Fogbow

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Fri Apr 28, 2023 3:41 pm

BREAKING: DeSantis poised to sign law that would allow him to run for president without resigning as governor
The bill passed in the House 76-34.

https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking- ... s-governor

‘A dangerous trend’: Florida Republicans poised to pass more voter restrictions
Measures seek to limit third-party voter registration groups and will affect non-white voters, in latest wave of restrictions

Sam Levine
Fri 28 Apr 2023 11.00 BST

Florida Republicans are on the verge of passing new restrictions on groups that register voters, a move voting rights groups and experts say will make it harder for non-white Floridians to get on the rolls.

The restrictions are part of a sweeping 96-page election bill the legislature is likely to send to Governor Ron DeSantis’s desk soon. The measure increases fines for third-party voter registration groups. It also shortens the amount of time the groups have to turn in any voter registration applications they collect from 14 days to 10. The bill makes it illegal for non-citizens and people convicted of certain felonies to “collect or handle” voter registration applications on behalf of third-party groups. Groups would also have to give each voter they register a receipt and be required to register themselves with the state ahead of each general election cycle. Under current law, they only have to register once and their registration remains effective indefinitely.

Groups can now be fined $50,000 for each ineligible person they hire to do voter canvassing. They can also be fined $50 a day, up to $2,500, for each day late they turn in a voter registration form.

Those restrictions are more likely to affect non-white Floridians. About one in 10 Black and Hispanic Floridians registered to vote using a third-party group, according to Daniel Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida who closely studies voting rights. Non-white voters are five times more likely to register with a third-party group in the state than their white counterparts, “a fact likely not lost on those pushing the legislation”, Smith said.

“This will likely be the final nail in the coffin for third-party groups to be able to register voters in Florida,” added Smith, who has served as an expert for groups challenging similar new restrictions.

The bill passed the Florida senate on Wednesday and is expected to clear the Florida house later this week.




https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... strictions

Ron DeTedious: DeSantis underwhelms Britain’s business chiefs
UK captains of industry lambast ‘low-wattage’ US presidential hopeful.
BY STEFAN BOSCIA APRIL 29, 2023 9:01 AM CET

LONDON — He hopes to win the hearts and minds of devoted Donald Trump supporters ahead of next year’s U.S. election. But Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis failed to impress British business chiefs at a high-profile London event Friday, in a tired performance described variously as “horrendous,” “low-wattage” and “like the end of an overseas trip.” The Florida governor, expected to launch his bid next month to challenge Trump as the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential race, met with more than 50 representatives of major U.K. firms and business lobbying groups as a part of a four-country “trade mission” ending in London Friday.

His trip was officially billed as an attempt to build Florida’s economic relationships with the U.K., Israel, South Korea and Japan, but it has been widely seen in Washington as a chance for DeSantis to present himself as a statesman on the world stage. For several of those present, however, the statesmanship was lacking. One U.K. business figure said DeSantis “looked bored” and “stared at his feet” as he met with titans of British industry in an event co-hosted by Lloyd’s of London — the world’s largest insurance marketplace. “He had been to five different countries in five days and he definitely looked spent, but his message wasn’t presidential,” they told POLITICO. “He was horrendous.”

A second business figure who was in the room said it was a “low-wattage” performance and that “nobody in the room was left thinking, ‘this man’s going places’.” They said: “It felt really a bit like we were watching a state-level politician. I wouldn’t be surprised if [people in attendance] came out thinking ‘that’s not the guy’.” "There wasn’t any stardust.” A third person present at the event agreed “it felt like the end of an overseas trip — which it was,” but insisted DeSantis “came across well.” The best a fourth could muster was that DeSantis was “fine.” DeSantis also met with U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch during a whistlestop tour of London, though Prime Minister Rishi Sunak avoided a bilateral with the right-wing governor. Sunak was at a Scottish Conservative Party conference Friday, which a No. 10 official said had been in his diary for a “long time.”

DeSantis is trailing Trump in polling among Republican primary voters, but has attracted support among a number of establishment Republicans who see him as a less chaotic figure than the ex-president. The governor won a landslide re-election last year in what is traditionally a swing state, and has attracted praise from many Republicans for his “anti-woke” agenda and his commitment to tax cuts. A government official said Badenoch, a rising star in the Conservative Party, and DeSantis had a “fruitful” conversation and that the pair “got on well.” However, the pair did not discuss the prospect of a state-level economic Memorandum of Understanding between the U.K. and Florida, despite Britain’s efforts to sign similar arrangements with other U.S. states.

