DeSantis Replaces State Attorney with Federalist Society Judge

Orlando Sentinel

To diffuse claims of racism for groundlessly removing Monique Worrell, a Black state attorney who was elected by a two-to-one margin, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis replaced her with a Black judge who is a member of the Federalist Society. But, according to the Orlando Sentinel, Andrew Bain is also not a very good judge:

In his time overseeing criminal cases in county court, Bain received low marks in a judicial qualifications poll by the Central Florida Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, ranking last among Orange County criminal judges, with respondents describing him as “state-leaning” or prosecution-biased.

At a press conference announcing his appointment, Bain offered a word-salad nonexplanation of why he’s a member of the Federalist Society, a powerful group that is uncannily influential in getting presidents and governors to name conservatives to top judicial posts, including the Supreme Court:

“I am a member simply for this reason: My grandmother was a sharecropper, so when she came time to harvest her harvest in her family and the landowner shorted her, she had no legal recourse because the judges made the laws,” he said. “And that’s purely unfair. And that stuff’s been going on forever.”
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Ain’t Done Much for Floridians

C. Jones claytoonz.com

TIME magazine has an insightful piece on how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ focus on culture wars has obscured his terrible record on accomplishing much of anything positive for the residents of his state. The essay is written by William Kleinknecht, a political journalist and author of “States of Neglect: How Red-State Leaders Have Failed Their Citizens and Undermined America.”

Here’s an excerpt from “No One Is Talking About What Ron DeSantis Has Actually Done to Florida”:

Even a cursory dip into the statistics of social and economic well-being reveals that Florida falls short in almost any measure that matters to the lives of its citizens. More than four years into the DeSantis governorship, Florida continues to languish toward the bottom of state rankings assessing the quality of health care, school funding, long-term elder care, and other areas key to a successful society.

Florida may be the place where “woke goes to die”—as DeSantis is fond of saying—but it is also where teachers’ salaries are among the lowest in the nation, unemployment benefits are stingier than in any other state, and wage theft flourishes with little interference from the DeSantis administration. In 2021, DeSantis campaigned against a successful ballot initiative to raise the state’s minimum wage, which had been stuck at $8.65 an hour. Under DeSantis’s watch, the Sunshine State has not exactly been a workers’ paradise.

Miami Lawmaker Wants to Protect Floridians Against a Zombie Apocalypse

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: I’m thankful that the Florida legislature only convenes 60 days a year — think of the mischief lawmakers could do if they were in session more than two months!

Fortunately, the 2014 session thankfully ends tomorrow. But the mischief ain’t done yet.

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Tanking in the Polls, Florida Gov. Rick Scott Lies about His Role in Passing the GOP’s Racist Voter Suppression Law

art-assault-floridaPart of the series, Assault on Florida.

Florida’s tea party governor, Rick Scott, must be looking at some really devastating private polling — numbers even more seemingly insurmountable than results of a public poll released yesterday. That news survey from PPP found that Scott’s approval rating was upside down by a whopping 24 percentage points, 33 to 57 percent — and that former Gov. Charlie Crist, who recently joined the Democratic Party, leads him by double digits, 53 to 39 percent, in the 2014 governor’s race.

Devastating poll results could explain why the governor emulated another plutocrat pol, Mitt Romney, this week when he executed a Romney-style 180-degree flip-flop on one of his own signature issues — Florida’s racist voter suppression law.

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