Immigrant Round-ups Lead to Worker Shortages in Florida, Now MAGA Wants to Bring Back Child Labor

Florida is facing a shortage of workers like these because of MAGA anti-immigrant policies, now they want to loosen the state’s child labor laws

WESH: Child labor protections could soon be rolled back in Florida as lawmakers advance a controversial bill. This comes a year after lawmakers relaxed the state’s child labor laws.

On Tuesday, a divided Florida Senate panel gave initial approval to a measure that would further roll back work restrictions for kids as young as 14. The proposal, which builds on the 2024 law, sparked heated debate, with critics of the plan saying it would lead to exploitation of children and proponents calling it a “parental rights” issue.

The bill (SB 918) would do away with restrictions on 16- and 17-year-olds, who would be able to work more than eight hours a day on school nights and over 30 hours a week while school is in session, without mandated breaks.

What Federal Employee Marjorie Taylor Greene Did Last Week

Pensito Illustration
President Elon Musk sent out a not-human-resources-approved email to hundreds of thousands of federal employees last week:

“Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk wrote on X, which he owns. The post ends: “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

Federal employee Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) provided the following bullet points to DOGE:

Dear Leader Musk, in the past week, acting in my capacity as a federal employee:

  • I trashed federal workers at a congressional hearing, stating that none of them “deserve” paychecks. I quote myself: “The bureaucracy is not a business. Those are not real jobs producing federal revenue. By the way, they’re consuming taxpayer dollars. Those jobs are paid for by the American tax people who work real jobs, earn real income, pay federal taxes, and then pay these federal employees. Federal employees do not deserve their jobs. Federal employees do not deserve their paychecks.”
  • I came under fire by my congressional colleagues after it emerged I purchased between $4,000 and $60,000 worth of Tesla stock on January 8 after I was selected to chair the House Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) subcommittee.
  • I defended President Trump after my Democratic colleague Rep. Melanie Stansbury referred to Donald Trump as a “king” Wednesday. Stansbury said, “Let me say this to you, Mr. Trump. Two hundred fifty years ago, the people of this great nation rejected a reckless, abusive king, and we won’t go back.” So I said, after recognizing myself for closing remarks, “Threats against the president of the United States will not be tolerated by anyone.”
  • I helpfully showed the Congressional calendar to constituents on X: “This is our House calendar for 2025. Yellow is our in session weeks. Thought it would be good to share for anyone planning trips to visit your Representative.” Of course, people took it the wrong way: “So you rake in $174K a year, get top-tier healthcare, and play the stock market with insider tips, all for working eight days a month? Not bad. Maybe if you lived on minimum wage for a year, you’d finally get why folks are drowning while you all cash in.”
  • I did not update the calendar on my congressional website, which shows the last entry as a Town Hall in Dade County, Georgia, October 3, 2024, at 6 p.m.

Black People Won Super Bowl LIX

It’s hard not to conclude that Kendrick Lamar “pwnd” Donald Trump (and Drake, too) during the Super Bowl LIX halftime show yesterday. The first U.S. president to attend a Super Bowl was treated to a full-on rap storm for 20 minutes, which must have rocked his white-supremacist soul to its rotten core.

The cultural fact is, the Black people have won. The spineless National Football League, by taking a metaphorical knee in anticipation of the arrival of the Racist-in-Chief and removing the “End Racism” message from the end zones and replacing it with “Choose Love,” joined the oligarchs and media companies in capitulating to Trump.

But it’s too late. In 2023, fully 53.1% of players in the NFL were Black, and if you want to see who owns Super Bowl halftime shows, just consider this from CBS Sports:

On Sunday, Kendrick Lamar took the stage in New Orleans. In 2024, Usher took the stage in Las Vegas. In 2023, Rihanna took the stage at State Farm Stadium during Super Bowl LVII. Before that, five performers took the stage for Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles, California: Eminem, Dr. Dre. Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar and Mary J. Blige performed halfway through the Rams win over the Bengals.

Seven years ago, Trump mounted a campaign against Black NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick. But what really galled him was when the Super Bowl–winning Philadelphia Eagles in 2018 declined his invitation for the traditional winner’s visit to the White House, so he “uninvited” them:

The Philadelphia Eagles defeat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII, but the Super Bowl winners’ traditional White House visit is canceled after a host of players decline to attend.

“The Philadelphia Eagles Football Team was invited to the White House,” Trump says. “Unfortunately, only a small number of players decided to come, and we canceled the event. Staying in the Locker Room for the playing of our National Anthem is as disrespectful to our country as kneeling.”

Trump and his racist followers can bitch and complain about it all they want, but the fight is over: people of color are the true Super Bowl winners.

Who Was the Musk Rat Who Barred Members of Congress from Entering a Federal Building?

He should be identified and investigated for obstructing Congress

Unidentified Musk operative prevents members of the US House from entering a federal building

AP: Democratic members of Congress hold a news conference outside the Department of Education and oppose President Donald Trump’s plan to abolish it. They confronted security denying them access to the building.

This is outrageous. Who is this guy and on what authority can he prevent sitting members of Congress from access the federal headquarters of the Department of Education? This man needs to be identified and investigated for obstructing Congress.

Here’s a video of the incident:

[…]