Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Pack it in, I heard you did, pack it in

 

Could it be time for Doo-Doo Ron Ron DeSantis to start packing?  I sure hope so.  POLITICO reports:




Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign is expanding the number of staff it's cutting to include more than a third of his payroll as the Florida governor looks to get his primary bid back on track.

The cuts, which were confirmed by advisers, will amount to a total of 38 jobs shed across an array of departments. They will include the roughly 10 event planning positions that were announced several weeks ago, in addition to the recent departures of two senior DeSantis campaign advisers, Dave Abrams and Tucker Obenshain.



THE DAILY BEAST's Josh Fiallo adds, "The downsizing comes on the heels of the departure of two senior DeSantis advisers, Dave Abrams and Tucker Obenshain, who said they left the campaign to support DeSantis as part of an 'outside effort'."  And BUSINESS INSIDER notes:


But the report also showed that DeSantis was spending significant sums of money, including payroll for more than 90 staffers. 

It's unclear how DeSantis will change his approach going forward. One apparent move is to become more reliant on Never Back Down, his allied super PAC. Never Back Down is organizing a bus tour across Iowa for DeSantis this week. While super PACs cannot directly coordinate with a campaign, they are allowed to host events. Effectively, this means a super PAC can do the bulk of the traditional activities for which a presidential campaign would be responsible.

SALON puts it this way:



“During his five years in Congress, his office had one of the highest turnover rates in the House,” reveals TIME’s Eric Cortellessa. “No employed member from his victorious 2018 gubernatorial campaign team is working in a senior role on his 2024 presidential race.”




He also delivers a damning detail: When DeSantis moved from a Capitol Hill office in Washington, D.C. to the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee, “things didn’t change.”

“In his first term,” as governor, “he fired staffers with enough regularity that some formed an emotional support group, according to a 2021 Politico report. Now, DeSantis is shedding staff only two months into his bid to beat out former President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.”

That 2021 Politico report reveals DeSantis “left behind a trail of former disgruntled staffers and has no long-standing political machine to mount a national campaign, DeSantis vets say.”

“We talked to a dozen or so onetime aides and consultants to the Florida governor, and they all said the same thing: DeSantis treats staff like expendable widgets,” Politico added. “He largely relies on a brain trust of two: himself and his wife, Casey DeSantis, a former local TV journalist.”

 


Kellyanne Conway thinks Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign is not going well as he gears up for the upcoming Republican debates.


Conway, who is friends with Donald Trump, said the "reboot" is “usually not six weeks after you launch your campaign.”

“You actually don’t reboot while the ink is still wet on your campaign documents,” she added.

Conway then stated that DeSantis should have "waited" to run in the future — but now that he's on the campaign trail, he may have hurt his chances to run for president in the future.

“I think he’s kind of ruined himself for 2028,” Conway said. “He does way too much woke and way too much COVID."

“They want the economy,” she added. “It’s the number one issue. You can’t get around it.”


As Aaron Blake notes at THE WASHINGTON POST, Doo-Doo is a "dud."

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


Tuesday, July 25, 2023.  Now is really not a time for vanity campaigns yet we see one politician after another divorced from reality.



NEWSER, "RFK JR.: MEDIA HITS ME WORSE THAN TRUMP."  BUSINESS INSIDER, "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is complaining that the media is criticizing him more than it did Donald Trump."  On and on it goes.  It's not rooted in reality.  I think Donald can rightly claim to have been the worst treated in this century of any US political candidate.  But even worse, melomaniac Donald Trump still managed to put some policy into his whines.  'They're attacking me because I'm the smartest, did you see what I just did with ____ it's huge, no one's ever done bigger.'  

Junior?  He's just a common variety narcissist.   He's obsessed with himself and thinks you should vote for him because of his daddy and his uncle.  

Now he doesn't lean on his whole family.  How could he?  The ones breathing call him out.

His campaign has no real issues and finds him whining every damn day. 

There's little he can speak out on because he doesn't want to lose his right-wing base.  

So he just keeps talking about himself over and over and over.

And everyone pretends that this is a normal campaign and he's a natural candidate. 

He'll be 70 next year and decides to learn politics while running a campaign?  No, let's all act like that's natural.

He's censored!

He yells that from outlet to outlet!

And he's so censored, he's having his own little censorship brunch with the likes of Glenneth Greenwald.

At the censorship brunch, will they speak of how Junior censors Roger Waters?  How 'the most censored man' went from praising Waters to turning his back on him publicly when the right-wing wasn't fond of Waters?

And maybe, at that moment, Glenneth can put down his cucumber sandwich for a minute and talk about censorship -- specifically, how Glenneth never released even half the documents Ed Snowden intended to be made public and then Glenneth spent years hiding behind the fact that THE INTERCEPT has them but, turns out, Glenneth's had copies the entire time. 

Who the f**k is Glenneth Greenwald to get to decide what the American people get to know and don't get to know?

Wasn't Ed whistle-blowing for a reason?

Glenneth is the Censorship Drag King.

He's also a stupid moron.  And we do have to go there for a moment.  When you pick godparents for your children, it's not based on who gets X amount of streams.  It's based on who could step in and raise them if something happened to you.  David's dead.  Glenneth, it's time for you to stop being such a minor-star f**ker and do the job you're expected to.

