flta

Good. These stadium “deals” are always a billionaire’s way to socialize the cost and privatize the profits.

The vast majority of Americans believe democracy, despite its problems, is the best system of government. But polling shows that far fewer younger voters agree.

The nationwide poll conducted in mid-March by Florida Atlantic University found 73% of voters agree that “Democracy may have problems, but it is the best system of government,” including 50% who strongly agree. Just 13% disagree.

But the youngest group of voters, those from 18 to 35, felt much differently.

Slightly more than half — 53% — agreed it’s the best system of government. Just 15% strongly agree while a quarter — 25% — disagreed.

…

People who said they plan to vote for former President Donald Trump, the presumed Republican nominee, in November were 22 percentage points less likely to agree that democracy is the best system of government than people who said they plan to vote for President Joe Biden.

Among Biden voters, 85% agree democracy is the best form of government even though it may have problems, 6% disagree, and 10% don’t agree or disagree.

Among Trump voters, 63% agree, 18% disagree, 19% don’t agree or disagree.

First part was unexpected but second part was not. Other highlight from the article was that there was no major difference by gender with men in the survey polling higher than women about their support of democracy.

The Republican-controlled Florida Legislature has unveiled another election bill that would further restrict where voters can drop off mail-in ballots and also force party primary candidates into runoffs if they don’t get more than 50% of the vote.

….

State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, called the continued attempt at culling drop boxes “unnecessary and politically motivated.”


“Republicans continue to feed into its rhetoric that elections are stolen and are not legitimate,” Eskamani said. “… When you limit the options for folks, it is intentionally designed to just make it harder to vote.”


But Eskamani said the other major proposal in the new bill, a return to primary runoffs for state and federal races, was “worthy of exploration,” even if she couldn’t support the overall bill.

Currently, party primaries are held the third week of August. Whoever gets the most votes in their respective primaries, even if just a plurality, face off in the November election.


The new bill would change the primary date to the third week of June. Any primary race in which the winner doesn’t receive more than 50% of the vote would move to a runoff between the top two candidates in August, with the winner of that primary securing his or her party’s nomination.

Despite the unneeded restrictions on the ballot drop boxes the changing of the primaries would be really good.

From Hallandale to Deerfield Beach, local political leaders are becoming nervous about the potential delays in the development of the proposed Broward Commuter Rail service that would operate along the Florida East Coast Railway line.

The immediate chief hurdle: a new rail crossing at downtown Fort Lauderdale’s New River. Mayor Dean Trantalis and business interests that support him want a tunnel. Broward County commissioners and other local leaders favor a bridge.

The next window for a funding application to Washington opens in February and the county is nowhere near the point where it can submit one. If no agreement is reached, some fear that hundreds of millions of dollars will be lost.

Mayor Trantalis is killing the Broward Commuter Rail which in turn is ruining projects throughout SFL. Please contact the mayor’s office and tell his staff that you want Mayor Trantalis to stop blocking the bridge.

The Pew poll found strong support for policies such as legalizing accessory dwelling units, commonly known as granny flats, on single-family zoned areas; legalizing duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes; reforms to create affordable housing development near major transit; and simplifying the housing permitting process.

Efforts to expedite permitting processes gained the broadest support, with 86%, while at the lower end, 49% approved of the ideas of allowing smaller lots and homes to be built closer together.

…

In Minneapolis; Portland, Oregon; New Rochelle, New York; and Tysons Corner, Virginia, new zoning rules that allow more housing have helped slow rent growth, according to a study this year by Pew Charitable Trusts. Towns and cities in the same metro areas that did not reform zoning laws generally saw faster rent growth. While rents nationwide grew 31% nationwide from 2017 to 2023, rents in those four cities all grew under 5%, according to the study.

Despite the favorable polling on housing reforms, local political opposition to new housing development in single-family neighborhoods often can remain strong. People tend to be supportive of more housing in general, just as long as it’s not right next to them.

If you care about affordable housing, make sure to attend your own city council’s meetings to voice support for affordable housing because there is 2-12 NIMBYs already advocating against it.

Right-wing commentators like Steven Crowder and Matt Walsh have ramped up complaints in recent months that it is too easy for people — specifically women — to get divorces. All states currently have some version of a no-fault divorce law, but Republicans in Texas and Nebraska list the dissolution or restriction of no-fault divorce in their state party political platforms.

In Louisiana earlier this year, state GOP members debated officially backing the dissolution of no-fault divorce, but no decision was made.

So we have the Democratic Party protecting and even expanding women’s rights in the states they control while the GOP has already dismantled reproductive rights and are now angling to repeal no-fault divorce.

