Sun: There's Dumb, Dumber and Flori-Dumbest

Flori-Dumb Continues I'ts Downward Slide

A new state immigration law could worsen labor shortages in South Florida’s agricultural industry, a sector that heavily relies on migrant labor and struggles to find domestic workers, according to growers, immigrant workers and farmworker advocates.

María Vázquez, a Mexican nursery worker in Homestead, said that over the last year she has witnessed colleagues and community members leave South Miami-Dade County, a region that grows warm-weather plants, fruits, and vegetables that don’t grow in most of the rest of the country.

“Many people here risk their lives crossing the desert to get to this country. They leave children, wives. Then they come to a state where they put this law in place. They get scared and leave for another where they won’t get persecuted,” said Vázquez, who has lived in Homestead for over two decades.

The new Florida law, known as SB1718, came into effect on July 1. The legislation cracks down on undocumented labor and enacts a series of other immigration-related restrictions. The extent of the law’s impact will become clearer as agricultural businesses need more hands to harvest winter and spring produce and seasonal workers return to harvest the fruits and vegetables, say farmers, workers, and advocates.

They told the Miami Herald the law could cause Florida agricultural businesses to bring more temporary foreign workers through a federal government program for agriculture called H-2A. Florida already had the highest concentration of certified H2-A positions at 14% last government fiscal year, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

The program is designed to alleviate worker shortages faced by farms across the United States. But the visas are costly to sponsor, and advocates say the program is ripe for the exploitation and forced labor of the participating workers, who heavily depend on their U.S.-based employers.

There's Dumb, Dumber and Flori-Dumbest

Dr. Joseph Ladapo gives poor advice

Fox News ran a story on Florida’s Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo’s, medical advice vis-à-vis the latest COVID booster. The report covered a press conference Ladapo had given while his patron, Ron DeSantis, hovered in the background. Here are some of his remarks:

"There’s a new vaccine that’s coming around the corner, a new mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, and there’s essentially no evidence for it,"

"There’s been no clinical trial done in human beings showing that it benefits people.”

"There’s been no clinical trial showing that it is a safe product for people — and not only that but then there are a lot of red flags."

In terms of specific concerns, Ladapo warned that the updated vaccines "actually cause cardiac injury in many people."

Many media outlets covered the story. However, I chose Fox because it is an organization that would report anything supporting Ladapo’s position. Yet they did not - because nothing does. For example, if you click on their link “cardiac injury” it takes you to stories on the effect of obesity, gender, salt, aspirin, et al., and heart disease — but nothing about COVID.

As for his claim about human trials, he is correct. But that is not some nefarious shortcut. It is medical protocol, as the vaccine is not a new medicine (it is a variant of an established drug). And there are millions of people already vaccinated with no significant complications or side effects.

Vaccine denialism and COVID insanity are not new positions for Lapodo. In fact, it was his medically unsound op-eds for The Wall Street Journal, starting in 2020 on the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, that initially attracted DeSantis.

If You Think the Taliban Are Bad, How About the Taliban on Speed?

Afghanistan is the world’s fastest-growing maker of methamphetamine, a report from the United Nations drug agency said Sunday. The country is also a major opium producer and heroin source, even though the Taliban declared a war on narcotics after they returned to power in August 2021.

The United Nations’ Office on Drugs and Crimes, which published the report, said meth in Afghanistan is mostly made from legally available substances or extracted from the ephedra plant, which grows in the wild.

The report called Afghanistan’s meth manufacturing a growing threat to national and regional health and security because it could disrupt the synthetic drug market and fuel addiction. It said seizures of meth suspected to have come from Afghanistan have been reported from the European Union and east Africa.

Annual meth seizure totals from inside the country rose from less than 100 kilograms (220 pounds) in 2019 to nearly 2,700 kilograms (6,000 pounds) in 2021, suggesting increased production, the report said. But it couldn’t give a value for the country’s meth supply, the quantities being produced, nor its domestic usage, because it doesn’t have the data.

Who Won the Week?

The federal court that blocked an unconstitutional MAGA-drawn congressional map in Alabama, and ordered a special master to re-draw it with a second majority-Black district

Democratic telecom attorney Anna Gomez, confirmed by the Senate to the FCC, finally breaking a 2-2 deadlock and paving the road to a return of net neutrality rules

Fulton County, Georgia D.A. Fani Willis, for nixxing Rep. Jim Jordan's demand for records related to her case against Trump & his co-conspirators, saying "You lack a basic understanding of the law"

President Biden: cancels oil/gas leases in Arctic Wildlife Refuge; solid jobs report; celebrates contract renewal for west coast dock workers; 4 million sign-ups for student debt relief under SAVE Plan

The wheels of justice as Trump's favorite Proud Boys terrorist Enrique Tarrio is sentenced to prison until he's old and gray

U.S. District Court Judge David Ezra, for forcing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to get rid of those razor wire buoy barriers he had installed in the Rio Grande

Mexico's Supreme Court, for legalizing abortion nationwide

The jury that convicted unhinged Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro of criminal contempt of Congress. (He could get 2 years in prison.)

Gabe Amo, who won the Democratic primary for a House seat in Rhode Island, putting him on track to be the first Black person representing the state in Congress