Texas Governor takes away people with disabilities option to vote by mail

 Gov. Greg Abbott vetoes bill that would give people with disabilities new option to vote by mail

Gov. Greg Abbott on Saturday vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded vote-by-mail access for people with disabilities — specifically people who are blind or paralyzed and need assistance marking their ballot.

Advocates say Abbott’s veto of House Bill 3159 is a blow for voters with disabilities who have for years called for the Legislature to grant them a way to mark their mail-in ballots without having to rely on anyone else.

Guy in wheelchair makes it harder for disabled people to vote. You would almost think it’s the Onion.

He’s paralyzed from a tree that fell on him while jogging after a storm.

He sued the homeowner for an initial payment of 400k and monthly payments for the rest of his life at 14k.

Shortly after, he closed up that legal loophole so that no one else can do that. 

At some point, their policies will fail. Unless the republican party actually changes and begins trying to improve life on earth, then they will eventually be worn away.

Oh and talking about Republicans:

Republicans Plan to Cut Free School Lunches

The largest ideological caucus in the House Republican conference is proposing steep cuts to free and reduced school lunch programs nationwide, citing the need to "prevent the widespread fraud present in the program."

Embedded deep in the Republican Study Committee's (RSC) recommended budget released Wednesday night, the plan calls for a series of reforms designed to cut federal funding for school lunches and encourage states to increase their shares of funding for the program—a move the RSC argues will encourage state legislatures to restrict the eligible population receiving school lunch to "truly needy" households.

After birth and before reaching voting age, the GOP has no use for you. Get a job, you lazy children.

Republicans hate the idea of poor people being educated or well-fed. They literally want people who are less fortunate to work and die and that's it, no education, no happiness, no joy. Work and die.

This is arguably the least abused form of welfare we have in this country. Government money funds the meal that goes directly to the kid at lunch time.

It also helps farmers, who they pretend to care about once an election cycle.

President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-white-man/ 

GOP's petulent behavior

 Lauren Boebert called out over treatment of witness: ‘An insult is not an argument’

Far-right Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert was scolded by Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin for her attitude towards a witness during a hearing of the House Oversight Committee.

Ms Boebert spent her time during the hearing berating Ms Katzen, interrupting her as she attempted to answer. The Colorado congresswoman asked Ms Katzen if she thought changes to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) not put forward by Congress were appropriate.

As Ms Katzen started to speak, Ms Boebert instead began laying out her thoughts on the matter. Ms Katzen was later interrupted again and when she attempted to respond for the third time, Ms Boebert said, “No ma’am it’s my time. Thank you”.

“Oh, I’m sorry, so you are not interested in my views?” Ms Katzen replied to which Ms Boebert once again said it was her turn to speak.

As the hearing went on, Ms Katzen appeared to stop trying to answer questions from Ms Boebert. At one point, she suggested that Ms Katzen had a “$2.5 million home” which appeared to be intended as criticism.

“Excuse me, I really take that as a personal ... I disagree that you’re casting aspersions on me,” the scholar responded, at which point Ms Boebert said her time was up.

Then when Boebert was called out for her petulent behavior, she stormed out of the room...like a petulent child. So, pretty on-brand for her basically.

She just talks shit and walks off knowing she can prevent the witness from actually saying anything back. What a piece of shit she is. I mean we already knew that but damn.

Flooding the zone.

This was best seen this week in the interviews of Jim Jordan and Lindsey Graham, as they just turned on a firehose of falsehoods to defend trump on national media appearances. They use machine gun utterances of lies so fast and aggressive that no one can even attempt to bring them back to reality. 

The GOP doesn't want educated, because those people ask questions, while idiots follow blindly.

 Marjorie Taylor Greene mocked for telling CDC chair: ‘I dont want my staff educated’

Marjorie Taylor Greene got into an argument with the outgoing Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr Rochelle Walensky, at one point telling the public health leader, “I don’t want my staff educated”.

The Georgia Republican went off on Dr Walensky, who’s set to leave her post on 30 June, during a House Oversight Committee hearing regarding the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic on Tuesday.

Ms Greene asked the director about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), saying that “in 2021, Covid-19 reports skyrocketed to number one at 728,829 reports. And the numbers kept growing and growing and growing on the VAERS report”.

