Florida sinks to a new low

Welcome to a Wednesday evening edition of Progress Report.

I’ve been working on a big story over the past few days, but the chaos of the world around us keeps interrupting that process. I’ll be able to send it out tomorrow, but in the meantime, let’s check in on a crazy week of news, yeah?

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DeSantis Sinks to New Lows

Look, I’ve made it my mission to change the lazy media narrative that once sprung up around Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He’s made my job easier by putting together a stunning run of sociopathy, from his ongoing fight against the far more clever Disney to malfunctioning like a cheap toy robot any time he has to speak to the process or confront critics.

Ron is likely to sign a number of horrid new bills into law over the next few weeks; on Wednesday alone, the legislature passed an expansion of the Don’t Say Gay law, a discriminatory trans bathroom ban that guarantees further violence, and a horrible new anti-immigrant law that makes it illegal to drive undocumented immigrants and gives Ron millions of dollars to kidnap more migrants and put them on a plane.

There’s more to be said on this front, but tonight I’m focused on a different kind of cowardice.

My friend (who is a regular contributor to this newsletter) Thomas was one of 14 people arrested today while peacefully protesting in front of DeSantis’s office along with other members of the Dream Defenders. They’ve got a bail fund going, if you can spare a few bucks and donate, that would be amazing.

Donate to the Dream Defenders Bail Fund

Who Needs Democracy?

Texas keeps trying to one-up Florida, and it’s honestly pretty close. The GOP majority in the state House yesterday passed the unprecedented Death Star bill, bringing local democracy one step closer to the brink. If this thing passes, years of work in blue cities to pass things like enhanced worker rights, abortion and weed decriminalization, and housing reforms will be wiped away in one fell swoop.

And that was only one part of Texas’s unprecedented offensive against the public good and self-governance.