All posts tagged "florida"

Elon Musk and SpaceX have big plans for Florida. Here's why Floridians don't like them

This is such a breakable age. Things we thought would last are, to our surprise, now in danger of shattering.

You think our state parks will always be preserved? Nope, we’re going to try to put golf courses in them. Think the Everglades will be protected forever? Sorry, we’re building a prison camp there. Think our system for buying environmental land will be free of political influence? Too bad, here’s a shady campaign contributor getting $83 million for four acres in Destin.

Last week I heard about another target for breakage, one that I thought would never see a crack: The natural lands serving as a buffer around Cape Canaveral.

Space X, the aerospace company owned by Elon Musk, wants to make big changes at the Cape. It wants to boost the number of rockets it launches and lands there, as well as boosting the size of the rocket involved.

“SpaceX is seeking [federal] approval for up to 44 Starship-Super Heavy launches per year from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center,” Florida Today reported last month. The proposal has drawn opposition from residents and officials from Titusville, Cape Canaveral, and Brevard County, as well as environmental groups worried about the potential harm to nesting sea turtles, manatees, and endangered right whales.

They’re also concerned about increased pollution, rampant water waste, a huge loss of public access, lots more sonic booms and — not to be rude — the tendency of Space X rockets to blow up. There have been four explosions so far this year.

“Yes, we have seen those headlines,” said Katie Bauman of the Surfrider Foundation, one of the most vocal environmental groups challenging the expansion.

Space X called one of those explosions “a sudden energetic event.” That’s not the kind of energy folks on the Space Coast want to see in their backyard.

But it does give a fresh context to this comment about Space X’s impact on the region by Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Haridopolos: “We are booming, literally, right now.”

The water goes pfft!

“Starship-Super Heavy” sounds like the latest iteration of the “We Built This City” rock group that started as Jefferson Airplane, morphed into Jefferson Starship then became plain Starship.

Instead, it’s actually “the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed,” according to the Space X website. It’s designed to take cargo or astronauts into Earth orbit, to the Moon or even Mars, yet be as reusable as Tupperware.

“Starship and Super Heavy are designed to return to the launch site and be caught following their flight, with the ability to rapidly turn around and launch again,” the company says.

For now, its launch operations have been confined to Texas. Although Musk has had successes, repeated explosions — like the one in March that Reuters reported left “fiery debris streaking through the dusk skies near South Florida” — are something Musk dismissed as “a minor setback.”

During an Aug. 22 Space Coast Symposium speech, SpaceX Vice President of Launch Kiko Dontchev told the crowd, “You’re going to get a vetted machine that shows up ready to party.”

Clearly his definition of “party” is different from mine, and from that of a lot of the people who live and work near the Kennedy Space Center.

“Constituents and businesses have expressed concern over the cumulative environmental effects of high frequency launches, including emissions, chemical runoff, and disturbances to protected coastal and marine habitats,” Brevard County Commissioner Katie Delaney wrote in a letter to federal officials.

The Federal Aviation Administration must decide whether to permit this, which requires an environmental impact statement. In a first draft, FAA officials determined the Starship liftoffs — punctuated by up to 152 sonic booms per year — would generate “few” significant environmental impacts at Launch Complex 37.

That’s not how Bill Fisk sees it.

Fisk, a Florida native who grew up watching the Apollo launches with his dad and grandfather, is both the president of the Space Coast Audubon Society and vice chair of the Turtle Coast Sierra Club. For my edification, he catalogued the biggest impacts.

Start with the water, which Bauman of Surfrider brought up as well.

Space X expects to use 400,000 gallons of water per launch and 68,000 gallons per landing, all to cool down hot equipment. That plus other uses for the site put the expected total water use for Space X at 50 million gallons per year.

Yet Brevard is already running low on potable water for residents and businesses, Fisk said.

“It’s getting worse as the developers get more leeway, so the water supply keeps going PFFFT!” he said.

After its use, the remaining Space X fresh water would flow into local waterways that are supposed to be brackish, messing up their salt content. That includes the struggling Indian River Lagoon, where there’s a need to bring back sea grass beds as a nursery for fish and a food source for manatees.

“There is a clear and direct negative impact to the physical environment of the area … by adding excessive amounts of fresh water into the pristine local estuary,” the Southeastern Fisheries Association said in a comment letter to the FAA.

Local fishermen are already complaining about falling space debris damaging their equipment, Fisk said. Crumbling local roads can’t handle the increase in fuel truck traffic, he said. Titusville is bringing in an engineer to examine its public buildings to see if they can handle the increased vibrations.

After all, Fisk said, when the early space program was being built, “everything was built fast and it was built cheap.”

Race to space

The waters off Cape Canaveral saw the last sea battle of the Revolutionary War (we won). That marked the last big news there for a couple of centuries.

But then a Mexican cemetery blew up.

In the 1940s, the American military tested missiles by firing them from New Mexico, but one went off course and blew up a Juarez graveyard. Mexican officials complained, so the military looked for a safer launch site.

They found it at in Florida at what was then known as the Banana River Naval Air Station. The place was isolated, the land already belonged to the government, and the location near the equator meant rockets got an extra boost when they took off. Everyone seemed happy.

Then, in 1957, Sputnik changed everything.

Suddenly, America was running second to the Soviets and the Space Race was on. Cape Canaveral became the focus of a U.S. space program playing catch-up.

Brevard’s population boomed as engineers, scientists, and construction crews poured into the once-sleepy towns.

“The beach mushroomed and became sheathed in schlock,” author Herb Hiller wrote. ”Everything was built quick and short-term. Motels in Cocoa Beach and Titusville flashed neon rockets and dancing girls. Inside, sequined cuties danced and did more. Motel Row became Sin Strip.”

In the run-up to the moon landing, the work force at Canaveral peaked at 26,500 in 1968. But then Space Coast residents found out what any coal miner could’ve told them: It’s no fun living in a company town when the company winds down.

A year after the historic Apollo 11 mission, the work force fell to 15,000. Rocket scientists were pumping gas. Families who couldn’t find a buyer left their keys in the front door of their houses as they left town.

Yet, during the boom and bust, one thing remained constant: the natural buffers around the cape, which preserved the Old Florida feel of a place jumping into the 21st century.

In 1963, the feds created the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, 140,000 acres with more endangered and threatened species than any other refuge in the continental U.S.

Then, a decade later, they set up Canaveral National Seashore — 58,000 acres of barrier island, open lagoon, coastal hammock, pine flatwoods, and offshore waters.