Stop naming X and Y godparents when they don't live in the country the kids are being raised in, when they don't even live in the same city together.  You're insane and  short changing your children.  As usual.  But, hey, you put up a Tweet!  Don't you and Bri-Bri look cute together!  

David's dead and Glenneth's pairing the kids with godparents who don't live in Brazil -- where the kids live -- and who don't live together in the US and who don't have any parental experience.  

Back in September, right here, we suggested that he get his lazy ass to the hospital and keep it there.  We noted that David was probably going to die.  Glenneth was too focused on creating his bad talk show to be at his husband's side and give him the attention he needed as his life came to a close.

Now Glenneth is the sole parent of their children and he still can't get his act together.  

Picking a godparent for your children is not a selfie -- in fact, it's the most selfless thing you need to do.  All the more so when the number of parents that they have dropped from two down to one.


Changing topics, the following are headlines from yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!;

Climate scientists have confirmed the first half of July marked the hottest two weeks in recorded human history — and there are no signs that the summer of climate extremes is set to end any time soon. In Greece, evacuations are underway from the fire-scorched island of Corfu. This follows the largest mass evacuation in Greek history as some 30,000 people fled what survivors described as “hellish” wildfires in Rhodes in recent days. European holiday-goers who spent nights on the floors of airports and emergency shelters described harrowing scenes.

Helen Pickering: “Smoke had been traveling over our pool for quite some time at the Princess Sun Hotel. And it was just getting worse and worse, and we started to hear the helicopters. And then, basically, you could see the fire, eventually, on the mountaintop. Panic, everyone dashing about, fleeing for buses.”

At least 82 wildfires are blazing across Greece during this summer’s unprecedented heat wave, displacing thousands of people and burning down homes.

In Italy, record-breaking heat was followed Friday by a fierce hail storm in the north, where ice the size of tennis balls fell on the streets of Seregno, just north of Milan, inundating the streets in icy floodwaters.


In India, authorities have ended a rescue mission after a monsoon-triggered landslide in the western state of Maharashtra killed at least 27 people and flattened homes. At least 57 are still missing and presumed dead. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, flash floods and landslides have killed at least 44 people in recent days. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization is warning global heating has pushed cases of dengue fever to near record highs.

In Bangladesh, authorities say the mosquito-borne viral infection has already reached epidemic proportions, killing 176 people this year, many of them children.

In Canada, authorities in Nova Scotia say the region was deluged in less than 24 hours with the amount of rain it typically gets in three months. Here in the U.S., the Newell Road wildfire in Washington’s Klickitat County grew to nearly 52,000 acres Sunday, prompting evacuations. Authorities say the fire threatens farms, crops and livestock, as well as solar and wind farms and a natural gas pipeline. If it continues to grow, it could also threaten the Yakama Indian Reservation.


Don't worry though.  Junior wants to be president and he thinks big business and the free market will save the planet without any need for regulations.

Yeah, that hasn't worked.  It's just one more insane idea from his already addled mind. 

None of the leaders are doing anything to save the world.

If you're one of the most at risk countries, like Iraq is, you should be demanding that no new oil deals take place until your government comes up with some real plans -- and, no, 'plant some trees' is not a strategic plan to address climate change.


In Baghdad, the arguments usually start off small, says Marama Habib, a long-time resident of the Iraqi capital.

"In the village, like the one I come from, people do not accept strangers sitting outside their property or on their walls," explains the journalist, who lives in Baghdad's affluent Karada neighborhood but is originally from a small town outside of Karbala; she did not want to give her real name for fear of upsetting her family back home or her neighbors.

"But in the city, everybody does it. It's OK just to sit on the street outside somebody's house. It's normal. But the farmers from the country don't understand this and they come out and start arguing. I've seen people get into fights," she told DW.

Habib offers a further example of the growing rural-urban culture clash in Iraq. Rural families are not accustomed to seeing women wearing Western-style clothes, she says. Habib is religious herself and wears a headscarf but the rest of her wardrobe involves modest garments like long-sleeved shirts and jeans, a common look in Baghdad.

"In the villages, women are more covered," she explains, referring to long tunics and robes that show even less of the female figure. "So the farmers come to Baghdad and they think the women wearing Western clothes are prostitutes," Habib says, laughing a little. "That can also cause problems. I mean, I'm from the countryside originally so I understand where they're coming from. I try to talk to them. But it does cause problems."

These are the kinds of societal problems that Iraq is likely to see more of.

The United Nations says Iraq is one of the five countries in the world worst affected by climate change. Around 92% of Iraqi land is threatened by desertification and temperatures here are increasing seven times faster than the global average. This makes agriculture difficult, if not impossible, and causes farming families to migrate to Iraq's cities in search of work and opportunity.

"Rural towns in Iraq already face a number of issues," says James Munn, country director of the Norwegian Refugee Council's Iraq office. Due to long periods of conflict in Iraq, rural areas are already resource starved, he told DW. "So there are fewer jobs, not much working infrastructure, scarcity of water, few schools, few hospitals. That's the backdrop to what's happening now. And then climate change is supercharging all those vulnerabilities further, forcing even more people to leave."

A spokesperson from the UN's International Organization for Migration, or IOM, in Iraq, told DW that between June 2018 and June 2023, it had identified at least 83,000 people displaced "due to climate change and environmental degradation across central and southern Iraq." 

