DeSantis Is Florida's Dictator, Maybe Soon to Be Yours
It is said all the time; It is difficult to wrap one’s mind around thoroughly Ron DeSantis controls Florida, and he’s done it in a relatively short time, just one term (entering his second) and under a Constitution that is close enough to the Federal Constitution that it shouldn’t be possible. Yet he’s done it and done it without Trump’s help. Indeed, he’s accumulated this power in spite of Trump.
Let’s have a go of setting out some anecdotes while also simply analyzing the situation. Here is one for you. This is “petty” and “petulant” DeSantis. Per CNN,
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis blocked state funding for a new Tampa Bay Rays training facility partly because the baseball team spoke out against gun violence in the wake of back-to-back gun-related massacres in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York,
On Friday, he said he eliminated the funding because “I don’t support giving taxpayer dollars to professional sports stadiums.” But a source said the Republican leader had not made up his mind until the Rays took an organizational stance calling for action in the wake of the latest mass shootings.
I don’t believe private sports facilities should be funded with public money, either. It’s corporate welfare. But I don’t believe in essentially “fining” private organizations for voicing their ethics and morality.
Most governors have a line item veto. Most governors politicize that line item veto. Most do not use the line-item veto to punish what Orwell called “Thought crimes,” the idea that a team would speak up… would not be tolerated. If you want DeSantis’s largesse - because he treats that budget as “his money” to dole out as he pleases - you stay within DeSantis’s lane. He is Florida’s dangerous dictator.
But how can he be a bad guy? Just look at all this cuteness and beauty!
The adorable kids and his stunning wife, Casey, will be maximized as political tools, like everything else. As I’ll go over below, Casey is not only drop-dead gorgeous but very much his political partner, perhaps more ruthless. She may also be the only part of the “staff” that even likes him. He goes through staff at a torrid pace because few can stand him. His Ex-Staffers have a SUPPORT GROUP. We must all see the danger behind the beauty.
THE LEGISLATURE:
How strongly does DeSantis control the state legislature? I picked one example out of dozens and dozens from NBC News. Notice that none of this is actual legislation. The legislature did nothing but punish someone or thing DeSantis wanted punished:
Florida's Ron DeSantis wanted to target social media companies for their content moderation policies, crackdown on protests following Black Lives Matter demonstrations and punish a major corporation for crossing the GOP in the culture wars.
The Legislature delivered legislation he could sign on all three fronts — and fast, putting him out front as other Republican governors followed with similar moves. And it’s only scratching the surface.
It is only scratching the surface? Three bills delivered on time, on order for personal reasons?
Again from Florida Politics:
Some around Tallahassee see the wave of legislation speedily advanced this past year as the result of DeSantis’ “total dominance” over state lawmakers. But for most Republicans, it’s merely a matter of seeing eye to eye.
It is not “merely” seeing eye to eye. It is the fear of losing an eye if one ever crosses DeSantis. DeSantis orders what he wants, and the legislature delivers. It’s not by accident and didn’t come together by happenstance; DeSantis put it together.
This is what Charles Pierce of Esquire calls “DeSantis’s pet legislature.”
FLORIDA’S SUPREME COURT
From Florida Politics, a heartbreaking story that shows DeSantis’s hatred for democracy and his willingness to put his iron fist around the necks of Floridian voters even with respect to the judiciary:
Hillsborough County voters rejected Judge Jared Smith after denying a teen access to abortion, citing her grades. His term ends in two weeks.
But he was promoted by Ron DeSantis to the new 6th District Court of Appeals after losing his election.
Who do you suppose owns Judge Smith forever? The same guy who owns the entire Florida Supreme Court. Oh, and a big Fck You! to the Hillsborough County voters. DeSantis’s hatred of democracy extends to the judiciary.
From the Tallahassee Democrat:
The Florida Supreme Court has refused to stop a congressional redistricting plan struck down by a lower court from being used in this year’s elections, handing Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s ruling Republicans a major victory.
The 4-1 ruling Thursday by the court keeps in place a map that eliminates a Jacksonville-to-Tallahassee district with a large Black population that has elected U.S. Rep. Al Lawson, a Black Democrat, to Congress since 2016.
But that’s just one case, you might say. And you’re correct, but the Court has a strange way of always ruling in favor of DeSantis’s position, which shouldn’t surprise anyone since DeSantis had the good fortune of appointing nearly all of them. From the very excited National Review:
When Francis takes her seat, DeSantis will have appointed four of the seven members of the Florida supreme court. (He’s actually appointed six justices, but two of his early picks—Barbara Lagoa and Robert Luck—were in turn appointed by Donald Trump to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.) DeSantis has transformed what was long a 5-to-2 liberal majority into a 6-to-1 textualist majority.
I particularly love the way they use “textualist” as if it’s the measure of a good judge. Whether they use “textualist” or “originalist,” they’re referencing what the writers of the Constitution meant when they wrote the words of the document, even in instances when the writers clearly signaled they didn’t know what the words would come to mean. “Due process of law” was not defined. It was left open in the expectation that the courts would define its evolution. It’s the perfect hiding position for a conservative that wants to hold society back to old norms when gays couldn’t marry, when women couldn’t sign contracts, access reproductive choice, and everyone knew their place and stayed there, lest society’s “leaders” be forced to intervene.
