Wesley Yang zeroes in on what it means for Wash. to force women’s spa to admit nude intact biological men

Best of luck to anyone who’s still living in Washington State. Especially anyone who takes issue with being forced to welcome a naked man into a women’s environment. Looks like those people are just SOL now.

At least if this story is any indication:

More from Reduxx:

Haven Wilvich had sought a membership at the Olympus Spa in January of 2020, but had been denied on the basis that he had not undergone “gender reassignment” surgeries and his penis was fully intact.

In March of 2021, the [Washington State Human Rights Commission] served the spa with a Notice of Complaint of Discrimination and asked the owners to respond to the claim they had acted in a discriminatory manner. Sun Lee drafted a statement standing by their women-only rule.

Two weeks later, the WSHRC ruled that the spa had violated Washington anti-discrimination law, stating that the female-only policy “denies services to transgender women who have not had surgery … because their physical appearance is not ‘consistent’ with the traditional understanding of biological women.”

In March of 2022, Olympus Spa sued Andreta Armstrong, the executive director of the Washington State Human Rights Commission, asserting that the actions taken against them violated their First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of association.

But a Washington District Court dismissed their lawsuit on Monday, upholding the ruling by the WSHRC and affirming that the measures taken to prevent the spa from having a female-only policy were lawful.

Just FYI, here’s the pre-transitioned “tall, bearded transfemme” known as Caleb Wilvich, who, as a trans woman with fully intact male genitalia, decided to go after the spa owners because they didn’t feel comfortable allowing someone like xer into a space reserved for nude women — and with whom Washington’s government sided over the Christian spa owners and all of the spa’s female patrons:

Think maybe the owners of Olympus Spa had a point?

Conservative writer Wesley Yang — like any reasonable person who gives a damn about women’s welfare — is nothing short of disgusted that hardworking immigrant business owners’ livelihoods are at stake because they believe in the truth of biological sex. And he put together a caustic thread to highlight the absolute insanity of this story as well as its disturbing social implications:

Here’s the full text of that tweet:

Some authoritative body — perhaps SCOTUS — will eventually have to render a definitive ruling on the question “What is a Woman?”

Photo collages like these are important — not because these folx are the modal “transwoman,” but rather because the definition that the Washington States Human Rights Commission and a federal district court judge just enforced (“all self-identified women regardless of surgery or genitals”) is necessarily inclusive of all these people in these pictures and it is thus important to see what that definition means in practice.

And the full text of that last tweet:

This is what we are urging women to welcome into their intimate spaces — and indeed, if we recognize gender self-ID as the Biden Administration and Democratic Party and affiliated educational and cultural apparatuses are working tirelessly to grant — it is what no women will have a right to say no to.

This is about more than just an attention whore trying to browbeat innocent people into submission; this is about state-sanctioned — state-mandated, really — threats to business owners and endangerment of women and girls.

At the risk of sounding like broken records, we’ll say it again: This has to stop. People have already gotten hurt and will continue to get hurt as long as far-Left policies are allowed to stand and spread.

This has to stop.

***

Related:

Fed-up parent offers a look at what first-graders in Wash.’s Edmonds School District are learning about gender [pic]

***

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In Disney Lawsuit, Ron DeSantis Dick-Kicked *Himself*

It is delightful watching Florida failson Ron DeSantis’s political aspirations flame out so spectacularly. Even before the klieg lights of an official presidential campaign, he’s demonstrated that he’s both unserious and unlikable — plus getting saddled with the Tiny D moniker and forcing us all to contemplate him eating pudding with his hands. But perhaps the most egregiously self-inflicted dick-kicking is the debacle of DeSantis’s war on Walt Disney.

After Disney offered mild criticism of the governor’s filthy “Don’t Say Gay” bill that made it illegal to acknowledge the existence of gay people in schools, DeSantis vowed to take revenge on the company.

“I think they crossed the line,” he said at a press conference the next day. “We’re going to make sure we’re fighting back when people are threatening our parents and threatening our kids.”

Now, just as it’s hard to prove actual malice in a defamation case (hey, Fox!), it is very hard to establish someone’s subjective motivation in court. And furthermore, there’s a strong presumption in favor of legislative regularity — that is, courts will assume that legislators are acting in good faith when they pass laws. A politician would have to be an absolute fucking idiot to tell a reporter, “I though it was a mistake for Disney to get involved and I told them, ‘You shouldn’t get involved, it’s not going to work out well for you.”


