#florida senate building

[transfloridaresources]

[Photo ID: Black background with a green illustration of a car and green and red lines emphasizing certain areas. Text reads: 'Statewide Mobilization to Tallahassee. 1.30.24 at 4pm. Carpooling info. Join multiple organizations at the Florida Senate Building to stand with Palestine and against SB470. NEED/CAN GIVE A RIDE? Fill out the form and we will connect you with someone!' Two QR codes labeled 'Need a Ride' and 'Give a Ride' are at the bottom of the image. /End ID]

Source

Please see links in this bio for full links to sign up. SB 470 full text

FROM TAMPA BAY AREA TO TALLAHASSEE Let's get as many people there! 🍉 If you need or can give a ride, please fill out the form. LINKS ARE IN BIO 🍉 No Garuntees, but we will connect people on a first come, first serve basis. Please fill out ASAP "STAND WITH PALESTINE! DEFEAT SB470! -Statewide Mobilization to Tallahassee TUESDAY, JAN. 30th @ 4pm @ the Florida Senate Building DeSantis and the Florida legislature are trying to make standing with Palestine a crime - SB470 will threaten financial aid for students "promoting foreign terrorist organizations" We see right through this. The Florida legislature is scared of the pro-Palestine movement and will do anything to stop it. To that, we say HELL NO! We invite all progressive forces/groups to join us in standing with Palestine! End US Aid to Israel! Defend Freedom of Speech!"

[queer-spectre]

Did I just spend the last hour sending emails to American politicians abt the anti-trans bills? Yeah. Feel free 2 do the same if u have the energy. I keep telling myself it's just emails but it's better than nothing. I'm just trying to start local and work my way out. Fuck.

[andrewjbernhard]

Navigating Declaratory Judgments for Condo Associations and HOAs: Milestone Reports and 40-Year Certifications in Florida

Attention Condo Associations Florida! New regulations, managing milestone reports, and 40-year certifications is daunting. This post dives deep into how declaratory judgments can be a crucial tool in ensuring compliance and resolving disputes. #Milestone

For Condominium Associations and Homeowners’ Associations (HOAs) in Florida, maintaining compliance with state regulations and ensuring proper management of community properties can be complex. Among the critical responsibilities are performing milestone reports and 40-year certifications, which are essential for the safety and upkeep of aging buildings. In cases where there is uncertainty about…

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #9

March 9-15 2024

The IRS launched its direct file pilot program. Tax payers in 12 states, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wyoming, Arizona, Massachusetts, California and New York, can now file their federal income taxes for free on-line directly with the IRS. The IRS plans on taking direct file nation wide for next year's tax season. Tax Day is April 15th so if you're in one of those states you have a month to check it out.

The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights opened an investigation into the death of Nex Benedict. the OCR is investigating if Benedict's school district violated his civil rights by failing to protect him from bullying. President Biden expressed support for trans and non-binary youth in the aftermath of the ruling that Benedict's death was a suicide and encouraged people to seek help in crisis

Vice President Kamala Harris became the first sitting Vice-President (or President) to visit an abortion provider. Harris' historic visit was to a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul Minnesota. This is the last stop on the Vice-President's Reproductive Rights Tour that has taken her across the country highlighting the need for reproductive health care.

President Biden announced 3.3 billion dollars worth of infrastructure projects across 40 states designed to reconnect communities divided by transportation infrastructure. Communities often split decades ago by highways build in the 1960s and 70s. These splits very often affect communities of color splitting them off from the wider cities and making daily life far more difficult. These reconnection projects will help remedy decades of economic racism.

The Biden-Harris administration is taking steps to eliminate junk fees for college students. These are hidden fees students pay to get loans or special fees banks charged to students with bank accounts. Also the administration plans to eliminate automatic billing for textbooks and ban schools from pocketing leftover money on student's meal plans.

The Department of Interior announced $120 million in investments to help boost Climate Resilience in Tribal Communities. The money will support 146 projects effecting over 100 tribes. This comes on top of $440 million already spent on tribal climate resilience by the administration so far

The Department of Energy announced $750 million dollars in investment in clean hydrogen power. This will go to 52 projects across 24 states. As part of the administration's climate goals the DoE plans to bring low to zero carbon hydrogen production to 10 million metric tons by 2030, and the cost of hydrogen to $1 per kilogram of hydrogen produced by 2031.

The Department of Energy has offered a 2.3 billion dollar loan to build a lithium processing plant in Nevada. Lithium is the key component in rechargeable batteries used it electric vehicles. Currently 95% of the world's lithium comes from just 4 countries, Australia, Chile, China and Argentina. Only about 1% of the US' lithium needs are met by domestic production. When completed the processing plant in Thacker Pass Nevada will produce enough lithium for 800,000 electric vehicle batteries a year.

The Department of Transportation is making available $1.2 billion in funds to reduce decrease pollution in transportation. Available in all 50 states, DC and Puerto Rico the funds will support projects by transportation authorities to lower their carbon emissions.

The Geothermal Energy Optimization Act was introduced in the US Senate. If passed the act will streamline the permitting process and help expand geothermal projects on public lands. This totally green energy currently accounts for just 0.4% of the US' engird usage but the Department of Energy estimates the potential geothermal energy supply is large enough to power the entire U.S. five times over.

