This is how authoritarians operate. DeSantis picks an unhinged, Qanon spewing, big-lie promoter to oversee elections in Florida. "Florida now has a QAnon conspiracy theorist and promoter of the big lie overseeing our state elections and DeSantis' election police," he said. "We need a Secretary of State whose top priority is free and fair elections, not a hyper-partisan GOP loyalist who takes orders from Ron DeSantis. Our right to vote is sacred and I worry about what this could mean for our democracy." Ron DeSantis’ handpicked "radical far-right" secretary of state will oversee his race DeSantis picked Cord Byrd, a Florida legislator who won't acknowledge Biden's 2020 win, to run Florida elections https://www.salon.com/2022/07/11/ro...ght-secretary-of-state-will-oversee-his-race/ Democrats and election experts have sounded the alarm for months about the growing risk of election subversion as conspiracy theorists backed by former President Donald Trump run for secretary of state in key swing states. But with little fanfare or media attention, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year hand-picked a right-wing ally who refuses to acknowledge President Joe Biden's 2020 victory to oversee his re-election race. Around the country, Republicans pushing Trump's "Big Lie" about the 2020 election are running to win jobs overseeing the next election. Trump loyalist Jim Marchant, who baselessly claims that elections have been illegitimate for more than a decade, recently won the Republican nomination for secretary of state in Nevada. The Michigan Republican Party is backing Kristina Karamo, who has pushed ludicrous conspiracy theories about the 2020 race being stolen. Trump has also endorsed Mark Finchem as Arizona's next secretary of state after he attended the Jan. 6 Capitol rally and introduced a bill to decertify 2020 election results. But Florida, like Texas, allows the governor to appoint the state's election chief. After Secretary of State Laurel Lee resigned to run for a U.S. House seat this spring, DeSantis simply handed his right-wing ally the job. DeSantis in May appointed controversial state Rep. Cord Byrd to oversee elections in the state, touting him as an "ally of freedom and democracy." DeSantis won his first election by less than half a percentage point against Democrat Andrew Gillum, the former mayor of Tallahassee. "I look forward to his successes ensuring Florida's elections remain safe, secure and well-administered," DeSantis said in a statement. A news release from DeSantis' office praised Byrd as "a staunch advocate for election security, public integrity, the fight against big tech censorship and the de-platforming of political candidates." In his own statement, Byrd vowed to ensure that "Florida continues to have secure elections and that we protect the freedom of our citizens in the face of big-tech censorship and ever-growing cybersecurity threats." Byrd has refused to acknowledge Biden's win over Trump, citing unspecified "irregularities" in the 2020 election. "He was certified as the president. He is the president of the United States," Byrd said after he was appointed. "There were irregularities in certain states. … I'm not the secretary of state of Wisconsin or Pennsylvania or Arizona. That's up to their voters. We in Florida had a successful election in 2020. And that's what I want to continue to have in 2022." There is no evidence of any issues in the states Byrd cited that may have improperly swayed the election. Byrd said Florida's election was "successful and accurate" but added that "we also know that people want to interfere and sow chaos," defending a spate of new voting restrictions, some of which a federal judge later ruled unconstitutional because they disenfranchised Black voters. Byrd and his wife Esther, who was appointed by DeSantis to the State Board of Education, quit Twitter last year after she tweeted about "the coming civil wars" during the Capitol riot. "In the coming civil wars (We the People vs the Radical Left and We the People cleaning up the Republican Party), team rosters are being filled. Every elected official in DC will pick one. There are only 2 teams … With Us [or] Against Us," Esther Byrd tweeted as the Capitol was under siege. "We the People will NOT forget!" She also appeared to defend the rioters in another post she wrote on Facebook. "ANTIFA and BLM can burn and loot buildings and violently attack police and citizens," she wrote, according to Florida Politics. "But when Trump supporters peacefully protest, suddenly 'Law and Order' is all they can talk about! I can't even listen to these idiots bellyaching about solving our differences without violence." She also made "comments supportive of QAnon after the couple was photographed on a boat flying a QAnon flag," the outlet reported. Cord Byrd dismissed criticism of his wife's comments last year, arguing that "people talk about civil wars in the Republican party." "There are factions. People believe different things. It was a figure of speech and that's how it was intended," he told WJXT-TV. Byrd, who will ultimately require confirmation by the Republican-led state Senate, will oversee the state's upcoming elections and the implementation of its new voting restrictions, including the creation of a new office in the Department of State to investigate allegations of irregularities. Democrats have pushed to hold confirmation hearings but have been ignored by Republican leaders. While serving in the state House, Byrd co-sponsored the voting restrictions legislation and several other controversial