The people who should be embarrassed are the ones who voted for her. But I guarantee they are not.

Republican voters seem to think politics is a sport which only has real consequences when something directly affects them. 

It is agenda #1 for Republicans.

Ever since the civil rights movement, conservatives have viewed public education as a threat to their bigoted and privileged way of life.

Propaganda surrounding public schools has been at the forefront of Republican groups for a long time.

First target was Blacks and Hispanics. Then it was science (evolution, biology). Then it was math. (Common core fake propaganda examples to paint schools as incompetent). Then it was LGTBQ.

And at the same time, for decades, they've pushed the idea of "private school vouchers", where parents can choose to not educate their children, and instead have the government pay private christian indoctrination centers to lie to their children and teach them meaningless and provably false mythology.

That way they can create generations of loyal uneducated cult members to vote for them and give them more and more power.

'I Don't Want My Staff Educated,' Marjorie Taylor Greene Tells CDC Boss In Exasperating Exchange

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said Tuesday she didn’t want her staff educated after Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky offered to clarify the reporting procedure on COVID-19 vaccines for Greene’s team. (Watch the video below.)

It was basically an interrogation intended to humiliate Walensky in front of a House committee. The anti-vaxx lawmaker interpreted data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, to baselessly suggest that an inordinate amount of Americans died from the shots, and suffered miscarriages and stillbirths.

Republicans love to have it both ways on this issue. They're against corporate taxes and public health insurance because it would stifle development and innovation yet are pissed off that these companies are now making money on their developments.

I think MTG needs to educate herself, her staff, and the American people about the fact that the VAERS system records comments from any source and most of it is unverified. It should not be used as an example of the actual number of adverse reactions to vaccines.

Case in point:

Medical experts at the Department of Health and Human Services are well aware of VAERS’ limitations. Rather than taking each individual report at face value, regulators remove clearly fraudulent reports. Demonstrating this, anesthesiologist and autism advocate James Laidler once used the system to report that a vaccine turned him into the “Incredible Hulk,” which was only removed after he agreed to have the data deleted.

https://theconversation.com/amp/unverified-reports-of-vaccine-side-effects-in-vaers-arent-the-smoking-guns-portrayed-by-right-wing-media-outlets-they-can-offer-insight-into-vaccine-hesitancy-166401

The abuse of VAERS, an unvetted, self-reported vaccine side effects database, by anti-vaxxers for spreading anti-vaccine propaganda, has been going on for decades.

It’s difficult to see how the benefits of this system have outweighed the costs, particularly given that it is now being abused by sitting members of Congress to spread dangerous disinformation about vaccines. 

It’s so funny how the “don’t trust the CDC” people will cite a CDC reporting system as soon as it fits their narrative. Too bad the VAERS site quite literally tells you on its front page to not make inferences from the data you see. I mean, there were reports in VAERS that the vaccine turned you into the Incredible Hulk.

A bunch of unverified reports go into a system with respect to a disease that was heavily politicized, and she wants to use that “information” in a committee hearing?

Cruelty from the goverment level

 Texas Ends Water Breaks for Construction Workers Amid Heat Wave

A triple-digit Texas heat wave is drawing new attention to a law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott this week, ending water break requirements for construction workers. The legislation, signed Tuesday, overrides cities’ municipal labor rules, including those that mandate water breaks for outdoor workers. Austin and Dallas both have ordinances requiring employers to give construction workers a 10-minute water break every four hours, the Texas Tribune reported. Texas is the worst state for heat-related work deaths, according to the Tribune. With rising temperatures, and fewer water breaks, labor leaders anticipate more workplace deaths and injuries. Last year, the state recorded at least 279 heat-related deaths, its worst count since 1999.

Whenever something stupid like this comes up I just want to put these people in similar situations.

You want them to work their asses off in this hot weather with no water breaks? Sure, give it a try for at least 3 months and then tell me it's a good idea.

What's that? You're dying out there? It's too hot you say? Well no fucking shit! 

The people making these laws are devoid of human empathy - this is what it really boils down to. The business & political climate of the US rewards sociopathic behavior, so here we are. Even the Ferengi would be envious of what goes on in this country.

May these people reap what they sow.

