On the 23ed of April, “Genocide Joe” Biden foolishly visited Tampa, home to the largest Palestinian community in Florida and one of the largest in the whole US. The largest pro-Palestine protest I have seen in months descended on his campaign event. Speakers called out not only his genocidal war in Gaza, but his do-nothing hypocrisy on abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, and migrant rights. Biden came to Tampa to peddle the “vote for me or face a national abortion ban” message, but this message fell flat with the protesters.

It has been two years since the Dobbs decision to allow state level abortion bans. A Federal ban would presumably be blocked by a Democratic fillibuster in the Senate (assuming the Dems have any spine left at all). In 2021-2022 before the Jan 2023 Congress began, Biden could have rammed through Federal legislation to codify Roe v Wade, blocking the state bans in all 50 states. Manchin and Sinema could have been reeled in with threats to fund primary opponents against them, and on abortion they probably would have both kneeled. Instead, the only thing Biden has done on abortion or on the wave of anti-LGBTQ hate unleashed by Dobbs is talk. He cares about abortion VOTES only, not about abortion rights.

As for the rights of Palestinian women, Biden and Trump seem to speak as one on this issue: if you are Palestinian, your only “right” is to die under a storm of US bombs and missiles shipped to Netanyahu’s extreme-right regime in Israel.

Activists are not having it: Biden events are being protested everywhere, and the message “remember in November” has been going out since October. Trump and Biden both support genocide in Gaza. Remember Trump’s Muslim ban and move of the U$ Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Casting a vote for either major party candidate is consent to and endorsement of genocide in Gaza. Such a vote is tantamount to joining the IOF.

Also present in the area of the Biden event were a half dozen Trumpers including an “Ultra MAGA” flagged pickup truck. Note that “Ultra MAGA”is a dog whistle for neo-Naziism. A few pro-Biden protesters also showed up, and a dozen or two antiabortion extremists. None had anything close to the numbers of the pro-Palestine protest, not even within the same order of magnitude.

Selected clips from live feed of the climate march against the 2024 Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington DC

(video by DC’s own Chuck Modi)

On the 15th of April, DC area activists descended on a Northern Virginia office of Lockheed-Martin and shut it down with a hard lockdown including lockboxes

On the 15th of April, pro-Palestine protesters across Turtle Island shut down freeways, bridges, and arms contractors. Thousands more participated in protests from coast to coast.

Orlando did not sit out this wave of protests. Answering the call from the A15 global organizers, protesters gathered at the Post Office, calling for a refusal to pay taxes that fund this war and a total blockade of the US economy. One of the chants asked taxpayers “how many kids did you kill today.” A speaker explicitly called on people to refuse to pay taxes that fund US bomb deliveries to Israel and to refuse to participate in the economy funding the genocide. Just off to the side were the bike cops who have been dogging pro-Palestine protests in Orlando for months now.

Until now, the IRS had not appeared on pro-Palestine radars in this way. This is not good news for those who profit from genocide.

Elsewhere, a Lockheed-Martin office in Virginia (near Washington DC) was shut down. I-95 was closed by a direct action team in Philadelphia while a big march took the streets downtown. At least one road to PortMiami blocked was blocked by protesters at the price of 7 arrests. Northrup Grumman got access to their Parking lot shut down in S Charlotte. In Minnesota, Wells Fargo got their windows smashed, and an Amazon distribution center was blockaded.Tesla got shut down in Fremont, CA. Chicago’s O’Hare airport was beseiged behind a freeway blockade for 2 1/2 hours at the price of 40 arrests.

Tampa FL managed to blockade Zack and Ashley, holding southbound traffic into the city for about 15 minutes. That one I could have been at, but with Twitter blocking 3ed party frontends I had zero notice of it until now. nitter.poast.org just managed to get back in it seems

For every major blockade there could easily have been a dozen or more smaller protests, as the whole community responded at once from coast to coast. Today’s actions large and small, spicy and otherwise were all about the same thing: putting genocide under a siege of our own. The combined total of all these protests and direct actions put some serious points on the board for Gaza.

On the 13th of August, the “Yes on 4” referendum kickoff rally and and march were held at Orlando’s Lake Eola. Some speakers told personal stories about having had abortions they never, ever regretted. Chants of “Yes on 4” rocked the paviliion before the rally became a march.

