Our former Congressman from St. Johns County, Boy Governor RONALD DION DeSANTIS, and his efforts to remake Florida in his own image, is why we call it 'DeSANTISTAN." Fine column by Nate Monroe:
Opinion: Fighting abortion and pot, DeSantis peddles Bizarro World version of Florida
Nate MonroeAs he gallivants across the state campaigning against a proposed expansion of abortion rights and legalized recreational marijuana, Gov. Ron DeSantis has peddled a version of Florida that would sure be nice to live in. There is no need for a constitutional amendment protecting reproductive rights, he's said, because women can already obtain abortions whenever they need one — he'll personally see to that. And marijuana? Hey, the cops are cool: In Florida, no one gets in trouble for simple possession. DeSantis' loyal posse of law-and-order sheriffs is happy to look the other way on that one, so go ahead and light up.
You see, in Florida, we don't enact special-interest-driven changes to the law, no sir. DeSantis will protect Floridians from the shadowy corporate interests — like Trulieve, the state's largest medical-marijuana operator — who are pulling the strings to get the proposed recreational marijuana amendment passed on Nov. 5, enshrining a cartel for themselves and depriving all the rest of us from the right to grow pot in our own backyard.
Yes, that Florida sounds like a pleasant subtropical paradise.
Real Florida does not resemble Gov. Ron DeSantis' fantasy
Needless to say that enticing vision bears no resemblance to the rather prudish Florida we live in today, where pregnant women and doctors must navigate a draconian six-week abortion ban with criminal penalties attached for health-care providers who step out of line, and thousands (of disproportionately Black Floridians) routinely get arrested for minor marijuana charges. Florida sheriffs tend to be intolerant scolds who jealously guard their right to lock up citizens for crushingly minor infractions, like nodding off on a park bench. The only scofflaw whose numerous misdeeds they seem to tolerate is the Republican nominee for president, whom they've endorsed.
DeSantis might rail against Trulieve today, but not so long ago the marijuana company and the governor were on far friendlier terms. In the early days of his administration, DeSantis, surrounded by allies with ties to the marijuana industry, played a key role in setting the company up for success in Florida, where voters had recently legalized medical marijuana. In turn, he benefitted from the company's sizeable contributions to his political committee, according to reporting from CNN. It was the very kind of symbiotic relationship between a politician and a private interest that DeSantis now inveighs against as he fights Amendment 3, which would legalize recreational marijuana.
DeSantis is blatantly dishonest about Florida's six-week abortion ban
DeSantis signed Florida's six-week abortion ban last year as a red-meat offering to Republican primary voters as he geared up to run for president. That he is today arguing his near-total prohibition is really more like a loose set of guidelines is only a thinly disguised ruse aimed at undermining Amendment 4, which would restore the more expansive Roe-era reproductive rights.
Indeed, the permissive Florida the puritanical DeSantis has described throughout his campaign against greater personal freedoms is a flimsy, deceptive fantasy that will expire on midnight Nov. 6 — when he'll no longer have use for the deception.
His stunning dishonesty has flown a bit under the radar because DeSantis has turned heads in other significant ways: Namely, his campaign against the two proposed amendments is propped up by millions of taxpayer dollars. DeSantis is waging an unprecedented state-sanctioned effort to kill two citizen-driven constitutional amendments, complete with stump speeches, TV ads and a wealth of official state resources.
Throughout this campaign — which, again, you're paying for — DeSantis and his allies have repeatedly presented a Bizarro-World version of Florida to undermine the greater freedoms the proposed amendments would write into law. "Under Amendment 3, you would not be allowed to grow your own weed — you'd have to buy it from (a marijuana dispensary)," one of DeSantis' ghoulish spokespeoplerecently warned.
This is the kind of critique that might be compelling were Floridians able to grow weed in their backyard now, but of course in DeSantis' stuffy Florida, that is illegal. And that is precisely the reason citizens signed enough petitions to get this proposed amendment on the ballot: Florida's politicians have been unresponsive to the popular will of actual Floridians, so the voters are attempting to force the change themselves.
