DeSantis Wants to Rule the Magic Kingdom…and Everything Else
An idiotic Florida Republican State Senator named Jason Brodeur has proposed a new law, The Information Dissemination Act of 2023, which would require bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, his cabinet, or state legislators to register with the state, declaring whether they have been, are being or will be paid to blog about Ron DeSantis and his cohorts, as well as how much they have been, are being, or will be paid to blog about DeSantis, and by whom they have been, are being or will be paid to do this blogging.
Under the terms of the proposed legislation, bloggers who fail to register with the “appropriate office” of the state government within five days of publishing each post or suffer a penalty of $25 per day PER POST up to a total fine of $2,500 per post.
In direct contradiction to the terms of proposed legislation currently pending in the Florida legislature, I am initiating a campaign to continually publish unflattering posts about Ron DeSantis and his cohorts.
These posts may be true or false, or debatable; they may be either laudatory (fat chance) or (more likely) injurious to the reputations of parties being written about but I am going to try damned hard to make them hurt as much as I legally can.
Under no circumstances, however, will I ever register with the state, disclose whether I have been paid, am being paid, or will be paid for publishing posts about DeSantis, ET. AL, or disclose the names of the individuals and organizations who may or may not have paid me, are paying me, or will pay me in the future to write about Ron DeSantis and his cohorts, or the amounts that they may or may not have paid me to write about Ron DeSantis.
This legislation, which will soon be proposed in other Red states as well as the Republican Controlled House of Representatives, affects anyone who blogs on any platform, whether or not the blogger lives in Florida. It clearly violates the First Amendment of the Constitution, but it also violates the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution since it will affect business enterprises that reach across state lines as all websites do.
These legislative initiatives are designed to squelch debate and dissent, impede attempts by Democratic and Liberal actors (the two are NOT the same) to have their fair say, exercising the freedom of speech guaranteed to them under the Constitution.
Some may argue that it is not censorship to ask whether writers are being paid to write about DeSantis but it is a violation of the right to privacy, and a whole long list of other rights that Americans have enjoyed for the past 232 years since the Bill of Rights was ratified by three-quarters of the stares on December 15, 1791.
If it isn’t outright censorship (which, realistically, it is) it is an outright instance of intimidation, an attempt to silence the opposition to a dictatorial governor who is seeking the opportunity to become a dictatorial president.
Let’s get started:
I consider Ron DeSantis to be an outright but very smooth fascist demagogue and dictator-in-waiting who is trying to position himself to be the last duly elected president of the United States. In other words, he’s taking Donald Trump’s most feverish ambition and trying to actually implement Trump’s plan.
Evidence of his overweening desire to impose his twisted view of reality and religion on the people of Florida:
He has usurped the autonomy of The New College, the most liberal college in the Florida state college system by appointing six ultra-right-wing, fundamentalists to the school’s board of trustees to the school’s governing board for the express purpose of turning the liberal institution into a publicly funded bible college. DeSantis choose to attack New College specifically because of its open admissions policies, liberal programs, and its acceptance of divergent lifestyles.
DeSantis has terminated a decades-long agreement that made Disneyworld and the surrounding environs – one of the best-managed municipalities in the nation – and appointed a hand-picked group of right-wing Christocentric DeSantis followers to the supervising board of the district, renamed from the Reedy Creek Improvement District, as it was known when Disney was in control, to the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.
His justification included allegations that Disney executives are promoting homophilia while injecting sexuality into their programming, but the triggering event was the Disney Corporation’s public opposition to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act. which bans classroom instruction on sexuality and gender ideology in kindergarten through third grade and requires that sex instruction in other grades be age-appropriate.
Whether you agree with that policy or not, it’s hard to argue that appointing Ron Peri to the new board might not have been a good idea. Peri, an Orlando-based former pastor and the CEO of The Gathering – a Christian ministry focused on outreach to men – has publicly stated that “tap water could be making more people gay.”
03/04/2023 @ 12:38 pm
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
—The 1st Amendment to The Constitution of the United States of America
This should be a slam dunk for any court anywhere in the country, including the Supreme Courts of Florida and the United States…
But it won’t….
