Dumb, And Dumber.

It is like a three ring circus with a clown car going around in circles.

Opinion How DeSantis accidentally handed Disney a potent weapon against him

Washington Post

By Greg Sargent

May 2, 2023

When the Walt Disney Co. went looking for evidence to feature in its new lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, its lawyers found much of what they needed in DeSantis’s own recently published memoir.

Buried in Disney’s complaint against DeSantis is something surprising. Numerous quotes taken from “The Courage to be Free” appear to support the company’s central allegation: that the Republican governor improperly wielded state power to punish Disney’s speech criticizing his policies, violating the First Amendment.

Memoirs by presidential aspirants often lay out a blueprint for their coming candidacies. DeSantis’s does, too. It boasts extensively about his war on Disney to advertise how he would marshal the powers of the presidency against so-called woke elites.

In the book the governor writes…

• DeSantis’s book brags about his rapid mobilization of the state legislature to target Disney’s tax district. The same passage declares that this happened because of the company’s “support of indoctrinating young schoolchildren in woke gender identity politics.” That admits to retribution against speech opposing his legislation.
• The book rips Disney for vowing to work to repeal the governor’s law, describing this as “a frontal assault” on it. That, too, is a description of political speech. Yet the book menacingly declares that, after this, “things got worse for Disney,” and that it would “soon find out” the truth about Florida’s war with Disney, i.e., the state would punish that speech.
• The book describes DeSantis’s discussions with Republicans in the Florida legislature about whether they were prepared to tackle the “thorny issue involving the state’s most powerful company.” That confirms Disney was the unique target of legislative action.
• In a companion to the book’s launch, DeSantis wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed that explicitly discussed governmental actions against Disney as an effort to “fight back” against its “woke ideology,” which is to say, its political speech.

How many times have we heard politicians bragging that eventually got them into hot water.

Another Florida shot himself in the foot by declaring...

Florida Republican Lawmaker Admits GOP’s Hatred of LGBTQ+ People

Republican Rep. Jeff Holcomb spoke in Florida’s House, and his remarks drew gasps and disturbed looks.

The Advocate

By Christopher Wiggins

May 2, 2023

A Florida state representative expressed how much his political party hates gay people while urging his colleagues to vote in favor of a bill urging Congress to “restore” the military’s “warfighting ethos” and rid it of “woke social engineering and experimentation practices.”

On Monday, Republican Rep. Jeff Holcomb spoke in Florida’s House, but his remarks drew gasps and disturbed looks from some lawmakers.

“Isis, the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda, those are the folks who discriminate. We bombed a building in 2017 like we never usually do. We bombed it because they threw homosexuals off that building,” Holcomb said.

He then said out loud what many are saying was the quiet part.

“Our terrorist enemies hate homosexuals more than we do,” the Republican legislator said.

As Holcomb made the stunning admission, the chamber filled with gasps and rumbles.

State Rep. Kelly Skidmore, a Democrat seated behind Holcomb as he spoke, recoiled, her disgust visible on her face.

And now with all the lawsuits challenging all the anti-trans laws he just made it easier to prove that the laws were punitive.

“He outright admits Republicans hate LGBTQ people,” wrote Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic instructor and trans rights activist Alejandra Caraballo, posting a video of the moment.

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Up in Montana the right-wing conservatives are getting nasty.

Montana Transgender Rep. Zooey Zephyr’s Girlfriend Foils SWATting Attempt

Somebody sent local police a message claiming Erin Reed was being held hostage.

The Advocate

By Christopher Wiggins

May 2, 2023

A transgender journalist in a relationship with Montana’s sole elected trans legislator, Rep. Zooey Zephyr, thwarted a SWATting attempt at her Maryland residence Tuesday morning. She credits contacting local police months ago for the incident not ending in violence.

Erin Reed is a trans activist and independent journalist who is often attacked online. She's been tracking anti-trans legislation across the country. Reed was most recently targeted by far-right extremists because she is in a relationship with Zephyr, who has gained national attention over the last two weeks for being censured by Republican lawmakers in the Montana legislature.

Tuesday morning, Zephyr tweeted that somebody had tried to send a SWAT team to her partner’s home to have armed law enforcement storm the residence.

“Someone just attempted to SWAT my girlfriend,” Zephyr wrote. “Those who hate trans people are doing everything in their power to silence & harm us. But we will not be deterred. We will stand in defiance of their cruelty and never stop working until trans people get to live our lives in peace.”

She was proactive and made plans with the police department if something like that happened.

Several months ago, Reed learned that her address had been posted on right-wing websites and forums that doxx people, especially transgender individuals.

She says she approached her local police department to let them know that she is a reasonably prominent transgender journalist. She told them she knew of other transgender people whose names appeared on such sites and ended up being SWATed.

“I told them that I want to make sure that if anything happens, they are aware that my address is being shared in places that are known for doxxing, and they told me that they could put a flag on my address back then,” Reed says.

It was explained to her that the flag would not prevent officers from responding to her address but would inform them of the circumstances at the address.

[…]

“The flag they put did work, and they didn’t have to come to bust my door down,” she says. “They [said they] were going to be on their way to do a wellness check, but they wanted to call because they said that they had a note or a message that they had received information saying that I was being held hostage.”

It could have been a lit worst, hopefully they find the person who called it in and charge them with a bias crime.

***

Trans people know this look really well.

A photo of women snickering at trans lawmaker Zooey Zephyr in Montana looks a lot like the photos of white people snickering at Black people in the 1950s

• The Montana legislature last week voted to censure Rep. Zooey Zephyr, the state's first openly transgender lawmaker.
• The vote meant Zephyr could no longer enter the House chamber, so she worked from a public bench in the hallway outside.
• A photo shows a group of women occupying the bench on Monday, glaring at Zephyr, in an image reminiscent of the civil rights movement.

Insider

Katie Balevic

May 2, 2023

It wasn't enough for Montana's Republican-led state legislature to take away Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr's seat in the legislature. Now people are taking her seat outside of the House chamber too. 

The Montana House of Representatives last week voted to censure Zephyr, Montana's first openly transgender lawmaker. The vote came in response to Zephyr criticizing her Republican colleagues for restricting access to gender-affirming care.

[…]

"Though they initially tried to have me removed from the public seating area, I am here working on behalf of my constituents as best I can given the undemocratic circumstances," Zephyr tweeted on April 27. 

A few days later, a photo showed multiple snickering women sitting on the same bench, forcing Zephyr to work standing up at a nearby lunch counter. 

"Some folks showed up early this morning and sat on the public benches near the entrance to the House, so Seat 31 has moved," Zephyr tweeted. "I'm up and ready to work. Plus, I hear stand desks are all the rage these days."

How petty is that! It is a new low taking her seat so she can’t sit by the door to the chambers.

Doing business in the lobby is quite common, on any day in the Connecticut Legislative Office Building (LOB) you will see lobbyist, people there to testify commandeering seats in the lobby with others there of their own group. My favorite spot was in the cafeteria where you can see both doors and we would have usually six or ten of our people there with constant comings and goings though out the day and night.

How small of the women to take her seat it probably make them feel superior.

The photo, in which the women appear to smile and laugh while leering at Zephyr, is reminiscent of photos taken during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s that show white people mocking and harassing Black people.

And in the end we win, but we just like other minorities we cannot sit on our victories because evil never dies it only goes underground.