Sally Hunt made her evasive comment during a workshop after Board member Cheryl Massaro proposed that the board reevaluate the need for a $48-an-hour school resource deputy at each of its workshops. Hunt and Board member Christy Chong suggested locking the board room door during meetings, until they were told the meetings had to be kept accessible to the public at all times.
Rights & Liberties
Federal Appeals Court Stops DeSantis’s ‘Stop Woke’ Restrictions on Workplace Training Against Bigotry
The workplace-training part of the law listed eight race-related concepts and said that a required training program or other activity that “espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such individual (an employee) to believe any of the following concepts constitutes discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin.”
Tom Joad, the Voice of a Better America, Has Been Silenced
From the Book of Ruth to Eugene Debs to Tom Joad in Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath,” the voice of solidarity spoke a communion with needs and pains greater than one’s own, a willingness not only to walk in the other’s shoes, but to be the shoes–to be the soles–when the other has none. It was once the voice of America. We have lost that voice as blame and judgment have replaced solidarity and grievances about what we think we’re losing snuff out protest on behalf of those not lucky enough to have something to lose.
Texas Prosecutor Disciplined for Allowing Murder Charge Against Woman who Self-Managed an Abortion
The State Bar of Texas has fined and suspended Starr County’s district attorney for pursuing a murder indictment against 26-year-old woman after she self-managed an abortion.
State Attorney Dismisses Charges Against Virgilio Mendez, 18, Migrant Accused of Manslaughter in Deputy’s Death
The State Attorney’s Office today dropped the charges against Virgilio Mendez, the 18-year-old migrant arrested last May in St. Augustine over a dubious encounter with sheriff’s deputies prompted by nothing apparent, then charged with aggravated manslaughter in the death of one of the deputies, who had died of a heart attack the medical examiner ruled was of natural causes from heart disease. The charges drew widespread public outrage.
Florida House Passes Ban on Homeless Sleeping In Public Despite Added Burdens to Local Governments
The Florida House on Friday approved a controversial proposal that would prevent homeless people from sleeping in public, despite concerns about increased costs for local governments. The Republican-controlled House voted 82-26 along almost-straight party lines to pass the bill (HB 1365), which is backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. It also would make it easier for residents and business owners to challenge local officials over how homelessness is addressed.
Renner and DeSantis Trying to Ward Off Veto Over Social Media Ban for Children Under-16
With a Friday deadline looming, House Speaker Paul Renner said Wednesday that he and Gov. Ron DeSantis are trying to work out differences on a bill aimed at keeping children under age 16 off social-media platforms. Renner is keeping silent on alternatives.
Florida Lawmakers Back Modest Reparations for Dozier School’s Black Victims of Rampant Abuse
The Florida Senate measure would create a $20 million “Dozier School for Boys and Okeechobee School Victim Compensation Program” to compensate “living persons who were confined” to Dozier or the Okeechobee School, another reform school, between 1940 and 1975 and “who were subjected to mental, physical, or sexual abuse perpetrated by school personnel.”
Palm Coast Searches for Its New Attorney In the Open. School Board Chooses Secrecy.
The Palm Coast City Council and the Flagler County School Board are searching for new attorneys to represent them in two very different ways. The council is conducting its search entirely in the open, ensuring that all related documents are public, providing them on request, and interviewing the firms in open forum. The school board, in contrast with its own precedents and with all other local governments, possibly in violation of law, is not.
GOP Lawmakers Recommend Co-Founder of Moms for Liberty, an Extremist Group, for Ethics Job
Republican lawmakers in a Senate hearing Monday recommended Tina Descovich, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, cited by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-government extremist group, for an appointment for the Florida Commission on Ethics. The full Senate must approve the executive appointment.
The Controversial Concept of ‘Fetal Personhood’ Is Creeping Up on Florida
If fetuses have legal personhood, abortion-rights activists argue it would infringe the rights of pregnant women and have serious implications for medical procedures like in vitro fertilization and the treatment of ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages. For all practical matters, the Florida Constitution is silent on the issue of fetal personhood, despite Chief Justice Muniz’s suggestion that fetal personhood rights might already exist.
Trump Wants to Bring Kremlin Values to the White House
Trump is Putin’s lapdog; that’s been obvious since at least 2016, and his fealty now threatens NATO and the international order. Trump dares not defend our American values, much less question a political murder. There once was a time when Republicans stood steadfast against Russian abuse of human rights, but that abiding party principle has gone the way of the videocassette.
Bill Banning Children Younger Than 16 From Social Media Passes and Heads for a Skeptical DeSantis
Florida lawmakers Thursday gave final approval to a bill that seeks to keep children under age 16 off social-media platforms, as Gov. Ron DeSantis continued to raise concerns about the measure. The House voted 108-7 to pass the bill (HB 1), which has been a priority of House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast. That came after the Senate voted 23-14 earlier in the day to approve the measure.