Just when you believe that MAGA state government cannot go any lower in assholery, they find a new way to out do themselves.

An additional 20 minutes of “productivity” per worker.

On paper, anyway. People suffering from heat exhaustion (or worse) work slower and make more mistakes.

The job will get done faster and better if all the workers are in good physical and mental condition.

Dehydrated and tired workers are going to produce less. This law makes no sense except to be evil for the pure sake of owning the libs.

Greg Abbott Axes Water For Texas Construction Workers Amid 3-Digit Temperatures

As his state faced a dangerous heat wave this week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a broad new law that will nullify a wide range of local regulations, including mandated water breaks for construction workers, beginning Sept. 1, according to The Texas Tribune.

The new Republican-backed law strips the ability of local municipalities to enact certain regulations in favor of state authority, ostensibly to “provide statewide consistency.” It covers a wide range, including other worker protections, environmental protections, housing protections and more.

Is there a race or competition amongst the GOP on who can be the biggest unsympathetic P.O.S. to their constituents? Literally, WTF?!?

10 minute water break every 4 hours in Texas heat already sounds like dangerous and inhumane work conditions.

And this only became a law because one company literally worked a guy to death, made him work non stop without a meal, water, or rest cycle during a 10-12 hr shift and he died right there at the job site.

This is super shitty and even in Texas it would be a crime to make a prison labor crew work this way but naturally when the $7 figure wrongful death suit was filed against the company the man’s wife and kids filed the company actually denied any responsibility for killing him, claiming he died from a medical issue and in this right to work state it’s not illegal to make an employee work this way during the hottest part of the year by threatening to firie anyone who stopped working since the project was way behind deadlines and blamed the worker as he could have quit any time prior to falling I’ll. Yup they blamed the worker and the case blew up after those remarks since there was a trend of Companies owned by rich white men exploiting undocumented workers in this way.

In response the State mandated when this 10 min / every 4hr break so they could now claim they took measures to protect workers. They also set limits on future tort claims so these rich folks wouldn’t have to worry about the outcome of future litigation where the maximum award was capped at a set low figure that wouldn’t be increased in cases of extreme negligence or egregious abuse. 

They're seriously not even hiding their disdain for human life. The Republican party is only pro-birth. They want slaves for work as they protect billionaires through corporate welfare (the only kind of socialism they like).

Reap what you sow

 Republicans Set to Lose Multiple Seats Due to Supreme Court Ruling

The Republicans could lose several seats in the House of Representatives due to a surprise Supreme Court ruling which will create a new Black majority district in Alabama, according to a new study.

On Thursday the Supreme Court backed a lower court's ruling, by five votes to four, which found the districts drawn up by the state violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits "discrimination on the basis of race" in the electoral process. Chief Justice John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, both widely regarded as conservatives, voted with the court's three liberal members to deliver the result.

Every state needs an independent, nonpartisan, redistricting commission like Michigan just added.

It is an inherent conflict of interest to let the people who's jobs depend on the maps draw the maps, that's something the citizens should handle directly. 

Alternative title: Republicans currently overrepresented in the House due to illegal and immoral gerrymandering

Seriously the bias of this headline is insane. It makes it sound like republicans are the victims and losing seats.

The accurate headline would be like, "Seats stolen by Republicans must be returned after supreme court ruling"

It's almost as if the Republicans have a tough time winning when the maps are drawn fairly.

Sadly the republicans long ago subscribed to an "ends justify the means" system of governing, so they are happy to cheat, lie, steal, etc. They believe they are the righteous people, and therefore whatever is good for them, by definition is good. If they were outnumbered 1000 to 1 they'd still be more than happy to subjugate the 99.9% of the population to their will.

On other news:

Republican Group To Run Blistering Anti-Trump Ad On Fox News During Prime Time

A Republican group opposed to Donald Trump is giving some of the former president’s biggest supporters an unfiltered look at the charges against him.

The Republican Accountability Project said its latest video will air on Fox News during prime time on Tuesday, after Trump is arraigned on 37 federal charges in Florida.

Sometimes I'm still amazed at how comprehensively the Republican party embraced Donald Trump in such a short time. Obviously they would strongly support him while he was president, but they literally threw away all their policy goals in favour of whatever he and his fans wanted, and ostracized anyone who dared to question him.

