Florida

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Thanks for visiting Florida’: one Black family’s road trip to a ‘hostile’ tourist trap

      by

      The sugary sand on Santa Rosa Beach is cool below the surface, sweet relief after a 10-minute hot-step from the parking lot with an armload of bulky chairs and a hangry toddler dragging me down. But by the third day of our family vacation, my young boys have settled in with their plastic shovels and left me cracking open a Michelob Ultra before noon. Drinking in the brew and the whooshing azure surf, I’m gobsmacked that this is what passes for adventure travel nowadays.On 20 May the NAACP issued a travel advisory for Florida, noting a flagrant streak of contempt for and hostility toward Black, ethnic and queer communities; in a news release, the group quoted the state-sanctioned “war on woke” the Republican governor championed in a craven bid for his party’s presidential nomination. The NAACP board chair, Leon Russell, cited Ron DeSantis for “political grandstanding” and courting “a dangerous, extremist minority” – only to have conservatives mock Russell himself for living in Tampa.The advisory came weeks after we had plunked down a sizable non-refundable deposit for a trip to Florida’s Emerald coast – the resort paradise formerly known as the Redneck Riviera. My brother-in-law, a 28-year-old ad man, was flying down from New York. My two boys, aged three and 19 months, were so excited, my oldest racking his brain to understand what it meant to be “on vacation”. My wife, an ex-navy psychologist, had grand designs on a week of idle fun in the sun. We should have known that being Black in America could deprive us of something so innocent.Still: the idea of avoiding an entire state based on the fanatical policies of one man, even if he’s the top man, seemed a bit extreme – like avoiding computers just to stick it to Bill Gates. Let’s be clear here: even though the NAACP advisory never called for people to boycott Florida, that’s how the edict is being interpreted. The Republican senator Rick Scott’s own travel advisory last week, warning “socialists” and “communists” to stay away, has only made it easier for progressives to claim the moral high ground.While it’s true that Florida’s willfully ignorant conservative lawmakers have made the state more unsafe for anyone who dares to disagree with them, it’s also true that many more states have an equally shameful legacy of systemic racism and discrimination. In the last few months alone, we’ve seen another California school board ban critical race theory, an unarmed Michael Jackson impersonator choked to death on the New York City subway and affirmative action in higher education struck down by an activist supreme court that’s declared open season on reproductive rights protections. But no one is calling for a travel advisory against the whole of America, much less its plainly progressive states.There’s no doubt Florida’s latest political heel-turn has sunk its mass appeal to a low not seen since the 2000 presidential election. But it’s still home to the third-largest Black population among US states; that’s a lot of family, friends and hardworking folks left by the wayside. The more my wife and I thought about it, the more the reward of enjoying ourselves in Florida despite DeSantis outweighed the risk of offending the white parents at my kid’s school who considered the state a no-go.Over a recent weekend we loaded up the minivan and headed south from Atlanta to Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. At no point before setting off did I consider the five-hour drive might take us through Alabama. Had that state come with its own NAACP travel advisory, I might have called for one more pit stop in Georgia before testing my three-year-old’s potty training.Halfway through our journey, the GPS led us into Eufaula, Alabama, another resort town where great live oaks drape over pristine antebellum-era homes. But the southern gothic motif set off our inner klaxons. A web search confirmed our suspicions. The town played host to what may well have been the last civil war battle in 1865. Despite the promise of Reconstruction, white residents maintained control of Eufaula’s municipal offices five years after Alabama was forced back into the Union, even as Black residents held a two-to-one popular majority. My wife looked up from her phone, circumspect. I glanced down at the three-quarters full gas gauge, then over to my son squirming in his second-row car seat. “Hang with me for a few more miles, OK?”When a slew of ballot referenda on civil rights threatened a white power loss, a mob went guns blazing into a Black crowd at a downtown polling place, killing six, injuring 70 and deterring scores more from voting. A historical placard recognizes the tragedy as the election riot of 1874. But it’s a good 15 miles north-east from our traffic jam at the intersection of Eufaula Avenue and Broad Street, where a 35ft Confederate-soldier-topped obelisk stands proudly on the very spot the massacre took place. All we could do was shake our heads with resigned disbelief.The NAACP has only issued one other travel advisory in its 114-year history, in the summer of 2017, after Missouri lawmakers passed a bill rolling back state protections against discrimination. The local chapter of the NAACP was first to caution visitors over the civil rights violations that they risked by entering the Show-Me State . This was a year after a report from Josh Hawley’s state attorney general’s office found Black motorists had been stopped 75% more often than white drivers. The ACLU had issued a similar advisory for Texas that same year in response to a law that allowed traffic officers to interrogate the immigration status of people stopped for traffic violations.Still: it’s one thing to warn holiday-goers about predatory policing that could materially affect their travel plans, quite another to roadblock a borderline inescapable tourist trap. According to a 2020 analysis from the market research firm MMGY Travel Intelligence, Florida is the top destination for Black overnight travelers within the continental United States. What’s more, the state was nearly run by Andrew Gillum; in 2018, the Democratic Tallahassee mayor emerged as the first Black gubernatorial candidate in Florida history and came within a hair’s breadth of pipping DeSantis at the polls.Staying Black in America was a long-odds game well before DeSantis and Scott rolled up the red carpet. My family isn’t any less under siege in Atlanta – the American Wakanda hellbent on building the West Point of police academies – than on the Emerald coast, where 600 enslaved people joined forces with the Union army and fought their way across the panhandle to freedom near the civil war’s end.Immediately upon arriving in Santa Rosa Beach, we were struck by the conspicuous lack of Black faces. According to recent census data, Black people officially account for none of the town’s 5,700 residents. This is despite Santa Rosa Beach sitting