Gov. DeSantis argues against himself on recreational marijuana
DeSantis has also recently taken to telling voters that marijuana possession is no big deal.
"Not a single person is in jail for this," he said at a taxpayer-sponsored campaign event this week.
This is accurate if you ignore the thousands of Floridians in places like Miami-Dade who in fact do get arrested on minor marijuana charges, resulting in ruined lives and a profound waste of taxpayer resources. Police also routinely cite the smell of marijuana as a reason to escalate traffic stops.
But even accepting DeSantis' false framing, is that not an argument then to get rid of the law? If no one's in jail for it, and no one really thinks it's a big deal, scrap the law. No harm, no foul, right?
Wrong. Should Amendment 3 fail, DeSantis isn't going to sign a bill relaxing marijuana laws. His no-biggie attitude will go up in smoke. While DeSantis and his allies flirt with potheads in some venues, he and his allies are simultaneously saying stuff like this in others: "I don’t want drugs legal in our city. I don’t want drugs legal in our state. I don’t want drugs legal in our country. It’s not good for us. It’s not good for our community."
That was Duval County Sheriff T.K. Waters, one of the governor's close allies who has been featured in some of the taxpayer-sponsored anti-Amendment 3 ads.
Does that sound like someone a weed-curious gardener should be locking arms with? Does that sound like a let-bygones-be-bygones cop who doesn't care if you light up? "Marijuana smoke is the most offensive smell to me ever," he told Jacksonville station News4Jax. "I was in Stockton, California, not too long ago, and I’m walking from one place to another just, marijuana smoke. Why do I have to smell everyone else’s smoke?"
Gov. Ron DeSantis is not a protector of women's health, no matter what he says
On abortion, DeSantis has really perfected his fork-tongued act: The architect of Florida's six-week abortion ban has recast himself as a protector of reproductive rights and women's health and turned doctors into the abortion-denying villains.
The reality of Florida's abortion ban — that it places doctors in an untenable dilemma of providing needed care or risking future prosecution — is temporarily inconvenient for DeSantis, so he's decided instead to pretend there essentially is no such ban. And he's taken this deception quite far: A federal judge recently rebukedthe DeSantis administration for threatening prosecution against TV stations for airing pro-Amendment 4 ads that accurately explain the hardship Florida's near-total abortion ban has placed on patients and doctors.
DeSantis insists his abortion ban provides medical exceptions that should guarantee women in need get care, but some doctors — who risk committing a felony if a prosecutor decides they did not exercise "reasonable medical judgment" when providing a post-six week abortion — disagree.
For that sin, DeSantis has vowed retribution.
"If you have a physician not providing needed health care in these situations ... you should not only get sued, you should have to pay a massive money damage, massive malpractice verdict," DeSantis said this week. He added that he'd be willing to work with legislators to change the law to make such suits easier to file.
This is quite a trick: In DeSantis' warped version of Florida, it's doctors — many of whom never supported this abortion ban — who are to blame, not the reactionary governor and his legislative toadies who actually wrote and then implemented it.
It's an irony indeed that fantasy-land version of Florida that DeSantis is opportunistically selling to voters acknowledges the cruelty and unresponsiveness of the Florida we actually live in today — and, if his ambitions are fulfilled, the one we will continue to live in for the foreseeable future.
Nate Monroe is a Florida columnist for the USA Today Network. Follow him on Twitter @NateMonroeTU. Email him at nmonroe@gannett.com.
Religious fundamentalim is an irrational political ideology that brings society less rights, freedom, and liberties. Any politician who panders to a religious mob like DeSantis has should be ashamed. "Free state of Florida" is a bad joke.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that keeps these crazy religious wackos from straight Taliban shit and terrorism against people who don't fit the mold down here is the DOJ! And the FBI and other fucked up agencies got their own criteria for who is to be included and who is not. Someone said, "We aren't going back".. we already are!!!
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