Now that he's an electoral liability, the most anyone in the party seems able to do is to quietly suggest that maybe they should consider moving on, and launch the equivalent of a leaflet drop behind enemy lines in hopes of convincing a few voters to join them.

What was once the party establishment is now a fringe resistance movement, and I don't think they stand a chance. 

Trump indictment dead to rights

Donald Trump’s New Criminal Case Looks Devastating

Former President Donald Trump has been wriggling out of tight spots and keeping one step ahead of investigators ever since he burst into politics eight years ago.

 

But so much for all that. He just caught a criminal case that could send him to prison for the rest of his life. 

The fact Trump’s self-appointed federal judge, self-appointed FBI director, and self-appointed DOJ attorney were all involved in this case probably was a pretty good indication that this could be really bad for him.

I mean - even some of his own people couldn’t ignore how egregiously bad he violated the very law he signed into existence during his presidency (which also makes the GOP/MAGA spin of a Democratic “witch hunt” look pretty fucking ridiculous; it was their people involved in every step of this process).

It was always fairly ominous for him. 

The Grand Jury that brought this indictment forth is in FL, consisting of citizens of FL.

A judge appointed by Trump will preside.

Please read the entire indictment. After you do, there should not be any doubt of Trump's guilt.

Soon we shall have the J6 and GA cases come forward with indictments as well.

Something to watch: The judge was appointed by Trump. She could rule to delay the start of the trial until, say 12/24, after the election.

If she does this, watch for Jack Smith to fast track the J6 case. This may be why the GA case may sit idle until August. Regardless, the J6 and GA will move forward and you can bet, they will begin before the 2024 election.

Trump was 'personally involved' in packing boxes and moving them to Mar-a-Lago, prosecutors say

The indictment accuses Trump of not only retaining classified documents after he was no longer president, but also of knowingly doing so, and then conspiring to keep them, and to keep the whole thing a secret from federal investigators.

Trump had previously claimed that employees of the Government Services Agency were responsible for packing up his White House residence at the end of his presidency. But the indictment accuses Trump himself of personally helping to pack up the boxes of hundreds of classified documents that his team moved to his residence at Mar-a-Lago just as his term was ending, according to the indictment.

That lazy fuck never does any manual labor.  

 "In January 2021, as he was preparing to leave the White House, Trump and his White House staff... packed items, including some of Trump's boxes," the indictment says. "Trump was personally involved in the process. Trump caused his boxes, containing hundreds of classified documents, to be transported from the White House to the Mar-a-Lago Club."

If this was a citizen who had never held office the death penalty would be on the table.

According to the indictment, the documents Trump took included some of the country's most sensitive military secrets, like information about the U.S. nuclear program and vulnerabilities the country would face in the event of an attack.

And if it was a Democrat, Fox News would be demanding the death penalty. As it is, well, they're going to be falling over themselves to make excuses.

The indictment is really damning and I encourage everyone to read it:

 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23839690-read-trump-indictment-related-to-mishandling-of-classified-documents

It's on tape Trump showing someone classified documents and then saying that they were secret and still classified and that he wasn't allowed to declassify them. It's clear he broke the law, and that he knew he was breaking the law. Also ordered his attorneys to lie for him and get rid of the documents once the federal investigation started. He he were a civilian he'd already be in and prison and he'd never be seeing the outside of it.

Trump ramblings

 Trump Admits Republicans Don’t Even Know What ‘Woke’ Means

DURING A THURSDAY campaign event in Iowa, former President Donald Trump admitted what we all know: Republicans have no idea what “woke” actually means. 

“I don’t like the term ‘woke,'” Trump said while answering questions from the audience, “because I hear the term ‘woke woke woke’ — it’s just a term they use, half the people can’t define it, they don’t know what it is.”

DeSantis’ lawyer defined it as

"the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them."

And then this gem

He added that DeSantis doesn't believe there are systemic injustices in the country

Meanwhile he works overtime to create the systemic injustices that he claims do not exist 

It's systematic injustices against white people that DeSantis is concerned with.

Those don't exist, but he's very worried about them.

It's like the plaintiffs in the medication abortion case. They have never prescribed that drug and are anti abortion, but someday they might have a patient who may have been harmed by a drug that they have vowed not to prescribe.

