Turntables something something

 Disney sues DeSantis for damages after he asks them to drop suit

Disney has filed a counterclaim seeking damages against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis just days after the presidential hopeful said the two feuding parties have “moved on” from the dispute.

Disney has accused the board of supervisors picked by DeSantis to oversee Walt Disney World’s special tax district of breaching contracts, according to Thursday’s 55-page court filing in response to Florida’s recent lawsuit against the media titan.

For a guy who was a lawyer, DeSantis really sucks at it.

For a guy who is a governor, he really sucks at it.

For a guy who will never be president, he sucks at it from a distance. 

For a guy who is a human, he really sucks at it.

Hold your horses. Are we sure he’s human?

Let's see a strong principles of the GOP is fiscal conservative values...I wonder how Ronnie DeSantis measures up on that?

Basic value of fiscal conservatives are support for lower taxes (Ron raised taxes on Disney)...Small government (Ron used the government to deliberately punish and interfere with Disney)... and deregulation of corporations (again Ron applied MORE regulations to Disney).

Seems like Ron is really bad at a major component of being in the GOP.

Picking a fight for political reasons then asking them to back down is the biggest pussy move I've ever seen. What a cowardly turd that guy is.

DeSantis seems to think he can just "dictate" something & then "move on". It doesn't work that way asshole. You started this fight & now Disney wants to finish it. I don't usually side with the greedy corporation but, go Disney!!!

Finally Some sense in Trumplandia

 Majority Says They ‘Definitely’ Will Not Support Trump in 2024: Poll

Amajority of Americans say they will "definitely not" support former President Donald Trump if he becomes the Republican presidential nominee, according to a new poll out Wednesday.

Overall, 53% of respondents in the Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll said they would definitely not support the former president if he is the GOP nominee, while another 11% said they would "probably not" support him.

Those numbers come as just 63% of Republicans respondents said they wanted Trump to run for another term.

The fact that anyone is supporting him is what’s frightening.

The base is actually more terrifying than Trump. He's just the manifestation of what the GOP base has become. And when Trump is out of the picture (in jail, dead, whatever) the base will still be there, ready to back Trump v2.0

Since the moment he was “elected” in 2016, Donald Trump has steadily lost supporters. There are still a lot of dupes who support him, but there are fewer today than there were in 2020.

A Republican saying they won’t vote for Trump… ha, I’ll believe it when I see it. At the end of the day they’ll all fall in line and vote for whoever has the R next to their name. 

Trump lawyers negotiating with Fulton County DA over details of surrender, sources say

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump are in “ongoing negotiations” with the Fulton County District attorney’s office regarding details of his surrender, two sources familiar with the talks tell CNN.

As of now, they have not yet landed on a date for when Trump will surrender, the sources said.

Early indications from Trump’s team are that they are discussing a potential surrender date for next week, though the talks are ongoing. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, gave Trump and his 18 co-defendants until August 25 at noon to voluntarily surrender.

I want him fingerprinted and a DNA sample taken so we can run it through the cold case databases.

I'd prefer they drag him from his home so he can feel what the cops felt on January 6, 2021.

What's to negotiate? Show up by noon on 25 August or have a warrant issued for your immediate arrest and extradition from whatever state you're currently grifting in, you atrocious cockwomble.

“When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just seen them thrown in, rough. I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice,’ When you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head you know, the way you put their hand over [their head]," Trump continued, mimicking the motion. "Like, 'Don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody, don’t hit their head.' I said, 'You can take the hand away, OK?' "I have to tell you, you know, the laws are so horrendously stacked against us, because for years and years, they've been made to protect the criminal. Totally made to protect the criminal. Not the officers. You do something wrong, you're in more jeopardy than they are,

"I can tell you, I saw some photos where [acting ICE Director] Tom [Homan]'s guys, rough guys, they're rough, I don't want to ... say it because they'll say that's not politically correct, you're not allowed to have rough people doing this kind of work. ... Just like they don't want to have rich people at the head of treasury,"

-President Trump, July 28, 2017

He agrees with you! 