"These movements are largely rural to urban, and over short distances," IOM said. And, the spokesperson confirmed, "host communities in urban areas have cited tensions."

Many of the climate-displaced end up living in shanty towns or informal settlements in and around larger cities.

"New arrivals tend to fall at the margins of a system that local populations are already accustomed to," the IOM spokesperson said. "Then a majority of the displaced population is also employed in low wage jobs in the informal sector — things like daily labor, informal commerce, small businesses or in workshops — while local residents mostly have government jobs."

The newcomers compete with long-term residents for already-stretched infrastructure and may find it difficult to access things like transport, healthcare or education. Even sewage systems and clean drinking water can be hard to come by. Social support networks may be limited and there's more chance of mental illness and substance abuse.



What's the government of Iraq doing to prepare for those shifts?

The rest of the world isn't expected to be as hard hit (immediately) as Iraq.  But it will be hit.  Do you really think the US is ready?  The same US government that has been unable (unwilling) to address the homeless crisis going back to the 1980s?


And you look at the people (mainly losers) who say they want to be president in 2024 and they're not talking about reality.  They're not talking what's really in our immediate future.  


The heat waves simultaneously broiling the southwest United States and southern Europe would have been “virtually impossible” if not for climate change, according to a group of scientists who study the probability of extreme weather events. A third heat wave, in China, could have been expected about once every 250 years if global warming weren’t a factor.  

“The role of climate change is absolutely overwhelming” in producing all three extremes, said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, who contributed to the new research, which was published Tuesday by the World Weather Attribution group. 

The group is a loose consortium of climate scientists who study extreme weather and publish rapid findings about climate change’s role in major events. Their research methods are published and peer-reviewed, but this specific, rapid analysis has not yet undergone a typical academic review process. Previous analyses by this group have held up to scrutiny after their initial release and were ultimately published in major academic journals. 

Global warming has increased the likelihood of extreme temperatures so significantly that heat waves as powerful as the ones setting records in places like Phoenix, Catalonia and in China’s Xinjiang region this July could be expected once every 15 years in the U.S., once every 10 in southern Europe and once every five in China, the research found. 

“This is not a surprise. This is absolutely not a surprise in terms of the temperatures, the weather events that we are seeing,” Otto said at a news conference. “In the past, these events would have been extremely rare.”

The analysis provides another example of how shifts in global average temperatures can create conditions for new, harmful extremes. The scientists warned that the extremes observed this year are expected to worsen as humans continue to emit heat-trapping gasses and rely so heavily on fossil fuels. 



Instead of addressing that reality, con artists like Junior are proclaiming themselves "the most censored" and wasting everyone's time   The planet can't afford him.


It's summer and some can afford summer vacations -- some can afford them because others pay for their vacations.  Did someone just shout "Clarence Thomas"?   At THE NATION, Elie Mystal notes:

 

It’s hard to keep track of the various corruption scandals embroiling the Supreme Court generally and Justice Clarence Thomas in particular. The latest ProPublica report shows that Nazi memorabilia enthusiast and Thomas sugar daddy Harlan Crow has been using his super-yacht as a tax write-off, a trick he can pull off because he does “business” with people like Thomas on his boat. And I’m still processing The Guardian’s revelation that one of Thomas’s aides received payments—through Venmo—from the lawyers arguing against affirmative action. I was pretty sure Thomas had established himself as the most openly corrupt Supreme Court justice in American history on the strength of Crow buying Thomas’s mother’s house, but I guess he’s trying to make his record unbreakable by future generations of corrupt judges.

Of course, according to Wall Street Journal op-ed columnist and second-most-corrupt Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito, this is all political. Alito—who took at least one undisclosed vacation with a Republican billionaire—and the gaggle of white-wing pundits who would have you believe that paying tuition for another man’s secret ward is just what “friends” do, argue that reporting on the Supreme Court’s corruption is motivated by “liberal” media outlets who disagree with the court’s rulings.

[. . .]

Meanwhile, does anybody know where Clarence Thomas is right now? I don’t. Has anybody set up a position tracker like they did for Elon Musk’s plane? How many reporters and photographers have been assigned to shadow the Supreme Court justices this summer? We know when random congresspeople come home to their districts and visit their local barbershops for a photo-op over the summer, but John Roberts, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, can disappear like a fart in the wind for three months, without a full accounting of how he spent his time, and whom he spent that time with.

Where is Clarence right now?  And who's paying for his lodgings and travels this time?



In Ohio, newly released body-camera video shows a police officer unleashing a police dog on an unarmed Black truck driver after a traffic stop south of Columbus on July 4. The footage shows 23-year-old Jadarrius Rose had his hands in the air when a handler directed the dog to attack him. Rose was bitten, dragged by the arm, hospitalized and later released to be booked at the Ross County Jail on felony charges of failure to comply. So far there’s no sign the officer responsible for the attack has faced any disciplinary action.

In California, surveillance video shows a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy brutally beating a 23-year-old transgender man outside a convenience store in February. Emmett Brock was driving home from his job as a teacher when he was followed by Deputy Joseph Benza to a 7-Eleven parking lot, where the officer tackled Brock to the pavement and punched him repeatedly in the head, accusing him of resisting arrest even as Brock cried out for help, struggled to breathe and made no move against the officer. A police report said Brock was pulled over because he had an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror; Brock says he was assaulted because he held up his middle finger when driving past Benza’s patrol car.


