermine collective bargaining.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) issued what he described as a “formal travel advisory for socialists visiting Florida,” on Tuesday, warning that the state was “openly hostile” to socialists and their enablers.

“The state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by Socialists and others who work in the Biden Administration,” Scott, who is also the state’s former Governor, said in a press release.

“Let me be clear – any attempts to spread the oppression and poverty that Socialism always brings will be rebuffed by the people of Florida,” he added. “Travelers should be aware that attempts to spread Socialism in north Florida will fail and be met with laughter and mockery.”

Scott’s statement is a mocking response to recent travel issued by social justice groups declaring Florida an unsafe state for certain minority groups.

Over the weekend, the NAACP issuing a travel advisory warning that Florida has become “hostile to Black Americans” under Gov. Ron DeSantis. The League of United Latin American Citizens (a civil rights organization) and Equality Florida (an LGBTQ rights group) also issued travel warnings in recent weeks.

Scott, who has often served as a political foil to President Biden, used similar language found in the NAACP’s advisory, seeming to mock the dangers outlined by the civil right’s group by drawing parallels to Biden.

He said the counteractive travel advisory came “in direct response to the Biden Administration attempts to erase capitalism and the system that has brought prosperity to Florida and the entire United States.”

[nando161mando]

[tomorrowusa]

Republicans are like 4-year-olds who just learned a bad word and can’t stop saying it.

All Republicans do nowadays is scream “WOKE!” whenever they see something they don’t like. It’s true that woke is a dumb sounding word – that may be why most progressives haven’t used it much since this SNL fake commercial from 2017.

The Trump administration indulged in an orgy of deregulation which led to disasters like the four recent derailments in Ohio to the recent failure of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Screaming “WOKE!” is their way of evading responsibility without having to provide explanations for their deregulation policies.

As soon as it was clear that Silicon Valley Bank would not survive the weekend, conservative influencers and Republican politicians had a culprit in sights.

Wokeness.

“They were one of the most woke banks,” Representative James Comer, the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, said during a segment on Fox News.

The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, also spoke to Fox about the collapse of the bank, and he also blamed the bank’s diversity programs. “I mean, this bank, they’re so concerned with D.E.I. and politics and all kinds of stuff. I think that really diverted from them focusing on their core mission,” he said.

 Being Republican means you never have to back up your claims.

It is unclear whether these conservatives are working from the same memo or just share the same narrow obsession. Regardless, there is no evidence that D.E.I. or any other diversity initiative is responsible for the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. It is nonsense. And while it shouldn’t be taken seriously on its own terms, this deflection is worth noting for what it represents: the relentless effort to mystify real questions of political economy in favor of endless culture war conflict.

The real story behind the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has much more to do with the political and economic environment of the previous decade than it does with “wokeness,” a word that signifies nothing other than conservative disdain for anything that seems liberal.

The failure of the SVB was essentially caused by poor bets by the bank.

“Flush with cash from high-flying start-ups,” my newsroom colleague Vivian Giang explains, Silicon Valley Bank “did what most of its rivals do: It kept a small chunk of its deposits in cash and it used the rest to buy long-term debt like Treasury bonds.” As long as interest rates stayed low, those bonds promised safe returns.

Interest rates did not stay low. To fight inflation and reduce the price of consumer goods, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates seven times in 2022. With each increase, Silicon Valley Bank lost money on its bonds. Worse, the interest rate surge affected venture capital firms and the entire world of tech start-ups, harming the bank’s portfolio as those companies shed value and reduced deposits. Clients started to withdraw money to meet their liquidity needs, and last week, in order to fund these redemptions, Silicon Valley Bank announced it had sold $21 billion in bonds, at a loss of $1.8 billion. The bank then let it be known that it would sell $2.25 billion in shares to cover the loss.

Worried clients began to withdraw more money, which spooked investors, a development that pushed more clients to withdraw even more money. (Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund reportedly called for its start-ups to pull their cash while they still could.) On Friday, as the bank run gained steam, California’s financial regulatory agency announced that it had taken possession of the bank and placed it under the receivership of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Remember how in the aftermath of the Bush financial collapse of 2008 the Obama administration under Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner initiated stress tests on banks to see if they were financially viable? Donald Trump and the GOP 115th Congress did away with those tests.

