A brazen scheme? ALEC software giveaway to GOP lawmakers violated FL campaign-finance laws. (Florida Phoenix)

Winning 31% of the primary vote without a runoff, RONALD DION DeSANTIS was duked in as Congressman from St. Augustine in 2012.  When DeSANTIS was first elected to represent our Congressional District, people quickly perceived that shallow RON DeSANTIS was an alien implant from KOCH INDUSTRIES.  DeSANTIS recently spoke to KOCH's AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNSEL, which has allegedly violated Florida campaign finance laws.

Does the Dull Republican Culture of Corruption in Tallahassee haves no boundaries, no ethics and no shame?

You tell me.

From Florida Phoenix:

A brazen scheme? ALEC software giveaway to GOP lawmakers violated FL campaign-finance laws

Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) last week

BY: MICHAEL MOLINE - AUGUST 2, 2021 7:00 AM

       

 Florida’s Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021. Credit: Michael Moline/Florida Phoenix

An organization backed by major corporations gave state legislators, including at least two from Florida, campaign software worth thousands of dollars in violation of state campaign-finance law, according to complaints filed by three progressive organizations.

The alleged gifts from the American Legislative Exchange Council, which Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed last week in Salt Lake City, amount to illegal in-kind campaign contributions, according to the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), Common Cause, and the Alliance for a Better Utah.

Recipients in Florida include, but might not be limited to, Republicans Rep. Spencer Roach and Rep. Jason Fischer, according to a complaint filed with the Florida Elections Commission. Roach is an attorney and represents part of Lee County in the Legislature. He is listed as vice chair of the Public Integrity & Elections Committee in the state House. Fischer represents part of Duval County.

It’s hard to know the exact number of Florida legislators who may be involved because ALEC doesn’t release its membership list, the organizations said.

“ALEC keeps its membership list secret — they don’t publish it,” said David Armiak, research director for CMD, during a telephone interview.

A separate whistleblower complaint filed with the Internal Revenue Service alleges the software transfer to ALEC’s predominantly GOP membership evidences broader campaign-related activity in violation of ALEC’s tax-exempt status as a nonprofit.

“Voters deserve to know who is buying influence with their elected officials, and that is exactly what ALEC is doing in providing this software to legislators,” Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause, said in a written statement.

“This is sophisticated software worth thousands of dollars that aids the reelection efforts of these legislators, and the legislators know that. This isn’t buying a legislator a cup of coffee to bend their ear about your bill. These are valuable in-kind contributions, plain and simple,” she said.

“ALEC has abused its tax-exempt status for a decade or more,” said Eric Havian, an attorney for CMD. “I can only hope that we have not become too accustomed to fraud in plain sight, and that the IRS will finally take action to stop taxpayers from subsidizing ALEC’s partisan electioneering and lobbying.”

Fischer and Roach have yet to reply to requests for comment.

The progressive organizations have filed similar complaints in 14 other states, asking government watchdogs to investigate and if possible identify other lawmakers who received the software.

ALEC, backed by some of the country’s biggest corporations, gathers state lawmakers for workshops and distributes model legislation for introduction in statehouses. Recent examples would ban state limits on greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change and an “Energy Discrimination Elimination Act,” forbidding discouragement of fossil fuels.

“While ALEC publicly emphasizes the ‘constituent research and engagement’ benefits of the [software] service, the voter database and management software provided by ALEC is clearly designed to help ALEC legislators win reelection,” the elections complaint alleges.

ALEC has claimed the software, “ALEC CARE,” developed by GOP affiliated consultancy VoterGravity,  would normally cost $3,000 but distributed it as a “member benefit,” the complaint adds.

“Voter Gravity explicitly markets the software as a ‘powerful’ tool for political campaigns from ‘an approved mobile app vendor for the Republican National Committee and fully integrated with the RNC’s database,” the complaint says.

Florida law defines a campaign contribution as “a gift, subscription, conveyance, deposit, loan, payment, or distribution of money or anything of value, including contributions in kind having an attributable monetary value in any form, made for the purpose of influencing the results of an election or making an electioneering communication.”

The law limits contributions to $1,000 per legislative candidate. Persons knowingly making or accepting gifts worth above that amount are guilty of a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year imprisonment. Corporate violators face fines of as much as $10,000 and could love their right to do business in Florida.

“Provision of the voter management software to support election campaigns constitutes an illegal in-kind campaign contribution by ALEC whether or not ALEC members ultimately used it for their campaigns,” the complaint alleges.