on the same 20-mile stretch of state route that threads through Pensacola, Panama City and Destin; between the military air stations, MTV’s Spring Break and the nationally renowned jazz festival, this region – nicknamed 30A, for the state route, attracts all kinds. But after wrangling the kids all day, my wife and I couldn’t imagine exploring that scene, much less staying awake past 9pm. That didn’t stop my brother-in-law from bellying up to the Irish pub one block over.In his 2016 book This Land Was Ours, the University of Virginia professor Andrew Kahrl explains how Black southerners were redlined off the beaches to make way for a government-spurred tourism industry designed to enrich and serve whites.It’s a heartbreaking story that draws from a slew of oral histories with Black people who lived through that phase of Jim Crow – not least Lodie Marie Robinson-Cyrille, who recalled her experience working at a Florida resort. “They wouldn’t allow Black[s] to swim in the Gulf or be seen on the beaches,” she said. “The families could go and work in the hotels as cooks, as domestics, as maids, but they could not lounge or enjoy some of the same activities as, say, a tourist would enjoy.” Leisure time, at least in this country, has been a white privilege from the very beginning. But my three-year-old is none the wiser. One day while sipping a juice box while sitting by the pool in his swim vest, he asked: “Are we on vacation yet?”My wife and I, it seems, are always working hard when we’re supposed to be off. Too often when we were young, childless and still living in New York, we were the lone Black people in a restaurant, at Broadway shows or otherwise spending money to enjoy our hard-won downtime hours. We moved to the South Carolina Lowcountry expecting to fraternize with the region’s proud Gullah Geechee descendants (my wife is one, too), only to wind up surrounded by white pleasure-seekers who referred to enslaved people as “workers”, rushed to put up stakes in “plantation” communities and thought nothing of exploiting the tax code to further decouple foundational Blacks from coastal land they legally owned.The scenes are even more stark when we go on holiday; it doesn’t matter if we’re lazing around a spa in Scottsdale or biking around Belle-Île-en-Mer. We anticipate the wary smiles, the nervous laughter, and forward questions about what we do for a living. No matter how many times we’re forced, however politely, to justify our presence, the takeaway never changes : “Good for you,” they say.But the people of 30A didn’t interrogate our presence unless we were pitching our beach tent, which could get complicated depending on the size and the invisible lines in the sand that separate public access from resort seaside. And seeing the white parents hounding their kids about their manners, their sunscreen, the fact that “we didn’t spend all this money on a nice vacation for you to stare at a screen!” was another reminder that they’re not that different. We all come from the same country, where the sight of a C-130 cargo plane, roaring low enough over the coast that airmen’s faces are visible as they wave, isn’t cause for alarm. It’s an invitation to wave right back.Twice while schlepping the kids to the beach on bikes, we crossed a man in a “Let’s Go Brandon” shirt; he just smiled and kept moving. There was a thought that things might get political when we saw a young man standing outside the beach parking lot waving a giant Trump 2024 flag. But the boy, bless his heart, didn’t seem like he was from around there, given the Slavic accent that inflected his timid “hello”.The only time it seemed as if the vibe might shift on us was after sundown, while I hoofed around seeking a dinner spot with my wife and brother-in-law. Ultimately, we were drawn into a bustling Italian place. With white faces at every place setting and spilling out the door, we were fully prepared to be turned away by the two white schoolgirls behind the host stand. All the while, an older Black woman was stuck on the phone. But then she hung up.Before I could backtrack out of her way, she was snatching three menus, seating us at an open table and leaving us in the care of “our best waiter”, also Black. We were looked after, doted on; when our orders were up, the plates arrived via three different servers – all of them Black. It was as if every Black person in the joint was on a mission to go above and beyond to make us feel at home. Later, our waiter let slip that we were his first Black table in “weeks”. No, he wasn’t thrilled about the NAACP advisory scaring Black folk away, but he agreed with its intent because, well, Florida has become a hard place to be Black.By this point, the dinner rush had eased, the place had emptied out and we were in our own little world, just talking. But the kicker was when he learned my wife and I had come down from Atlanta. “I just moved away,” he said with a laugh. “It’s like Grand Theft Auto up there!” Here at least, he felt he could rely on the kindness of empathetic whites – but also, “they need us,” he said. “No one wants to work.”On the last evening of our trip, we took a self-guided tour through Alys Beach, a breathtaking sight. One woman who looked to be on a shift break greeted us with an eagerness that suggested we had already met – an assumption that’s easy enough to make in yet another Emerald coast town where Black people don’t live. Alys Beach isn’t just awash with white people; the town is quite literally made up of ivory towers meant to mirror the architecture of the old world.After a slack-jawed walk past the Grecian trellises, the Moorish arches and Dutch gables, we pulled over for a beer at a cafe across the street from a $20m beachside mansion. The idea that this cloister was just a car ride away from home, let alone part of the same highway system as Queens or Compton, simply beggared belief. It left me wondering about what other idylls conservatives were desperately trying to keep hidden. It made me want to push deeper down the Gulf coast, into Alabama and Mississippi. It convinced me that the NAACP’s travel advisory should have made the opposite statement: “Lookie what we have here!”Before my brother-in-law gave the boys one last squeeze and ducked into a cab, he told me about his long goodbye to the white regulars and staff at the pub – friends forever, apparently. “Thanks for coming to visit us,” one said, “despite … you know. Hopefully you felt welcome.”There is no question that venturing out to Florida was a risk in this fraught climate, but there’s also never been a better time to see the country while Black. The farther we wander out of our comfort zones, the more potential they have to expand – and that, son, is when the vacation really begins. Issuing a travel advisory against one state for its extreme politics doesn’t just play into the zealots’ hands, it gives the rest of the country a break it doesn’t deserve. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Why was Trump hoarding classified government documents? | Moira Donegan

