Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

I really should read my own blog.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

You are here: Home / 2024 Elections / 2024 Primaries / Tuesday Night Open Thread: Florida, Man

Tuesday Night Open Thread: Florida, Man

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Guess ol’ Rick is actually considering running for president, or at least soliciting funds from the angry rubes who’d otherwise throw their money away on losers…
 
Tuesday Night Open Thread: Florida, Man

(Clay Jones via GoComics.com)

Losers, I tells ya…

… Except among a very, shall we say, select audience?

Reader Interactions

63Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    In a 2024 Republican presidential field full of long-shot candidates, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez may be — on paper anyway — the longest long shot of all

    Longer than Ramaswamy?

  3. 3.

    Scout211

    @Suzanne: DeSantis chases the critical Shitty Divorced Asshole Billionaires with multiple ex-spouses voting bloc.

    Fixed it for you.

  5. 5.

    Baud

    If you click through to the story, the alimony thing doesn’t cast DeSantis is such a negative light.  The story isn’t very clear, however.

  7. 7.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud: Easy targets make themselves easy.  At least that’s what I assumed, when the forwarded tweet showed up in multiple places on the not-Florida political threads I follow!

  8. 8.

    Scout211

    So much winning for DeSantis and his policies in the courts.

    Link

    WILMINGTON, Delaware, June 27 (Reuters) – The Walt Disney Co (DIS.N)board did not act negligently when it criticized a sexual identity bill signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Delaware judge ruled on Tuesday, in a case the judge said was improperly directed by a conservative legal group.

     

    The ruling by Lori Will of Delaware’s Court of Chancery means that Disney will not have to turn over internal records including years of board members’ emails sought by shareholder Kenneth Simeone, who sued Disney in December.

  9. 9.

    Shalimar

    @Suzanne: In fairness to DeSantis, Shitty Divorced Assholes are roughly 25% of Florida Republicans.  It’s a large bloc.

  11. 11.

    Suzanne

    @Shalimar: Um, yeah. My, uhhhhh, dad? Sperm donor? Absent male figure? Whatever. THAT GUY. The guy who gave up all child custody in order to eliminate child support payments, then backed out of paying for my grad degree after promising? Yeah. He lives in Florida.

    Irony: he contacted me yesterday, saying he wanted to send a birthday gift to Spawn the Youngest. I wrote back and said she had enough clothes and toys, but she’d love a savings bond. I also told him my other two kids’ birthdays.

  12. 12.

    Chris T.

    Stg it’s like DeSantis is trying to outflank Trump from the left and right. He simultaneously wants to position himself as the competent candidate for the conservative intelligentsia while adopting psycho shit like shooting immigrants and waging war on vaccines for the far right.

    He should combine these two by saying he’ll shoot competent conservatives. (Since there are so few, this will not be too difficult!)

  13. 13.

    oldster

    I hope Gavin Newsome will just go for broke and declare that California does not welcome nazis, fascists, and christian nationalists.

    It all offends me. Freedom of speech and freedom of association mean that a state cannot ban people for their political views. This should not need to be said, but in Trump’s America it needs to be said.

  15. 15.

    Calouste

    I got divorced in a rather blue state, and my lawyer explained to me that spousal alimony would depend on the length of the marriage. (Alimony for children was a different matter).

  16. 16.

    Alison Rose

    Re: Scott, DeSantis, and all of these fuckers, a line I came across just now in the book I’m reading: They passed out the brains, but he thought they said trains and he missed his.

  17. 17.

    SpaceUnit

    The performative Republican stupidity is going to be insufferable until trump clinches the nomination.

     

    And then it will probably get worse.

  18. 18.

    Anne Laurie

    @Alison Rose: They passed out the brains, but he thought they said trains and he missed his.

    My old man’s favorite among similar negs:  When they were passing out the brains, this guy snuck out for a smoke.

  19. 19.

    Cameron

    Senator Nosferatu is particularly sensitive to commies who come bearing garlic and crucifixes.

  21. 21.

    twbrandt

    I’m warning socialists and communists not to travel to Florida.

    Since I have no intention whatsoever to travel to Florida, I am for once in complete agreement with Rick Scott.

  22. 22.

    Raoul Paste

    @SpaceUnit: Just imagine the first Republican primary debate.   A boatload of candidates, each trying to be noticed with some extremist gimmick.  Ugh

  25. 25.

    Ken

    @Dan B: Well there is the fact that these Fflorida pols have powerful lizard brain function.  Everything unfamiliar, and many familiar thing, scares them.

    Also when they see a beetle, human baby, or other prey, they open their jaws widely and attempt to engulf it.