But Space X says every time there’s a takeoff or landing, both must shut down for safety. Even the nude beach.

The naked and the clothed

Florida is the state with the most nudist resorts — 29, compared to 14 for second-place California. Harder to find are Florida’s nude beaches. They exist, but most are not official.

One well-known example is in Canaveral National Seashore: the southern end of Playalinda Beach, accessed from Parking Lot 13.

“Not too many places can you get a full view of a rocket launch while giving a full view,” WKMG-TV noted in a story that reported Playalinda had been named the 20th best nude beach in the world.

One person who submitted a comment against the Space X plan identified himself as a member of the American Association for Nude Recreation. He told the feds, “I do not see the need for corporations to take away our public privileges to public and federal lands.”

Plenty of people who ARE wearing clothes use the rest of Playalinda for swimming, surfing, fishing, picnicking, and camping. After all, it’s the longest stretch of undeveloped Atlantic coastline in Florida.

Both the naked and the clothed are freaking out about the part of the Space X plan that calls for closing access to the beach for at least 60 days a year — maybe more.

Space program veterans call Musk “the Nibbler,” Fisk told me, because “he’ll say he wants 50 launches — no wait, make it 120 — oh no, we need to do 160 launches.” He keeps nibbling a little more each time.

Residents who love Playalinda don’t want to play Musk’s shutdown game. It’s a public beach that the public wants to use, not hand over to the world’s richest man whenever he wants.

“What we want is a fair middle ground — where launch activity can thrive without compromising the health, safety, and quality of life for our residents,” Commissioner Delaney said on her substack.

I haven’t even mentioned the other Space X threat, one that would affect more than just one region of Florida.

The company wants to launch its Starship-Super Heavy rocket from its existing base in Texas to attain a low-Earth orbit. It would soar over most of North and Central Florida in a way that would block at least 10 and as many as 200 commercial airline flights.

The big break

I was curious about what an actual scientist had to say about all this.

I got in touch with Ken Kremer, a Ph.D. with 17 patents who’s been writing about the space industry for two decades. He runs the website Space Upclose and boasts that he’s witnessed more than 100 launches.

He agreed with everyone else I talked to about how awful it would be for Space X to close off Playalinda Beach for 60 days minimum.

“That’s really terrible to cut that off for two months,” he said.

But he saw a reasonable alternative.

Space X wants to use Launch Complex 39A. That’s where a lot of American space history happened, including the launch of Apollo 11. An explosion there would wipe out all the historic structures.

Ten miles away is Launch Complex 37. Space X wants to use that one too. Why not require the company to use it exclusively? That way, he said, only minimal beach closures would be required.

“There have to be some reasonable compromises,” Kremer said.

Of course, just changing the launch site doesn’t solve the other problems with pollution, excess water usage, and so forth.

Space Coast residents used to be willing to give the space program the benefit of the doubt because they felt they were doing their patriotic duty. But it’s not like that anymore. Space X is not NASA. It’s just a for-profit business, putting more money into Musk’s already bulging pockets.

I think we should tell Space X that the only way it will be allowed to do everything it wants with Cape Canaveral is if every single launch or landing in Florida carries as a passenger someone named Musk.

It could be Elon. It could be his awful father. It could be one of his 14 kids.

Then, all the water that’s left afterward, they have to drink it. And if they complain about it, tell them, “Hey, those are the breaks.”

Craig Pittman is a native Floridian. In 30 years at the Tampa Bay Times, he won numerous state and national awards for his environmental reporting. He is the author of six books. In 2020 the Florida Heritage Book Festival named him a Florida Literary Legend. Craig is co-host of the "Welcome to Florida" podcast. He lives in St. Petersburg with his wife and children.

Trump is about to do to Miami what he has done to the rest of America

In New York, they brag about Broadway and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In Chicago, it’s Millennium Park and Frank Lloyd Wright buildings.

Arizona has the Grand Canyon; Colorado has the Rockies; New Mexico has Area 51.

Very nice, I’m sure.

Still, none of them can hold a chlorine-scented candle to Florida, home of the Waste Pro Garbage Truck Museum; the Bike-Riding Parrots of Sarasota Jungle Gardens; Big Betsy, Islamorada’s 30-foot high spiny lobster; not to mention the Beach Tomb of Morris the Cat in Gulfport or any of our other awesome contributions to culture.

Nobody’s ever seen anything like them.

But our state will soon have an even more important attraction.

Lordly. Majestic. Certain to be clad in 24 karat gold.

I speak, naturally, of the Trump Presidential Library Hotel and Massage Parlor soon to be built in Miami.

Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.

Miami Dade College had some land sitting there on its Wolfson campus and, instead of doing something stupid with it like make a park or a cultural center or housing for students or whatever, MDC’s Board of Trustees voted to give the land — worth a paltry $200-$300 million — to the state.

They voted in secret, with no public comment and no community input, but who could possibly object to such a stable genius project?

The state will, in turn, give it to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation, which means the place will be controlled by the Trump family.

“President Trump has a great story to tell as a Florida resident,” says state Attorney General and swashbuckling scofflaw James Uthmeier. “I think it’s quite fitting that we house it … as Miami becomes kind of the capital of the world in many respects.”

New York, Mumbai, Beijing, London, Paris — y’all just shut up.

Suggestions that Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet members may aspire to higher office in the near future, and know they’d be wise to court Donald Trump’s favor, are unfair.

AG Uthmeier has just been endorsed by the president, but that’s because he’s the greatest. Nobody’s ever seen anybody like him.

Trump DNA

Second Son Eric Trump posted on social media (where woke rules of grammar, punctuation, syntax, and other boring so-called aspects of “English usage” totally do not apply): “Consistent with our families DNA, this will be one of the most beautiful buildings ever built, an icon on the Miami skyline.”

As we all know, Eric Trump is a brilliant and totally ethical businessman, and the Trumps have the most exquisite taste. Just look at what his father has done with the Oval Office.

Who knew you could get such gorgeous carved onlays from Home Depot!

It is true the parcel of land is a bit small, only 2.63 acres, especially compared to Lyndon Johnson’s 30 acres in Austin, Texas, or the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library’s 37 acres in Atlanta, Georgia.

So what? Size does not matter and small can be beautiful: Look at the president’s hands!

You build tall, tall like the president himself, who is at least 6ft 5. Maybe six.

How about 100 stories? That will beat the Panorama Tower, which everybody knows is not that beautiful.

The science nerds and climate change alarmists will tell you that since average elevation in Miami is two yards above sea level, and the site is pretty much on Biscayne Bay and about 300 feet from the Miami River, there’s a big danger of flooding.

