Florida is very quickly becoming an Orwellian dystopia with a leader who very much fits the role of Big Brother from Orwell’s opus “1984.” I have repeatedly written that it is almost impossible to conceive of how “all-powerful” DeSantis has become in Florida, literally running a fascist state within a fascist national movement.
Three weeks ago, a video went viral. The video showed a school library with empty shelves after empty shelves in Florida. The video itself is below, but first, the story from First Coast News:
Brian Covey, a substitute teacher at Mandarin Middle School, posted a video on Jan. 27 showing rows of empty bookshelves in the school’s library. The jarring video quickly went viral and now has over 13 million views. It made national headlines and was even fodder on a late-night talk show.
On Tuesday, First Coast News asked Gov. Ron DeSantis about Covey’s video, to which DeSantis replied, “That’s a fake narrative.”
Yeah. It was so “false” that he was fired later in the day after DeSantis got the question. To repeat, this video was viral for weeks and was on late-night television, but only when DeSantis was asked about it was the teacher fired. Who do you suppose made a call saying, “Fire that person!” It was almost obviously DeSantis micromanaging at a terrifyingly punitive and furious manner. Can this teacher work in Florida as a teacher again? Serious question. Is the fascist thing setting in for you?
During the last month, the state has instructed school districts to “err on the side of caution” to make sure they’re complying with new Florida laws regarding books and materials available to children in school libraries and classrooms.
As Duval County school leaders urged its educators to comply with the new law, this resulted in teachers removing and covering books in classrooms to make sure all books and literature are approved by the state.
Here is a story on the video:
And this is a necessary tweet thread about it:
BREAKING:
A Florida teacher who worked as a permanent substitute since October was FIRED for posting a video of empty bookshelves at his middle school
He was fired the day after @RonDeSantisFL was asked about the viral video by the media and called it a "false narrative" pic.twitter.com/j0zTWKQLFc
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 17, 2023
DeSantis claimed that the shelves were empty because "they hadn't put the books out yet to begin with."
That is a lie.
The books were removed because teachers in Duval County were told to remove the books or risk violating Florida lawhttps://t.co/9PW86z95Hy
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 17, 2023
I spoke with Covey about his experience trying to inform people about what is really happening in Florida schools and how it cost him his job.
I'll publish the full report soon.
Sign up for Popular Information to receive it, freehttps://t.co/TfpCItdVSo
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 17, 2023
Duval County itself admitted it ordered the removal all non-vetted books from the shelves
The County says there are now "6,000 book titles approved for classroom use"
But there are 1.6 MILLION TITLES in Duval schools.
Therefore, lots of empty shelves like in Covey's video
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 17, 2023
Ron Filipkowski, a prominent influencer on Twitter and former Florida attorney/public figure has said, “If you don’t think that DeSantis would have someone killed if it was ‘necessary,’ you don’t know DeSantis.”
I live 25 miles from the Florida border on the coast, and it’s an odd feeling to say that I’d rather my daughter be educated in Alabama (She is at one of the best H.S. in the state.)
They fired him. Unbelievable.
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We didn’t have a library at my elementary school in the 50’s but we did have the Bookmobile that came every two weeks. I lived for that day and never missed my chance to check out a book. I still read a couple books a month. This is so disgusting. I can’t believe the people of Florida are condoning this. I hope the state becomes a wasteland with all the people moving away. DeSatan can rule over the gators and snakes.
‘DeSatan can rule over the gators and snakes.’ His kinda people, along with the fire ants, scorpions, and other vermin.
Fire ants:
Fun fact. They first appeared through a ship from Brazil in the port of Mobile. Once introduced, with no natural predators, they’ve spread unabated at a half mile per year (estimated) and have now reached Texas, almost into northern Alabama/MS, definitely panhandle Florida.
The bite stings momentarily, and then itches (You usually have ten of them bc they’re small) worse than the worst mosquito bite you have ever had. Their nests can go 3-4 ft underground. They have “hospitals” – where the sick ones go and are fed, they have the maternity ward where the queen lays the eggs then workers taken them and place them all over the nest, including right under the top, they have trash areas (where they also “go to the bathroom” at the bottom, and food storage areas. They are functioning cities.
And the guards are up top, along with the harvesters that are collecting grasses. On any big yard in the country, there will be a hill every 10-14 yards. When you mow you flatten the top but in two days it’s back up to where it was “red dirt” on top.
You can easily have an incident you don’t notice bc they also love building nests underneath concrete and come out in cracks, you can unknowingly be standing on a crack and have 5-10 on you and – this is the thing, if you get bit by one and go to step on it, you get bit by all of them at once.
There were attempts to poison them out altogether through airplane sprays which were more poisonous to humans and never got rid of all the nests.
There is a very good treatment for the itch: Preparation H, works very well.
As you can tell, from my time on a beautiful estate in MS, I got to experience fire ants, along with several run ins with poisonous snakes, one being a dog bite that almost killed a 100 lb dog bit on a foot – used anti-venom, but the swelling got infected. The infection almost killed him.
When I lived in NC, we had them in our yard. I once stepped into a nest while gardening, flip flops on of course, Yikes! Dozens of bites in a matter of minutes. FYI, WD40 works as well for some reason, widely used in our neigborhood.
Now imagine this guy as “President.” can you imagine what our country would become with him in charge?
Count me among the thousands/millions who will never again set foot in Florida. He is neither better nor worse than Trump. He is his own toxic pestilence. Prediction: he will flame out, like that would-be tin-pot dictator in Wisconsin.