Controversial Bill Allowing Lawsuits Over Wrongful Death of an ‘Unborn Child’ Advances
The proposal, now ready to go to the full House, would add “unborn child” to a law that allows family members to seek damages when a person’s death is caused by such things as wrongful acts or negligence. The bill (HB 651) has drawn intense pushback from abortion-rights advocates, who argue the proposed changes could put abortion providers and people who help women obtain abortions at risk of being sued.
Mexico is Suing American Gun Makers for Arming Its Gangs
The lawsuit seeks US$10 billion in damages and a court order to force the companies named in the lawsuit – including Smith & Wesson, Colt, Glock, Beretta and Ruger – to change the way they do business. In January, a federal appeals court in Boston decided that the industry’s immunity shield, which so far has protected gun-makers from civil liability, does not apply to Mexico’s lawsuit.
Jimmy Carter in Hospice Is Still Better than Trump in White House
Biden is old. He’s slow. He’s forgetful. He trips all over the place, he’s in hiding, and the Democratic Party is a pitiful band of backbenchers who couldn’t give us a more convincing alternative. For all that, compared to Trump he’s still the only credible choice, if it’s a republic we still want.
Moms for Liberty’s Book of Morons
The moms of Moms for “Liberty” are feeling a little touchy, put-upon, even diminished. Their do-boy DeSantis crashed out of the presidential race. They’re losing school board elections. They’re making idiots of themselves in the national media, as when Moms co-founder Tiffany Justice simultaneously defends taking books off school library shelves while denying that Moms want books taken off school library shelves, unless they’re by Black writers or gay writers, or ones dealing with the Holocaust, racism, or any sex.
Equal Justice Initiative Unveils Statue of Rosa Parks
The Equal Justice Initiative has unveiled a statue of Rosa Parks at its Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Ala., on Wednesday, part of a broader effort to memorialize civil rights icons.
In the coming months, statues for Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis will also be erected at the museum, connected with the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, also known as the lynching memorial.
Senate Backs Paul Renner Initiative Banning Children Younger Than 16 From Social Media, With Caveats
The House overwhelmingly passed the initial version last month, and the newly revised version does not change the basic components. It would prevent children under 16 from creating accounts on at least some social-media platforms; require platforms to terminate existing accounts that they know or have “reason to believe” are held by minors younger than 16; and allow parents to request that minors’ accounts be terminated.
Immigrant Activists Rally Against ‘Consistent Dehumanization’ in Florida as They Face More Bills Targeting Them
Seven months after one of the strictest immigration laws in the nation went into effect, dozens of immigrant rights activists gathered in the state Capitol building on Thursday to speak out about what one person called the “never ending attacks on immigrants” in Florida.
Why Florida Is Wrong to Have Downgraded Sociology in College
The American Sociological Association’s current president and a professor of sociology and public policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst explains why Florida’s decision to reduce the number of students enrolled in sociology courses is both disturbing and an opportunity to help the public better understand the academic discipline.
High-Profile Attorney Jose Baez Takes Over Defense of Migrant Virgilio Mendez Accused in Death of Sheriff’s Deputy After Arrest
Virgilio Aguilar Mendez, the 18-year-old migrant facing a manslaughter charge in the heart-attack death of a St. Johns County sheriff’s deputy following Mendez’s arrest on a minor charge, is now represented by Jose Baez, the Miami attorney and one of the most successful and high-profile trial lawyers in the country. Baez’s involvement and a petition that has gathered 600,000 signatures for Mendez’s release reflect the reach of the case far beyond St. Johns County, and shock over a charge that, according to the medical examiner’s conclusion, is disconnected from deputy Michael Kunovich’s heart attack.
Federal Judge Ends Challenges to Florida’s Election Law Targeting Black Voters
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a 17-page order after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year overturned a ruling in which he found the law improperly discriminated against Black voters. Walker appeared to criticize the appeals court for “reweighing” facts in the case.
School Board’s Christy Chong’s ‘Cause’ Letter to Fire Attorney Is a Tissue of Fabrications, Petty Grievances and Cluelessness
The six “causes” Flagler County School Board member Christy Chong listed as reasons to fire attorney Kristy Gavin come nowhere near “just cause” as defined in Gavin’s contract. Rather, they’re petty, inaccurate, gossipy and falsified grievances that have more to do with Chong being out of her depth, her embarrassment, her hatred for the press and her contempt for transparency and the public than anything to do with the quality of Gavin’s work in nearly two decades of representing the board.
