Florida is the state where freedom goes to die.
Since Governor Ron DeSantis was re-elected, he has been using the powers of his office to punish anyone who dares to criticize him. He fired an elected state prosecutor. He has harassed Disney, the state’s largest employer, for daring to oppose his “Don’t Say Gay” law. He has taken over the state’s only progressive college and handed it over to far-right zealots. He has banned the teaching of honest history, most especially Black history. Under his control, the state Department of Education censors textbooks that include facts he doesn’t like. Under his direction, the state board of education is whittling away the tenure and academic freedom of professors. He is replacing competent college presidents of public colleges and universities with his cronies. During the height of the pandemic, he banned any mandates for masks or vaccines. Now he is going after the elected superintendent of Leon County schools.
We have never before seen, at least in our lifetimes, a state attempt to enact fascism, day by day, week by week. I refuse to accept DeSantis’ dictatorial ways as normal. They are not normal. He personally gerrymandered the state, eliminating three of four Black members of Congress. The list of his anti-democratic actions should alarm everyone. He should turn all of us anti-fascist. The “Greatest Generation” fought a world war to defeat fascism. We must not ignore what is happening or normalize it, as the media does when they discuss DeSantis’ presidential aspirations. All I can do is shine a light. It’s up to the voters in Florida and in the GOP primaries to reject this wannabe Mussolini.
Florida officials are threatening to revoke the teaching license of a school superintendent who criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis, accusing the educator of violating several statutes and DeSantis directives and allowing his “personal political views” to guide his leadership.
Such a revocation by the state Department of Education could allow DeSantis to remove Leon County Superintendent Rocky Hanna from his elected office. The Republican governor did that last year to an elected Democratic prosecutor in the Tampa Bay area who disagreed with his positions limiting abortion and medical care for transgender teens and indicated he might not enforce new laws in those areas.
Disney also sued DeSantis this week, saying he targeted its Orlando theme parks for retribution after it criticized the governor’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law that then banned the discussion of sexuality and gender in early grades, but has since been expanded.
Hanna has publicly opposed that law, once defied the governor’s order that barred any mandate that students wear masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, and criticized a DeSantis-backed bill that recently passed that will pay for students to attend private school. The Leon County district, with about 30,000 students, covers Tallahassee, the state capital, and its suburbs.
“It’s a sad day for democracy in Florida, and the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, when a state agency with unlimited power and resources, can target a local elected official in such a biased fashion,” Hanna said in a statement sent to The Associated Press and other media Thursday. A Democrat then running as an independent, Hanna was elected to a second four-year term in 2020 with 60% of the vote. He plans to run for reelection next year and does not need a teacher’s license to hold the job.
“This investigation has nothing to do with these spurious allegations, but rather everything to do with attempting to silence myself and anyone else who speaks up for teachers and our public schools in a way that does not fit the political narrative of those in power,” Hanna said.
He said the investigation was spurred by a single complaint from a leader of the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a conservative education group, requesting his removal.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“By your words and deeds, I will know you.” His decisions at his present level are speaking very loud and clear about what his leadership will be at a higher level such as the presidency. Therefore, everything will be up to the people to decide if this is the kind of leadership they want to vote for.
Good morning Diane and everyone,
“The “Greatest Generation” fought a world war to defeat fascism.”
My father-in-law fought in WW2. He is 98 years old today. He’s still in fantastic shape, drives, lives in his own house, and enjoys his family and friends. Happy birthday and thanks for your service, Dad!
Thanks indeed for your dad’s fight against fascism. May he live for many more years in good health.
What a blessing to have your father so many years.
Florida is such a horrible, despotic place that it has by far the fastest growing population of all fifty states. New York residents are relocating to Florida in droves, moving from Utopia to the new Nazi Germany of America.
Tom, the next Democratic governor of Florida will undo all the damage DeSantis has done. Will repeal the racist, homophobic legislation, will make peace with Disney, will dismantle DeSantis’ private army, and maybe even restore support for public schools.
Yup the old farts are going to Gods waiting room. To live off their entitlements and pensions earned in NY with them.
A number of people from the Northeast establish residence in FL because there’s no state income tax and maintain a second home in their state of origin.
Re “Hanna said in a statement sent to The Associated Press and other media Thursday. A Democrat then running as an independent, Hanna was elected to a second four-year term in 2020 with 60% of the vote. He plans to run for reelection next year and does not need a teacher’s license to hold the job.”
I don’t understand why Mr. Hanna didn’t just not comply. “You didn’t hire me, you can’t fire me” would have been my position.
And yet his approval ratings in Florida by Floridians (?) is well into the 60% depending the poll.
Can someone explain that?
Apathy because majority do not have kids in schools and blow it off – or are unaware?
?
Florida, because of DeSantis and his fascist policies, is also becoming an even larger right wing destination for conservatives from Midwestern states. In order for the Democrats to energize voters, they need to reinvent themselves. They can’t keep rolling out Charlie Crist and expect to win.