Only a moron would write in the Wall Street Journal: “When corporations try to use their economic power to advance a woke agenda, they become political, and not merely economic, actors. In such an environment, reflexively deferring to big business effectively surrenders the political battlefield to the militant left. […] Leaders must stand up and fight back when big corporations make the mistake, as Disney did, of using their economic might to advance a political agenda. We are making Florida the state where the economy flourishes because we are the state where woke goes to die.”

And if we might quote Disney’s very good lawyers, only someone drunk on power would surround himself with sycophants so singularly dedicated to saying the quiet part out loud:

Senator Joe Gruters said, “Disney is learning lessons and paying the political price of jumping out there on an issue.”

The House bill’s sponsor, Representative [Randy] Fine, proudly confirmed that the Legislature had “looked at special districts” only because “Disney kicked the hornet’s nest” by expressing a disfavored political viewpoint. “What changed,” he said, was “bringing California values to Florida.”

Christina Pushaw, then Governor DeSantis’s press secretary, warned corporations that might consider expressing disfavored viewpoints, “Go woke, go broke.”

[…]

Senator [Doug] Broxson was explicit about the bill’s retaliatory intent: “We joined with the Governor in saying it was Disney’s decision to go from an apolitical, safe 25,000 acres, and try to be involved in public policy. […] We’re saying ‘you have changed the terms of our agreement, therefore we will put some authority around what you do.’ And I gladly join the Governor in doing that.”

Whodathunk that a party which mocks the Left for “safe spaces” would get so comfortable in the echo chamber of Fox News and its hill cousins OAN and Newsmax that it would forget that the rest of us can hear you when you confess that your intent is to violate the Constitution? Fitting, though, that it comes directly on the heels of Fox paying almost $800 million because its entire C-suite was messaging each other about the plan to feed the audience lies about election fraud in an effort to maintain market share.

After Disney and its very good lawyers had the outgoing board transfer much of its power to Disney, DeSantis once again promised vengeance.

“Come hell or high water we’re going to make sure that policy of Florida carries the day. And so they can keep trying to do things. But ultimately we’re going to win on every single issue involving Disney I can tell you that,” he told reporters. “That story’s not over yet. Buckle up. There’s going to be more coming down the pike.”

And indeed there was more, with incoming board members vowing to void the contract devolving power to the Walt Disney Company with approval from the Legislature. Yesterday, the new board — that is, the one whose members couldn’t be bothered to monitor public notices or attend their predecessors’ meetings where they signed that contract — met and passed a resolution declaring the contract void.

Within an hour, Disney filed a federal lawsuit seeking declaratory judgments that both of the laws passed by the Legislature regarding Disney’s special tax district are unconstitutional.

“There is no room for disagreement about what happened here: Disney expressed its opinion on state legislation and was then punished by the State for doing so,” they wrote, adding later, “This is as clear a case of retaliation as this Court is ever likely to see.”

As every lawyer predicted when the plan to magic away the contract was first floated (except for TinyD, who appears to have forgotten ConLaw), Disney alleges that the law violates the Contracts Clause, which provides that “No State shall … pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.” Similarly they allege violations of Due Process, the First Amendment, and the Takings Clause, since the state is in effect seizing private property for public use “without just compensation.”

It is just as hilariously unconstitutional as everyone said it was a year ago when DeSantis declared this fatwa on Mickey Mouse. Back then, the prevailing wisdom was that this goober would back down and not force Disney to confront him head on. But he didn’t … and so here we are.

And, PS: The case has been assigned to Judge Mark Walker, an Obama appointee who already struck down DeSantis’s “Stop Woke Act” DEI ban. EL-OH-EL.

[Walt Disney Parks & Resorts Inc. v. DeSantis, docket via Court Listener]

Catch Liz Dye on Opening Arguments podcast.

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This Week In Libelslander!

It’s a big week for defamation cases — and threats!

In the wake of Dominion settling its incredibly valid defamation lawsuit against Fox News for $787 million, it’s important to remember that most defamation cases are stupid bullshit that waste the time of our courts and taxpayer money, all in an effort to stop other people from criticizing the rich and powerful.

Why Did Fox News Settle And Why Didn’t They Do It Two Years Ago?