Also, hurricanes.

No big deal. They can put the “library” part of the library lower down — that’s just books and paper and stuff — and the hotel and massage parlor — the important parts — on higher floors.

It’ll be a glittering palace on Biscayne, visible from space!

Just kidding about letting it flood. We’ll want to protect the priceless artifacts of America’s Golden Age.

Treasures such as the president’s collection of photo-shopped Time Magazine covers, the famous shoe with the piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of it, his hurricane-bending sharpies, his special copy of the Epstein “Birthday Book,” his diamond-studded ketchup bottle, and that world-famous 20-foot red necktie.

Sure, there are nay-sayers, carpers, whiners, complainers, boo-birds, and other losers making noise.

Miami Dade College President Emeritus Eduardo Padrón, a guy who obviously doesn’t understand the great honor being accorded MDC, says it’s “frankly unimaginable” this decision was made “without any real discussion of the consequences of what that will do to the college.”

A bunch of busybody pollsters have found that 74 percent of Miami-Dade residents want the college to keep the land.

Dr. Marvin Dunn, a professor of psychology at FIU, has filed a lawsuit on the ground that Miami Dade College state violated Florida’s Sunshine laws.

The suit claims the public notice posted by the MDC board did not say they would talk about giving away taxpayer-funded property, but just said they’d “discuss potential real estate transactions.”

Picky, picky, picky.

That Dunn guy is such a troublemaker, always going around telling people about Black history and whatnot, just to make them sad.

Now you’ve got a bunch of fuss bunnies banging on about how the Trump library/hotel/massage parlor site is next to Miami’s Freedom Tower, which some of those never-satisfied Cubans see as sacred or something.

‘Ellis Island of the South’

Yeah, it’s the “Ellis Island of the South,” the place Cubans who ran from the communists in 1959 went to get papers and medical care, learn English, and receive help settling in Miami, where they began taking over, speaking a foreign language, insisting white people eat Ropa Vieja and drink good coffee, and attacking the integrity of American tooth enamel with their lethal Tres Leches cakes.

Some of them actually protested on the future site of what Eric Trump so rightly calls “the greatest Presidential Library ever built, honoring the greatest President our Nation has ever known.”

Tessa Petit, who runs some wild lib outfit called the Florida Immigrant Coalition, says “it’s ridiculous they’re putting a library of someone who represents everything that is contrary to freedom, someone who’s making it his mission to destroy immigrant families, next to the Freedom Tower.”

One woman, whose family left Cuba in the early 1960s, said she’s against it because the president has “a track record of destroying civic engagement and only supporting those world views that are in alignment with his own.”

Another Cuban-born radical named Yousi Mazpule, a Miami Dade College professor, calls it “a slap in the face,” telling WLRN she objects to the library/tower/massage parlor “being put right next to the Freedom Tower where so many Cubans ran from a dictator.”

That’s gratitude for you — after all the president has done for Cubans!

A bunch of them are currently getting free room and board in federal detention centers.

The Trump administration has revoked so-called “temporary humanitarian parole” for about 300,000.

Our dedicated Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem explains that Cuba, like Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Haiti, and Venezuela, are now perfectly safe, really nice places that probably have great malls.

Yes, the Cubans used to be welcome as refugees from communism, but that was before Kristi Noem was born, so she’s never heard about it and it doesn’t matter.

Now they qualify for a free trip home to Havana and, if ICE won’t let them take their small children or spouses, and they have to fly back wearing shackles, well, that what they get for being, like, foreign.

In the meantime, the Trump Freedom Tower Biscayne Hotel, Library, and Massage Parlor will draw crowds of pilgrims from all over the world, from Idaho to Oklahoma, to stay in one of its luxurious MAGA suites and worship at his shrine, drawn in like bugs to a glue trap.

Florida should be proud.

This GOP assault on freedom isn't just outrageous — it's likely illegal

Florida’s institutions of higher education are in trouble.

The University of West Florida is being run by Manny Diaz Jr., a former social studies teacher (and ex-Commissioner of Education) but, given that he’s Ron DeSantis’ choice, he’ll likely get the permanent position.

Florida Atlantic and Florida International have had undistinguished former legislators imposed on them; and USF president Rhea Law has announced her resignation, creating an opening for another DeSantis-friendly politician.

At the University of Florida, our supposed flagship institution, the provost is interim, the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Law, and Arts are being run by interim deans, and 30 chair or director positions are vacant.

This obvious dysfunction has not gone unnoticed: The best and brightest academics are not exactly enthusiastic about working in Florida.

I’ve been teaching for more than 30 years; I love my job at Florida State — for now, at least. The students are wonderful (most of them), and I admire, even like, my colleagues (most of them).

Ron DeSantis hasn’t gotten around to trying to trash our reputation and cripple our academic freedom the way they have at New College, UWF, and UF.

Not yet, anyway.

The state’s “post-tenure review,” in which professors (who already undergo yearly reviews) must further justify their existence to the Board of Trustees, has driven some of the most productive academics out of Florida.

Nearly a third of Florida’s faculty want to leave the state.

If I were a young professor looking for a job, I’d avoid Florida.

Churn at UF

Our state government is authoritarian and proudly ignorant, hell-bent on destroying what makes universities great — freedom of expression, critical thinking, creativity, exposing students to ideas that may challenge them (or even upset them), unfettered research, scientific rigor, and advances in knowledge based on data.

Why would a scholar want to pursue a career in such a fact-resistant, small-minded, censorious state?

As has become its habit, the University of Florida has changed presidents. Again.

Dr. Donald Landry has become UF’s interim president, replacing Kent Fuchs, the former interim president and one-time actual president who stepped back in when Ben Sasse, the unqualified spendthrift former president resigned under a cloud, and then had to stay on when the trustees’ choice, Dr. Santa Ono, who’d resigned as president of the University of Michigan to take the job at Florida, fell foul of the Board of Governors’ anti-DEI hysteria.

This is not how serious institutions of higher education conduct themselves.

But then, Florida is not a serious place.

Enter Landry, late of the Columbia Center for Human Longevity and a medical doctor with “elite” Ivy degrees.

Landry seems positively giddy at becoming UF’s latest interim, calling it “the culmination of my career” and “the opportunity of a lifetime,” and demonstrates an Olympic-standard talent for sucking up, calling UF “a preeminent university in what one could argue is the preeminent state in this nation at this moment in time.”

He obviously wants the permanent job. The trustees obviously want him to have it: They’re paying him $2 million for this year, with the possibility of a $500,000 bonus.

