More on the March Toward Fascism; Palm Springs Picks a New City Manager–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Jan. 23, 2023

Indy Digest: Jan. 23, 2023

The march toward fascism continues.

From The Associated Press, via NBC News:

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking state universities for the numbers and ages of their students who sought or received gender dysphoria treatment, including sex reassignment surgery and hormone prescriptions, according to a survey released Wednesday.

Why he’s conducting the survey wasn’t completely clear. LGBTQ advocates have criticized DeSantis for policies seen as discriminatory, including banning instruction on sexual and gender identity in early grades and making it easier for parents to remove books related to the topic in public schools.

“We can see cuts in funding for universities to treat students with this condition, and I think an all-out elimination of services is certainly on the table,” House Democratic leader Fentrice Driskell said.

The survey was released the same day the university presidents voted to support DeSantis’ “anti-woke” agenda and to reject “the progressivist higher education indoctrination agenda,” while committing to “removing all woke positions and ideologies by February 1, 2023,” the state Education Department said in a news release.

From USA Today:

Iowa House Republicans are proposing limitations to the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, which could drastically narrow what items program beneficiaries can purchase.

Under the proposal items including white bread, American sliced cheese and fresh meat would not be covered by the program. Instead, House File 3, introduced last week, would restrict users to items on the state’s approved list for the Women, Infants and Children program.

SNAP is a federal program to assist lower-income households to purchase healthier food options while the WIC provides states federal grants to help supplement the diets of new, lower-income mothers and pregnant people.

The bill would prevent SNAP recipients from buying everyday kitchen staples including butter, cooking oils, spices, white rice, rice noodles and canned vegetables, fruits and soups, as the approved WIC list is restricted to only 23 food categories — four of them being specific to infants. …

Critics of the bill have said that the proposal would dramatically affect low-income, older and disabled Iowans, who rely on the food assistance program, by narrowing their options to an restrictive list intended for new mothers and pregnant people.

From The Washington Post:

In one Texas school district, school librarians have ordered 6,000 fewer books this year than the year before, because under a new rule parents must have 30 days to review the titles before the school board votes to approve them. In Pennsylvania, a school librarian who must now obtain her principal’s okay for acquisitions has bought just 100 books this school year, compared with her typical 600.

And throughout Florida, many school librarians have been unable to order books for nearly a year, thanks to their districts’ interpretation of a state law requiring librarians to undergo an online retraining program on “the selection and maintenance of library … collections”—which was not published until this month. Julie Miller, a librarian for the Clay County School District, has not been permitted to order a book since March 2022. In a typical year, she would have ordered 300 titles by now. Instead, she has had more than a hundred conversations with disappointed students seeking fresh titles, she said, especially the latest books in their favorite fantasy series.

“It puts me in a terrible position,” Miller said. She has had to brainstorm a novel use for the 40 percent of her budget formerly devoted to books: “This year, I’m going to replace all of our chairs in the library.”

States and districts nationwide have begun to constrain what librarians can order. At least 10 states have passed laws giving parents more power over which books appear in libraries or limiting students’ access to books, a Washington Post analysis found. At the same time, school districts are passing policies that bar certain kinds of texts—most often, those focused on issues of gender and sexuality—while increasing administrative or parental oversight of acquisitions.

From The Guardian:

Across the United States Republican politicians are seeking to bring in new laws that crack down on drag shows as part of a broader backlash against LGTBQ+ rights sweeping through rightwing parts of America.

Legislators in at least eight states have introduced legislation aiming to restrict or censor the shows, according to a new report from a leading freedom of speech group. A total of 14 bills have been introduced across Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, Nebraska, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.

Other bills are also being drafted in other states, including in Montana and Idaho.

The introduction of anti-drag legislation, says PEN America, coincides with an increase in political rhetoric about drag performances and drag queen story hours in public libraries, as well as a growing number of recent protests or interruptions of drag events.

Now is not the time to be quiet and do nothing. It’s important that we all support efforts to fight these sorts of things. Freedom isn’t free, after all.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• All of the mass shootings taking place in the United States are mentally scarring people far beyond the neighborhoods and the cities where they take place. A psychiatrist, writing for The Conversation, says: “Yet another community is stricken with grief in the wake of the horrific shooting at Monterey Park, California, on Jan. 21, 2023, that left 11 people dead and 9 more wounded. Families and friends of the victims, as well as those who were injured, are no doubt gripped with grief, anguish and despair. In addition to those who are experiencing direct loss, such events also take a toll on others, including those who witnessed the shooting, first responders, people who were nearby and those who hear about it through the media. I am a trauma and anxiety researcher and clinician, and I know that the effects of such violence reach millions. While the immediate survivors are most affected, the rest of society suffers, too. … Every time there is a mass shooting in a new place, people learn that kind of place is now on the not-very-safe list. People worry not only about themselves but also about the safety of their children and other loved ones.”