The Justice for Breonna Taylor Act was introduced in the Senate banning No Knock Warrants nationwide

A bill was introduced in the House requiring the US Postal Service to cover the costs of any laid fees on bills the USPS failed to deliver on time

The Senate Confirmed 3 more Biden nominees to be life time federal Judges, Jasmine Yoon the first Asian-America federal judge in Virginia, Sunil Harjani in Illinois, and Melissa DuBose the first LGBTQ and first person of color to serve as a federal judge in Rhode Island. This brings the total number of Biden judges to 185

[sceletaflores]

GIRL FIRST SON PATRICK??? OMFG #NEEDTHAT

aurrrr this is all the west wings fault <///3

maybe you're a senator’s daughter, maybe the speaker of the house's daughter, or or OR maybe you're the vp’s daughter...hear me out okay just walk with me real quick...

president zweig is a close friend of your mother. they went to law school together, they both went on to become very prominent and well respected political figures in new hampshire, they're both credited with drafting the bill responsible for dropping your states poverty rate below eight percent. the lowest in the country.

no one was surprised when the zweig campaign announced your mother as their vice-presidential running mate. no one was surprised when president zweig won the election 303 to 232.

despite your parents being friends, you and patrick weren't that close growing up. he was older than you, six years older. by the time you were freshly enrolled in one of new hampshire's fancy private schools, he was already at the academy. all the way down in florida, a whole twenty two hours away.

you haven't seen each other since his father won the election two years ago, when the two of you awkwardly waltzed together at the inaugural ball after some encouraging from your parents.

now, today is the president's birthday and the white house was hosting his party. it’s the the first time you've been home in nearly two months, you've been spending so much time in new york prepping to start your third year at yale in six weeks.

you haven't seen patrick all day, not even at the dinner held earlier in the day for close friends and family of the president. you weren't entirely shocked that he was missing though. your mom makes sure to dish on all the scandals he's gotten into over the last two years. spreading the hot gossip to you over the phone nearly every time she calls you, but it's nothing you didn't already know.

patrick's face is plastered to trashy "news" websites and magazines almost every week. the media is more than happy report on all the alleged partying, drug use, and girls the first son seems to frequently indulge in. his tennis hardly gets any coverage these days.

you feel bad for patrick, but not bad enough to stopping read about him.

your nursing your second flute of champagne when you feel it. the presence of someone looming behind you, of a pair of eyes zeroing in on you.

"there you are," a deep voice rings out from behind you, along with the sharp click of dress shoes making their way closer to you on the marble floor. "i've been looking for you."

your dress swishes as you turn to face him, the fabric floating around your ankles delicately.

"patrick," you start to greet with a polite smile, but whatever else you were planning on saying gets caught in your throat at the sight of him.

two years doesn't sound like a long time. it's not really a long time, in the grand scheme of things, but goddamn has patrick changed a lot.

he lost all the boyish looks he had before. he grew into his big ears and lanky build. now he's all broad shoulders and toned muscle that you see even through his tailored deep blue suit.

the pictures plastered to the front of magazines do not do him justice. he's fucking hot now. he has the same green eyes and the same curly hair, but there's a depth and intensity to him now, a magnetism that draws you in. the sharp lines of his jaw, his bearded jaw, the way his suit fits him perfectly, the way a faint hint of a smirk plays on his lips.

everything about him exudes a sort of cocky confidence that has heat stirring in your core.

"professor," he nods, bringing his glass to his lips for slow sip of the amber liquid filling it. whiskey, you can smell it. "god, how long has it been? " he asks, slipping his hand in the pocket of his fitted dress pants.

butterflies erupt in your stomach at the old nickname, no one's called you that in years. your own mother doesn't even call you that anymore. you can't believe he remembered. at least all the coke didn't fry his brain.

"two years," you supply helpfully, trying your best to keep your voice steady.

"wow," he drawls, taking a small step towards you. he smells good, like something sharp and lightly spiced. it burns your nose in a good way, not the same way his old abercrombie cologne did. "you're like," he pauses, trailing his eyes over your face, "a grown up now."

you're flustered by the way he's looking at you, warmth rushes to your cheeks embarrassingly. "so are you," you manage to reply, though it comes out a bit breathless. you take a sip of your champagne, trying to be casual. the bubbles tickle your tongue, a faint distraction from the intensity of patrick's presence.

he nods slowly, taking another sip of his whiskey. you watch the way his throat moves as he swallows, the overwhelming urge to trace your tongue along his skin burns hot inside your stomach.

his eyes lazily scan you body, shamelessly getting his greedy fill of the way your dior dress sits pretty on the curves that weren't there the last time he saw you.

he swallows. “you look good,” he says to your tits, pink tongue sliding across his bottom lip enticingly. he flicks his attention up to your face, his eyes dark and predatory, “really fuckin’ good.”

heat floods your whole body, you fight the urge to shift under his heavy gaze. no, you tell yourself strictly, i refuse to be one of those girls.

you're nothing like all the actress/singers/models that bend and break the second patrick looks at them. you're a student on the dean's list at fucking yale, you were your high schools valedictorian, you're–

fifteen minutes later you’re in the white house’s green room with your dress hiked up around your hips and your panties tucked safely away in the breast pocket of patrick’s suit.

he has you perched on top the room’s large oak desk, legs spread obscenely wide to make room for his broad shoulders. a huge, gaudy portrait of alexander hamilton gets a front row seat to patrick zweig on his knees.

your hands twist his dark curls roughly as he practically makes out with your drenched pussy, bumping his nose against your clit each time he laps at you with the flat of his tongue. you can see the way your wetness decorates his face, the light from the chandelier shining off of the slick skin of his cheeks and jaw lewdly.

his beard scratches the inside of your thighs red and raw. his big hands dig into the soft skin of your hips hard, grinding you against his face.

"fuck," he groans, sliding his index finger through the mess of spit he left behind. "god this fucking pussy..." he trails off, holding you apart with his long fingers so he can drag his tongue up your fluttering slit all the way to your pulsing clit. his cherry red lips look fucking filthy wrapped around you as he pushes his finger inside your aching hole.

you bite your lip, trying your best to be quite, to stop the pathetic whiny sounds you're making. you can hear the muffled polite conversation and soft music bleeding through the other side of the wall. you know patrick didn't lock the door, anyone could walk in.