Some Florida Justices Skeptical About State’s Attempt to Keep Abortion Rights Amendment Off the Ballot
Some justices questioned how far the court can go to prevent initiatives from being placed on the ballot as they heard arguments about whether a proposal to ensure abortion rights in the state should be placed on th November ballot. “People in Florida aren’t stupid. I mean, they can figure this out,” Chief Justice Carlos Muniz said.
DeSantis Lends Support to Proposal Banning Local Governments from Giving Refuge to Homeless on Public Property
Saying that while no city in Florida is contending with the issues of homelessness that are prevalent in places like San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday came out in support of a proposal moving through the Florida Legislature that would ban local governments from allowing people to sleep on public property without a permit.
Florida’s Open Season on Civil Liberties
Florida lawmakers don’t care about the insurance crisis; they don’t care about runaway rents; they don’t care about hungry children or sick women or the climate crisis or pollution or the teacher shortage or anything that you and I and anyone else with two brain cells to rub together would identify as pressing problems here in the increasingly dysfunctional State of Florida. What they care about is ending your liberties. Here’s a list.
Florida’s Sunshine Law Is Dying
The battle, mostly lost, is not those individual exemptions to the Sunshine Law. It’s the totality of what’s been lost over the years: a presumption of openness has been replaced by the reverse, thanks to an unspoken but very effective bureaucracy of secrecy by process. The secrecy isn’t explicit. Most of your average government gatekeepers would never think of themselves as suppressing information. But the rules they have in place, allowing them to delay, obfuscate, censor and charge a ton of money before they comply, amount to the same thing: secrecy as standard operating procedure.
Law Restricting Chinese People From Owning Property in Florida Doesn’t Pass Smell Test, Court Rules
A federal appeals court said a Florida law restricting people from China from owning property in the state likely is trumped by federal law and blocked its enforcement against two plaintiffs who have been in the midst of real-estate transactions.
Federal Judge Rules Against Palestinian Students on Florida Campuses, Saying They’ve Not Been Silenced
Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Florida and Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of South Florida filed lawsuits in November alleging that efforts by Gov. Ron DeSantis and state university leaders to disband the groups violated their First Amendment rights.
Disney Is Appealing Decision Dismissing Its Free-Speech Lawsuit Against DeSantis
Disney filed a notice of appeal on Thursday, one day after U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor ruled against the company’s lawsuit seeking to overturn the governor’s replacement of the old Reedy Creek Improvement District with another governing entity that DeSantis personally controls.
Judge Dismisses Disney Lawsuit That Claimed DeSantis Had Retaliated Against the Company
In a win for Gov. Ron DeSantis, a federal judge Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit alleging that the state unconstitutionally retaliated against Walt Disney Parks and Resorts because of the company’s opposition to a controversial education law.
Flagler Pride Installs Its New Board as It Looks To Be a ‘Beacon of Support and Empowerment’
Flagler Pride, the non-profit Eryn Harris established four years ago as the county’s first LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, and the organizational muscle behind the annual Pride Fest, installed its new, four-member board at Coquina Coast Brewing on Jan. 12. It’s led by President Tyler Jones, with Skyler Loder as vice president, Margaret “Maggie” Potter as secretary and Calvin Vincent Neugent as treasurer. The organization’s founding board members–Harris, Erica Rivera and Garrett Marinconz–have taken on advisory roles.
Threatening Charges, Florida Forbids Trans’ Preferred Gender Identity on Driver’s Licenses
Transgender people can no longer obtain a driver’s license that reflects their gender identity under a new policy that treats “misrepresenting one’s gender, understood as sex, on a driver license” as fraud punishable by civil and criminal penalties plus cancellation, suspension, or revocation of the license.
The New York Times v. ChatGPT
On Dec. 27, 2023, The New York Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI alleging that the company committed willful copyright infringement through its generative AI tool ChatGPT. The Times claimed both that ChatGPT was unlawfully trained on vast amounts of text from its articles and that ChatGPT’s output contained language directly taken from its articles.
Bill Would Impose $100 Fee on Non-Parents Who Want Books Banned, But Only If They Lose the Challenge
An earlier version of the bill (HB 7025) proposed a $100 “processing” fee for people who file more than five book objections in a calendar year if the people do not have students enrolled in the schools where the books are challenged. But under the change approved Tuesday by the House Education & Employment Committee, the fees would only be assessed if book challenges are unsuccessful. The House panel unanimously approved the revised bill.
Defense Files Motion to Dismiss Manslaughter Charge Against Migrant in Arrest Followed by Deputy’s Heart Attack
Two weeks after all but accusing the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office of fabricating parts of the account surrounding the arrest of 18-year-old Virgilio Aguilar Mendez, the migrant’s defense attorney has filed a motion to dismiss the manslaughter count against him, calling it “legally insufficient” and arguing that there’s no connection between Mendez and what led to the death of Sheriff’s deputy Michael Kunovich of a heart attack after the arrest.