A second official said Badenoch’s team “wanted to avoid talking about a Florida MoU” as others are being prioritized, and because of the difficult optics for a British government also dealing with Joe Biden’s White House on several trade-related issues. A Foreign Office spokesperson said Cleverly and DeSantis discussed “the close and important relationship between the U.K. and Florida.” “The meeting was an opportunity to strengthen ties with the … U.S. state, and support bilateral economic co-operation that is already worth more than £5 billion a year,” they said.

Volkonski wrote: ↑Sat Apr 29, 2023 12:20 pm DeSantis visited the U.K., Israel, South Korea and Japan in only 5 days? That's insane.

RVInit wrote: ↑Sun Apr 30, 2023 2:15 pm

Volkonski wrote: ↑Sat Apr 29, 2023 12:20 pm DeSantis visited the U.K., Israel, South Korea and Japan in only 5 days? That's insane.

I wonder if he's just trying to rack up a large number of foreign countries he's visited so when he runs for President he can brag about his foreign policy bona fides. Which don't actually exist, of course.

Ron DeSantis in Guantánamo: how questions about his past haunt the Florida governor
As a young navy lawyer, the Republican was posted to the notorious prison camp. What he did there – and his role in the investigation of three deaths – remains controversial

Julian Borger and Oliver Laughland
Fri 28 Apr 2023 15.19 BST

In the middle of a June night 17 years ago in the Guantánamo prison camp, guards and medical orderlies were urgently summoned to one of the inmate clinics, where an emergency was unfolding.

Two inmates, Ali Abdullah Ahmed and Mani Shaman al-Utaybi, had been brought in dead. A third, Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, had been rushed to the hospital on the US naval base but was declared dead there soon afterwards. The three men were found hanging from their necks, with their hands and feet bound and rags in their throats.

It was the worst loss of life in the prison camp’s history – in the midst of a turbulent year in which there were hunger strikes and riots as well as the three deaths – and officers around the base were roused from their sleep and rushed to Camp Delta, the main internment centre.

R Adm Harry Harris arrived, the base commander who would go on to command the Pacific fleet, accompanied by Col Michael Bumgarner, the head of the overall prison complex. At some point, witnesses say, a more junior officer turned up, a 27-year-old navy lawyer, or judge advocate general (JAG), Lt Ron DeSantis.

The future Florida governor and Republican presidential contender had been assigned to Guantánamo three months earlier, part of a small legal team tasked with ensuring the guards and other military personnel followed the law. He was the most junior JAG in the camp, but after the three deaths on the night of 9 June 2006, his superior officer, Capt Patrick McCarthy, ordered him to start collecting initial evidence.

It is unclear when exactly DeSantis became involved in the investigation. Some of the witness statements mention an unnamed JAG at the scene in the early hours of 10 June. McCarthy did not respond to a request for comment but confirmed to the Washington Post he had ordered DeSantis to gather information.

“I cannot tell you specifically what [DeSantis] did,” McCarthy told the Post, but said his subordinate was probably “involved in facilitating access to information, trying to make sure that privileged information did not get swept up. He would have been one of the folks that I dispatched to help facilitate the investigative effort.”




https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... llegations

DeSantis on why it's important to shield his travel records: "With the security situation, how you do patterns of movements, if you're somebody that is targeted, which unfortunately I am... that could be something that could be helpful for ppl that may not want to do good things"

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Mon May 01, 2023 10:29 pm No comment, DeSantis visiting the wailing wall. With his custom yarmulke.
IMG_4901.jpeg

neonzx wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 12:10 am But he is Jew-ish, so it's okay.

Seriously, though. I have never seen a yarmulke emblazoned with a name. Totally disrespectful.

neonzx wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 12:10 am

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Mon May 01, 2023 10:29 pm No comment, DeSantis visiting the wailing wall. With his custom yarmulke.
IMG_4901.jpeg

But he is Jew-ish, so it's okay.

Seriously, though. I have never seen a yarmulke emblazoned with a name. Totally disrespectful.

DeSantis gave a 'low-wattage' and 'horrendous' speech in London as presidential polling slides: 'Nobody in the room was left thinking, 'this man's going places.''

HANNAH GETAHUNMAY
1, 2023, 11:29 IST

• Governor Ron DeSantis finished off a four-stop international tour in London on Friday.
  Attendees were not impressed by the speech, Politico reported.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis met with prominent business leaders in London as a part of a four-stop international tour but leaders told Politico that his speech was less than exciting.

Multiple figures at the Friday event described the DeSantis as "low-wattage" and "horrendous."

One business person, who remained unnamed, told Politico that DeSantis's message wasn't "presidential" and said he stared at his feet in the face of UK industry titans.

