Mikey Likes It!: Doo-Doo Ron Ron DeSantis says "never" all the time

Thursday, August 31, 2023

Doo-Doo Ron Ron DeSantis says "never" all the time

We've got a new comic tonight, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Billionaire and the Sidepiece."

Be sure to check out Betty's "Crooked Clarence lies again" for more on Clarence and his sugar daddy Harlan Crow.

The latest on Doo-Doo Ron Ron DeSantis? His PAC Never Back Down? It's backing down. NBC NEWS reports:

Never Back Down, the super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign, has ceased its door-knocking operations in Nevada, home to a key early nominating contest, and California, a delegate-rich Super Tuesday state, officials confirmed Wednesday.

They added that in recent weeks, the group also ended its field operations in North Carolina and Texas, two additional states that vote on Super Tuesday in March.

The decision to fold its door-knocking operations in Nevada and some Super Tuesday states coincides with DeSantis’ rough summer, which has featured him struggling to gain traction against the GOP front-runner, former President Donald Trump, since launching his campaign in late May. In recent weeks, DeSantis’ campaign has publicly promoted resets and staff shake-ups as he seeks to generate momentum.

At its peak, Never Back Down employed more than 250 field staffers in those four states, though some had departed prior to the shutdown. In recent weeks, some of those who were assigned to the areas where there are cuts were offered opportunities elsewhere, including on door-knocking teams stood up by the super PAC in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — early nominating states where the pro-DeSantis allies continue to knock on doors — officials said.

The week started with Doo-Doo going to Jacksonville, Florida and getting booed because of his racist actions. Fabiola Santiago (MIAMI HERALD) reports:

Standing next to him near the shooting site, the face of Jacksonville state Rep. Angie Nixon, a Black Democrat who stared down at him said it all.

“He has had an all-out attack on the Black community with his anti-woke policies, which we know very well was nothing more than a dog whistle to get folks riled up in a way it just happened yesterday,” Nixon told MSNBC.

This is a governor who, on top of unleashing hateful rhetoric to push his agenda, loosened gun laws by allowing permitless carry, so that any nut-job, like the nation’s latest white-supremacist killer, 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmeter, can feel comfortably empowered to walk around armed. Palmeter, by the way, had bought his weapons legally, despite being Baker Acted in 2017.

DeSantis’ awkward response to the Dollar General store shooting, in which Anolt “AJ” Laguerre Jr., 19, Jerrald De’Shaun Gallion, 29, and Angela Michelle Carr, 52, died, was almost offensive.

He threw money — $1.1 million, which he pledged Monday — to go toward security at the nearby historically Black college, Edwards Waters University, where the gunman stopped and may have been dissuaded from attacking by an alert security guard who followed him.

As if money can buy lost lives. As if money can change hearts filled with hate and minds consumed by it. As if money could bring back all the Florida sons and daughters lost to gun violence.

“Blood money does not atone for the egregious way y’alls Governor has vehemently oppressed African Americans in this state,” tweeted former state Sen. Audrey Gibson. “It’s our money he’s sending anyway.”

Also weighing on Doo-Doo's responsibility regarding the shooting? Florida AP history teacher Marlon Williams-Clark who spoke with SLATE's Ayman Ismail (Doo-Doo cut the AP history course because he believes that slavery was "beneficial"):

Some people have already connected the Jacksonville shooting to DeSantis. Do you have any problem with that connection?

I think it speaks for itself. Look at the laws that have been signed, and look how that might be encouraging to people who have anti-Black attitudes. Look at the video of DeSantis speaking in Jacksonville. The amount of boos and side-eyes that he received … I think it all speaks for itself.

Politicians are acting oblivious, as if their words and the policies aren’t encouraging that kind of behavior. It seems to me that the leaders of our state are very much anti-Black, no matter how much they try to mask it. Their policies and speech are anti-Black, which is why the NAACP issued a travel warning for any Black people coming to Florida. Even the “Stop WOKE” Act … “Stay woke” was Black vernacular from the early 20^th century, which Black people have used as a way of warning others what’s happening around them in their community. Because, as we know, just being Black in some areas was a crime.