"please," you whine quietly, looking down to find that patrick's already looking at you. his blown out green eyes locked on you like you're an unsuspecting lamb grazing a little too close to the big bad wolf's den.

"please what? keep going? what about everyone out there," he jerks his head in the direction of the ball room, his finger fucks into you faster. "you want the president to find you fucking begging for his sons mouth on your greedy pussy? i bet you do, you fucking slut."

"fuck, please don't stop! god, patrick–"

he leaves with your panties in his pocket. whatever, you'll just have to get them back from him later.

[white-chalk-sapphomet]

For those who didn't hear, in Florida, Senate Bill 254 which banned gender affirming care for minors, imposed stringent requirements of adults, mandating in-person consultations/prohibition of telehealth, banned puberty blockers for minors, rigorous informed consent, etc had more of its stipulations struck down.

June last year ('23), fed judge Robert L Hinkle was able to block the ban on beta blockers and hrt for minors as unconstitutional, concluding it was an exercise in politics and not medicine. This month, his rulings have been able to overturn the ban on medicaid coverage of gender affirming treatments. The ruling comes six months after a three-day trial for Doe v. Ladapo in which the court heard testimony from experts in psychiatry, endocrinology, medical ethics and pediatric medicine.

the remaining measures of the bill have to do with the prohibition of telehealth and the requirements to see a physician and undergo the psychological assessments. House Bill 1557, the don't say gay bill which was extended last year to include 4th - 12th grade is still in effect. Restroom restrictions in public gov facilities are still in effect, and gov officials/businesses are still able to discriminate against trans individuals, among other bills still targeting trans people.

There's still work to be done, but theres some good news and progress we're taking back. Stay safe, keep each other safe. More than ever, try to seek out your community, participate in organized activism, and build solidarity with other communities. mask up, be vocal about Palestine, and reject the prison-industrial complex.

[kp777]

By Jake Johnson

Common Dreams

June 25, 2024

"Instead of siphoning money and increasing tax breaks to subsidize private education, we have a responsibility to ensure all students have access to quality K-12 education."

Sen. Bernie Sanders released a report Tuesday detailing how right-wing billionaires are bankrolling coordinated efforts to privatize U.S. public education by promoting voucher programs that siphon critical funding away from already-underresourced public schools.

The report notes that last year, the American Federation for Children (AFC)—an organization funded by former Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos—"ousted state lawmakers in Iowa and Arkansas who resisted proposals to subsidize private education in states and passed expansive private school vouchers."

Aided by millions of dollars in funding from DeVos and her husband, "AFC's political affiliates and allies spent $9 million to win 277 out of 368 races to remove at least 40 incumbent lawmakers," the report adds.

The DeVos family is hardly alone in using its wealth to undercut U.S. public education. The Bradley Foundation, which has been knee-deep in efforts to privatize education in Wisconsin and across the country, spent $7.5 million in 2022 "to fund 34 state affiliates of the State Policy Network to push conservative policy agendas, including privatizing education, and $8.3 million to building a youth movement to 'win the American Culture War.'"

"The Koch-sponsored group, American Encore, has funneled substantial amounts into state governor races and ballot initiatives around the country, including more than $1.4 million to elect Arizona's former governor Doug Ducey in 2014 (who led the efforts to create the nation's first universal private school voucher)," the report adds.

"For too long, there's been a coordinated effort to sabotage our public schools and privatize our education system. Unacceptable."

The analysis also names billionaires Jess Yass of Susquehanna International Group, Richard Uihlein of Uline, and Bernard Marcus of Home Depot, all of whom have recently donated to the School Freedom Fund—a PAC that supports voucher programs and shuttering the U.S. Education Department.

School voucher programs disproportionately benefit wealthy families, analyses have shown, while undercutting the goal of serving all students within a community.

"Over the past decade, there has been a coordinated effort on the part of right-wing billionaires to undermine, dismantle, and sabotage our nation's public schools and to privatize our education system," Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said in a statement. " That is absolutely unacceptable."

"We can no longer tolerate billionaires and multinational corporations receiving massive tax breaks and subsidies while children in America are forced to go to understaffed, underresourced, and underfunded public schools," Sanders continued. "On this 70th anniversary year of Brown v. Board of Education, let us recommit to creating an education system that works for all of our people, not just the wealthy few."

The new report, authored by the Senate HELP Committee's majority staff, comes days after Sanders presided over a hearing at which a pair of public school teachers decried the low educator pay and lack of resources plaguing schools across the U.S. and threatening the foundations of the country's public education system.

The committee's report shows that while most states have chronically underfunded their public schools, spending on voucher programs that subsidize private schools with taxpayer dollars has surged across the country. Between 2008 and 2019, according to a recent analysis cited in the report, Florida ramped up spending on voucher programs by 313% while "decreasing per-pupil funding of public schooling by 12%."

"The expansion of private school voucher programs forces very real tradeoffs. Money spent on private school vouchers could instead be used to hire teachers, raise wages, hire school counselors, and invest in high-quality academics for students," reads the new report, which estimates that "Arizona could hire 15,730 more public K-12 teachers with the money it is instead spending on private school vouchers."

The report calls on Congress to help reverse the trend of billionaire-backed school privatization by investing more in public education—including early childhood education and community schools—and by passing Sanders' legislation to set the pay floor for U.S. public school teachers at $60,000 a year.

The report also recommends passage of the College for All Act, a Sanders-led bill that would make public colleges and universities tuition-free for students from households making less than $250,000 a year.

"As the richest country in history, the United States should have the best education system in the world," Sanders' report reads. "Our public education system is not perfect—it is underfunded and racially and socioeconomically segregated. Our educators are not respected or paid nearly what they deserve."