      by

      There are many surreal revelations in Jack Smith’s federal indictment of Donald Trump. There are the texts between various Trump underlings and Walt Nauta, the Trump body man who has also been indicted, showing the president directing his employees to move the boxes containing classified information back and forth to various locations around his properties in Palm Beach and Bedminster, New Jersey. There is the annoyed missive from Trump’s wife Melania, trying to make sure the boxes don’t crowd out room for her luggage on a private plane. There is the claim from Trump’s former attorney, compelled to testify against him in an unusual arrangement, that the former president suggested, with a Grinch-like pinching gesture, that the lawyer destroy confidential documents to prevent them from being produced in a subpoena. There is a text message Nauta sent to another Trump underling, showing a box having fallen over in a storage room at Mar-a-Lago, secret documents spilling on to the floor – whoops.What there is not, conspicuously, is a motive. Over the course of more than a year following his departure from office, it appears that Trump spent considerable effort and resources in transporting the documents with him and keeping them near at hand – and that later, as the federal government began to demand the boxes back, that he then went out of his way to keep and conceal them, going to great length, sparing no expense, and ultimately breaking the law so much that he incurred himself a series of felony charges. Anyone can tell you how this behavior is typical of Trump: how it reflects his pettiness, his contempt for the law, his willingness to sacrifice and endanger others. What no one can tell you is why he did it.It would be more convenient – legally, for Jack Smith and his prosecutors, and politically, for Joe Biden, for the Democrats, and for the growing number of Republicans who are looking to challenge Trump in the 2024 Republican primary – if we could say precisely why Trump wanted to keep the documents so badly, exactly what he wanted them for. It would be very easy to make a case to a skeptical jury – or to a divided American people – that Trump was a danger and could not be trusted with national secrets again if it could be said that he wanted to keep the documents for any of the straightforwardly dangerous and nefarious reasons that have been speculated: if he was seeking to sell national security secrets to the Saudis, say, or to Israel; if he was hoping, as some have suggested, that he one day might be able to blackmail someone powerful, like the president of France.It’s very possible that Trump had concocted such a plan. There is much that we do not know about the investigations into Trump, including about the special counsel’s query into his illegal document retention. But we do know that in the past, we know that he has gone further, and risked more, in the pursuit of even more harebrained schemes.But what seems the most likely explanation is the simplest, stupidest, and most aggravating one: that Trump had no plan for the documents, except perhaps for use as souvenirs, trophies to be shown off, maybe as evidence for petty score-settling. That the documents that Trump smuggled out of the White House and squirreled away around Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster were not instruments in a coherent, well-formed plan, but instead mere ornaments to Trump’s ego. In transcripts of Trump’s statements about the documents that were included in the indictment, and in audio of Trump showing some of the secret papers off to a writer that was recently released by CNN, Trump uses the documents to contradict a former national security official he was then in a spat with in the press; he tells one interlocutor not to get too close to one of the secret papers, seeming to want to create a hush of reverence for the documents in place of respecting their confidentiality in the first place. At these moments, Trump does not sound as if he has a plan. He sounds as if he wants to impress the people in the room with him, and like he can think no further ahead than to how good it will feel to get their praise.Why did Trump want the secret documents? Why did he refuse to return them? The answer may be the one truest to Trump’s piddling, puerile character: because they looked cool; because they reminded him of his own importance; because the government had asked for them back, and Trump has never missed an opportunity to throw a petulant little tantrum.It is this smallness of Trump’s character, and the possible triviality of his motives, that poses a peculiar risk to both of the cases being made against Trump – the one being pursued in a Miami courthouse, and the one being pursued in public. Because there has always been an uncanny mismatch with Trump, an incongruence: between the awesome and vast powers he had in office, the historical forces he unleashed on America, and the horrible ways his presidency warped millions of lives, on the one hand; and on the other, his pettiness, his vanity, his short-sightedness, his piddling personal grievances and constant need to be flattered and reassured.The gap between the seriousness of Trump’s role in history and his unseriousness as a person is the strange place where the documents case – and, now, much of American political thought – risks getting stuck. The very silliness of Trump’s use of the documents undercuts the grave risks posed by his hoarding of them. How can such a powerful country have been made so vulnerable by someone so stupid?
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      As DeSantis Campaigns, Disney Sees a Long Road Ahead