It would be great if right-wingers from across the north, east, and midwest all moved to Florida. Then Democrats would win handily in states like Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maine, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin. Move to Florida!
Diane: my cousin in Florida grew up there. S as he bemoans the increasingly radical conservatism that has infected the state.
Since projection is obviously his thing, I would be surprised if the children of Florida saw a gay man every time a DeSantis presser is on teevee.
didn’t see. Proofreading!
“Can someone explain …”
For every action, there
is a reaction.
No reaction, no action.
A “fix” that doesn’t “fix”
isn’t a “fix”.
A defeat that doesn’t defeat
isn’t a defeat.
DeSantis is like a “mob boss” that expects total loyalty and obedience. Dare to disagree with this bitter, small-minded dictator, and DeSantis will order a “hit” on the “offender,” elected or appointed. He will try to erase the offender.
This blog publishes endless posts and comments claiming this or that person they disagree with is a fascist, anti-democracy, etc. Furthermore, the host posts her thoughts on all kinds of topics. It is therefore noteworthy that she has not stated her opinion about the highly publicized report written by John Durham which describes serious problems with how the Department of Justice and the FBI investigated allegations that Donald Trump was colluding with the Russians.
Genuine civil libertarians support fairness and due process for everyone – including for their political opponents. Extreme partisans aren’t bothered by violations of fairness and due process when those violations occur against their opponents. There is a commonly used phrase that “silence is complicity”: if you don’t speak up about wrongdoing, you either favor that wrongdoing or at the least are complicit in it happening.
Ms. Ravitch, many times every week you describe your political opponents as – to put it mildly – anti-democratic. Let’s stipulate that Donald Trump is a deeply flawed person, unworthy to be President – an opinion I share with you. Do you support or oppose what various federal agencies did to undermine his 2016 presidential campaign – actions that the Durham report criticizes in great detail?
Trump and DeSantis are fascists. I have not said or written that anyone else is a fascist.
As for the Durham report, I saw nothing new. Neither did other commentators (I don’t read rightwing news sites).
Here is the editorial in the Washington Post:
“Durham’s investigation reveals nothing except a broken process”
“John Durham has at long last released his report on the FBI’s 2016 Russia probe, which conservative conspiracy theorists once anticipated would expose a “deep state” scheme to undermine then-candidate Donald Trump. But, despite some commentators’ efforts to portray the actual result of the four-year investigation as damning, the reality is that the Justice Department special counsel uncovered next to nothing. When then-Attorney General William P. Barr appointed Mr. Durham to investigate the investigators of Trump-Russia ties, Mr. Barr appeared determined to uncover a vast plot on the part of government officials who could be criminally prosecuted for their misdeeds. Instead, Mr. Barr’s handpicked special counsel confirmed only what the public already learned in a previous report from Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz. The upshot: There were flaws in the FBI’s handling of the matter, especially involving dubious Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications to surveil 2016 Trump adviser Carter Page, but they flowed from confirmation bias rather than politically motivated misconduct. Though Mr. Durham continues to disagree that it was appropriate for the FBI to open a full investigation, rather than a preliminary one, he makes no finding that doing so was prohibited under agency rules. There was no involvement by the CIA, National Security Agency or any other snoops. And there is no reason to send anyone to prison. Indeed, the special counsel faced two acquittals in the cases he developed and a guilty plea resulting from a referral by the Justice Department’s inspector general. So what has this $6.5 million process accomplished? Plenty — but none of it good. Even now, conservatives are seizing on Mr. Durham’s report, which contains indignant rhetoric that suggests dramatically more wrongdoing than its substance backs up, to assert a deep-state plot. The probe’s very existence during an election cycle already served as a talking point for Mr. Trump’s allies, who promised time and time again that Mr. Durham was going to lay bare the ‘crime of the century.’”
“This story could have been even worse: The New York Times reported in January that Mr. Barr pressured Mr. Durham to deliver an interim report centered on the Clinton campaign ahead of the 2020 election. The special counsel’s only recommendation for reform is narrow — to create a sort of devil’s advocate role within the FBI to challenge investigators’ assumptions in politically sensitive investigations. And even this suggestion does less to address flaws in the FISA process and in high-profile FBI investigations more generally than others that were in the Horowitz report, many of which the agency has already implemented. The best way to ensure investigating agents’ claims are appropriately scrutinized before the government takes them to court, for instance, might be to further empower prosecutors by ensuring they get all the information, both exculpatory and inculpatory, that they need. Further reforms to make the FISA adjudication process more adversarial would also help. But all this speaks to a bigger problem: Matters such as these shouldn’t even be in the purview of a special counsel, whose role is to decide whether to bring charges, then pack up and go home. These individuals operating under the Justice Department’s purview yet imbued with extra independence have a history of overspending resources and reaching beyond their mandates. The attorney general, technically still in charge, has some power to constrain them — yet this case shows clearly what happens when he does the opposite instead. The current attorney general, Merrick Garland, overseeing two separate special counsel investigations into Mr. Trump and President Biden, should take note.”