DeSantis is doing some really hard damage to our state and educational system. We still don’t have the AP course back, even after modifications from the College Board. It’s funny to me that they were about to ban the AP psychology course right before school started again, but then quickly reversed it when there was an outcry about it. But there was a whole march and outcry and complaining and meetings and letters and so many other things about the AP American studies course. So, it seems to me that the government of Florida right now is very much anti-Black.

Do you see any merit to the conservative concern that teaching the nation’s dark past can lead to disillusionment and cynicism?

Our governor is quoted on camera saying that white kids should not feel uncomfortable learning about history. History is not supposed to be comfortable for anybody. History is history. We go with the facts. We go with what happened, and we listen to the voices of the past. We look at primary sources. It is not to make anybody feel bad. It is to teach us so that we don’t repeat bad behaviors of the past. And there is a certain element of our country that is hellbent on making sure that we don’t tell those truths.

It seems that we have many politicians—I won’t call them government leaders—that are okay with a dumbed-down electorate. And that’s not good for any of us. Denying history from being taught is quite insulting to the people that are still living that have experienced these things in real time. We are truly codifying white supremacy, in my opinion, and I think we’re better than that.

Doo-Doo the destroyer. And he is responsible for the shooting last Sunday, he does have blood on his hands.

As for today? He's in the news for his idea of providing comfort as a hurricane is threatening the coast. His idea? Announcing "you loot, we shoot." Ewan Palmer (NEWSWEEK) reports:

"Such a weird thing to say when nobody is looting," Bloomberg columnist Matthew Yglesias posted on X, formerly Twitter: "Post-hurricane looting is very rare, but it's like he's hoping for bad stuff to happen so he can be a badass."

Cenk Uygur, creator and host of the liberal news program The Young Turks, added: "Glad to see Ron DeSantis comforting people devastated by a hurricane ... by threatening to shoot people. This is the GOP game plan: We won't do anything about climate change that keeps intensifying storms ripping through your neighborhoods, but we can shoot people afterward!"

Former Democratic state Senator Annette Taddeo wrote while sharing a clip of DeSantis' remarks: "If only Ron DeSantis would tell this to the insurance companies robbing us blind."

The Daily Edge, a social media account which describes itself as "calling out GOP lies & corruption," added: "Not sure encouraging Floridians to shoot their neighbors is the best advice immediately after a hurricane."

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, August 31, 2023. Nouri al-Maliki is talking about the US government, Amnesty International spotlights the missing, Bernie Sanders gets called out (for the last thing he should really be called out for), bad, bad, bad political 'analysis' from THE VANGUARD, and much more.

Unless you're the US media, Nouri al-Maliki is yet again in the news. I have no idea why the US media refuses to cover the former prime minister and forever thug. Maybe it's guilt? They spent a long time covering for him while he destroyed Iraq. And they refused to call out the US government overturning the votes of the Iraqi people in the 2010 election. That's what led to the rise of ISIS in Iraq -- Nouri's second term after the Iraqi people had voted him out but the US government negotiated The Erbil Agreement to give him a second term. At any rate, MEMO reports:

Former Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri Al-Maliki, said America intends to close the border between Syria and Iraq in order to overthrow the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

Al-Maliki added in press statements that he is not concerned about any American action against Iraq but he is certain that the recent American military movements aim to close the border with Syria.

He considered the movement of foreign forces, whether in Iraq or neighbouring countries, to constitute a major concern due to fears of a return to the tensions and conflicts that had previously plagued the region.

THE NEW ARAB also reports on the remarks:

Nouri al-Maliki, the head of the State of Law coalition, and other Iran-backed Shia militia leaders in Iraq claim that the aim behind the United States military manoeuvres to seal off the Iraq-Syria border is to topple the Syrian regime.

Nouri al-Maliki, the head of the State of Law coalition, made these claims on Monday, 28 August, but he also ruled out the possibility that the Biden administration might be planning a "regime change" in Iraq.

"We have a belief based on proof that movements by the US forces in western Iraq seem to be aimed at sealing off the Iraq-Syrian borders," Maliki claimed to Iraq's Al-Sharqiya channel in an interview aired on Monday night.

He added that while the West had imposed aerial, land, and sea blockade on the Syrian regime, it could "resist" the embargoes via border crossings with Iraq and therefore, the US aims "to tighten the embargo" on the Syrian government and "incite demonstrations" to topple the Syrian regime.