  26. 26.

    cmorenc

    DeSantis knows that neither can a President end birthright citizenship by executive order, but that changing the constitution to eliminate it is totally infeasible due to the required maths of ratification.  It’s nothing but a bombastic red-meat pomise he can throw to angry anti-immigrant bigots in the GOP base and blame not being able to follow through on blue states having a structual block against making the needed constitutional changes.  Instead, he will make executive orders designed to make it more difficult and cumbersone for people from targeted backgrounds to prove birthright citizenship, such as requiring official certified birth certificates (not photocopies) to avoid deportation, as well as to obtain an sort of federal benefit, or to register to vote in federal elections.

  27. 27.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I knew in 2015 that your average Republican wanted very much to shoot every brown person who approached the Southern border.  No coincidence Trump took the lead after calling Mexicans rapists.

    And DeSantis is campaigning as the smart, dignified candidate who can competently deliver sadistic bigotry and really make the Other hurt.  Who is open and loud in his hate, but not embarrassing.  That’s his pitch, anyway.

  28. 28.

    LesGS

    @Calouste: Well, yeah, by population, because we have more people than any other state AND our Republicans are mega-MAGA. By percentage, no, obviously.

    We were rather disappointingly complacent in the 2022 election.

  30. 30.

    Scout211

    DeSantis said he would do much better than Trump at picking SCOTUS justices. Link

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently attacked his leading competitor for the Republican presidential nomination, former President Donald Trump, from an unusual angle. In an interview earlier this month with radio host Hugh Hewitt, DeSantis vowed to do “better” than Trump in making Supreme Court appointments: “I respect the three appointees he did, but none of those three are at the same level of Justice (Clarence) Thomas and Justice (Samuel) Alito.”

    Do you think he even believes the crap he is spouting? Or is he just cosplaying all the time with no idea what he’s really saying?

  31. 31.

    Parfigliano

    Suarez guy was on Hugh Hewitts shit show this AM.  Hugh asked him about the Uyghur situation and China.  Suarez says ” whats a Uyghur”.  Guy has no clue what Hugh talking about.

  32. 32.

    Geminid

    They’re staying busy at the Florida Politics news site. Besides the legislative action in Tallahassee, there is a presidential nomination campaign to cover. Stories from today include:

         “Marathon, not a sprint.” Ron DeSantis shrugs off disappointing primary…

    Chris Christie going after both his top rivals on foreign policy:

        Chris Christie accuses Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump of trying to ‘give away’ Ukraine.

    And this may count as an attack from the right:

        Ron DeSantis criticizes Donald Trump for failing on promise to imprison Hilary Clinton.

    “If I tell you I’m going to do something, I’m not just saying that for an election.”

  33. 33.

    Another Scott

    I haven’t seen it put so clearly as this – Heather Cox Richarson (from June 24):

    In politics, it seems the dog has caught the car. The end of Roe v. Wade has energized those in favor of abortion rights, with Democrat-dominated states protecting reproductive rights and the administration using executive power to protect them where it can. Republicans are now running away from the issue: the ad-tracking firm AdImpact found that only 1% of Republican ads in House races in 2022 mentioned abortion.

    At the same time, antiabortion activists achieved their goal and stand to be less energized. This desperate need to whip up enthusiasm among their base is likely behind the Republicans’ sudden focus on transgender children. Right-wing media has linked the two in part thanks to the highly visible work of the American College of Pediatricians, which, despite its name, is a political action group of about 700 people, only 60% of whom have medical degrees. (They broke off from the 67,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics in 2002 after that medical organization backed same-sex parents.) They are prominent voices against both abortion and gender-affirming health care.

    This is exactly right.

    They can’t get their voters to come out to support their tax or economic or foreign policy positions, they have to get them riled up some other way.

    They’re going to take a page from the Larouchies soon – like blaming Meghan Markle for fentanol fentanyl…

    Eyes on the prizes.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  34. 34.

    kindness

    There is definitely something unsettling in the water in Florida.  And I don’t mean the alligators.  What ever it is it’s gone to all these Republican’s heads.  Go figure.

  35. 35.

    Chris T.

    @Alison Rose:

    Re: Scott, DeSantis, and all of these fuckers, a line I came across just now in the book I’m reading: They passed out the brains, but he thought they said trains and he missed his.

    Reminds me of a line I saw years ago and have no idea where: When they were passing out necks he thought they said sex and asked for lots and lots.

  37. 37.

    Splitting Image

    @kindness:

    There is definitely something unsettling in the water in Florida. And I don’t mean the alligators. What ever it is it’s gone to all these Republican’s heads. Go figure.

    I wonder if a big chunk of it might be the fact that Florida is one of the only red states that people are actually moving to. Most of the other Republican-run states are small and rural and are staying that way because for the most part no one thinks to themselves “Hmm. I think I’d be better off if I moved to Kansas. Or Mississippi.”