But remember we shall, thanks to three Republicans who couldn’t help but make fools of themselves in order to aid us all in our continuing civic education. In Texas, secessionists have filed a defamation lawsuit arguing that it’s illegal to call seceding from the union “seditious treason.” In Florida, a state legislator is threatening to sue her constituents for defamation for stating true facts to her face. And in Utah and/or DC, Senator Mike Lee continues to make us all wonder if he did, in fact, actually go to law school. (Maybe he attended with George Santos?)

So let’s dig in!


Let’s start in Texas

Jeff Leach is a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives. He’s, well, pretty terrible on most issues. He doesn’t think women are full citizens and supports total abortion bans. He opposes gun regulation, wants a constitutional amendment to ban state income tax, and supported SB 1, a voter disenfranchisement bill Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed last year.

However, unlike many other members of his party, Representative Leach does not actually support sedition and treason against the United States.

Texas always has some crazies talking about seceding from the union. And for extra special fun, those crazies include several Republican members of the state Legislature! Last month, these anti-America enthusiasts introduced HB 3596, which they call the “TEXIT Referendum Act.” In effect, the TEXIT bill would trigger a statewide vote on whether or not Texans want to engage in Civil War 2.0. (And not for nothing, the author of HB 3596 was none other than Representative Bryan Slaton, whose other key issues include calling drag queens groomers and taking rights away from women … and who has recently been credibly accused of sexual misconduct for preying on a young Capitol intern who is “under the age of 21.” In fact, he’s been so credibly accused that last night he resigned!)[Due to an editing mistake by me, the Editrix, we incorrectly said Slaton had resigned. In fact, that was an entirely different Tennessee Republican member of the House who resigned after serial grotesque sexual harassment of House interns. You can understand our mistake. No apologies to Bryan Slaton.]

To his credit, Leach was … not a fan of the TEXIT proposal.

(More good Leach tweets here on Texas secession here, here, and here.)

So far, Leach has been right and the TEXIT bill has not moved since being assigned to committee.

But now, we get to the good part.

Wednesday, while he was chairing a House Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence Committee hearing, Leach was served with a truly ridiculous defamation lawsuit about … his tweets.

The person suing Leach is Morgan McComb, a constituent with a very sane Twitter feed who fancies herself a “Republican activist.” She describes herself in her bio as “A TRUE Conservative TX Grassroots Leader, Mom & Patriot Community RE-Organizer. Rescues horses. God Guns Guts and Glory!” so you just know she’s on the level. McComb is also currently under felony indictment for violating Texas’s online impersonation statute. In 2020, she allegedly used “the name and photo of a rival Republican campaign operative in Frisco” and “used the account to publish the other campaigner’s records from family court, psychological and counseling records, and a criminal court record.” She seems nice!

So McComb is, umm, an interesting character. But when you come across a case this bad, you also have to consider the lawyer. McComb’s lawyer in this truly ridiculous case is Frisco-based Paul Davis. Davis is a supergenius who posted a video of himself outside the Capitol at the January 6 insurrection and still thinks he did nothing wrong. Since losing his old lawyer job for, you know, participating in a coup attempt, McComb has decided to make a name for himself by filing the worst lawsuits he can think of and branding himself a “lawyer for patriots.” He also has the dubious achievement of filing perhaps the most bogus of all the anti-democracy suits after the 2020 election, arguing the entire 117th Congress was “illegitimately elected.” (Here’s that complaint. It’s a doozy.)

The suit is being funded by the “Texas Nationalist Movement,” a group of people who are exactly who you think they are. TNM has apparently been excitedly hoping for an opportunity to file exactly this ridiculous lawsuit for a while now, with a blog on its site from July 2022 titled “Should TEXIT Supporters Sue Opposers Who Accuse Us of Treason?”

The suit against Leach for all the libelslander is pretty much what you would expect from all of these brilliant minds.

To the Complaint!

Although McComb whines about several of Leach’s tweets in the complaint, there is only one where he addresses her directly.

According to McComb, this defames both her and … the Texas secessionist movement?

“In fact, one obstacle to the movement for Texas independence is that many people mistakenly believe that it literally is sedition or treason to advocate for Texas independence.”

idk.

According to the complaint, Leach’s tweet is defamation per se, because “Neither McComb’s support for the TEXIT Bill nor a belief that “Texas should secede from the United States” fit the definition of treason or sedition under the United States Code or any other applicable law.”