If they don’t give him the permanent job, they have to pay him another $2 million.

Purge of academics

While the fact-based community knows Florida is Ground Zero for the climate crisis, Landry told UF’s right-wing trustees what they wanted to hear, insisting the science is “not settled,” even though the science is indeed settled: 97% of climate scientists agree on anthropogenic causes of global warming.

Maybe they should have asked him if the Theory of Gravity is sound or if the sun orbits the earth.

Or if he’ll defend professors’ freedom of speech.

DeSantis and his anti-education squad have passed laws banning anything that smells of DEI, clamped down on the honest study of American history, pitched hissy fits over pro-Palestinian campus protests, and railed against so-called “woke” professors who have the temerity to recognize that gay people exist, trans people exist, systemic racism is real, and science doesn’t care what you believe.

Now they’re going after educators who dare disparage Charlie Kirk.

Let’s stipulate that Kirk did not deserve his violent death. No one does.

He was a human being. He had as much right as the rest of us to speak his mind.

Which is the whole point.

A University of Miami neurologist was fired for posting, “What was done to Charlie Kirk has been done to countless Palestinian babies, children, girls, boys, women and men not just over the past two years of the ongoing genocide, but decades.”

A retired University of Florida law professor was stripped of his emeritus title for saying, “I did not want him to die. I reserve that wish for Trump.”

At FAU, three professors have been placed on administrative leave. One, a tenured professor of art history, didn’t comment on Kirk’s death, but re-posted others calling Kirk bigoted and racist.

It’s not illegal.

As the great Rick Wilson says, “tastelessness is not treason.”

‘Outrageous things’

Kirk identified as a “free speech absolutist,” declaring, “You should be allowed to say outrageous things,” even if you upset people.

Among the outrageous things Charlie Kirk said:

On journalist Joy Reid, the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, former First Lady Michelle Obama, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson being “affirmative action picks,” he said, “You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”
On women: They should “submit to a godly man,” marry early, and have babies.
On Jews: “The philosophical foundation of anti-whiteness has been largely financed by Jewish donors in the country.”
On guns: “I think it’s worth [it] to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

As offensive, stupid, prejudiced, or karma-inviting as you or I might find what Kirk said, we live under a system of laws that protect his right to say it.

‘Civility’

The question is whether the DeSantis administration and Florida’s education establishment, including UF’s new president, understand that freedom of speech applies to all of us.

Donald Landry says he’s big on civility: “I will be locking in a culture of freedom of academic expression tempered by civility.”

Landry enjoys the support of Christopher Rufo, who calls him “a principled leader who will reverse ideological capture and restore truth-seeking within the institution” at UF.

In case you’ve forgotten Rufo, he’s yet another pious conservative who likes to claim he cherishes free expression on campus, telling PBS News Hour in May the DeSantis administration has “expanded the range of discourse in higher education,” and boasting, “At New College of Florida, for example, where I’m a trustee, we have probably the widest range of discourse of any public university in the United States.”

A habit in Florida

Getting rid of a visiting professor who focuses on Black history contradicts Rufo’s smug assertion.

No one at New College accused Erik Wallenberg of incompetence or bad teaching or any other malfeasance.

But Rufo called him “a pure left-wing mad-lib” and sniffed, “New College will no longer be a jobs program for middling, left-wing intellectuals.”

Firing a professor because you don’t like his politics is not evidence of a wide range of discourse.

It’s also likely illegal.

Landry should take note and someone should alert him to Florida’s long, shameful history of McCarthyite attacks on academics.

In the late 1950s, the Legislature started investigating universities, determined to search out communists, biology professors who taught evolution, English professors who assigned “The Grapes of Wrath” and the poetry of Allen Ginsberg, and especially gay people in the student body or the faculty.

Scores were fired or expelled.

Perhaps former president/former interim president Kent Fuchs can tell Donald Landry about the time he, and UF trustees head Mori Hosseini, tried to ban four law professors from signing onto an amicus brief opposing a state law making it hard for former felons to vote, and stop three other professors from testifying as expert witnesses on the ground that their actions might impede Ron DeSantis’ agenda.

Landry’s UF contract stipulates that a number of important decisions, including hiring, must be approved by Mori Hosseini — which means a highly partisan political appointee will exercise even more control over how the university works, what’s allowed, what’s censored.

You either have academic freedom, or you don’t.

You either have a First Amendment, or you don’t.

Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee, which probably explains her unhealthy fascination with Florida politics. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo.

Florida attorney general's big gun announcement stuns observers: 'This is a mistake'

Florida's state attorney general announced Monday that law enforcement should stop arresting or prosecuting people who openly carry firearms in public, while Democrats in the state argue this could further harm tourism.

Attorney General James Uthmeier issued a legal interpretation, "citing a state appeals court ruling last week that found a decades-old ban to be unconstitutional," the New York Times reports.

“Open carry is the law of the state,” he wrote Monday via X.

He issued the update, sharing a copy of the "guidance memorandum" that he issued to sheriffs, police chiefs and state attorneys about the ruling last Wednesday, after a three-judge panel of the First District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee found that the state's open carry ban violated the Second Amendment, The Times reports. The open carry ban has been in effect since 1987.

In the United States, California, Connecticut and Illinois are now the only remaining states that still ban open carry.

Democrats warned the decision, which was not decided by lawmakers, could upend safety.

“Historically, the Florida Sheriffs Association, many departments across the state and leaders on both sides of the aisle have agreed: Open carry will make Floridians less safe,” said Nikki Fried, the chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party, in a statement. “The impact of this decision will have negative long-term effects on our communities and further erode Floridians’ trust in one another.”

Reactions grew online in the wake of the Sunshine State change.

"As a lawful gun owner in the state of Florida, I think this is a mistake. Florida depends on tourism, and people open carrying everywhere is not going to increase tourism," one user wrote on X.

"No thanks to the Florida GOP who have refused to do anything pro gun after they screwed gun owners at trumps request and Rick Scott was all to happy to oblige," another user wrote on X.

"Florida, the Gunshine state. If you plan to visit, prepare to see plenty of bubbas armed who, along with Stand Your Ground law, won’t hesitate to use. Mindful of road rage, folks," another quipped on X.

"So after 'martyr' charlie kirk is murdered by a gun. His supporters lash out and claim we’re in a civil war. And now, Florida is open carry," an X user wrote.

'I'm still frightened': Black student beaten during traffic stop files federal lawsuit

A Black college student filed a federal lawsuit this week against police officers who beat and dragged him out of his SUV during a traffic stop in Florida. It also names the city of Jacksonville and the Duval County government.

