Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas released a statement to try to quell the furor sparked by yesterday’s ProPublica report on his extensive luxury travel on the dime of GOP megadonor Harlan Crow: (NYT gift link) “Early in my tenure at the court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was …
Domestic Politics
Fighting Dems in Florida
After the most recent election debacle in Florida and the ritual resignation of the state party leaders associated with it, former agriculture commissioner (and Charlie Crist primary opponent) Nikki Fried stepped up to run for state party chair and won. Lots of folks were skeptical of Fried, and not wholly without reason, but maybe Fried …
House of Mouse Strikes Back
Despite much hoopla, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his statehouse minions’ moves against the Disney corporation have mostly been a ritualized display of aggression, IMO. He did violate the company’s First Amendment rights by using state power to punish speech he didn’t like, but it’s not like Big Mouse can easily haul up stakes and …
Squishable Morning Thread: Free Speech
Greg Sargent at The Post wrote a column (gift link) about a new bill moving through the Florida statehouse that will supercharge the conservative book-banning spree. As we discussed yesterday, some school district officials (in Pinellas County, for example) are in a defensive crouch and snatch books off school shelves if even a single kook …
SunBund Report: Squeaky Wheels Edition
Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria at Popular Information have the details behind why the school district in Pinellas County, Florida removed a 25-year-old Disney movie about Ruby Bridges, a black six-year-old who desegregated an all-white elementary school in New Orleans in 1960. The PG-rated, made-for-TV movie was used as an educational film for decades until Gov. …
Democracy on the Line
Ron DeSantis is a whining, peevish horror show of a politician across multiple issues, as we’ve discussed in detail in this space. But I think his statement about Ukraine yesterday — and to whom he chose to make that statement — is worth highlighting because it confirms something most of us already suspected: DeSantis doesn’t …
SunBund Report
Article published in The Verge in 2014: Putin signs law forcing bloggers to register with Russian media office President Vladimir Putin has signed a law tightening the Russian government’s already strong hold on the internet. Earlier this week, Putin officially passed what’s become known as the “bloggers law,” which requires popular internet writers to follow …