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Game time: College football reflects America as it really is
It’s college football season in Florida and you know what that means: trash talking, martial metaphors, peculiar rituals involving animals, bizarre clothing in colors not found in nature, bad grammar, mansplaining, and racism. College football is violent. Beat-your-brains-out violent. Repeated hits to the head cause degenerative brain disease. The guys who play the game risk […]
Welcome to Florida: Crazy and cruel sell well here
Florida, eh? If it isn’t hurricanes, it’s massive oil spills. If it isn’t the court slapping down the governor’s racist congressional map, it’s some of his Nazi pals putting on a sidewalk parade in Orlando. Then there’s Florida’s 2024 U.S Senate race. As you probably know, Rick Scott is running for reelection. Or is he? […]
Ron DeSantis is a tad more diplomatic than George Wallace was
Despite all those Ohioans and Michiganders moving to The Villages or Margaritaville or other white folks’ play pens, despite the cosmopolitan sheen of the coastal cities and the impossibility of getting decent grits in Miami, when it comes to race, Florida is a Deep South state. Florida’s plantations were worked by thousands of enslaved people; […]
The Republican candidates met to yell at each other in an alternative universe
In case you missed last Wednesday’s Dadaist performance piece, the one called “Republican Primary Debate,” when one woman and seven men shouted for two hours on live TV, here’s the highlight reel: Things started off grumpy and soon deteriorated. Fox moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum played “Rich Men North of Richmond,” a hit song […]
In DeSantis’ Florida, we’re raising our children to be closed-minded and ignorant
School’s in session. The kids have their new shoes and backpacks. The teachers have their new marching orders. In Ron DeSantis’ Florida, teachers are expected to present a version of the world in which “gender” is not to be spoken of, “gay” likewise, there’s no climate crisis — the weather’s always changing! — Shakespeare needs […]
Ohio’s defiant embrace of democracy gives Floridians a reason to hope
Let’s talk about Ohio. No, really. Seven presidents were born in Ohio, all Republicans, two of whom were assassinated. Ohio has produced a number of dubious politicians, including the shouty Rep. Jim Jordan and the faux-billy Sen. J.D. Vance, who sometimes pretends he’s from Kentucky. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sometimes pretends he’s from Ohio, but […]
GOP death cult is holding the Earth hostage to white privilege
People, it’s too hot to be this stupid. A new NPR/PBS/Marist poll shows that nearly three-fourths of Republicans don’t think the climate crisis is a big deal and we don’t need to do anything about it. I guess the good news is that 56 percent of all political persuasions say the climate crisis requires urgent […]
On Slavery: Gov. DeSantis and his crack education team are all about facts
THE OLD PLANTATION — Here in Florida, we’re teaching our young ’uns the God’s own truth about history. Not what a bunch of book-reading, degree-holding, data-citing, socialist, so-called professors say. The Indians were glad to go live on reservations. The change of scenery inspired them to make a good living crafting souvenir jewelry and decorative […]
FL Republicans are taking out their hangups against the state university system
Republicans are scared. They’re scared of citizens voting, so they make it as difficult for us as possible. They’re scared of women taking charge of their own bodies, so they demand the right to track their movements and seize their medical records in case they go to another state for an abortion. They’re scared of […]
The Republican Party is dropping its Klan hood
In a recent CNN interview (and on many previous occasions), Alabama U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville insisted that the phrase a “white nationalist” simply meant someone who’s “a good American.” When reporter Kaitlan Collins explained — slowly — that “a white nationalist is someone who believes that the white race is superior to other races,” Tuberville […]
Ron DeSantis’ very gay ad: Who made this steaming pile?
Ron DeSantis wants you to know he’s a manly man, a manlier man than any manly man ever born, with mighty currents of 100-proof androgen surging through his sinews. If you took a bouquet of other masculinity-mongering Republicans — your Josh Hawleys, your Jim Jordans, your J.D. Vances — put them in a blender with […]
We’re the Mommies for Liberty and the future belongs to us
I am a Mommy. A Mommy for Liberty. I will use my personal liberty to shield my precious children (and yours) from gays. And history. And Black people. And sex. I told Brayden Jr., there are certain things you won’t need to know until you’re at least 28 — he’s 17 and a varsity defensive […]