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Wednesday, August 16, 2023

Doo-Doo Ron Ron circles the toilet

The latest BURN IT DOWN WITH KIM BROWN.

Madison Hall (BUSINESS INSIDER) reports:

According to a recent Emerson College poll, more likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters said they prefer former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The results of the poll, which was conducted between August 9 and 11, show that 9% of likely GOP primary voters in New Hampshire want Christie to be the Republican nominee, compared to the 8% who said they'd rather have DeSantis represent the party.

The poll's finding that DeSantis is slipping and Chris Christie is rising is far from alone in New Hampshire, with recent polls from co/efficient, National Research, and the Manhattan Institute putting the former governor of New Jersey tied or within the margin of error of DeSantis.

Doo-Doo Ron Ron is sinking, in fact, he's circling the toilet. Little turd spin and spin:

But now that DeSantis' popularity is in an apparent nosedive, sizing down his campaign staff and burning through money, his supporters should be worried that he'll take them down with him, writes James Clark in the Orlando Sentinel.

The tide has turned, he said. When DeSantis was seen as the next great hope for the GOP, "The fear in the Legislature was palpable," he wrote.

"Crossing DeSantis was a big mistake, as State Sen. Joe Gruters found out. He endorsed Trump and Sarasota paid a hefty price. DeSantis vetoed eight of the bills Gruters backed, including $20 million for the University of South Florida College of Nursing."

He went on. "The message was clear: Cross DeSantis and pay the price."

He really thought he was important, didn't he? Which is why it will be so great if he has to drop out of the primaries. He's nothing. A little nothing. He and his hate need to go elsewhere. He's destroyed Florida. It's going to take that state years to overcome what he's done.

Mark Lane (USA TODAY) notes:

In Florida, elections have consequences except when the winner is a Democrat in an urban area. Then, the governor sometimes decides that elections don’t really count.

And so, the governor has removed another Democratic state attorney from office because of policy differences rather than misconduct. Gov. Ron DeSantis announced last week that he was suspending elected Orange-Osceola prosecutor Monique Worrell. The suspension will become a removal when the state Senate votes to do so. And because the governor wants her gone, you may assume the Florida Senate will rubberstamp the decision.

Customarily, Florida governors have been reluctant to remove elected officials. Overriding the will of the voters is a serious step in a democratic republic. That’s why in recent times, this has generally been done when criminal charges have been formally filed or a grand jury found wrongdoing. (An exception was when Gov. Rick Scott removed Broward County elections chief Brenda Snipes in 2018, a move decisively slapped down by a federal judge. Snipes resigned in 2019.) But so far, DeSantis has removed four elected officials who were never formally accused of wrongdoing. All Democrats.

Be sure to read my mom's "kd lang's Hymns of the 49th Parallel." I really love that kd lang album as well.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, August 15, 2023. The deceivers are all around -- the prime minister in Iraq, the failed 'feminist' Naomi Wolf, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Ron DeSantis . . .

Starting with Iraq, ASHARQ AL-ASWAT reports:

Iraq no longer required the presence of "foreign combat forces" on its territories to combat ISIS, announced Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Mohammed Shia al-Sudani on Monday.

Sudani was speaking during a meeting with commanders of the Armed Forces and Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), members of the Ministries of Interior and Defense, and the military forces that took part in the war against the ISIS terrorist organization.

PRESS TV quotes him saying:

"Today, Iraq does not need foreign combat forces, and we are conducting advanced dialogues in order to determine the form of future relationship and cooperation with the international coalition," he said.

“The Iraqis have become, after the liberation battles, more united than ever before… All Iraqis fought in one trench from all nationalities, religions, sects and components."

What a load of garbage. His remarks, the prime minister himself.

Do they need foreign troops? No, they don't. But he's not calling for them to leave. And it was just last week that Iraq's Minister of Defense Thabit Muhammad al-Abassi was in DC meeting with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to discuss the new agreement as the DoD press release noted:

This meeting looks beyond the defeat of the Islamic State and is an outgrowth of a visit Austin made to Baghdad in March. "We are interested in an enduring defense relationship within a strategic partnership," said Dana Stroul, deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, during an interview last week.

