#the politics are that we need to kill Ron DeSantis

[knight-says-rollout]

Just realized i forgot to post this

[mariacallous]

Despite the overwhelming scale of former president Donald Trump’s victory in the Iowa caucuses on Monday night, some of Trump’s most ardent supporters have already claimed that the vote was rigged because he lost one single county.

“After it was reported that President Trump won every county in Iowa tonight, Democrat shenanigans ensued and now it’s being reported that Johnson County in Iowa, which is a Biden +40 county, flipped to Nikki Haley by ONE VOTE,” Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who has been embraced by Trump, posted on X in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Other Trump supporters on far-right online platforms also claimed electoral conspiracies, even though Trump won 51 percent of the vote in Iowa, with Florida governor Ron DeSantis a distant second at 21 percent and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley in third place at 19 percent, according to results shared by the Iowa Republican Party and AP’s election tracker.

“We need a recount in Johnson County RIGHT NOW!” an X account named Red Eagle Politics wrote.

On Trump’s own platform Truth Social, Seth Keshel, a retired US army captain who has become a leading voice in the election denial movement in recent years, wrote: “Haley by one vote in Johnson County screws my prediction of 99/99 to Trump. Audit!”

Some of Keshel’s followers claimed those who voted for Haley had been “paid” to vote against Trump, but provided no evidence to back up this claim.

On pro-Trump message board The Donald, where a lot of the online organizing of the January 6 riot took place, users took issue with Haley’s Monday night claim that Iowa voters made the presidential election a “two-person race.”

“They rigged that county by a single vote just so she could say this,” one user wrote.

Others said the one vote loss was the work of the so-called deep state. “To win by ONE vote is just too conspicuous,” a user wrote. “It looks like a ‘Fuck You’ from the Deep State.” Responses in the same thread urged Trump to call for a recount in order to “trigger” his opponents.

Some Trump supporters also claimed that tens of thousands of Democrats were being paid to switch allegiances for the caucus and vote for Haley.

“The Iowa Democratic party has reportedly pushed for and paid TENS OF THOUSANDS of its registered voters to temporarily switch their party registration from Democrat to Republican so they can caucus for Nikki Haley,” Joshua Hall, who was once convicted of threatening to kill Democratic congressperson Eric Swalwell, posted on X.

While there was no evidence anyone was paid to vote, CBS reported that in at least some Johnson County precincts, election officials ran out of forms printed to allow people to switch party affiliations on the night.

As has been the case since the first false claims of a stolen election emerged in the wake of Trump’s loss in 2020, none of those claiming wrongdoing on Monday night provided any proof to back up their claims. With a long primary season now underway, those peddling lies about election integrity are just getting started.

[morlock-holmes]

Regarding this thread:

The thing I am talking about is not good nor bad; it can exist in a supportive community or in an authoritarian cult.

I keep trying to figure out exactly how to put what I'm trying to say, but fundamentally the big issue is fungibility.

That is, how easy would it be to exchange me, or an idea, or a building, or an institution, for a different one?

The answer is: Very easy.

In fact, the idea that I might not be fungible with a pool of identical units is almost impossible to conceive of for contemporary people, because it is at odds with both capitalistic market thinking and state bureacracy.

I started with instability and that's part of why people find fungibility distressing, but in all honesty I think the vast majority of people find fungibility itself so psychologically distressing that they will flock to organizations that seem to be working against it even when those organizations are really very bad.

It's easy to say that the idea of modern disenchantment is stupid because there was no past period of mythological unity and stability and agreement.

After all, European feudalism was characterized by frequent wars over succession and the modern bureaucratic order has arranged things so that you don't have to murder the previous guy to become the head of your country.

In fact, bureaucratic systems and capitalist ones like certain kinds of stability, they tend not to like the idea that Ron DeSantis could hire a bunch of Flemish pikemen to lay siege to Disneyworld until they bow to his demands.

So the problem isn't instability, or disagreement, or religious unity, that's not the fundamental issue.

It's very easy, because I'm not sure how to express these concepts, to think that when I talk about it "mattering" what happens to somebody that I am articulating a desire for a kind of loving individualistic community which knows me personally and would support me in reaching my hopes and dreams.

But I really am not talking about that, I'm talking about a society in which certain people (and quite possibly institutions or ideas?) are not understood as fungible with... well, with anything.

If I am the king and you hate my policies and murder me, you are expressing the kind of "mattering" that I am talking about.

Now, I don't want to be murdered by jealous political rivals, so you aren't, like, helping me by having some guy knife me in the gut or feed me poison.

Rather, you need to kill me because I, as an individual, am inseperable from my role as King. To do something to the king is to do it to Morlock-Holmes; to be Morlock-Holmes is to have a claim on kingship.

I cannot simply be replaced with an equivalent King unit.

In the modern capitalist, bureaucratic world order, this is becoming increasingly difficult to conceive of.

To the extent that I matter it is because as part of a demographic, or because I have something of value (Say, my labor) that I can sell on the open market.

Because my social value to my job is based on selling my labor, my relationship with my employer is contingent on whether or not the price of buying my labor allows me to make a living and my employer to make a profit.

But this doesn't just make my relationship contingent; it makes me part of a group of essentially fungible laborers. There is no particular reason why I should be at one job rather than another, and no particular reason why my employer should keep me around rather than an equally skilled laborer.

There is no answer to the question, "How do I differ from a different person with equal skill at this job" and there can't be an answer.

This is not how high control groups function. If you give them your two weeks notice they don't go, "Well, we're sad to see you go but we wish you luck in your future endeavors" and then turn around and start putting out want ads for applicants with a bachelors degree and at least two years of experience with head shaving and haunted stares.

No, they really put a ton of effort into keeping you in the cult because you are not fungible with anybody else. You cannot be replaced with another cultist, but rather, you specifically being in the cult is the important goal, as opposed to having a certain number of people in the cult.

In the cult, in benign religions, in the military and the caste system those two goals can be distinguished; in the contemporary job market only the second one can make sense.

In fact, as we've moved through the 20th century and on to the 21st it has become more and more difficult to conceptualize how the first goal could ever make sense in any setting. It has become self-evidently absurd and impossible (And therefore has been replaced and confused with individualist ideologies* and authoritarian ideologies).

I suspect that the "enchantment" people are talking about cannot coexist with a commitment to the fungibility of people and ideas.

And to be super clear about it, this is why I am incredibly skeptical of the idea that modern trads can actually bring back any kind of "enchantment" because for the most part all of them are deeply committed to capitalist markets and, even more importantly than that, to fungibility as a necessary and inevitable world-view.

"Capitalism, but your boss can fire you if you don't pretend to be Catholic" cannot solve the issue that I think I see here, I hope that's very clear.

@collapsedsquid if you're interested

*The problem with floating these ideologies as a solution to disenchantment is that they also struggle with bureaucratic and capitalist notions of fungibility. It is important that you, as an individual, should become a self-actualized person who succeeds at their dreams. But obviously we can't justify spending money on you specifically; after all that guy over there also needs to become self-actualized and succeed at his dreams so why on earth should I privilege you over him? Buying bulk malarial nets will maximize utility far more efficiently than whatever it is you were asking for.

[truthdogg]

This article is from 2018, but it’s extremely relevant today, because of how influential David Barton has been over the past five years since it was written. The change in tone from the right has shifted in that time as more and more of Barton’s followers have taken office and implemented his ideas.

