This video has emerged of FL Capital Police arresting the wrong person as part of a witch-hunt against those who dared to protest DeSantis’ 2023 round of hateful and bigoted legislation.

The Let Us Live March was to speak out against HB1619, the bill to declare drivers licenses held by trans folks with updated gender markers to be “false IDs.” The bill also would prohibit insurance companies from paying for gender-affirming care. The bill was to be heard this day on the FL House floor, but the FL Senate has announced they are refusing to consider the bill.

DeSantis is attempting to implement the drivers license provisions of this bill by DECREE, without legislation. Courts may well slap that down, but that process could pass through trans folks sitting in jail for “driving on an invalid license” on cash bail they cannot afford. That would take months, and could easily kill people.

The defeat of the bill may have pissed off the cops. Fl State reps Rayner, Nixon, Davis, and Eskamani were able to get a leash on the cops long enough to keep them off the march, but that false arrest implies they were looking for any way or excuse to take revenge. Note that cops fanned out across FL armed with warrants hunting Occupy Tallahassee participants after last year’s session ended.

(video from raw clips by Ford Fischer)

(more video, from two Palestine-focussed journalists)

On the 26th of February, DC area pro-Palestine activists descended by the hundreds on the Israeli Embassy. They were there to remember Aaron Bushnell, the US Air Force servicemember to set himself on fire, saying “I will no longer be complicit in genocide.”

At least one Israeli flag was burned while Aaron’s words were repeated, at which point chants rose of “if we burn, you burn with us!” Someone said “This is in solidarity with Aaron, who burned his body. At the very least, we can burn the Zionist flag.”

One protester confronted Secret Service cops for standing on the exact spot where Aaron Burnell stood as he delivered his famous last words.

At one point in the protest, even the slogan “we won’t hide, we won’t cower, take up guns and sieze their power” was used! I think the message of the week is “No more crap, no more talk, no more half measures.” Just whatever it takes to shut down a genocide.

On the 24th of February, the same Christian nationalist cult that assaulted a child at Pasco Pride last year took a crushing defeat. As soon as they arrived, they were served trespass warnings and forced to retreat to the park entrance. As soon as I advanced on them and raised my camera, they pulled their signs down and started packing out. Word was they had gotten bored standing at the entrance all by themselves instead of invading the festival and assaulting patrons.

Chris Nelson’s “Gays against Groomers” did little better: they circled and circled but were unable to find any way into the park not corked up solid by security.

We win, they lose!

Valencia College in Orlando (a public college subject to the First Amendment) has been attempting to censor support for Palestinians. On the 22nd of February, reinforcements showed up and protested in front of Valencia College’s entrance.

When traffic lights turned red and stopped traffic, protesters marched into the crosswalk with signs, Palestinian flags, and bullhorns. They always cleared the intersection before the light turned green.

In the face of the ongoing genocide of Gaza, Tampa/USF Students for a Democratic Society marched on the 19th of Feb demanding their school divest from Israel.

The march demanded an end both to US aid to Israel and to the university’s own aid to Israel. These students are marching in defiance of DeathSantis’s SB 470, a bill to deny in-state tuition to pro-Palestine students and report them to Homeland Security.

If the bill passes, some students will have to drop out due to the massive tuition hike, others will leave pre-emptively to avoid the dangerous reporting to the DHS Gestapo. DeathSantis’s intention is that students would stay in school and drop their activism against Israel’s genocide but it is unlikely he will get that sort of compliance in the face of genocide.

On the 16th of February, Palestinians and their allies gathered in front of City Hall in Orlando, Florida. After some rousing speeches about the horrors inflicted by Israel on Gaza, marchers set off through downtown Orlands.

Bike cops dogged the march, which remained on sidewalks due to menacing new laws about protests in Florida. At first, the cops attempted to use their bikes to cut the march when walk signs changed, but this was resisted by keeping the back of the march tight and difficult to ride through. Soon the cops gave up on that form of harassment, though they continued riding next to the march.