Many officials are calling this an agreement on establishing a "360-degree relationship" -- meaning it would be a whole-of-government strategic partnership for years.

For years.

Years.

Foreign troops not needed but US troops to continue "for years."

Iraq's prime minister was lying to the Iraqi people.

And, as an aside, he did slip in that the Iraqi troops need training. Ah, 'training.' That's been an excuse forever and a day to keep US troops on the ground in Iraq, hasn't it? They've been trained and re-trained and re-trained again.

He made a big speech and it was meaningless.

A lot of fake ass make big speeches and try to trick people. At SALON, Amanda Marcotte notes an example:

Considering how rapidly the right's "war on woke" is expanding, it was perhaps inevitable: Self-identified "mama bears" on a Texas school board are angry that a classroom had a poster showing people of different races holding hands. Last week, the school board in Conroe, Texas, a small city north of Houston, turned the right-wing mania for censorship into a dark parody of itself. At issue? A poster that seemed to imply that interracial friendship is possible.

According to ABC 13 Eyewitness News in Houston, things started when school trustee Melissa Dungan declared that she had spoken to parents who were upset about "displays of personal ideologies in classrooms." When pressed for an example, according to the news report, "Dungan referred to a first grade student whose parent claimed they were so upset by a poster showing hands of people of different races, that they transferred classrooms."

"I wish I was shocked," Dungan said of the poster. "I am aware these trends have been happening for many years."

Some other members of the school board did, in fact, argue that there was nothing objectionable about such a poster. But Dungan was backed up by another trustee, Misty Odenweller, who insisted that the depiction of uh, race-mixing was in some way a "violation of the law." The two women are part of "Mama Bears Rising," a secretive far-right group fueling the book-banning mania in Conroe and the surrounding area. At least 59 books have been banned due to their efforts.

When another trustee asked Dungan if she personally objected to an illustration of cross-racial friendship, she demurred, simply declaring that she was just trying to avoid "situations like that." Situations like what, exactly? She didn't say. Dungan's behavior is a perfect illustration of the "anti-woke" tap dance. The person alleging nefarious wokeness never admits to their own bigotry, instead pretending that they're reacting to "woke" people who are "pushing" an agenda, in this case through innocuous poster art. Of course, the entire premise of the argument is rooted in bigotry, as this example shows. It presumes that the feelings of real or imagined bigots who might take umbrage at such an image are of paramount importance, and that everyone else's freedoms must be curtailed to appease them.

This is our fault, as a society. Yes, a backlash is the natural response to progress. But this backlash was egged on by silence and by deliberate silence in the case of some. The reason that they have gotten as far as they have is because mainstream has tried to both-side it (and, in the case of THE NEW YORK TIMES, tried to one-side it). That enlarged the opening. And then you had 'trusted voices' who you shouldn't trust. Naomi Wolf, we'll get to that nut case in a moment. But I'm talking about the so-called leftists like Katie Halper and Aaron Mate and Max Blumenthal and his disgusting wife. The people who'd rather do political 'actions' with Nazis and racists and homophobes and transphobes. They're grifters and they can't call out their marks so they stay silent.

If they'd stood up months ago, we'd have lost far less ground.

Standing up?

It is outrageous that a poster of children of different races holding hands is seen as something to ban.

See? It's that easy and it's that clear. But whether it was racists or homophobes attacking, the grifters didn't stand up because they were too busy whoring.

Now the work we have to do on the left is that much harder.

Discrimination is not socially acceptable but when we are silent, we give the give the impression that it is.

As a result, we've made several steps backwards as a society.

These hate merchants need to be called out.

They're so emboldened that they're now going after integration. Grasp that. Grasp how hateful they are and how far back that they want to carry this country.

Hate merchants don't just hate one group. Their hatred is interrelated -- something Laura Nyro was getting at with "Lite A Flame (The Animal Rights Song):"

It's like prejudice
For the color of your skin
Prejudice for a woman
Prejudice for an animal
Like the elephant of the plain

But the grifters who claim that they are on the left insisted that these issues were "identity politics" -- the usual dismissal of any rights that go beyond those granted to White men.