The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday at a federal court in Jacksonville, CBS News reported. The traffic stop occurred in February, and 22-year-old William McNeil released the now-viral video in July. In the video, McNeil is punched in the face and pulled out of the vehicle by police officers.

In August, prosecutors announced that following an investigative report released by the State Attorney's Office for the Fourth Judicial Circuit of Florida, they would take no action "after determining the conduct of Officer D. Bowers of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office did not constitute a crime," CBS reports.

McNeil's attorneys, Ben Crump and Harry Daniels, said the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office's policies allow officers to use "illegal or excessive use of force" and racial profiling without fearing consequences for their actions. The lawsuit aims to address not only how their client was treated by police, but to change how policing is conducted in that area.

"It's an unjustifiable, unnecessary and most importantly unconstitutional use of force," said Crump, a civil rights attorney who has previously represented the families of Trayvon Martin and Martin Lee Anderson.

The prosecutors' report says that Bowers stopped McNeil for failing to turn his headlights on and buckle his seatbelt, after seeing him parked outside a house that an officer was patrolling for "drug activity."

McNeil questioned the traffic stop and requested a supervisor on-scene.

Prosecutors say that he did not respond to officers' "lawful commands."

"The suspect continued to refuse to comply, at which time I broke the driver's window and opened the driver's door. I along with other officers on scene removed the suspect from the vehicle," Bowers said in the arrest report obtained by CBS News. "The suspect was reaching for the floor board of the vehicle where a large knife was sitting."

McNeil suffered a laceration to the chin and lip, a fractured tooth and was diagnosed with an "ongoing traumatic brain injury," according to his attorneys, who have also called on the Department of Justice to investigate the case.

"I'm still afraid of police. I'm still frightened at night. I don't sleep still as much as I used to," McNeil said.

This Republican ghoul should look both ways before crossing angry Floridians further

No doubt Gov. Ron DeSantis expects Floridians to be grateful for saving us from yet another woke attack on decency, probity, and speeding motorists.

I refer, of course, to colorful crosswalks.

Just as he has fought to expel books by Black and gay authors from our schools, the governor has ordered the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) to paint over the flowers, the sunbursts, the fish, the musical notes, and the rainbows — especially the rainbows.

We want guns in our streets, not rainbows.

Speaking of guns, one of the first crosswalks to be destroyed was the one outside the Pulse Memorial.

You may recall that in 2016 a gunman murdered 49 people at an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Orlando.

The rainbow crosswalk was intended to honor them.

DeSantis, however, views it as some sort of personal insult.

His political future looks distinctly unpromising AND his wife’s gubernatorial campaign lies in ruins after the Hope Florida scandal. Environmental activists won a temporary shutdown of his Everglades gulag, though an appeals court is allowing it to stay open for now.

I mean, nobody likes the guy, but, by God, he can still teach crosswalks a sharp lesson.

“We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes,” he said.

Except the crosswalks were not “commandeered.” Like most painted crosswalks in Florida, the Pulse rainbow was supported by the city government and the citizens.

FDOT itself had approved it.

But in late August, FDOT turned up in the dead of night and ground it off the road.

But this kind of pointless vandalism is happening across the state.

At least a dozen schools in Tampa will see their “Crosswalks to Classrooms” school crossings destroyed, including one painted to look like a shelf of books.

Florida’s government is particularly scared of books.

‘Political ideologies’

Hearts commemorating a young girl who died of a heart condition in Port St. Lucie; checkerboards in Daytona near the raceway; “Back the Blue” in Hillsborough County; bike lanes in Orange County, painted by kids who won an FDOT art contest to design them — all either already gone or about to be.

Florida Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue vows to “keep our transportation facilities free and clear of political ideologies.”

As if violating free expression in cities and towns across the state is not the product of a “political ideology.”

DeSantis says painted crosswalks promote “social, political, or ideological messages” and must be obliterated.

That’s one of his excuses. He’s got more.

The governor claims he has no choice but to enforce a new law — a law he signed — allowing FDOT to withhold funds for road projects and “traffic control” if cities and counties don’t follow orders.

Thing is, FDOT always had the power to forbid street art. That’s why communities wanting to paint a crosswalk sought and received permission — from FDOT.

Now, you could argue that the wrong kind of paint could create a slippery surface.

Crosswalk painters know this and generally use acrylic or other paints that bond to the asphalt.

You could argue brightly colored crosswalks give people trying to cross the street a false sense of security, leading them to just hop out into the road without looking to see what maniac in an F-150 is barreling toward them.

Except the data do not support that contention.

You could argue drivers encountering images of sunflowers or fish or “Black Lives Matter” on the road will be so discombobulated trying to read and interpret the art, they’ll become reckless.

Remember, FDOT said yes to those cheery, often clever, crosswalks.

Distracted drivers?

The crosswalks only got dangerous this spring.

Now, as the law says, “Non-standard surface markings, signage and signals that do not contribute directly to traffic safety or control can lead to distraction or misunderstandings, jeopardizing both driver and pedestrian safety.”

The state’s assumption that drivers aren’t already distracted is demonstrably false, as every human who has ever operated a car in this state knows.

Whether they’re behind the wheel of a beat-up Kia or 4,000-pound Mercedes SUV, people frequently struggle to heed FDOT’s “standard surface markings and signage,” including the scarlet octagon that says “STOP.”

Nevertheless, research indicates they are unlikely to lose control of the vehicle contemplating a pink, blue, and green-stiped crosswalk.

What they might do is slow the hell down. A national study shows street art has contributed to a 50% reduction in crashes involving vehicles and pedestrians.

In Leon County, the Knight Creative Communities Institute worked with Florida State University and local government to determine whether brightly painted crosswalks might get people to drive the speed limit near schools.

Sure enough, brightly painted crosswalks did indeed cause Tallahassee drivers — not noted for their adherence to posted speed limits — to ease up on the accelerator.

Unless you just moved to Florida from Inner Mongolia, you know what’s actually going on here.

Bike lanes and walkways designed and painted by school kids, and crosswalks celebrating a city’s history or its natural beauty or demonstrating its commitment to inclusivity, somehow threaten DeSantis’ commitment to Beijing-style state control.

Children must not grow up in the Free State Florida feeling free to create or express themselves or engage in their community.

‘Conform’

Asked during a press conference what he’d tell Florida children now watching grown people destroying their art, DeSantis said, “We have a representative system of government. People elect their representatives. They’re able to enact the legislation with the governor’s signature and then when that happens, obviously, people will conform their conduct accordingly.”