“ALEC’s disclaimers and transparent repackaging of a powerful campaign tool as “constituent communications” do nothing to reduce its campaign value.”

The IRS complaint identifies the whistleblower as  “a current legislative member of ALEC,” identified in the document as “Legislator,” calling this person “a classic insider” appalled at what ALEC was doing.

The software log-in page states that the tools can’t be used for a political campaigns, but “many of its features can have no other plausible use,” the document says.

“The software came preloaded with individual-level voting information, including voter history and political party ideology; views on ‘hot button’ electoral issues like taxation and gun control; income and donor status; metrics like ‘Turnout Score’ and Republican National Committee voter identification numbers; and numerous other data points exceedingly helpful for a re-election campaign but largely irrelevant to ‘constituent service,’” the complaint says.

“Moreover, Legislator noted that CARE’s analytical and dashboard tools were also primarily campaign related and not particularly useful for constituent service, tracking elements like ‘Identified Supporters,’ ‘Door Knocks,’ ‘Walklist Stats,’ and ‘Phone Bank Stats,’” it says.

“ALEC CARE is a brazen scheme to help ALEC’s overwhelmingly Republican members win reelection,” Arn Pearson, CMD’s executive director, said in a written statement.

“The fact that ALEC’s constituent management program typically costs ‘thousands of dollars,’ but it is being provided free of charge to selected legislators, would constitute a contribution to the legislator,” Marcus Owens, former director of the Exempt Organizations Division of the Internal Revenue Service, told CMD.

“The fact that there may well be sub rosa links, meaning secret, between databases created by the management program and organizations engaged in partisan political activity suggests another potential electioneering event,” Owens said.

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site.

MICHAEL MOLINE

Michael Moline has covered politics and the legal system for more than 30 years. He is a former managing editor of the San Francisco Daily Journal and former assistant managing editor of The National Law Journal. He began his career covering the Florida Capitol for United Press International. More recently, he wrote for Florida Politics.

DeSantis responds to CDC’s change of mind on masks with mockery. (Florida Phoenix)

Adolescent adenoidal arachnid apparathik Boy Governor RONALD DION DeSANTIS shows his typical jejune, juvenile insolence. Tbe fetid fulminating feudalistic former Yale University Baseball Team Captain is a loathesome critter who has patterned himself on DONALD JOHN TRUMP. From Florida Phoenix::

DeSantis responds to CDC’s change of mind on masks with mockery

BY: MICHAEL MOLINE - AUGUST 2, 2021 7:10 AM

       

 Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed a meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council in Salt Lake City on July 28, 2021. Source: Screenshot/ALEC YouTube

Faced with a record spike in COVID infections, caused by the highly contagious Delta variant, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Gov. Ron DeSantis have settled on markedly divergent reactions.

The federal public health authorities bit the bullet and reversed course, countermanding their earlier advice that vaccinated people need not wear face masks while indoors. Now, they advise mask wearing, even for fully-vaccinated people, because the Delta variant is so highly communicable.

DeSantis’s response is to mock the CDC, as in his speech last week to a gathering of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in Salt Lake City.

“Did you not get the CDC’s memo? I don’t see you guys complying,” the governor told the largely unmasked crowd, earning chuckles.

“I say that jokingly, but I think that that may be a sign of [the CDC] potentially seeking to do more things into the future, and I think it’s very important that we say unequivocally no to lockdowns, no to school closures, no to restrictions, and no mandates,” he said to cheers.

“Floridians are free to choose and all Americans should be free to choose how they govern their affairs, how they take care of themselves and out families, and they should not be consigned to live, regardless of which state in the union, consigned to live in a Faucian dystopia in which we’re governed by the whims of bureaucratic authorities who care little for our freedom, little for our aspirations, and little for our happiness,” DeSantis said.

“No more. We can’t let it happen going forward.”

Delta-variant infections have been spiking in Florida, but the governor repeated his insistence the caseload represents a seasonal fluctuation unrelated to pandemic-control measures like wearing face masks and social distancing.

He was particularly disdainful of public school closures, in which “millions of kids got locked out of school for most of a year.” He noted that the Florida Education Association sued him over his school reopening plan, although the union later dropped the action.

“I think you’re going to continue to have the unions and the CDC — and they’re basically one-in-the-same right now, they work in tandem,” he said. “I fear that they’re trying to set up additional school closures.”

DeSantis referred to Dwight Eisenhower’s “military-industrial complex” speech, in which the late president also warned against an emerging “scientific-technological elite.”

