Don’t cry for the poor lobbyists, who are writing checks out of client cash, and don’t cry for the clients, who are paying the lobbyists to get access in order to get what they want from the state government. The victims here are constituents who don’t have the money to drop on 18 holes with the governor and first lady. But not only is the public shut out of whatever the benefits of the spending are; DeSantis has done his best to make sure they can’t even know who’s doing the spending and on what.
One way he’s done this is to structure his political operation to obscure the spending. Someone paid for DeSantis’s flop of a trip to Europe, but good luck figuring out who. As Politico reported, DeSantis’s office said no taxpayer money went to the trip. But neither his PAC nor the state party disclosed any expenses related to the travel. DeSantis’s campaign has relied heavily on charter jets, many times with unclear funding. The New York Times was able to trace some of the tab to (surprise!) Florida lobbyists, but in other cases found that the funding was hidden from view by a nonprofit organization established to pay for them. (Now, with DeSantis’s campaign reeling, donors have become annoyed about all the expensive air travel.)
When clever loopholes in existing law don’t present themselves, DeSantis has changed the law. In May, DeSantis got the state legislature to pass a law that hides travel-related records from the public. “The law applies retroactively and would cover his extensive use of state planes throughout his time as governor. It would also cover records related to visitors to the governor’s mansion, opponents said,” CNN reported. Florida has long been a model for the nation on transparency laws, but DeSantis has worked to weaken such provisions.
The campaign-finance system in the U.S. makes nearly every candidate for major office complicit, willing or not, in a distortion of democratic values through implied, and sometimes explicit, peddling of access. Even though DeSantis has been particularly zealous in embracing the possibilities, that hasn’t received the same sort of scrutiny that his campaign tactics or feud with Disney have. It should, though. Even if none of it is illegal, as so far appears to be the case, it is a form of corruption beyond even the normally grubby standards.
DeSantis’s aggressive approach on campaign finance is consistent with his embrace, as governor, of what I’ve called “total politics,” seeking to use the most aggressive methods available under law, precedent or prudence be damned. As with DeSantis’s record of conservative achievement as governor, one wouldn’t expect him to be able to translate all the same methods to Washington were he president. Federal laws are different from state laws, and Congress is not so easily bullied as a Republican-dominated, term-limited state legislature.
Among Suarez's differences with DeSantis, the mayor told ABC News Correspondent MaryAlice Parks, was the governor's handling of Florida's controversial new educational standards on teaching Black history and a law that DeSantis signed last year that restricts instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in some K-12 classrooms.
The Black history curriculum, which was approved unanimously by the state's board of education last month, directs Florida educators to teach middle school students that enslaved people "developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit."
"I've been very vocal, very clear about the fact that there's no virtues to slavery that should be taught in our school system," Suarez said in the interview, at the Iowa State Fair. "And by the way, that's not a just Vice President Kamala Harris position," he added, referencing Harris' trip to Florida last month to rebuke the educational standards.
To put the governor’s 11-point collapse in perspective, DeSantis was actually leading former President Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup, by 45% to 41%, as recently as February. And while the governor's standing has steadily declined since then — a glitchy campaign announcement and a series of unforced errors haven’t helped matters — he has nonetheless tended to place a clear second in soundings of the full GOP field for much of the year.
Not anymore, however.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Tuesday denounced a separatist Kurdish group that operates in Iraq as an enemy of both countries and urged the Iraqi government to ban it as a terrorist organisation, as Ankara has done.
Mr Fidan called on Iraq to designate the Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK, as a terrorist organisation during his first visit to Baghdad since taking office.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to visit the country shortly, after months of escalating hostility between Turkey and Turkish-backed groups on one side, and Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria on the other.
Iraqi officials, especially those affiliated with the Iran-backed Shiite Coordination Framework, will likely raise their own security concerns.
- Parties close to the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) have objected to the presence of Turkish troops on Iraqi soil, in particular at a base in Nineveh Governorate.
- Sentiment against the Turkish military presence became particularly vocal after Turkey killed nine Arab tourists in an artillery barrage at a resort in July 2022.