bills, including a 2021 measure that imposed stiff criminal penalties in protests that turn violent after mass demonstrations following the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. "We can act before it's too late. We do not need to have Miami or Orlando or Jacksonville become Kenosha or Seattle or Portland," Byrd said at the time. "We have the ability under House Bill 1 to act now to say you can protest peaceably but you cannot commit acts of violence, you cannot harm other people, you cannot destroy their property, you cannot destroy their lives." Byrd also co-sponsored Florida's controversial "Don't Say Gay" bill, a 15-week abortion ban, a bill to ban schools from discussing race, and anti-trans and anti-immigrant legislation, according to the ACLU of Florida. Byrd also supported DeSantis' congressional map, which was adopted by the legislature and subsequently challenged in court for reducing the number of majority-Black districts in the state. "Our main concern around this office is that there is no guardrail to ensure that under any administration it couldn't become a political tool," Abelilah Skhir of the ACLU of Florida told NPR. During a debate on the state's 15-week abortion ban, Byrd clashed with Black lawmakers on the House floor, calling them "fucking idiots," according to the Orlando Sentinel. State Rep. Angie Nixon said at the time that she was "disgusted" by Byrd's behavior. "Byrd is unhinged," she tweeted, accusing him of "antagonizing and cussing at Black Caucus members." He "clearly has biases & lacks composure," she wrote. Byrd's office later denied the report. After Byrd's appointment, Nixon slammed DeSantis' choice, arguing that the top election official "should be a consensus builder whose sole focus is running free and fair elections for every citizen of our state." "Cord Byrd is not that person," she said in a statement. "He is unqualified in both his credentials and his temperament, has proved time and again he will put partisanship ahead of good policy, and is unfit to lead the elections department of a diverse state of more than 20 million people." Byrd said in a statement to NPR that he has "always advocated for the rule of law, and now serving as Florida's Secretary of State, that will not change." The secretary of state's office said the allegations that Byrd would politicize the department "are simply not true and have been repeatedly addressed." "This is a false narrative that appears to be perpetuated by inaccurate or incomplete news stories and by partisan political attacks," the office said. "The Secretary of State's office is nonpartisan and will not respond to those allegations." DeSantis defended Byrd during a press conference in May, touting him as a champion of "election integrity." "We are not going to have to worry in Florida about Zuckerbucks infiltrating our elections with Cord as secretary of state," the governor said, echoing a litany of election conspiracy theories. "We're not going to have to worry about ballot harvesting with Cord as secretary of state. We're going to make sure that the elections are run efficiently and transparently. But we are not going to allow these external influences to come in and to corrupt the operations. And we're certainly not going to allow political operatives to harvest all these votes, and then dump them somewhere." So far, Democratic calls for a state Senate vote on Byrd's confirmation have fallen on deaf ears. State Sen. Randolph Bracy, a Democrat, said in a statement that Byrd "must be thoroughly vetted and confirmed by the full Senate body before he is able to preside over the upcoming midterm elections. "He is taking over at a critical juncture and will be the first to oversee a new election security force which has unprecedented authority to hunt election and voting violations," Bracy said. State Rep. Carlos Smith, a fellow Democrat, said Byrd may be DeSantis' "most frightening appointment to date." "Florida now has a QAnon conspiracy theorist and promoter of the big lie overseeing our state elections and DeSantis' election police," he said. "We need a Secretary of State whose top priority is free and fair elections, not a hyper-partisan GOP loyalist who takes orders from Ron DeSantis. Our right to vote is sacred and I worry about what this could mean for our democracy." Democrats running to challenge DeSantis have already asked for the Justice Department to keep a close eye on the secretary of state's new election police, citing Byrd's involvement. Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., a former Florida governor (and former Republican) who is running for the office again, sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking the Justice Department to "consider using all available authorities and resources to protect the rights of Florida voters." Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, another Democratic gubernatorial candidate, also cited Byrd when she asked the DOJ to keep tabs on the state. "Due to these seriously concerning actions, it is imperative that the U.S. Department of Justice closely monitor the election-related actions of Florida officials and take appropriate federal action if necessary," she wrote, adding that the "collective measures" by DeSantis and the Florida legislature were "not isolated threats, but deliberate attempts to circumvent or override democratic norms. Discriminatory congressional maps, new voter suppression measures, and a Secretary of State with radical far-right views is a dangerous combination for Florida voters and the integrity of our elections."
