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Ishmael

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Fuctifino
Scientific American speaks out.

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Ron DeSantis’s Antiscience Agenda Is Dangerous


Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is running for president of the United States on a record of anti-diversity, pro-censorship, white nationalist measures. He has targeted education, LGBTQ rights and access to health care, and should he prevail, his anti-science candidacy stands to harm millions of Americans.


DeSantis has banned books in school libraries, restricted teachers’ classroom discussions about diversity, prohibited high school classes that focus on Black history and people, politicized college curricula, limited spending on diversity programs, ignored greenhouse gas reduction in climate change policy, diminished reproductive rights and outlawed transgender health care.


The governor has refused all evidence that masks are safe and help prevent COVID, appointed a surgeon general who advised against vaccines, and continues to paint science and evidence as restrictions to the freedom of Floridians. Instead of limiting the role of government, as he claimed in his fight against masks, he is expanding it to selectively promote a particular religious agenda.


The maternal mortality rate in Florida is rising, yet DeSantis signed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, outlawing it after six weeks of pregnancy and endangering people who have life-threatening complications that termination could help. Black women in Florida have the worst maternal mortality rates of any group in the state, and research has shown that people who are denied abortions and forced to give birth suffer mentally, financially and educationally. These statistics surely won’t improve under these new laws, which are pushing health care providers to move out of the state.


By making gender-affirming care for youth illegal and disparaging the use of preferred pronouns and names, the governor and his followers will undoubtedly add to the suffering of transgender individuals. Multiple studies have looked at the mental health of transgender teens. Researchers have found that giving puberty blockers to youth questioning the gender they were assigned at birth reduces depression, anxiety and anger. In another study, 56 percent of transgender youth surveyed had attempted suicide, and causes included feeling they didn’t belong, being excluded and a profound lack of self-worth.


Despite Florida’s vulnerability to climate change, whether through natural disaster or sea-level rise, DeSantis has ignored scientific evidence again, refusing to address the role of greenhouse gas emissions in global warming. He has focused instead on adaptation, or resiliency measures. He’s also nixed sustainable investment efforts like bonds that would fund renewable energy measures in the state. But adaptation and mitigation go hand-in-hand. Without reducing the cause of climate change, adaptation will only go so far, and under DeSantis, Florida remains at high risk of climate-related disaster.


DeSantis has signed bills allowing people to challenge school library books they deem unfit for children. To date, books pulled from library shelves include a biography of baseball player Roberto Clemente (which was later restored), poetry from Amanda Gorman, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and books about Black, Cuban and LGBTQ perspectives.


The authors of several books that have been pulled from Florida’s shelves have sued the state for violating both their First Amendment rights to free speech and their 14th Amendment rights to equal protection under the law. The teachers’ union and other groups are suing on the grounds that the law extends beyond schools into public libraries.


His “Don’t Say Gay” law prevents teachers from talking about homosexuality or being transgender through high school. Such rules prevent comprehensive sex education and invalidate LGBTQ students, adding to the mental health burden of a state that has a severe shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists.


DeSantis and the far right misrepresent critical race theory (which examines the role of race in the legal system) and pressured the College Board to remove references to the theory from the Advanced Placement African American Studies curriculum. The governor’s actions are part of a large-scale misinformation campaign to stoke white fear and uphold white nationalism. Yet, racism is reality, and in our multicultural, multilingual, global society, promoting white nationalism will create a generation of students who cannot reason and think as critically as their peers.


The governor has also banned Florida colleges’ efforts to promote diversity, inclusion and equity. The bans could affect all aspects of education, including efforts to recruit nonwhite STEM students and scientists to higher education. He has stacked the New College of Florida board of trustees, historically apolitical, with conservative ideologues to create an institute of higher learning that adheres to his version of American education and white exceptionalism, which is explicitly modeled on conservative evangelical Christian colleges.