Okay, DeSantis owns his 6-1 “textualist” Supreme Court, and many people believe that - just as the Devil Rays found out, DeSantis will grace you with his political largesse up to the point where you cross him, and then you are gone, up to and including Supreme Court justices.
DESANTIS AS DICTATOR
Above is Rebekah Jones. Jones was a scientist with the Florida State Department of Public Health, credited with putting together one of the most sophisticated COVID databases in the nation. She said she was fired after refusing to “manipulate data.” State officials said Jones was fired for insubordination after multiple reprimands. Jones created her own COVID-19 dashboard after she was fired. Days later, state law enforcement officers raided her home. Guns were drawn. From the Tallahassee Democrat:
They pointed a gun in my face. They pointed guns at my kids,” Jones tweeted, posting a video of the raid that shows officers with their guns drawn.
You will note that “refusing to manipulate data” and “insubordination” are not mutually exclusive. Jones was found to have presumptivelt hacked into the agency’s emergency communications channel and sent a text message to 1,750 employees with the Florida Dept. of Health and other agencies stating:
“It’s time to speak up before another 17,000 people are dead. You know this is wrong. You don’t have to be a part of this. Be a hero. Speak out before it’s too late.”
I can’t think of any reason that an otherwise working mom scientist would take up an “agenda” based on misinformation. I can think of a reason why DeSantis would want to manipulate numbers and put pressure on that working mom scientist and raid her home, guns drawn, with kids present, to get her computer. And I”m not the only one. Longtime influential Florida Republican Ron Filipkowski resigned his position on the judiciary committee in protest:
“What’s the crime here? The crime is her sending an email telling people to tell the truth?”
“You don’t send 12 armed officers to raid her computer for doing that. That’s Gestapo. That’s authoritarian dictator tactics. That’s not America. It really viscerally bothered me.”
It is a message to any other Floridian who considers opposing DeSantis. And it is damned scary. This is the same guy:
Two Other Examples: EXAMPLE ONE
DeSantis Advocates Expanded Stand Your Ground Laws, Allowing the “Right People” to Shoot Looters. From Orlanad’s Channel 2
Gov. Ron DeSantis is following up on what he called a “crackdown on disorderly protests” by proposing changes in Florida law which critics say could lead to vigilantism.
Expanding the state’s Stand Your Ground law is part of a draft legislation proposal which has been sent from the governor to lawmakers ahead of the next legislative session.
Among the changes would be an addition of justifications for people using force against one another over criminal acts during protests, like looting.
It is not hard to see the inevitable consequences of such a law. It would allow the Kyle Rittenhouses of the world a ready-made defense for shooting down black people or immigrants. No one reading this is silly enough to think that a legally armed 22-year-old black kid can shoot a 40-year-old white man who is banging up the kid’s car. The kid will get the death penalty.
EXAMPLE TWO:
And this one even shocked me. From NPR, we see just how far the Republicans have come from their “No big government, local is best” roots.
Despite a judge's ruling last week declaring that the Florida governor's ban on mask mandates in schools is unconstitutional, the State Board of Education has forged ahead with its threat to withhold school board members' salaries in districts that require the face coverings in classrooms.
Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran announced that school board members in Alachua and Broward counties will not be getting paychecks from the Department of Education this month, saying their mandatory face mask policies violate parental rights. The board will hold onto the funds until each school board complies with Gov. Ron DeSantis' now-overturned executive order.
"We're going to fight to protect parents' rights to make health care decisions for their children," Corcoran said in a statement Monday. "They know what is best for their children.
So, above: DeSantis’s pet legislature passed a law that said that no school district could enforce its own policies and must abide by the state’s “no mask” policy. “Parents’ Rights” should extend to the kid in the mask sitting beside the hacking unmasked kid coughing all over everything.
A judge shot it down, saying the districts could implement their own safety protocols. DeSantis refuses to pay people who disobey him. Putin would be proud.
FLORIDA’S DICTATOR IS READY TO BE YOUR DICTATOR, TOO
DeSantis has not announced that he is running in 2024. He certainly hasn’t said that he won’t run in 2024, earning Trump’s everlasting wrath and rage. No, DeSantis looks very comfortable building his case as the MAGA heir without actually touring the country (yet) and waiting for Trump’s self-destruct button to finally go off. At that point, the MAGAs will be begging DeSantis to get in the race.
I am not going to set out all of DeSantis’s fascist leanings again, but I will note that Trump has nothing on DeSantis. Trump fired Vindman, and his brother, DeSantis, fired Rebekah Jones and then sent men with guns to greet her and her kids. DeSantis also has two Ivy League degrees, an undergrad at Yale and a law degree from Harvard. Trump can’t spell “Ivy.” (Yes, I know he has a degree from Penn, you know what I mean). He has been and will be far more effective than Trump.
This man is dangerous, and he’s likely running for president under the “America First” agenda. That is damned scary. Imagine President DeSantis, Majority Leader Sen. Ted Cruz, and Speaker Jim Jordan. Oh, and imagine knowing that they have a SCOTUS greenlighting them for a generation.
Sorry.
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