Riiiiiiiight.

Adorably, taking a close look at the complaint itself shows just how meritless it is. The case the suit cites for support is Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity v. Dickinson, where the Texas Supreme Court just ruled … that it was not defamatory for a forced birth proponent to call abortion rights activists “murderers.”

We hold that the challenged statements are protected opinion about abortion law made in pursuit of changing that law, placing them at the heart of protected speech under the United States and Texas Constitutions. Such opinions are constitutionally protected even when the speaker applies them to specific advocacy groups that support abortion rights. In our state and nation, an advocate is free “to speak, write or publish his opinions on any subject,” perhaps most especially on controversial subjects like legalized abortion.

To most people with a modicum of logical reasoning, it would be pretty obvious that this case does not, in fact, support a finding of defamation here. But, according to the complaint,

Leach’s statements can be distinguished from
the statements at issue in the Dickson case because a reasonably
intelligent member of the public is not equipped with the same general
understanding and awareness that supporting Texas independence is not
sedition or treason as compared to the general understanding that
abortion is not legally defined to be murder.

In fact, one obstacle to the movement for Texas independence is that many people mistakenly believe that it literally is sedition or treason to advocate for Texas independence. Thus, the holding the Texas Supreme Court reversing the Dallas Court of Appeals holding in Dickson does not apply to the facts of this case. Therefore, under the reasoning of the Dickson precedent, Leach’s statement is actionable defamation.

No, I don’t have any ungodly idea what that is supposed to mean. And at no other point does the complaint attempt to explain why it’s constitutionally protected speech to call someone a murderer but not a traitor. Or, for that matter, how McComb and her buddies plan on seceding from the union without committing treason or sedition. Since in our history, seceding from the union tends to be an act of war, and therefore, you know, seditious treason.

But let’s not let facts get in the way of a good story!

Meanwhile, in Florida …

Earlier this week, Florida state Senator Ileana Garcia voted for SB 1718, a bill that would make it a felony for anyone in Florida to associate with an undocumented person. While a group of Floridians talked to Garcia about her vote, Thomas Kennedy, an immigrant and political activist, called her “illegitimate” and stated that she won her election because of “a ghost candidate.”

Guess what? It’s true! Alex Rodriguez, the ghost candidate in question, pleaded guilty to taking bribes in the election fraud scheme that helped elect Garcia. He was recruited by Frank Artiles, a former Florida state senator, who paid Rodriguez to change his party affiliation from Republican to independent and put his name on the ballot.

The reason? The incumbent Democrat in the district in question also had the last name Rodriguez. In the end, Rodriguez the ghost candidate, who did not campaign at all, received 6,382 votes. Garcia won her senate seat by 32 votes.

So, naturally, Senator Garcia’s response to a constituent pointing out this inconvenient truth was to threaten to sue him.


Kennedy: You have no validity. You won because of voter fraud.You’re illegitimate.

Garcia: llegitimate how, Thomas?

Kennedy: You won because of a ghost candidate funded by [Florida Power & Light].

Garcia: Put him on video saying that.

Kennedy (to Garcia staffer videotaping the exchange): You won because of a ghost candidate funded by FPL.

Garcia: If I sued you tomorrow for that comment, would you be up for that?

Kennedy: Sue me. Sue me. Sue me for defamation.

Garcia: It’s on record. It’s on record. It’s on record. We got a good defamation bill coming up. We got a good defamation bill coming. What’s coming up now, what’s coming up now is the validity of a couple of other things that are going on.

The bill Garcia is referring to here is SB 1220/HB 991, an anti-free speech proposal designed to stop people from criticizing Ron DeSantis and other Republicans. And in particular, it says that you don’t even have to prove you suffered any harm or damages if the defamation suit is about the fact that someone called you a racist, sexist, homophobe, or transphobe.

Yes, really. It is actually that bad. The bill has been condemned far and wide as an attack on free speech — which it absolutely is. In particular, it is intended to scare oppressed people into being afraid to publicly stand up for themselves. Make no mistake, SB 1220 is a fascist bill that is designed to silence critics and further oppress groups of people the state has already historically sought to disenfranchise.

It’s also incredibly unconstitutional, but the Roberts Court has given fascists every reason to think that they will do the bidding of their fellow Republicans, precedent and rule of law be damned.