Maliki was Iraq's prime minister for two successive terms from 2006 until 2014, when the Islamic State (IS) group conquered a third of Iraq. He also claimed that the US forces did not consult the Iraqi government concerning its plans to seal off the Iraq-Syrian borders.

In October 2021, Iraq held elections and, taking their notes from the US State Dept, the US press hailed Moqtada al-Sadr as the victor and spoke of what would happen -- what never did.

Now I'm not expecting a journalist be a psychic but when you completely ignore a power player in a country, you are going to make mistakes. In the lead up to that election, we repeatedly noted Nouri al-Maliki. He refuses to go away and retains a great deal of power.

While the US press was basically misleading people to believe that Moqtada would be prime minister -- that was not going to happen, success for Moqtada would have been being the power behind the throne and that was highly unlikely as well -- Nouri was meeting with various blocs and blocking Moqtada. And we were noting it in real time. Moqtada's 'victory' was no victory and we were proven right when, finally, over a year (one year and 17 days) after the election took place, a prime minister was named: Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. He was not from Moqtada's 'winning' bloc. He is not someone who gets along with Moqtada. He is the candidate that Nouri backed.

Before the election took place, the US media refused to see what could happen. During the year long process after the election, the US media refused to see what was happening. As late as spring 2022, they were still hailing Moqtada.

From their bubble, they misreported. Today, they're still ignoring him. But let's pretend they 'report.'

Meanwhile, Amnesty International issued the following:

Families of the disappeared wage a struggle for justice, truth and reparation in the face of state apathy

Across the Middle East, both state authorities and non-state actors, such as armed opposition groups, abduct and disappear people as a way to crush dissent, cement their power, and spread terror within societies, often with total impunity. Human rights defenders, peaceful protesters, journalists, and political dissidents are often specifically targeted.

Families and loved ones of the disappeared are left in limbo and experience constant mental anguish for many years and, sometimes, even decades. Most often, it is women who lead the struggle for truth, justice, and reparation, putting themselves at risk of intimidation, persecution and violence. And it is women who are left to shoulder the financial burden of providing for their families and caring for them, often with little to no state support and while facing oppressive patriarchal norms. They can neither organize a dignified burial nor properly grieve, and they spend their lives campaigning for the authorities to reveal the fate and whereabouts of their relatives.

In Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen alone, families have waited and campaigned more than a million years collectively for news of their missing loved ones

While the governments of most those states have not investigated disappearances nor provided accurate numbers of those missing or disappeared, family associations, human rights organizations and UN bodies have published estimates for the number of people abducted and disappeared in each country. In Iraq, the numbers range between 250,000 to one million disappeared. In Lebanon, the official figure is 17,415. In Syria, human rights organizations estimate the number to be over 100,000. In Yemen, human rights organizations have documented 1,547 cases of disappearance. When these numbers are multiplied by a conservative estimate of how many years these individuals have been missing, a tragic picture emerges of the agonising number of years families have spent waiting for answers – more than a million years.

In the absence of effective state action, families of the disappeared have united under victim and family associations to demand their rights – often at great costs and personal risks. The right to truth for individuals and societies is recognized in international law and in the context of enforced disappearances, meaning “the right to know about the progress and results of an investigation, the fate or the whereabouts of the disappeared persons, and the circumstances of the disappearances, and the identity of the perpetrator(s)”.

To commemorate the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappeared, Amnesty International is sharing the stories of extraordinary sacrifice and persistence by the families of the disappeared and by human rights organizations in each of these countries. The quest for truth, justice and reparation looks different for the families in each country, but what unites them is their shared struggle and their vision for a more free, safe, and cohesive society.

Share these stories in solidarity with the families of the disappeared and demand that meaningful action be taken to reveal the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones.

MORE THAN A MILLION YEARS

Families of the disappeared in the middle east wait more than a million years collectively for their loved ones.

Iraq: Campaigning for answers

Iraq has one of the highest numbers of disappearances in the world, with people abducted and forcibly disappeared during the Ba’ath era (1968 – 2003), the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq (2003-2011), the years of sectarian violence (2006-2008), the conflict with the armed group self-identified as the Islamic State (IS) (2013-2017), and the crackdown against protestors during the nationwide anti-government protests in 2019 and its aftermath.