This Hyper Talk of a Border ‘Invasion’ Is an Old American Playbook
With persecution, poverty, and climate change driving large numbers of migrants to the southern border, some in politics and the media are again pushing the panic button and purposely but inaccurately using words like “invasion” to describe problems at the border.
How AI Threatens Free Speech
A serious danger which gets surprisingly little media attention is the impact new artificial intelligence technologies are likely to have on freedom of expression. And, in particular, how they’re able to undermine some of the most foundational legal tenets that protect free speech.
Defense Calls Out Sharp Inaccuracies in Arrest Account of Migrant Facing Manslaughter Charge in Death of Deputy
The defense lawyer for Virgilio Aguilar Mendez, the 18-year-old migrant held for over eight months on an aggravated manslaughter of an officer charge in the death of a St. Johns County deputy, is calling his arrest “legally insufficient,” describing his arrest report as a series of misrepresentations and misapplications of the law, and citing the medical examiner’s report to conclude that the death of the deputy was unrelated to the arrest.
In Free Florida, the Dictionary Is Dangerous to Your Children
A few people who call themselves parents but are really frustrated bullies who want everyone else to lead the miserable lives they do, at least when they’re not engaging in threesomes, have successfully made black holes of Florida’s school and classroom libraries and further marginalized slews of children whose one solace might have been that one book.
Stop the LGBTQ Cheap Shots
There are some feel-good bills and cheap shots that require no courage to vote for and bring the political bonus of being difficult for an opponent to argue against this summer, when most legislators will be back home running for re-election. And no topic makes for easier demagoguery than sex, specifically any activity that makes strait-laced Republicans a little squeamish.
Don’t Wave Gay: Long In Force in Flagler Schools, Bill Would Ban Pride and ‘Ideological’ Flags from Public Buildings
The Florida House today began moving forward with a proposal that would restrict the types of flags that can be displayed at government buildings and schools, including preventing the display of LGBTQ pride flags. That ban has long been enforced in Flagler schools, based on an interpretation of local policy.
70 Years After Brown vs. Board of Education, Deep Segregation Persists
In June 2023, the Supreme Court ended most race-conscious college admissions efforts. The decision followed the Covid pandemic, which exacerbated racial inequalities in the U.S.. Politicians and school boards have banned or removed books by authors of color from school libraries and restricted teaching about racism in U.S. history. These setbacks amid the current political climate make finally realizing the full promise of Brown more urgent.
The Check MLK Wanted Cashed for the ‘Riches of Freedom and the Security of Justice’ Is Still Bouncing
The African American community is experiencing record low unemployment, record highs in income and educational attainment, and has seen a massive decline in income poverty since the 1960s. Despite all that, the check for racial economic equality is still bouncing. Without intervention, it will take centuries for Black wealth to catch up with white wealth in this country.
Welcome to the Old South, The Myth that Refuses to Die
In Florida, we prefer not to discuss ‘slavery’ unless we are enlightening the ignorant about how it was Not That Bad. You have only to read Miss Margaret Mitchell’s brilliant and perfectly accurate novel to see the Truth of this.
Elise Stefanik’s Immoral Compass, and Ours
When Rep. Elise Stefanik grilled then-Harvard President Claudine Gay about her “moral clarity” about genocide and bullying on campus, Israel was in its eighth week of the most genocidal assault on Palestinians in the history of Arab-Jewish wars predating even the creation of Israel in 1948. None of it was relevant to Stefanik, because when Israel is the subject matter, there are no two sides to the story. There are no interpretations. There is no discussion. None permissible, anyway. There is only dogma. Anything else is heresy.
As Escambia County Bans 1,600 Titles, Including Dictionaries, a Lawsuit Is Cleared for Trial
A federal judge cleared the way for a First Amendment challenge to decisions by the Escambia County School Board to remove or restrict access to school library books. An updated list of Escambia’s now-1,600 banned titles includes five dictionaries, The Guinness Book of World Records, a Thurgood Marshall biography, Sherlock Holmes and many more.
Bill That Would Allow Kids 16 and 17 to Work Over 30 Hours a Week During School Year Advances
The proposal by Tampa Bay area Republican Rep. Linda Chaney (HB 49) would allow 16 and 17-year olds to work more than 30 hours a week during the school year and allow for fewer mandatory work breaks. The proposal was approved on a party-line vote in a House committee and is one committee stop away from making it to the House floor for final approval.
The Brendan Depa I Have Come To Know
Brendan Depa, the former Matanzas High School special education student who pleaded guilty to the beating of Joan Naydich, his paraprofessional, last February, will be sentenced on Jan. 31. Gene Lopes is a retired special education teacher who has spent the last several months tutoring Depa at the Flagler County jail. Here’s his experience.