DeSantis used to be a shoe-in for the Florida 2022 gubernatorial election --- now things are not looking so bright as he slides in the polls over the recent weeks. Mark Leibovich says Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' reelection isn't 'a sure thing,' as Republicans increasingly view him as a potential 2024 presidential contender https://www.businessinsider.com/mar...rnatorial-reelection-florida-gop-trump-2022-7
Ron DeSantis Would Kill Democracy Slowly and Methodically Whether he’s as bad as Trump isn’t the question. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/202...ritarian-democracy-trump-2024-republican.html During the Donald Trump era, democracy itself has become the preeminent question of American politics. Yet Trump himself has played a paradoxical role in this development. While his overtly authoritarian personality brought the democracy question to the fore, the sheer grossness of his behavior also served to blot out the deeper ideological causes of the rift. As Trump eventually fades from the scene — perhaps overtaken by Ron DeSantis — the democracy question, far from disappearing, might instead sharpen. A glimpse into this future came recently when I proposed on Twitter that DeSantis is “a deeply authoritarian figure.” The incredulity and rage of the conservative response this summoned was captured by a Fox News story headlined “NY Mag writer wrecked for calling DeSantis ‘a more competent authoritarian’ than Trump: ‘Hysterical’.” What’s revealing about this episode is how it has put on display the belief on the right that to call DeSantis a threat to democracy is not only wrong but self-evidently absurd. Conservatives are defining out of existence the idea that the party itself, rather than one man, could be a threat to democracy. Half a dozen years ago, I wrote a cover story for this magazine arguing that the authoritarian danger posed by Donald Trump was not limited to his personal fascination with dictatorships and power but also grew more broadly out of the soil of American reactionary politics. Here was the argument. Unlike the Eisenhower-era Republican Party, and unlike the conservative parties in every other democratic country, the conservative movement never accepted the democratic legitimacy of the welfare state. Conservatives considered the ability of majorities to vote for economic redistribution a threat to liberty and placed the preservation of liberty (as they defined it) above democracy. And so, while Trump’s almost feral contempt for democracy and the rule of law represented a unique threat, the longer-term danger to the Republic was the institutional power of a movement that had never truly made its peace with democratic principles. DeSantis is a flawless sample of this belief system. The conservative argument that democracy is dangerous lies so close to his heart that he wrote an entire book dedicated to the precept that “when the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” After the election, DeSantis floated a plan for legislatures to appoint pro-Trump electors, negating the election results. (The Supreme Court is ruling on the legality of this method, which may well be the cutting-edge conservative tool to negate elections.) In office, he has engineered a series of disturbingly illiberal schemes to entrench his own power, from instituting a poll tax to disenfranchise some million mostly non-white Floridians to punishing firms that dare to oppose his agenda, among many other steps. While conservatives frequently blurt out their belief that democracy is bad because “we’re a republic, not a democracy,” they blanch at the authoritarian label. To the extent many of them grudgingly accept that Trump poses some danger to the Republic, they attribute that danger entirely to his idiosyncratic style. As National Review’s Dan McLaughlin puts it, “My quarrel all along with Trump was his longstanding & notorious personal & public character. DeSantis just doesn’t have those issues.” It follows from this premise that any attempt to associate non-Trump elements of the Republican Party with authoritarianism is transparently