At one point, the march appeared to stretch fully halfway around Lake Eola, with lead elements at the far side of the lake while trail element were still leaving the pavilion area. This was the largest protest I’ve ever seen at Lake Eola.

A few dozen Christian nationalists counterprotested for an extreme forced-birth agenda, most of the time separated by a line of bike cops. One of them was Keith Hanley, an infamous and violent forced-birth extremist known for harassing clinics. One clinic defender called him a Nazi. Several times he has come close to getting himself arrested for assault

On the 11th of April, pro-Gaza protesters showed up in force at Valencia College. With them was a woman the college fired for writing “Free Palestine” on a bulletin board.

The woman fired for writing “Free Palestine” first on the bulletin board’s post-it notes meant for commentary, then on a blank sheet of paper that replaced the post-it notes was the keynote speaker. She chewed out the college for violating her rights and supporting genocide, then warned that the free state of Gaza would outlive Valencia College.

Displeased with the protest, the college made some kind of call to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department that brought a half dozen cars and a dozen cars. They may have been dissatisified with the Florida State Police, who sent only three apparent carloads of cops. For all the cops, protesters still outnumbered them. The Orange County deputies didn’t stay long, it seems they were not impressed with having so many of them tied up by Valencia College whining again about peaceful protesters. False police reports are not unheard of during protests.

When I was covering HLS protests in DC, there were at least two proven false police reports filed: one claimed a peaceful residential protest was an armed home invasion, the other claimed “shots fired” at a peaceful office protest.

On the evening of 6th of April, activists who have held a great many Palestine protests in Orlando did something a little different. They held an intersectional vigil remembering domestic martyrs killed by police, murdered by fascists, or driven to suicide by hate as well as those murdered by the genocidal IOF in Palestine.

On the 4th of April, the Florida Board of Medicine held yet another hearing about implementing new obstacles to gender affirming care. The agenda items were long, complex consent forms, one with something like 46 boxes to check.

The real issue was open anti-trans bias by several board members who were “hand picked,” presumably by DeSantis. Board member Patrick Hunter was singled out by name for this. Afterwards, the moderator insisted no further public comments address the character or behavior of the board members.

A number of transgender speakers emphasized that transition saved their lives, while years of “therapy” in their teens in leiu of transition proved to be absolutely worthless. The board was also reminded that for a transgender teen, being denied access to gender affirming care is as irreversable as any other decision, as a wrong-direction puberty can require major surgery to correct later.

I may be a cisqueer man myself, but I can imagine few thing worse than puberty in the wrong direction at age 13. These ghoulish board members whine about receiving “threats” at prior hearings, when it is they who are the threat to transgender kids and trans adults too.

It was also mentioned by transgender speakers that while many are fleeing Florida, some are not going anywhere. Like me as a cisqueer man, they are standing their ground, refusing to leave this “Stand Your Ground” state.

On the 4th of April, abortion rights activists held a “Yes on 4″/Bans Off Our Bodies rally in Lakeland, Florida. The rally lined the road near the Southgate shopping center.

With DeSantis’s 6 week abortion ban going into effect MAY 1 and the 15 week ban now in effect, abortion rights activists are pulling out all the stops to get enough votes to overturn them both in the November 4 referendum. This is Amendment 4, thus “Yes on 4.”

The Florida Supreme Court has unleashed two opposing decisions that make Florida into a battleground of nationwide importance on abortion: on the one hand they upheld both the 15 and 6 week bans, on the other they permitted the referendum to go to the ballot. This is about abortion access in the entire South, not just Florida as all neighboring states have bans too.

This horrific legislation will force anyone who is too far along in a pregnancy to order abortion pills or who cannot shop online to drive or ride the bus in some cases well over 1,000 miles. For some it will come down to whether New Mexico or Virginia is closer!

On the 30th of March, protesters gathered at Mirror Lake in St Peterburg, FL to remember the martyrs of Gaza’s desperate fight to survive Israel’s all-out genocidal attack. US martyr Aaron Bushnell was invoked for his sacrifice that brought so much pressure down on Netanyahu and Biden.

The invocation of Aaron Bushnell was because he has been recognized by those on the ground in Gaza as a martyr for their fight.

After the uniforms had been fed to the flames, “Genocide Joe” dollar bills were next to burn. Finally, protesters marched to City Hall to lay flowers and candles for the tens of thousands of people Israel has murdered in Gaza

I got there after the veterans had tossed their uniforms into the flames. For obvious reasons that had to be a surprise.