 It seems like, as of late, the state of Florida is going out of their way to cook up the most unconstitutional draconian types of legislation just to see what they can and can't get away with. And it's genuinely disturbing. But thanks to civil rights attorney Alejandra Corbeio, she brought forward to all of our attention probably the most insane bill that I've ever seen. So the bill is HB991, titled the Defamation False Light and Unauthorized Publication of Name or Likeness Act, which was just introduced yesterday in Florida, focuses on suppressing journalism by lowering the threshold for legal defamation. Now defamation, specifically with regard to journalism, seems to be the core goal of this bill, just make it easier for journalists to get sued so that way they'll be disinclined from covering governments and using anonymous sources. But there's also another consequence of this legislation if it were to pass. And that is it would empower bigots to also sue anyone who accuses them of bigotry. So Alejandra Corbeio explains, Florida has introduced the Empower Bigots Act, which I think is a more appropriate name, HB991, it would classify accusations that someone engaged in discrimination as defamation per se with $35,000 minimum in damages. If it involves LGBTQ people and someone's beliefs, truth is no defense. This is absolutely chilling. If someone calls you the F slur or T slur and you say they discriminated against you, they can now sue you for at least $35,000 and cite their religious beliefs. This would apply to the internet as well. This would empower bigots to target the LGBTQ community with impunity. This applies to the internet as well, so if the person is in Florida, you could be liable even if you have never stepped foot in Florida. For instance, calling Seth Dillon of the Babylon Bee Transphobic on Twitter could make you liable under this bill since he lives in Florida. It gets even worse. It would presume anonymous sources are preemptively false. This would limit the ability of journalists to cover issues without fear of liability for using anonymous sources. This would silence journalists and those targeted by those in power. This bill also reworks the actual malice standard for public figures and tries to redefine public figures. It's a full-on attack against New York Times, the Sullivan and the First Amendment. This isn't the first time liable laws have been used to silence minority groups. Alabama tried to use liable to silence civil rights leaders and journalists. The case resulted in New York Times v. Sullivan. Florida wants to try again to silence minority groups. Yeah, so I feel like I don't need to provide you with my commentary. On its face, you can see how utterly absurd this is. This would literally empower bigots to harass LGBTQ people. And it would stifle free speech, stifle journalism. But that's the goal. So do you want to know how we were all terrified when Trump said we should open up the liable laws? This is DeSantis' state doing that, putting that into action. Now, as I stated, the bill was just filed yesterday. And at the time that I record this, there isn't legislative support for it. But the fact that the bills that they keep filing get progressively more insane kind of goes to show you how undemocratic the Republican Party is. It's not just Florida. People across the country, but it's like they're trying to compete with each other to see who can produce the most insane or welly and type of legislation possible. And these folks are enemies of democracy. They are authoritarian. And that's what they want to do. Need I remind you that this bill was filed in the same week where Marjorie Taylor Green talked about a national divorce where she basically spoke about her ideals for society where gay teachers could be fired and you can ban people from voting if they move from a blue state to a red state. Now Florida continues to fix it on things like this and lead the culture warm while their state and people in it continue to suffer. For example, former Florida lawmaker, Carlos Guillermo-Smith says, Florida is now one of the least affordable states to live. Property insurance is soaring, millions without healthcare. Instead of tackling these crises, Ron DeSantis Republicans are pushing new laws to ban pride flags and government buildings. So he fixates on non-issues, right? Create solutions to problems that don't exist. And then he gets praised for it. His status has been elevated to national status and there's speculation about him running for president now. Now to be clear, Ron DeSantis didn't pen this legislation, but certainly Republicans in the state are following his lead. But all the people who are propping up DeSantis aren't focusing on his ability to govern or the Republican party in Florida's ability to govern. It's just, well, they virtue signal to us and pander to us with regard to the culture war so they're great. It's just insane to me. Now of all people, billionaire J.B. Pritzker who is the Democratic governor of Illinois I think put it best about DeSantis and I don't like to give credit to billionaires who buy power, but what he says here is absolutely correct. The truth is that we actually have a much better education system in Illinois than they have in Florida. We're ranked higher than they are. US News and World Report ranks K-12 education in Illinois sixth in the country and number one among the largest states in the country. So he's got nothing to brag about when it comes to education. So he moves on and tries to use this word woke to describe everything. He doesn't even know what the word means and he has no definition of it. It's just anything he doesn't like is wokeism and all I can tell you is that I don't know what that means and frankly what I can say about Illinois is that we're a state that cares about equity. We're a state that cares about our families. We're making the investments that are required so that our youngest children will do better and better and I'm really excited about the direction of our state as opposed to a state where they don't make the investments that are necessary to lift up their education system or their health care system. Yeah. So Florida may be at the forefront of the culture worm but their people are suffering as a result of that because Republicans in Florida refuse to focus on real issues, health care, education and to the extent that they focus on education. It's not improving the quality of education. It's censoring what they deem offensive in education. It's just a joke. But this is exactly what we should expect from Christian nationalists and fascists and it's horrifying but we've all kind of grown accustomed to it and this is kind of just the new normal in red states but we shouldn't be comfortable with this. It should make us feel uneasy because it is brazenly unconstitutional and in the event this law were to pass I think that a court would block it easily. Even a right wing court because it's that brazen in violation of the Constitution. But regardless this isn't necessarily about what they can and can pass with regard to legislation. It's signaling to their base that they will go as extreme as they need to be for their support and it's just it's chilling.