No doubt, those are examples of what Ron DeSantis considers good police work -- he probably thinks the attacked picked up 'valuable skills' during the incidents as well.  Gillian Brockell (WASHINGTON POST) reports:


Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis doubled down Friday on controversial new rules passed by his state’s Board of Education that will require educators to teach that enslaved Black people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

“They’re probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life,” DeSantis told reporters Friday. “But the reality is, all of that is rooted in whatever is factual.”

Here are some simple, historical facts: Africans already were skilled before they were enslaved. And, in many cases, enslavers sought and purchased people coming from specific African societies based on skills common in those societies. Decades of research — slave ship manifests, plantation ledgers, newspaper articles, letters, journals and archaeological digs — by dozens of scholars supports this, much of it compiled in the 2022 book “African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Freedom,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Hackett Fischer.




Transatlantic slavery was an economic model proposing that skilled laborers, who were benefiting themselves and their communities, be abducted, transported and forced to use those skills to benefit others. Other skills such as literacy, ministry and music-making were often banned, because they did not benefit — and even threatened — the enslaver.

Hackett Fischer explains how, in the mid-1700s, enslaving colonists in the Lowcountry of the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida targeted people from the Windward Coast of West Africa, where rice had been cultivated for thousands of years. In the Lowcountry, enslaved people then built complex systems of canals, levees, floodgates and fields, just as they had in West Africa, providing the region with its first massive cash crop.
In New England, the Puritans targeted Akan-speaking people from the Gold Coast, who had a long military tradition emphasizing discipline and quick thinking. Also, an enslaved man named Onesimus taught Puritan leader Cotton Mather a technique for smallpox for inoculation, which he said was common in his African homeland.


Chesapeake enslavers wanted people like the Kru, specifically for their skill for boatbuilding. Though Europeans were sailing farther distances, slave traders marveled at the superior stability and speed of West African canoes, some of which they said could hold 100 people. These boat designs were ideal for fishing, freight and ferrying up and down the Chesapeake.



The following sites updated:


Posted by at

Monday, July 24, 2023

He wants to destroy the US the way he has Florida

 

That's Diana Ross singing "When You Tell Me That You Love Me."  And Diana's a big part of Ava and C.I.'s "Media First Aid Kit (Ava and C.I.)" so be sure to read that.


Now let's talk Doo-Doo Ron Ron DeSAntis.  Paul Kiernan (WALL ST JOURNAL) reports:


Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis received criticism from members of both parties over his state’s new African-American history curriculum that directs middle-school teachers to highlight useful skills that slaves may have developed while in bondage.

The revised curriculum, which was approved last week by Florida’s board of education, features a section that examines the tasks performed by slaves—such as trades like carpentry and blacksmithing in addition to agricultural work. It prescribes teaching middle schoolers “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”


The change has sparked an outcry from teachers’ groups and the NAACP, and harsh criticism from Vice President Kamala Harris. Asked by a reporter about the curriculum last week, DeSantis defended it while saying he wasn’t personally involved in the change and directed questions to the state board of education. 

“But I think, uh, I think what they’re doing is I think that they’re probably going to show some of the folks that eventually parlayed being a blacksmith into doing things later in life,” said DeSantis, who is trailing former president Donald Trump in polls for the Republican presidential nomination. “But the reality is, all of that is rooted in whatever is factual.”



He's such a liar and such an idiot.  UPI also notes:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis argued that Black people benefited from slavery when he was questioned about new standards for teaching Black history in his state.

DeSantis, who is running in the 2024 presidential election, made his remarks during a campaign stop in Utah after Vice President Kamala Harris criticized new Black history standards adopted by the Florida Board of Education.

The standards specifically outline instruction on "how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit."

The standards also include the instruction of "violence" perpetrated by African Americans, the kidnapping of Europeans and selling them into slavery in Muslim countries and how slavery of indigenous people was utilized in the Americas before European colonialization.

The ladies of THE VIEW weren't pleased either:


Navarro and Goldberg's comments on the governor come after the Florida Board of Education unanimously decided to revise the state's black history curriculum, with one of the criticisms being that standards require middle schools to teach students that slaves benefited from skills they learned. Navarro said that she was "spitting mad" about the culture wars that DeSantis has been creating in the state, and that slavery was "the darkest moment of American history."

"How dare you!" Navarro said on Monday's episode of The View. "Shame on you people in Florida! How dare you try to whitewash slavery! And to the commissioner of education in Florida, Manny Diaz, a Cuban American, that is like saying that there’s a redeeming quality to Cuban political prisoners under Castro. When you don't have freedom, you don’t have anything, and for this man, Ron DeSantis, who apparently his only skill that he has acquired is lying and creating culture wars that he thinks are going to make him president, they’re not, buddy. That’s why you’re 30 points down."

Likewise, Goldberg was also critical of Florida's education decisions, arguing that if DeSantis is concerned "about your kids feeling bad," then the governor is concerned that "your teachers are not good enough" for not making "your kids feel bad."

"They explain. We’re telling you this history," said Goldberg. "It’s our American history because you need to know so we don’t repeat it, and here you come, DeSantis, trying to repeat it. Well, you know what? As long as the Smithsonian is standing, as long as there are books, as long as there are families, because remember, we didn’t have books. All these stories come to us from our families. You don’t call our families liars. They know what happened because their grandma’s, grandma’s, grandma's grandma told them."