Once again, for the cheap seats in the back: TRUE STATEMENTS ARE, CATEGORICALLY, NOT DEFAMATORY. But Garcia’s immediate jump to legal threats tells you exactly where she stands: She will use the legal system to silence her critics, even if she has to change the law to do it.

So that’s fun …

I always enjoy mocking this particular version of stupid bullshit. For whatever reason, it seems to be my sweet spot (luv u, Bob Murray, Diamond & Silk, and my buddies Monty and Steve). And while I do appreciate the entertainment, these kinds of lawsuits and threats are actually a huge problem in our legal system.

Because this isn’t just about one or two hilariously batshit cases. Using completely meritless lawsuits to try to shut up people who disagree with you is now a common tactic of politicians, the mega-rich, and other powerful people. From Donald Trump and Devin Nunes to Don Blankenship and Bob Murray, abusing the legal system to stifle free speech has become an everyday.

Just to get in on the fun, on Tuesday Utah Senator Mike Lee, otherwise known for his efforts to stage a coup, tweeted that it was defamation to report true facts about Clarence Thomas’s corruption.

Lee also showed his ass in this tweet (not literally, thank god). In addition to being just entirely wrong about the definition of defamation, the freedom-loving senator also made it a point to criticize New York Times v. Sullivan, the case that made it harder for public figures to sue people for being mean to them. For years, far-right looney toons like Lee and Donald Trump have been openly saying they want to be able to use the legal system to attack people for criticizing them. Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch have already written that they want to overturn Sullivan, because powerful men should be able to do whatever they want.

Now, it looks like Lee is even saying we should change the definition of defamation to include true facts. That is, emphatically, not a thing, but with this Supreme Court, who the fuck knows.

The American legal system is already set up to work for the rich and only the rich. Even when a lawsuit is entirely meritless, the people defending a defamation, libel, or slander lawsuit usually have to pay their own attorneys’ fees — and even if you get a lawsuit dismissed at an early stage, several hundred dollars an hour adds up quickly.

These kinds of lawsuits and threats also pose the danger of simply stifling critical speech before it is uttered. Most of the time, scaring people into silence is the entire point of suing in the first place. Small local news outlets, independent journalists, activists, and everyday citizens alike must be free to criticize public officials and public policy decisions.

Speaking truth to power is exactly the kind of thing the American legal system should protect, not punish.

As the Supreme Court held in Sullivan, the United States has

“a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”

Free speech is something Americans should be proud of and fiercely protect. Even people we don’t like have the constitutional right to be assholes. Like Mike Lee!

[ Complaint ]

For more legal rants (and kittens!), follow JLC on Twitter (for now), or mastodon, or wherever!

Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons.



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Texas delivers consequences to disruptive law school protesters

Regular readers of Twitchy know about how students at Stanford shouted down conservative Federal Judge Kyle Duncan and how students at Yale Law School did something similar to a panel on civil liberties (because irony is dead).

(Full disclosure: this author is an alumnus of Yale Law School and is embarrassed for these chuckleheads.)

Now it seems that the chickens might be coming home to roost in Texas.

In order to be licensed to practice law, Texas (like most states) requires a person to have good character—which in our experience is mainly a matter of not having anything in one’s record that shows poor character. And the State Bar of Texas has some bad news for disruptive protesters:

The text of the tweet cuts off but it says ‘ … who was subjected to vulgar heckling when he attempted to deliver prepared remarks.’

Kudos to Mr. Cruz for taking action.

Again, here’s the remaining text: ‘ … Nathan Hecht, the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, wrote on behalf of the bar examiners, who evaluate applications to the bar. ‘School reactions to recent violations of free-speech policies suggest that reliance is not justified.”

In other words, since Stanford wasn’t enforcing their own rules, the Bar needed to take up the slack.

The last sentence says ‘The admission process should examine whether applicants can be expected to fulfill this promise [of courtesy and civility].’

What do you think the chances are that the students who said this call themselves feminists?

To fill in the cut off text: ‘ … he plans to file bar complaints against the students who disrupted Duncan, some of whom, such as Denni Arnold, have been identified.’

Good for him. Seriously.

To fill in the cut off text: ‘ … not in compliance with accreditation standards that require it to promote free speech.’

This got some praise:

Mr. Randazza is a respected First Amendment Lawyer.

This.

We’ve lived there. As long as you have air conditioning, it’s a pretty nice state.