“That’s a big problem now, because when [Dr. Anthony] Fauci makes these pronouncements, people don’t want to contradict him, even if he’s wrong, because they fear that they won’t get funding in the future,” DeSantis said.

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site.

MICHAEL MOLINE

Michael Moline has covered politics and the legal system for more than 30 years. He is a former managing editor of the San Francisco Daily Journal and former assistant managing editor of The National Law Journal. He began his career covering the Florida Capitol for United Press International. More recently, he wrote for Florida Politics.

Florida Breaks Record for COVID-19 Hospitalizations. A day after it recorded the most new daily cases since the start of the pandemic, Florida on Sunday broke a previous record for current hospitalizations set more than a year ago before vaccines were available. (AP

By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A day after it recorded the most new daily cases since the start of the pandemic, Florida on Sunday broke a previous record for current hospitalizations set more than a year ago before vaccines were available. The Sunshine State had 10,207 people hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to data reported to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. The previous record was from July 23, 2020, more than a half-year before vaccinations started becoming widespread, when Florida had 10,170 hospitalizations, according to the Florida Hospital Association. Florida is now leading the nation in per capita hospitalizations for COVID-19, as hospitals around the state report having to put emergency room visitors in beds in hallways and others document a noticeable drop in the age of patients. In the past week, Florida has averaged 1,525 adult hospitalizations a day, and 35 daily pediatric hospitalizations. Both are the highest per capita rate in the nation, according to Jason Salemi, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida. The hospitalizations and increasing cases have come as the new, more transmittable delta variant has spread throughout Florida, and residents have returned to pre-pandemic activities. “The recent rise is both striking and not-at-all surprising,” Salemi said in an email late Saturday. Federal health data released Saturday showed that Florida reported 21,683 new cases of COVID-19, the state’s highest one-day total since the start of the pandemic. The latest numbers were recorded on Friday and released on Saturday on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website. The figures show how quickly the number of cases is rising in the Sunshine State: only a day earlier, Florida reported 17,093 new daily cases. Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has resisted mandatory mask mandates and vaccine requirements, and along with the state Legislature, has limited local officials’ ability to impose restrictions meant to stop the spread of COVID-19. DeSantis on Friday barred school districts from requiring students to wear masks when classes resume next month. Florida's Democratic agriculture commissioner, Nikki Fried, who is seeking to run against DeSantis for governor, on Sunday urged unvaccinated Floridians to get the shots. She said she was heartened by a recent uptick in vaccinations in the state. “We are already behind the curve and in a worse spot every time the numbers come out," Fried said at a news conference in Tallahassee. “This surge is and will impact every single one of us." Throughout Florida, from Jacksonville to Miami to Tampa, hospitals have become overwhelmed. Barry Burton, the Pinellas County administrator, told the Tampa Bay Times that some local hospitals are already having to divert ambulances to different locations because of capacity concerns. There has been a startling rise in the number of children with the virus at hospitals in Miami, many of them requiring intensive care. Memorial Health’s Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood had seven patients with COVID-19. At Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami, there were 17 patients with COVID-19 on Friday, including six in the ICU and one who needed a ventilator, Dr. Marcos Mestre, vice president and chief medical officer, told the Miami Herald. About half of the patients were under 12, Mestre said, and the rest were older and eligible for the vaccine. But none of the patients with COVID-19 at Nicklaus Children’s on Friday were vaccinated. Most children who get COVID-19 do not need hospitalization, Mestre said. In the state capital, COVID-19 hospitalizations reached 70 patients on Sunday at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, a jump of 11 people in two days. “This is the most we’ve ever had,” Stephanie Derzypolski, a hospital spokeswoman, told the Tallahassee Democrat. The Mayo Clinic hospital in Jacksonville said it had exceeded its capacity of 304 licensed beds due to COVID-19 cases and asked the Agency for Health Care Administration for permission to operate overcapacity until the current surge ends, First Coast News in Jacksonville reported Sunday. At the UF Health North hospital emergency room in Jacksonville, COVID-19 patients once again were being put in beds in hallways due to a surge in visits. For many hospital workers, up until a month ago, it looked like there was light at the end of the tunnel, as people got vaccinated and hospitalizations decreased. But then the summer surge, powered by the new delta variant, hit Florida in July. “That light did turn out to be a train in this case,” Marsha Tittle, a nursing manager at UF Health North, told The Florida Times Union. “We’re taking more patients than we normally would take. ... My staff is wonderful. You walk out there, they’re going to have smiles on their faces and they’re doing a great job. But there’s a sense of defeat, like they’re just defeated.” ___ This story has been corrected to reflect hospitalizations broke 10,000-person threshold, not 1,000-person threshold.