We should have all been calling this out. Those who refused -- and continue to refuse -- make it harder for our society. But Aaron and Katie would, after all, rather be silent and line their own pockets. In a just world, they'd pay -- hugely -- for enabling the hate merchants with their silence.

And then there are the even worse. Naomi Wolf knows better. In fact, she was trying to make money not that long ago raising awareness of the historical attacks on gay people in the United Kingdom. But she didn't know what she was writing and the book got pulped because she's that damn stupid. She immediately begins hanging out with Moms For Bigotry -- which demonstrates just how little she actually cared about gay men or anyone in the LGBTQ+ community. Back to Amanada for Moms For Bigotry:

Because of their tight link to the book-banning efforts, the relatively new but suspiciously wealthy group Moms for Liberty has received massive media attention in the past couple of years. Even so, the group's radical ideology has not really been covered in most mainstream news coverage, which tends to portray the Moms as a bunch of overzealous church ladies. As Flux editor Matthew Sheffield, Media Matters vice president Julie Millican and researcher Olivia Little explained in a recent "Theory of Change" podcast, however, underneath the facade of "Christian moms" is some startling far-right radicalism.

For instance, while it was widely reported that a Moms for Liberty pamphlet from one branch was caught quoting Adolf Hitler, the group was able to spin that as a misunderstanding and a mistake. But at their summit a few days later, speaker Tiffany Justice yelled, "I stand with that mom" — the one who quoted Hitler — while the audience whooped its approval.

Moms for Liberty has heavily promoted trainings for conservative activists on how to take over school boards, which ought to make clear how we should understand stories like this one, which just sound like a racist tantrum in a Texas suburb. These aren't random or isolated events — they're part of a large, well-organized and well-financed attack on public education across the country. Mama Bears Rising, the group that fueled the Conroe school board takeover, in unsurprisingly discreet about its connections to the larger national movement for censorship. But screenshots of online communications by local anti-censorship activists suggests that it's no coincidence that the books targeted for censorship in Conroe are the same ones that show up on book-ban lists across the country. Mama Bears Rising is drawing on the same playbook that's being disseminated nationwide through a well-funded network of Christian nationalist activists.

That's who Naomi ran too. Immunizations and masks were just too much for the ugly woman with the fraying hair -- can she not even afford a home hot oil treatment? -- and sent her running into the arms of the homophobic and the transphobic. She really is pathetic.

She thinks she's taking brave stands -- against chemtrails!!!! -- she's a nut case. And when she was needed, she was more interested in standing with and covering for Moms For Bigotry -- including insisting that, "as a Jewish woman," she wasn't bothered at all by the quoting of Hitler.

This needs to be documented, it needs to be remembered. She has betrayed feminism. Part of the 'left' may be willing to forgive her when she tries to come crawling back. Those of us who are part of the feminist left should never forgive her. She has done real damage, she has betrayed feminism. This isn't minor. She's this century's Warren Ferrell and should suffer accordingly. Like Warren, she's aggrieved and convinced she's the victim. Typical of narcissists, they always put their aspirations ahead of people truly in need and they never get beyond the second level on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Moms For Bigotry are anti-free speech, they're anti-abortion, they're anti-LGBTQ+, they're anti-books and knowledge. They fail every feminist test in the book and Naomi Wolf cannot make up for the actions she's taken. She is not to be trusted today or ten years in the future. And if she pops too many pills this week and dies, I won't give a s**t. Or, as Cass Elliot would say, "I wouldn't piss on her if she were on fire."

She knows better. She is working with Moms For Bigotry and others who are working to destroy the lives of women. She knows that. She knows what a struggle it was for all of us to get here and it doesn't matter to her. It's more important that she be a 'celebrity' and 'noticed.' That, for her, outweighs all the work we've done and the work women did before us. She's Serena Joy and Aunt Lydia combined.

Also supporting Moms For Bigotry? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Junior just can't tell the truth about anything, can he?

