DeSantis sucks

cannabineer said:

so long as they aren’t in a plastic bag. That can get you shot.

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hanimmal said:

I don't know Florida. So maybe someone can tell me why DeSantis is sounding like he is trying to use this as a grift with this part about how he finally signed the letter asking for federal help. When he says the part about all 67 (?) counties and he rambles a bit after that like a con artist.

I don't know, I wish you all in Florida the best and hope you have a quick recovery (and those in Canada that got hit too).

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Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) spoke to the press while in Arcadia, Florida on Sunday and claimed that Hurricane Ian wasn't aimed at Ft. Meyers when they were doing evacuations and that they assumed it was going to hit Tampa.

"Well, was your industry stationed when the storm hit? Was it in Lee County? No, you were in Tampa. So, they were following the weather track and they had to make decisions based on that. But, you know, 72 hours they weren't even in the cone. At 48 hours they were on the periphery. So, you've got to make decisions the best you can," said DeSantis, making it seem as if the media was what influenced his decisions for evacuations.

Ali Velshi with MSNBC was stationed in Naples, Florida, which is actually about 44 miles south of Ft. Meyers and over 160 miles south of Tampa.

Florida Attorney General candidate Daniel Uhlfelder has spent the weekend sounding the alarm against these comments, saying that it was well-known where the storm was headed and well in advance. He told Raw Story on Sunday that he thinks DeSantis was too distracted to better prepare for the storm.

Uhlfelder posted a screen capture of the Lee County government's Twitter account showing mandatory evacuations for areas near the canals and on the coast. He explained that Ft. Meyers is a low-lying city and ahead of the storm they were predicting anywhere from 9-12 foot storm surges, which would reasonably swallow one-story homes across the area.

The storm hit on Sept. 28, so the Ft. Meyers area had less than 24 hours to make it to safety. The reason for this is apparently due to the media and the scientists predicting storms.

Lee County Sheriff told the press that everyone wanted to focus on how things should have been done differently but that he stands with his local officials.

"There are indications that lee county's comprehensive emergency management plan was ignored. Lee County did not issue evacuation —" Boris Sanchez asked before being cut off.

"I'm going to cut you off before you go any further. I don't know who you are or where you come from," said Sheriff Carmine Marceno. "Everyone wants to focus on a plan that might have been done differently. I'm going to tell you, I stand 100% with my county commissioners, and my county managers. We did what we had to do at the exact same time. I wouldn't have changed anything. And I know being in those meetings from the very minute. This storm was very unpredictable."

He said that he called the sheriff in Tampa to say that he would send help when he saw the projected path was set for the area.

The Hillsborough sheriff called him back, he said, and said, "look what we're talking about, that storm is coming your way. We weren't even in the projected path or cone," Marceno claimed falsely.

The Category 4 storm was always predicted to hit Lee County according to the European models. And the U.S. models always included Ft. Meyers in the cone of the storm, according to the charts published on Sunday, Sept. 28. Even if the storm headed north of Ft. Meyers, Uhlfelder explained it would have been close enough. The cities are not that far away and satellite videos as well as the weather radar showed the storm to be massive.

Uhlfelder told Raw Story that Lee County has a lot of elderly people so it's essential to give accurate warnings at least 72 hours in advance.

"There are a lot of elderly folks who need extra time to get out and to just play games — I just can't believe it," he lamented. "It's not CNN's job. CNN can't issue evacuation orders. Since when does he give any credit to the media? Now saying he did what the media says? It's a Trumpian thing to never admit you're wrong. It's just the way they do things now."

"He was telling CNN, 'What should I do? Drag people out of their house?' No! And to try and misdirect it to the media where they were, I mean, it's just irresponsible," Uhlfelder continued, noting DeSantis' had a lack of credibility.

He went on to say that all of the surrounding counties were evacuating while Lee County wasn't.

"Lee County is right there," Uhlfelder explained. "This was a huge storm. To suggest that somehow Ft. Meyers was out of the woods because he thought it was going to Tampa is not accurate. And Tampa and all of these other areas evacuated. It's a tragic situation."

He continued saying that he thinks DeSantis is distracted by his presidential ambitions over doing his job to protect the people of Florida. Uhlfelder cited former governors Rick Scott and Jeb Bush, both of whom had several hurricanes in their tenure. It's unclear if the ultimate death toll will eclipse any of the previous hurricanes.

Even as early as Saturday, Sept. 24, local Florida, ABC affiliate WWSB out of Sarasota, Florida was putting Lee County in the cone.