Despite Iraq’s ratification of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, consecutive Iraqi governments have repeatedly failed to take meaningful steps to investigate disappearances, reveal the fate and whereabouts of those missing, or hold accountable those suspected of criminal responsibility. Crucially, the Iraqi authorities have still not recognized enforced disappearance as an autonomous crime in national legislation, and there have been no prosecutions for those suspected of criminal responsibility for enforced disappearance.

In April 2022, families of the disappeared launched the #DeadorAliveWeWantThem campaign to demand answers regarding the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones who were disappeared during the conflict with the Islamic State. The campaign was supported by Al Haq Foundation for Human Rights, which is helping families organize themselves nationwide and unify their demands across their locations, their backgrounds and the circumstances under which their loves ones went missing. On 15 August 2023, in the lead up to the International Day for the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, Iraqi families of the disappeared, survivors of enforced disappearances and human rights organizations came together in nationwide protests demanding truth and justice for abductions and enforced disappearances.

According to the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances, Iraq has an estimated 250,000 to

1 million missing persons since 1968, making it one of the countries with the highest number of missing persons worldwide.

Demands to the Iraqi authorities:

Ensure timely, independent and thorough investigations into enforced disappearances and provide regular and transparent updates to the public about the progress of these investigations;
Ensure protection from reprisals for those seeking justice.

Sabby Sabs and others are so offended by what Bernie Sanders said and how he 'stabbed' Cornel West in the back.

Seriously?

Bernie's been in Congress for decades and this is where you're going to land your outrage? Not on the day that America learned the VA had two sets of lists to make it appear that veterans were being seen much sooner when they were being delayed and suffering health wise as a result? We covered the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing that day. A former Democratic chair of the Committee (not Patty Murray) was as offended by the hearing as I was. Bernie was the chair and the news of the dual lists was all over the news. But Bernie began the hearing, as Committee chair, insisting that was not anything anyone needed to raise or discuss in the hearing because he wanted to focus on things like holistic medicine.

Veterans were ill and some had died as a result of the delays. The VA faked a fix by keeping two sets of books and no witness or member of the Committee, per Bernie, needed to talk about anything other than holistic medicine options.

Again, Cornel's where you land your outrage against Bernie?

You're ahistorical approach is laughable as is your glaring ignorance.

I have stated I will be voting for whomever the Democratic Party's nominee is in the 2024 election.

I mean that. And I can tell you why if you need to know that (though we may touch on it below in talking about Bernie).

I am not telling anyone else how to vote. Don't plan to. If you want to vote for someone, you should. If no one speaks to you and you don't want to vote, that's your right as well. And if you're not voting due to juggling work and maybe more work and/or family obligations, I understand that we need a national holiday for voting. Or to do like Oregon and vote by mail. But however you use your vote is your business. My only hope for you is that the day of the election, you're comfortable with how you used it.

"I had to take my kid to ER because she sprained her ankle at soccer practice!" Good. That was certainly important. I applaud you.

And you don't need a worthy excuse like that for me. It's your vote. As an American citizen, you do with it what you want. We don't have forced voting in this country.

You vote on X and two weeks later the press exposes something you didn't know about the candidate? That's not on you. You're not required to be a psychic to be an American citizen. But if you make your best choice on election day, that's all anyone can do.

I did not vote for Ralph Nader. I had friends who did and some felt awful. Now Ralph never pleased me on women's issues -- he thought high heels were more important than reproductive rights -- read his 2000 ROLLING STONE interview if you're not familiar with how dismissive he was of women's issues and women's rights. So in the lead up to the election, if someone wanted to talk to me about why they were supporting Ralph, fine, I'm going to share my opinion and I did.

After the election when the tallies were closer than anyone expected between Al Gore and Bully Boy Bush, some friends expressed regret for voting for Ralph. (Not all did.) Those that came to me with, "You were right"? No, I wasn't. I wasn't right for them. They voted on election day using the best information available. And Gore didn't carry his home state. Ralph Nader voters voted for Ralph. And that is a good thing. I'm strongly against the Iraq War but it's a good thing people had something that they wanted to vote for. And Gore's 2002 speeches indicate that he might have gone to war with Iraq as well.

So my point here is you need to use your vote however you feel is best. At the end of the day, that's up to you.

Just as I noted Ralph's refusal to treat as citizens -- I'm not going to be reduced to a "consumer," I am an American citizen -- I'll note things about the Green Party candidate -- when he or she is named.