DeSantis's run for Presidency is costly voters of Florida

DeSantis’ retaliation against Disney hurts Florida, former governors and lawmakers say

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Saying Gov. Ron DeSantis has followed the autocratic examples of governments in Russia and China, a group of mostly Republican former high-level government officials has called the Florida governor’s takeover of Disney World’s governing district “severely damaging to the political, social, and economic fabric of the State.”

DeSantis shoots Florida in the foot. Former governors remark that this is detrimental to Florida. DeSantis doubles down and shoots Florida in the nuts.

The whole Disney fiasco is clearly going to work against DeSantis in the longer run.

It might have given him a short term boost with his right wing base.

But it has shown moderates and independents - who are still very important in major elections - that he has demagogue tendencies. Just like Trump.

Why he ever thought it was a good idea is beyond my comprehension. 

Going after one of the biggest employers in your state was a self serving political move and did nothing but harm to Florida. Will you do the same to our country if you're elected?

He is the American version of Viktor Orban, the poster child for soft fascism. It might be worthwhile noting that Hungary would be an impoverished corrupt cesspool with out the EU.

Erdogan in Turku is another example of soft fascism, he’s even more autocratic than Orban is.

What's a ball park figure of the revenue Disney contributes to Florida's economy?

All revenue?

And what's a ball park figure if that revenue was removed from the Floridian coffers?

Disney’s economic impact to central Florida is in the billions, likely even the 10s of billions each year. https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/data-download/enormous-numbers-desantis-fight-disney-rcna81019

DeSantis’ ‘anti-woke’ bills are costing Florida millions of dollars in business

A slew of new bills signed into law by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has draped the Sunshine State in controversy, spurring protests, lawsuits and travel advisories warning the state is “openly hostile” toward people of color, immigrants, women and LGBTQ+ community members.

The fallout is starting to spread to a key economic artery for an income-tax-free state heavily reliant upon tourism taxes: Florida’s convention business.

In recent weeks, at least a dozen organizations have announced plans to either cancel or relocate their upcoming conferences scheduled to take place in Florida, making a statement by having their thousands of attendees and millions of dollars flow into other states deemed safer and more welcoming.

DeSantis is not only costing Florida tourist dollars, but also costing Floridians in many other ways.

As a corporate and industry friendly politician, insurance premiums have soared 206% since he became governor and, on average, Florida homeowners pay over $4,200 per year for home insurance (triple the national average of $1,700 according to data from the Insurance Information Institute).

https://www.newsweek.com/florida-insurance-premiums-rose-206-percent-desantis-governor-1812740

Not to mention he is costing Florida taxpayers millions of dollars with his "anti-woke" agenda (i.e. flying migrants out of Florida, lawsuits, etc).

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/03/ron-desantis-insurance-industry-donors-florida-governor

https://reason.com/2023/02/06/ron-desantis-wants-12-million-to-transport-migrants-from-any-point-in-the-u-s/

And for what exactly?

For a politician on the national stage and trying to create a national profile while running for president, there is very little discussion about his actual governance.

The statistics of Florida's social and economic well-being reveals that Florida falls short in almost any measure that matters to the lives of its citizens and that Florida is toward the bottom of state rankings which assess the quality of education, health care, and many other areas which are key to a successful society.

https://time.com/6266618/ron-desantis-florida-governance-essay/

Some points taken from the above link...