Goldberg appeared to want to say something else, starting with "you, sir, are..." but stopped short, saying she "can’t even say the word," and simply called him "a disgrace."



We should all be spitting mad and Doo-Doo Ron Ron is a disgrace and he is much worse than that. 


For this article, the byline is "Eileen Kane, Professor of History, Connecticut College and Rochelle Anne Davis, Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Georgetown University" and THE CONVERSATION is the outlet carrying the piece:


A Florida law that took effect on July 1, 2023, restricts how educators in the state’s public colleges and universities can teach about the racial oppression that African Americans have faced in the United States.

Specifically, SB 266 forbids professors to teach that systemic racism is “inherent in the institutions of the United States.” Similarly, they cannot teach that it was designed “to maintain social, political and economic inequities.”




We are professors who teach the modern history of the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and we know that even democratically elected governments suppress histories of their own nations that don’t fit their ideology. The goal is often to smother a shameful past by casting those who speak of it as unpatriotic. Another goal is to stoke so much fear and anger that citizens welcome state censorship.

We see this playing out in Florida, with SB 266 being the most extreme example in a series of recent U.S. state bills that critics call “educational gag orders.” The tactics that Gov. Ron DeSantis is using to censor the teaching of American history in Florida look a lot like those seen in the illiberal democracies of Israel, Turkey, Russia and Poland.



 Read the article and grasp how offensive Ron DeSantis truly is.  On this topic, ABC4 reports:


Utah House Democrats say they are “deeply concerned and disappointed” by Florida Gov. Ron Desantis’ comments concerning the teaching of slavery in his state’s academic curriculum during a recent visit to Utah, according to a press release.

When asked about education guidelines on slavery in the state of Florida at a press conference on Friday, Desantis replied, “I think that they’re probably going to show some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.” He continued, “But the reality is, all of that is rooted in whatever is factual. They listed everything out.”

He's just disgusting.  MEDIAITE also weighs in, "According to CBS News, which received a copy of the Florida social studies curriculum for 2023, students will learn how “slaves developed skills” that could be used for their “personal benefit.” That part of the curriculum will be presented under African-American studies which will be taught to students in sixth through eighth grade."   And when you think he can't get more disgusting . . .   NEWSWEEK reports:



A video which features Ron DeSantis that includes a symbol often associated with neo-Nazi groups has been met with outrage after it was allegedly retweeted by his campaign team.

 

The short clip, reportedly made by the Ron DeSantis Fancams Twitter account, shows a meme online character known as a "doomer" looking unhappy as he sees negative headlines about Donald Trump, the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP nomination race, as well as the former president's promotion of COVID-19 vaccines and support for the LGBTQ+ community.

The "doomer" becomes happier when DeSantis appears on screen, with the clip then going through a montage of the Florida governor and his immigration and LGBTQ+ policies. The video ends with what appears to be a far-right circular symbol known as the "sonnenrad" [sunwheel/black sun] on screen, with DeSantis' face in the middle being flanked by marching military personnel.


Ronald -- and everything he represents?  Disgusting.   Here's some good news:



Palm Beach hedge fund manager Nelson Peltz is reconsidering his support of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), The Financial Times reported.

Citing "people familiar" with Peltz's thoughts, the billionaire sees DeSantis' position on abortion to be too extreme.

Peltz is refusing to comment, but a person familiar with him told FT: “Nelson Peltz thinks that most of DeSantis’s policies are acceptable, but his position on abortion is way too severe. … That may undermine Peltz’s desire to financially support DeSantis as a candidate."

Earlier this year, DeSantis endorsed and signed one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, banning the procedure after just six weeks, which is before most women know they're pregnant, The Sun-Sentinel reported. The move came after he signed a 15-week ban in 2022, which was immediately challenged in court. As a result of the hold on that case, the six-week ban is also now on hold. The FT report cited a recent Gallup poll that said 69 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal.

DeSantis has continued to lose support among voters. While he was initially seen as a formidable opponent of both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trumps, his numbers continue to tank the more he travels the country and campaigns.


I didn't say it was good news for Ronald.  It gets better:



Ron DeSantis’s campaign advisers took the rare (and sometimes fatal) step of acknowledging mismanagement of the Florida governor’s presidential bid this weekend, as reports revealed that he is burning through cash with little to show for it.

The Florida governor’s top staff and advisers were in Utah on Sunday where, according to Politico, they appeared in front of dozens of restless campaign donors who have expressed concern about a return on their investments and the overall trajectory of Mr DeSantis’s bid for the White House.

The meeting comes as the DeSantis campaign is beginning to draw comparisons to the well-financed eventual flop that was the Jeb Bush 2016 campaign, the last bid by a Republican governor of Florida to win a GOP primary against Donald Trump. Indeed, Mr DeSantis has earned some of those comparisons, given that he continues to trail far behind Mr Trump in all available polling and now sees other Republican candidates in a much better position to dethrone him than he is to usurp the former president’s mantle of frontrunner.



Didn't say it got better for him. 


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


Monday, July 24, 2023.

Another week, another question of when will Ron DeSantis end his war on intelligence?



