All the Bad Words
The Free State of Florida is full of reactionaries
Who are adept at removing books from school libraries.
The worst books, we heard,
Are full of sexy words,
Which is why they’ve now banned dictionaries.
Tag: Free State of Florida
DeSantistan: ‘A Refuge of Freedom and Sanity’
Except it’s not. Gov. Ron DeSantis gave his State of the State address yesterday to open the Florida Legislature’s 2024 60-day session. It was a tissue of lies, exaggerations, misrepresentations and coverups of the reality on the ground in the Sunshine State. Lil’ D did not bother to paint a vision for the state’s future because his focus is on his losing bid for presidency.
“It was a speech written for Iowa and New Hampshire voters, House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, said afterward,” reported the Tampa Bay Times. “I was surprised that there was no real vision for Florida,” Driskell said. “I came away feeling, OK, so where do you want to take us next?”
DeSantis’s “small government” is more intrusive in citizens’ lives, his robust state budget relies on federal handouts and his anti-woke agenda is based on curtailing individual constitutional freedoms of assembly, speech and privacy.
So much for the “free state of Florida.”
DeSantis’ Vote-Suppression Tactics Are Working in Florida
In May 2021 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 90, which effectively cleared the voter rolls of Florida citizens who had requested mail-in ballots. Previously, Florida voters could file one request for mail-in ballots and would receive one for any and all elections.
No more.
Although a federal judge removed several of the most egregious provisions of the law, it nonetheless is still suppressing mail-in voting, according to the Florida Reporter:
Studies show that voters who are registered to vote by mail are more likely to cast a vote.The impact on voting by mail from this new law is already coming into sharp focus: last year, Miami-Dade County had 438,000 mail ballot voters, but as of July 1st of this year, a mere 92,000 voters were enrolled in vote by mail. In Hillsborough County, only 70,000 voters are signed up to vote by mail as of July 1st, down from 320,000 before the new law went into effect. In Broward County, it’s even more dramatic: a recent review confirmed just 35,000 vote by mail sign-ups, compared to 428,000 last year. In Orange County, only 23,000 voters have requested mail-in ballots for the upcoming cycle after 140,000 voters used them in 2021.