Of course, not everyone is pleased:

Free speech doesn’t mean that you can scream all the time and let no one else get a word in edgewise. The First Amendment does allow for neutral time, place and manner restrictions, including shutting everyone up so a speaker can actually speak, especially in classrooms and in court. And the State Bar of Texas can reasonably ask that if a person can’t let other people speak at school, will that person be equally disruptive in court?

(And the Bill of Attainder issue is too silly to bother with.)

Another person thought they had the perfect solution: lie!

Ironically, maybe the Bar is hoping for a few liars. This is pure speculation, but it is probably easier to justify excluding a person from the legal profession for lying about their incivility than it is for the incivility itself. So, maybe this is designed to be a proverbial ‘perjury trap’.

Aaron (Sibarium) defended Texas’ argument:

And the principle of civility is enforced in other contexts without any difficulty. For instance, the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism’s official twitter account posted this story called: ‘The True Cost of Incivility in the Legal Profession’.

That article discussed a New York case where a deposition was constantly interrupted by childish insults by opposing lawyers, leading a judge to sanction the lawyers by forcing them to pay over $68,000. They were also ‘mandated to attend a [legal class] on civility and provide the … instructor with a copy of the deposition transcript at issue so the instructor could use it in his seminar ‘as an example of uncivil sanctionable behavior.”

Ouch. To be a fly on the wall in that class …

And if we can go off on a rant, here … law schools are not serving their students well if they don’t constantly expose them to other points of view and if they don’t ensure that they know how to express disagreement with those persons logically and civilly. In court, you can’t just shout ‘that person is a transphobe!’ and expect to win most cases. And even if a lawyer doesn’t practice in litigation, your words and behavior is likely to be scrutinized and even the subject of legal action involving people who think in ways very different from your own. A good lawyer seeks to understand how other people think, how their arguments work, and (if necessary) to tear those arguments apart, civilly, using that knowledge. A lawyer educated in a cocoon, a lawyer who can’t even cope with disagreement, is a bad lawyer.

(Gets off soapbox.)

Of course, one person was confused about the whole issue:

Occupational hazard, we suppose.



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Here Is Our Registration To Blog In Florida, Mister Knucklef*ck Sh*thead State Senator, Sir

Dear state Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Florida):

We are writing to inform you that we are writing about you, an elected member of the Florida Legislature, and your very interesting and facially unconstitutional bill, Florida SB 1316, which would require paid bloggers to register with the State of Florida, just like lobbyists would — at least if the blogger is paid for the posts they write. We would first off like to thank you for exempting newspapers and amateur bloggers from the legislation. That is right neighborly of you! Florida really is all about freedom, isn’t it? Unless you’re a wokey, and we all know about those wokies and their mobs.

We won’t go into the details of the bill too much, since its instructions are so clear and easy to follow: If someone is paid to write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, the lieutenant governor, any member of the cabinet, or any member of the Lege, then that blogger must register with the State Bloggerlobbyists Office within five days of publication, and then also submit monthly reports to the appropriate office by the 10th of each month, unless “the 10th day following the end of a calendar month occurs on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday,” in which case “the report must be filed on the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday.” Easy peasy!

You really thought that through! You don’t mention whether the bloggers must be resident to the great state of Florida, one of those oversights that can happen when a bunch of fucking idiots get elected to make “laws.” We’ll assume that it applies to everyone everywhere in the known universe, since you didn’t say it ain’t.


The monthly reports must itemize each post that mentions any of said Florida officials, and must include a statement — rounded to the nearest 10 dollars — of how much the blogger was paid. And heck, if we go a month without mentioning any of Florida’s colorful elected officials, we can even skip filing for that month. Again, very generous!

It’s also very convenient of you to identify the appropriate offices where the reports must be filed, depending on whether we write about a member of the executive branch (the Florida Commission on Ethics) or the legislature (the Florida Office of Legislative Services). If we mention both — like this very piece, which mentions both the increasingly fascist Ron DeSantis and his increasingly fascist lickspittles in the Legislature like you, I assume we can simply file two copies of the same report. Or would they have to be separately written, to avoid confusion?

Also, it doesn’t appear that your bill explains how we should report our income if we’re on salary, rather than paid by the blog post. I write about national and international politics, as well as about education, entertainment, edutainment, and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (both the show itself and the fandom). Would I just try to figure out how my annual income breaks down per post, or should I calculate it by the time I spend writing each post?