What Ron DeSantis has done in Florida mirrors efforts in other states, including Texas. He is among a new class of conservative lawmakers who speak of freedom while restricting freedom. This political maneuvering is part of building his national presence yet it does not represent most Americans’ views. The population of Florida is growing faster than most other places in the U.S., but the state is now poised to have fewer critical thinkers, fewer people of color as educators and as the subjects of education, more deaths in childbirth, and scores of people in the throes of crisis because of their identities. A country led by someone wielding such cruelty, bigotry and megalomania will never be “a more perfect Union.”
 

badlatitude

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Miami Herald: If report of DeSantis squeezing lobbyists for cash is true, it's a stunning violation​

If report of DeSantis squeezing lobbyists for cash is true, it’s a stunning violation ǀ Opinion

If it’s true that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ state employees — not his campaign staff — are soliciting donations from lobbyists for his presidential run, as is being reported, Florida is entering uncharted territory in unethical behavior.

NBC News published a story Thursday that said reporters had seen text messages from four DeSantis administration officials sent to Florida lobbyists requesting contributions to the governor’s campaign. The report said the texts included a link that appeared to track who was giving the money. The texts came from people directly in the governor’s office and leaders in state agencies.

-snip-

First of all, the governor should be keeping his campaign — paid for by private donations — and his state staff — paid for by taxpayers — strictly apart. That has long been the norm and for very good reasons. It’s still unclear if what those staffers allegedly are doing is illegal, but the practice most certainly raises the question of whether the governor is wrongly using state resources.

And then there’s the issue of strong-arming lobbyists for cash when they probably make their living by being able to lobby at the state Capitol. Can you afford to say no when the guy asking for money holds your living his hands? Probably not. That, though, would amount to blackmail.

https://news.yahoo.com/report-desantis-squeezing-lobbyists-cash-214827620.html
 

Jules

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Distopia SE, USA
DeHater shoots himself in the foot...

MIAMI - Construction workers say they are losing their jobs because employers fear Florida's new immigration law.

"All the construction work stopped, at least where I worked in Miami," said Pedro Marcos. For the last five years he has worked in construction; however, he now works temporarily at nurseries in Homestead.

The Guatemalan native said, "Since I have a family, I have to work on whatever is necessary… landscaping, nurseries, painting."

CBS News Miami's Ivan Taylor asked Marcos when he worked last on construction. "It was about 15 days ago... I stopped working on construction, after Governor (Ron) DeSantis signed the Immigration Bill. The people who would hire us got scared and – allegedly – told us not to come back."

 

Bus Driver

Bacon Quality Control Specialist
DeHater shoots himself in the foot...

MIAMI - Construction workers say they are losing their jobs because employers fear Florida's new immigration law.

"All the construction work stopped, at least where I worked in Miami," said Pedro Marcos. For the last five years he has worked in construction; however, he now works temporarily at nurseries in Homestead.

The Guatemalan native said, "Since I have a family, I have to work on whatever is necessary… landscaping, nurseries, painting."

CBS News Miami's Ivan Taylor asked Marcos when he worked last on construction. "It was about 15 days ago... I stopped working on construction, after Governor (Ron) DeSantis signed the Immigration Bill. The people who would hire us got scared and – allegedly – told us not to come back."

The agricultural industry is also taking a hit.
 

Jules

Super Anarchist
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Distopia SE, USA
EXCLUSIVE
2024 Election

Florida elections officials quietly made it easier for Ron DeSantis to fund his 2024 bid​

State elections officials have removed years-old guidance against moving state political money to federal super PACs, clearing the way for a fund previously run by DeSantis to do just that.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has quietly changed state guidelines, essentially giving its blessing for a state-level political committee he previously ran to move millions of dollars to a super PAC helping his presidential campaign.

For years, elections officials said such a transfer to federal super PACs would not be allowed. But in March — just months before DeSantis formally launched his bid for president — officials at the Florida State Department, the DeSantis administration entity that regulates state elections, changed its handbook to assert that such moves are allowed.

 

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