disingenuous. In my DeSantis profile, I wrote that his candidacy reflects the calculation that “any former Republican voter who opposed Trump on moral rather than aesthetic grounds is gone and not worth trying to bring back.” Christopher Rufo, who has essentially the same relation to the DeSantis campaign that Don Jr. has to the Trump campaign, essentially confirms this. “The test for ‘NeverTrump’ intellecuals [sic] is where they stand on DeSantis,” he writes, “He should be their guy: elite education, military background, leadership experience, impeccable character. If they can’t get behind him, the takeaway is clear: it’s not about principles; they serve the Left.” If you believe the only legitimate objection to Trump is his personal character, then objecting to a politician without those character traits must be a bad-faith ploy, revealing that the complaints about Trump were never serious to begin with. National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry acknowledges a handful of DeSantis’s illiberal abuses of power only to dismiss them as trifling. In a column defending DeSantis, the subject of boosterish coverage in his and every major conservative publication, Lowry largely reduces the liberal critique to a straw man. “By any reasonable standard, DeSantis’ supposed sins are peccadilloes compared to those of Trump,” he writes, “Trump has continued to promote conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and endorse candidates who believe or pretend to believe in them; DeSantis criticized Anthony Fauci.” What this seemingly clever comparison omits is that DeSantis also promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. He has never conceded that Joe Biden won the election legitimately. Instead, he created an election-crimes task force and claimed the public needed to restore confidence in the sanctity of the ballot. The Republican mainstream has dismissed Trump’s efforts to undermine the election as off-message whining that distracts attention from more potent messages like inflation. “Trump is acting on an entirely personal and selfish priority,” complains Lowry. “There’s no principle at stake in embracing the Jan. 6 mob or advancing 2020 conspiracy theories.” This dismissal of Trump’s project catastrophically misses its profound significance. He has recruited activists and candidates into the party inspired by his belief that Democratic election victories are inherently illegitimate. There is no longer any serious Republican effort to stop election truthers. Trump is winning the war for the heart of the party in a rout. Over the last year, the percentage of Republicans who describe the events of January 6 as a “riot” has declined from 62 percent to 45 percent, while the share who describe it as a “legitimate protest” has risen from 47 percent to 61 percent. What’s just as important as DeSantis’s longstanding suspicion of democracy and string of thuggish Orbanist maneuvers is his calculation that he can co-opt these same radical forces. The path to reconstituting the GOP as a party that we can entrust with the Republic involves shoving out at least some of its extremists while bringing the Never Trump wing back into the fold. DeSantis’s strategy is just the opposite. He has ignored the slice of Republicans who disdain Trump’s authoritarianism and courted anti-vaxxers, QAnon believers, and insurrectionists. And he has demonstrated repeatedly a “no enemies to the right” strategy that inevitably binds him to the party’s most fanatical elements. Whether a President DeSantis would be more or less dangerous than Trump is not a question I can answer with any confidence. Trump poses a greater danger of triggering an immediate constitutional crisis, while DeSantis is more likely to methodically strangle democracy through a series of illiberal Orbanist steps like he has modeled in Florida. I suppose the threat of a quick death is more dire than the threat of a slow one, but I have little confidence in projecting out these comparative dangers. The only meaningful conclusion I can make about the choice of Trump versus DeSantis is “neither.”
