(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Ron DeSantis Wants to Do to US What He’s Done to Florida [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-11 Ron Desantis, the Florida Governor itching to be president, in his appearance at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Uniondale, lauded the surge in Republicans on Long Island, but never mentioning George Santos. Or permitless carry which he “quietly” signed the law just two days later. Or abortion, when he is poised to sign a six-week abortion ban. Or his plan to track the menstrual cycles and examine the genitals of student athletes. But he laid out his Florida Blueprint as what he would do as president © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com Ron Desantis, the Florida Governor itching to be president, in his appearance at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Uniondale, lauded the surge in Republicans on Long Island, acknowledging Congressman Esposito in the audience, but never mentioning George Santos. Or permitless carry which he “quietly” signed the law just two days later. Or abortion, when he is poised to sign a six-week abortion ban. Or his plan to track the menstrual cycles and examine the genitals of student athletes. He also never mentioned Trump once, not to praise him or bury him– though a heckler shouted “Trump, Trump Trump,” and outside the venue, a couple of dozen waved the gigantic Trump 2024 flags and banners, while a smattering of anti-DeSantis protesters stood on the opposite corner. He did however, dig at George Soros-backed liberal prosecutors, such as Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. He boasted of turning Florida from a 1-point, swing state, to solidly Republican, winning reelection in 2022 by 20 points, and for the first time since the Civil War, with not a single state-wide elected Democrat. “The Democratic party is dead, dead, dead,” he declared gleefully. How did that happen? Because he alone (can save you) ignored the pundits who said he should rule like a moderate, and instead boldly lead with policies and an agenda. And then offered his policy prescription, The Florida Blueprint, to do the same to New York and the rest of the country. But how much of that mega-swing was due to voter suppression (he called it “election integrity”) and voter intimidation (setting his newly formed Election Police to arrest people who believed they had been legally registered to vote, while letting off the Republican voters who intentionally committed voter fraud). Just a few days after his victorious visit to Long Island, Florida Republicans introduced a massive new voter suppression bill that would affect all aspect of elections. (Think about it in 2024: as Governor, he would be able to overturn the popular vote and cast Florida’s electoral votes for himself.) Instead, he attributed the gigantic swing in Florida voter registrations (from 301,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in 2018 to 450,000 more Republicans than Democrats - “Can you believe that!”) to his bold leadership in attacking the Biden’s administration’s public health-COVID policies at a time before vaccines, when more than 3,000 people a DAY were dying, and New York and the United States were the epicenter of the global pandemic. He boasted of making it illegal for teachers, health workers, first responders, or for cruise lines to require passengers to be vaccinated, and for schools to mandate masks - in a state with a lion’s share of senior citizens who were dropping like flies from COVID. But you wouldn’t know it because DeSantis blocked data collection and publication, even fired the woman who was keeping records and sent officers, guns drawn, to arrest her when she continued to publish. (Florida reported 7,542,869 COVID cases and 87,141 have died, which is at least 1 in 246 Florida residents.) COVID deaths nationwide are highest in the districts that Trump won. (The US has suffered 1,127,104 deaths, out of 6.9 million worldwide, or 16% of all deaths when the US is 5% of the global population; only 16% are fully vaccinated.) He vilified Dr. Fauci - whose only crime was to try to keep as many people out of hospitals and the grave as possible, and not have the healthcare system so overrun, people would die of heart attacks, gun shot wounds and medical people wouldn’t be sickened, dead or burned out so there wouldn’t be anybody to provide care. “We weren’t going to let Florida descend into Fauci-ism... A lot of stuff was done not to protect health but control your behavior.” He lauded the Tampa judge who overturned the whole concept of public health by declaring mask mandates on airplanes unconstitutional, and boasted of passing law with his Legislative Super Majority to bar Florida from following federal public health mandates ever again. But while he is touting Florida as the Freedom State, he didn’t mention denying women their reproductive freedom (and moving to ban abortions after 6 weeks, before most even know they are pregnant), or teachers and doctors their freedom of speech, or reporters their freedom of the press. He did justify banning books as pornography. (A Vero Beach High School just banned “Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation,” Jennifer Pippin, chairwoman of the Indian River County chapter of Moms For Liberty, was proud to say.) He also didn’t mention his plan for permitless carry in a state notable for Stand Your Ground and the murder of Trayvon Martin, mass shootings at Parkland and Pulse Nightclub (Florida accounts for 10% of all mass shootings). In fact, just a few days after Long Island and the Nashville mass murder of 6 