‘State-driven censorship’: new wave of book bans hits Florida school districts

Hey, did everyone catch that the governor of Florida (Desantis) and his wife had a charity that took kick backs and was money laundering?

As DeSantis administration officials scrambled last year to craft a Medicaid overbilling settlement that diverted millions to the Hope Florida Foundation, lawyers for healthcare contractor Centene and the Florida Attorney General’s Office tried to distance their clients from the agreement, a trove of newly released records shows.
Over 22 days in September, then-Chief Deputy Attorney General John Guard repeatedly removed references to his office in drafts of the settlement passed among negotiators.
Centene’s lawyers inserted language emphasizing that the company was “directed by the state” to donate $10 million of its $67 million settlement to the foundation. The attorneys insisted that Florida’s Office of Inspector General or attorney general be mentioned in the agreement.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article311619075.html

Yeah, this runs far deeper than local school districts.
Project 2025 says to make "obscenity" illegal, then classify anything they don't like (books about, or public display of, LGBTQism) as obscene. US has been here before, of course, but now 5/9 of the Supreme Court will ignore established law and approve.
They aren't vastly expanding the prison system for immigrants; immigrants get deported.
- I agree with you except they are housing immigrants there too. They are bringing back massive slave labor. Right now, it's just the prison population (who are also making quotas) making jeans and stuff. They need people to work the farms now.
  They aren’t vastly expanding the prison system for immigrants; immigrants get deported.

The books taken off the school shelves included The Diary of Anne Frank

"We are literally Nazis but you aren't allowed to think it"

[ It just seems like a 100% unambiguous admisison, though I'm aware there were many many similar cases in the past years ]

In case you hadn’t noticed, conservatives are chipping away at public education bit by bit.

poor teacher pay resulting in babysitters instead of teachers
overcrowded classrooms
killing the department of education
killing the grants system
starving PBS
getting rid of school busses
censorship to remove reading materials
school vouchers to encourage private schooling

They want a class system of haves/have nots. If you don’t have the money for private schooling, they want your kids working in the fields and the meat processing plants.

And it wasn't much better 10, 20 years ago...
- It was much better 10, 20 years ago

That's sad, and frightening... Saying that as a non-US citizen, if that matters.

And that's another reason why it should be a top priority for parents to own actual books at home, have their own (and uncensored, by any party) library and not be entirely relying on public/school libraries (which should also be defended against censorship, obviously). And then, beside owning those books, they should also show their kids reading is an incredibly valuable activity by actually be reading those books in front of their kids. And do it regularly... I was about to write 'daily', but I thought maybe that would be asking too much ;)

Might be faster to list books that aren't banned

These nutjobs will only be happy when there is 1 book in every library: the bible. F them.
- Don't forget Mein Kampf.
- Now that's an obscene book!
- But the Bible is full of sex and violence! They want the edited version that's all Peace (conditions apply), Love (conditions apply, but not age restrictions), and Rainbows (non-gay only)!

The ALA's banned books list is usually my go-to for adding books to my reading list
https://www.ala.org/bbooks

This is a great opportunity for someone to open a small library across the street from a school that exclusively has books that have been banned.

Fly a rainbow flag out front and name it "banned books" and watch the money rain in