I’ll try to keep this brief since someone else is working on a post about it, but I wanted to note that Ron DeSantis is a smarmy, malevolent glob of lunchmeat factory floor waste packed into a rancid bratwurst skin and encased in an ill-fitting blue suit. The Miami Herald:
In a surprise announcement Wednesday evening, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office took credit for sending two planes with migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, apparently jump-starting an immigration program without revealing any details.
The governor told reporters three weeks ago that the program was on standby, and the Florida Department of Transportation, which is overseeing the immigrant relocation program, said it had no details about how it would work yet.
“Florida can confirm that two planes with illegal immigrants that arrived in Martha’s Vineyard today were part of the state’s relocation program to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities,” Taryn Fenske, the governor’s communication director, said in a statement.
As more details emerge, the scale of the depravity involved in this stunt grows. First, we shouldn’t assume the people shipped to Martha’s Vineyard to advance DeSantis’s relentless quest for the Oval Office are “illegal immigrants” (not that they would deserve to be treated as pawns in a cheap political stunt if they were). Reports say most are Venezuelans, so they are likely asylum seekers and may have been released in the U.S. legally while they await their court date.
Some of the folks dumped in the Vineyard said their flight originated in Texas and made a stop on a tarmac in Florida, but otherwise, the passengers had not been in the state. So far, I haven’t seen a report that claims any of the people on the planes had been living in Florida. So why are Florida taxpayers paying for chartered planes to fly people from Texas to Massachusetts? Because DeSantis is running for president on our dime, that’s why.
One account from a migrant says a Spanish-speaking woman lured people at a San Antonio shelter onto the planes with false promises of a free flight to Boston to get expedited work papers and housing assistance. Instead, the group — which included babies and preschool-age children! — were unceremoniously dumped on an island with no advance warning to local authorities, who had to scramble to find food, shelter and medical care.
Fox News got a heads-up in the form of exclusive video of the planes landing so DeSantis could crow about the stunt on that channel. It’s straight-up sociopathic behavior, orchestrated solely to give the deplorabble hate-boners, and the stunt was pulled at the expense of vulnerable people who Florida Republicans claim are fleeing Joe Biden-style communism in their home countries.
But to end on a grace note, the people of Martha’s Vineyard stepped up to help and quickly found beds, food, medical care and toys for the kids while they figure out what happens next. The immigrants found more compassion and kindness from blue Massachusetts than they would ever find among Trump-humping Bible-thumping DeSantis voters in Florida.
Open thread.