at a Christian school, he “quietly” signed permitless concealed carry into law, with the expectation of permitless open carry coming next. He blasted Obama and Biden for their “open border” policies and for fentanyl deaths (“Biden doesn’t care”), without mentioning Trump. But he said he is eager to build a border wall, and would send his guys to build it. (Didn’t Trump’s billions-dollar border wall keep out all illegal migrants?) But he didn’t mention his plan to go after undocumented immigrants, modeled after Texas’ anti-abortion law designed to terrorize and intimidate: prosecuting for felony anyone (even the adult child who is a citizen who drives their parent to the doctor, or their lawyer) who aids, transports, hires, houses or gives support to undocumented immigrants and to track costs for providing them with health care. But he did lay out what he would do with those “progressive prosecutors often funded by people like George Soros – elected not to enforce law in even-handed way but to advance an ideological agenda” having already removed one. “A menace to society – letting real criminals go, making communities less safe. I’m the only governor in the US to remove a Soros-backed DA.” He lauded his education system and having the largest “school choice’ program in the country, but the state has a shortage of 9,000 teachers, and the ones who remain are terrorized by “Don’t Say Gay” and other laws that could cost them their license, and be sued. “Over 1.3 million are in choice programs and likely to have more. Florida is leading the way in school choice and rejecting CRT in K-12. We’re not going to teach kids to hate their country and each other. Parents have right to how curriculum being taught.” Yet, while vilifying, penalizing, and removing Diversity, Equality, Inclusion standards (“Division, Exclusion, Indoctrination has no place in public institutions,”) DeSantis signed legislation designating November 7 as a day all students will receive instruction on the “evils of Communism, and Communist dogma, Marxist Socialism.” “We take pride in Florida, how we really protect freedom.” And you should too, was his message to Long Island parents. Invade your school board. Fight. Don’t give up. Show courage. Cheers from the standing-room only crowd. As a measure of his competency against the idiocy of the federal government’s bureaucracy, he said that after Hurricane Ian, he replaced the bridges to Sanibel Island and Pine Island in a mere three days, instead of six months as the federal government would have done – but you have to wonder how these bridges will stand up to actual traffic or the next hurricane, or question the fact these are two wealthy, largely second-home communities whose residents have the ability to appeal to DeSantis directly. Nobody has asked DeSantis what he is doing for the thousands of others whose homes, communities and livelihoods have been destroyed by Hurricane Ian and the other superstorms that have become so much more frequent, costing the nation’s taxpayers billions of dollars, when DeSantis is taking action to make it ILLEGAL for investors, for bond holders to take climate risk into consideration or do any social investing. Yet he has the unmitigated nerve to boast of a $23 billion surplus in a $109 billion budget in a state that has no income tax and how he vetoed $3.3 billion in spending (3% of the total). So why are New York taxpayers paying to restore the damage from Hurricane Ian and all the other climate disasters that DeSantis is doing nothing about, and why are Floridians advertising in New York for charity to help them rebuild? Instead, DeSantis has taken aim against (“woke”) climate action, giving a pitch for “energy independence” - not in the way clean, renewable energy makes communities self-sufficient with well-paying jobs, but more drilling, pollution, environmental carnage. No remark about the recent train derailments, pipeline leaks, damage to the environment or how gas prices are set on a global market and Russia and Saudi Arabia are doing their best to push up prices. “Environmental social governance is a Trojan horse to impose Leftists ideology through corporations on society – climate, guns. We will eliminate ESG in state pension (applause). We are making sure big financial institutions aren’t discriminating against gun owners, Christians, or they will be deprived of our lucrative market.” He attacked the Biden Administration for funding programs that kept people from being evicted from apartments, foreclosed on houses, desperate for food, saying the stimulus spending is responsible for inflation now. “Our president Joe Biden is weak, floundering, controlled by Leftist elements.” (At least he said “our”.) He also raised objections to the federal government (“The Central Bank”) making an effort to regulate cryptocurrency. “They want to eliminate all but crypto-controlled by government – a huge transfer of power to an unaccountable central bank.” (Miami is emerging as the global capital of crypto.) His final message: “Defend people against the pathology of the Left imposed on them. Fight the woke – in government, schools, corporations. Never surrender to the woke mob. The Left in country is playing for keeps – ensconce in power – make conservatives second class citizens... Florida is where woke goes to die.” More accurately, Florida is where people go to die. __________________________ © 2023 News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. All rights reserved. For editorial feature and photo information, go to www.news-photos-features.com, email editor@news-photos-features.com. 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