"Massive tax breaks to the wealthiest people and largest corporations are being prioritized over opportunities to progressively raise revenue to support social services and public education," the report continues. "Instead of siphoning money and increasing tax breaks to subsidize private education, we have a responsibility to ensure all students have access to quality K-12 education. This requires adequate and equitable funding and addressing structural challenges in our public schools."

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Clay Jones, Claytoonz: The new GOP mantra

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 25, 2024 (Thursday)

Momentum continues to build behind Vice President Kamala Harris to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, and the national narrative as a whole has shifted.

Democrats appear to be generating significant enthusiasm among younger Americans. Yesterday, for the first time in their history, the March for Our Lives organization endorsed a presidential candidate: Kamala Harris. Students from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, organized March for Our Lives after the shooting there in 2018. Executive director Natalie Fall said that the organization “will work to mobilize young people across the country to support Vice President Harris and other down-ballot candidates, with a particular focus on the states and races where we can make up the margin of victory—in Arizona, New York, Michigan, and Florida.”

Andrea Hailey of Vote.org announced that in the 48 hours after President Biden said he would not accept the Democratic nomination, nearly 40,000 people registered to vote. That meant a daily increase in new registrations of almost 700%.

People are turning out for Harris in impressive numbers. In the hours after she launched her campaign, Win With Black Women rallied 44,000 Black women on Zoom and raised $1.6 million. On Monday, around 20,000 Black men rallied to raise $1.2 million. Tonight, challenged to “answer the call,” 164,000 white women joined an event that “broke Zoom” and raised more than $2 million and tens of thousands of new volunteers.

Another significant endorsement for Harris came yesterday from Geoff Duncan, the Republican former lieutenant governor of Georgia, who wrote on social media: “I’m committed to beating Donald Trump. The only vehicle left for me to do that with is the Democratic Party. If that requires me to vote for, speak for, or endorse [Kamala Harris] then count me in!” Duncan’s public announcement offers permission for other Georgia Republicans to make a similar shift. In 1964, South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond similarly paved the way for southern Democrats to vote for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

Harris’s appearances are generating such enthusiasm from audiences that when she delivered the keynote address this morning at the convention of the American Federation of Teachers in Houston, Texas, the applause delayed her ability to begin. After a speech defending education and calling out the cuts to it in Project 2025, Harris ended by demonstrating that after decades of Democrats being accused of being anti-American, Trump’s denigration of the country has enabled the party to claim the position of being America’s defenders.

“When we vote, we make our voices heard,” Harris said. “So today, I ask you, AFT, are you ready to make your voices heard? Do we believe in freedom? Do we believe in opportunity? Do we believe in the promise of America? And are we ready to fight for it? And when we fight, we win! God bless you and God bless the United States of America.”

Today the Commerce Department reported that economic growth in the second quarter was higher than expected, coming in at 2.8%, thanks to higher spending driven by higher wages. The country’s changing momentum is showing in media stories hyping the booming economy Biden’s team tried for years to get traction on. “Full Employment is Joe Biden’s True Legacy” was the title of a story by Zachary Carter that appeared yesterday in Slate; CNN responded to today’s good economic news with an article by Bryan Mena titled: “The US economy is pulling off something historic.”

With Harris appearing to have sewn up the nomination, the question has turned to her vice presidential pick. That question is fueling the sense of excitement as potential choices are in front of cameras and on social media advocating Democratic positions and defending the United States from Trump’s denigration. Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro listed the economic gains of the past years, and said: “Trump, you’ve got to stop sh*t talking America. We’ve got to start standing tall and being patriotic and showing how much we love this amazing nation.”

The vice presidential hopefuls appear to be having some fun with showcasing their personalities, as Minnesota governor Tim Walz did in his video from the Minnesota State Fair where he and his daughter went on an extreme ride. So are social media users who have dug up old videos of, for example, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg explaining how he would pilot a small starfighter that had lost its auxiliary shields, or Arizona senator Mark Kelly’s identical twin brother Scott pranking a fellow astronaut on the Space Station with a gorilla suit Mark smuggled on board.

That sense of fun is an enormous relief after years of political weight, and it has spilled over into making fun of the Republican ticket, most notably with a false story that vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance wrote about—and I cannot believe I am typing this—having sex with a couch. The story is stupid, but worse are the denials of it, which have spread the story into populations that otherwise would likely not have seen it.

Just two weeks ago, Vance appeared to be the leader of the next generation of extremist MAGA Republicans, but now that calculation seems to have been hasty. Vance is a staunch opponent of abortion—the key issue in 2024—and he has been vocal in his disdain of women who have not given birth, saying in 2021, for example, that the U.S. was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” He went on to say that people who don’t have children “don’t really have a direct stake” in the country.

Republican commentator Meghan McCain noted that Vance’s “comments are activating women across all sides, including my most conservative Trump supporting friends. These comments have caused real pain and are just innately unchristian.” Actor Jennifer Aniston, who tends to stay out of politics, posted: “I truly can’t believe this is coming from a potential VP of The United States.” Vance had called out Harris by name in those 2021 comments, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff took to social media to defend Harris from Vance’s attacks on her as “childless,” calling her “a co-parent with Doug and I. She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.” Harris’s stepdaughter chimed in: “I love my three parents.”

Vance also ties the Republican ticket firmly to Project 2025. The Trump camp has worked to distance itself from Project 2025—not convincingly, since the two are obviously closely tied, but it turns out that Vance wrote the introduction for a forthcoming book by Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, who was the lead author of Project 2025. The book appears to popularize that plan, right down to its endorsement of a “Second American Revolution,” and according to the book deal report, proceeds from the book will go to the Heritage Foundation “and aligned nonprofits.”

Now Vance’s words praising Project 2025 will be in print, just in time for the election. Yesterday, Trump posted: “I have nothing to do with, and know nothing about, Project 25 [sic]. The fact that I do is merely disinformation put out by the Radical Left Democrat Thugs. Do not believe them!”