      by

      The company, long allergic to controversy, is likely to be the subject of very public and partisan criticism throughout the Republican primary.As Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has embarked on his presidential run, a main pillar of his message is “holding woke corporations accountable,” as a fund-raising email put it on Tuesday. And to hammer home that sentiment, he has been railing against one target at nearly every campaign stop: Disney.“We’ve put this company on a pedestal — in the past it has been like the all-American company,” Mr. DeSantis said at a town hall in New Hampshire last week. “But they’ve really embraced the idea of getting the sexualized content in the programming for the young kids. And that is just a line that I am not willing to cross.”It’s a theme he has repeated at recent rallies in South Carolina, Oklahoma and Iowa, alongside his claim that Disney is seeking “to rob our children of their innocence.”The two sides have been at loggerheads since last year, with Mr. DeSantis bragging in speeches and on a book tour about how he punished the company for opposing a contentious education law that opponents labeled “Don’t Say Gay.”Despite the partisan attacks, Disney remains one of the strongest brands in the world. But cracks in its public reputation are showing, and the company is now facing the uncomfortable possibility that it will remain under attack by Mr. DeSantis for at least another year. The Republican presidential primary runs until July 2024.That is an eternity for Disney, which has zealously tried for 100 years to avoid political and cultural pitfalls for fear of tarnishing its happily-ever-after brand. At least in theory, Disney’s family-friendly movies, TV shows and theme park rides are aimed at everyone. The last thing it wants is for Mickey Mouse to get dragged through the presidential campaign mud.“If you have a blue brand or red brand, regardless, you have less of a brand,” said John Gerzema, chief executive of the Harris Poll and a former brand consultant. The Axios Harris Poll’s latest corporate reputation rankings, published in May and based on surveys with 16,310 people, placed Disney at No. 77, down from No. 7 in 2017.How to handle the inflammatory claims by Mr. DeSantis has been a subject of debate among Disney executives. In April, Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, attacked Mr. DeSantis as “anti-business” and “anti-Florida” for his actions against the company, but he has not spoken publicly on the matter since May 10. (Mr. Iger declined an interview request for this article.) Swatting back at Mr. DeSantis now would most likely exacerbate the situation. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that half of Americans are not paying enough attention to the fight to have a fully formed opinion. Why risk more headlines?Unless attendance at the company’s theme parks begins to drastically weaken — no sign so far — there is no reason to worry about Disney’s overall business, analysts said. But the political fight has had an impact. The Axios Harris Poll ranked Disney as the fifth-most-polarizing brand in America; the company had been nearly neutral in 2021. “Disney’s intangible value, the perceptions of trust, citizenship, ethics and growth (a measure of its future potential and relevance in my life) are the fastest falling,” Mr. Gerzema said in an email.Privately, Disney executives poke holes in polls showing brand erosion. At the same time, they have taken steps to protect the company’s reputation. In April, Mr. Iger named Asad Ayaz as the company’s first-ever chief brand officer, saying he will be responsible for “stewarding and elevating the Disney brand globally.”Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, is also dealing with significant pressures of the company’s business.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersThe company has also put pressure on Mr. DeSantis in subtle ways.Mr. Iger, for instance, was photographed with Gov. Gavin Newsom of California at Disneyland on June 13. Mr. Newsom was there to discuss an expansion plan that would generate thousands of jobs. It was a reminder to Mr. DeSantis that Disney had halted a project in Florida. Mr. Newsom also attended Disneyland’s first-ever Pride Nite, posing for photos with visitors outfitted in rainbow Mickey Mouse ears.Part of Disney’s challenge involves the sound-bite nature of the campaign trail. Mr. DeSantis likes to say Disney is in favor of “sexualizing children.” Those words make their way onto local newscasts and social media platforms.When it joined more than 200 other companies in opposing the Florida education law, Disney said it was doing so because the statute “could be used to unfairly target gay, lesbian, nonbinary and transgender kids and families.” That is a long way from being in favor of sexualizing children.In a recent television advertisement that aired in Iowa and South Carolina, the main super PAC backing Mr. DeSantis falsely suggested that the company was surreptitiously working to brainwash children. “Once upon a time, Disney films were for kids, not secret sexual content,” the ad’s narrator intones ominously.Disney executives have watched in horror as attacks by Mr. DeSantis have spread. “DeSantis and Trump Spar Over Who Hates Disney More,” a headline in The Orlando Sentinel read on May 30.A group of demonstrators, some displaying Nazi symbols and others holding DeSantis campaign signs, gathered outside Disney World’s entrance a few weeks ago, drawing national attention. “Oh my God, Mickey is trending in video next to swastikas,” an aghast Disney executive in Orlando texted a reporter that day.Mr. Iger is also dealing with unwelcome business developments, including poor results at the box office, a lingering screenwriters’ strike and the departure of Disney’s chief financial officer. Investors are growing antsy: Disney shares have been trading at about $89, down 7 percent from a year ago and 55 percent from their peak in March 2021.Disney’s earnings engine for the last 30 years — traditional television, including ESPN — has become a shadow of its former self, the result of cord cutting, advertising weakness and rising sports programming costs. Mr. Iger is betting that streaming will return the company to growth. But Disney+ has been shedding subscribers, and a broader streaming division remains unprofitable, losing nearly $2 billion since the start of the fiscal year.Disney is in the midst of a campaign to cut $5.5. billion in costs across the company. That involves the elimination of 7,000 jobs, about 4 percent of its global total, including notable layoffs at Pixar and ESPN.Another headache: Mr. Iger’s contract expires at the end of 2024. Who will take over? So far, it’s a mystery.Mr. Iger, 72, was supposed to be yachting in retired bliss by now. He ended his first run at Disney in 2021, handing the company’s reins to Bob Chapek, a former theme park executive. Mr. Chapek was fired in November, and Mr. Iger returned as chief executive.Mr. Chapek’s successes were overshadowed by missteps — one of the biggest being his response to the Florida education law. Among other things, it prohibits classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity through the third grade and limits it for older students. (Florida has since extended the ban to all grades.)At first, Mr. Chapek tried not to take a side, prompting an employee revolt. He then denounced the law, angering Mr. DeSantis and leading to the fight that Disney is still contending with today.Mr. DeSantis moved to restrict the autonomy with which Disney was able to oversee its Disney World resort. The company quietly worked to sidestep the effort, catching the governor by surprise. In April, Mr. DeSantis punched back — and so did Disney, suing the governor in federal court, pulling the plug on a $1 billion project in Florida and saying another $17 billion in Disney World expansion spending was imperiled.Disney’s lawsuit is inching ahead, but any resolution is likely to take years. In the meantime, the political crossfire continues.On Tuesday, Disney filed paperwork with a federal court to propose a starting date for a trial in its lawsuit against Mr. DeSantis: July 15, 2024, the day the Republican National Convention begins.Nicholas Nehamas More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis Financial Disclosure Puts Him in the Millionaires Club

