President John F. Kennedy said in 1964, "we must make the world safe for diversity."
In contrast, our supercilious incoming Florida Speaker of the House shows his animus amid animadversions against LGBTQ people. What a maniacal jerk.
PAUL RENNER attacked "Drag Queen Story Hour" two (2) days after a murderous attack on Colorado Springs Gay bar patrons on the Transgender Day of Remembrance -- a murderous attack on transgender people by the 22 year old grandson of an anti-LGBTQIA California legislator.
PAUL RENNER is out of his mind -- albeit a cartoonish, narrow mind full of hate and spite -- if he thinks being a legislator means targeting discrimination victims for hateful attacks on his first day as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives.
RENNER's sense of timing is execrable -- only two (2) days after anti-Trans homicides, and on the 59th anniversary of JFK's assassination, and two (2) days before Thanksgiving. It is an insult to all LGBTQIA people and our families.
RENNER's remarks remind me of the time when the St. Augustine Record, then owned by Morris Communications, printed an extremely hateful anti-Gay letter on Thanksgiving Day. Lousy timing.
Does RENNER need a checkup from the neck up?
Corporate lawyer PAUL RENNER was elected to represent Flagler County and the southern part of St. Johns County after moving here for the express purpose of running for office, having been defeated by two votes in a Duval County Republican Primary.
PAUL RENNER appears to be a dutifully loyal American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) supporter and another louche lickspittle for the rich and powerful. ALEC peddles corporate and rightist agendas to its willing accomplices, unoriginal, other-directed Dull Republican state legislators.
Speaker PAUL RENNER's character will soon be on display to the world. Does PAUL RENNER support changing state law at the drop of a hat? Will he vote too allow Governor RONALD DION DeSANTIS to run for President without requiring him to resign to run, as under current resign-to-run law?
DeSANTIS resembles a whinier version of the late racist Alabama Governor George Corley Wallace. Like George Wallace, DeSANTIS has support from corrupt craven critters, like RENNER.
The rich and powerful who own the soulless Republican Party whip up bigoted Bubbas by abusing hatred of Blacks, Hispanics, Gays, Lesbians and Transgender people as KKK style recruiting posters.
We've grown accustomed to such sibilant sinister flummery, dupery and nincompoopery here in North Flori-DUH. People have grown immune to developer-funded postcards from the edge and money bombs in campaigns captained by the like of former St. Augustine City Manager WILLIAM BARRY HARRISS, developer and State Senator TRAVIS JAMES HUTSON, and former Sheriff DAVID SHOAR (who legally changed his name from "HOAR" in 1994).
These caudillos and their casuistry poison the well of democracy with aminadversions and diversions, such as our unenlightened St. Johns County School Board's transgender bathroom case, where millions of dollars have been spent on lawyers defending the indefensible in the case of Drew Adams v. St. Johns County School Board.
PAUL RENNER is inattentive to constituent concerns in the Dull ME-Publicans'
Since 2015, I have seen PAUL RENNER go through the motions at annual meetings of the St. Johns County Legislative Delegation, where I have supported the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore at every meeting since 2006. RENNER never sticks around to talk with people. He appears to me to be vain and self-absorbed. He's never asked a question of any significance of any speaker.
I find bumptious, bigoted PAUL RENNER to be lacking in social skills, inattentive, insouciant and insolent.
When House Speaker Paul Renner was duked into the Speaker gig by members of his classless Dull Republican legislative class in 2018, assuming the Republicans would still control the House in 2022, all of the members of his class prayed.
To PAUL RENNER: Try tolerance. Show a little class. Sit up straight, sir, and listen to what people are telling you, from this day forward, sir
Listen and learn from what we tell you at our December 19, 2022 Legislative Delegation.
You must work for us, and not for corporations that hire you as a corporate lawyer, from now on.
You sound like a pompous ass, with your drooling dueling ideological perversions.
You work for us, not ALEC.
As Robert Kennedy said, "What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another; and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."