A similar march against Russian dictator Vladimir Putin was not bothered. The cops moved to separate the two groups as the pro-Palestine march passsed, even though some of the Palestinian marchers made it plain they supported Ukraine’s resistance as well.

Like the residents of Gaza, the residents of Ukraine are defending their homes from an armed invasion. No doubt the reason their march was not bothered is that Biden hasn’t sided with Russia in Ukraine. Trump probably will, and that may bring the police down on Ukraine marches as well.

On the 15th of February, pro-Palestine activists held banners demanding “End US Aid to Israel” and “Hands off Rafah” on the Cady Way Trail bridge over FL route 436 (Senoran Blvd). Due to police interference the banners had to be held by hand rather than attached to the fence.

On the 13th of February, Palestinians and their allies gathered at Mills and E Colonial Dr (interesting name here…) for an emergency march for Rafah in Gaza. Twice when the march passed a Starbucks, Starbucks was called out for supporting genocide in Gaza. Chants against Genocide Joe and chants supporting Yemen’s direct action solidarity with Gaza were also used.

Late in the march, a motorist attempted to ram their way through multiple marchers but was brought to a stop by them. This took place well behind me, I was unable to get the camera up fast enough to capture the initial attack, so this is not in the video report. All present were able to return to action, and the march continued unabated.

Background: Two days earlier, Netanyahu bombed residential houses in Rafah, Gaza killing between 50 and 100 people as a DIVERSION! This to protect a raid that recovered only two hostages at such a horrific price paid by uninvolved civilians. Threats of an all-out assault on Rafeh are considered imminent, and five times Rafeh’s normal population is now present there, forced out of the rest of Gaza under a storm of terror bombing by Israel.

On the 12th of February, furious protesters gathered in Tampa, FL a few blocks away from Univ of S Florida. The protesters were there to support Gaza, to support Yemen, to oppose the bombing, and oppose US support for Israeli war crimes. Biden was called out as “Genocide Joe” for arming genocidal murderers.

On the 11th of February, Israeli troops began bombing Rafah while the Super Bowl kept US TV watching audiences busy with something else. The bombing was also a diversion: to protect a raid that rescued only TWO hostages at the price of blowing up many homes and killing 50-100 civilians.

Yemen is being bombed for daring to stop multinational shipping corporations from using the Red Sea given that some of those shipments are arms to Israel and others are Amazon warehouse shipments for among others customers in Israel.

Video clips provided by Women’s Voices of South West Florida (WVSWFL)

On the 9th of February, transgender activists and their allies descended on Florida Department of Motor Vehicles offices throughout the state. One of these protests was at the Tampa office. Protesters were there to oppose the administrative ban on driver’s licenses with gender markers disagreeing with gender assigned at birth.

Protesters staged a die-in inside the DMV office in front of all the customers, plus a second die-in outside

This administrative ban deems to be the DeathSantis administration’s answer to a FL House bill to do the same thing being stopped by the clock after no companion Senate bill was filed in time.

Under this policy, licenses with PREVIOUSLY revised gender are now considered invalid and will be suspended, and it has been declared a criminal offense as well as grounds for revocation to attempt to change gender markers now.

For a trans person to present a license listing a gender disagreeing with their physical appearance is just as dangerous as defying this: any bigoted, Southern Baptist cop could use this as an excuse to arrest them for “confirmation of identity” or worse. Given the sprawl in FL that makes not driving at all impossible for too many people, this is a life threatening decision by the government and is probably intended as one.

DeSantis has all but promised his Christian nationalist base that he will carry out a genocide against transgender Floridians. This is starting the same way the Nazi Holocaust started: with administrative restrictions. Whether this proceeds to a wipeout is up to you and me. If trans folks are rounded up, murdered, or driven from the state, don’t think for one minute that Desantis will stop there. He will simply pick another part of the LGBTQ community to assault, probably “cruising” Gay/Queer/Bi men such as myself.