      by

      The Florida governor, who has spent almost his entire career in public service, made more than $1 million from his best-selling memoir.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who often speaks of his blue-collar roots, is now a millionaire, thanks to a $1.25 million book deal that he signed with HarperCollins in anticipation of his run for president.Mr. DeSantis saw his net worth skyrocket to $1.17 million by the end of 2022, up from roughly $319,000 in 2021, according to a financial disclosure filed on Friday with the Florida Commission on Ethics. The governor’s memoir, “The Courage to Be Free,” was published in late February as a prelude to the presidential campaign he announced in May. It became a New York Times nonfiction best seller, with more than 94,000 copies sold in its first week. (Literary reviews were less kind.)Before declaring that he would run for president, Mr. DeSantis took a series of trips around the country to meet local Republicans and promote his book. “And so my book, I think it’s out there, just so you know, No. 1 book in America for nonfiction,” a smiling Mr. DeSantis said at one such stop in Iowa this spring. “There’s a lot of people that aren’t happy about that, I can tell you.”Mr. DeSantis, a former congressman, had seen his personal wealth hold relatively steady in the years since he was first elected governor in 2018. At the end of that year, he reported his net worth at around $284,000.As governor, Mr. DeSantis received an annual salary of $141,400.20 last year. Besides his salary and the book deal, he reported receiving no other income in 2022, according to his state financial disclosure. His assets included a USAA bank account with slightly more than $1 million, as well as a federal Thrift Savings Plan and a state retirement account. Mr. DeSantis, a Navy veteran, has spent almost all of his career in government service. His only liability is listed as nearly $19,000 in student loan debt.Mr. DeSantis’s straightforward finances offer a contrast to the sprawling commercial empire of his main rival for the Republican nomination, Donald J. Trump, who is well ahead of Mr. DeSantis in national polls. Mr. Trump, whose father was a successful real estate developer, grew up wealthy.On the campaign trail, Mr. DeSantis highlights his far humbler roots.“I was a blue-collar kid growing up. My parents were working class,” he told a crowd in North Carolina this month, adding that he had worked low-wage jobs to put himself through school.“And I only did that because I believe in America,” Mr. DeSantis continued. “You work hard and you make the most of your God-given ability, you’re going to have the chance to do big things. And I wonder how many people believe that nowadays.” More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      DeSantis says as US president he would eliminate IRS and other agencies