If you missed it, Ron's new education curriculum is all about anything but the truth.  Slavery is now nothing but an alternative school, a trade school, a DeVry that provided basic life skills and tools.



Here's some reality the country better start grasping real quick.  We cannot afford Ron DeSantis.

We can't afford to become a dumbed down population.  



US Vice President Kamala Harris addressed this issue:





THE VICE PRESIDENT:  I am a product of teachers and an educational system that believed in providing the children with the full expanse of information that allowed them to then — and encouraged them — to then reach their own conclusions and exercise critical thought in a way that was directly intended to nurture their leadership.

I am fully aware that it is because of that approach that I stand before you as Vice President of the United States of America.  (Applause.)

So when I think about where we are today, and who we are as a community of people within the beauty of the diversity that I see in front of me, I know that there are many things we share in common.  And, first and foremost, we share in common a deep love of our country and the responsibility we each have, then, to fight for its ideals.  That is so critically important on the subject, then, that gathers us here today.

Because, you see, when we think about it, part of true patriotism means fighting for a nation that will be better for each generation to come.  (Applause.)  Right?  Believing that our nation is worth the investment in fighting for the children of America, that we will provide them with the information they need to go into the world and lead.  (Applause.)

I will tell you, as Vice President of the United States, I have now met with over 100 world leaders — presidents, prime ministers, chancellors, and kings.  One of the things about who we are as Americans is we can walk in those rooms with the authority earned, for the most part — except recently, sometimes — (laughs) — earned authority to walk in those rooms talking about what it means to uphold democracies, the importance of rule of law, human rights.
And when we walk in those rooms, we do it proud of the fact that we have been held up and held out as a role model. 

Well, the thing about being a role model is this: When you’re a role model, people watch what you do to see if it matches what you say.  (Applause.)

So, understand the impact that this is happeni- — having not only for the children of Florida and our nation, but potentially people around the world.  Because, on a more specific point, in that regard, we want to know that we are sending our children out as role models of a democracy, who, therefore, know the importance of speaking and telling truth, the importance of understanding when you are a leader, you must know history.  (Applause.)

And, by the way, be really clear — be really clear: All the folks that we would go out and send our children to go and meet around the world are clear about our history, and we’re going to send our own children out to not know what it is?  Building in a handicap for our children, that they are going to be the ones in the room who don’t know their own history when the rest of the world does?

Think about this for a moment — the levels of proportion. 

So when I think about where we are, I do believe that our strength as a nation has always been because we are continuously and always invested in fighting to reach our ideals. 

And let’s remember the preamble to the Constitution of the United States.  Ben Crump. 

MR. CRUMP:  Yes, ma’am.  (Laughter.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  “We the People…in order to form a more perfect union” is part of the spirit behind our founding as a democracy.  Implicit in those words is we understood we must strive to form a more perfect union.  Implicit in those words was an understanding we are imperfect.  And we must be honest about that to understand, then, our history, where we’ve been, and then have a North Star in terms of where we must go.  (Applause.)

So when I think about what is happening, then, here in Florida, I am deeply concerned.  Because let’s be clear: I do believe this is not only about the state of Florida; there is a national agenda afoot.  (Applause.)  And what is happening here in Florida?  Extremist so-called leaders for months have dared to ban books.  Book bans in this year of our Lord 2023. 

Extremists here in Florida passed a law, “Don’t Say Gay,” trying to instill fear in our teachers that they should not live their full life and love who they love. (Applause.)

And now, on top of all of that, they want to replace history with lies.  Middle school students in Florida to be told that enslaved people benefited from slavery. 

AUDIENCE:  Booo —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  High schoolers may be taught that victims of violence, of massacres were also perpetrators. 

I said it yesterday: They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us — (applause) — and we will not have it.  And we will not have it. 

 And, you know, as parents, we teach our children to tell the truth.  It’s one of the first things we teach our children: love and honor their parents, their God, and tell the truth.  We teach our children not only to tell the truth, but to seek knowledge and truth. 

It’s part of what we know is about putting them on the road for them to grow and develop for the sake of our mutual well-being and prosperity.  These are the things we tell them. 

Well, I think we should model what we say.  (Applause.) These extremist so-called leaders should model what we know to be the correct and right approach, if we really are invested in the well-being of our children.  Instead, they dare to push propaganda to our children. 

 This is the United States of America.  We’re not supposed to do that.  (Applause.)

And here’s the other piece about this.  Now, when adults know what slavery really involved — come on — adults know what slavery really involved.  It involved rape.  It involved torture.  It involved taking a baby from their mother.  It involved some of the worst examples of — of — of depriving people of humanity in our world.  It involved subjecting to people the requirement that they would think of themselves and be thought of as less than human. 

So, in the context of that, how is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities, that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of dehumanization?  (Applause.)  In the midst of these atrocities, that there was some benefit?  (Applause.)  

So, it is not only misleading; it is false.  And it is pushing propaganda.  People who walk around and want to be praised as leaders, who want to be talked about as American leaders, pushing propaganda on our children.  Pushing propaganda on our children. 

And when we think about it, you know, when we send our children to school, as parents, we want to know that they are be taugh- — they are being taught the truth.  It is a reasonable expectation.  It is a reasonable expectation that our children will not be misled.  And that’s what’s so outrageous about what is happening right now: an abject and purposeful and intentional policy to mislead our children. 

