it's cool how florida government has forgotten that like a third of the economy is based on tourism. y'all wanna go back to being The Phosphate Mining State? https://t.co/JFPL6JabSD
— your himbo boyfriend (@swolecialism) June 27, 2023
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…
Love his vote of confidence of fellow Floridians Trump & DeSantis. https://t.co/hW7VKkvLG9
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) June 14, 2023
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: No sitting mayor has ever been elected U.S. president. Suarez is undeterred. https://t.co/QDIxLFkkaw
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 18, 2023
Losers, I tells ya…
Make American Turkey Again https://t.co/1XZE6yUXcX
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) June 26, 2023
The ones who weren’t nodding along in agreement, anyways https://t.co/WPXCAKNHm3
— Peter Wolf (@peterawolf) June 26, 2023
I believe the technical term for this approach is "throwing shit at the wall & seeing what sticks" https://t.co/3If5i6YiAK
— chatham harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison) June 26, 2023
… Except among a very, shall we say, select audience?
Gov. Ron DeSantis formally received a controversial bill that would in part eliminate permanent alimony and create a formula for alimony payments based on the lengths of marriages. Here's what you need to know. https://t.co/vUznz8UqKh
— NBC 6 South Florida (@nbc6) June 27, 2023
Baud
Longer than Ramaswamy?
Suzanne
……aaaaand DeSantis chases the critical Shitty Divorced Asshole voting bloc.
Scout211
Fixed it for you.
raven
Fucking punk ass officers both.
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.
Suzanne
@Scout211: I see no contradiction.
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!
Scout211
So much winning for DeSantis and his policies in the courts.
Shalimar
@Suzanne: In fairness to DeSantis, Shitty Divorced Assholes are roughly 25% of Florida Republicans. It’s a large bloc.
John Patrick Lurker
Rick Scott reminds me of a lizard
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.
Chris T.
He should combine these two by saying he’ll shoot competent conservatives. (Since there are so few, this will not be too difficult!)
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.
Dan B
@John Patrick Lurker: Well there is the fact that these Fflorida pols have powerful lizard brain function. Everything unfamiliar, and many familiar thing, scares them.
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).
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.
SpaceUnit
The performative Republican stupidity is going to be insufferable until trump clinches the nomination.
And then it will probably get worse.
Anne Laurie
My old man’s favorite among similar negs: When they were passing out the brains, this guy snuck out for a smoke.
Cameron
Senator Nosferatu is particularly sensitive to commies who come bearing garlic and crucifixes.
Calouste
@oldster: The shitgibbon got more votes in California in 2020 than any other state, including Texas and Florida.
twbrandt
Since I have no intention whatsoever to travel to Florida, I am for once in complete agreement with Rick Scott.
Raoul Paste
@SpaceUnit: Just imagine the first Republican primary debate. A boatload of candidates, each trying to be noticed with some extremist gimmick. Ugh
Omnes Omnibus
@raven:
Ahem… Also Scott was enlisted. And, anyway, they were both Navy.
SpaceUnit
@Raoul Paste:
Yeah. I’m going to need an extra set of hands just for slapping myself on the forehead.
Ken
Also when they see a beetle, human baby, or other prey, they open their jaws widely and attempt to engulf it.
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.
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.
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.
sdhays
@Baud: They’re both way down on the asymptote.
Scout211
DeSantis said he would do much better than Trump at picking SCOTUS justices. Link
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?
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.
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:
Chris Christie going after both his top rivals on foreign policy:
And this may count as an attack from the right:
Another Scott
I haven’t seen it put so clearly as this – Heather Cox Richarson (from June 24):
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
fentanolfentanyl…Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
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.
Chris T.
@Alison Rose:
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.
Don K
@twbrandt: My thought exactly! And hey, phosphate mining sounds like manly-man kinda work, not like all that sissy touristy stuff.
Splitting Image
@kindness:
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.
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.
kalakal
@kindness
Brain eating amoeba
@Splitting Image:
The only thing that keeps the amoeba from starvation. Even then it’s slim pickings
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?
James E Powell
@karen marie:
Similarly, I never imagined that FL would go completely red while AZ and OMG GA! turned purple.
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.
Dopey-o
Feral MAGAs hate Hillary because she reminds them of their first wives. The ones who kicked them out.
Another Scott
Something, something, bends toward justice.
RollingStone.com:
Good, good.
(via nycsouthpaw)
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, enjoy the night sky while you can… Phys.org:
I assume Prime membership will be going up to about $500 a year pretty soon.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
LMAO Batboy!
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.
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.
NotMax
@Geminid
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.
Yutsano
@Another Scott:
Obligatory.
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.
Nukular Biskits
@SpaceUnit:
should be, IMHO,
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Well I’ll be!
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.
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?
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…
MomSense
All of these republicans are such freaks and weirdos and not in a good way. They all give off serial killer curious vibes.
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?
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.
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?
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?
Anyway
@Matt McIrvin:
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 .
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. …..