One of the key elements of his phony mythology, for starters, is that the founders were divinely inspired evangelicals, and that they cannot be criticized whatsoever. From the article:

“It's also telling that so much of this revisionist American history is about blending Christianity with a very specific form of American (usually white) nationalism. Figures like Barton blend the idea that America is a "Christian country" with the idea that the only critiques of the Founding Fathers - that, say, they owned slaves or contributed to racial inequality - come from "politically correct" historians seeking to discredit America's great history for political ends.

“The founders double as hero-saints to Barton. Central to the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation is the idea that America was founded unproblematically; that only a return to this mythologized past will somehow solve perceived problems of structural inequality. "Real" America, in other words, is above criticism.”

This is the entire basis of DeSantis and others’ “anti-woke” and “anti-CRT” philosophy.

Further, watch out for any elected official claiming the US Constitution is divinely inspired. Whenever you hear it, you’re hearing a Barton-following Dominionist who should not hold political office.

And here the article explains just why so many Republicans are no longer hiding their complete & utter disdain for democracy itself:

“…Barton is among those who believe the ultimate goal for American government should be a Christian theocratic state, which is necessary to properly usher in the apocalyptic End Times. Dominionism takes many forms, …(n)evertheless, its fundamental principle is the same: Christians must work toward a theocratic state in which Christians are in control. Or, as current congressional candidate (and fellow Barton enthusiast) Rick Saccone said in an interview last year with Pastors Network of America, God wants Christians “who will rule with the fear of God in them, to rule over us.” ”

If you don’t recall, Saccone fortunately lost that election as well as the one after. (Thank you, Pennsylvania!) But others like him continue to win. Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz are notable Dominionists, and even Donald Trump has publicly embraced these ideas. This worldview they share isn’t undermining their support; it’s why they have any. Republicans’ strongest supporters are with them because of these views, while so-called moderates like Mitt Romney, Adam Kinziger & others continue to lose party support. This is exactly why influential pastors like Robert Jeffress and David Jeremiah are such avid Trump campaigners, because they believe in Christian authoritarianism and believe that Trump can (and will) make it happen.

We need to be very clear about this. Today’s Republicans are mostly Barton-inspired fanatics at all levels, especially locally. This is why after Tennessee Republicans ejected Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, they were caught on tape claiming that they were personally at the forefront of a “war” for control of the nation.

Base Republicans believe this nonsense. That’s why the very next thing the Tennessee legislature did after that recording was made was vote to allow unlicensed concealed carry, because they want their soldiers armed if and when they are voted out of office. If you look at the collateral damage of their war—our now-daily mass murders—it’s easy to see what impact their belief is having. The fear and distrust these killings create serve their goals as well, as those are critical ingredients for any authoritarian regime.

If we don’t start paying attention to this poisonous religious & racist rhetoric, we will not be able to stop not only our daily violence, but the coming violence as well. January 6th is going to look like the tourist visit Republicans claim it was. This is urgent. The change in right-wing rhetoric from this 2018 article to today’s full-throated endorsement and implementation of its ideas should make that very clear.

[samasmith23]

Can someone please impeach Ron DeSantis already and blacklist him from holding any kind of political office ever again?! This fascist monster is literally criminalizing gay and trans people’s very existence right as we speak! These laws are literally going to get people killed!

If you know any LGBTQ+ person in Florida, please do whatever you can to help them leave the state if possible! For instance, I’m a regular listener of @chrystalwilliams-blog’s Gals of Geekdom podcast, and one of the podcast’s co-hosts AshyGroovy is currently raising a go-fund-me in order to move out of the state so that she can safely transition. While I’m personally not able to donate right now, I’ll provide a link to Ashley’s page so that others will be able to donate:

[reasoningdaily]

In beloved memory of Trayvon and in honor of all who love him

Fam,

Ten years ago, a Florida jury acquitted vigilante George Zimmerman for the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. It was 2013, and the Dream Defenders, a Florida-based community group formed to vindicate Trayvon, occupied the Florida State Capitol for 30 nights and 31 days, demanding a repeal of Zimmerman’s winning defense, the controversial Stand Your Ground law.  A decade later, the community group is a powerful organization within the M4BL ecosystem, still organizing and combating fascist policies like the so-called “Stop W.O.K.E” bill introduced by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, which bans school curricula that explain the workings of race, class, gender, sexuality, and power in our society.

DeSantis’ motive is to defang the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) and adjacent left movements whose organizing yielded material wins on racial justice and police reform in the 2010s. But today’s Black liberation organizations are not intimidated.

Since Trayvon’s death, millions of ordinary people have organized to vindicate him and others like him. 

Our movement has been building and harnessing political power at the ballot box and on the local, state, and federal levels, growing support for investing in what our communities need to thrive and divesting from the systems that are causing us harm.

Vigilante and police violence still persist, and until these systems are dismantled, our communities remain under threat. This year, police killed Anthony Lowe, a 36-year-old double amputee in a wheelchair. They also killed 26-year-old Manuel "Tortuguita" Esteban Paez Terán, a forest defender in the fight against Cop City.

In May, a vigilante choked 30-year-old street performer Jordan Neely to death on the New York City Subway.

Our movement's work is more important than ever. Today, Dream Defenders has expanded their organizing to Oklahoma, New York, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C. Earlier this year in Florida, where the group started, activists occupied Ron DeSantis’ office to demand an end to the vicious attacks on queer and transgender communities. 

What most people get wrong about deeply rooted social movements is that even under the threat of ongoing attacks and erasure, they provide a meaningful and consistent entryway for disillusioned people who want to see justice and material change to plug into. People join us to be a part of something and work for real change in their lives and communities. They join us to feel like they can do something about it. This people-power keeps our movements constantly growing, relevant, and threatening to the status quo of power and privilege. We will keep on, and until our dreams are realized, until our children and all our people are safe from these harms, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

In beloved memory of Trayvon and in honor of all who love him,

Movement for Black Lives

Movement for Black Lives 1624 Franklin Street Oakland, CA 94612 United States

Visit us at M4BL.org

[beardedmrbean]

Even liberal San Francisco voters are getting tough on crime and public disorder.

Residents of the City by the Bay approved ballot measures Tuesday to set minimum police staffing levels, allow officers to chase suspects under reasonable suspicion they have committed or will commit a felony or nonviolent misdemeanor — with the help of drones ��� and set up public safety cameras that could use facial recognition technology to apprehend perps.

Another proposition that passed requires anyone who receives employment assistance, housing, shelter, utilities or food from city coffers to submit to drug screenings — and denies them those benefits unless they enter a treatment program.

The San Francisco Police Department had prohibited officers from pursuing nonviolent offenders unless there was an imminent risk to public safety.

Mayor London Breed, a Democrat, backed the ballot measures as she eyes re-election to a second full term in November — while facing challenges from Daniel Lurie, a nonprofit executive, and current and former city officials including ex-interim mayor Mark Farrell.

“We want San Francisco to be exactly what the people who live here want to see,” Breed said at a cocktail bar surrounded by supporters as the results rolled in Tuesday night, according to Politico. “And that is a safe, affordable place to call home.”

Voters also overwhelmingly approved tighter ethics rules for city employees regarding the receipt of gifts and mandating the teaching of Algebra I in schools by eighth grade.

Ballot measures allow voters to directly change laws during elections without the help of their elected officials.