    People do move to Florida though. So you get this breed of Florida Republicans who are as evil and insane as the Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum models, but whose states have strong enough economies that they figure they must be doing something right. Also Greg Abbott in Texas maybe.

  38. 38.

    karen marie

    @twbrandt:  In my wildest dreams, I would not have believed that Arizona would turn out to be a better choice than Florida when I relocated to Arizona in 2011.  Gobsmacking.

  39. 39.

    kalakal

    @kindness

    There is definitely something unsettling in the water in Florida.  And I don’t mean the alligators.  What ever it is it’s gone to all these Republican’s heads.  Go figure.

    Brain eating amoeba

    @Splitting Image:

    Florida is one of the only red states that people are actually moving to

    The only thing that keeps the amoeba from starvation. Even then it’s slim pickings

  40. 40.

    brendancalling

    Outside of St. Augustine, where i have friends, I have no reason at all to go to Florida.
    I don’t want to get shot.
    I don’t want my face eaten by one of the state’s many meth/bath salts addicts.
    I don’t want a building collapsing on me.

    I don’t care for Disney.
    Plenty of surfin beaches in other states.

    No offense to Betty Cracker, but Florida is a miserable hellhole. The only thing that made it any good was its tolerant culture, and now that that’s gone, why would anyone with other vacation options go there?

  42. 42.

    frosty

    @karen marie: We’re at the point that when we plan our next Snowbird Road Trip it may be to see my college friend in Arizona instead of our usual trip to Florida. It adds about five days each way ( hey, it’s slow towing a trailer!) but it would be worth it.

  43. 43.

    Dopey-o

    @Suzanne: ……aaaaand DeSantis chases the critical Shitty Divorced Asshole voting bloc.

    Feral MAGAs hate Hillary because she reminds them of their first wives. The ones who kicked them out.

  44. 44.

    Another Scott

    Something, something, bends toward justice.

    RollingStone.com:

    IN AUGUST OF 1990, Yusef Salaam, then 15 years old, told the judge at his sentencing hearing that he looked at “this legal lynching as a test by my God Allah.” On Tuesday, nearly 23 years later, Salaam — an exonerated man, poet, author, and activist — is poised to win the New York City Council primary in his home district of Harlem.

    Salaam was one of five teenagers in the “Central Park 5,” a group of teens wrongfully convicted for the rape and assault of a jogger in New York City’s Central Park in 1989. He served seven years in juvenile detention before his conviction was overturned in 2002.

    On Tuesday night, Salaam was set to win the democratic vote by over 50 percent in a district unlikely to elect a Republican in November’s general election.

    He spoke to his supporters on Tuesday night, tearing up, and for a moment seemed somewhat stunned. “Harlem is the place that gave me a second chance,” he said. “I am my ancestors wildest dream.”

    […]

    Good, good.

    (via nycsouthpaw)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  45. 45.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, enjoy the night sky while you can… Phys.org:

    There’s still work to be done, but United Launch Alliance has announced a path forward to finally get its new Vulcan Centaur rocket to its first launch.

    The company sent an update Saturday announcing it had figured out what went wrong, and what needs fixing at its Alabama test facility that resulted in a fireball that damaged a test article of the Centaur V upper stage this spring.

    “Centaur’s thin-walled pressure stabilized tanks require minor reinforcement at the top of the forward dome prior to flight,” the company stated in a press release.

    […]

    When Vulcan Centaur does get the go for launch, it will be flying up private company Astrobotic’s lunar lander Peregrine that’s headed to the moon. Also flying are the first two test satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper, a planned massive constellation of internet satellites that will compete with SpaceX’s Starlink constellation.

    Project Kuiper is the thing that will keep Vulcan Centaur busy over the next five years, along with Department of Defense missions and launches of Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spacecraft.

    Amazon, which also bought up the remaining Atlas V rockets, has contracted with ULA for 38 Vulcan launches of its satellites.

    The demand means ULA looks to get Vulcan up to a pace of one launch about every two weeks.

    […]

    I assume Prime membership will be going up to about $500 a year pretty soon.

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  46. 46.

    mrmoshpotato

    I’m warning socialists and communists not to travel to Florida. They are not welcome in the Sunshine State.

    LMAO Batboy!

  47. 47.

    yellowdog

    @Suzanne: I would have thought he had all the assholes in his back pocket already. But there are too many assholes to try to protect with legislation.

  48. 48.

    sab

    When I was a child in Florida (left age 12, 1966) our newspaper publisher was an actual Socialist and proud of it, like his dad. Daytona Beach.

  49. 49.

    NotMax

    @Geminid

    “If I tell you I’m going to do something, I’m not just saying that for an election.”

    Uh huh. He said as president he’d do away with birthright citizenship.