In a Trump-like move, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is hawking a gold 'Freedom Team Membership Card' to his supporters https://www.businessinsider.com/ron-desantis-selling-a-gold-freedom-team-membership-card-2022-7 Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is selling a gold membership card for his gubernatorial campaign. The card bears an image of a grinning DeSantis next to the words "FLORIDA FIRST FIGHTER." The gold card is debuting close to a year after Donald Trump launched his own brand of cards. Almost a year after former President Donald Trump launched his Trump Cards for supporters, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida appears to be hawking a gold membership card of his own. Insider viewed one of DeSantis' fundraising pages this week, which allowed donors to his gubernatorial campaign to obtain a gold DeSantis Freedom Team Membership Card. The card's design shows a grinning DeSantis in sunglasses next to the words "FLORIDA FIRST FIGHTER." "Exclusive for our top 100 supporters only," the website said. The fundraising page also promised those signing up for the card exclusive updates from DeSantis and his team amid their "fight to keep Florida FREE!" The page indicated that the recommended donation amount to obtain the card was $37 and that the funds would go toward DeSantis' gubernatorial campaign. A separate fundraising link for the card viewed by Insider appeared to be a limited-time offer for the governor's top supporters in July. This website said "I WANT YOU TO JOIN MY INNER CIRCLE," recommending a minimum donation of $35 to secure the card, including shipping costs. Twitter users also circulated screenshots of emails from the DeSantis campaign that encouraged them to sign up for the card. For example, Ron Filipkowski, a Marine veteran who tracks right-wing news, posted what appeared to be a screenshot of one such email, which called on recipients to "become a member" of DeSantis' inner circle by grabbing a card for "just $20." Representatives for DeSantis did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider. In August 2021, Trump launched his own membership card, asking supporters in an email to choose their favorite Trump Card design. This first iteration of the card came emblazoned with the former president's signature in gold lettering. Trump caught flak over the cards' designs, however, one of which appeared to contain a typographical error. Critics also said the cards resembled symbols from the Third Reich and the Kennkarte, a form of ID used in Nazi Germany. The official Trump Card design was confirmed in September along with its price: $45. This design, however, appeared to feature a vector image of an eagle that could be downloaded free on Shutterstock. In April, Trump's PAC called on his supporters to get their "official Trump Gold Cards," a renewed iteration of the original red Trump Card. DeSantis and Trump are viewed as leading contenders for the 2024 Republican presidential ticket, though neither has formally declared that he's entering the race. A DeSantis representative told Insider this week that the lawmaker remained "focused on Florida and running for reelection as governor this year."
This is what authoritarians waste your tax dollars on... personal, petty revenge. Taxpayers Pay the Price for DeSantis' War on Disney Florida's governor has declared a regulatory war on one of the state's biggest employers. But it's the taxpayers who may ultimately pay the price. https://reason.com/2022/07/14/desantis-vs-disney/ Ron DeSantis, Florida's Republican governor, has declared a regulatory war on one of the state's biggest employers. But it's taxpayers who may ultimately pay the price. In March, DeSantis signed into law H.B. 1577, which described itself as "an act relating to parental rights in education." The bill limits discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in public school instruction and authorizes parents to sue school districts that break the vaguely written rules. Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Chapek initially tried to keep the company publicly neutral on the bill. But after it passed, Chapek and Disney, responding to pressure from the company's employees, both spoke out against H.B. 1577. Irked by the criticism, DeSantis and Florida's Republican-controlled legislature took aim at the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID), which state lawmakers established in 1967 to give Disney substantial autonomy within the nearly 40 square miles it owns in Orange and Osceola counties. The special district allows Disney to control zoning, construction, infrastructure, emergency services, and taxation to pay for all of it. While Florida has more than 1,800 special districts, Republicans targeted Disney by restricting the bill to districts established prior to 1968. DeSantis made it clear when he signed the bill that it was punishment for criticism of H.B. 1577. "You're a corporation in Burbank, California, and you're going to marshal your economic might to attack the parents of my state," he said. "We view that as a provocation, and we're going to fight back." The bill would dissolve the RCID and five other pre-1968 districts in 2023. While DeSantis and other Florida Republicans seem to view the RCID as an undeserved privilege, it freed Orange and Osceola counties, along with their taxpayers, from responsibility for Disney's massive park. For instance, Disney pays the Orange County Sheriff's Office millions of dollars each year for policing services. Orange County Mayor Jerry L. Demings said it would be "catastrophic" for the county's budget if it had to pay for first-responder services in the park. DeSantis suggested in May that the state could take over the district. The RCID also has $1 billion in bond debt. In an April statement to bondholders, Reedy Creek representatives said the district cannot be dissolved under Florida law unless those debts are paid off. What happens next is not entirely clear, although an early attempt by a group of nearby taxpayers to sue DeSantis was dismissed due to lack of standing. Some First Amendment scholars suggested that Disney could challenge the law as a form of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. As of mid-May, Disney had not filed such a lawsuit.