• An investigation by the Orlando Sentinel revealed the startling fact that 99% of Florida’s companies paid no corporate income tax, abetted by tax-avoidance schemes and state officials who gave a low priority to enforcing tax laws.
• A study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that Florida had the third least-equitable tax system of the 50 states. In the state’s “upside-down” tax structure, the poorest 20% of Florida families paid 12.7% of their income in taxes, while the families whose income was in the top 4% paid 4.5%, and the top 1% paid 2.3%, according to the study.
• The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that studies health-care systems globally, found in its 2022 “scorecard” that Florida had the 16th worst health care among the 50 states. It’s no wonder that Florida ranks below the northern blue states in life expectancy and rates of cancer death, diabetes, fatal overdoses, teen birth rates, and infant mortality.
• Because of DeSantis’s obstinacy, Florida is one of 10 states that have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, an act of political spite that has cost those states billions in federal health care dollars and cost thousands of people their lives. More than 12% of Floridians are without medical insurance, a worse record than all but four other states.
• Despite having the country’s highest percentage of retirees, Florida has the worst long-term care among the 50 states, according to the American Association of Retired Persons.
• Public schools fare no better than health care in DeSantis’s Florida. Not only did Florida rank 49th in the country for average teacher pay in 2020, but the Education Law Center, a non-profit advocacy group based in New Jersey, found in a 2021 report that the state had the seventh-lowest per-pupil funding in the country. Education Week, which ranks states public school annually, looking beyond mere test scores, placed Florida 23rd in its 2021 report. 

DeSantis keeps thumbling down

 Ron DeSantis Invites Nation’s First Black VP to Florida for Roundtable Discussion on the Upsides of Being Enslaved

Remember when Ron DeSantis’s board of education announced last month that new state standards would require schools to teach students that there were some benefits to being enslaved? And the Florida governor was blasted for it, not only by the “The Left,” but by fellow Republicans too? Because the idea of forcing teachers to tell kids that there were some silver linings to being human property is, to quote former GOP congressman Will Hurd, “insane”?

You might have thought that, given the bipartisan blowback, DeSantis would not be eager to keep this particular story in the news. But surprise! He apparently does, and his plan to keep people talking about it was to troll-invite Kamala Harris, the nation’s first Black vice president, to Florida for an “honest dialogue” about why it isn’t nuts to require school curricula to include a section on slavery not being all bad.

I don’t see why we need a “slavery was good” vs “slavery was bad” debate. For the same reason you don’t debate flat earth. It’s immoral to even position these arguments as debatable.

Seriously, what right wing issue-generator dart board did this whole topic spring up from?

The GOP gets their talking points through Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, Hungary and other fascist, anti-democracy, anti-multiracial society dictatorships.

In Hungary in 2010, Viktor Orban ran in a platform of ‘build the wall’ and ‘make Hungary great again’. Donald Trump literally just copied Orban’s campaign, and now the GOP is a full blown fascist party. 

I'm being serious: Is this guy stupid?

DeSantis is speed running a mission of "how to blow up your campaign."

He does know that he's going to need more than just the white people who agree with him to win correct?

Harris rejects DeSantis’ offer to debate Florida’s new Black history standards

Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday rejected Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ offer to debate the state’s recent guidelines on teaching the African American experience, calling him part of a group of “extremist, so-called leaders” trying to rewrite the “ugly parts of history.”

“They attempt to legitimize these unnecessary debates with a proposal that most recently came in of a politically motivated roundtable,” Harris said in her afternoon speech at the 20th Women’s Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Quadrennial Convention in Orlando. “Well, I’m here in Florida, and I will tell you there is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact. There were no redeeming qualities of slavery.”

DeSantis is a torturer, human trafficker, and slavery apologist who can't get any traction running against a rapist with two impeachments and three felony indictments in his jacket. He doesn't deserve to be on the same stage as Harris.

At this rate, I won't be surprised if DeSantis advocates for the reinstatement of slavery in Florida.

To debate him implies this is debatable. Good for her for not taking the bait.

What's funny is he wants to debate a Democrat instead of his fellow Republicans when he's running for the GOP nomination first.

Harris says she won't debate DeSantis on new Black history standards in Florida 

Vice President Harris publicly rejected the invitation from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to debate the new standards of Black history education in the state, which say that enslaved people could have benefited from slavery.

In Orlando at a convention for the African Methodist Episcopal Women's Missionary Society, Harris attacked "extremists" for passing laws that restrict abortion and the right to vote, and said now they "attempt to erase and even rewrite the ugly parts of our history."

Without mentioning DeSantis' name, Harris said Tuesday that the invite for a roundtable on the topic was an "attempt to legitimize these unnecessary debates" about slavery.