Trump is clearly aware of, and concerned about, the changing narrative. This morning, he called in to Fox & Friends, saying, “We don’t need the votes. I have so many votes. I’m in Florida now…and every house has a Trump-Vance sign on it. Every single house…. It’s amazing the spirit…. This election has more spirit than I’ve ever seen ever before.” Tonight the Trump campaign proved their worry by backing out of debates with Harris, saying debates can’t be scheduled until she is the official nominee, although Biden was not the official nominee when they met in June.

The larger narrative shift has affected the media approach to Trump, who is accustomed to shaping perceptions as he wishes. Now, 12 days after the mass shooting at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, there is increasing media attention to the fact that there has still been no medical report on Trump’s injuries, although he wore a large bandage on his ear at the Republican National Convention and said at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Saturday that he “took a bullet for democracy.”

Yesterday, FBI director Christopher Wray told Congress that it is not clear whether Trump was “grazed” by a bullet or by shrapnel, words that former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance called “FBI speak for, ‘it’s unlikely it was a bullet.’”

CNN chief medical consultant Dr. Sanjay Gupta noted last week that the people need a real medical evaluation of Trump’s injuries, explaining that “gunshot blasts near the head can cause injuries that aren’t immediately noticeable, such as bleeding in or on the brain, damage to the inner ear or even psychological trauma.” But, as Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has noted, much of the press has kept mum about the story.

Media outlets have reported Wray’s testimony, though, and in a social media post today, Trump called on Wray, whom he appointed to head the FBI, to resign from his post for “LYING TO CONGRESS.” Tonight, he reiterated that “it was…a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard.”

Perhaps eager to get back to their districts, House Republicans canceled their expected votes on appropriations bills scheduled for next week and left town today for their August recess. The House will not reconvene until early September. The government’s fiscal year 2025 begins on October 1.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[justinssportscorner]

Matt Gertz at MMFA:

American women covered their country in Olympic glory in Paris on Thursday. Katie Ledecky broke the record for most swimming medals won by a woman when the U.S. team captured silver in the 4x200-meter freestyle, while Simone Biles won gold in her second women’s gymnastics all-around Olympics event and her teammate Suni Lee took the bronze.  But on this side of the Atlantic, the American right was apparently more interested in bemoaning the purported death of women’s sports than cheering on their compatriots. The leading lights of the right-wing media spent Thursday melting down over an Olympics welterweight boxing match between two women from Algeria and Italy as they sought to drum up a ragefest they could use to firm up Donald Trump’s wavering election prospects against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Imane Khelif of Algeria won her Olympics boxing match against Italy’s Angela Carini when Carini forfeited after taking several blows to the face in the fight’s opening seconds (in boxing, for those unfamiliar with the sport, competitors try to hit each other in the head as hard as they can and can win by rendering their opponent unconscious). The U.S. right quickly seized on the match and plugged it into their obsessive anti-trans hysteria, falsely declaring Khelif a man who had beaten up a woman. 

If you want to know more about Khelif — a veteran of international women’s boxing competition who was eliminated in the quarterfinal round of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and whose passport, from a country where you cannot legally change your gender, identifies her as female — read Paolo Armelli’s story on the controversy for Wired. If you are interested in the history of sports competitions grappling with complex questions about the gender and sex of athletes, my former colleague Parker Molloy wrote nuanced pieces on the subject for Vice News, CJR, and at her Substack. 

What was quite clear on Thursday, however, is that the weirdo right, obsessed with conducting bizarre “transvestigations,” doesn’t care about any of this. They simply want to misgender Khelif, invoke the rage associated with domestic violence by claiming she is a man punching a woman, and channel the resulting outrage and anti-trans hate into their own political gain.

A MAGA media frenzy quickly ensued on X after the match, with Riley Gaines, the right-wing activist who built her career complaining about trans women competing in sports, at the heart of the outburst.  [...]

This sustained freakout is a perfect example of how the right-wing media has become pickled in its own outrage. They simply cannot let themselves — or anyone else — enjoy good things that normal Americans enjoy, like the dominance of U.S. women at the Olympics. Instead, they build their audiences and make their money by constantly trying to find something they can get mad about. Being a right-winger in good standing in recent years has required working oneself into a culture war frenzy over the NFL, Budweiser beer, Disney movies, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift, among other all-American icons.  [...]

“This is where Kamala Harris's ideas about gender lead: to a grown man pummeling a woman in a boxing match,” vice presidential nominee JD Vance posted to X on Thursday. “This is disgusting, and all of our leaders should condemn it.” His running mate — who a jury found liable for sexual abuse, and who was introduced at the Republican National Convention last month by a man who had been captured on video hitting his wife in the face — chimed in. “I WILL KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S SPORTS!” Trump posted to Truth Social.

Other Republican politicians, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott; Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Anthony D’Esposito of New York, Greg Steube of Florida, and Mike Collins of Georgia; North Carolina gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson and Senate nominees Hung Cao of Virginia and Kari Lake of Arizona also contributed to the sick debate.  Normal people are too busy cheering for American champions like Ledecky and Biles to spend their time doing chalkboard scrawls explaining how Kamala Harris should be blamed for who Algeria sends to the Olympics. But with Trump’s polling lead slipping away and his campaign apparently trying to reignite by focusing on what appeals to the party’s weirdo wing, we can expect much more of this in the months to come.

The right-wing Weirdo Caucus were big mad over two cisgender women boxers to push an anti-trans narrative, and as usual, the likes of anti-trans extremists such as J.K. Rowling, Riley Gaines, Charlie Kirk, and Clay Travis led the charge of faux outrage against Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting’s participation in women’s boxing under the guise of “defending women’s sports.”