      by

      Ron DeSantis pledged on Wednesday that he would eliminate four federal agencies if he were elected president: the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Department of Commerce, Department of Energy, and Department of Education.“If Congress will work with me on doing that, we’ll be able to reduce the size and scope of government,” the Florida governor said in an interview with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum. “If Congress won’t go that far, I’m going to use those agencies to push back against woke ideology and against the leftism that we see creeping into all institutions of American life.”Presidential candidates have long tried to eliminate federal agencies, but cannot do so unilaterally, needing Congress to go along with the plan. Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, had one of the most embarrassing moments in a presidential campaign in recent memory during a 2011 debate, when he forgot one of the agencies he wanted to eliminate. Donald Trump later tapped him to lead that agency, the Department of Energy.DeSantis offered the proposals as he continues to significantly lag behind Donald Trump in polls for the GOP presidential nomination. The Florida governor is moving to run to the right of Trump on key issues, hoping to mobilize the GOP’s conservative base.DeSantis is also facing scrutiny over his use of government resources in Texas, the Daily Beast reported. On Monday, when he visited the Texas-Mexico border, his campaign posted a photo of him standing in front of a helicopter owned by the Texas department of public safety (DPS).It’s not clear who paid for the effort, but Texas ethics rules bar the use of state resources to assist in a political campaign. As a candidate for president, DeSantis is also required to pay “fair market value” for non-commercial flights.DeSantis’s office told the New York Times his visit was both in a campaign and official capacity. The Texas Department of Public Safety told the Times that the purpose of the trip was so DeSantis could see how Florida government equipment was being used to curb migration. Texas and Florida have a joint immigration enforcement program, Operation Lone Star, which was announced in May.“The briefing included an aerial tour which was provided by DPS in order to give Governor DeSantis a clearer understanding of how Florida’s resources are being utilized along our southern border and see the challenges first hand,” Ericka Miller, a DPS spokesperson, told the Times.Earlier this year, DeSantis’s former state political committee in Florida transferred $82.5m to a federal Super Pac supporting him – a move critics said ran afoul of federal law because Super Pacs are supposed to be independent from candidates. DeSantis also signed a law in Florida making it more difficult to track his travel and see who is paying for it.DeSantis was also given a tour of the Rio Grande river on a boat owned by the Florida government, the New York Times reported. After the event, he gave a lengthy campaign speech on immigration. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Ron DeSantis Helicopter Photo Spurs Questions About Campaign Ethics