Like, it took me forever to round up all the shitty things red states like Florida are doing to trans people (although I didn’t mention Mr. DeSantis today), but I’m basically dashing this piece off while giving it the effort your stupid bill deserves, which is only slightly more than that involved in the average dump, and not even one of those messy ones where it takes forever to wipe, because for one reason or another it’s just kind of viscous. I just want to make sure I’m in compliance. And I need more fiber, most likely.

Also, I think it’s really smart of you to structure the fines for failure to report any blogging activity exactly like those for lobbyists — $25 per day the report is late, up to a maximum of $2,500, per blog post, to be paid to the appropriate office, depending on whether the non-reported blog post had been about a legislator or a member of the executive branch. Hey, if the post mentioned both, does half the fine go to each office, or is the fine doubled?

Maybe we should just write about county officials and school boards. They’re just as fucking crazy, but with less paperwork. HA! That’s what you WANT!

In any case, those fines would really pinch our income, which depends entirely on donations from our readers. They’re the best.

We see you explained to Florida Politics — a blog, we believe — that

Paid bloggers are lobbyists who write instead of talk. They both are professional electioneers. If lobbyists have to register and report, why shouldn’t paid bloggers?

We’re not so sure we agree with you 100 percent on your police work there, Senator.

You see, we’re mostly interested in making clear what an asshole you are, not necessarily in influencing legislation in the state of Florida, and we don’t represent any interest group other than our readers, who we may have mentioned are the only reason we’re able to do this anyway. Sure, we’d like to see your stupid fascist bill fail, and for you to be laughed out of office, but nobody’s paying us to advance that view on their behalf. A lot of those filthy fuckaducks are just here to post cat pictures, which we would add is a far better use of time than trying to threaten pissant non-newspaper independent opinion bloggers like Yours Truly.

In conclusion, we really look forward to your bill failing hard, either in the Florida Lege, or if Crom forbid it passes and Gov. Orban signs it, in the courts.

Also consider this our report of our mention of you in this blog, for which we were paid in Ameros and in cedar cheese anyway. Our Editrix has already filed her registration report, too, although it’s about pregnancy hemorrhoids, not cat pictures and difficult shits.

Hey, you know who else is a difficult shit? Yes, you’re right, it’s YOU.

Also, go fuck yourself. Did we mention that already? Just in case, go fuck right off the peninsula and keep fucking off all the way to the wide Sarcastro Sea.

See also the case of Flying Fuck v. Rolling Donut (1969) and the subsequent ruling in Flying Fuck v. Mooooooooooon (1976).

[Florida Politics / Daily Beast / Florida SB 1316]

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Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium shines scary spotlight on woke, anti-free-speech Biden judicial nominee

It’s easy to get lost in the sea of screwups and garbage policies from Joe Biden’s administration, but it’s also extremely important to try to stay afloat. Because you need to know what these people are doing. Because it could have long-term, really bad consequences.

The Washington Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium, who has done really excellent work exposing insidious leftism in higher education, has a new scoop about Joe Biden’s nominee for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Maria Araujo Kahn’s record should concern each and every one of us, and in a thread accompanying his story, Sibarium explains why:

Judge Kahn is very, very bad news:

Here’s the video, by the way, in case you’re interested:

Lovely. Just the sort of mentality you look for in a U.S. Court of Appeals judge.

Are you worried yet?

But wait — all this gets worse still:

Any other left-wing nutjob Biden nominees we should know about?

Liberal journalists and activists love to screech about “extremist” judges and whatnot. Well, what would you call the women discussed above if not extremists?

Donald Trump may be an aspiring authoritarian, but when it comes to Joe Biden, it’s not aspirational; it’s real. And it’s scary.

Because the crazy is coming from inside the White House.

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Related:

Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium details the hell Yale Law put part-Cherokee student and Federalist Society member through over BS ‘racism’ complaints

Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium reveals how Yale Law School’s unjust crusade against part-Cherokee conservative student is going further off the rails

MUST READ: Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium fully exposes Yale Law’s diversity director for pushing insanely racist, antisemitic diversity trainer on students

Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium takes close, disturbing look at how Critical Race Theory is infecting Georgetown Law

Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium shines damning spotlight on Google’s genuinely problematic criteria for PhD fellowship program

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