    Puddin’ Poltroon, for your information there happens to be that pesky 14th amendment.

  51. 51.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    The problem with Mr. Scott’s claim is that the terms “socialists” and “communists” are applied very, dare I say, liberally, to anyone who disagrees with the views of Mr. Scott, Mr. DeSantis, Mr. Trump, or their fellow travelers, or anyone who opposes cruelty to the less fortunate, or anyone who thinks that nobody is above the law, or … well, it’s a very, very, very long list.

  54. 54.

    WereBear

    In the history of the US, Florida was the place to flee to and re-invent oneself. From our own indigenous fleeing genocide to con artists lying low, there was a sense of free spirit and sanctuary which had a place for everyone.

    If midwestern stodginess is taking over the Villages and dominating the electorate (as I gather the retiree shift has been from NE to Midwestern) this is not a natural fit. Florida has always been weird, but its Carl Hiassen brand of Southern Gothic was my absolute favorite kind.

    That’s just it though… more than ever, people from Florida aren’t from there — not in spirit. And the split personality that is Florida needs both halves.

  55. 55.

    Matt McIrvin

    What is Florida gonna do to socialists and communists? Arrest them? Shoot them? Lynch them? Are these thought police or just speech police? And isn’t it remarkable how quickly Republicans abandon the “freedom” line when they think they have the upper hand?

  56. 56.

    Gvg

    I think he may be making that law out to be more significant than it is. Chances are it’s pretty standard.

    recently the Florida legislature passed and DeSantis signed a law increasing state contribution rates and extending how long we can be in DROP which is a retirement program. I was afraid they would eliminate it because originally it was intended to incentivize older employees to retire at 65 and with the end of the baby boom generation we now have a staffing shortage instead of a glut who didn’t want to go. I can really use the extra money for my retirement and will be old enough to sign up soon. It increases our state savings rate the last 5 years before retirement but then you have to go on the planned date which meant the state employer knew and could plan ahead. This allows 8 years and the state gives more so we can stay until full SS and Medicare and a bigger retirement payment. It’s a pretty big deal. Though the way I feel not sure I will last till that age, money wise it is better. Having training sessions and meetings to find out but it just happened and the advisors are just getting trained etc.

    Routine law making goes on but they no longer think it’s a good idea to announce that they can think, they think it’s better to sound nuts. Be careful what you pretend to be…

  57. 57.

    MomSense

    All of these republicans are such freaks and weirdos and not in a good way. They all give off serial killer curious vibes.

  58. 58.

    Geminid

    @WereBear: The influx of Spanish speaking immigrants is a big demographic/political factor that has made 21st century Florida different from the Florida of 1960. And Florida’s Hispanic voter behavior diverges from that of Georgia just to the north, and of Virginia where I live.

    This is another factor that makes Florida a hard state to figure out. Politically, it’s like Terra Incognita to me.

    Next year’s elections will at least supply an important data point. Over the last ten years, Florida has been shifting to the Republican side. I don’t expect the this trend to reverse, so my question will be: is the trend continuing, or is it flattening out?

  59. 59.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NotMax: There’s a whole nonsensical legal argument that right-wingers give for the 14th Amendment not saying what it obviously says about that. It involves pulling a ban on citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants out of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” (which in the real world, today, mostly just excludes the children of diplomats who are born with diplomatic immunity).

    I remember first hearing it in an argument on Facebook and not even being able to figure out what the guy was getting at. He seemed to be saying that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was historically understood as excluding babies born to enemy invaders in enemy-occupied territory, and equating undocumented immigrants to an invading army occupying the entire US.

  60. 60.

    Matt McIrvin

    @WereBear: You can rest assured that in Florida you’re free as you like to go without a COVID vaccination, and nobody is allowed to put any restrictions on you as a result. That’s the essence of freedom, right?

  61. 61.

    jonas

    @Parfigliano: Whether Suarez knows what a Uyghur is or not, why does Hewitt somehow think his audience gives a shit about whether a Republican candidate does anything about human rights in China?

  62. 62.

    Anyway

    @Matt McIrvin:

    e seemed to be saying that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was historically understood as excluding babies born to enemy invaders in enemy-occupied territory, and equating undocumented immigrants to an invading army occupying the entire US.

    aah. I’ve seen RWers referring to undocumented immigrants as an invading army but the logic eluded me – I just couldn’t see it. But if that is their basis for revoking the 14A I see where they’re going… there’s a whole underground RW legal school that keeps spinning ISLT, revoking 14A … they just need to find the right hacks .

  63. 63.

    Mr. Longform

    “No sitting mayor has ever been elected U.S. president. Suarez is undeterred.”

    I know Mayor Pete.  Mayor Pete is a friend of mine. …..

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