Florida’s department of environmental protection has fired a whistleblower who exposed and sank governor Ron DeSantis’s secretive plan to pave over environmentally sensitive state parks and build lucrative hotels, golf courses and pickleball courts.
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News of his firing came as two Democratic state representatives pressed the agency about who was involved in drawing up plans that appeared to include no-bid contracts destined for mysteriously pre-chosen developers outside the requirements of Florida law.
“Firing a cartographer who had clear concerns about the process of this plan and the lack of transparency around it is 100% retaliatory,” said Anna Eskamani, who wrote a joint letter to Shawn Hamilton, secretary of the Florida department of environmental protection (DEP) with fellow state congresswoman Angie Nixon
“I don’t think that Vice President Harris is a worthy president of this country,” Kennedy told NewsNation host Chris Cuomo. “I think we need to have a president who can give an interview, who can articulate a vision, who can put together an English sentence, who can articulate her and defend her policies and her record and who can engage in a debate with, and regular debates unscripted appearances, president or vice president.”
All while backing a guy who loves to talk gibberish
The military entrance exams, like police academy exams, test for intelligence as well as aptitude, and while a higher grade might get you into an officer rather than enlisted program, too high a grade and you’re deemed not a good fit. So then what?
This made me think of the distinction Asperger made, sending autistic people who did not also have high intellectual skills straight to the ovens, but experimenting with what are now known (there are issues with the classification, but we’ll ignore that for now) as Level 1 autists to see if they could be of some special use to the Nazis with their high functioning intellectual skills.
We — rational, caring people — think that smart kids going through the public educational system should also have access to whatever career path they are well suited for, even if that means extra help/funding to make it possible. But with Project 2025, only kids whose parents are already in a position to send them to private school will have access to real choice, whereas the required exam in public schools will be more like a cattle chute, not just for those with normal intelligence, but even more so for those with high skills.
Big Tobacco Seizes Upon Biden’s Menthol Cigarette Ban to Try to Drive a Wedge Between Harris and Black Voters
The 30-second ad accuses Biden and Harris of being “out of touch” with the day-to-day economic concerns of Black Americans– especially job loss and inflation. “Instead of solving the problems that matter to you, Kamala Harris and D.C. Democrats are coming after your menthol cigarettes,” the narrator says. “We’ve got bigger problems to deal with, and so do Democrats,” says the ad, which includes headlines about the “border crisis” and the “fentanyl crisis” displayed on the screen.
Some analysts are skeptical that the ad has the potential to influence many Black voters. When the two group’s first tested out their new ad in South Carolina during the Democratic primary last February, they found that most of the state’s voters supported the menthol ban. Still, a significant share of Black voters responded positively to messaging that suggested that the ban would “criminalize” legal activity by Blacks and also fuel police abuses. The groups have also run the same messaging in selected congressional districts, though the results of those efforts are unknown. Apparently, they’re satisfied enough with the results to try a much larger roll-out in the swing states, knowing that razon-thin shifts in Black voting could ultimately tilt the balance in November.
Anti-smoking activists, joined by the NAACP, are appalled at the activities of Sharpton’s group and the ACLU. NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson has blasted their efforts publicly. “Tobacco use has been a serious health crisis in the African American community,” Johnson said last February. “The fact that every flavor has been banned, except the one flavor that research shows is more attractive to African Americans shows that the industry has created a discriminatory practice against the African American community.” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, the city’s first female mayor, and a close African-American ally of VP Kamala Harris, has even agreed to appear on camera in ads sponsored by the Campaign for a Tobacco-Free Future to drum up more support for the menthol ban.
But the Harris campaign isn’t taking any chances. So far, it hasn’t taken a position on the ban, and sources say it’s not planning to take a position until the election is over. That may sound like smart politics but with early voting starting shortly, in states like North Carolina, where R.J. Reynolds has its base, Harris & Co. may not have much choice but to speak out on the issue, especially as the new conservative ad campaign gathers force.