Thank you for your very revealing response to my comment. You quote two very partisan liberal publications whose credibility has been shattered because of their false reporting and editorializing about the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. If they acknowledged anything noteworthy in the Durham report, they would effectively be confessing to professional malpractice.
You say “I don’t read rightwing news sites.” I assume that includes even respectable conservative opinion outlets. Your in-the-bubble mindset has been evident for many years. You make no effort to comprehend thoughtful differences of opinion with your existing opinions that you want reinforced, never challenged. There are many people like that on both extremes of the American political spectrum. It’s especially regrettable that someone who was for many years a serious scholar has chosen to become an extreme partisan. It’s a free country, and that is your right; this observation applies to almost all of the regular commenters on this blog, who regularly show that they make no effort to be well-informed about perspectives they don’t already agree with. Finally, your endless rationalization of Hillary Clinton’s shortcomings is the same type of undeserved hero worship that Donald Trump receives.
Hillary Clinton is not my hero. There was nothing new in the Durham report. Nothing that happened stopped him from being elected. You do acknowledge that he was elected, don’t you? Clearly the conversations that various Trumps had and admitted with various Russian agents during the campaign did not hurt him. Why you insist on playing the grievance card is beyond my understanding. That’s the sure sign of a Trump devotee. Thanks to your insistence, I will post Thom Hartman’s summation of the Durham report. Watch for it.
As often happens, your reading comprehension is impaired by your extreme partisanship. My first comment has the following sentence: “Let’s stipulate that Donald Trump is a deeply flawed person, unworthy to be President – an opinion I share with you.” A Trump devotee wrote that sentence?
You were lying when you wrote that sentence.
It also is important to note that Trump won the election, so whatever anyone did to “undermine his 2016 presidential campaign” didn’t work.
I would like to see a thorough investigation of the undermining of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016: first, the unauthorized hacking into her emails and the emails of the Democratic National Committee; second, who gave her emails to Wikileaks, to release at times of Julian Assange’s choosing? Third, why did FBI Director James Comey announce only days before the election that the FBI was reopening an investigation of her emails, even though it is against long-established federal policy for any agency to intervene in a presidential campaign, especially so close to the election?
If anyone suffered because of dilutions dealings inside and outside the federal government, it was she. She had a lead before Comey opened an investigation that was soon closed. Her lead evaporated. She lost.
When will we see an independent investigation of the events that sunk Clinton’s campaign? Had she won, we would not have a Supreme Court stacked with far-right conservatives. Roe v. Wade would not have been overturned. Our rights and liberties would be in safer hands.
Actually we had all of those investigations you are asking for. Unfortunately the lead investigator was chosen “to land the plane.” It is not he was corrupt or partisan. It is more like Rosenstein knew exactly who he was appointing and exactly how far Mueller would go. Forget not following the money . He appointed the only person in America who could not assert that it was implausible that the Ravens management and Roger Goodell ,NFL Commissioner did not know of and did not see Ray Rice beat the living crap out of his girl friend on National TV. Not one tape once but two tapes twice. .
I had the misfortune of reading this Politico piece only 2 -3 weeks after the appointment. And spent 2 years expecting to be let down.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/07/mueller-nfl-probe-rice-goodell-239216
Needless to say Mueller concluded that because individuals lied , destroyed evidence , used encrypted devices and had pardons dangled he was unable to proceed with a case of Conspiracy against the United States.
Concluding among other things that he could not determine what Manafort told Trump about his meeting with a Russian Intelligence asset where he arranged to have polling data ,strategy and targeted communities turned over to that GRU agent for months . Nor could he prove what happened to that information once it arrived in Russia. Kilimnik in turn handed Manafort a plan for the dissolution of Ukraine to be given to Trump.
Nothing to see here folks all are pardoned for all things Russia because innocent people need pardons for the crimes they have committed.
Posts and comments here using words “fascist” and “anti-democracy” are almost invariably about state govt actions/ legislation that repress voting, free speech and academic freedom, even private enterprise mgt that does not conform to state govt druthers. Also a number of them focus on campaign speech designed to stir up cultural division so as to obscure anti-public-goods agenda/ legislation (a historical hallmark of wannabe autocrats).
The Durham report is in a different realm: like other investigative reports in recent years, it targets corruption and collusion in fed govt. And, like the rest, it turns up little or nothing that is actionable, for reasons ranging from you can’t indict a sitting president to there’s no there there. (And the current Rep-majority seems poised to initiate many more.)
Rather than separating such investigations into right vs left whodunits, I see them as evidence of (a)pure politics/ grandstanding/ vote pandering, and (b)voters who are convinced that our govt institutions are thoroughly corrupted. There is plenty of evidence for (b), tho left & right are divided on where the corruption lies and why.
Trump is clearly a Russian asset and should be prosecuted as such.