• The city of Palm Springs will likely have a new city manager soon. The Palm Springs Post reports: “Scott Stiles, the current city manager of Garden Grove, has been selected by the Palm Springs City Council to fill the same role here, the city announced in a news release Friday morning. Stiles has been in Garden Grove, population 170,000, for the past seven years and oversees the day-to-day operations of nine city departments with 640 employees. He will have similar responsibilities here, overseeing roughly 650 employees and taking over for Teresa Gallavan, the assistant city manager who had been filling in as interim city manager since Justin Clifton departed last September.”

• As of yesterday, pretty much everything the U.S. Postal Service offers got more expensive. CBS News says: “Starting Sunday, the price of Forever stamps will rise from 60 to 63 cents. The 4.2% increase was announced by the U.S. Postal Service back in October. This marks the third price increase of Forever stamps in the past 17 months. It comes amid the agency’s ‘Delivering for America’ 10-year plan, designed to create more financial stability, and avoid $160 billion in financial losses by 2030. … Prices for domestic postcards will increase from 44 to 48 cents Sunday, and mailing an international letter will cost you 5 cents more, at $1.45.”

• The United States, knock on wood, seems to have gotten through the “tripledemic” of respiratory diseases. According to The Washington Post: “So many patients sick with RSV had inundated Connecticut Children’s Medical Center that they had to be treated in hallways and playrooms. Facing their busiest season in memory last fall, hospital leaders floated a plan to enlist the National Guard to set up tents outside. Doctors braced for a dire winter—a looming disaster some dubbed a ‘tripledemic’—with flu season revving up, coronavirus roaring back and the holidays providing fuel for viruses to spread. But no such surge materialized. The RSV wave has receded in Connecticut and across the country. Flu cases have rapidly dwindled. COVID hospitalizations rose briefly after Christmas, only to fall again. It turns out that early waves of respiratory syncytial virus and influenza peaked before the new year, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the expected winter uptick of coronavirus is nowhere close to overwhelming hospitals, as it did in 2021 when COVID wards were filled with unvaccinated people struggling to breathe and last winter, when the highly transmissible omicron variant ignited a massive wave of illness.”

• T-Mobile just announced it has again been through a data breach. It’s not the first time. Wired explains: “Mobile giant T-Mobile said that it suffered a data breach beginning on Nov. 26 that impacts 37 million current customers on both prepaid and postpay accounts. The company said in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing that a ‘bad actor’ manipulated one of the company’s application programming interfaces (APIs) to steal customers’ names, email addresses, phone numbers, billing addresses, dates of birth, account numbers, and service plan details. The initial intrusion occurred at the end of November, and T-Mobile discovered the activity on Jan. 5. T-Mobile is one of the U.S.’s largest mobile carriers and is estimated to have more than 100 million customers. But in the past 10 years, the company has developed a reputation for suffering repeated data breaches alongside other security incidents. The company had a mega breach in 2021, two breaches in 2020, one in 2019, and another in 2018. Most large companies struggle with digital security, and no one is immune to data breaches, but T-Mobile seems to be approaching companies like Yahoo in the pantheon of repeated compromises.”

• And finally … I just … I mean … ugh. M&M has sidelined its “spokescandies” in favor of Maya Rudolph, and, boy, the world is a dumb place sometimes. The New York Times explains why: “In January 2022, M&M’s gave the aching feet of its two female spokescandies a break, replacing the green M&M’s heels with flats and swapping the brown M&M’s stilettos for smaller, more comfortable heels. This decision, to some, was an injustice. ‘M&M’s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous,’ (Tucker) Carlson railed on his show. ‘Until the moment when you wouldn’t want to have a drink with any one of them. That’s the goal. When you’re totally turned off, we’ve achieved equity. They’ve won.’ The candy’s new look was not exactly at the top of Mr. Carlson’s concerns—the clip received some mockery from his political opponents, and most people moved on. But this month, Mr. Carlson declared that the ‘woke M&M’s have returned’ after Mars Wrigley introduced a new purple M&M to the roster, and the others got a new look.”

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