Pray for PAUL RENNER.
Renner Takes on ‘Drag Queen Story Time’ and Social Governance in 1st Speech as House Leader
In his first speech as Florida Speaker of the House, Paul Renner focused Tuesday on bread-and-butter measures such as reducing taxes and making housing more attainable but also touched on a culture war agenda that has defined the Ron DeSantis regime in Tallahassee.
At the Legislature’s organizational meeting Tuesday morning, Renner took aim at “idealogues” who he said seek “to politicize everything, who treat their ideology as a religion and demand we follow it, no matter the costs.”
“They have pushed indoctrination at the expense of education. They spend more time defending drag queen story time than actually promoting phonics and the science of reading,” he said, adding that in this month’s midterm election, “moms and dads sent a clear message to those ideologues: Our children are not your social experiment!”
The reference to “drag queen story time” rubbed Jacksonville-area Democratic Rep. Angie Nixon the wrong way. She told the Phoenix after Renner’s speech that that passage in his speech was inappropriate coming just a couple of days after a gunman in Colorado Springs, Colorado killed 5 people and wounded at least 18 more at a gay nightclub.
“He was attacking drag queens and the LGBT community at a time when we should be working together and uplifting all humanity, he chose to once again make a line in the sand and create culture wars, when we should be addressing the high rising cost of inflation and this housing crisis that we’re currently in,” Nixon said.
Renner also took aim at “ideologues” who he says have co-opted the business community by emphasizing Environmental, Social and Governance goals (ESG) that more corporations have adopted in recent years in respond to demands by investors for such investments.
This past summer, Gov. DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody and Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis successfully pushed through a ban on considering ESG criteria in state pension fund investments.
Renner said that credit rating agencies have started to require states to provide data to measure their compliance with ESG’s “political dogma,” which he said could lead to California receiving a better credit rating than Florida because Sunshine State leaders are resisting such efforts.
Renner said that’s why he sent a letter Tuesday to the state’s three credit rating agencies, “demanding they drop the politics and return to objective, financial criteria, universally recognized to measure a state’s credit rating.”
Referencing Hurricanes Ian and Nicole which have devastated parts of Florida over the past few months, Renner also said that he was establishing a select committee on hurricane resiliency and recovery.
Like Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, Renner eschewed any mention of abortion in his 15-minute speech. But with dozens of anti-abortion activists inside the Capitol on Tuesday calling for more restrictions, Renner was forced to address the issue while meeting with reporters later on Tuesday.
He noted that there are “pro-life” majorities in both the House and Senate but added nothing substantive regarding Passidomo’s recent comments that she would like to further restrict abortions in Florida from the current 15 week ban to 12 weeks – while adding exceptions for rape and incest that aren’t in currently Florida law, according to the Miami Herald.
The Florida Legislature is expected to hold a special session next month to deal with the state’s property insurance crisis. Gov. DeSantis has said recently that he could see the Legislature holding more special sessions before the regular session begins next March.
But Renner said he believes special sessions should only be held when they are time sensitive, like property insurance. He said he would keep an open mind about doing such sessions, but didn’t mention any particular issue that rises to that level.
The state of Florida’s unemployment website melted down in 2020 when the pandemic created a huge demand in unemployment benefits. It also brought to light the fact that Florida only offers unemployment benefits of $275 a week, and only for 12 weeks. That combination is one of the lowest benefits in the country.
When asked if he would like to see movement on raising that benefit, Renner said he was more concerned about the fact that employers tell him that they’re still having problems hiring people since the pandemic began – a criticism that began back when there were people who quit their jobs when they began collecting federal unemployment benefits when COVID-19 hit (those payments ended in 2020).
He did say that the problems with the state being able to process people’s unemployment benefits were “unacceptable,” but added that “I think that we need to be careful to make sure that we don’t create the clearly unintended consequences that took place as a result.”
–Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix
"I homeschooled my kids. Suffice to say none of them became a doctor... only grift fodder for the religious FGOP." - Doug Russo
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