And Cornel needs to stop presenting as the Green Party's presidential nominee. He is not. (See Ann's "Oh, look, liar meets liar.")

More to the point, just as I questioned support for Ralph to friends, I will question support for Cornel West.

He knows how to be a bit player in THE MATRIX franchise? He knows how to bury himself in pop culture and academia? He knows how to run up outstanding taxes and child support obligations in the amount of half-a-million dollars?

Barack Obama was dismissed as "just a community organizer." No, he was someone who had held public office in Illinois and had been in the Senate for a few years when he was running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination (sworn in back in 2005, announced in 2007). And at his age, that was a strong resume. Cornel is 70s years old. I'm not seeing strength.

I'm seeing a motor mouth who wants to turn every Q&A into multiple sermons and pepper them with dated (incredibly dated) pop culture references -- again, Cornel, 11 year olds today are not listening to Tony! Toni! Tone. He's never come off more out of touch than during that recent exchange.

I'm seeing someone who hypes himself constantly.

I'm not seeing anyone who actually does anything political.

He's going to heal us? How? By calling Laura Ingram "dear sister"? Dear liar's more like it but he apparently needs to fawn and flatter to get FOX "NEWS" media attention -- and as Ava and I noted earlier this week, Green Party members are getting very vocal in their distaste for Cornel and for his right wing media appearances. We've been added to a listserv and they are getting very vocal.

They're also tired of him acting as though he's the nominee and pointing out he's not even a Green Party member and how the party needs to honor its own and not recruit from outside.

There's nothing he's doing that shows he's trying to appeal to Greens and that's the reality. You can have your hissy fit and pretend otherwise but you're living in the same world of delusion as a Donald Trump cult member.

In part, that's due to the YOUTUBERS appalling ignorance. They don't know the Green Party and don't bother to learn how it works. (There will be no nominee until the summer of next year when the party holds its national convention). In part, it's due to their whorish ways and their inbred behavior.

Serial plagiarist Chris Hedges talks to The People's Party and offers himself up as vice presidential nominee and Cornel as presidential nominee. Then Ms. Chris Hedges tells her husband he can't run so it's just Cornel on the ticket.

Liar Chris goes to all the YOUTUBE idiots that will platform him (Katie Halper, et al) and isn't that interesting that Cornel's running, he's known Cornel for years and, as an observer, he's just real happy.

Observer? You worked behind the scenes and secured the nomination for Cornel. And then you omitted that fact from your written reports and your YOUTUBE interviews and while Katie Halper and that crowd doesn't know a damn thing about journalistic ethics*, as a former NYT-er, one, who lets always remember was the first to front page the false link between Iraq and 9/11, Chris does know his actions violated basic journalism. (See Ava and my "Media: Marianne's campaigning for right wingers, Cornel's trying to destroy The Green Party" about how Cornel didn't realize what he was exposing when he talked about how Chris secured the nomination for him).

[*Katie Halper declared that she didn't need to disclose certain relationships because she was an opinion journalist. No, dear, that's not how it works.]

Chris, with the help of twice-failed nominee Jill Stein, then tried to force the Green Party to name Cornel the Green Party's nominee. Grasp that.

Grasp that they wanted a political party to do a backdoor deal, to ignore their bylaws and written practices.

I'm sorry, I could never get on board with that. I called out Donna Brazile and Debbie Washerwoman for gaming the primaries for Hillary. I don't have the hypocrite gene that Chris Hedges does -- the one that lets him repeatedly steal the written work of others, that lets him pretend he was against the Iraq War when he actually front-paged the false link between Iraq and 9/11 and did so in October of 2001 beating out Michael R. Gordon, Judith Miller and everyone else, the one that lets him set up backdoor deals and then pretend like he wasn't involved.

I'm not ever going to support someone who was part of that.

And lets go back a moment more. Lets go back to how he ran to the Green Party.

I'm sorry, you're a grown ass adult and you take the nomination from a political party and then announce yet less than a week later you're running from that same party.

Running for it, running from it.

I believe that's the definition of a flip-flop.

And I believe that a grown adult should do research on the party he wants to be the nominee for before -- before! -- accepting their nomination. In fact, the grown adult should do research on the party before trying to become the nominee.

Where has Cornel shown any common sense?

Don't see it.