I mean, it was used among BIPOC and LGBTQ+ advocates for quite some time. It simply meant "socially conscious".

Conservatives coopted it and turned it into an insult.

Except it's only an insult/rallying cry to them. The people that used woke in the first place still consider it a good thing.

It's like how "fake news" had an actual meaning at first. It meant websites (primarily) that were set up to look like news sites, but that completely made up their stories. (And that, unlike The Onion, didn't make it obvious that they were satire.) That fake news was a useful term.

Then Trump got his tiny fingers on it and turned it into a term meaning "any news that I don't like."

“We Have To Bring Religion Back Into Our Country,” Says Sexual Abuser Donald Trump

On Thursday, twice-impeached, criminally indicted, and liable for sexual abuse former President Donald Trump told a room of faith leaders in Iowa that “we have to bring religion back into our country.”

It’s unclear when or how religion exactly “left” the United States, according to Trump. As far as Christianity goes, it still is deeply baked in an array of American institutions, no less the pledge of allegiance children are forced to recite every morning in their supposedly politics-free classrooms. Moreover, we have representatives like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who proudly proclaimed to be a Christian nationalist, or Lauren Boebert, who said “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk.”

Bring back? The founding documents are pretty explicit about the state endorsing no official religion.

Also, these hateful freaks are the reason every generation gets less and less religious, none of these fucks have the fear of God in em with how terrible they are and it makes a mockery of the idea of religion being positively transformative in any way. 

It's amazing how evangelicals have almost a literal representation of the Antichrist in front of them and that's who they worship.

Talk about pandering, Trump went golfing approximately 298 times during his presidency, attending church, 14 times and those were self fulfilling visits. Crazy how the religious right choose not see the charlatan for what he is, the golden Trump statue at CPAC a couple years was also incredibly ironic but they are too obtuse to get it.

Now that it's been decided by the legal system, I think going forward, everyone should call him "Sexual Abuser Donald Trump". It should be his title. He's earned it.

 

Trump knew classified papers

 Donald Trump Audio Tape is 'Game, Set and Match' for Prosecution: Attorney

Donald Trump will be in serious legal peril if reports he was on tape admitting he had retained a classified document after he left the White House are accurate, a lawyer has said.

The issue is that the DOJ need to work around double jeopardy rules and make sure everything is perfect before they indict. Trump has extremely limited to no latitude to claim an actual legal defense, so his legal team is more likely to focus on discrediting or eliminating key evidence or testimony on technicalities.

It doesn’t matter if Trump pulls out some new evidence or gets off on a technicality, if he is found not guilty by a jury, you lose your best opportunity to prosecute him. Until there’s no chance he can get out of the net, it doesn’t make sense to show where the stakes are

Is it? The game doesn’t start until you charge the guy.

With this level of evidence, any one of us would have been charged by now and held without bail for violating the espionage act.

Donald is still golfing and holding rallies and eating Big Macs, plus we’ve seen thousands of these “we got him” articles for years now.

Trump Caught on Tape Bragging About Keeping Classified Pentagon Doc on Attacking Iran 

Donald Trump knew that he couldn’t declassify documents—and now the special counsel investigating him over it has a recording of the former president admitting as much.

So we've gone from denying it to lying about it to deflecting to whatabouting it to celebrating it.

Makes me wonder, if when the story has broken, Trump had said 'yeah, I wanted them and I kept them! Top Secret documents on attacking Iran!' would his base have reacted any differently? 

Can you imagine being Trumps lawyers every defense they think of gets punched full of holes before charges drop or it ever gets to the court room. Not to mention Trump lies to the lawyers putting them in danger of breaking the law themselves and then you got lawyers flipping and attacking each other.

And again... that sounds like a National Defense document, so being Classified doesn't matter! Even if he did somehow manage to completely declassify the document, it's still a national defense document, and the more serious of the what he's charged with cares about that distinction.

Reports of bombshell Trump recording suggests prosecutors may have grounds to charge him under the Espionage Act

Following a new CNN report about an audio recording that suggests former President Donald Trump knowingly took a classified document, legal experts are saying it could be the damning evidence needed to charge him under the Espionage Act.