Nicole Lafond (TPM) reports:

During an exchange with an NBC News reporter at the Iowa State Fair on Sunday, Kennedy said, “I believe a decision to abort a child should be up to the women during the first three months of life," but added: "Once a child is viable, outside the womb, I think then the state has an interest in protecting the child." He then went on to say that he would support a national ban on abortion at 15-weeks or possibly 21-weeks, only for his campaign to later clarify that he does not, in fact, support any type of federal restrictions on the procedure.

“Today, Mr. Kennedy misunderstood a question posed to him by a NBC reporter in a crowded, noisy exhibit hall at the Iowa State Fair," his campaign said. "Mr. Kennedy's position on abortion is that it is always the woman's right to choose. He does not support legislation banning abortion."

For what it’s worth, he has expressed support for abortion previously. During a town hall in New Hampshire earlier this summer he said he was “pro-choice,” adding: " I'm not going be in a position, put myself in a position, where I am going to tell a woman to bring a child to term.”

But, as Republicans have learned, expressing any type of support for federal restrictions on the procedure could be deeply damaging to any 2024 candidate, as such restrictions at a state level, even in red states, has proven to be highly unpopular among Democratic, Independent and even Republican voters.

Elaine covered this last night in "Take a hike, Junior, take a hike:"

Please grasp that he decided to weigh in on the issue of women's reproductive health but didn't feel the need to do any studying before he weighed in -- I believe that is the text book example of "mansplaining." Cheryl, take your moron home with you, it's time to get off the campaign trail. USA TODAY notes that he's trying to walk back the comments. Too late. Too damn late.

And let's not what a liar he is. The campaign's insisting he misunderstood the question.

You misunderstand the question then you say "yes" when you mean "no," or you don't hear the topic they were asking about so you're commenting on the automobile industry instead of abortion. Misunderstanding the question does not result in the response Nicole noted:

He's such a damn liar.

Did someone say Ron DeSantis?

I don't know who's more stupid: Ronald or CNBC. They had an interview with Ronald where he lied non-stop -- that's not a surprise. But what was a surprise was the the reporter was so stupid he tries to move Ronald along when Ronald's making DISNEY's case for them (for DISNEY). Can he end the feud, he's asked? No, he responds back because of DISNEY content. That's really not the role of a governor. And that really strengthens DISNEY's case. But when you work for CNBC, you aren't paid for having brains.

In more bad news for Ronald, James Bickerton (NEWSWEEK) reports:

Ron DeSantis has slipped into third place in the race to be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, behind Donald Trump and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, according to a new poll.

The survey, by polling company Cygnal, found 10 percent of likely Republican primary voters have DeSantis as their preferred GOP candidate, against 53 percent for Trump and 11 percent for Ramaswamy. A spokesperson for the Ramaswamy campaign told Newsweek "he's just getting warmed up."

Don't worry, Ronald, for you, it gets worse. Julia Manchester (THE HILL) reports:

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has surpassed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in the critical early presidential primary state of New Hampshire, according to a new Emerson College survey released on Tuesday.

Christie leapfrogged DeSantis’s second place in the Granite State, garnering nine percent support. DeSantis’s support, on the other hand fell to eight percent from 17 percent in March. Christie’s one-point lead over DeSantis falls within the poll’s plus or minus 3.4 percent margin of error.

The following sites updated:

Monday, August 14, 2023

Kim Brown's BURN IT DOWN and Doo-Doo DeSantis' faltering campaign

First, be sure to read Ava and C.I.'s "Media: The guessing game passed off as reporting." I thought it should have gone up last night but Jim was convinced we could pull off a full edition of THIRD and we could finish up on Monday evening. We couldn't have. C.I. went ahead and poster her piece with Ava this morning because it deals with climate change and she was doing the Iraq snapshot and addressing it in there as well. I'm glad she posted it this morning.

Now this is BURN IT DOWN WITH KIM BROWN.

And let's move on to Doo-Doo Ron Ron DeSantis. Anna Skinner (NEWSWEEK) reports:

Sarah Longwell, a Republican political strategist, said on Sunday that support for 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is dwindling in such a way that conservative focus groups are no longer mentioning the Florida governor's name.