If you do, support him. But you'll never convince me.

Bernie doesn't think Cornel should run. He is supporting Joe Biden.

I'm a little more open than that because I'll support whomever the nominee is.

But Bernie is genuinely worried about the election and about what happens if Donald or some other nut job gets in the White House.

I think we'll see at least one death on the Supreme Court in the next four years. I could be wrong. But I think it's likely -- and if it works by karma, it'll be Crooked Clarence Thomas. If you think the Court is packed with extremists right now, let one of the current crop of Republicans vying for the nomination become president and see what happens.

It's a valid concern.

It doesn't have to be your concern.

Your concern might be, for example, building the Green Party. I'm not going to fault you on that. If that's your concern, that's how you should vote.

I don't see how Cornel's going to help you there since he keeps acting like they're trotting out the 2004 strategy. That's the strategy that destroyed every gain Ralph made for the party in 2000. Whomever the Greens nominate for their nominee next summer needs to answer as to what kind of campaign they're running and what the goals are.

Your concern might be that America's not White 'enough' or straight 'enough' -- like so many on Twitter -- and want to vote for Ron DeSantis. There I think your priorities are seriously off as is your understanding of the world but, again, it's your vote use it how you think is best.

Bernie thinks it's best for Cornel to run as a Democrat and that he will do damage in a Green or independent run. That's his opinion and he's allowed to express it.

He didn't stab Cornel in the back.

The YOUTUBERS wetting their panties need to calm the f**k down. I don't have any stomach for high drama. Nothing shuts me down more than someone blinded by hysterics.

I'm also not big on voting out of fear.

Let me go ahead and disclose my reasoning regarding the decision to vote for whatever Democratic is the presidential nominee. ROE's dead. And I believe the Democratic Party betrayed us big time on that. They could have codified it -- as Barack promised to do "first thing" in his first campaign for president. Ruth could have -- and should have -- retired. She was too ill to serve and her 'personal' nonsense (Hillary was going to be elected she just knew and she needed to give Hillary a Court appointment). Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House how many times and she never pushed to codify ROE? Barack failed, yes. But Nancy was in a very powerful position and she could have done something and did not do anything.

I'm angry to this day.

I would love to sit this election out.

But I look around stunned by what's being done to LGBTQ+ persons. The attacks, the hatred. The murder of an LGBTQ+ ally (Lauri Carleton) for displaying a Pride flag. The attacks on education by Ronald DeSantis and others. The attacks on knowledge -- that's why you outlaw, African-American studies, gender studies, LGBTQ+ studies, to attack knowledge. The violence towards people of color that these hate merchants are fostering with their rhetoric is appalling. They refuse to own the outcomes including their role in the murder of the three people killed last Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida (Anolt Joseph "AJ" Laguerre Jr., Jerrald De'Shaun Gallion and Angela Michelle Carr). As the editorial board of THE MIAMI HERALD notes:

What happened over the weekend in Jacksonville isn’t a talking point. It’s senseless, yet increasingly common, violence that claimed the lives of three Black Floridians, targeted because of their race, according to law enforcement. The Dollar General shooting shouldn’t be treated as an outlier, an act carried out by a mad man. If mental illness were a factor, as it seems to have been, it’s not the full story. The Justice Department is investigating the shooting as a hate crime. The racist writings by the suspected gunman and the swastikas drawn on his AR-15-style rifle should be treated with the same urgency with which Florida lawmakers treated mental health after the 2018 Parkland school massacre.

Were the mass shooting to serve as a lesson for Florida policy makers, they would quickly launch task forces to address the white supremacy that’s latent in Florida. This is the state where neo-Nazis boldly marched outside Disney World in June with flags bearing swastikas. Just as disturbing, some flags bore Gov. Ron DeSantis’ image. Last year, Florida hosted the America First Political Action Conference, a white supremacist event that took place in Orlando. And the state is home to many Proud Boys, a group that harbors white supremacists within its ranks.

Nate Monroe (FLORIDA TIMES-UNION) offers:

A mourning Jacksonville needed a leader, an empathizer, and a statesman, qualities the divisive, ever-aggrieved Florida governor lacks on his best days. And so in that fraught moment, facing constituents his administration has insulted and disempowered, DeSantis revealed himself to be an utterly spent force — lacking even the vocabulary to speak lucidly about the awful thing took place the day before.