      by

      It’s not the first time that the Florida governor has faced accusations of inappropriately blurring the lines between his official duties and his presidential campaign.It was a photo op intended to turbocharge Republican voters, one showing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida posing in front of a helicopter on Sunday at the southern border in Texas.But the display is creating an unwanted spotlight for Mr. DeSantis: The helicopter is funded by Texas taxpayers, raising questions about the political nature of the flight and its cost.Federal law requires presidential candidates to pay the fair-market rate for noncommercial air travel and reimburse providers of flights. In this case, the Texas Department of Public Safety owns the 2008 Eurocopter, according to a Federal Aviation Administration database of aircraft tail numbers.Additionally, ethics rules in Texas bar officials there from using state resources in support of political campaigns.Mr. DeSantis’s office suggested that he was visiting the border in a dual capacity, as both governor and presidential candidate, but his official schedule as governor omitted mention of it. Jeremy Redfern, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis in the governor’s office, referred questions on Wednesday about the helicopter flight to the Texas Department of Public Safety.That agency said Mr. DeSantis was briefed during his visit about joint immigration enforcement activities between Florida and Texas at the border, part of a program known as Operation Lone Star.“The briefing included an aerial tour which was provided by D.P.S. in order to give Gov. DeSantis a clearer understanding of how Florida’s resources are being utilized along our southern border and see the challenges first hand,” Ericka Miller, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said in an email on Wednesday. Mr. DeSantis’s campaign shared the helicopter photo on Twitter on Monday, the same day that he proposed a series of hard-right immigration policies in a campaign speech in Eagle Pass, a small Texas border city.Reflecting the split nature of his duties, Mr. DeSantis on Sunday wore a short-sleeve white shirt that said “Governor Ron DeSantis” on the right and “DeSantis for President” on the left.Mr. DeSantis’s use of the taxpayer-funded helicopter was first reported by The Daily Beast, which also noted that he took a boat tour of the Rio Grande as part of his visit. A Fox News reporter accompanied him by air and by water.That boat is owned by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, The New York Times confirmed. The state agency had already deployed the vessel there through a mutual-aid arrangement, and as part of the Operation Lone Star program.Mr. Redfern, in a statement, challenged that there was anything inappropriate about Mr. DeSantis’s ride on the Florida taxpayer-owned boat.“Participating in a routine patrol with F.W.C. is not outside the purview of the governor’s job as the state’s chief executive,” he said.Myles Martin, a spokesman for the Federal Election Commission, said in an email on Wednesday that he was not able to comment about specific candidates or their activities. But he pointed out that federal campaign finance rules require candidates to reimburse federal, state or local government entities when using aircraft owned by them to campaign.Political committees must also pay back costs associated with others means of transportation, including boat travel.Mr. DeSantis has previously faced accusations that he is inappropriately blurring the lines between his official duties and his campaign.As Mr. DeSantis prepared to sign Florida’s record-breaking budget earlier this month, lobbyists and state lawmakers said the governor’s staff called them seeking either campaign contributions or political endorsements — outreach that would normally be made by members of Mr. DeSantis’s campaign. The conversations left the lobbyists and lawmakers afraid that Mr. DeSantis would veto their projects from the budget if they did not comply, they said.And when Mr. DeSantis signed the budget, he vetoed several projects sponsored by state Senator Joe Gruters, a Republican who has endorsed former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican front-runner. Mr. Gruters accused the governor of retribution, calling him “meanspirited” and saying he had chosen to “punish ordinary Floridians” because of a political disagreement.The governor’s office denied that the vetoes were political. And at a news conference in Tampa last week, Mr. DeSantis said there was nothing wrong with aides in his office supporting his campaign in their “spare time.”But Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic Party, filed state ethics and elections complaints against three top staffers in the governor’s office. “Any reasonable person could infer from the reporting that our governor was holding the state budget hostage in exchange for political endorsements and donations — actions that are both unethical and illegal,” Ms. Fried said in a statement.Earlier this year, Mr. DeSantis also signed a bill shielding his travel records from public disclosure, preventing an accounting of the taxpayer funds being used to cover security and other costs during his campaign trips. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis’s Pitch to New Hampshire Focuses Heavily on Florida