There were at least five major airstrikes in Iraqi Kurdistan between Aug. 6 and Aug. 11. At least seven people were reportedly killed, including five civilians. Turkey has not confirmed its involvement. However, it has notably been targeting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the area.
- On Aug. 6, a civilian was reportedly killed
and another was wounded in an airstrike in Duhok Governorate’s Chamanke
district. Earlier in the day, a separate airstrike killed one person
near Aghjalar in Sulaymaniyah Governorate’s Chamchamal district.
- On Aug. 9, another civilian was reported to have been killed and a second injured in an airstrike near Dukan. The attack took place on a major road between Sulaymaniyah and Erbil used by many personal and commercial vehicles.
- The same day, an alleged PKK fighter was killed in an airstrike in Sulaymaniyah Governorate’s Mawat district.
Two days later, on Aug. 11, an airstrike reportedly killed three civilians. The victims were traveling on the busy Penjwen-Sulaymaniyah road. The route links Iraqi Kurdistan’s major cities with a border crossing with Iran.
- The Kurdistan Counterterrorism Service, affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), was quick to claim that PKK militants were killed in the attack. However, this assertion was later dismissed by local reports.
- Telecommunications company Asiacell on Aug. 11 confirmed that one of those killed was a local employee. The man had apparently been traveling with his neighbor and her daughter to the border crossing to meet another daughter who is studying in Iran.
On 5 August, the government of Iraq called for the extradition from the UK and US of four former officials accused of embezzling over $2.5 billion of public money between September 2021 and August 2022, in one of the worst cases of corruption in the history of the country.
Five companies cashed 247 different cheques written by state employees, and the funds were then withdrawn from the company accounts. Most of the business owners concerned have also fled Iraq. Interpol red notices have already been issued for three of the suspects. These are Raed Jouhi, cabinet director for former prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Ahmed Najati, al-Kadhimi’s personal secretary, and Ali Allawi, who held the offices of finance minister and deputy prime minister. Jouhi and Najati hold American citizenship, while Allawi is a dual British national. The final suspect Mushrik Abbas, al-Kadhimi’s media advisor, is believed to be in the United Arab Emirates.
Corruption is endemic at the top of Iraqi society. Former president Barham Salih claimed in 2021 that $150 billion of money from the oil industry had been illegally exported from the country since the US-led invasion in 2003. Transparency International’s corruption perception index scored Iraq 157th out of 180th countries ranked, with one being the least corrupt.
A law amendment in Iraq has proposed capital punishment for homosexual relationships. Campaigners have called it a “dangerous” escalation in the country where people already face frequent attacks and discrimination. However, life for queer Iraqis hasn’t always been this way. As with so many stains on worldwide human rights, the worsening homophobia and transphobia in Iraq can be traced back to the British empire.
Iraq: debating the death penalty for LGBTQ+ people
The amendment to a 1988 anti-prostitution law passed a first reading in parliament last week. It would enable courts to issue “the death penalty or life imprisonment” sentences for “homosexual relations”. This is according to a document seen by Agence France-Press (AFP). The amendment would also set a minimum seven-year prison term for “promoting homosexuality”.
Currently, no existing laws explicitly punish homosexual relations. However, the state has prosecuted LGBTQ+ people for sodomy, or under vague morality and anti-prostitution clauses in Iraq’s penal code. This also comes at a time when the state and the media are also cracking-down on open discussion about LGBTQ+ issues.
The national media and communications commission is considering banning Iraq-based publications from using the term “homosexuality”. Instead, it would advise media outlets to use the derogatory term “sexual deviance”. It also wants to ban the term “gender”.
The Iraqi government should immediately withdraw a proposed law currently before parliament that would impose the death penalty for same-sex conduct and imprisonment for transgender expression, Human Rights Watch said today. If adopted, the bill would violate fundamental human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression, association, privacy, equality, and nondiscrimination of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people (LGBT) in Iraq.
On August 15, 2023, Raad Al-Maliki, an independent member of parliament, introduced a bill that would amend the “Law on Combatting Prostitution,” No. 8 of 1988, to explicitly make same-sex relations and transgender expression a criminal offense. If passed, the bill would punish same-sex relations with the death penalty or life in prison, punish “promoting homosexuality” with a minimum seven years in prison and a fine, and criminalize “imitating women” with up to a three-year sentence. In introducing the bill, Al-Maliki said its purpose was to “preserve the entity of the Iraqi society from deviation and calls for ‘paraphilia’ [abnormal sexual impulses] that have invaded the world.”