Following a spate of state and local changes to crime policies in recent, San Francisco has been dogged by retail crime sprees, burglaries, rampant open-air drug use and public defecation.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, during a high-profile TV debate this past November against former San Francisco Mayor and current California Gov. Gavin Newsom, pointed to the city’s downfall as proof of failed liberal policies.

Dozens of big-name businesses have departed the city’s formerly bustling downtown area since 2020, the year after Breed was elected. Drug overdose deaths also hit a record high last year, with 806 recorded.

The descent into lawlessness was turbocharged by the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread rioting following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in summer 2020, as San Francisco and other cities embraced calls to defund law enforcement.

Breed supported a $120 million cut from the city’s police budget in 2020 — but reversed course the following year and pleaded with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to restore funding.

“I’m proud this city believes in giving people second chances,” she said in December 2021. “Nevertheless, we also need there to be accountability when someone does break the law … Our compassion cannot be mistaken for weakness or indifference … I was raised by my grandmother to believe in ‘tough love,’ in keeping your house in order, and we need that, now more than ever.”

The pivot to the center came just in time, as disgruntled San Francisco voters went on the following year to recall District Attorney Chesa Boudin, a progressive prosecutor and former public defender.

Before that, parents had ousted three members of the city’s school board for pushing a progressive political agenda and keeping classrooms closed during the coronavirus pandemic.

A former city supervisor, Breed was elected mayor in 2018 to finish out the term of the late Ed Lee, who died in office. She was later elected to a five-year term in November 2019.

She is still working to regain the trust of law enforcement officials, however, with the San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association saying in November that her “commitment to dismantling the criminal justice system has remained a focal point.”

Breed is battling a high disapproval rating, with 71% of likely general election voters taking exception to her job performance, according to a San Francisco Chronicle poll last month.

The city’s ranked-choice voting system could also throw a wrench into Breed’s re-election bid if she does not receive at least 50% support in the initial round, as second- and third-place candidates often receive more votes than those at the top of the ticket.

[tomorrowusa]

Far right ideologues, like DeSantis buddy Chris Rufo, like to refer to themselves as the "dissident right". That is a euphemism to hide their true anti-constitutional pro-dictatorship nature.

Chris Rufo, a rightwing culture-war celebrity and close Ron DeSantis ally, has maintained a close relationship with IM-1776, a “dissident right” magazine that regularly showers praise on dictators and authoritarians, puffs racist ideologues, and attacks liberal democracy. The outlet’s editors and writers – many of them so-called “anons” working under pseudonyms – have variously advocated for the repeal of the Civil Rights Act; celebrated figures such as the “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski and the proto-fascist Italian nationalist Gabriele D’Annunzio; and advanced conspiracy theories about the Covid pandemic, and what they term the “regime”, a leftist power structure that they imagine unites the state, large corporations, universities and the media.

Rufo and his cohorts are working to muddy the difference between themselves and the less extreme right.

Last month a “manifesto” written by Rufo – The New Right Activism – ran in the online and print versions of IM-1776, and Rufo has publicly urged his audience to buy and subscribe to the outlet. He has also co-hosted a series of Twitter spaces with the magazine’s editors, beginning in July last year. In one of them, recorded in October, he indicated an interest in incorporating the “dissident right” more fully in mainstream political discourse, saying: “I think there is a room for engaging the dissident right and the establishment right. I think we need to have a bridge between the two and and engage in thoughtful dialogue.” More recently, he has expressed a personal interest in expanding the range of acceptable political discourse. On the Pirate Wires podcast earlier this month, he told host Mike Solana of his own activism: “I try to play that game, I try to lay traps, I try to provoke certain reactions, I try to launder certain words and phrases into the discourse.”

Rufo's rag IM-1776 glorifies domestic terrorists.

Last June, IM-1776 published an obituary of Ted Kaczynski by another pseudonymous author calling themselves “The Prudentialist”. Kaczynski died in a federal prison last year at the conclusion of a life sentence he received for a 17-year mailbombing campaign that killed three of his targets and injured 23 others. Describing Kaczynski as “allegedly a lone wolf terrorist, but also a mathematical genius”, the IM-1776 author relativized his crimes and explained that Kaczynski’s “iconic status on the contemporary right can be partly attributed to the devastating critique of the left included in his famous manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future”.

The Republican Party is now the Trump MAGA Party. It refuses to call out extremists and is cozy with foreign dictators like Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán. Permitting Republicans to gain power puts the country under the control of the anti-constitutional "dissident right" who advocate Red Caesarism.

The ONLY way to defeat Republicans/MAGA/the "dissident right"/Red Caesarism is to vote Democratic. Any talk from the third party curious about impotent minor party candidates should get an instant reality check; the last presidential election won by a non-Democrat or non-Republican was in 1848.

[foreverlogical]

Politico has launched a five-part series on the American "anti-vaccine political movement," and yes, there is no way to understand current anti-vax hoaxes except as a "political" movement. But Politico focuses this first entry on the Biden administration’s lack of options when it comes to actually doing a damn thing about the hoaxes, and if anyone has a solution, please drop a line to either the White House or federal public health officials because there sure doesn't seem to be one that any of the rest of us can find.

The problem, at its core, is that a large chunk of Republicans decided to make a political movement out of pandemic denialism, claiming that the most significant worldwide health crisis since AIDS or the 1918 flu epidemic was no big deal, even as over 1 million Americans died around them. Even the simple act of wearing a mask to slow the spread of the virus so that hospital morgues would not be quite so overwhelmed was seen, by a certain collection of self-absorbed monumental assholes, as an infringement on their burping, ignorant freedoms.

It was inevitable that this would evolve into contempt for the rapidly developed vaccines that would soon make COVID-19 far more survivable. Because if you're already pushing the theory that the whole pandemic has been either faked or overhyped, then dismissing the resulting vaccines would logically follow.

Even before the pandemic, all of this really stemmed from the intentional political remaking of conservatism into an explicitly anti-science, anti-education movement. This was a necessity for conservative pundits and politicians who needed to sell the base on a party platform of letting polluters pollute, letting drillers drill, and telling everyone else that whatever horrors they or their loved ones had to face as a result were simply the price of patriotism.

Campaign Action

The anti-vax movement is not exclusively Republican (although if you're looking to conspiracy-promoting gadfly Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as evidence of "Democratic" support for those themes, then you're going to have to explain why Kennedy sells his shtick almost entirely to far-right crowds and on far-right platforms). But Republicanism is now inextricably linked to it. Case in point: the vicious cruelty of aspirational fascist Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. He has been the most aggressive in pushing dangerous pandemic hoaxes to his base, and his gleeful, purely political appointment of an infamous anti-vax hoax promoter as Florida's surgeon general was one more middle finger. There's no other way to read the elevation of hoaxer Joseph Ladapo to the state's top health post other than a willingness, on DeSantis' part, to kill Floridians outright if there's a chance it could boost his own credentials within the conservative movement.

Because once you've appointed someone to fraudulently alter scientific findings and then announce anti-vax conspiracies as official state government policy, you've erased all of the more charitable interpretations.

That still leaves federal officials in their current bind, however. Republicans have been promoting anti-vaccine sentiments as a supposed part of conservatism's new identity; there is no way for the White House to respond to anti-vaccine hoaxes without being immediately dismissed as doing so out of partisan spite.

So I guess we all live with the return of diseases like polio, since preventing polio or anything else is just too damn partisan now?