This eccentric Florida billionaire has given millions of dollars to fund: A) The search for aliens on Earth; B) Research to prove the afterlife exists; C) Ron DeSantis; D) All of the Above. Wealthy space entrepreneur who has pushed for exploration of aliens and the afterlife donates $10 million to DeSantis https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/15/politics/ron-desantis-donor-robert-bigelow/index.html A wealthy space entrepreneur who has spent his fortune exploring the cosmos and once said aliens are already on Earth "right under people's noses" is now the largest donor to the political operation of Florida Gov. Ron Desantis this election cycle. Robert Bigelow, a hotel magnate often quoted for his eccentric beliefs about the galaxy and afterlife, contributed $10 million to a political committee DeSantis controls on July 7, according to records maintained by the committee on its website. It's the largest single contribution by an individual on record in Florida, where there are no limits on how much a person or business can donate to a political committee. The eight-figure check will go into an already massive warchest that DeSantis has built as he seeks reelection. As of July 1, the political committee for DeSantis, Friends of Ron DeSantis, and his campaign reported sitting on a combined $118 million. That figure will continue to grow after he officially documents the contribution from Bigelow to the state. One Republican operative in Florida recently told CNN that the expectation is DeSantis will raise $200 million by the November election, and he is well on his way to that figure. Prior to Bigelow's donation, Citadel investment firm founder Ken Griffin's $5 million contribution was the largest from an individual to Friends of Ron DeSantis. Bigelow did not immediately return a message left with an assistant at the Las Vegas headquarters for Bigelow Aerospace. A spokesman for DeSantis did not respond when asked if DeSantis has met Bigelow. NBC News first reported the donation. Bigelow is the owner of a budget hotel chain and became a pioneer in the commercial space industry. His company built the inflatable room used on the International Space Station, and Bigelow once hoped the technology could be used to fund orbital hotels. Forbes magazine in 2011 described him as a "cosmic landlord." His ambitions have at times intersected with Florida's space interests. In 2011, Bigelow signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Space Florida, the state's aerospace economic development agency, to find companies that could benefit from Bigelow's technology. He has also worked directly with NASA, which often launches its rockets from Florida's Cape Canaveral. Bigelow is generally not known for financing Republican campaigns. The donation to DeSantis appears to be the first from Bigelow to any state candidate or political committee in Florida, according to a review of a state campaign finance database. But since the start of 2021, Bigelow has opened up his checkbook for a handful of GOP causes. He has donated $50,000 to the Noem Victory Fund, a federal political committee that supports North Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, $10,000 to Maggie's List, a group that supports conservative women running for office, $2,000 to the Republican National Committee and about $5,800 to Rep. Kat Cammack, a north Florida Republican. Bigelow has also become a well-known funder and advocate for exploration of aliens and the afterlife. In 2017, The New York Times reported that Sen. Harry Reid, during his time as the Senate majority leader, had steered millions of dollars to investigate UFO sightings by military service members. Bigelow's company was the chief recipient of the funding, the Times reported. That year, Bigelow told CBS' "60 Minutes" he was "absolutely convinced" there are aliens are among humans. "If you follow the literature, and pay attention to a lot of other kinds of sources, they absolutely are," Bigelow later said in an interview published by Mysterywire.com in 2021, a website that says it is "dedicated to reports on Area 51, UFOs, military technology, paranormal, mysteries and just great news stories." More recently, Bigelow launched the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies to determine whether there is an afterlife. The initiative included a $1 million contest for scientists, religious scholars, researchers and others to produce evidence that human consciousness can survive bodily death.
Yup. that's 10 million right there that you dems will not get. If he offered it to the dems you whores would take it in a heartbeat and have no issues with the donor whatsoever. Wayy to go Ron. Lookin good.
Every politician will take the money. Note the large numbers on both sides of the aisle who took money from criminal or unscrupulous sources -- and were forced to return it . I was torn whether this news item belonged on this thread for the wackiness of the donor making this donation to an authoritarian figure or on the DeSantis 2024 thread to show how his fund raising from big money GOP donors is getting well ahead of Trump.