See Also:

Awful Announcing: Predictably, the Olympics are bringing out the worst in us

The Advocate: Attacks on Imane Khelif prove what we've long known: Transphobia hurts cis women, too

Out: The transphobia Imane Khelif is experiencing isn't new—it's part of a disturbing, hateful pattern

[mydaddywiki]

Bob Graham

Physique: Average Build Height: 5’ 9” (1.76 m)

Daniel Robert Graham (November 9, 1936 – April 16, 2024; aged 87) was an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 38th governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987 and a United States senator from Florida from 1987 to 2005. He was a member of the Democratic Party. His tenure as a three-term senator included chairing the Senate Intelligence Committee and co-leading the congressional investigation into the September 11 terrorist attacks.

A cute, gray haired public servant for nearly four decades at the local, state and national level, and was one of the most accomplished politicians in Florida’s history. Graham was bright, bookish and, as it turns out, would be notably skilled at “reaching across the aisle.” Mmm… he could have crossed the aisle to me. I bet he'd look adorable in bed… with me on his cock.

What? It’s not like you didn’t know I wanted to get him in bed.

After politics, Graham taught at Harvard University, wrote a book and focused on founding a center to train future political leaders at the University of Florida. Graham's health declined after a stroke in 2020 and on April 16, 2024, he died at a retirement community in Gainesville, Florida, at the age of 87. He is survived by his wife, four children and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Richard Luscombe at The Guardian:

Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail in Florida on Tuesday night, hurling insults at Joe Biden and airing a litany of familiar grievances, but declining to name a running mate for November’s general election. The former president and presumptive Republican nominee was speaking to a crowd of several hundred supporters at his golf club in Doral, a western suburb of Miami, keeping them waiting in 90F heat for a freewheeling monologue that began more than an hour later than scheduled.

There was speculation that he might use his first public appearance since last month’s debate with the president to announce Florida senator Marco Rubio, who was present, as his vice-presidential pick, six days ahead of the Republican national convention (RNC) in Milwaukee. Instead, Trump delivered a rambling 75-minute speech that included a succession of attacks on Biden and his faltering debate performance, which has raised questions among Democrats on whether the 81-year-old president was robust enough for a second term of office.

He seized on the post-debate turbulence that has prompted calls from some senior Democrats for Biden to step down and nominate Kamala Harris. “The radical left Democratic party is divided in chaos, and having a full scale breakdown all because they can’t decide which of their candidates is more unfit to be president, sleepy, crooked Joe Biden or laughing Kamala,” he said, repeating previous derogatory terms for the pair.

“Despite all the Democrat panic this week, the truth is it doesn’t matter who they nominate because we are going to beat any one of them in a thundering landslide.” Trump has kept a lower than usual profile in the days since the debate, a strategy an aide described as designed to allow Democrats to tear into each other following Biden’s dismal debate performance.

His remarks on Tuesday were notable for adding the vice-president’s name to numerous attacks on Biden policies, and sprinkling in mentions of both Rubio and Byron Donalds, a Republican Florida congressman also believed to be on Trump’s shortlist for vice-president. Otherwise, it was a standard Trump stump speech, full of evidence-free claims that his 2020 election defeat was fraudulent; baseless accusations that overseas nations were sending to the US “most of their prisoners”; and a laughable assertion that a gathering of supporters numbering in the hundreds was really a crowd of 45,000. It also touched on the surreal. Biden, he insisted, had raised the price of bacon four-fold. “We don’t eat bacon any more,” Trump said.

Electric cars, he said, “cheated” the US public because drivers had to stop for three hours to recharge their vehicles after every 45 minutes of driving. And, in an echo of one of the more bizarre debate exchanges with Biden over who was the better golfer, he challenged his White House successor to 18 holes over the Doral course while granting a 10-stroke concession. “It will be among the most watched sporting events in history, maybe bigger than the Ryder Cup or even the Masters,” Trump said, pledging $1m to a charity of Biden’s choosing if he lost. Returning to politics, Trump assailed Democrats for tax rises he said they wanted to impose; criticized Biden for the US military’s chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan; and promised to build an “iron dome” missile defense system for the US, if he was elected in November.

Donald Trump’s first post-debate rally on Tuesday in Doral, Florida served up the greatest hits of lies to his gullible brainwashed rallygoers.

See Also:

HuffPost: Trump Attacks Biden’s Debate Performance In Lie-Filled Return To Campaign Trail

[boreal-sea]

How do we get people we actually like into government?

This is a multi-stage problem that comes in 3 parts:

Immediate concerns for the election of 2024

Near-future concerns after the 2024 election

Far-future concerns after certain goals are achieved

Immediate Concerns: Re-elect Biden and Democrats in your state on the national and local levels:

You might not like Biden or the Democrats, but if you want REAL election reform, we NEED them, because Republicans are against election reform in every way.

Near Future Concerns: Election reform in your local area:

Vote in local elections! I told you to do this up in step 1, but I'm going to reiterate it again because towns run elections all the damn time. Local elections are a great way to build power from the bottom-up. These people are closer to you than the president or your congressperson; they know you and your town. Vote for school board, vote for mayor, vote for the chief of police, vote for council members. You're going to need them on your side for the following goals.

Lobby for ranked-choice voting (RCV) in your town or city. This is one of the biggest reforms we need. With ranked-choice voting, we can fix a lot of problems. Ranked-choice voting means we'll be able to vote in third party candidates and actually have them win elections. It is happening! You'll notice on the map I linked that states like Florida have banned RCV. That's because Republicans know they'll lose if it becomes the law in their area. So if you have Republicans in charge of your town or city, this is going to be an uphill battle - which is why step 1 was to vote local.

Lobby for more polling locations. Many Republicans have had voting locations taken down, making it harder for people to vote in a multitude of ways (longer distance to get to a polling location, more people per location causing longer lines which makes it harder for people with an hourly wage to take off time to vote etc).

Vote for voter-ID reforms: Republican-lead states have incredibly strict ID laws you can help strike down. Vote them out, and then vote out their laws.