I don't have any deep pundit insights on this one; it's the lack of options that's most maddening. The first rule of conspiracy theories is that anyone who rejects the conspiracy theory is declared to be in on the conspiracy, and calling out Ladapo, Kennedy, and others as obvious self-promoting charlatans and snake-oil hucksters will only boost their appeal to the ignorant jackass brigades who follow them. Conservatism is a cult; it no longer has policies, freeing followers to "believe" whatever needs to be believed to support the Dear Leaders of the moment.

This is convenient for anyone looking to be the next Dear Leader; it is catastrophic for anyone who expects the government to do the bare minimum of protecting citizens during a natural or human-made crisis. And as unfortunate as it is, anti-vax cranks are not primarily harming themselves. They're harming other people, which means the good old have fun with that, and let me know how that works out for you approach is neither satisfying nor responsible.

We may need cult deprogrammers to help sort this one out because I don't think either political experts or sociologists will have solutions. And whatever you do, don't talk to historians: It will turn your stomach to learn about the denialism and conspiracy promotion that happened during long-past pandemics—and how those turned out.

[lesbiangummybearmafia]

Ok so 1953 was 70 years ago... 2053 is only 29 years away. This is my point the conservatives and Republicans in this country want to drag us all back 70 years ago if they had their way. I chose 1953 out of thin air, but pretty much any year of 50s. Because white men controlled everything back then. It's the 21st century for fuck sake, we're closer to 2053 now, are we all going to sit idly by allow them to this? Y'all realize we could easily vote all those old white bastards out of congress if enough got up off our butts and actually went out and voted, no matter what it takes. The only reason they stay in Congress and everywhere else is because more old conservatives and Republicans get out and vote. And I get those fuckers make impossible in alot of places to vote if we aren't one of them. But we gotta be fuck you, we're stronger, smarter, better, younger, more determined to have a better future. So we're not going to let their bullshit trickery and straight up cheating stop us from voting we'll get it done. Even just to piss those motherfuckers off. Vote for people of color, lgbtqia+ candidates, trans candidates, vote for not Republicans or Democratic candidates (if they get enough votes they'll win), vote for candidates that are younger then 50!! Just fucking vote, because even if think it does nothing, if dislike/hate conservatives/republican/fascist politicians voting against them will piss them the fuck off, prove them wrong about all of us, make them look stupid (which is always fun) and hopefully save our democracy. Because those motherfuckers are chipping away at it, it now huge fucking pieces their taking off not little pebbles. Just look at all laws they've passed at the state level to restrict our civil liberties, control free speech by banning books, passing laws to control women's reproductive rights, first the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade now having state after state passing insane laws banning abortions. In every case is a clear indication how much conservatives man don't care about women or our lives. Then the onslaught of laws targeting the trans community, limiting their access to health care they need and unleashing a wave of transphobic all over ourcountry. Also laws targeting the lgbtqia+ community, banning drag shows, that in theit history never hurt anyone. There a celebration.

We the people, remember there are way more of us then any political party, any amount of politicians, no matter how much powerful they think they are. We our number them! We are louder, we are angry, we are feed up, we are tried of the lies, we are tried of all the bullshit, we done being told what America should be like. Because that definition doesn't work anymore, we're gonna give America a new definition for right now! For the 21st century, for 2023 because we're not going the fuck backwards no fucking more. The only direction is forward, into the future, we want to know what America can be in 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now. That is not some conservative, Republican, fascist, authoritarian old white man wet dream!!! Nope, not happening not on our watch assholes!

We will not go gentle into that good night! We will rage, rage against the dying of the light!! In other words will not allow our democracy to be killed by traitors to our country that even now spit fascist ideals in Congress, in Governor offices, state legislators, mayors officials, city councils, school districts. Just look at horrors that been unleashed on Florida because of Ron DeSantis who is without doubt a fascist and an authoritarian!

That why the next elections are so important. Why it's so important to register to vote at

And go out vote or to make it easier if your state allows voting by mail, that what I do. I'm in Arizona, they send me a ballot in mail, I fill it out. I can either mail it or drop it off. It's great!! To see if your state has voting by mail go to.

Some other voting resources:

https://rockthevote.org

https://vote411.org

(Helps if your homeless and want to vote)

(Helps people with disabilities to vote)

[megamangxtheadventure]

MAGE CHONiCLES CHAPTER 23 THE THE PURGE

at illuminati base ted cruz was there with the most powerful men in politics “megamangx is back i am tired of losing to him!” ted cruz slam fisting into the tables.

the golden doors open and a stinky fat man in a suit and white ugly boots comed in it was ron desantis “ron why are you here what happened to trump?” ted pointed.

“trump was too woke so i killed him this group has a new leader but it must be purged made pure becuse even illuminati has become woke and i must make it pure like me!” ron said and the politicians looked scare

“are you betray us?” shouted sargon

Ron smile and started to fart real hard as the room was filled with fart gas and air was green with farts “silent but deadly my friends” ron laughed as the illuminati members choked to death “smell my freedom farts you woke fucks its time to build a new empire a strong mepire filled with strong white strong people who think like me no parish you cucks!!!” he farted real bad and the room was farts and he even grebbed turd cruz face and sat on it and forced him to smell the farts and he die of fart “eat my farts of freedom EAT THEM YOU FUCK!” Ron laughed with villainy as everyone in the room die of poson

shadiversty and some medevil knights on horses comed into the room with steampuink gas marsks “peasants remove these dead bodys i would be speking with the great leader” said sadiversty with an english old voice

“i pledge my sowrd to you kind desanta becuse i fear woke will turn my daugter into a woke and i can not live in that world we must purge weakness and go back to tradation and middle ages where life was better” hje said.

ron laughed and started eating some meatballs “dont worry in exchange for helping my side you will be rewarded i know like me you hate democrcy and want an empire of the powerful”

shadiversty nodee “yes america was on the wrong side of the revoluiton engerland should have won but the mistake will be corrected and everyone shall know the glory of king charles our ruler and the true emperoer of america and knights and castles will come back like the olden days”

a chamber opened and a bald cyborg had come in “lord putin i had not expected you so soon” ron kneeled to his master

“i was near death after that megafool gx killed me but russia sciance has made me powercul again and i will build my empire and have ravengence” said putin.

shardiversty kneed “what about gensokyo this realm they are after why not let me take it and i will make these girls into wifes who know there place as it is in the naturol order”

Putin opened a window and below was 1000s of robot “we will turn them against themselfs these bots can bend in and spread my ideals and turn everyone against each other i shall infest gensokyo with them and spread russia desires to everyone”

GENSOKYO MARIASA HOUSE

Robbie rotten woke up “why did i get here where is that pesky megaman gx” he danced out ofg bed

outside was megamangx in a cool mage trenchcoat over his armor studying the arcene boots “robbe you comed back good you must listan to me illuminati are bad guys and can not trust them woodman knowed this its why they tryed to kill him ten years ago” megamankgx explined

robbie was sad “i just am a villain but these people want to destory the world and make it a not fun place for everyubody in it and no matter how many times you beat them up or getting new super forms they just keep cominmg back and being worse” he signed

megamangx equiped his magibuster “we needing to find yukari she will have answers to what is going wrong and help me unlike my mage forms”

but then the two of them got blastered by glowing numbers as they hit a tree “what was that attack!” robbie gasrped!

a man in a suit was there “MATHS!” he laughed and blasted them with a beam of numbers.