Of course not. There's nothing to debate. There were no benefits to being enslaved. 

DeSantis plunder days

 DeSantis Caught Using Taxpayer-Funded State Vehicles to Campaign

A car crash in Tennessee earlier this week revealed that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been using state government vehicles for his 2024 presidential campaign, the Sun Sentinel reported. If it hadn’t been for the crash, though, nobody would even know he was doing so. That’s thanks to DeSantis’ own state legislature, which passed a recent law that shields the governor’s travel records from the public. As a result, DeSantis is essentially free to use resources funded by Florida’s taxpayers to fuel his presidential aspirations. “It’s absurd that he’s using public resources and public infrastructure to campaign,” said state Rep. Anna Eskamani, (D-Orlando). “He’s using state resources to boost himself politically.” Eskamani acknowledged that, had it not been for the crash, no one would have known about DeSantis’ use of state vehicles. “It makes you wonder how often state vehicles and public employees are being used at out-of-state campaign events,” she said.

The Republican legislature will make a new bill to give him a pass.

Oh, they already did! https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2023/07/28/new-law-shields-desantis-campaigns-use-of-state-vehicles-to-campaign/

Fuckers. 

And his voters will happily fork over their money to fund DeFascist's political ambition instead of anything that remotely helps the state of Florida.

One has to wonder how many of his supporters still support what he is doing?

He talks big, but everything he does has been overturned, causes directly attributed negative effects of the state, and they are dying off.

The problem (one of them anyways) with the GOP is a good chunk of their base has an end goal of establishing some kind of fundamentalist theocracy. 

DeSantis rocked by Black Republican revolt over slavery comments

The bitter fight between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Rep. Byron Donalds over a line about slavery in the state’s revised African American history standards is infuriating several prominent Black conservatives.

Several told POLITICO they fear the issue will play into Democrats’ characterization of Republicans as favoring a whitewashing of American history. Most saw it as an unforced error at the time when Black Republicans feel they’ve been making significant strides within the party.

That isn't just DeSantis. It's the ENTIRE Republican Party. It's what they stand for. Look at Republican campaign rally's and see how many Confederate Flags you see people waving around or on their cars. Tim Scott knows this, I've lived in South Carolina. The Confederacy is worshiped there.

Still finding it difficult to understand why any minority would have anything to do with Republicans.

4 years of Trump and *this* is the straw that breaks the camel's back? The whole thing is just another Republican charade of scoring points by kicking the weak kid while he's down. Fucking playground politics. If De Santis wasn't tanking they'd be licking his racist jackboots like the rest of them.

Ron DeSantis' Popularity Plunges to Lowest in Poll's History 

on DeSantis' net approval rating has slumped to a new low of -24 according to an opinion survey, the worst it has been since the pollster started tracking the Florida governor in May 2022.

The Civiqs poll concluded that on July 26 some 57 percent of registered American voters had a negative view of DeSantis, versus just 33 percent with a positive impression and 10 percent who were unsure.

Because he's not likeable. He was always gonna crash and burn on a national stage. His popularity in Florida (also sinking) was manufactured with heavily stage-managed events. Once he had to interact with the public at large, his petty and weird personality was gonna come out.

Funny how it’s hard to be popular when all your ideas aren’t. When you have no proposals other than dismantling. When your goals are to break rather than build. When your theme is anti.

Ron DeSantis' popularity is a measure of the popularity of conservative policies. This is what conservatives have been telling us, that DeSantis is a real conservative who is the most effective Republican governor and their #1 superstar.

DeSantis is unpopular because conservatism is unpopular. Conservatism is unpopular with conservatives. They don't like their own shit, they just want to defeat their perceived enemies and they go to battle with ideas and policies that must be diametrically opposed to the Democrats, and they go along with those ideas and policies regardless of how agreeable they may or may not be. Conservatives have no values, so they craft a fantasy world that is in perpetual contradiction. They hate cancel culture, but they will boycott whatever at the drop of a hat. They want their own movies. They want their own news channels. They can't coexist in reality. It's all made up. Conservatism is a fake ideology.