Hear that, kids? “Conform” your conduct and chant the mandated Pledge of Allegiance every morning.

DeSantis means to bully the people of this state from Perdido Bay to the Dry Tortugas: Expressions of dissent, assertions, of common humanity, civic pride, beauty, and joy will not be tolerated.

The people of Pensacola have been told the large “Black Lives Matter” painting on A Street, the words spelled out with flags of nations that have contributed to Florida culture, is verboten.

God forbid Black people think their lives matter.

This is not a popular decision: The mayor says Pensacola will comply, but city resources are stretched pretty thin, so if the state really wants to rid the place of a “Black Lives Matter” painting, FDOT might have to handle it themselves.

As for LGBTQ+ folks and their aggressive use of the color wheel, state policy is to erase both the pigmentation and the people.

Remove “gay” books from the library, pull courses out of college catalogs, and scrub rainbows off the streets.

Remember the great essay “The Cruelty is the Point” by Adam Serwer?

The Atlantic published it in the early days of Donald Trump’s first term, but it’s just as relevant now: insulting, attacking, undermining, performative hatred — this how the regimes in both Washington and Tallahassee rule us.

Resistance

Authoritarians want to control every aspect of our culture, no matter how seemingly inconsequential.

No shot is too cheap, no attack too petty: FDOT has just ripped out road signs on Longboat Key.

The road signs identified Longboat Key’s main drag as “Gulf of Mexico Drive,” its name since 1957.

The regime wants it changed.

The entire world calls the body of water along Florida’s west coast the Gulf of Mexico.

However, I’m happy to report, not all Floridians acquiesce in this name-changing nonsense.

Some elderly residents of Tallahassee’s Westminster Oaks faced down a county road crew as it was scraping the paint off the yellow and green crosswalk by their retirement community.

Children at the nearby W.T. Moore Elementary School had painted it.

Around 30 seniors arrived on golf carts and walkers. An 85-year old lady lay down on the crosswalk and the road crew retreated.

But only temporarily.

Delray Beach and Key West are vigorously resisting DeSantis’ attempt to destroy their rainbow crosswalks, as is Fort Lauderdale, which is demanding an FDOT hearing.

Fort Lauderdale’s mayor declared, “We must stand our ground. We cannot allow us to be bullied into submission and to allow others to dictate what we should do in our own communities.”

In Orlando, the resistance grows louder and more determined.

After the state wrecked the Pulse rainbow crosswalk, hundreds of protesters re-colored the rainbow.

FDOT painted the new rainbow black.

Protesters colored it in again.

FDOT put up signs saying, “No Impeding Traffic,” and, “Defacing Roadway Prohibited,” and called in city cops and the Highway Patrol.

You’d think they’d be lurking in a Home Depot parking lot rounding up Brown people. At least four people have been arrested.

They were armed — with water-soluble chalk.

Babysitters

I’d be willing to bet these law enforcement officers signed up to fight crime, bust bad guys, and keep communities safe, not protect a 10-foot wide hunk of road.

One man, a survivor of the Pulse nightclub massacre, observed on social media: “More officers babysitting the crosswalk than there were security guards watching the front door of Pulse the night 49 people were murdered. By a lot.”

Our tax dollars at work.

I have news for Ron DeSantis and the dead-eyed myrmidons who carry out his narrow-minded whims: You can’t pray the gay away, nor can you paint over it.

You can’t quash children’s creativity.

You can’t surgically remove people of color from our history.

You can’t outlaw rainbows.

Just as FSU’s football team was putting the finishing flourishes on its win over the Alabama Crimson Tide, the sun came out. To the west, a glorious rainbow arced across the Tallahassee sky.

I’m waiting for DeSantis to declare the heavens “woke.”

Trump's most maniacal sidekick is about to ruin Florida — and it's not groveling Ron

Florida announced plans this week to become the first state to end all vaccine mandates, INCLUDING FOR SCHOOLCHILDREN.

Read that again.

I had intended to write about the Epstein files today, and the incredibly brave survivors of alleged child rape, who gathered on Capitol Hill to tell their stories. They were there because it is beginning to look like our president who ran on releasing those files, instead has a starring role in them, and will do everything possible to make sure they never see the light of day.

That would generally would be a banner story. In a sane, just world, it would have the potential to end Donald Trump's presidency, and ultimately land him jail for the rest of his miserable life.

But because you hang around places like this and pay attention, you don’t need me to tell you that we are not living in a sane, just world.

Just how insane and unjust is the world? Consider that the possibility of the president being accused of sexual abusing underage women was by far only the second-biggest story of the day ...

Truth is, this vaccine news might be one of the most significant stories of the century, because of its gruesome ramifications on the future of our rattling civilization.

Bluntly: If Florida goes through with this death plan, it could potentially result in one of the largest losses of human life ever.

Look, vaccines have been a life-changing discovery, and one of mankind’s greatest achievements. The advent of vaccines has saved hundreds of millions of lives the past 100 years or so.

That we are reversing our thinking on the use of vaccines in America is almost too absurd to contemplate. The profound stupidity and danger this presents really can't be overstated.

MILLIONS of lives are at risk if Florida out-Floridas itself and actually puts this deranged plan into action.

We need only look at COVID to see this.

Despite what you’ll hear from many ghoulish, anti-life Republicans, millions of lives were saved thanks to COVID vaccines. Maybe even more startling, an estimated 317,000 lives in the United States alone would have been saved during the COVID outbreak had everybody just done their civic duty and gotten vaccinated.

If Florida goes ahead with this insane plan, just as sure as I am typing this, all kinds of otherwise preventable diseases will begin reappearing all over the place — measles and polio just to name a couple. And while our children will be most vulnerable, because Republicans never saw a kid whose life wasn’t worth jeopardizing, Florida’s huge population of retirees will also be under direct threat.

We will ALL be under threat.

Today’s gruesome news comes in the backdrop of the insane vaccine guidance being shoveled out to the American public by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., our secretary of Health and Human Services, who listens to everybody but professionals in the medical and scientists communities, ignores a century’s worth of vaccines’ positive results, and has been a vocal vaccine skeptic.

Last month, after Kennedy proudly announced the rollback of nearly $500 million in vaccine funding, I typed this:

“Instead of answers and more science and discovery to make sure we are ready for the next mass-medical emergency, Trump instead has inflicted us with this gruesome stray from the Kennedy dynasty, who is quickly becoming a one-man pandemic.”

Last week, Susan Monarez, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was forced out by Captain Death less than one month into her job for refusing to go along with this maniac’s plans to end us.

