The peninsula’s known for its palm trees and isles,
And sun-kissed sandy beaches that go on for miles.
But when the polar vortex hits Florida
You’ve got to beware of iguanas,
‘Cause when the temperature drops, it starts raining reptiles.
A new University of North Florida poll in Florida finds Donald Trump leading Joe Biden, 47% to 45% among likely voters. About 4% said another candidate, 2% said they do not plan on voting, and 3% said they do not know, or refused to answer.
“In America today‚ 2024, women have fewer rights than their mothers or their grandmothers had, because of Donald Trump. I don’t think we’re going to let him get away with it, do you?”
— President Biden at a campaign stop in Tampa, reported by Tampa Bay Times.
The Guardian: “By almost every measure, the rightwinger has had another lackluster week on the campaign trail, with ‘clumsy’ missteps in New Hampshire, Texas, California and New York. Now, barely one month after his glitch-ridden launch on Twitter, DeSantis finds himself sinking in the polls, closer to the large field of optimists below him than the twice-indicted, twice-impeached former president who retains a stranglehold over the Republican party.
“‘The more voters learn about him, the less they can stomach the idea of him running the country,’ the online magazine Jezebel concluded.”
“Governor Ron DeSantis is a job killing moron who cares more about his own political ambitions and culture wars than Florida and our future. According to him, ‘woke makes you go broke’ but this is another example of how it’s actually the complete opposite. DeSantis is not who you want for President — ever.”
— Fla. Rep. Anna Eskamani (D – Dist. 42) reacting to the news that Disney will pull a $17 billion project out of her district. The decision was announced amid ongoing attacks from Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis after Disney objected to the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which punishes any acknowledgement of nonheterosexual orientation in public schools.
Watching Ron DeSantis’ belly flop onto the empty concrete of the proverbially empty pool has been astonishing. It is very very rare to see a loss of 30 points. There hasn’t been a debate. The campaign hasn’t effectively started, and he’s collapsed under the weight of his disorder personality.
The newspapers are filled with stories. Ron DeSantis doesn’t like to talk to people. Ron DeSantis doesn’t like to make phone calls. Marco Rubio talked about the fact in the Wall Street Journal story that details the 30 point point collapse that he hasn’t talked to the governor of his state in months…
Not only does Trump have a score of congressional endorsements a few months later, while his behavior has become more outrageous, more dangerous and more unhnged. eight of those congressional endorsements are from the state of Florida.
Ron DeSantis just isn’t ready for prime time. He has no path to a comeback. He’s an extremely poor debater. It’s over.
A third travel advisory has been issued for Florida. Equality Florida, the state’s largest organization devoted to fighting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender idenity, is warning not to visit or relocate to Florida. The group joins The Florida Immigrant Coalition and state chapters of the NAACP in the same message:
Don’t come to Florida
The move comes in response to…the passage of laws that are hostile to the LGBTQ community, restrict access to reproductive health care, repeal gun safety laws, foment racial prejudice, and attack public education by banning books and censoring curriculum.
Florida’s legislature continues to churn out culture war laws devised by Gov. Ron DeSantis. One source from within the body even told a Politico Florida reporter that the governor’s office must sign off on any changes to bills as they work through the legislature.
Florida’s elected Republicans find themselves ignoring serious problems like a crisis in homeowners insurance that is causing Florida residents to sell their homes. They have also produced no bills dealing with climate change even as the Fort Lauderdale airport had to be shut down from torrential rain and flooding. Instead, they focus on issues that Ron DeSantis wants to be able to boast about in his primary challenge to disgraced former Pres. Trump.
Politico.com: “[California Gov. Gavin] Newsom sat down with [MSNBC’s Jen] Psaki in Alabama, while on a tour of Republican-led states including Arkansas and Mississippi. Newsom recently announced the launch of a new political action committee called Campaign for Democracy, aimed at calling out red state policies and ‘authoritarian leaders.’
“With Psaki, he lit into DeSantis, a frequent target of his ire who is expected to announce a run for the Republican presidential nomination at the close of Florida’s legislative calendar.
“‘[He’s] scared to death, scared of the people, scared of the public,’ Newsom said. ‘I think the majority of NRA members probably oppose that position.’”
“Dirty French Steakhouse?”The new chair of the Florida Democratic Party is fearless. Nikki Fried was the only Dem in the cabinet of Ron DeSantis because Floridians elected her as our agriculture secretary and he couldn’t do anything about it. But she opted to run in the primary leading up to the 2022 gubernatorial election and lost because our team was so afraid of DeSantis winning a second term that they made the utterly wrong calculation that former governor, former Republican, former U.S. Representative Charlie Crist was the safer bet.
I knew Fried had what it would take to beat DeSantis. Unfortunately, you can’t go full nuclear on a fellow “Democrat” in a primary so Crist won on name recognition and voter laziness. DeSantis went on to take 59.4 percent of the vote, in an election with 53.6 percent turnout, or the votes of 4.6 million people in a state with 22.2 million people. But DeSantis touts his “landslide” victory and since it makes a better story, the press goes along with it and it becomes accepted fact.
But we still have Fried and she is not sleeping on retiring Ron DeSantis.
Please answer the question, “Who’s your real boss?”
This is serious — not just partisan dross.
If you want a job with the FBI,
You have to be loyal enough to lie.
It’s your employment gain, but it’s democracy’s loss.
“I rise to announce that the movement to impeach the president has begun. I rise to announce that I will bring articles of impeachment against the president for dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done. I also rise to say that the impeachment movement is going to be a grass up movement, not a top down. The people have got to move forward. The people have to demand it, and when the people demand it, it will be done. … On some issues, it is better to stand alone than not stand at all. On this issue, I stand alone, but I stand for justice.”
“I’m not here to suggest that people shouldn’t be alarmed. I think they should be alarmed, but I also think that one of Trump’s great advantages is that he’s a very effective bluffer. And most of this stuff is going to cause a ton of damage, but will eventually be found to be illegal. There’s a real difference between understanding that this is a deadly serious situation and catastrophizing by saying, ‘We’re cooked.’ We are not cooked.”
— Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), in an interview with the New Yorker.
“My heart is with the people out on the street outside USAID, but my head tells me: ‘Man, Trump will be well satisfied to have this fight.’ When you talk about cuts, the first thing people say is: Cut foreign aid.”
— David Axelrod told Politico that Democrats should not try to save the United States Agency for International Development from its illegal gutting at the hands of Elon Musk.
“Elon Musk is not the president, but it does appear that he—a foreign-born, unelected billionaire who was not confirmed by Congress—is exercising profound influence over the federal government of the United States, seizing control of information, payments systems, and personnel management. … It is nothing short of an administrative coup.”
New York Times: “Senators were informed this week that the Senate phone system was receiving 1,600 calls per minute, a sharp increase from the usual 40 calls a minute … While the phones had not completely stopped ringing, as they have in the past under heavy loads, members were told that some constituents would be sent straight to voice mail to prevent a complete shutdown.”
“Senate Republicans unveiled a plan to fund President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, proposing to spend close to $350 billion on immigrant detention facilities, deportation raids and national security priorities,” the Washington Post reports.
“Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be FBI director, was paid $25,000 last year by a film company owned by a Russian national who also holds U.S. citizenship and has produced programs promoting ‘deep state’ conspiracy theories and anti-Western views advanced by the Kremlin,” the Washington Post reports.
“President Donald Trump’s tax cut wish list would cost would the federal government between $5 trillion and $11.2 trillion in lost revenue over the next decade, according to a new analysis from a budget watchdog group,” Bloomberg reports.