“IS THAT RICHIE SUNAK!!” megamangx shouted.

sunak throwed a body with white hair on the ground and a blue jacket and wound on back with smoke “ITS CAT BOY SANS WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM YOU SON OF A BITHCH!!” screamed megamangx

richie sunak laughed evil “the uk has decided the catboy fandom needs to be banned for public order so i decise to do the banning myself with death” he laughed mad and kicked catboy sans body and got megamangx real mad

two more was there in powered armor with laser sword it was kemi banderdock and sueila beaverman “youll pay for killing boris” kemi banderdock spit at megaman gx and beaverman point her laser sword at robbie rottens back “

megamangx glowed with the elemental runes as he flaoted in the air with books “i am not letting you hurt more friends you will pay for catboy sans death!!!”

sunak blurst inwto laughter “you think its just us 3 ever since brexit we needed more power to keep order in england it was dark time but now we privatized the army with our new friends THE PSYKO SYNDINCATE!”

bald men in purpel jackets and guns comed “YOUR WORKING WITH THE PSYKOS YOU IDOTS YOU CAN NOT CONTROL THEM THEY WUILL DESTORY YOU!” robbie rotten glasped.

a green portal appeared a beam of green light and bullats blasted into 100s of psykos and sunak was shocked “WHO DARES!” he said and fired maths at the portal but the man with blonde hair blocked it “I DID! THE X SLAYER!” SAID ZANE ROCKS!

to be continued

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Trump Indicted

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 8, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 9, 2023

This morning the Supreme Court handed down a decision in Allen v. Milligan, a case that challenged the Alabama legislature’s redistricting of the state after the 2020 census on the grounds that the new districts had been configured to pack the state’s growing numbers of Black voters into a single district and thus dilute their vote. Such discrimination based on race, plaintiffs charged, violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA).

District courts agreed with the plaintiffs and told the state it couldn’t use the new map, but in February 2022 the Supreme Court issued a stay of the injunction prohibiting that map. The Supreme Court ruling left the Alabama map intact for the 2022 election. Legal scholar Stephen Vladeck noted that the decision was part of the court’s recent use of the “shadow docket,” unsigned, unexplained orders issued without a hearing. 

Today’s 5–4 decision upheld the verdicts of the lower courts, agreeing that the new Alabama map was, after all, illegal, because it violates Section 2 of the VRA, which prohibits the denial of the right to vote on account of race. This leaves intact the ability of plaintiffs to sue when states appear to discriminate against minority voters. Similar lawsuits are pending in ten different states. 

But, as Vladeck notes, the Supreme Court’s February 2022 decision leaving the discriminatory map in Alabama, as well as similar maps in other states, in place for the November election, is likely responsible for the Republicans’ current majority in the House of Representatives. The Cook Political Report, which follows elections, immediately changed their ratings for the leanings of five House districts after news of the Supreme Court decision.

That House majority is currently at an impasse that makes it impossible to conduct business. The extremist House Freedom Caucus (HFC) has revolted against House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) because of the budget deal he cut with President Biden before he would agree to raise the debt ceiling. Members of the HFC are demanding deeper cuts than McCarthy agreed to. The revolt of the far right puts into danger crucial spending bills, raising fears of a government shutdown in the fall. 

To placate the extremists, McCarthy has apparently agreed to take up two bills: one to kill a Biden-backed gun regulation and another to push even more strongly against abortion rights. This move, which flies in the face of popular opinion, has angered Republicans in battleground districts, who are revolting against measures that will hurt them at home. It also runs the risk of alienating Democrats McCarthy will need to pass spending measures if the far right refuses to vote for them.

The extremism of today’s Republican Party grew in large part from the work of televangelist Pat Robertson, who died today at age 93. The son of a segregationist southern Democratic senator, Baptist minister Robertson urged evangelical Christians to vote and made them a core constituency of the Republican Party. Paving the way for those today calling for an end to liberal democracy, Robertson blamed LGBTQ Americans and women for secularizing the United States, which he saw as a tragedy and frequently blamed for natural disasters.  

That political ideology depended on creating a false picture of what was really going on in the country. The Republican Party has become so wedded to lying about reality that today we saw Florida governor and Republican candidate for president Ron DeSantis circulating fake images of rival candidate Donald Trump embracing right-wing nemesis Dr. Anthony Fauci as a way to discredit Trump. 

Trump’s team cried foul at the fake images, but the former president himself relies on manipulating reality to garner political support. CNN national correspondent Kristen Holmes reported today that Trump’s people reached out this week to congressional allies to encourage them to flood the airwaves with a defense of Trump and attacks on special counsel Jack Smith before a possible indictment of the former president. 

To that end, Trump’s supporters spent the week trying to gin up outrage over a document they claimed shows that President Biden had taken a bribe as vice president. The document in question appears to be an unverified report that came to the Department of Justice through Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, one that the Trump Department of Justice dropped after it determined that the allegation was not supported by facts. But the practice of influencing politics through sham investigations is one of the Republicans’ key tools, and Trump allies have flooded social media this week insisting that this document is a smoking gun. 

They were, of course, trying to set up a defense for the former president’s possible indictment on charges related to his refusal to hand over national security documents he had taken when he left the White House. 

This evening, news broke that Trump has, indeed, been indicted by a grand jury in South Florida in connection with the documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago. The indictment is sealed, but there are reports that it includes seven counts of lawbreaking, including at least one related to the Espionage Act. These charges are serious indeed. 

Trump is now the first former U.S. president in history to face federal criminal charges (his first indictment, on March 30, was at the state level). As The Guardian’s David Smith puts it, “he really might be going to jail.” Smith—who is a keen observer of American politics—notes that it is hard to figure out what is important and what is not in the general drama around the former president, but this indictment is “genuinely monumental.” 

According to Trump’s outraged posts on social media, he has been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami next Tuesday. 

Trump’s team asked his allies to jump to his defense, and they did. Trump loyalists implied that the “sham indictment” was destined to distract from the blockbuster story they had invented about Biden. House speaker McCarthy implied that Biden, who has had nothing to do with the Department of Justice investigation, special counsel in charge of the investigation Jack Smith, or the grand jury deliberations, was responsible for launching a political attack on a rival. The third Republican in House leadership, New York representative Elise Stefanik, also defended Trump…in a fundraising email that assured donors their money would go to the “OFFICIAL TRUMP DEFENSE FUND” though, in fact, most of it would be diverted to Stefanik’s operations. Trump, too, lost no time in fundraising off the indictment.

Significantly, though, all Republicans who do not identify with the far right have remained steadfastly silent in the face of the day’s news. The exception has been long-shot presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson, who has called for Trump to end his campaign.

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who communicates with the Trump camp, says he holed up tonight not with his legal team but with political advisors. CBS News correspondent Robert Costa reports tonight that the camps of Republican rivals think that this news will actually help Trump in the short term, as his base rallies to him, but that the news of what is at stake in the theft of national security documents might well lose him support over time. If another indictment comes from Georgia concerning his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election there, rival camps say he might “bleed out.”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[FROM COMMENTS]

@luellajschmidt on Twitter:

1. $25 million for running a fraudulent trump university

2. 17 count criminal conviction on trump org for tax fraud

3. 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in NY

4. Guilty of sexual assault & defamation by a jury of peers

5. Oct trial date for manipulating valuations

6. Under investigation in GA for attempting to steal an election

7. Under investigation by DOJ for same

8. Indicted for obstruction, espionage act crimes, and conspiracy with chief of staff given limited immunity

And yet none of this has any impact upon 30% of US voters. There is no reasoning with delusions, and no end to grifters feeding them.

