Once again the Florida taxpayers will be funding the bill for Ron DeSantis' illegal activities. This time he tried to suppress free speech. Ron DeSantis Sued by Abortion Rights Group After He Threatened TV Stations for Airing Pro-Abortion Ad The group, Floridians Protecting Freedom, alleges the DeSantis administration violated their First Amendment rights by blocking an ad that endorses Amendment 4. https://www.jezebel.com/ron-desanti...atened-tv-stations-for-airing-pro-abortion-ad
Federal Court slaps down FL for trying to go after TV stations over 'Amendment 4' ads. "To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it's the First Amendment, stupid". Yes, that is a real quote (PDF of court document). https://storage.courtlistener.com/r...medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark
‘It’s the First Amendment, stupid.’ Judge tells Florida to stop threatening TV stations https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article294142144.html
Looks like the Florida state health department employee who DeSantis forced to send the letters resigned rather than continue to threaten the T.V. stations, I guess this employee didn't want to be locked up for DeSantis' illegal actions. DeSantis aide tells federal court he resigned rather than follow governor's orders https://www.jezebel.com/florida-off...him-to-threaten-tv-stations-over-abortion-ads DeSantis Aide Says He Resigned Rather Than Follow His Menacing Orders A Florida official has just thrown Governor Ron DeSantis under the bus in the lawsuit over the threats against television channels airing pro-abortion ads. https://newrepublic.com/post/187349/florida-official-desantis-abortion-ad-lawsuit Florida Official Says Ron DeSantis Told Him to Threaten TV Stations Over Abortion Ads “A man is nothing without his conscience," the health department official, John Wilson, wrote in his resignation letter, one week after telling TV stations to stop airing a pro-abortion rights ad or else. https://www.jezebel.com/florida-off...him-to-threaten-tv-stations-over-abortion-ads
I guess using taxpayer money to lobby against state constitution amendments is effective -- you know when coupled with illegally threatening anyone at newspapers supporting the amendments with civil and criminal legal action. This is how authoritarians operate. DeSantis keeps the ‘Florida brand’ going with defeat of marijuana, abortion amendments https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article294507679.html
Right, because as we all know, any "authoritarian" would place measures he did not agree with on the ballot for the people to vote on in the first place, rather than just keep them off like a dictator would. Clown!
I won't even go into all the stunts and fabrications DeSantis tried to pull in order to undermine state law and democracy to keep these two amendments off the ballots -- this news has previously been well covered. His failure to eliminate these two amendments from the ballot are just another example of his "winning" --- so he had to go spend piles of taxpayer money so they would not hit the 60% threshold (despite reaching a majority).
It hasn't been "well covered" simply because you post horseshit and silly editorials on it. If he was an authoritarian like you claimed, those ballots would never have been presented for public vote. End of story.
DeSantis is right: His quack surgeon general Joseph Ladapo is perfect for Trump https://www.jacksonville.com/story/...erfect-surgeon-general-for-trump/76108091007/ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis began the dawn of the second Trump era by publicly lobbying for his surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, to become the next leader of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. There would be undeniable logic in the governor's preference: Animal-corpse curator and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be an influential voice in matters of public health under the second Trump administration, representing an abrupt rise of a once-marginal figure that is not so different than Ladapo's own. Ladapo and Kennedy would make a great tag-team ushering back in a world of diphtheria, smallpox, grippe, horrors and night hoss. DeSantis plucked Ladapo out of obscurity to replace Scott Rivkees, whose dedication to public health and science during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic were apparently mortal sins. So first, DeSantis disappeared Rivkees then eventually replaced him. In Ladapo, DeSantis found a true quack willing to embrace marginal beliefs about the dangers of vaccines and a sycophant willing to partner on purely political projects: It was Ladapo's agency, after all, that recently threated TV executives with prosecution for running ads that supported Amendment 4, a popular proposed reversal of the state's near-total abortion ban. "Putting the department in a position to actively block opposition to an abortion rights ballot amendment by having it issue cease and desist letters to media outlets running pro-choice advertisements subjugates, undermines and shows a lack of respect for public health and the people they protect in the state," Rivkees wrote in The Hill last month of his successor's actions. "Putting the department in a position to actively block opposition to an abortion rights ballot amendment by having it issue cease and desist letters to media outlets running pro-choice advertisements subjugates, undermines and shows a lack of respect for public health and the people they protect in the state," Rivkees wrote in The Hill last month of his successor's actions.