DeSantis was long viewed as the GOP's best chance at overcoming former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. However, support for DeSantis has faltered in recent weeks. Critics of the governor have bashed his handling of Florida's insurance crisis, while others have said that DeSantis is placing too much focus on culture wars instead of producing a strong economic plan.

According to Longwell, the proof of DeSantis's faltering campaign is evident considering he is no longer being mentioned in conservative focus groups.

"I have to tell you, he has been getting killed in the focus groups and it's not even that kind of criticism. We always ask people who do you want to see be the 2024 nominee? And six months ago, Ron DeSantis, he would always come up. He was the first one. If it wasn't Trump, it was him," she said during an appearance on CNN's Inside Politics on Sunday. "People don't even mention him right now."

Great news. And the good news continues:

The crash and burn of the Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign, long before the first GOP primary, is not coming as any surprise to an assortment of Republican Party lawmakers who dealt with him when he served in Congress and now during his tenure as Florida's governor.

As three-time indicted Donald Trump is steamrollering the opposition on his way to a third GOP presidential nomination, DeSantis, who looked like a legitimate contender, has seen his poll numbers go into a death spiral.

According to a report from the Washington Post's Josh Dawsey, DeSantis did round up some support for his bid among GOP lawmakers in his state, but a substantial number fell in line behind Donald Trump -- some out of fear of the vindictive former president.

As the report notes, DeSantis' personality -- or lack of it --was also a major contributing factor in GOP reluctance to endorse him.

According to former Florida GOP Charman Joe Gruters, "The more he is met by people, the more they are not going to like him. The more he’s out there, the more his numbers go down. It’s not a good long-term scenario for him. I fully expected the downfall of his campaign a long time ago.”

"Interviews with more than 30 people in Florida and Washington who worked closely with DeSantis — many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe their interactions with him — indicate that expectations were lower among some who knew him closely in Tallahassee — and that they always expected the candidate to be the challenge," the Post is reporting.

The report adds, "... in interviews, Florida Republicans described an aloof governor who believed in 'sticks and no carrots,' according to a senior Florida official, and whose idea of negotiating was 'my way or the highway,' in the words of another. An insular governor who infrequently talked to some senior members in his own Cabinet, including his top law enforcement officials, or other leading Republicans. A congressman who seemed to avoid any opportunity to make friends with others in the delegation. A politician who rarely tried to connect with donors and supporters and seemed to not enjoy being around crowds or attending events. A governor who sometimes declined to participate in a lot of the customary niceties in politics, such as thank you notes and calls to donors."

Ha ha. They know him. They know how disgusting he is. The American people are learning that as well. We need teachers, for example, and Doo-Doo Ron Ron has made that harder in Florida. Khaleda Rahman (NEWSWEEK) reports:

Florida's teacher shortage has got even worse, with almost 7,000 positions vacant across the state as students headed back to school after summer break.

There were 5,294 teacher vacancies in Florida in January this year, according to the Florida Education Association's (FEA) count of vacancies posted on district websites. The number of support staff vacancies was 4,631.

It was the "worst teacher and staff shortage we've ever seen in the state of Florida," FEA President Andrew Spar told Newsweek earlier this year.

But that number has now climbed even higher.

There were 6,920 advertised vacancies for teachers as of August 7, according to the FEA's latest count. Students in most Florida school districts went back to school on August 10. There were also another 5,072 advertised vacancies for support staff.

The FEA blames the high number of vacancies on the education policies of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Is this what you want for your children? A sub-standard education? It's bad enough that Florida's children are falling behind. We can't let him do that to the whole country.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Monday, August 14, 2023. Climate change gets worse in Iraq but everyone averts their eyes, Ronald DeSantis does more damage to the state of Florida and we can't afford pretense and ignorance. We don't have the luxury of either.

Anna Louise (NATURE WORLD NEWS) reports:

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk paid a four-day visit to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, the oil-rich southern city of Basra, and Irbil in the northern semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

[. . .]