[the-firebird69]

Judge Strikes Down Ron DeSantis' Signature Law https://www.newsweek.com/florida-transgender-law-banned-unconstitutional-1911413

I don't care who the f*** you are just Santa's just Santa's Dee Sanchez Jesus you're a p**** first off secondly you're wrong no matter what state you're in in the USA you can't limit someone's medical Care based on their race you should be cut out of politics just like Trump stupid you're so stupid as it hurts you got cut into little pieces by the Max and they held it on you and your pussies you're fighting each other to the death and they held it on you your pussies and that's all you are you're f****** p**** tonight I knew it so let me tell you something I don't f****** need you Governor DeSantis this for anything and your negative person for me. you cut yourself out of the picture and that's the big picture. You can get fired no matter what you do same with Stan from this job you have here and from your life you're f****** dead because of your mistake it's not only a mistake to your own people who you're getting killed rapidly because you think you're AI boy or whatever dumbass s*** you tell them they get a little kid for real but you're fired I don't need you have you noticed no is the answer you're in oblivious idiot I waited for the foreigners to come in and get rid of your dumbasses and others because the max needs real contenders and you ain't nothing you're some s*** head too pushes me into the game every day it has a laundromat like some sort of f****** Queen I'm bringing charges against you Governor DeSantis for introducing this law in the first place and sponsoring it and other laws they're all illegal into your benefit is for your queer plan LOL and we're going to sue you

Zues Hera

You're staying in the front yard screaming like a retard that got you to do it because you're a stupid f*** that's why it's funny that's your little b****

.

Is sitting there looking at you carefully that's making the noises and then you started screaming it and you look really stupid and he got out of trouble because you got in trouble and I told him what you were doing I said you wouldn't do the work you wouldn't look at it you wouldn't let him do it wasn't supposed to do have no septic you f*** you men are so goddamn dumb we're in a lot of trouble because of you and he says you can't get in trouble for fumbling like a mad person but you're in trouble with yourselves cuz you're still going to be splintered and have these guys going after everything that means that you're nothing and that blows you're going to come in now and feed the s*** out of us cuz I think we all know and we might and he says doesn't really matter you suck so bad but really what we're looking for for a nuclear weapons so you can't let us have any and they know about it they were saying it yesterday in code if you have to be a genius to hear it for Christ's sake... Why I say is I've done a lot of work around here I want you to play cuz you're a dick head about queers you should be doing that it's unconstitutional and people notice and these Max use everything like that not one thing or look at it and say it's too much they use it all are you people really that stupid the answer is yeah this a****** Trump has like 5,000 court cases to go to he's a huge animal he's going to handle the position off who cares they're cutting you off with your fingerprints and your brain because of what you've done you're not cutting him off you s*** head but he's going to pay for your crimes and he should he's making you do them you idiot he's right you know we're fraction completely and useless and he's in trouble because we're sitting here cuz he's fat blobs and we can't do anything you want I felt like running over there with a shovel cuz he says you take it it kind of slit one foot wide and stick the dirt out and that's what we're preventing him from doing and sit there with a shovel Trump I mean this is gross it's it is torture and he says we are being sued and then armies are going to come kill us because we are completely useless and the least we could do is point it out to foreigners and tie it up and try and get something but no what we want to do is just sit here and be huge huge targets

Lily

I don't think I've ever heard this before she says it every day and I don't listen he says so f****** what like granddad is President and you're fired go to hell Jason you piece of s***

And by the way Jason f*** you you're a p**** I punch you in the face and you die you're out f****** moron I'm going to punch your people's ticket I'm going to punch your God damn tickets here myself and show you how it works

He says added I'm afraid because it's true I can't get out of here and I can't do the job Stan won't let me and he says it's a lie and he believes it and who cares it's right out of driveway and you you can't get it done cuz you know what happens to the septic and it's too rich for you you stupid f*** f*** you Jason you lying sack of p**** man I got to f*** you up in this idiot and there's a crying little f** over here

Jason

These people have our son argue with them like this every day but what he's doing is having you killed he's sending over this and you don't see it cuz you're a bunch of losers who have to see it then you have to believe it you have to have him make you believe that he's having to kill we say is that manipulating it say that would kill you by hand and people imitate him is one thing but you can't buy that for a dollar it's a goddamn dumb any other Max found out that you know about it at your dumb meeting and they're going after you because they know that you go after them thank God he says thank God I mean these guys probably suck so f****** bad they follow a car for a minute and drive off the road and yeah there's a lot of that didn't confident they are incompetent and we need the max to go below when it's a real fight

Thor Freya

Haha boy that makes sense you're so God damn weak for me to have it doesn't care at all about helping cuz he can't cuz we'll make a device out of it will pile them up and blow them up with a laser so people think that I've been doing it cuz it's coming out of my mouth why that's stupid

Trump

It's stupid because you probably don't have any but people think you do that's why it's stupid you should head so why don't you run around tell people you f****** little Goldilocks

Zues Hera

I think I will this

Trump

is the threatening us and we even know what you have and what you don't so go tell your s*** heads and you'll be threatening them and they'll want it you f*** you dumb retard

Zues Hera

This is very difficult because we're actually very stupid now I have to go after you Trump and you probably don't have me to save you c*** that's what he's saying what God damn stupid that makes sense and they're going to kill me over and over for three shovelful of dirt I don't understand it and he does it sounds like the max and make it for so it's not the memory jackass you idiots what the f*** is wrong with your lower my rent stand or go to hell those are the choices you dip s*** you don't have to vouch your master but you do all the time

Jason

F*** you dumb a******

Zues Hera

I figured out something we kind of stupid and he's right we're back to them all the time but we won't do stuff that they don't want us to I mean this sucks we're so God damn weak they're coming after us anyways but now it's going to be worse cuz we ran down there whose idea was that s*** you stupid a****** anyways we're probably just going to die they planned out your day in a movie and how do you do the movie and that's how they kill you it's not brain surgery so I'm going back in time so I guess that's what I'm going to do I guess I'll stand good job I mean you f****** around with me all the time but you know step off

You know what I could care less I don't have anything to do today it's going to try and evict all three

Stan

You're not in the group anymore a****** we pushed you out and we're taking your properties and you don't have that power to do it to him it was going to go after you today and your group's not big enough and these people go after you so you're done

Mac daddy

I sort of get something you're standing up for him we don't want you to he says I'm with trillions and trillions of dollars a second the foreign government stand and you're worth nothing to these people here you should f****** kill yourself Stan you don't know better at all you don't know the real man my plan had it down my clan had it down and you in the other f****** idiots f***** it all up and the max got messed up and now you have to look at the red eye little s*** you f****** teeny little s*** you messing with me I'm going to step on your whole f****** stupid little army and take everything that's just two states you little s***... That's a f****** price for not shoveling three shovel fulls of dirt and raise my rent you dumb f***... Is it English then you can't understand English go to ESL you dumb f****** retard you got a retard frontal lobe you need ESL not me you stupid f****** idiot I have an IQ that's well above everybody here and it all up together... In a valuable to other people apparently not to you so they're going to come in here and blow your f****** head off... I sort of get that this is torture and they don't want it and they're killing us all and we keep asking for it and so what and he says great so you're checking out good I can take your stuff going to use it right in front of you don't f****** retard