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hanimmal said:

https://www.rawstory.com/ron-desantis-hurricane-daniel-uhlfelder/
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Sir Napsalot said:

It's funny how a handful of republican governors seem to dominate the news

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ActionianJacksonian said:

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Alberto Cairo, a data journalist and visualization designer, is the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the University of Miami’s School of Communication.

Last month, a bearded man yelled this slur outside the Miami-Dade School Board building, which I’d just left after speaking at a meeting. The board had been considering a proposal to recognize October as LGBTQ History Month.

The slur was not directed at me, but I cringed anyway. “Groomer” has found its way into our discourse ever since Christina Pushaw, Gov. Ron DeSantis’s former press secretary, helped popularize the term as a synonym for “pedophile,” and some on the American right began directing it at families like mine.

I walked on. A group knelt on the sidewalk to pray. The man who led it asked God to “save America from homosexuality.”

This man was part of a well-coordinated assortment of extremist and Christian fundamentalist organizations — among them Moms for Liberty, the Proud Boysand the Christian Family Coalition — that had gathered to pressure the board to reject the proposal.

In 2021, the board voted 7-1 in favor of the same measure. This year, at this meeting, they voted 8-1 against it.

Behind the reversal was Florida’s Parental Rights in Education act — better known by the name its critics have given it, the “don’t say gay” law — which DeSantis signed on March 28. It is one of many proposed or passed by conservative politicians across the country seeking to codify discrimination against LGBTQ people.

The Post's View: Florida’s harmful ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill is just one example of a dark national trend

In deliberately vague language, the law prohibits “instruction” on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade and, beyond them, “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” The key to its power is that the “standards” are ill-defined — moving educators to proceed with extreme caution, to avoid legal entanglements.

Indeed, several speakers at the meeting issued veiled threats to use DeSantis’s law. And school officials were wary. Steve Gallon III, the board’s vice chair, said, “My obligation as an elected school board member is one that has to comply with the law that has now changed.”

Never mind that the only instruction mentioned in the LGBTQ History Month proposal would have happened in 12th grade and was limited to discussion of Supreme Court decisions such as Obergefell v. Hodges. (In what world is it not age-appropriate to teach teenagers that gay people didn’t have the right to marry until 2015?)

I spoke at the meeting because I’m the father of a transgender boy. I wanted to remind the board of a tragic constant in human history that I saw at play again that day — the dynamic by which empathy, tolerance and love become weaker political motivations than disgust, fear and hatred.

I explained how the current moral panic about LGBTQ people is rooted in misguided convictions and unfounded concerns.

The convictions are that there’s something “abnormal” or “degenerate” about LGBTQ people, and that celebrating the diverse ways of being human — to compensate for centuries of silencing and discrimination — is unnecessary or even sinful. Some speakers at the meeting said LGBTQ History Month was an offense to their religious beliefs. One man mentioned “Satanism.”

Kate Cohen: ‘Don’t say gay’ says ‘don’t say straight,’ too. Let’s exploit it.

The concerns are that being gay or transgender is contagious (it isn’t), and that giving LGBTQ issues visibility is part of a “conspiracy” to undermine “traditional” values. One woman asserted that LGBTQ History Month was part of a “left-wing social experiment.”

All that is nonsense. There is nothing unnatural or immoral about my son. He has always been who he is: a normal, loving, beautiful child of nature’s god. He and other students deserve to learn at school that others like him struggled — and continue to struggle — to see their existence and dignity recognized.

Before public discussion began, Marta Perez — who after 24 years on the board recently lost her seat to a right-wing candidate supported by DeSantis — said she had received a deluge of messages from members of the Christian Family Coalition. “I wish all the people that have written us would be as interested in our proficiency scores, our reading, our writing, our academics,” Perez said. Instead, “terrible scare-mongering has happened.”

The lack of civil discourse was astonishing. People who probably pride themselves on being observant Christians cheered for their allies — this is prohibited — and heckled those they perceived as foes, such as the board’s student adviser, 17-year-old Andrea Pita Mendez.

Despite the rude interruptions, Pita Mendez was able to share: “Our students want this to pass.” Demonstrating more wisdom, grace and courage than many in the room, she said, “I heard many of you speak of the fact that in your generations this wasn’t seen, this wasn’t heard — you grew up in a very different time.”