“Iraq’s proposed anti-LGBT law would threaten the lives of Iraqis already facing a hostile environment for LGBT people,” said Rasha Younes, senior LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Iraqi lawmakers are sending an appalling message to LGBT people that their speech is criminal and their lives are expendable.”
Though consensual same-sex conduct is not explicitly criminalized in Iraq, the authorities have used vague “morality” laws to prosecute LGBT people. The introduction of the anti-LGBT bill follows months of hostile rhetoric against sexual and gender minorities by Iraqi officials, as well as government crackdowns on human rights groups.
The bill reviewed by Human Rights Watch equates same-sex relations with “sexual perversion,” which it defines as “repeated sexual relations between members of the same sex … if occurring more than three times.” The law also provides for seven years in prison and a fine between 10 million Iraqi dinars (US$7,700) and 15 million dinars ($11,500) for “promoting homosexuality,” which is undefined.
The bill specifically targets transgender women, with a prison term between one and three years or with a fine between 5 million dinars ($3,800) and 10 million dinars ($7,700) for anyone who “imitates women.” The law defines “imitating women” as “wearing makeup and women’s clothing” or “appearing as women” in public spaces.
The bill prohibits hormone replacement therapy and what it calls “sex change” based on personal desire, as well as any attempt to change one’s gender identity, punishable by prison terms between one and three years. The same penalty applies to any surgeon or other doctor who performs gender-affirming surgery. The law makes an intersex exception for cases that require a surgical intervention to confirm biological sex, based on the binary categories of male and female.
Violence and discrimination against LGBT people is already rampant in Iraq. The targeting of LGBT people online and lethal violence against LGBT people by armed groups in Iraq has routinely been met with impunity, Human Rights Watch said.
On August 8, the Iraqi Communications and Media Commission issued a directive ordering all media outlets to replace the term “homosexuality” with “sexual deviance” in their published and broadcast language and banning use of the term “gender.”
On May 31, a court in the Kurdistan region of Iraq ordered the closure of Rasan Organization, a human rights organization in the Kurdistan Region, over “its activities in the field of homosexuality.”
In September 2022, members of the Kurdistan regional parliament introduced the “Bill on the Prohibition of Promoting Homosexuality,” which would punish any individual or group that advocates for the rights of LGBT people.
The Iraqi government is responsible for protecting the rights of all Iraqis, Human Rights Watch said. The proposed law contravenes Iraq’s Constitution, which protects the rights to nondiscrimination (article 14) and privacy (article 17), as well as its obligations under international human rights law. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Iraq ratified in 1971, affirms the rights to life, liberty, privacy, free expression, and security of the person. Similarly, the Arab Charter on Human Rights, of which Iraq is a member, affirms these rights.
Unequal protection against violence and unequal access to justice are prohibited under international law. The ICCPR, in its articles 2 and 26, guarantees fundamental human rights and equal protection of the law without discrimination. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the international expert body that provides authoritative interpretations of the covenant, has made clear that sexual orientation is a status protected against discrimination under these provisions.
“The Iraqi government has failed to tackle discriminatory practices that underpin violence against LGBT people,” Younes said. “Instead it has promoted anti-LGBT ‘morality’-based legislation that fuels violence and discrimination against already marginalized sexual and gender minorities. The Iraqi government should immediately abandon the proposed anti-LGBT law and end the cycle of violence and impunity against LGBT people.”
This is a time in which a disturbingly violent segment of society feels entitled to lash out against those who promote the self-evident truths upon which this nation was founded. Carleton, like many others before her, appears to have died for expressing her conviction that sexual orientation and gender non-conformity have no role in determining who does or does not belong.
So fly the flag that Carleton flew, in her memory and honor, and in support for the right to express oneself and be oneself. Fly it in defiance of killers and terrorists who undermine personal freedom and expression. Fly it in support of our unalienable rights. Fly it in support of the LGBTQ+ community and its righteous defense against bigotry. Fly it for pride.