Lobby for incarcerated/convict voting. Being convicted of a crime and even being in jail shouldn't strip you of your right to vote especially in a country that disproportionately arrests and convicts people of color.

Vote to expand by-mail voting and other voting methods that make it easier for working people, disabled people, and other marginalized folks vote so their voice is heard.

On election day, VOLUNTEER. Drive people to the polls. Be a poll watcher - Republicans love to volunteer for this because it allows them to intimidate marginalized people out of voting. Your presence could make someone feel safe. You could get someone to the poll who might not have been able to make it otherwise.

Far-Future Goals: Lobby to eliminate the Electoral College

Once we have ranked-choice voting and we've been able to vote far-left candidates into office and we no longer have Republicans in control of everything, then we can do the hardest part: a Constitutional Amendment to eliminate the Electoral College. This absolutely positively cannot happen with Republicans in power. It requires 2/3rds of all US states or 2/3rds of the House and the Senate to even get and Amendment proposed. Then, 3/4 of all the state legislatures must ratify it.

[taylorscottbarnett]

Democrats have fought tooth and nail to take Senate seats in Texas and Florida and been disappointed in very expensive markets.

Democrats dream of a blue Texas and winning a Florida senate seat, but you could easily argue that becoming competitive in Senate races in Kentucky, Alaska, North Carolina, and holding Georgia and Arizona is both an easier and cheaper method to hold the upper chamber.

Laughable right? Neither Georgia or Arizona would have been considered competitive just a few cycles ago. But everyone thought Flordia and Texas might possibly be red to blue and turned out to be bitter disappointments.

But the money and effort were spent to build the grassroots infrastructure needed to win in Georgia, in Arizona. Outstanding candidates were vetted and supported. And Dems added four senators to their ranks.

Control of the upper chamber lies in putting in the money, time, and effort in building coalitions and infrastructure and expanding the map. Winning seats in North Carolina and Alaska, defending Montana, Arizona, Georgia.

People talk about how small state bias gives Republicans an advantage in the Senate but it wasn't that long ago Democrats held a 60-seat super majority in the chamber and only lost it because a few midterm elections were far older and whiter and more male in turnout than previous presidential ones. Then, they got back to 55 seats before losing it briefly.

Put in the hard work and effort and money, and expand the fucking map.

Get rid of the filibuster (aka make it a talking filibuster only). Add Puerto Rico and DC as states.

Republicans will never control the chamber while only having a minority of overall support again.

They will be forced to come to reason and negotiate if they want a say in anything.

[antidrumpfs]

Help Lucas beat Hawley!

Missourians deserve a Senator who’s willing to stand and fight. That’s why Lucas Kunce, a 13-year Marine veteran, is building a record-breaking movement to replace Josh Hawley. Hawley showed us he’s a fraud and a coward — and now his approval among Missourians is even worse than Ted Cruz in Texas and Rick Scott in Florida. Chip in now to help Lucas take this seat back for working people >>

[mariacallous]

On Wednesday, members of the US Senate Intelligence Committee questioned senior national security officials on how they plan to respond to attacks on voting infrastructure and attempts to influence the election using deepfakes, generative AI, and misinformation. While everyone in the room appeared to agree on what the threats are, senators expressed concern about how exactly government agencies would respond.

In a wide-ranging session, director of national intelligence Avril Haines, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director Jen Easterly, and FBI executive assistant director Larissa Knapp focused especially on the wide availability of increasingly sophisticated AI tools that make it easier for more people to create convincing and deceptive fake videos and audio. Senators pressed them on what they would do if one of those AI-generated fakes went viral in the heat of a presidential election.

“I don't think I have a clearer understanding of who’s in charge and how we would respond,” said Marco Rubio, a senator from Florida and vice chair of the committee. “I don't want there to be any gray area.”

Haines pointed to a US government “notification framework” that provides guidance for making public disclosures while considering sensitive intelligence-collection methods used by the US government.

Building off of Rubio’s question, committee chair Mark Warner, a senator from Virginia, praised the response by the Trump administration after Iran-linked actors posed as the Proud Boys in an attempt to intimidate voters. In an unprecedented move at the time, senior law enforcement and intelligence officials publicly attributed the impersonation to Iran-linked actors within days.

Senator Angus King of Maine called the framework “a bureaucratic nightmare” and pushed for faster disclosure of influence efforts. “What I want to urge is disclosure of sources when you’re aware of it immediately,” King said.

Haines responded that the framework may “sound quite bureaucratic” but that the government has been able to expedite its decisionmaking process to happen in as quickly as two days.

Warner noted that it’s now easier than ever for other countries to attempt to interfere in elections. "The barriers to entry for foreign malign influence—including election influence—have become almost vanishingly small," Warner said. “The scale and sophistication of these sorts of attacks against our elections can be accelerated several-fold by what are now cutting-edge AI tools.”

He also criticized efforts to downplay the severity of election interference in 2016. “I think there has been some rewriting post-2016 that somehow some of the activities in Russia, or even in 2020 with Iran, that was kind of harmless trolling,” Warner said.

Haines agreed, pointing to Iran as an example of a foreign actor making serious attempts to sow discord among Americans. Iran is “increasingly aggressive in their efforts seeking to stoke this kind of discord and promote chaos and undermine confidence in the integrity of the process and they use social media platforms, really, to issue threats, [and] to disseminate disinformation,” she said.

And Iran’s not alone; the officials gave an overview of other countries seeking to influence the upcoming presidential election. Haines said that Russia “remains the most active foreign threat to our elections.”

In a report published last year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that Russia’s influence efforts in 2022 targeted Democratic politicians, seeking to affect the United States’ support for Ukraine.

The ODNI report also said that, since 2016, the US government has not observed a “comprehensive, whole-of-government influence campaign” like the one carried out by Russia that year.