Four other leading officials at the CDC resigned because they too had come under extreme pressure from the sickening Kennedy. One of those officials said Kennedy’s team asked him to “change studies that have been settled in the past” to fit Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views.

Yep, “change studies.” Just make stuff up. I mean, it’s only people’s lives we are talking about …

So who are the players down in the Sunset State, who are putting this latest death plan into action?

Let’s start with Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, the Florida surgeon general, who made the announcement standing beside the state’s grotesque and Trump-slobbering Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Ladapo is a COVID vaccine-denier. A quack. A nut. A complete moron.

And dangerous as hell.

He has associated with a group of whacko militants called “America’s Frontline Doctors,” which is led by Texas physician Stella Immanuel, who has put forth the theory out loud and often that sperm from alien or demon sexual visitations are responsible for much of what ails us.

With qualifications like that, there is a good chance Ladapo has the inside track to the 2028 Republican Presidential nomination …

In announcing what will henceforth be known as the “Florida Death Plan” Ladapo said this:

“Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body?”

Who are YOU to tell us??? You are allegedly a doctor, sonny. Should we be going to an exterminator to get advice on medical issues?

Er … That actually might be advisable in Florida.

He added that the administration would be “working to end” all vaccine mandates, because “every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”

I’m not making this up.

Not a single word about the lives vaccines have saved, just lies and conspiracy theories, because that is the Republican way in 2025.

And then, of course, there’s DeSantis himself. A dumb man’s idea of a smart person. The ultimate Florida Man. A guy, who says, “Watch this!” while playing with matches and gasoline, as is the case with this maniacal, evil vaccine plan.

While standing next to Ladapo with that beachball-sized smirk on his face, Trump’s willing punching bag announced that his wife, Casey DeSantis, will head the commission on the Florida Death Plan, because if we are going to kill hundreds of a thousands of children best we have a dreadfully unqualified ghoul doing it.

Her beaming husband, Ron, ended the press conference by bragging:

“We’ve already done a lot. I don’t think any state has come even close to what Florida has done.”

He’ll get no argument there.

(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.)

Here's the sinister truth behind Florida's flourishing book bans

It’s Banned Books Week in Florida!

OK, the observance is in October, but it’s always Banned Books Week in Florida. Every day seems to bring another hissy fit from a state goon or “concerned” parent hell-bent on returning us to the glory days of censorship.

Hillsborough County School Superintendent Van Ayres has been attacked by parents and shouted at by state government for failing to remove materials chest-thumping Attorney General James Uthmeier claims are “pornographic“ from school libraries.

Ayres already had two books — Call Me By Your Name, a gay romance with some sex scenes, and Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts), which has no sex scenes — taken off the shelves.

That was not enough for Uthmeier and some of the school board’s more hysterical members. So, in an abundance of caution, Ayres had 600 more removed from schools for a “review,” estimated to cost $350,000.

It was not enough: During a June school board meeting, one member called many surviving books “nasty and disgusting,” and another, obviously in need of smelling salts, said, “I, as a 56-year-old woman, mother of five and a physician, can’t look at these pages.”

She wants heads to roll:

“Have you considered firing all your media specialists and starting from scratch with women and men who can read, or have a single shred of decency? These people that you trust to review these materials are abusing the children of your county. They’re child abusers.”

Here are some of those child-abusing materials: The Diary of Anne Frank, What Girls Are Made Of, The Bluest Eye, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Slaughterhouse Five, and The Handmaid’s Tale.

Women and men who can — and do — read will know the authors of those books include a Booker Prize winner, a National Book Award winner, winner of a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and a Nobel Prize laureate.

Obviously, a bunch of perverts and losers.

‘Overbroad and unconstitutional’

The good news is that some at that ambush of a meeting objected to the objections.

One parent said it was not the state’s responsibility to decide what books her kid should have access to, it was hers: “Don’t tell me that it’s inappropriate if I think it’s appropriate for my child to read.”

The chair of the school board also took exception to the abuse heaped on school librarians (annoyingly now called “media specialists”) who are, in fact, experts in “age-appropriate” materials.

The even better news is that a federal judge has struck down the worst parts of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pet book-banning law as “overbroad and unconstitutional.”

A gaggle of big publishers including Simon and Schuster, Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, plus a bunch of well-known authors and hacked-off parents, sued over the state’s vague decree that if a text “describes sexual conduct” it’s “pornographic.”

U.S. District Judge Carlos Mendoza, probably trying hard not to roll his eyes, pointed out the state can’t seem to define what they mean by “sexual conduct”: Consensual intercourse? A kiss? A rape? A seductive conversation? A hand sliding down (or up) to touch certain body parts which may or may not be named? Joyous marital congress?

The state’s arguments boiled down to:

If a parent or random Moms for Liberty busybody think something is obscene and therefore an assault on the Moral Fiber of Our Youth, it is, even if they can’t quite get specific about what that means. They know obscenity when they see it, by golly.
Books in public school libraries should promote “government speech,” i.e., the views espoused by the DeSantis regime.

Views such as, say, gays are not good; trans people are worse; sex outside of marriage is terrible; authority should not be questioned; climate change should not be studied.

Legal fees

According the state, “When the government speaks, it ‘can freely select the views that it wants to express, including choosing not to speak and speaking through the removal of speech that the government disapproves.”

According to DeSantis’ lawyers, school books are “not subject to the First Amendment.”

You thought free speech was protected in the Free State of Florida?

In 2023, PEN America file a lawsuit against the Escambia County School District for removing or restricting access to books some people found objectionable. Escambia keeps losing in court, but that hasn’t stopped them from continuing to spend taxpayer money: at least $440,000. So far. To make an obvious point, think about the field trips and school supplies that cash could have funded.

What’s all this book banning really about, anyway?

Authoritarianism for authoritarianism’s sake? That’s probably part of it. Bullies love to bully.

Does it spring from deeply held religious notions of “purity” which hold that any exposure to what some people see as “immoral” words or images will pollute the minds of innocent children?

Y’all might remember the embarrassing kerfluffle at a Tallahassee charter school over showing students one of the great achievements of Western art.

The teacher leading a unit on the Renaissance had the temerity to display a picture of Michelangelo’s statue of David. Some parents freaked out: You could see David’s junk!

As if half the planet does not sport similar junk.

Consider And Tango Makes Three, the famous true story of two male penguins raising a chick at New York’s Central Park Zoo. That book has been snatched off library shelves all over Florida because, well, maybe because it could encourage tolerance toward flightless birds?