And so, let us be clear: Teachers want to teach the truth.  (Applause.)  Teachers want to teach facts.  And teachers dedicate themselves to some of the most noble work any human being could take on: to teach other people’s children — (applause) — for the sake of the future of our nation.

And so, they should not then be told by politicians that they should be teaching revisit- — revisionist history in order to keep their jobs. 

What is going on?  (Applause.)

Our teachers who fear that if they teach the truth, they may lose their job.  As it is, we don’t pay them enough.  (Applause.)  You know!  I know.

And these are the people — these extremist, so-called leaders — who all the while are also the ones suggesting that teachers strap on a gun in the classroom instead of what real leaders should be doing and be engaged in reasonable gun safety laws.  (Applause.)

These are the same extremist leaders — so-called leaders — who make teachers fear losing their job for having a photograph of their spouse on their desk.  (Applause.)

But let’s be clear: On this issue, as it — with — this is not the first time in history that we’ve come across this kind of approach.  This is not the first time that there are powerful forces that have attempted to distort history for the sake of political ends.

Think about in the past how we have seen attempts to minimize and even deny the Holocaust.  (Applause.)  Think about those who tried to rewrite the history of the Japanese internment camps, erase our nation’s dark and sordid history in how we have treated the Native people and, in particular, through educational systems.  (Applause.)  Those who have tried — and there are states where they have — to ban teaching Latino and Hispanic history.

This is not the first time.

But when we think about it then in the context in which we should — understanding there is a national agenda afoot, understanding that there are many aspects of our history that some would like to overlook, erase, or at least deny — let us think about then what this creates as a moment for us to also then rededicate ourselves to the coalition.  (Applause.)  Our responsibility at moments like this to understand nobody should be made to fight alone.  We are all in this together.  (Applause.) 

And take a look — because, you know, there are a lot of teachers here, I think.  So I’m going to tell — you know, one of the things I love is Venn diagrams.  Any math teachers in the room?  I love Venn diagrams.  And I have — I have done an exercise of — of looking to see from where are we seeing the attacks on things like voting rights, LGBTQ rights, a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body, book bans.  And you will not be surprised to know a lot of them revert to the same source.

So, let’s think about this then as an opportunity to build back up the coalition of all people who believe in our foundational and fundamental truths — the truth that we are and will be a more perfect union when we fight for justice — (applause) — when we fight for equality, when we fight for fairness, guided by a belief in who we are as a nation and telling our truths.

And I will — I’ll close with this.  History has shown us that, in our darkest moments, we have the ability to unite — (applause) — and to come out stronger.  We know E Pluribus Unum, “Out of many, one.”

That is who we are in this room.  Out of many, one.

Americans who came here through Ellis Island.  Americans who were kidnapped and brought over on slave ships.  Americans who are native to this land.

Our history as a nation is born out of tragedy and triumph.  That’s who we are.  Part of that is what gives us our grit — knowing from where we came, knowing the struggles that we have come through, and being stronger in our dedication to saying, “No more” and “Not again.”  (Applause.)

It is part of what makes up the character of who we are as America.  So let’s reject the notion that we would deny all of this, in terms of our history.

Let us not be seduced into believing that somehow we will be better if we forget.  We will be better if we remember.  (Applause.)  We will be stronger if we remember.

We fought a war to end the sin of slavery.  A civil war.  People died by the untold numbers in that war, many of whom fought and died because of their belief that slavery was a sin against man — (applause) — that it was inhumane, that it was not reflective of who we believe ourselves to be as a country, and certainly not reflective of who we aspire to be.

So who then would dare deny this history?  Who would dare then deny that these lives were lost and why they were lost and what was the cause that they were fighting for and what were they fighting against?

They weren’t fighting and dying because they thought people were — were going to be okay with this thing.  (Applause.)  It’s because they knew that it had to end because it was so, so criminal.

So, we know the history, and let us not let these politicians, who are trying to divide our country, win. 

Because, you see, what they are doing — what they are doing is they are creating these unnecessary debates.  This is unnecessary to debate whether enslaved people benefited from slavery.  Are you kidding me?  (Applause.)  Are we supposed to debate that?

Let us not be distracted by what they’re trying to do, which is to create unnecessary debates to divide our country.  Let’s not fall in that trap. 

We will stand united as a country.  We know our collective history; it is our shared history.  We are all in this together.  (Applause.)

We know that we rise or fall together as a nation.  And we will not allow them to suggest anything other than what we know: The vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us.

And so, let us stand always for what we know is right.  Let us fight for what is right.  And when we fight, we win.  (Applause.)





We used to talk about the need to increase, for example, science knowledge for our kids.


Not anymore.  Now we're reduced to fighting some insane hate merchant to insist that basic facts are taught in school.  Do we realize how, in a year's time, this nation's suffered as a result of Ron DeSantis?  

If not, look at one Florida college that Ronald has destroyed.  Molly Sprayregen (LGBTQ NATION) reports:

Amidst Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R) hostile takeover of the Florida education system, the New College of Florida is struggling to hold onto its faculty.

In January, DeSantis appointed the far-right anti-LGBTQ+ activist Christopher Rufo, among other conservatives, to the New College’s board of trustees in an effort to make the school more conservative. The college had a reputation for being progressive and queer-friendly, but Rufo said the board would conduct a “top-down restructuring” of the school that will involve designing “a new core curriculum from scratch.”