It’s not as if no one thought this collapse could happen. “The failure of Silicon Valley Bank is a direct result of an absurd 2018 bank deregulation bill signed by Donald Trump that I strongly opposed,” Senator Bernie Sanders said in a statement on Sunday. Senator Elizabeth Warren made a similar point in an essay published in The Times on Monday, in which she also mentioned the failure of New York-based Signature Bank in the immediate aftermath of S.V.B.’s collapse: “Had Congress and the Federal Reserve not rolled back the stricter oversight, S.V.B. and Signature would have been subject to stronger liquidity and capital requirements to withstand financial shocks.”

You’ll never guess which Florida congressman voted for bank deregulation.

[I]f you want to understand the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, you have to understand the political environment that led Congress to loosen regulations on regional banking institutions. You have to understand the interests involved, the ideologies involved and the personalities involved, like DeSantis, who voted for the deregulation bill as a congressman.

😮 😳 🙀

The people who blame “wokeness” for the collapse of a bank do not want you to understand or even think about the political economy of banking in the United States. They want to deflect your attention away from the real questions and turn it toward a manufactured cultural conflict. And the reason they want to do this is to obscure the extent to which they and their allies are complicit in — or responsible for — creating an environment in which banks collapse for lack of appropriate regulation.

Yep, as a House member, Ron “Choke on Woke” DeSantis voted to weaken safeguards on the banking system. If he keeps screaming “WOKE! WOKE! WOKE!” constantly then he thinks he won’t have to answer for his vote back in 2018.

So if you hear GOP MAGA zombies and others on the far right screaming “wokeness” about some disaster, don’t argue with them – they don’t care anyway. Just scream back, “DEREGULATION!” instead. Put them on the defensive. Nobody wins by playing defense 100% of the time.

[grayheartart]

Disney's case against DeSantis and the CFTOD has been DISMISSED

The Motion to Dismiss was granted against Disney and their fraudulent claim their first amendment rights were some how violated because they lost their special district status.

[socialistexan]

Some things I think people are overlooking in the tiktok ban bill, because it's not just a tiktok ban:

It gives the US government the ability to ban *any* app, website, or company they believe to be "controlled" by an "adversarial power" which can change whenever they want

It allows the President and the Administrative branch almost unilateral power to designate *any* app, website, or company to be under the control of an "adversarial power" (and just think about how that can be used un the hands of, say, Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis)

They have to offer little to no evidence for this. For example, tiktok - a Singaporean-headquartered and ran company, partially owned by US interests, incorporated in the Cayman Islands, and whose userdata is stored Austin, TX - is apparently controlled by the Chinese government

It also gives the Federal Government the ability to investigate and shut down any provider who gives access to these banned websites or services, including VPN. They will have unilateral power to dismantle VPNs through outrageous fines what will essentially force them to not operate in the US

A lot of the Congressional Representatives who supported this bill have large donors and/or stock in US Tech companies like Meta, Google, or Palantier who would benefit from the downfall of tiktok or the ability to purchase it and monopolize the market

Those same tech companies which sell our data constantly anyway, including to "adversarial powers"

This is so much more than just a tiktok ban.

[zinniajones]

Florida, SB 254, total HRT ban for adults: 5/25/2023 update

FLORIDA HRT CRISIS DAY 8

Note that in the span of two days, we have had to revise this policy map from including one last way (green) for adults in Florida to get refills (no new prescriptions) from an MD/DO, to removing the one last green endpoint, and replacing it with red/yellow stripe. It actually is unknown whether even refills can be prescribed by MDs/DOs; and because of that unknown, MDs and DOs are choosing not to provide refills either.

There are now NO ways for trans adults in Florida to even obtain refills of their established HRT prescriptions.

This is based on the reports we're receiving of trans people's current experiences attempting to fill their established prescriptions since 5/17/2023 - in a complete vacuum of any information for patients who just lost access to their medication, whether from state agencies or even from the state LGBT organizations that were supposed to protect us from exactly this happening to us.

This shouldn't come down to us alone. WE NEED YOU TO STEP UP.

TRANS ADULTS IN FLORIDA ARE NOT ABLE TO GET THEIR HRT PRESCRIPTIONS FILLED OR REFILLED ANYWHERE.

WE HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO DO SO SINCE WEDNESDAY MAY 17

IT HAS BEEN 8 DAYS

THE CLOCK IS RUNNING

The next in-person meeting of the Boards of Medicine, to draft highly restrictive "emergency rules" further regulating adult HRT, is next week!