"What he did, what he did, was totally unacceptable in the state of Florida," DeSantis said in a stilted, brief speech during a prayer vigil for the victims of the high-profile hate crime the prior day, in which a shooter entered a Dollar General in Jacksonville's New Town neighborhood and killed two Black men and one Black woman specifically because of their race. Their names were Angela Michelle Carr, 52, Anolt Joseph "A.J." Laguerre Jr., 19, and Jerrald De'Shaun Gallion, 29.

Unacceptable, the governor said — as if this shocking act was some social blunder.

The audience of mourners loudly booed DeSantis, forcing him to stop speaking and prompting Jacksonville City Council member Ju'Coby Pittman, who was originally appointed to the council in 2018 by then-Gov. Rick Scott, to scold the crowd. "Let the governor say what he's going to say, and we're going to get this party started," she said, somewhat awkwardly, of the prayer vigil being held for the victims. It was a moment many politicians might have found a bit humbling if not humiliating, but it's doubtful the arrogant and thin-skinned DeSantis, whose campaign once likened him to an earthly warrior ordained by God himself, found it to be anything other than an unfair — unacceptable? — personal insult.

Some larger context here: DeSantis pressured the Legislature last year to pass a congressional map that, for the first time in decades, wiped out a Jacksonville district that allowed Black voters to elect the candidate of their choice. It was those very constituents DeSantis was directly facing on Sunday, coupled with their pain and outrage over the shooting. New Town and most of the city's majority-Black neighborhoods are now represented by a Republican in Nassau County who has about as much in common with those neighborhoods as a porcupine does a goose down pillow. And this was no mere accident but a deliberate political project by the governor to challenge a provision in the state constitution that is supposed to prohibit the dilution of minority voting power. Pittman's lifeline to the governor was a generous gift, indeed.

I know that overturning ROE felt like a gut punch. I don't want others to suffer because other rights are at risk.

I'm not Joe's biggest champion but he has refused to sell out the trans community.

Do you know easy that would be for him to do? Do you know that advisors have begged him to do that? And he's standing for equality. I applaud him for that.

Ketanji Brown Jackson appears to be a justice who will fight for democracy. She was Joe's Supreme Court nominee and I don't fault him on that, I praise him for it.

I can find other things to applaud. If he's the nominee, he'll have my vote without hesitation.

(Tara Reade? She's a homophobic transphobe who would gladly slide into a political bed with Marjorie Taylor Greene -- who she can't stop reTweeting. She also defected to Russia -- abandoning her 'beloved' pets in the process. I don't care about her. I think she told the truth but at a certain point when you're doing nothing but advancing hate merchants I just don't care. And I don't care about Tara. She's exhausted all the compassion many showed towards her -- even those who didn't believe her.)

When ROE was overturned (see "Today is a story of betrayal -- one long betrayal"), I thought I'd said everything I needed to that day. But it felt different the next day, much worse. Much worse to wake up in a world where reproductive rights don't matter.

And then all the hate that people flaunted and their organized efforts to destroy -- a film, a store, a personality.

That's before what's allegedly a flash drive with Glennyth Greenwald's browser history was dropped off at my agent's office.That was another eye opener -- regardless of whether is Greenwald's or not. The little punk in Colorado that they're trying to turn into a hero because of "Don't Tread On Me"? There are other things on that jacket and I'm not sure people grasp what they are and what they mean.

Having entered the flash drive world, I'm aware of what they mean. I was disgusted and shocked by that browser history -- whoever's history it was. The hatred. The violence. The organizing to destroy. I go back and forth over displaying that garbage here -- not the stuff where a woman is battered, that would never go up here. In then end, I don't want it here. It's reality and if someone else posted it, more power to them. But it's vile and disgusting racism and homophobia and transphobia and some of this is Tweets (other things as well -- there's a manifesto in there as well) and they're up at Elon Musk's site (even women cowering with black eyes and bloody noses). They feel fine Tweeting publicly about their racism, specifically, their hatred of African-Americans. And clearly Elon Musk agrees with them because this stuff has been up on Twitter for months and months.

We're up against more than we know.

And I'm not going to use whatever time I have left on this earth letting hate merchants destroy this country.