Her words, sadly, didn’t make a difference. Gallon and other board members, who in the past supported LGBTQ students, surrendered preemptively, capitulating to an increasingly authoritarian governor who is transforming Florida into a laboratory for a national strategy. Instead of fighting back, they chose acquiescence.

Which only proves: “Don’t say gay” is working as intended.

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HGCC said:

The nofx song leaving Jesus land always runs through my head when I see crap like that.

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Gov. Ron DeSantis is making it easier for voters to cast ballots in three southwestern Florida counties that were hit hard by Hurricane Ian and are bastions for GOP support, sparking criticism that he is “politicizing a natural disaster.”

More than 1 million voters in Charlotte, Sarasota and Lee counties will have more time to get to the polls for early voting in the upcoming general election and will have more ways to file a mail-in ballot under the order the Republican governor signed Wednesday.

Some of the accommodations being offered run counter to recently enacted voting laws pushed by DeSantis and passed by the GOP-led state legislature. Among those laws is one that limits drop boxes, called “ballot intake stations” in the law.

Under the order, elections supervisors in the three counties can set up new early-voting and drop-box sites. Vote-by-mail ballots can also be sent to an address other than where the voter is registered.

“Tens of thousands of Floridians have been displaced, and today’s executive order fails to meet the moment and ensure voting access for all Florida voters,” Jasmine Burney-Clark, founder of the voter rights organization Equal Ground, said in a statement. “Instead, Governor DeSantis is politicizing a natural disaster.”

Hurricane Ian slammed ashore as a Category 4 storm in Lee County on Sept. 28, killing over 100 people and causing upward of $75 billion in damage. The Federal Emergency Management Agency offered disaster relief to 24 of the state’s 67 counties. Wind, storm surge and flooding left a trail of destruction that stretched from Naples to St. Augustine.

DeSantis’s emergency order says the decision to change the ballot rules for only three counties was made “based on the collective feedback of the Supervisors of Elections across the state and at the written requests of the Supervisors of Elections in Charlotte, Lee, and Sarasota counties.”

Lee County, where Hurricane Ian made landfall, has “few viable Election Day polling places post-storm,” according to the order, and “several established polling locations no longer exist.” The Lee County elections office also reported that the hurricane “displaced countless Lee County voters and poll workers from their homes.”

Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd said in a statement that his office worked with elections supervisors “to ensure that the 2022 General Election is administered as efficiently and securely as possible across the state and in the counties that received the heaviest damage.”

Election Day is Nov. 8. Mail ballots are already being accepted in the state. Early-voting deadlines vary by county, but the order says early voting can begin on Oct. 24 in the three counties.

Voting rights advocates have been asking for DeSantis to make allowances for voters affected by Hurricane Ian across the state. Representatives from a number of organizations, including Equal Ground, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP and the Voting Rights Project, wrote a letter to Byrd and DeSantis on Tuesday asking for an emergency order to make voting easier in all 24 counties considered to be disaster areas.

Some of what the groups requested — including expanding early-voting days and locations — was included in the order DeSantis signed on Wednesday, but only for three counties.

More than 450,000 voters in Lee, Charlotte and Sarasota are registered as Republicans, compared with 265,000 Democrats and nearly 290,000 affiliated with no party.

Overall, registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in many, but not all, of the counties damaged by the hurricane. Orange County, where Hurricane Ian passed as a Category 1 storm and left historic flooding in Orlando and surrounding areas, has 360,389 registered Democrats and 217,061 registered Republicans. It was not granted any exceptions.

Burney-Clark, of Equal Ground, said by excluding the other counties affected by the storm, the order “will remain yet another example of Governor DeSantis disenfranchising voters.”

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PopAndSonGrows said:

Ron Desantis looks like the manager at Blockbuster who said you owed late fees every single time you tried to rent videos

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hanimmal said:

https://www.rawstory.com/ron-desantis-hurricane-daniel-uhlfelder/
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schuylaar said:

I must admit nothing worse than those fees back in the day..come to Jesus moment at checkout.

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Roger A. Shrubber said:

he always has someone to blame, it's always someone else's fault. there needs to be a daily reckoning in the press for him where he is called out for every lie he tells, every bit of misinformation or deception pointed out and the truth printed next to it...that would be a good thing for all republicans to have to face, but i don't think there are enough reporters in the world to cover the lies republicans tell daily.

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hanimmal said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/13/desantis-florida-hurricane-voting/View attachment 5212187

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HGCC said:

The nofx song leaving Jesus land always runs through my head when I see crap like that.

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