But now, Provost Bradley Thiessen says 36 faculty have left in the past year alone. In a school with fewer than 100 full-time faculty members, that’s a lot. The Tampa Bay Times reported that it often takes over a year for universities to fill full-time positions, and without any advanced notice from the majority of the departed faculty, the school is now struggling to provide all of the courses that students need.

Currently, the school is relying on visiting faculty, but it’s still not enough. Former New College professor Liz Leininger said that although she felt guilty leaving her students, she ultimately decided to leave after the former school president Patricia Okker was fired upon the new board’s first meeting. Leininger left a vacancy in the neuroscience department, also leaving students like third-year Alaska Miller in the lurch.

“Either I don’t graduate on time or I’d have to abandon my major,” Miller said, referencing the fact that there is only one faculty member left in the school’s neuroscience department and no courses offered this fall.

During his time in office, DeSantis has waged war on public education, most notably through his “Don’t Say Gay” law and his vendetta against the teaching of racial and LGBTQ+ issues in schools. 


Ron DeSantis is a hateful bigot and he wants to make the world as small and as hateful as his own vision of it is.


An ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee says he remembers, to this day, how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis smiled at him from behind a fence while watching him get force-fed, per the Daily Beast. 

The Daily Beast reported on Saturday that they obtained a verified transcript of an unaired VICE documentary titled "The Guantanamo Candidate." This included an interview with a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, Mansoor Adayfi, who was suspected of being an al Qaeda operative before his release in 2016. Adayfi now lives in Serbia.

Adayfi said he first met DeSantis in 2006 when the Florida Republican went to Guantanamo along with several groups who'd "arrived to bring the camp under control." At the time, Adayfi and the other detainees were on a hunger strike to protest against their imprisonment, per Adayfi's account. DeSantis, who was then a US Navy lawyer, was providing legal advice to the detention center.

"As I'm looking at you now, I could see them standing behind the fence, watching and looking at us," Adayfi said, per the transcript, adding that DeSantis was "smiling."

"While being you, screaming and shouting and bleeding and like, throwing up and sh[**]ting on yourself, and someone is smiling at you? You cannot forget that," Adayfi continued.

Adayfi added in the documentary interview that he came across DeSantis' photo years later, and saw his name. 

"I cannot forget when he was there watching us with the force-feeding," he said. "You cannot forget that because those people left really bad scars in your soul." 



Ronald  is betraying all that came before.  He is betraying those who fought for freedom.  He is betraying history. 


And he's a criminal.  He should be in prison for what he did to detainees.  And he should be disbarred.  Instead, PARAMOUNT has stepped in to prevent SHOWTIME from airing the documentary.




We have way too many idiots running for president.  That's Ronald and it's Junior.

 Robert F. Kennedy Jr and his embarrassing campaign.  I was very sick last week and I'm still a little sick this morning.  But help me out, yesterday, was Sunday, right?  

Because on 7/23/23 at 8:08 pm, Junior's campaign sent out an e-mail entitled "Help us end censorship today."  It being Junior, it's not about ending censorship, it's about him.  He is a bastardization of his uncle's famous statement which now reads, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what it can do for me, Robert F. Kennedy Junior."

Here's the opening pargraph:

This week, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. testified at a Congressional hearing on censorship and the weaponization of the federal government. Incredibly, in a brazen attempt to censor the hearing, committee member Debbie Wasserman-Schultz moved to make it an executive session so that the American public would not be able to see it. The irony of censoring a hearing on censorship was not lost on the American public.

Again.  I'm still under the weather, but yesterday was Sunday, right?  So on Sunday night, they're writing about "this week" when they mean "last week"?

The campaign is as stupid as the candidate.

They then try to beg for money by citing The First Amendment.  It's not about the first amendment, it's about Junior who, the e-mail wants you to know,  "is one of the most censored figures of recent times."

It only gets worse:


 On Thursday, Aug. 17, Team Kennedy is putting on a Roundtable on Censorship bringing together leading experts and journalists like Glenn Greenwald, Michael Shellenberger, Sharyl Attkisson; Jenin Younes,  and former New Jersey Assemblyman Jamel Holley. Each has been a steadfast defender of the First Amendment. 


No, they aren't defenders of The First Amendment.  Sharyl is a reporter, for example, who claims her work computer was hacked (I believe her) when she was at CBS.  She's a working journalist.  She's not a defender of The First Amendment.  Nor an expert on it.  Glenneth Greenwald is even worse.  

And never forget that Ed Snowden turned over thousands of things to be exposed by Glenneth and Glenneth took his big payday check and then didn't reveal it.  He's still sitting on it and, per him, he has a copy of everything.  He can't hide behind THE INTERCEPT anymore.  It's not stopping him.  If these were details and revelations so important that Ed had to flee the country, then they need to be out there for the American people to judge.  Yet a decade later, Glenneth sits on them having revealed approximately 17% of what Ed handed to him.


Please note, that the campaign is about Junior.

Not what he can do for you because he's clearly not interested in any topic other than speaking about himself.  

And we're all supposed to pretend this passes for presidential.





Kat's "Kat's Korner: Yusuf/Cat Stevens has still got it and then some" went up yesterday.  The following sites updated:

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