Local News

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https://www.publicrightsproject.org/hb1

What is Florida’s HB1?
In April 2021, the Florida legislature enacted the Combating Violence, Disorder and Looting and Law Enforcement Protection Act, also known as HB1. Governor DeSantis was explicit: HB1 was a direct response to—and a means to oppose—the summer 2020 Black-led protests advocating for racial justice and an end to police violence.

HB1 not only strips the power of local governments to control their own budgets—including reducing or reallocating law enforcement budgets to fund social services—but threatens the community with criminal sanctions for protests, violating our First Amendment right to Free Speech, and forces municipalities to crack down on public dissent (or risk huge financial penalties threatening essential community services).

Decades of local organizing and the mobilization of the Movement for Black Lives, coupled with the fury and protests ignited by the murder of George Floyd, has catalyzed significant momentum for police reform in our country. But police reform can’t happen if Governors like DeSantis preempt the power of local governments, and actively undermine calls from the community for lawmakers to uphold their constitutional promise — to serve “we the people.”

While preemption is inherently a neutral tool — where a higher level of government restricting the ability of a lower level of government — here in HB1 it’s dangerous, unconstitutional, and racist. HB1 undermines local governments’ autonomy and silences Florida residents’ ability to call for change in their community – particularly people of color, who stand to lose the most. By inserting himself into local-decision making, the DeSantis Administration actively harms cities and violates the Florida Constitution.

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https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/desantis-anti-riot-law-united-nations-rcna45623

It’s official: Ron DeSantis has literally turned Florida into an international embarrassment.

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on Tuesday issued a report examining discrimination across the globe that name-checked Florida House Bill 1, an oppressive anti-protest law pushed by DeSantis, the state's Republican governor.

In its report, the committee — made up of 18 members, including a representative from the United States — said it's "concerned about reports of increasing legislative measures and initiatives at the state level that unduly restrict the right to peaceful assembly following antiracism protests in recent years, such as the HB1 Combating Public Disorder law in Florida."

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https://www.splcenter.org/news/2022/03/23/family-separation-timeline

Nov. 29, 2021 – The reunification task force reports that 2,248 children are now known to have been reunited with their families in the U.S. and that it knows of 1,703 who have not been reunited. An additional 206 are in the process.

Due to pressure from Republican lawmakers, compensation from those harmed by the Trump EO is not on the table and due to the same pressure, Biden is unable to enact comprehensive immigration reform legislation, so the abuses of the Trump era continue. Essentially, if we want those to end, the Republicans need to stop being the legislative roadblock that they are.

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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-maralago-hurricane-ian-b2178829.html

Half of Florida is underwater and in need of emergency assistance and Trump is begging for donations to cover his legal fees. As shameful as Governor Greg Abbott going to a fundraiser in Huntsville, Texas, in the hours following the Uvalde school massacre. Just shows how Republican politicians will choose fat cat donors over helping the little guy, time and again.

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Mass shooting in a small town between Dallas and Austin: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/mcgregor-texas-shooting-victims-suspect-b2180053.html

I recently read statistics showing that Republican-ruled states have the highest rates of gun-related violence. They either lack ideas or convictions to provide legislation that would secure the basics of security and tranquility for their constituents.

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Right-wing nutcases prefer conspiracy theory to actually knowing how hurricane season works:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/qanon-hurricane-ian-lauren-witzke-deanna-lorraine-b2184996.html

It would be one thing if these were just random people with goofy ideas, but these are persons that the Republicans have put forward as actual candidates for the US House of Representatives and Senate, national-level offices. Completely unhinged minds at the core of the party.

[Typhon]

Think on this.

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Already did: the answer is "Yes, yes they are."

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3497052-republican-officials-keep-stoking-white-supremacist-tropes-and-were-reaping-the-result/

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/09/06/opinion/maga-republicans-are-variant-disease-is-white-supremacy/

And it all goes back to the "Southern Strategy" that Republicans adopted to pick up white supremacists defecting from the Democratic Party over civil rights issues. Over the last 50 years, politics transformed first on the national level, with white supremacist voters splitting their ticket with a Republican presidential vote and Democratic local votes in the 60s and 70s, and then progressively changing local party affiliation from Democratic to Republican as the Democrats refused to continue endorsing white supremacist politicians and the Republicans gladly picking up those candidates.

The same measures to suppress Black votes at polling places by the Democrats prior to 1964 are now being used by Republicans after their party politicians worked to overturn the Civil Rights measures to protect minority votes, including a gutting of the Voting Rights Act.

Trotting out members of minority groups to defend policies that have their roots going all the way back to post-slavery white supremacy is no surprise and carries no currency. Politics of racism is full of paradoxes like that. It's ultimately like defending a murderer by saying, "no way is this guy a murderer, some of his best friends are alive!"

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https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ron-desantis-hurricane-biden-florida-b2184613.html

When in Congress, DeSantis and other Republicans voted *against* aiding states hit by superstorm Sandy. Now that half of Florida is underwater, DeSantis appreciates how Americans can all come together to vote for federal aid for stricken states. Absolutely gutting hypocrisy in playing politics of division when a disaster hits states with predominantly Democratic voters, but trying to play across-the-aisle style when it's states with Republican voters getting hit with disaster.

Democratic politicians don't play that game - they'll fund disaster support, regardless of where it strikes, because the party has a humanitarian core absent from the grasping, manipulative Republicans.

