Here’s a news round up of some of the things you might have missed this past week.
State News:
- Teachers around the state are having problems passing their certification test. The test is terrible, not these teachers. (link)
- Marion County retrains and secludes more mentally challenged students than the state average. By a lot. (link)
- There’s a bunch of bills working their way through the Senate in support of guns. One of the worse is SB646 which would make it a non-criminal offense to briefly show off your gun. (link)
- Good news for Governor Scott. His drug testing of welfare recipients, in which his company was set to profit on, is being allowed again under a GOP Trump administration. (link)
- A good bill (SB544) would let people correct their signature mismatches for vote-by-mail ballots. (link)
- The bill that banned doctors from talking about guns got overturned. (link)
State Budget:
- Florida House Speaker Corcoran might sue Governor Scott over a lottery contract. On it’s own it looks silly but put into context over the massive disagreements on the budget and Visit Florida this is a big deal in an escalating battle that could very well lead to a government shutdown. (link)
- The Republicans Governor Rick Scott’s fight over the budget is getting ridiculous. He sent out robo-calls in Republican lawmakers who oppose his jobs plan districts this week. A state government shutdown is getting more and more likely each week. (link)
Immigration:
- Palm Beach County saw hundreds, maybe even thousands of students stay home in protest of Trumps migration laws as part of “a day without an immigrant”. Some school had as much as 35% of their student body stay home. (link)
- An undocumented woman went to court to get a restraining order on her abusive boyfriend. She get’s arrested by ICE. The point of all of this isn’t to stop undocumented people from living in the USA. It’s to scare them. Undocumented people will be much less likely to seek redress for domestic abuse, or any crimes committed against them, because of actions like this. (link)
- Daniel Ramirez Medina is a 23 year old DACA recipient who was detained by ICE. His lawyers are hoping it was a mistake and not part of a Trump policy of disregarding DACA. (link)
- Changes to NAFTA could affect farms in Florida as the winter growing season coincides with Mexico’s and their cheap labor/lax labor laws make their imports cheaper. I don’t care so much about Florida farm owners but more so for Florida farm workers like those in the Fair Food Standards Council who are having their gains threatened by outsourcing to Mexico. (link)
- Miami-Dade County voted 9-3 to affirm the Mayors move against being a sanctuary County. While most places in Florida and around the nation are standing strong or even reinforcing their commitment towards immigrants, Miami-Dade is in full Trump retreat. Shameful. (link)
- A Florida House committee voted 9-5 along party lines to withdraw from the federal refugee program. This bill likely won’t go much farther, and it’s not very legal, but it shows that heartless Republican partisans aren’t just in DC. (link)
- Trump was considering mobilizing 100,000 national guards to round up undocumented people. It looks like the leaked memo was considered but decided against. (link)
Random Trump mess:
- Trump has nominated Alexander Acosta as Secretary of Labor. In 2008 he helped get pedophile and political ally Jeffery Epsetein a sweetheart plea deal (link)
- Andrew Pizder withdrew his nomination to be Labor Secretary. Like rats leaving a sinking ship. (link)
- The Republicans have half rolled out their ACA replacement. It’ll cut by about 50% the money paid to states who expanded medicaid, will let people buy crap insurance, convert medicaid to block grants for states, and is would most certainly kick millions of people off insurance while forcing millions more to buy crap plans. (link)
- Dems are trying to use an obscure law to force Trump to release his tax returns. The Republicans are blocking the measure but they’ll keep trying. You can call the chair of the committee Rep. Brady at (202) 225-4901 to pressure him to release Trumps tax returns. (link)
- Trump claimed there was a terrorist attack in Sweden at a campaign rally in Florida. Most media said there was no terrorist attack but there actually was one in January. A few neo-Nazis bombed a refugee center. (link)
- Here’s a more full listing of the lies he said at the rally. (link)
- Here’s a primer for a constitutional crisis free non-Trump presidency. (link)
- Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is upset people are being mean to her. Turns out she didn’t realize that she can’t purchase the support of people who use public education like she did to the GOP. (link)
- Michael Flynn famously said he’d be in jail if he did a 10th of what Clinton did. Will we hear chants of “lock him up” anytime soon? (link)
- Trump is looking to send ground troops into Syria. (link)
- Turns out Trump’s campaign team talked with Russia. A lot. (link)
- Trump officially abandoned a two state solution with Israel and Palestine. Unofficially the US had abandoned it in all but words years ago. (link)
- Trump repealed an Obama executive order limiting how much pollution coal companies can put into rivers and streams. Is American great again yet? (link)
The Straw Hat 