Florida Board of Medicine/Board of Osteopathic Medicine Joint Rules/Legislative Committee

THURSDAY, JUNE 1 - 2:45 PM The Westshore Grand 4860 West Kennedy Boulevard Tampa, FL 33609

And by the way? DESANTIS HIRED THE FLORIDA HATE GROUP THAT WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR A LAW FIRM'S $15,000 HIT JOB ON WPATH SOC

DESANTIS APPOINTEES ON THE BOARDS OF MEDICINE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR PROMOTING CONVERSION THERAPY AND INVOLUNTARY PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITALIZATION OF TRANS PEOPLE

The Florida GOP and the DeSantis administration are directly responsible for a crime in progress against thousands of transgender Floridians!

GIVE US BACK OUR PRESCRIBED MEDICATIONS NOW

[cyarsk52-20]

The hew is mad lol

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lil Kalish at HuffPost:

Jules was driving to their friend’s house in St. Petersburg, Florida, last year when a police officer pulled them over for a busted taillight. Jules wondered if the officer saw their “Say Gay” sticker — a small protest to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” bill — and nervously handed over their driver’s license. The 26-year-old EMT in training had legally changed their gender marker to an M on their state documents in 2019, but their photo still reflected how Jules looked early in their medical transition, someone without a thick dark mustache and more baby-faced. The officer returned Jules’ driver’s license without any mention of their photo. But the officer did scold Jules, who had recently moved to a new home, for not having their current address on their ID. When Jules, who is using a pseudonym out of fear of harassment, went to their local Department of Motor Vehicles in November to update their address, employees told them there was no record of their gender marker update and that they could not get a replacement ID with their new address and keep the M at the same time.

“I seem to think that they lost my paperwork,” said Jules, who is nonbinary and transmasculine. “The person sitting across from me at the time was pretty much like, ‘Any point going forward, any other time you change this ID, we’re going to have to put an F on it.’ I was like, ‘Damn, wow.’” Jules said the same thing happened when they tried to get a replacement ID in January. Then, on Jan. 31, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles quietly issued a memo stating that residents could no longer update or change their gender on state driver’s licenses but could still receive replacement licenses for any name or address changes. “Misrepresenting one’s gender, understood as sex, on a driver license constitutes fraud … and subjects an offender to criminal and civil penalties, including cancellation, suspension, or revocation of his or her driver license,” the memo read.

Now transgender Floridians like Jules don’t know what to do: They’re worried about being turned away from getting a replacement ID with an accurate gender marker, but they’re also anxious about what will happen if they’re pulled over again with a license that has other incorrect information. The memo isn’t a formal law, rule or policy, advocates told HuffPost, which means it may be enforced at different department locations around the state. But even though there isn’t a law in place, the reality is that many trans Floridians are barred from updating their gender marker on their licenses, said Quinn Diaz, a public policy associate at LGBTQ+ rights group Equality Florida. People can still update their gender marker on newly issued licenses if they have already done so on other documents such as a passport or birth certificate.

“Expanding the Department’s authority to issue replacement licenses dependent on one’s internal sense of gender or sex identification is violative of the law and does not serve to enhance the security and reliability of Florida issued licenses and identification cards,” wrote Molly Best, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, in an emailed statement. “The security, reliability, and accuracy of government issued credentials is paramount.” Florida’s DHSMV rolled out the memo while the state legislature was still deliberating over HB 1639, a bill that would have narrowly defined sex by one’s genitalia at birth and also barred transgender people from updating their IDs. “Sponsors of the bill started presenting the case for passing HB 1639 on the basis that it would bring the state into compliance with its current operations at the DHSMV,” Diaz said. “They were saying the bill was necessary because of the memo that was released by the agency days earlier in a unilateral overreach of its delegated authority. It’s so frustrating and I feel like we’re likely to see that again.”

State lawmakers ultimately rejected the bill and nearly two dozen other anti-LGBTQ bills this spring. But the memo, Diaz said, is an example of the larger trend across Florida state agencies — many of which are stacked with DeSantis appointees who are sympathetic to his anti-trans agenda — creating policies or unofficial guidance that will help pave the way for other anti-trans legislation down the line. Under DeSantis, Florida has in many ways been a testing ground for the broader conservative movement to push some of the harshest anti-LGBTQ policies — from the memo to laws barring trans people from bathrooms and gender and sexuality from being discussed in public classrooms.

