Month: March 2023

Proposed Florida Law Would Penalize Writing about DeSantis and Other Government Officials

Pensito Editors

Fla.com: “Florida Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) wants bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature to register with the state or face fines.

“Brodeur’s proposal, Senate Bill 1316: Information Dissemination, would require any blogger writing about government officials to register with the Florida Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics.

“In the bill, Brodeur wrote that those who write ‘an article, a story, or a series of stories,’ about ‘the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature,’ and receives or will receive payment for doing so, must register with state offices within five days after the publication of an article that mentions an elected state official.

“If another blog post is added to a blog, the blogger would then be required to submit monthly reports on the 10th of each month with the appropriate state office. They would not have to submit a report on months when no content is published…

“Failure to file these disclosures or register with state officials, if the bill passes, would lead to daily fines for the bloggers, with a maximum amount per report, not per writer, of $2,500. The per-day fine is $25 per report for each day it’s late.”

‘Emperor with No Clothes’: DeSantis Mocked for Irritation over Question about Ukraine

Pensito Editors

Alternet: “The Times of London’s David Charter, the newspaper’s U.S. editor, ‘writes that when he asked Mr. DeSantis how he would handle American relations with Ukraine, the governor referred ‘to Biden being ‘weak on the world stage’ and failing at deterrence.’

“Mr. Charter pressed for more detail: ‘How would a President DeSantis handle the conflict in Ukraine?’

“DeSantis, it appears, grew irritated.

“‘Perhaps you should cover some other ground?’ the governor replied. ‘I think I’ve said enough.’

“That is not going over well with many.

[…]

CPAC Chair Matt Schlapp Ducks Reporter’s Question about Gay Groping Charge

Pensito Editors

Alternet: Right-wing activist and lobbyist Matt Schlapp, the embattled chairman of the political organization that hosts the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), avoided a reporter’s questions Thursday about a male Republican campaign operative’s sexual assault allegations against him, and ultimately was pulled away by his arm rather than face the questions.

The Independent’s Eric Michael Garcia tried to get Schlapp to respond to the claims by the man who at the time was an aide to the Herschel Walker campaign. He is reportedly suing Schlapp in a $9.4 million battery, defamation, and conspiracy lawsuit after the CPAC leader refused to admit to allegations he was “aggressively fondling” the man’s “genital area in a sustained fashion” while he was driving Schlapp to his hotel.

In the video (above), Garcia can be heard saying to Schlapp, ‘What’s your response to the allegation –’ but then a woman interjects, asking, ‘How’s your wife?’

“‘She’s great,’ Schlapp responds.

[Mercedes Schlapp was Trump’s director of strategic communications.]

“…At that point another man grabs Schlapp’s arm and pulls him away.”

Fascism Rising: DeSantis Cronies Cancel Liberalism at Small College

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New College Florida
New College Florida

Vice News: “If Ron DeSantis has his way, what his board did at New College will happen at every public university in Florida.

“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ handpicked board of trustees voted to shutter New College’s diversity, equity, and inclusion office on Tuesday, the latest step in its hostile takeover of the school and a harbinger of what Florida’s entire university system could look like in a few months.

“The board, which has a majority of DeSantis appointees, voted 9 to 3 to abolish the school’s Office of Outreach and Inclusive Excellence.

“Christopher Rufo, a rightwing education activist and one of DeSantis’ appointees to the board and [who singlehandedly made Critical Race Theory into fake issue], argued during the meeting that diversity efforts undermine fairness. ‘DEI goes against those principles because it restricts academic freedom, it degrades the rigor of scholarship, it treats people differently on the basis of skin color or other inborn identities,’ he said during the board meeting.

“DeSantis has sought to make an example of New College, a tiny liberal arts school with a mostly progressive student body that has a large LBGTQ community. Earlier this year he replaced most of the college’s board of trustees with right-wing loyalists who quickly moved to fire the college’s president, replace her with an ally, and push the liberal-leaning school hard to the right.”

Atlantic: The FBI Desperately Wants to Let Trump Off the Hook (He Just Won’t Allow It)

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Adam Serwer in The Atlantic: “A simple but obvious fact has been lost over the past few years, amid Trump’s direct attacks on the FBI, and liberal defenses of the FBI against those attacks: FBI agents are cops. Law-enforcement officers, including the FBI, have long been disproportionately conservative, but in the past few decades, like the rest of the nation, they have also become far more polarized by party, a reality reflected in the rhetoric and positioning of advocacy groups such as the Fraternal Order of Police. There are liberal and moderate cops, but they are not close to comprising a majority. Simply put, the FBI is full of people who would prefer not to investigate Donald Trump. He remains under federal investigation only because of his own inability to stop criming.”

Trump Surges Ahead of DeSantis in National Poll

Buck Banks

12 points

A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that after trailing for the last three months, Donald Trump has suddenly surged to a substantial lead over Gov. Ron DeSantis in a two-man matchup for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. Previously, DeSantis led Trump 45% to 41% among Republican voters. Now Trump leads DeSantis 47% to 39% — a net swing of 12 percentage points in Trump’s direction since early February.

DeSantis Promises to Control Disney’s Content

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Florida MAGA Gov. Ron DeSantis
Florida MAGA Gov. Ron DeSantis

New York Magazine: “’When you lose your way, you’ve got to have people that are going to tell you the truth,’ [Florida MAGA Gov. Ron] DeSantis proclaimed. ‘So we hope they can get back on. But I think all of these [Central Florida Tourism Oversight District] board members very much would like to see the type of entertainment that all families can appreciate.’

“It is worth pausing a moment to grasp the full breadth of what is going on here. First, DeSantis established the principle that he can and will use the power of the state to punish private firms that exercise their First Amendment right to criticize his positions. Now he is promising to continue exerting state power to pressure the firm to produce content that comports with his own ideological agenda.

“Whether he is successful remains to be seen. But a few things ought to be clear. First, DeSantis’s treatment of Disney is not a one-off but a centerpiece of his legacy in Florida. He has repeatedly invoked the episode in his speeches, and his allies have held it up as evidence of his strength and dominance. The Murdoch media empire, which is functionally an arm of the DeSantis campaign, highlighted the Disney conquest in a New York Post front page and a Fox & Friends segment and DeSantis touted his move in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

[…]