      by

      Focusing heavily on Florida at his first town-hall event in the Granite State, Ron DeSantis drew a reception that was sometimes warm, sometimes more skeptical — especially on the issue of abortion.At his first town-hall event in New Hampshire, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida talked on Tuesday about illegal immigration in Texas, crime in Chicago, disorder on the streets of San Francisco and the wonders of nearly every aspect of Florida — a state he mentioned about 80 times.Roughly an hour into the event, Mr. DeSantis finally got around to saying “New Hampshire.”His relentless focus on Florida was at times well received in a state that will play a key role in deciding who leads the Republican Party in the 2024 election against President Biden. Mr. DeSantis’s comments seemed to especially resonate when he connected his actions at home to issues of importance to New Hampshire residents, like the flood of fentanyl and other deadly drugs into their communities.Still, his self-confident lecture about his record as Florida’s governor left the distinct impression that he believes Republican voters need what he is offering them more than he is interested in what he could learn from their questions.“Every year I’ve been governor, we’ve decreased the assumptions in our pension fund,” he boasted, digging deep into the Florida policy weeds. “In other words, you know, whatever it was when I came in was rosier. And we always reduced down to ensure that no matter what happens, our pension system is going to be funded. I think we’re like eighth-best in the country with that.”Even his jokes were Florida-centric, sometimes to the point of obscurity to the crowd of roughly 250 people who packed a carpeted banquet hall in Hollis, a few miles from the Massachusetts border. The audience reaction was muted when he joked about property prices rising in Naples, Fla., to make a point about Chicago residents fleeing south to his state.After facing criticism in recent weeks for not answering questions from voters at his rallies, Mr. DeSantis has held recent town hall-style events in South Carolina, Texas and now New Hampshire. David Degner for The New York TimesThe main ideological skepticism in the audience concerned Mr. DeSantis’s hard-line stance against abortion — a position that is popular in heavily evangelical states like Iowa but less so in more secular New Hampshire.Like several other Republican women in attendance, Jayne Beaton, 65, of Amherst, N.H., said she came with questions about the candidate’s position on abortion, and the six-week ban he signed in Florida.“I predict it’s going to be an issue for him,” she said. “With everything else” in his platform, she added, “I’m onboard and excited, but I’m less sure about abortion, and the six-week ban.”After taking criticism in recent weeks for not answering questions from voters at his rallies, Mr. DeSantis has held town hall-style events in South Carolina, Texas and now New Hampshire since Thursday. Although he has rarely faced tough questions, he has seemed relatively comfortable in these unscripted moments, asking voters their names, thanking military veterans for their service and occasionally cracking jokes.Such casual interactions are especially important in New Hampshire — the first-in-the-nation primary state whose residents are accustomed to vetting presidential candidates over and over in intimate settings.“It is a little different here than it is in any other state,” Jason Osborne, the Republican majority leader of the New Hampshire House, who has endorsed the Florida governor for president, said in a phone interview before the event on Tuesday. “We’re so small, we’re the first, so the most candidates are going to touch the state than any others.”Mr. DeSantis, who has a reputation for being somewhat socially awkward, is working hard to overcome a deficit of roughly 30 percentage points in the Granite State against former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican front-runner. He spent more time answering questions from voters in Hollis than he has at any event since announcing his candidacy in May.The audience, which included many out-of-staters who traveled hours to see Mr. DeSantis, seemed to appreciate that he had showed up. Several told him they admired his handling of the coronavirus pandemic in Florida. In a veterans-heavy state, he was also thanked for his military service and received applause when he said he was the only veteran running in the Republican field.Mr. DeSantis ducked only one question. A teenage boy invited him to condemn Mr. Trump’s efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. DeSantis declined to do so. All he would say was that he did not “enjoy seeing, you know, what happened” that day, but that he had nothing to do with it and Republicans needed to look forward, not backward, because if they dwelled on the past they would lose elections.When he was finally asked about Florida’s six-week abortion ban, Mr. DeSantis seemed comfortable answering the question and, unlike Mr. Trump, he made no effort to contort himself to appeal to more moderate voters. He said he believed that in America, “life is worth protecting,” and it was important to provide services to support low-income and single mothers.Doreen Monahan, 65, of Spofford, N.H. — who asked Mr. DeSantis the question about abortion, and the burden placed on taxpayers when women who cannot get abortions bear unwanted children — said later that she had been reassured by his answer, including his mentions of beefed-up postnatal care and adoption programs.“It’s nice that they have some options,” she said. “I have friends who waited years to adopt.”She said she had reached out to Mr. DeSantis’s campaign to ask about exceptions to the six-week ban, and felt more comfortable after hearing details.Mr. DeSantis pitched two main arguments against Mr. Trump, without naming him. The first was that change could not come to Washington if Republicans kept losing elections. The second was his theme of “no excuses” — a shot at Mr. Trump’s failure to deliver on core promises such as completing a wall along the southern border.An older man told Mr. DeSantis that he had voted twice to “drain the swamp,” but that it never happened. He wanted to know what Mr. DeSantis would do differently from Mr. Trump.Mr. DeSantis opened his response by recalling how exciting it was in 2016 to hear the rally chants of “drain the swamp.” But then he took two unsubtle shots at the former president.Mr. DeSantis said that “the swamp” in Washington was worse now than ever and that to “break the swamp,” a president must be disciplined and focused, and have the “humility” to understand he cannot do it on his own. The audience cheered when he promised to fire the Trump-appointed F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, and turn the Justice Department “inside out.”Mr. DeSantis made a campaign stop on Monday in Eagle Pass, a Texas city on the border.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesMr. DeSantis seemed at his most animated toward the end of the rally when a woman asked him about Covid vaccines. In response, the governor denounced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, calling their efforts to promote vaccines a “total disaster.” He also attacked big pharmaceutical companies, and highlighted a study by Florida’s health department that purported to show elevated health risks for young men who took mRNA vaccines but that was widely criticized by scientists.“These Covid restrictions and mandates were not about your health,” Mr. DeSantis said. “It was about them controlling your behavior.”The DeSantis campaign has leaned heavily into criticizing how Mr. Trump handled the pandemic, seeing widespread anger among Republicans over vaccines, masking, school closures and social-distancing measures as an opportunity to peel voters away from the former president.The crowd responded approvingly to Mr. DeSantis’s eight-minute tirade against what he called “the medical swamp.”Mark Pearson, a Republican state representative in New Hampshire who has endorsed Mr. DeSantis, said in an interview this month that he had seen the governor grow more confident as a retail politician.In May, Mr. Pearson said, he told Mr. DeSantis that he needed to engage directly with New Hampshire voters.“I told him, ‘Here’s what I suggest you do: You walk the rope line, you drop into the diners, you go to the small venues,’” he recounted. “‘But it better be real, Ron, because we can smell a phony from a mile away, because we’ve been doing this for a hundred years.’” More