The UN official underscored that Iraq is one of the world's most vulnerable countries to climate change and that what is happening in the country is a "climate emergency" that has to be addressed, not just for the country but for the world.

"What is happening here is a window into a future that is now coming for other parts of the world - if we continue to fail in our responsibility to take preventive and mitigating action against climate change," Türk said in a press statement.

Some people refuse to recognize what is before their very eyes. Derren Chan (JURIST) adds:

Water scarcity has been a long-standing issue in Iraq due to climate change and government mismanagement. Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported about Iraq’s water shortage in 2019, citing government mismanagement as one of the major reasons for the full-blown crisis in 2018. The series of mismanagement include poor management of upstream water sources, inadequate regulation of pollution and sewage, and chronic neglect and mismanagement of water infrastructure.

Despite the protests that stemmed from the full-blown water crisis, droughts persist in Iraq. In 2021, UNICEF reported that 60 percent of Iraqi children do not have access to safely managed water services and less than half of all schools in the country have access to water. On Tuesday, the Iraqi Minister of Water Resources also announced that water levels in Iraq are the lowest they have ever been. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) also observed that 13 villages in Al Hadam have been displaced due to water scarcity. The IOM also recorded over 20,000 climate migrants in Iraq at the end of 2021.

Türk noted the Iraqi government’s commitment to address the challenges of climate change and water scarcity. However, he also highlighted the government’s oppression of journalism and civil society actors hinders the government’s work in awareness raising, legislative and policy reform, and capacity building of institutions. Türk also provided notice that the UN would soon release their report on freedom of expression in Iraq.

Laure al-Khoury (AL-MONITOR) reports:

Last week during a visit to Baghdad, United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk warned that "rising temperatures plus the drought, and the fact that the loss of diversity is a reality, is a wake-up call for Iraq and for the world".

Sada'a Saleh Mohamed, a local official overseeing finances at the Habbaniyah resort, said "the lake has receded" and tourism has become "really very weak".

"The lake has become a pond of stagnant water, unsuitable for consumption or for swimming," he said.

When evening fell and temperatures dropped slightly, a few people finally arrived to barbecue on the beach.

Qassem Lafta came with his family from the nearby city of Fallujah.

"Before, we would come here and it was much better, the water was higher," said the 45-year-old merchant.

He said he hoped authorities would revive the lake.

"It's the only place where people from Anbar, southern Iraq and Baghdad can come to relax."

Last night I dreamed I saw the planet flicker
Great forests fell like buffalo
Everything got sicker
And to the bitter end
Big business bickered
And they call for the three great stimulants
Of the exhausted ones
Artifice brutality and innocence
Artifice and innocence

-- "The Three Great Stimulants," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her DOG EAT DOG

RUDAW notes this morning:

Iraq loses over 400 thousand dunums of agricultural land annually due to the effects of climate change and increasing temperatures in the country, Iraqi state media on Monday cited the representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Iraq.

“Climate change represents a direct threat to the country, and this threat can be seen in water scarcity, dust storms, extreme heat waves, desertification, food security, loss of biodiversity, and land degradation,” Auke Lootsma, UNDP Iraq representative told Iraqi state media.

“Iraq loses about 400 thousand dunums of agricultural land annually,” he added.

Lootsma said that Iraq is classified as fifth among the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, adding that the temperature in Iraq increases on average two to seven times faster in Iraq compared to other countries.

But no one wants to address it or deal with it. Everyone looks the other way and pretends it's not happening as they rush to announce the latest big drilling deal. As though all this oil production isn't exactly why Iraq is so threatened by climate change. That's exactly what's put it at the forefront of destruction. And greed is clearly more important to the government -- and governments outside of Iraq -- than protecting people.

And I just went over to THIRD and published Ava and my "Media: The guessing game passed off as reporting." The plan was to regroup tonight and finish the edition. Sorry. Ava and I wrote that yesterday and what's above is part of it. In the Houston area, you have people dying from the heat. A couple in Baytown is who we zoom in on and the online 'conversation' about that couple? Vapid and ignorant. They're blamed for the fact that they died. It's not climate change with the 100 degrees days of heat, it's not the lack of response from government, no, instead online people want to say it's that they were probably Trump voters or that they should have gone to the mall (the mall in their area closed in 2020) as though you can go to sleep in the mall? They died from the heat after their air conditioning broke. They were retired and on a fixed income and the a.c. broke well after the first of the month (when Social Security checks arrive).