Another said "nobody in the room was left thinking, 'this man's going places.'"

"There wasn't any stardust," the second anonymous attendee told Politico.




https://www.businessinsider.in/internat ... 901750.cms

Ron DeTedious: DeSantis underwhelms Britain’s business chiefs
UK captains of industry lambast ‘low-wattage’ US presidential hopeful.

BY STEFAN BOSCIA
APRIL 29, 2023 9:01 AM CET

LONDON — He hopes to win the hearts and minds of devoted Donald Trump supporters ahead of next year’s U.S. election.

But Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis failed to impress British business chiefs at a high-profile London event Friday, in a tired performance described variously as “horrendous,” “low-wattage” and “like the end of an overseas trip.”

The Florida governor, expected to launch his bid next month to challenge Trump as the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential race, met with more than 50 representatives of major U.K. firms and business lobbying groups as a part of a four-country “trade mission” ending in London Friday.

His trip was officially billed as an attempt to build Florida’s economic relationships with the U.K., Israel, South Korea and Japan, but it has been widely seen in Washington as a chance for DeSantis to present himself as a statesman on the world stage.




https://www.politico.eu/article/ron-det ... ss-chiefs/

US presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis meets Foreign Secretary in UK visit
The Florida governor may face Donald Trump in the contest to represent the Republicans in the White House race.

By Sam Blewett
4 days ago

Ron DeSantis has been hosted in the UK by Foreign Secretary James Cleverly as the Florida governor seeks to burnish his credentials ahead of a possible run against Donald Trump to be the Republican choice in the race for the White House.

The conservative firebrand and Mr Cleverly discussed ties between Britain and the US state he represents while visiting the Foreign Office on Friday.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was attending Tory conferences in Scotland and Wales, will not be meeting Mr DeSantis, who has been criticised by the LGBTQ community over the “don’t say gay” law banning discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity in schools, which Joe Biden’s administration has called “hateful”.




https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politic ... 77625.html

How DeSantis accidentally handed Disney a potent weapon against him

When the Walt Disney Co. went looking for evidence to feature in its new lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, its lawyers found much of what they needed in DeSantis’s own recently published memoir.

Buried in Disney’s complaint against DeSantis is something surprising. Numerous quotes taken from “The Courage to be Free” appear to support the company’s central allegation: that the Republican governor improperly wielded state power to punish Disney’s speech criticizing his policies, violating the First Amendment.

Memoirs by presidential aspirants often lay out a blueprint for their coming candidacies. DeSantis’s does, too. It boasts extensively about his war on Disney to advertise how he would marshal the powers of the presidency against so-called woke elites.

Disney’s lawsuit cites exactly these passages. DeSantis — who signed a law taking control of Disney’s special self-governing district, and moved to nullify the company’s efforts to work around it — repeatedly flaunts the truth: These were retaliation against Disney for opposing his “don’t say gay” law limiting classroom discussion of sex and gender.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — In late February, a jet owned by the company associated with the Fontainebleau Hotel flew from Tallahassee to Newark ahead of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ appearance on Staten Island. That same day a jet owned by a central Florida developer flew from Newark to Philadelphia to Chicago to Tallahassee when the governor also made stops that same day in Pennsylvania and Illinois.

Who paid for these flights? The governor’s office said no taxpayer money was spent on these flights in connection with DeSantis’ three-city stop that day. A spokesperson who has been affiliated with the governor’s political operation declined to comment. There was nothing listed in the governor’s political committee campaign finance report for February.

The state Republican Party spent money on travel expenses in the first quarter, including on commercial airlines and for what appear to be chartered flights in January and March, but there are no indications the governor’s February trip was a gift from the party. The party executive director did not respond to a question back in February about DeSantis’ trips to New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.


Meanwhile, flight tracking records show that a private chartered jet last week flew from Austin, Texas, to Japan to South Korea to Israel to London and then, over the weekend, stopped in Boston before finally winding up in Tallahassee. Those stops coincide with the governor’s movements for the past week.

It has been previously stated that this trip is being paid for by private donations to Enterprise Florida, the public-private economic development agency that is about to be dismantled by the Legislature. But a spokesperson for Enterprise Florida has not responded to questions as to why a chartered jet — which is likely to be tremendously expensive — was used for DeSantis’ trip. The agency was also asked about how much this will ultimately cost.

...The agency was also asked about how much this will ultimately cost.

Jason Garcia @Jason_Garcia wrote: Florida lawmakers just passed a bill to impose new regulations on privately owned and privately funded rail lines.

But only private rail lines in an independent special district.

And only in special districts that cover two contiguous counties.

So just the Disney monorail.