Those are my reasons. I disclosed that I would be voting Democrat for president regardless of the nominee as soon as I realized that was what I was going to do. I'm disclosing my reasons above. Those are my reasons. They don't have to be your reasons. It's your vote and I'm not going to shame anyone for voting Green or anything like that. And if you vote by voting (or vote by not voting), you shouldn't let anyone else shame you for how you vote.

You also shouldn't be listening to idiots. And you can toss me in there if you want, that's fine.

But I'm referring to Zac on THE VANGUARD. He really needs to push his chair away from the table. He does not have the knowledge necessary and he refuses to learn from his mistakes.

He speaks what he wants to happen and pretends he has factual backing for it. He doesn't. It just his uneducated hopes and dreams passed off as fact and I'm really getting tired of it. He has plenty to offer on YOUTUBE but political analysis escapes him.

His big mistake was when he was convinced Marianne Williamson was the candidate and used that to insist that the just-announced candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Junior wasn't going to matter. And of course it did and any educated person knew it would. If you said it wouldn't you either were an idiot or a liar. The country lost President John F. Kennedy. That's a wound that has never healed. To fail to grasp that was shocking. Now Junior let everyone down and his polling's going down but, point of fact, he's still more popular than Marianne.

Long before POLITICO wanted to report reality on Marianne's interaction with others, we told you here about that. I know Marianne. But Zac (and I think Gavin too) wanted to tell you those reports from POLITICO were hit jobs and not true and blah blah blah.

They were exactly right, those reports.

Now we've got Zac basically blowing Cornel West on air. He's not the Green Party's presidential nominee despite Zac misrepresenting him every time. Zac is not a Green Party member. Zac has clearly not followed the Green Party's history.

At one moment in yesterday's segment on Krystal Ball, Zac was saying Jill Stein did this and Jill Stein did that -- praising the idiot (she's a liar and a coward and those of who care about Iraq will never forgive her for 2012 -- Zac scratches his head and says "Huh?" because he's never done the work required) and then in the same segment getting upset with Krystal's implication that Jill cost Hillary Clinton the 2016 election. Hillary cost Hillary the election. In 2008, running for the nomination, she went everywhere, she mingled with the people -- was there a bar in Pennsylvania she didn't go to in order to meet potential voters? -- in 2016, princess didn't want to be out on the campaign trail and couldn't make it states in the lead up to the general election. When she did show, she presented one celebrity after another. Her 2008 campaign was people-based and her 2016 was a bunch of celebrity nonsense. She was trying to copy Barack in 2008, copy how he won the nomination. It did not work for her, she is not Barack.

But Zac's telling you all these idiotic -- I hope good pot-based -- thoughts that are miles away from facts.

Cornel's going to get this amount of vote and Cornel's going to do that and . . .

Stop it. Put the joint down for a moment, splash some cold water on your face and wake the hell up.

Cornel's not the nominee and he may not end up being the nominee. You're infatuated with him for some reason and your latent racism leads you to conclude that because Cornel's Black a lot of Black people will vote for him.

Ajamu Baraka was Jill's running mate and he's Black. Didn't help the ticket.

African-Americans vote Democrat. African-American saved Joe Biden's ass both in the primaries and in the general election. There's no indication that this is changing.

You're simplistic beliefs -- latent racism -- that an untested politician (Cornel) is going to get X number of votes and do this and do that? There's no basis in reality for your comments.

Reality: Only 2000 saw the Green have real impact. That's when Ralph Nader ran. He got 2.4 million votes in the general election. Jill? She got 1.4 million in the 2016 election (469,000 in 2012). She's a loser and she'll always be a loser and the people of Iraq suffer to this day because of her. Again, 2012. Don't have the time to spoon feed you, go read "Let the fun begin (Ava and C.I.)."

Zac just gets worse as the segment goes along as he starts talking Cornel just getting votes in states that are already going to go blue. "Safe blue states."

I just want to slap him. If the Green Party wants to build -- and certainly if it wants at least 5% of the vote -- it can't do the 'safe state' strategy -- it can't do it again. It did in 2004 and destroyed all the inroads that had been made via the 2000 election. (They went from Ralph's 2.4 million votes to idiot David Cobb's 119,000 votes.) That's not building a party. That's a vanity run. And people have every right to call that out.

Here's the video because I'm done talking about it. I don't understand why you would grin and speak in a boastful voice when everything you were saying was so factually incorrect.