This is a climate crisis and it's happening all over the world. How very nice for lazy and ineffective leaders that we would rather trash the victims of climate change than hold leaders and governments accountable.

Iraq's experiencing a heat wave. RUDAW notes:

In response to the soaring temperatures, Dhi Qar governor Mohammed Hadi al-Ghazi declared Sunday a public holiday and shortened working hours by an hour. Additionally, Diyala Governor Muthanna al-Tamimi announced that governmental institutions in the province will work half-days. Other provinces are likely to follow suit.

Iraqi Civil Defense issued instructions to citizens on Saturday, advising them to exercise caution during the heat wave, recommending care with cars and electrical devices, conserving electricity, and avoiding walking during the hottest part of the day.

High summer temperatures are not new in Iraq, particularly in the south which regularly experiences temperatures around 50 degrees Celsius. However, a lack of access to basic services such as water and electricity make it difficult for people to cope with the heat.

The effects of climate change have also made matters worse. According to the United Nations, Iraq is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change, including water and food insecurity. It is facing a severe water shortage because of reduced precipitation, higher temperatures, and waste and mismanagement.

ANADOLU AGENCY adds, "To make matters worse, citizens are dealing with frequent power cuts. Only three to five hours of electricity is being provided by the national grid in Baghdad. The people of Baghdad receive electricity from neighborhood generators in exchange for money. Low-income families cannot benefit from this service."

Instead of addressing the needs of the people, the corrupt leaders do what? Scapegoat. In Iraq, where US Moms for Bigotry would fit right in, they are trying to outlaw the terms LGBTQ+. They don't want it said. Hmm. Who does that sound like? Ronald DeSantis. Yes. Ronald DeSantis, the US politician who would like to destroy America the same way he's destroying Florida.

Last week, Joseph Reberkenny (METRO WEEKLY) reported:

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis claims he has never “demeaned” gay people in a recent interview as he seeks to do damage control as he performs poorly in primary polls.

The 2024 Republican presidential candidate sat down with Fox News’s Bret Baier on last week to defend recent campaign choices, including airing an ad that people on both sides of the political aisle have deemed homophobic. He also defended his record as governor, including his crusade to rid schools of “woke” ideology – whether that’s altering how African American history is taught, attempting to censor the College Board’s AP Psychology course, making it easier to ban books, or barring LGBTQ discussions in classrooms.

The ad, for which DeSantis has received flak, was originally posted by another user and shared to the DeSantis campaign’s rapid-response team “DeSantis War Room” account on the platform formerly known as Twitter on the last day of Pride Month.

The video, which has homoerotic overtones, starts by showing past statements from Donald Trump supporting the LGBTQ community, including supporting the idea of a trans woman competing in the Miss Universe competition (which Trump owned at the time) with a rainbow filter. It then switches to dramatic and darker pictures of DeSantis (one of which has lightning shooting from his eyes) with headlines touting his overwhelming anti-LGBTQ efforts in Florida spliced with images of scantily-clad bodybuilders, gladiator stock reel, and clips from the movie American Psycho.

[. . .]

DeSantis has a long history of being anti-LGBTQ, starting with his “Don’t Say Gay” bill which prohibits classroom discussions of LGBTQ people in public schools, as well as his administration’s exhaustive anti-trans actions – whether through legislation, rulemaking, or executive orders – that prohibit trans youth from medically transitioning or bar transgender people from using bathrooms that match their gender identity.

“I don’t believe in demeaning anybody, and we have not done that since I’ve been governor,” DeSantis told Baier, obviously flustered by Baier’s questions about the rapid-response team’s decision to share the much-panned video.