Stan

You're actually a lot worse than I thought Stan and I know we're losing but boy you a f****** loser you are a loser 10 20 years ago when he went through New York you were this f****** huge loser I don't want to do this anymore you started this war cuz you're a piece of s*** you want to get rid of all our guys they're special so what we're different people you don't know it I mean this is hell I got to go down with a shovel he says just bring the f****** shovel down and I'll show you how to shovel three shovel falls of dirt so you can go around and you can fix your the other ones no I don't know you were there it's stealth shoveling but only have to say I got you a job I pulled you out of hell you probably be dead right now and it takes effort everyone bothers me you feel are spoiled rotten there's nobody behind you there's no safety net you say that s*** to me Stan so it's going to blow your brains out there's no mama and there's no papa used to be my clan and you guys done away with them now you have no safety net at all and you have nobody who's advising you the two big guys can't you're too sticky and too f****** annoying and they decided if they do anything I love you guys are a wasting God damn time.

I could actually hear it just get it done don't talk to you about it anymore if I hear about it I'm going to start soon the f*** out of video it was mentioning it and I have to try and tell you something I don't have time for this s*** he's just going to start f****** us up what would anybody do fix the goddamn sewer it's been 2 years you made me sick you're asking for more rent you owe me money cuz the place shouldn't even be inhabited I got to see the f*** out of you I get a lawyer today or sue the f*** out of you dumb a****** and f*** you by the way you get off my f****** case I'm going to rip you a new one you're saying to me and obviously we're in trouble he said radar Love stupid f*** you dumb queer what are you going to do against the laser of that power they can actually stop the Earth particles from going into the stupid universe she God damn webs you f****** f*** ups have no f****** idea how dead you are

[phaeton-flier]

Every so often a major Democratic politician says something bland and unremarkable about the Republican party or another politician and a group of people whose overton window is different flavors of Revolutionary Marxism act surprised that they didn't call for killing and eating the heart of Mitch McConnell.

When Biden says "We need a strong Republican party" that's not him hyping up Ted Cruz. It's the boring, mealy-mouthed centrist shit politicians say because it sounds nice while affecting nothing. It's "I support the other party insofar as they're the kind of other party that agrees with me". Him calling for the head of Ron DeSantis would sound nice, and immediately lose a ton of political capital while not doing anything to help people on the ground.

[scottguy]

I wonder how many people tried to kill Hitler? Quite a few? Assholes like him just never seem to die. (Look up Rasputin and Fidel Castro)

MAGA would fall apart without Trump. No on has his deceptive appearance as a jet-set rich guy businesses man. No one has Trump's unending need to have his ego filled at rallies where he just rambles about various recent bizarre conspiracy theories he reads online. No one is so completely lacking in conscience that he can attempt to overthrow democracy and be unapologetic about it.

Everyone else has tried to be a mini Trump and failed. (Most notably Ron Desantis) Apparently it's hard to be an occasionally charming total sociopath.

MAGA will rapidly die without him. As a faction, the white supremacists he has stirred into a rough political coalition will take longer to fade, but they won't be a significant enough voting block. All the decent people that are still fooled by Trump and who *still* see him as an outsider and a savior, they will flee the Republican party. By then, no one sensible can think for a moment that Republicans are on the side of the working class. It's like right-wing politicians are actually daring working-class Americans to see just how how openly spiteful they can get away with being to workers because they've trained their tribe to hate liberals so completely that working-class MAGAs are stuck supporting those who ALWAYS vote against working-class priorities such as controlling costs on food, housing, gas, and medical care. (They whine about them... but never speak of actual SOLUTIONS! They imply, "Just because we criticize, we MUST want better." Republicans boycotted Democrat hearings on gas prices and inflation!

I don't promote political violence. But Trump has been directly and indirectly responsible for half a million entirely unnecessary deaths when he made Covid, masks, and vaccines into political wedge issue. He has made and continues to make innocent people's lives a living hell Like he did after the debate in Springfield, Illinois.

Trump will destroy America if he gains power. (For God's sake.. they wrote him a plan on how to do it! Project 2025)

If he does ever get shot, especially fatally. I will not shed a tear.

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Colorado Snowstorm Knocks Out Power to Thousands and Snarls Travel (NYT) A snowstorm sweeping through Colorado and Wyoming on Sunday was expected to bring as much as four feet of snow to some parts of the region, and has left nearly 30,000 people without power in Colorado. The storm brought heavy, wet snow and downed trees and power lines. More than 20,000 customers near Greeley, Colo., about 50 miles north of Denver, were without power on Sunday, according to Xcel Energy. More than 2,500 people around Fort Collins, about 1,500 near Loveland and about 3,000 people in the Denver suburbs were also without power. A blizzard warning was in effect on Sunday for Colorado’s Front Range, an area that includes the Interstate 25 corridor from south of Denver up through Cheyenne, Wyo. The National Weather Service warned that an additional two to six inches of snow and wind gusts as high as 45 miles per hour could create “nearly impossible travel conditions.”

Florida’s pandemic response gets a second look from the national media (Axios) After a solid year of living with a pandemic, the national press is beginning to ask the question that even Democrats have been quietly pondering in the Sunshine State: Was Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pandemic response right for Florida? More than 32,000 Floridians have died, but our death rate is no worse than the national average—and better than some states with tighter restrictions. On Sunday’s front page, the New York Times explored the positives—from the booming real-estate market to Florida’s low unemployment rate—of an early reopening: “Much of the state has a boomtown feel,” writes Patricia Mazzei, “a sense of making up for months of lost time.” The Times notes that Florida’s unemployment rate is 5.1%, compared to 9.3% in California, 8.7% in New York and 6.9% in Texas. “That debate about reopening schools? It came and went months ago. Children have been in classrooms since the fall.” The closer you are to either loss or to the fullness of life will likely determine how you feel about the state’s response.

Quaking in their beds, sleepless Icelanders await volcanic eruption (Reuters) Icelanders are yearning for some undisturbed shut-eye after tremors from tens of thousands of earthquakes have rattled their sleep for weeks in what scientists call an unprecedented seismic event, which might well end in a spectacular volcanic eruption. “At the moment we’re feeling it constantly. It’s like you’re walking over a fragile suspension bridge,” Rannveig Gudmundsdottir, a lifelong resident in the town of Grindavik, told Reuters. Grindavik lies in the southern part of the Reykjanes Peninsula, a volcanic and seismic hot spot, where more than 40,000 earthquakes have occurred since Feb. 24. Located between the Eurasian and the North American tectonic plates, Iceland frequently experiences earthquakes as the plates slowly drift in opposite directions at a pace of around 2 centimetres each year. “Everyone here is so tired,” Gudmundsdottir, a 5th grade school teacher, said. “When I go to bed at night, all I think about is: Am I going to get any sleep tonight?” Authorities in Iceland warned of an imminent volcanic eruption on the peninsula in early March, but said they did not expect it to disturb international air traffic or damage critical infrastructure nearby.

