What is truly perverse today are those who actively seek to infringe upon the liberties of others while masquerading as defenders of liberty, argues Brad West. We are not perfect, and will always be a work in progress, even in wokeness. But we get better because of those who have been, and are, woke.
14th Amendment
In Surprise Victory for Voting Rights, Supreme Court Rejects Redistricting Map Diluting Black Vote
By a vote of 5-4, the justices issued a major voting rights decision, ruling that Alabama’s new congressional map likely violates the Voting Rights Act. Even more significantly, the court declined an invitation to adopt an interpretation of the act that would have made it much more difficult to challenge redistricting plans.
Take Pride
This Pride Month, there’s not much to be proud of in people who to this day would rather burn than raise the Pride Flag. It’s about time it replaced all those MIA flags in school yards and at courthouses. LGBTQ victims, unlike the mythical missing, are real, and they’re piling up.
Voters Approved an Amendment For Racial Equity in Districts. DeSantis Wants It Ignored.
A lawsuit filed by voting-rights groups focuses a Jacksonville-area district that helped elect Black Democrat Al Lawson until a DeSantis plan redrew it and installed two white Republicans instead. Now DeSantis is asking a court to ignore a 2010 constitutional amendment requiring “Fair Districts.”
A Memorial Month for Our Rights
Tuesday begins a month of memorial days as we watch our Supreme Court continue to roll back those very rights soldiers died for, trampling them more effectively than any enemy foreign or, for the most part, domestic, ever has.
A Trans Teen No Longer Feels Welcome in Florida. So She Left.
Josie moved more than a thousand miles from St. Augustine — and her parents — to start a new life in Rhode Island to escape a state where Gov. Ron DeSantis and the GOP Legislature politicized and passed policies that de-legitimize and demonize trans people.
In Florida, We Are All Child Abusers Now
The Florida Legislature is legalizing a Jim Crow-like system of punishing, demonizing and denying the existence of LGBTQ children. Few sessions of the Florida Legislature provided the legal framework for as much state-sponsored and citizen-empowered terrorism against children as this one.
Republicans Lost GenZ with Expulsion of Two Black Lawmakers
As have many shameful lawmakers before them, Tennessee Republicans weaponized the rules of conduct to punish state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson. But respectability politics mean nothing to GenZ. If such glaring issues as gun violence, healthcare, and climate change were not enough to engage the youth, watching racism and inequality so blatantly on display certainly did the job.
Trans Bathroom-Ban Bills Affect Private Businesses, Schools, Public Shelters and Healthcare Facilities
The sharply restrictive bills making their way through the Florida Legislature don’t just attempt to control bathroom use by transgender people but represent a much more “broad and vague” ban on gender-inclusive restrooms and changing facilities in private businesses, health care facilities, schools, public shelters, and jails.
Florida Lawmakers Approve Abortion Ban Past 6 Weeks, One of the Most Restrictive in U.S.
In less than a year, Florida has moved from a 15-week abortion ban to the passage of one of the most restrictive bans in the nation — a 6-week abortion ban. The state House approved the legislation after at least six hours of questions, amendments, debate, protests and a final vote that will clear the way for Gov. Ron DeSantis to consider the bill.