Tag: gay rights
Ron DeSantis

DeSantis Escalates His Wacky War On Disney -- And The Mouse Claps Back

On Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis fired the latest shot in his war against central Florida’s largest employer. As CNN reports, that idea involved taking some state-controlled land next to Disney World and putting it to a use designed to scare parents away from bringing their children to the “happiest place on Earth.”

“Someone even said, maybe you need another state prison,” said DeSantis. “I mean, who knows? I mean, I just think that the possibilities are endless.”

As Laura Clawson explained in March, the reason that Disney is making DeSantis so angry is that they dared to stand up to the bigotry expressed in the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law, which DeSantis championed and signed with great ceremony. The threat to build a prison next door in order to sour Disney’s multibillion-dollar investment in central Florida is just the latest in a series of actions that Florida’s second-most notorious authoritarian has taken to show his displeasure. And Disney provided its own response a few hours later.

So far, every attempt to bring down Disney has backfired on DeSantis. Frustrated by his inability to silence Disney, DeSantis fumed that he would “not allow a woke corporation” to run Florida. The governor set out to end the special tax district through which Disney handles infrastructure in the area it controls. Only this move would have left local taxpayers responsible for bonds that run to $1,000 per person. The Florida legislature—which usually serves as his reliable lap dog—stepped in to stop DeSantis. Instead DeSantis got five new members on the tax district board so he could use them to punish Disney … only to discover that the old board had carefully erected protections that gave all the power to Disney, leaving the board in the role of a toothless appendage.

To this point, DeSantis has been left spitting his anger into the wind … and everyone in Florida should be grateful for that, because as a new story from the Tallahassee Democrat shows, the importance of Disney to the state’s economy is hard to overestimate. Each year, the presence of Disney theme parks in Florida generates:

  • $75.2 billion annual economic impact for Central Florida
  • 463,000 additional jobs
  • $5.8 billion in additional state tax revenue

Should DeSantis ultimately have his way, either significantly reducing Disney’s revenue or convincing the studio’s corporate leadership that maybe the leader of some other humidity-choked swampland would be more reasonable, the cost to Florida would be enormous. This isn’t just a war that DeSantis doesn’t seem to be winning, it’s a war where everyone in the state should be pulling against him.

His war on the mouse is certainly not the only time DeSantis has tried to show that his idea of “business-friendly” is really “do what I say, or else.” Some of his targets have been relatively small, such as when he jerked the liquor license of the Orlando Philharmonic for promoting a show featuring performers in drag. Others have been enormous, such as when he went after Florida’s cruise ship industryfor requiring that passengers be vaccinated.

If DeSantis’ had some magic formula for creating a record economy, it might be reasonable, on sheer monetary basis, for businesses to at least consider toeing the line. However, that’s not the case. As the Florida Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research detailed, under DeSantis’ response to the pandemic, Florida’s economic growth was actually slower than in either California or New York. That report also clearly shows that what drives Florida’s economy isn’t anything DeSantis has done.

Population growth is the state’s primary engine of economic growth, fueling both employment and income growth.

Florida’s economy depends on one thing: Immigration. The biggest factor in the state’s GDP growth comes from the increase in people who move there from other states and from outside the U.S.

Florida is utterly dependent on its appeal to non-Floridians.

DeSantis’ rants aren’t likely to make the state more attractive to the average American. His signature legislation wasn’t even favored by a majority in Florida. Having just signed a newer, stricter ban on abortion that even he doesn’t want to talk about might make some prospective snowbirds decide to look elsewhere. So might news that Florida has taken the top spot as the least affordable state.

What may be most amazing isn’t that DeSantis wants everything his way, even if it costs his state everything. It’s how many Republicans seem to think that’s a good idea.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Sen. Collins Suddenly Flips Right On LGBTQ Rights Bill

Sen. Collins Suddenly Flips Right On LGBTQ Rights Bill

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Is Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) playing politics with vital civil rights legislation?