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https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/04/republicans-america-first-caucus

MTG and other Republicans in Congress are starting a White Supremacist "America First" caucus. Hmmm... doesn't sound like anything someone against racism would want to be part of, yet there are plenty of Republicans willing to sign on to it.

Recalling also how MTG openly speculated that California wild fires were started by orbital laser beams operated by Jews - so let's add Jew-hating to the list of things that the modern Republican Party incubates and promotes as part of its strategy of catering to extremist hate groups for political support.

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The view from Tel Aviv:

https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2022-09-08/ty-article/.highlight/republicans-embroiled-in-more-antisemitism-controversy-in-pennsylvania/00000183-1d5d-da56-a3c3-ff7dbbab0000

At a Pennsylvania rally, antisemitism reared its ugly head with "Hitler should've finished the job" type comments gaining traction and support. The Republican candidate has recruited white supremacist organizations and antisemitic groups to support his campaign.

But, of course, a single YouTube video of a black guy talking about conservatives demolishes all the evidence at hand and proves that the fears of a resurgence in American racism, including antisemitism, are totally unfounded. <-- SARCASM, of course. Anybody can put any old tripe on YouTube, there is no gatekeeper there for separating fact from fiction. The facts on the ground are at complete odds with the fantasies that allow Republicans to pretend they are not promoting racism or antisemitism while supporting and integrating those very streams of thinking into their political platform.

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https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/09/gop-republican-party-antisemitism.html

Going back a few weeks ago to the Trump rally in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, referenced in the Haaretz article above. The founder of the Patriot Freedom project, Cynthia Hughes, spoke about how her nephew Tim Hale-Cusanelli was mistreated because of his conviction over participation in the Trump-influenced attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2020. The audience reacted sympathetically.

Here's a selfie of Mr. Hale-Cusanelli:



In the investigation of Mr. Hale-Cusanelli, 34 of his former colleagues in the US Navy reported that he had expressed “extremist or radical views pertaining to the Jewish people, minorities, and women.” This is the guy who said "Hitler should have finished the job" that got the folks back in Israel very concerned about the Republican Party's embrace of antisemitism.

And that guy in the photo is now a martyr for the Republican cause, a sign of the hold antisemitism has gotten on the Republican Party. When white supremacists and antisemites like Mr. Hale-Cusanelli do the heavy lifting and street fighting for the Republican Party's ground game, they get rewarded in the form of legislation that caters to their hateful agenda, including suppression of minority voting rights, hardline anti-immigrant legislation, and a blind investigative eye towards their acts of violence directed against minorities, including attacks on synagogues and other places of worship.

Guys like Pat Buchanan got forced out of the Republican Party in the 90s when they went antisemitic. Now, they're coming back in through the front door. Trump used antisemitic tropes to attack Hillary Clinton in 2016, and he and his followers continue to use them to this day.

The Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, has hired Gab to promote his candidacy - Gab, of course, is a haven of ultra-right nationalism, antisemitism, and racism, with Gab's chief executive Andrew Torba openly embracing antisemitism and endorses Mastriano as a fellow Jew-hater: "We don't want people who are Jewish." - Andrew Torba, Gab CEO

When challenged, Mastriano weaseled. He said he renounced antisemitism and then did nothing to criticize Torba or forego his support. It's like the playbook for Republicans is to deny being racist, but then to carry on being racist. Totally transparent to outsiders and only allows them to keep doing what they're doing while paradoxically thinking that they're not doing it. Utter illusion.

Meanwhile, over in Wyoming, the Republican Party there is encouraging its members to follow it on Gab, calling it "an awesome platform". The facts on the ground tell a story totally at odds with the words Republicans say when they get caught in their racism and antisemitism.

In the 90s, antisemites were too marginal to pose danger to the Party if they were cut loose and their votes not courted. Now, it's people like Liz Cheney who get cut loose while the antisemites are kept close in the fold. Antisemites like Gosar and Taylor-Greene are kept on without censure because antisemite voters are critical to Republicans' hopes of electoral success.

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The last two paragraphs of the last article I posted are compelling:

Prosecutors have found that Trump’s January 6 rally attracted a significant number of people who share Hitler quotes, hold membership in neo-Nazi organizations, have a fixation with “white genocide,” and the like, making the party leadership’s desire to sweep the whole thing under the rug all the more dangerous. Whatever misgivings the remaining old-line Republicans may have toward the militant cadres Trump inspired, Republicans fear their political and even terroristic power. They no longer imagine they have the gatekeeping force to exclude the antisemites, less still to steer the party away from the kind of paranoid rhetoric that invites their participation.

The GOP’s overriding goal is to win, and it has decided this means accepting the support of anybody who will provide it. For three-quarters of a century, antisemites were locked out of major American politics or at least had to keep their bigotry quiet. Now the door is open.

It's simple math, and I figured it out back in 2013. If you don't want to be associated with racists and antisemites, don't stay in the Republican Party. I got out then, and I'm glad I did, because I'll have nothing to do with an organization that opens its arms more and more to these deplorables. Celebrates it, even, gladly accepting the name "deplorables" as something of a badge of honor that they get criticized for openly courting white supremacists, antisemites, and Christian Identity groups for their political coalition. That should not be celebrated, that should be a warning sign.

[Charger]

Okay this thread isn't about news anymore it's just anti conservative hate fest...

Let's put a pin in it.

[Vyn]

Some really local news: had a fox walk into my garage the other day while I was in it. About 0530, still dark. I was as startled as the fox - no injuries to report and the fox absconded to parts unknown.