03/04/2023 @ 12:47 pm
03/04/2023 @ 1:38 pm
>proposed legislation<
Curious if Puerto Rican Statehood would curtail this blatant unconstitutional proposition.
Superficially Governor DeSantis' telegentics appear too astute to aggrandize an accelerated demise to manipulate and usurp our 1st Amendment — please let's strive to keep the clasp of this proposed Pandora's Box of fascism locked. Where's Burt Reynolds when you need him? I interpet Florida's slogan as: Keep Florida Green — not holstered Red.
Thank God I did not choose that Marco Island beachfront (money in the sand!) just after the pervasive real estate crash of 2008. I mean really !? C'mon now Gov … doesn't Dunkirk mean anything to 'ya? Something anti-America is happening. Sir. "Oh people look around you!"
03/05/2023 @ 11:27 am
You go, Alan! I am coming to believe that we should dig out our musty dusty mouldering copies of Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book, and revisit the tactics of honest to goodness creative leftist anarchy, and show Trump et. all what real leftist anarchy looks like.
I’m wondering how they’ll track down bloggers with avatars like ‘Angry Florida State House Staffer’ and ‘Ron DeSantis is a Hairy Bear’? Not to mention out of state bloggers. Or the youngs, so far ahead of them in terms of web savvy.
Ron Powell, we need to re-avatar you. Set aside your scruples about blogging under your real name, and publish some scathing ‘woke’ invective and ‘crt’.
P.S. My blog would be about what he’s trying to do to public education, both K-12 and higher ed. He knows nothing about curriculum and faculty practice, e.g. thinks professors are tenured at age 28. He went to Harvard and Yale, so he knows darn well that isn’t even close to true. Someone should fine HIM twenty-five bucks for each lie.
03/05/2023 @ 2:05 pm
Suzanne, write it. I want to see it and I want other people to use this platform for real protest. (PS: I was in SDS and the Weather Underground for a hot minute. There were publicity-addicted idiots. The people who were really out there doing the work avoided all the publicity they could. Those boyos sought it out like crazy. My 20 years running drug treatment programs was my protest action. )
03/05/2023 @ 3:48 pm
Well, Alan, my account here disappeared some time ago, and I don’t just suspect, I’m certain that entire humanities departments of Florida faculty will go incognito and do a better job of blog-blasting him than I ever could.
What frightens me more is the stealth attacks on higher ed creeping into other states, moving ever northward. If you’ve been following it, Gov. Youngkin recently appointed three new members to the board of UVA, one of whom was circulating MAGA-ish emails critical of faculty, staff, students, and president of the board, a Dem appointee. Board members serve terms–at my college terms are three years, prolly same at UVA. What this means is that every year, a certain number of board members will be replaced at UVA by GOP governor Youngkin with new MAGA-ers, until after a few years, they become the board majority.
In academia, although all important decisions are approved by the board, committees/faculty/admins make recommendations about curriculum, awards, tenure, hiring, etc. and the board just rubber stamps their recommendations. This practice will stop in any institution unlucky enough to have a majority MAGA board. Recommendations will be ignored. Faculty and staff unions will be busted and contracts will be broken. Diversity and equity practices will stop. The curriculum committee will be told what to do, rather than vice versa.
Yah. It’s bad.
But save me the avatar Ron DeSantis’s Left White Disco Boot, just in case
03/12/2023 @ 12:56 pm
05/05/2023 @ 2:24 pm
‘The Devolution of Ron DeSantis’*
By Nate Cohn
Chief political analyst
NYT 5 May 2023
*Cohn appears to be up to the minute and near the pulse of DeSantis’ ’24 Presidential ‘plausibility’. Again I so often question our penchant for ‘perpetual’ election. Hey! Magnolias are in bloom & cherry pink and apple blossom white May flowers light my eyes. Real personally, I’ve finally located Richie Havens’ ALARM CLOCK!
A gettin’ old 1971 album {…} and, and {…} gonna fly now … LO;}