Just eight months ago Sen. Collins was the only Republican Senator to co-sponsor the LGBTQ Equality Act. She was also in a desperate re-election race.

On June 15 she tweeted her strong support for the bill:

The following day she signed onto a letter to then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, demanding he "immediately bring the bipartisan Equality Act (H.R. 5) to the Senate floor for a vote and fully enshrine in federal law explicit protections for LGBTQIA+ people against discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity."

The bill never came to the floor, and Collins got re-elected.

On TuesdayThe Washington Blade reported Sen. Collins was refusing to co-sponsor the Equality Act, a dramatic about-face after being such a strong supporter last year.

Why?

"There were certain provisions of the Equality Act which needed revision," Collins told the Blade's Chris Johnson, not specifying what "revisions" were so desperately needed they were resulting in her refusing to sponsor the bill – and putting its passage in jeopardy.

"Throwing some veiled criticism at the Human Rights Campaign," Johnson writes, "which declined to endorse her in 2020 as it had done in previous elections, Collins added, 'Unfortunately the commitments that were made to me were not [given] last year.'"

The Equality Act will receive a vote on the House floor this week, reportedly Thursday or Friday. President Biden has said he wants to sign it into law in his first 100 days (although his staff has since suggested it may take longer.)

Like so many other critical pieces of legislation, the Equality Act will need 60 votes to pass, unless Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) kills the filibuster, something many liberals are demanding he do.

Other GOP Senators are treating it like they used to treat tweets from Donald Trump.

"I don't know what's in it," Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said.

"I have not read the bill," Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) also said.

Will Collins change her mind? Will she co-sponsor the Equality Act? Will she reveal what vital "revisions" she's demanding be made before she does?

Senator Collins' office did not immediately respond to a call from NCRM.

CARES Act Text

NBC News Report Finds Hate Groups Got $4.3M In PPP Loans

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

A Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group that has promulgated anti-immigrant propaganda titled "The fiscal burden of illegal immigration on United States taxpayers" (I'm not going to link to it) received more than $680,000 in funds from the Paycheck Protection Program, an NBC News analysis has found (Disclosure: Kos Media received a Paycheck Protection Program loan.)

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and more than a dozen other designated hate groups in fact received a total of $4.3 million in funds—even as families have continued to remain without direct relief, aside from one lousy check. In FAIR's case, it received $683,680 in relief as its also advocated punishing immigrant families through policies like the "public charge" rule. Help for me, none for thee.

As my colleague Joan McCarter noted earlier this summer, there was clear "evidence that the aid didn't go where it was most needed and hasn't done the job for tens of thousand of businesses." From mom-and-pop shops to local restaurants, it's clear which businesses have been in desperate need of help. It's also clear which entities saw a financial opportunity, despite providing no public good.

"The groups that received funds also include American Family Association (AFA), a group that opposes what its leaders describe as the 'homosexual agenda,'" NBC News said. SPLC, which has designated the organization a hate group, said in a report that "[f]or years, until 2010, the AFA had a section on its website that supposedly exposed 'The Homosexual Agenda.'"

Various AFA propagandists have further claimed that "[h]omosexuality is not only harmful to homosexuals themselves, but also to children and to society," and that "[a]s with smoking, homosexual behavior's 'second hand' effects threaten public health." Per NBC News' report, AFA got $1,390,800 in PPP funds.

Another group that got funds was Church Militant, "an organization that runs a media operation that advocates for so-called gay conversion therapies and links homosexuality to pedophilia," NBC News continued. Per SPLC, "Church Militant focuses on homosexuality with an intensity and frequency bordering on obsessive." That group received just over $300,000 in funds.

"Extremist movements thrive in climates of political uncertainty," SPLC senior research analyst Cassie Miller explained to NBC News. "In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, far-right actors have exploited people's fears and grievances to promote their ideologies. But now the government is doing even more to help hate groups by handing them millions of dollars in forgivable loans."