During the hearing, Haines noted that in the previous presidential election, China refrained from election influence efforts, primarily due to concerns of repercussions from the US government.

The ODNI report said that China tacitly approved information operations to support candidates perceived as more favorable to Chinese interests during the 2022 midterm elections. The Chinese government has been linked to some of the most prolific online information campaigns, but researchers have found that those efforts often reach few people or have virtually no impact.

The hearing covered domestic concerns as well. CISA director Easterly noted that threats to election workers have led to a “wave of resignations.” The FBI’s Knapp said during the hearing that “election workers are being harassed via robocalls, via white-powder letters, as well as swatting.”

Looming over the hearing were attacks by congressional Republicans who have criticized the FBI’s and CISA’s communications with social media platforms, alleging that sharing information on foreign influence operations resulted in censorship. As a result of that criticism and a lawsuit filed by the state of Missouri, government agencies have limited their communications with social media platforms. The shift has contributed to a sense of uncertainty about exactly how the government will respond to foreign influence campaigns.

In response, Warner has publicly pushed CISA to fill the gap and “[serve] as an interlocutor between private sector entities, the intelligence community and law enforcement, and state and local officials.” “Since 2022, we've seen a concerted litigation campaign that has sought to undermine the federal government's ability to share, on any kind of voluntary basis, vital threat information with social media platforms,” Warner said at Wednesday’s hearing.

Multiple members of the committee appeared to express concern about exactly how senior officials would respond in a crisis, but the hearing didn’t provide any new insight into what their plans are. The senators will have another opportunity to press for more information on responses to AI threats next month. Representatives from major social media platforms are expected to testify before the committee about election threats in June.

[kp777]

By Jessica Corbett

Common Dreams

July 24, 2024

"Kamala Harris has proven herself to be a thoughtful and forceful leader on gun violence, who has time and again listened to young people and fought for our lives."

March for Our Lives, which was launched six years ago after yet another U.S. mass shooting, announced its first-ever political endorsement on Wednesday, backing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris' bid for the White House.

"The stakes couldn't be higher," said the group, which was founded in the wake of the February 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. "As one of the largest youth-led movements in the nation, we are clear-eyed about the challenge ahead and we believe that Kamala Harris is uniquely suited to meet this moment."

Warning of the threat posed by Republican former President Donald Trump—who just survived an assassination attempt—and his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), March for Our Lives said that "the country that young people will soon inherit stands at the precipice—on one side, authoritarianism that threatens our fundamental rights, including our right to live freely without fear of gun violence; on the other, a world where we can keep fighting to build the future that young people know we deserve."

"We need an ardent defender of democracy, a gun violence prevention champion, and a leader who will listen to young people, give us a seat at the table, and fight for our future. We believe that Kamala Harris is that candidate, and the right person to stand up for us and fight for the country we deserve," the organization continued, detailing how she has been "a forceful champion for gun safety and for young people" as vice president and a U.S. senator representing California.

"Young people are inheriting an increasingly precarious world," the group added, highlighting youth deaths from gun violence, Israel's war on the Gaza Strip, the escalating climate emergency, and far-right politicians pushing extremist policies. "We have been struggling to feel excited about voting in this election, and are increasingly pessimistic that change is possible. But we know that another Trump presidency is simply not an option that young people can afford—our lives are literally at stake."

Harris began seeking the Democratic nomination for November after President Joe Biden dropped out and endorsed her on Sunday. March for Our Lives said that "we call on her to run a campaign that fights for the policy solutions that young people want, like an assault weapons ban, action on climate change, a vigorous defense of abortion, court reform, and an immediate and lasting cease-fire in Gaza. Young people are savvy voters, who will see through empty promises and cynical horsetrading. We believe that Kamala will step above that and fight for a bold, progressive future—and we will hold her accountable for that."

Since Sunday, Parkland shooting survivor and March for Our Lives co-founder David Hogg has been fiercely supporting Harris, posting on his social media frequent updates about her historic fundraising successes over the past few days.

"Kamala Harris has proven herself to be a thoughtful and forceful leader on gun violence, who has time and again listened to young people and fought for our lives," Hogg said in a statement Wednesday. "Given her strong record on gun safety and prioritizing youth voices during her time in office, I'm proud that Kamala Harris will receive March for Our Lives' first-ever endorsement, and I'm so excited for our work to mobilize young people for her campaign."

Natalie Fall, the group's executive director, told ABC News—which first reported on the endorsement—that "we see a lot of energy around Vice President Harris in this election; there's no denying that. I think everybody's seeing it right now."

"I just think young people in particular didn't really see themselves represented or reflected in the Biden ticket in the way that they wanted. It's not to say that President Biden hasn't had great accomplishments," she explained. "But I think we need someone who can meet this moment and who is up to the challenge of taking Donald Trump to task and really defeating his effort to erode all of our institutions and our democracy."

March for Our Lives members plan to participate in this year's election through creative campaigns, door-knocking, and phone banks, Fall said. In a statement, she added that the group aims to elect not only Harris but also candidates "up and down the ballot" who support its priorities.

"March for Our Lives will work to mobilize young people across the country to support Vice President Harris and other down-ballot candidates, with a particular focus on the states and races where we can make up the margin of victory—in Arizona, New York, Michigan, and Florida," she pledged. "We are ready to double down on this commitment and elect the first woman, first Black woman, and the first person of South Asian descent to become our next president."

The gun violence prevention group's endorsement adds to Harris' mounting pile. Throughout the week, she has also received support from many Democratic governors and members of Congress as well as climate, labor, and reproductive rights groups.

As young people rally behind Harris, she is also seeing support from advocates for older Americans. Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, wrote in a Wednesday opinion piece for Common Dreams that "Joe Biden has been the best president for seniors in over half a century. Kamala Harris will be even better."