Ron DeSantis continues his reign of terror in Florida while also expanding the reach of his shadow presidential campaign. 
 

• Gov. DeSantis (R-FL) hasn’t officially announced his campaign, but the main super PAC supporting him, called Never Look Back (lol) has started hiring new staff in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, extremely important states for any presidential campaign. Back in the Sunshine State, DeSantis continues his long-standing feud with Disney, a company he hates because they required masks at their properties in 2020 in an effort to stop the spread of Covid-19, and also because they acknowledge that gay people exist. 

• Speaking of DeSantis and the mere presence of gay people, the Florida Board of Education has voted to expand restrictions on classroom discussion related to sexual orientation and gender identity, which detractors have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law. As many analysts and activists predicted, the amendment expands the blanket prohibition on “instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity” from grades K-3, the original scope of the rule, all the way up to grade 12. You read that right: No discussion of gender identity or sexual orientation will be allowed as part of school instruction even for 17 and 18 year olds. Because literally everyone has a sexual orientation and a gender identity, this would necessarily omit most instruction involving, you know, people, but it’s clearly only intended to apply to those of “non-traditional” orientations and identities. The legislation makes no distinction between “instruction” and “discussion,” so students and faculty are presumably forbidden from even talking about these subjects interpersonally in school settings. 
   

• The DeSantis administration has been at the forefront of the GOP’s culture wars, waging a much-touted war on “wokeness,” which it defines as the belief that “there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them,” according to an official statement from DeSantis’ general counsel. This “America: where everything is definitely fine!” point of view has been used as a guiding principle in revisions to the state’s history and civics curricula, as well as in numerous recent book bans.

So, how are DeSantis’s presidential prospects shaping up?
 

• Well, not great! Virtually all available polling data shows that disgraced former president Donald Trump has only widened his lead over DeSantis in the wake of his indictment. Data also suggests that DeSantis would fare better than Trump in battleground states. None of this information is exactly comforting, but it does support that DeSantis would be considerably more dangerous in the general election than Trump but he has a visibly-diminishing chance of getting there. Let’s just hope we don’t get the chance to find out.

• It also doesn’t appear to be particularly advantageous that DeSantis has dragged his heels for so long on officially announcing his candidacy. Longtime DeSantis ally Brian Mast recently announced that he planned to endorse Trump and would chair a veterans committee in support of his re-election bid, adding to the list of high-profile Florida lawmakers and officials Trump is adding to his trough of supporters. Trump already secured endorsements from seven members of Florida’s GOP congressional delegation, too, so it seems fair to say that he’s running up the scorecard on DeSantis’s home turf. Even the guy who introduced DeSantis at his 2022 election night victory party endorsed Trump over him. That’s gotta hurt.

Republican supermajorities in the Florida legislature have allowed DeSantis to emerge as a kind of highly-successful, ultraconservative, shamelessly authoritarian governor that has been extinct in America for some time. His legislative victories have inspired copycats all over the country, and he’s made no secret that he wants to make over the United States in Florida’s image. Even if he flames out in this presidential election, as it seems he will, this isn’t Florida’s Ron DeSantis problem, it’s America’s.

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As we hurtle towards economic disaster because Congressional Republicans are too craven to lift the debt ceiling under a Democratic president, things are heating up between GOP leadership and the White House. Pencil-necked House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had failed to unify his caucus around a budget proposal, but has now unveiled a plan to lift the debt limit by $1.5 trillion only on the condition of major spending cuts. It’s not even clear if McCarthy has 218 Republican votes for this package, which has zero chance of passing the Senate. Another job well done, Kevin. His doomed plan suggests repealing parts of the Inflation Reduction Act related to green energy incentives, boosting domestic oil and gas production, and completely eliminating Biden’s student loan forgiveness initiative. It would also cancel the IRS’s recent budget increase, which allowed the agency to provide vital taxpayer support to millions more Americans than in previous years, and would give Congress even greater authority to block regulations made by the Biden administration as well. In short, it’s a lot of the same old GOP bullshit. Republicans have no problem running up the deficit through tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, and they’re always happy to wave through debt ceiling increases when a Republican heads the Executive Branch, so their calls for “fiscal responsibility” are even more transparent than usual. As expected, President Biden rejected this plan and criticized Republican lawmakers for their “wacko” notions, so you know he’s mad.

The Supreme Court extended its stay on two lower-court rulings banning abortifacient drug mifepristone until this Friday, April 21, making the drug accessible and legal for a few additional days until the final ruling is handed down. 

In the third such incident to attract national attention this week , two teenage cheerleaders in Texas were shot after getting into the wrong car by mistake in a supermarket parking lot. Authorities arrested the man suspected of the shooting and took him into custody on Tuesday morning. 

The United States announced it will be sending an additional $325 million in military aid to Ukraine, as the war-torn country continues its spring counteroffensive against the Russian invasion. 

Fallout from the leaked Pentagon documents continues: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau privately told NATO officials that Canada will never meet the alliance’s defense spending target, according to documents from the leak. 

The family of Tyre Nichols filed a lawsuit against the city of Memphis, its police department, the police chief, and five officers who brutally beat Nichols during a traffic stop in January. Nichols, 29, died from his injuries three days later. 

Twitter quietly removed its policy against deadnaming and intentionally misgendering transgender people as the platform under CEO Elon Musk continues doubling down on allowing harassment of marginalized groups and individuals. 

Twitter also permanently suspended reporter Dell Cameron from the site after Cameron published a story on Wednesday based on an interview with the hacker who took over far-right blogger Matt Walsh’s account on Tuesday evening. The company cited its policy prohibiting the spread of material obtained through hacking, also the justification for its suppression of the Hunter Biden story, which CEO Elon Musk characterized, in his goofy “Twitter Files” exposés fed to Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, as a major breach of the principle of free speech.

McCurtain County, OK Commissioner Mark Jennings has resigned after an audio recording captured him talking about killing reporters and lynching Black people.

The United Kingdom currently finds itself as the only major, advanced economy to have double-digit inflation, according to new reports. Analysts say that Britain has suffered higher inflation for longer periods of time than nations of similar size due to its economic reliance on natural gas for heating and electricity and the structure of state subsidies. As a consequence of those factors, Britons have seen the highest increase in energy prices in Western Europe. The country’s continued cost-of-living crisis continues to be felt far and wide, as already-insufficient wages have led to major strikes across the country, including unions of teachers, rail workers, healthcare workers, and others. Trade and job market problems caused by Brexit combined with a reduction in the labor force from Covid (i.e. a lot of people died!) have proven devastating for the U.K. economy, to say nothing of the impact the war in Ukraine has had on energy prices. Last week, the International Monetary Fund forecasted an annual average inflation of 6.8 percent in 2023, which would be the highest rate of any of its European peers. 

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President Biden will host the “Tennessee Three” at the White House. 

A toddler became one of the youngest-ever White House intruders after he squeezed through the metal fencing before being scooped up by the Secret Service. 

A proposed change to Montana’s Senate primary that would have hurt Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) in his reelection bid is likely dead on arrival after a state legislative committee shelved it indefinitely on Wednesday.