Yet millions of people will say “Both sides” as they either not vote, vote Republican, or vote 3rd party while agreeing that no-fault divorce should be allowed…

Since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, when cruise ships filled with sickened passengers were blocked from U.S. ports, residents in Key West, Fla., have been trying to limit the size and number of vacation vessels on the tiny island, using the momentum created during the pandemic to argue for continuing restrictions on cruise vessels.

Activists flooded City Commission meetings, protested on the dock, collected signatures and managed to pass three ballot measures in 2020 imposing stricter controls to protect the marine environment and limit passengers to 1,500 a day — only to see the state Legislature, with the approval of Gov. Ron DeSantis, void the new restrictions the following year.

Now the wealthy hotelier who operates Key West’s cruise ship port is doubling down, asking the state for permission to expand, which would allow bigger ships with more passengers to operate legally out of the port.

The issue will soon land on the desk of Mr. DeSantis, who has received nearly $1 million in campaign donations from the pier’s owner. It represents a tough balancing act for the Republican governor, a 2024 presidential candidate who has touted his environmental record but has also been a booster of Florida’s tourism industry.

Hopefully Key West wises up and doesn’t vote for Republicans next year.

For those in Key West, get organized by joining the Florida Keys Democratic Club!

This is implying Jill Stein doesn’t know she is helping Republicans with her failed 3rd party run.

At the time, the state senator falsely claimed that an “African American Confederate soldier” had designed the flag. “I can only imagine how proud he was that his art, his flag design was chosen to represent our State and now we want to strip him of his pride, his hard work. I’m sure he put a lot of thought into this design,” Chism wrote in a June 2020 Facebook post.

In fact, a white supremacist lawmaker, Sen. Edward N. Scudder of Issaquena County, designed the 1894 flag. In a 1924 speech to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, his daughter Fayssoux Scudder Corneil explained his motives for designing the flag: “My father loved the memory of the valor and courage of those brave men who wore the gray … and has always taken keen interest in the reunions where he could meet and mingle with those of the Lost Cause. He told me that it was a simple matter for him to design the flag because he wanted to perpetuate in a legal and lasting way that dear battle flag under which so many of our people had so gloriously fought.”

Mississippi entered the Civil War in an effort to protect the institution of slavery, as the the state’s Declaration of Secession explains. Chism’s county, Union County, was formed in 1870—the same year Mississippi was readmitted to the Union.

JFC

Mr. Huckins and his wife, Ginger, were leaving Portland, Ore., one of the most progressive cities in the United States. They said Portland’s tolerance of homeless encampments, along with the open use of hard drugs and rising crime, had filled them with despair. So they headed 2,000 miles east, to deep-red rural Missouri.

Driving around their new hometown in June, about an hour outside St. Louis, they admired the old Victorians and a tractor defying the minimum speed limit on a state road.

“One thing I do like about Missouri, there’s lots of American flags,” Mr. Huckins said as he steered around a traffic circle where the Stars and Stripes flapped crisply on a pole. “In Portland, the American flag was offensive.”

One day earlier, in a neighboring state, another couple making a politically motivated move had a different flag on display — a Pride flag on a T-shirt.

Jennie and Jeff Noble were packing their possessions into a 26-foot U-Haul truck in suburban Iowa. Ms. Noble, 37, who was wearing the Pride T-shirt, and her husband were leaving Iowa for Minnesota.

Their only child, Julien, came out as transgender at age 11. Now 16, Julien uses prescription testosterone. After Iowa banned gender-affirming medical care for minors, criminalizing their son’s treatments, the Nobles — lifelong Iowans — concluded they had to get out.

“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly said, when asked if he wanted to weigh in on his former boss in light of recent comments made by other former Trump officials. “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.

“A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women,” Kelly continued. “A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.

“There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.”

Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, testified on Monday that Google’s power in online search was so ubiquitous that even his company found it difficult to compete on the internet, becoming the government’s highest-profile witness in its landmark antitrust trial against the search giant.

In more than three hours of testimony in federal court in Washington, Mr. Nadella was often direct and sometimes combative as he laid out how Microsoft could not overcome Google’s use of multibillion-dollar deals to be the default search engine on smartphones and web browsers.

The internet was really the “Google web,” Mr. Nadella told the packed courtroom, adding that Google could now use its advantage and scale to build tools to dominate the emerging artificial intelligence industry.

The image of the chief executive of a leading tech rival — Microsoft is one of the world’s biggest public companies, valued at $2.4 trillion — saying it could not easily fight Google was striking. Mr. Nadella’s testimony underscored how entrenched Google has become in online search as the government seeks to prove that the company broke monopoly laws by striking anticompetitive deals to crush rivals.