“The right wing was using Florida as a petri dish for what would be possible across the country should they gain power in Washington, D.C., again,” said Brandon Wolf, the press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign. “I think we should believe them. It is a road map to making America a place like Florida, and allowing the federal government to do much of what we’ve seen governors like DeSantis and [Texas Gov. Greg] Abbott do across the country.” The reality unfolding in Florida today is just a microcosm of what the United States could look like if Donald Trump were to be elected president this November, according to a nearly 1,000-page document that lays out goals and recommendations for a conservative president. The “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” better known as Project 2025, draws upon many of the current state-level anti-LGBTQ+ laws and policies and expands them to the national stage by any means necessary.

‘The Worst Of Everything We’ve Seen’

Authored by former Trump officials and dozens of right-wing organizations including the Heritage Foundation, nearly every page of Project 2025 details policies that would impact LGBTQ+ people — and there’s a particular focus on transgender people. On the very first page of the manifesto, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts laments the “corruption” of the country “under the ruling and cultural elite” whose children “suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.” Many of the document’s suggestions are things that advocates say Trump could enact on his first day through a series of executive orders, like barring trans people from the military, and removing gender-affirming care and abortion from veteran health care policies. The document also calls for policies to redefine sex as “biological sex,” which not only effectively erases the legal recognition and protection of transgender people but goes against modern science. Project 2025 also recommends rolling back Bostock v. Clayton County, the Supreme Court decision that protects LGBTQ+ people from employment discrimination; eliminating the promotion of gender-affirming care for minors nationwide; reinterpreting Title IX to permit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity; and abolishing the Department of Education and returning “control of education to the states.”

The project’s agenda encompasses a number of recommendations that target the very existence of LGBTQ+ people. Per Project 2025, a second Trump administration would erase the legal recognition of transgender identity — and go as far as to delete any mention of terms including gender identity, sexual orientation, diversity and abortion from every “federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation to exist.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would stop collecting data on gender identity, and the administration would block transgender students in public schools from using a name or pronoun that is different from what is listed on their birth certificates without the written permission of their parents.

The conservative manifesto illustrates a vast agenda to “restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.” In a chapter about the Department of Health and Human Services, former Trump HHS director Roger Severino, who drafted many of Trump’s anti-trans health policies, urges the incoming HHS secretary to “proudly state … that married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure.”

HuffPost reports on how a 2nd Donald Trump "Presidency" would be a massive nationwide nightmare for trans, intersex, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people (and LGBTQ+ people and their allies more broadly), with the assistance of The Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025. 🏳️‍⚧️

[divinefr1]

Ron DeSantis is waging his political and culture wars, even in response to a natural disaster. A Presidential hopeful who refuses to meet with the current President is not deserving of the office, title, service, or position.

[nando161mando]

Police oversight in Florida is already weak and the state just gutted it further. “They’re making it seem un-American to question policing, which should be a huge red flag to everybody."

[haute-lifestyle-com]

President Biden as responded immediately with federal aid to address the catastrophic devastation brought on by the Maui wildfires, citing efforts to rebuild, after the wildfire that has killed 95, is estimated to be in the billions. 

[tomorrowusa]

A former official in the Department of Homeland Security has a warning about what Trump is going to do if he's elected to a second term next year.

If you prefer reading to watching/listening, Miles Taylor also wrote this piece for TIME which was subsequently published at Yahoo News.

Another Trump Presidency Would Be Even Worse Than You Think

“Trump 2.0” won’t be as bad as many think. It will be worse.

We need to assume Trump will be the nominee, indictments or not, and that he will be a real threat. The time to start taking this threat seriously is right now.

We should assume the probability of a MAGA redux is significant. The GOP’s anti-democratic, populist wing remains firmly in control of the party, and if another Trump-like leader is elected, Congress and the courts will struggle to keep up.

Notice that Mr. Taylor used the words "Trump-like leader". That would cover all the better-polling candidates for the Republican nomination. We're seeing Ron DeSantis running to the right of Trump; DeSantis's latest attempt to attract the fascist fringe is a promise to appoint anti-vaxxing conspiracy nut RFK Jr. as head of the FDA or CDC.

The GOP has devolved into a pitiful anti-democracy subsidiary of Trump-MAGA. It is now a parody of its former self and should no longer be trusted in government.