You know what's worse than a demagogue? One who won't own up to it even when caught red-handed. Jesse Scheckner (FLORIDA POLITICS) reports:

Gov. Ron DeSantis has named an outspoken opponent of LGBTQ equality to the appeals bench of Central and Southwest Florida.

DeSantis appointed Apopka lawyer Roger Gannam to serve as judge on the 6th District Court of Appeal, which hears cases from Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hardee, Hendry, Highlands, Lee, Polk, Orange and Osceola counties.

For the better part of a decade, Gannam has made headlines for his legal battles against LGBTQ rights for the Liberty Counsel, an evangelical organization the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as an extremist hate group.

All of this hate is having serious impacts in the state of Florid and, if Ronald ever got his ass back home, he might know that. Greg Owen (LGBTQ NATION) reports:

The good news about Ron DeSantis‘s push to “Make America Florida” is that the state has been an incubator for the far-right governor’s authoritarian policies for the last four years, and America gets to see the results.

They’re not good.

The latest fallout from DeSantis’s ill-conceived policies in the state where “woke goes to die” are data indicating there’s a brain drain plaguing the Sunshine State. A “brain drain” is when highly trained or intelligent people leave a particular region for better opportunities elsewhere.

Exhibit number one is the New College of Florida, a state university DeSantis targeted last year as a liberal “woke” breeding ground, and for its status as one of the most “gay-friendly” campuses in the country.

DeSantis planned to turn New College into the “Hillsdale of the South,” a reference to the private and infamously conservative Christian college in Michigan. The governor remade the school board in his own image, installing hand-picked conservatives to enable the far-right transformation — a “high-risk, high-reward gambit,” in the words of one member — that would serve as an example to conservative state legislators across the United States of how “to reconquer public institutions.”

The gambit has failed miserably.

The school made a shocking announcement in mid-July: 36 of the college’s approximately 100 full-time teaching positions were vacant, adding to mounting evidence that qualified educators are fleeing DeSantis’s Florida.

“All of the legislation surrounding higher education in Florida is chilling and terrifying,” Liz Leininger, an associate professor of neurobiology who is relocating to a college in Maryland, told The Guardian. “Imagine scientists who are studying climate change, imagine an executive branch that denies climate change – they could use these laws to intimidate or dismiss those scientists.”

It’s not just higher education feeling the brain drain pain.

DeSantis’s notorious Don’t Say Gay legislation and other restrictions on how sex and race can be addressed in classrooms — along with the fact he has denounced inclusive teachers as “grooming” and “indoctrinating” students — has put a chill into primary and secondary education as well.

Andrew Spar, President of the Florida Education Association, told Fox News 13 last week that there are approximately 8,000 teacher and 6,000 support staff vacancies across the state right now. Spar points to a toxic combination of conservative politics and low salaries for the shortage, noting Florida ranks 48th in the nation in average teacher pay.

“It’s one of the worst teacher shortage situations in the nation,” said Spar.

What's the main source of income, the provider of jobs in Florida? Tourism. Not only are groups cancelling conventions in Florida, tourists are wary to visit. Amelia Hansford (THE PINK NEWS) reports:

Orlando’s official tourism association is running adverts encouraging LGBTQ+ people to visit, despite Florida having some of the most extreme anti-LGBTQ+ state laws in the US.

A 60-second audio clip from Visit Orlando was broadcasted on iHeartRadio channels, including PRIDE Radio, reassuring listeners that the city is “ready to welcome you just as you are”.

“The possibilities are endless. And there are amazing LGBTQ+ events for you to experience where everyone is welcome,” the ad continues.

NBC News journalist Ben Collins spotted the advertisements while listening to a podcast, and wrote in a Thursday (10 August) tweet that the city was “down so bad it’s unbelievable”.

A similar advert by the tourism association from June titled “Orlando is full of Pride” features a few of the city’s LGBTQ+ residents speaking about why it is a safe place for queer people.

One person who speaks in the video ad says: “The way our city is set up, there are so many pockets of multicultural groups.

From April of last year to April of this year, tourism was down 3.5% and Ronald and his war on African-Americans and LGBTQ+ communities was a lot less obvious to the country back then.