When I was in the Army, they told us we could get the death sentence for the stuff Trump is currently being accused of here. And that is not hyperbole.

The beauty of the Espionage Act, especially 18 U.S. Code § 793, is that the information doesn't have to be classified, only that it would cause injury to the United States in the hands of an adversary.

Properly classified information, having undergone a risk assessment, is almost prima facie evidence of potential for injury.

Failure to follow the established declassification process (i.e., "I declassified it with my mind") means there's no similar risk assessment to show the potential for injury no longer exists.

It doesn't matter whether Trump legally declassified it because it's still assumed to be potentially harmful without the declassification risk assessment.

Had he directed the DNI or DoD to declassify the documents, the review process would have had a back-and-forth discussion with some passages inevitably redacted because they still had the potential for harm.

But it seems that Trump skipped that step and now potentially faces federal charges. Whoops! 

He’s put our country is danger. Remember that a Chinese spy was arrested at Mar a Lago too. You know she got access to countless documents that the Chinese now have because of this fool. And you know he shared info with Putin that he shouldn’t have. He’s divided the country and blurred the lines of decent behavior in society and especially politics.

He’s the worst thing that has happened to the USA and the problems will last decades.

Trumps dumpster fire is burning brighter

 Donald Trump fought to save Texas ally Ken Paxton from impeachment. It didn't work.

WASHINGTON – In the hours before the GOP-controlled legislature in Texas voted to impeach fellow Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, former President Donald Trump repeatedly took to social media with a warning for anyone − and especially members of his own party − who opposed his longtime ally.

Another example of republicans coming to the defence of other republicans regardless that they are likely guilty. Protect the elite!!

I hope the Texas senate follows through and jettisons Paxton. Then the feds can proceed with their case against Paxton and Trump can share headlines with him.

Trump’s legal team is an epic disaster 

The attorney-client relationship is historically one of the most sacred, cloaked with the (usually) impenetrable privilege of complete confidentiality and one that is imbued with explicit and implicit trust. Clients look to their lawyers for guidance, a keen knowledge of the law, and the ability to provide favorable public-facing content for those moments and cases where the client cannot interface with the media and the public. There are professional standards and each state has rules of conduct.

At this point, he’s had too many of his own lawyers in multiple cases, who have had to testify against their own client because of criminal activity they knowingly or unknowingly committed, makes any smart lawyer and Firm not want to represent him.

 And it doesn't seem to matter. Unless he goes to jail, the guilty verdicts are raising money for him. He can get hit with a $5 million fine and he'll raise more than that whining about the unfair deep state.

He doesn't pay his bills and he doesn't listen to his lawyers. He's the worst kind of client.

Donald Trump Is Being Ignored by Republicans

Republicans appear to have been ignoring Donald Trump on a number of issues in recent weeks, suggesting the former president's influence on GOP lawmakers is waning as he seeks to regain the White House in 2024.

Trump remains the frontrunner for the Republican nomination next year, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis viewed as his leading rival.

One article says they ignore him, and another says he controls them. But the media continues to cover him.

Ironically, or intentionally, ignoring Trump’s backseat driving advice is the best way to move him back to “outsider” territory, which is the same way he captured the nomination last time.

It’s all quite curious. The GOP establishment didn’t do so badly with Trump. They got a bunch of idiot and corrupt judges, they got agency actions they wanted, they got a huge unfinanced tax cut that increased our national debt during a period of economic growth, etc. But I guess they saw in Trump a lack of cooperation - that in the end he only cares about himself. So he’s never going to be the best partner to help coordinate a three-branch attack on our democracy and freedom, the way that DeSantis and the Florida legislature and courts have worked. They need someone who’s on the same corrupt page, working towards the same end. And I guess they saw that in DeSantis, pushing him hard while hoping that the investigations catch up to Trump in time.

But DeSantis is a DeSaster, he’s getting the donations but he’s not attracting the voters, who at the end of the day will be the ones who need to vote to destroy our democracy and replace it with a kleptocratic illiberal system. Even so, the GOP isn’t exactly pivoting to try their plan with Trump at the helm. They’re still acting like their plan with DeSantis can work. I’m not sure if that signals how out of touch they are, or if they’re so savvy that they know the best way to help Trump is to invite him to “drain the swamp” again.