Vigil To Reclaim The Streets From Vigilance (CNN) Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, disappeared on March 3 while walking home from a friend’s home in London’s southern neighborhood of Clapham. Her body was found inside a builder’s bag in a wooded area. A 48-year-old police officer has been charged with kidnapping and killing her. On Saturday, thousands of people gathered in Clapham Common to pay tribute to Everard despite planned nationwide vigils having been canceled due to pandemic restrictions. As darkness fell, police officers began grabbing women in the crowd and making arrests. Videos posted on social media showed officers violently dragging some female protesters away and throwing others to the ground and handcuffing them. Women’s rights activists in the UK are reeling from the Metropolitan Police’s heavy-handed approach. There’s also been political fallout, with a member of Parliament reading out the names of 118 women murdered last year. In a new poll, over 70% of UK women said they had been sexually harassed in public spaces. The figure rose to 97% among women aged 18-24. 45% said they didn’t believe reporting the incidents to officials would change anything.

Dutch police break up thousands of anti-lockdown protesters (The Hill) Police in the Netherlands dispersed thousands of anti-lockdown protesters outside the Hague on Sunday, one day before national elections begin in the country. Reuters reports that police used batons and water cannons to disperse the crowd who authorities said were ignoring social distancing rules as well as warnings from authorities. Many of those gathered in the crowd held up yellow umbrellas and signs in opposition that read “Love, freedom, stop dictatorship,” according to Reuters. The country has been under an intense lockdown since January, Reuters notes, with gatherings of more than two people banned and the first night-time curfew issued since World War II. When the lockdown was extended, it sparked several days of rioting across the country. According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Netherlands has confirmed over 1.1 million coronavirus cases and more than 16,000 related deaths.

Spain to launch trial of four-day working week (The Guardian) Spain could become one of the first countries in the world to trial the four-day working week after the government agreed to launch a modest pilot project for companies interested in the idea. Earlier this year, the small leftwing Spanish party Más País announced that the government had accepted its proposal to test out the idea. From New Zealand to Germany, the idea has been steadily gaining ground globally. Hailed by its proponents as a means to increase productivity, improve the mental health of workers and fight climate change, the proposal has taken on new significance as the pandemic sharpens issues around wellbeing, burnout and work-life balance. Leftwing parties in Spain—where a 44-day strike in Barcelona in 1919 resulted in the country becoming one of the first in western Europe to adopt the eight-hour workday—have seized on the idea. “Spain is one of the countries where workers put in more hours than the European average. But we’re not among the most productive countries,” said Iñigo Errejón of Más País. “I maintain that working more hours does not mean working better.”

Major European nations suspend use of AstraZeneca vaccine (AP) A cascading number of European countries—including Germany, France, Italy and Spain—suspended use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine Monday over reports of dangerous blood clots in some recipients, though the company and international regulators say there is no evidence the shot is to blame. AstraZeneca’s formula is one of three vaccines in use on the continent. But the escalating concern is another setback for the European Union’s vaccination drive, which has been plagued by shortages and other hurdles. The EU’s drug regulatory agency called a meeting for Thursday to review experts’ findings on the AstraZeneca shot and decide whether action needs to be taken.

Myanmar junta orders martial law in 6 Yangon townships (AP) Myanmar’s ruling junta has declared martial law in six townships in the country’s largest city, as security forces killed dozens of protesters over the weekend in an increasingly lethal crackdown on resistance to last month’s military coup. At least 38 people were killed Sunday and dozens were injured in one of the deadliest days of the crackdown on anti-coup protesters, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, or AAPP, an independent group tracking the toll of the violence. Several estimates from other sources gave higher figures.

Flights canceled during China’s worst sandstorm in a decade (AP) China’s capital and a wide swath of the country’s north were enveloped Monday in the worst sandstorm in a decade, forcing the cancelation of hundreds of flights. Skyscrapers in the center of Beijing appeared to drop from sight amid the dust and sand. Traffic was snarled and more than 400 flights out of the capital’s two main airports were canceled amid high winds and low visibility. The National Meteorological Center said Monday’s storm had developed in the Gobi Desert in the Inner Mongolia Region, where schools had been advised to close and bus service added to reduce residents’ exposure to the harsh conditions. The National Meteorological Center forecasted the sand and dust would affect 12 provinces and regions from Xinjiang in the far northwest to Heilongjiang in the northeast and the eastern coastal port city of Tianjin.

Taiwan’s boom (NYT) Taiwan, home to 24 million people, has seen fewer than 1,000 cases of Covid-19 and just 10 coronavirus-related deaths. Prior to 2020, lots of Taiwanese and dual nationals moved abroad and only came back for a visit. After the pandemic hit, Taiwan closed its borders to almost all foreign visitors. Protocols put in place include temperature checks, hand-sanitizing, mask-wearing (except in schools), rigorous contact tracing, and strict quarantines for incoming travelers. Taiwanese nationals returned, and about 270,000 more stayed than left. As a result, the island is experiencing a real economic boom. Exports have been rising for eight months, fueled by shipments of electronics and surging demand for semiconductor chips. Domestic tourism is exploding. The economy grew more than 5% in the fourth quarter compared with the same time period in 2019. And every day restaurants, bars, aFor Law Enforcementnd cafes are packed, office buildings hum, and schools are filled with laughing, unmasked children. “We just feel very lucky and definitely a little guilty,” said a product manager for a Bay Area tech company who returned to Taipei with his wife and young son last May. “We feel like we are the ones who benefited from the pandemic.”

United States and Iran warily circle each other over reactivating nuclear deal (Washington Post) The United States is willing to sit down with Iran “tomorrow” and jointly agree to full compliance with the nuclear accord they and five other world powers signed in 2015, according to a senior Biden administration official. Iran has made equally clear it shares the goal of going back to the terms of the original agreement, before President Donald Trump pulled out of it. But nearly two months into Biden’s presidency, with Iran’s own contentious presidential election approaching in June, the two sides have been unable even to talk to each other about what both say they want. Iran wants all Trump sanctions lifted and an immediate influx of cash from the release of blocked international loans and frozen funds, along with foreign investment and removal of bans on oil sales. It seeks assurances that the next U.S. administration won’t jettison the deal again. For its part, the Biden administration wants a reactivated deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, to serve as a “platform” to renegotiate its sunset provisions—the future dates when certain provisions are set to expire. It wants to move quickly to discussions about its other problems with Iran, including Tehran’s ballistic missile program and its use of proxy forces in Iraq, Syria and beyond, and human rights abuses. Both sides continue to wait for the other to prove its good faith with “you, first” rhetoric.

‘Republic of Queues’: 10 years on, Syria is a hungry nation (AP) The lines stretch for miles outside gas stations in Syrian cities, with an average wait of five hours to fill up a tank. At bakeries, people push and shove during long, chaotic waits for their turn to collect the quota of two bread packs a day per family. On the streets in the capital of Damascus, beggars accost motorists and passers-by, pleading for food or money. Medicines, baby milk and diapers can hardly be found. As Syria marks the 10th anniversary Monday of the start of its uprising-turned-civil war, President Bashar Assad may still be in power, propped up by Russia and Iran. But millions of people are being pushed deeper into poverty, and a majority of households can hardly scrape together enough to secure their next meal. “Life here is a portrait of everyday humiliation and suffering,” said one woman in Damascus. Her husband lost his job at an electronics store last month, and now the family is drawing on meager savings that are evaporating fast. With two kids and an elderly father to care for, she said life had become unbearably difficult and she is gripped by anxiety for the future. Until recently, she could smuggle in her father’s medicines from Lebanon, but now Lebanon has its own meltdown and shortages.