Fear factor

The banners seem to think stories with a gay hero or a trans character will turn kids gay or trans.

These people do not assume stories with gun violence will turn kids into mass shooters. But books telling the truth about Native American genocide and slavery will make kids question the essential virtue of America. Biographies of Malcolm X or Martin Luther King or novels by Ralph Ellison or Alice Walker will make white kids feel guilty.

It’s true the Left has been known to criticize certain books — The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird, for racist language, or Lolita for its depiction of pedophilia — but rarely demand they be deep-sixed altogether.

Still, nobody can take away the Right’s title as the undisputed heavyweight champs of the book banning world.

Here’s the real reason for MAGA animosity to books: Fear.

They are scared of an America where white is not the default ethnicity, Christianity is not the dominant religion, heterosexuality is only one kind of “normal,” and history is a complicated tangle of high ideals and low crimes. They cannot bear the thought their children will grow up in the 21st century when all they cherished as solid and eternal can be questioned, even discarded.

So, they fight for control.

Until March of this year, a website called BookLooks, founded by a member of Moms for Liberty, touted a ratings system for books it deemed unsuitable for decent eyeballs.

BookLooks has shut down, saying that “after much prayer and reflection it has become apparent that His work for us here is complete and that He has other callings for us.” However, the ratings system is still all over the Web, with “0″ (no sex, no swearing, no nudity, no booze or drugs), to “4″ denoting a text with “depictions of sexual organs in a state of arousal” plus oral sex of every kind.

Level 5, “Aberrant Content,” means stuff so filthy (“sadomasochistic abuse, assault, and ‘beastiality’” (sic) it’d burn the retinas of a saint.

‘Book of Books’

Take a look at the Moms’ Book of Books, a document that is at once alarming, absurd, and not a little prurient.

It quotes carefully curated and utterly out of context scenes of sex and sexual assault from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye or Yaa Gyaasi’s Homegoing. (Newsflash: in a novel about slavery, you’re pretty much going to encounter sexual assault.)

They react with horror at novels about kids coming to terms with being gay, such as The Perks of Being a Wallflower. They declare books dangerous for supposedly promoting “alternative gender ideologies.”

The Book of Books also lavishly shares sex act image after sex act image from graphic novels including The Handmaid’s Tale and Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer. That stuff is, admittedly, pretty raw, even hard to look at. However, you can’t help wondering why they couldn’t have done with just two or three explicit pictures — and whether the compilers were getting a naughty thrill out of the whole thing.

We expect the Moms and their ilk to freak out over sex of any flavor, but even more of their ire has been directed at references to race, which they label “controversial social commentary” or just “hate.” They don’t mean “hate” as in scenes of racist violence or oppression of people of color. They mean people of color daring to expose or criticize or otherwise express strong disapproval of racism.

‘Nasty white folks’

Adding to the many transgressions of The Bluest Eye, they point to this sentence: “Nasty white folks is about the nastiest things they is.”

In Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give, the Moms clutch their pearls at: “A sixteen-year-old black boy is dead because a white cop killed him. What else could it be?”

Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian raises alarm for this: “Our white dentist believed that Indians only felt half as much pain as white people did, so he only gave us half the Novocain.”

This nonsense would be hilarious if it weren’t driving public education policy in Florida. Those who want to ban or suppress books are closing the barn door after the horse has bolted and is now in the next town, sitting in a bar drinking a Mai Tai. They’re also exposing themselves as the frightened creatures they are.

The bans will continue: Escambia County has removed another 400-plus books from its libraries without reviewing a single one. The lawsuits will continue. And the 21st century will continue, despite the state of Florida trying its best to drag us back to the 19th.

MAGA rep accused of threatening ex-girlfriend with nude photo dump

Florida Rep. Cory Mills (R) is firing back at accusations he threatened to release nude photos and videos of a woman after she says she broke up with the married lawmaker, according to Politico.

Lindsey Langston, a Florida Republican state committee member and 2024 winner of the Miss United States beauty pageant, told police that following the break-up, "Mills contacted her multiple times threatening to release nude images and videos of them having sex, according to the report, which said she provided law enforcement with messages that allegedly backed up her claims."

Langston also told authorities that Mills "threatened to harm any of her future romantic partners," according to the police report obtained by Politico.

The report reveals that Langston began a relationship with Mills in 2021 after he allegedly told her he was separated from with wife. Langston said she broke it off this year "after seeing media reports that police in Washington were called to investigate an alleged assault by the representative against a woman."

Mills was not charged in that incident.

When contacted by Politico, Mills said he was unaware of Langston's police report.

“We have not been made aware of any report or allegations from law enforcement or the alleged complainant,” Mills said in a statement. “These claims are false and misrepresent the nature of my interactions. I have always conducted myself with integrity, both personally and in service to Florida’s 7th District.”

A recent report by The Daily Beast said Mills was being evicted from his Washington, D.C., penthouse after failing to pay rent. The report continued that "on Feb. 20, Mills' girlfriend reported him to police for attacking her at the penthouse. She later recanted the report." It wasn't clear whether that girlfriend was Langston.

Langston's attorney, Anthony Sabatini, is a Lake County, Florida commissioner who challenged Mills for Congress in 2022. Mills told Politico, "he believes Sabatini is 'weaponizing the legal system to launch a political attack.'"

Mills has not been charged in relation to Langston's claims.

Read the full Politico story here.

'Blindsided': DeSantis accused of 'abusing power' to build 'Alligator Alcatraz'

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) reportedly left county officials in the dark when he decided to create the 'Alligator Alcatraz' migrant detention facility in Southwest Florida, according to The Associated Press.

President Donald Trump toured the makeshift detention center comprised largely of FEMA tents and trailers earlier this month, claiming it would "house some of the menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet.”

AP obtained more than 100 emails revealing that "local officials were blindsided by the plans" for Collier County, "a wealthy, majority-Republican corner of the state that’s home to white-sand beaches and the western stretch of the Everglades."

As county officials tried to "chase down a 'rumor' about the governor's plans, "state officials were already on the ground," getting the facility ready for the president's visit, the report said.

The confusion underscored "the breakneck speed at which the governor’s team built the facility" to hold thousands of detainees, according to the report.

In addition, the report said that DeSantis relied on an "executive order to seize the land, hire contractors and bypass laws and regulations."

The executive order "granted the state sweeping authority to suspend 'any statute, rule or order' seen as slowing the response to the immigration 'emergency,'" the report said.

"Allowing the state to seize county-owned land and evade rules" is being denounced by critics as an "abuse of power."

Read the AP article here.