Read Text of Latest Unhinged Governor RON DeSANTIS Hate Letter

 Our Florida Republicans have learned that hatred gets them campaign contributions, no matter how false their allegations.  

Pompous paranoid politicians emit shrill messages, directed at people they look down on.

They target the Boobeoisie, those misguided folks who give money to TRUMP & Co.

Dull Republicans are targeted with constant anger and ignorance, even hate mail fundraising letters from small fry like St. Johns County Republican Executive Committee Chair ROY ALAIMO, JR. a/k/a "Shortcake," align themselves with the American Taliban, today's Know Nothing Party.

Here's the latest hate mail from Flori-DUH Governor RONALD DION DeSANTIS:

Friend, For more than a year, our freedom has been under a constant assault by the radical left. Now, they’re coming for your freedom again.  We’ve already heard the Biden administration and government bureaucrats like Dr. Fauci say they want to keep your kids as young as 3 years old in masks, despite what the data and evidence show. Now, Fauci and the CDC are scheming to impose mask mandates on adults – which would be another ridiculous flip-flop for Fauci.  Donate $25 today to support my mission to prevent lockdowns and protect our freedom! The data proves that these lockdowns and mask mandates did NOT work. Lockdowns did not better protect our citizens. And the side effects of these lockdowns: Failing state economies. As Democratic-run states continue to struggle even today in their economic recovery, Florida just experienced its 14th consecutive month of job growth. Say ‘NO’ to Lockdowns And Stand Up For Freedom >>>  We CANNOT allow the corporate media and left-wing politicians to bully us into lockdowns and mask mandates again. These politicians and government bureaucrats got a taste of power before and now they’re hungry for more. Could you chip in $50, $25, or $15 to stand up against Fauci’s lockdowns and to protect our freedom? These lockdown politicians are globalists who refuse to hold China accountable. They want to control you and if we don’t stand strong now, who knows what they’ll try to take away next. I will continue fighting every day to preserve our freedom and liberty, but I need you to join me in our fight for freedom!  Sincerely, Ron DeSantis DONATE NOW VISIT US AT WWW.RONDESANTIS.COM Sponsored by Friends of Ron DeSantis.

Friends of Ron DeSantis | 610 S. Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33606

FL’s new COVID cases have spiked to 21,683 in one day — the highest since March 2020. (Florida Phoenix)

 Florida's now the epicenter of the COVID-19 spike.  Give credit where credit is due:  St. Johns County Commission Vice Chairman I. Henry Dean was right about mask-wearing.  Our timorous other Commissioners, afflicted with partisanship, followed the lead of our former Congressman, Florida Governor RONALD DION DeSANTIS, whose anti-science Philistinism causes disease to spread faster.  It's time for him to go.  From Florida Phoenix:

FL’s new COVID cases have spiked to 21,683 in one day — the highest since March 2020

COVID cases nationwide bumped to more than 100,000

BY: DIANE RADO - JULY 31, 2021 8:38 PM

       

 Novel coronavirus SARS CoV2, which causes COVID-19. Meanwhile, new COVID mutations called variants are now spreading across the U.S., including the Delta variant. Microphotography by National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

COVID-19 cases in Florida have reached a new milestone — 21,683 new cases in one day — the largest number since early March 2020, when Floridians had little information about the mysterious coronavirus and the disease that became COVID-19.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published the daily numbers of COVID-19 cases since March 2, 2020.

On Saturday, the agency reported that Florida’s cases had spiked to 21,683, based on July 30 data. The closest numbers before that were 19,334 cases on Jan. 7, 2021, and 19,136 cases on Jan. 8, 2021.

(The CDC data shows a figure of 30,531 cases on Jan. 2, 2021, but the day before, there were no cases, on New Year’s Day, so the two days expected to be combined.)

Also on Saturday, the CDC reported 101,171 new COVID cases nationwide, up from 83,062 the day before.

Florida’s cases also increased, from 17,093 on July 29 to the 21,683 on July 30.

The spikes have been of concern, as a more contagious variant called Delta has been sweeping the country.

Despite the rising number of cases, Gov. Ron DeSantis has been adamant about fighting all COVID-related mandates and restrictions, such as lockdowns and mask mandates, particularly the use of masks at schools.

In fact, DeSantis is now in a clash with his executive power as the state’s chief executive and the Florida Constitution, which says school boards shall operate, control and supervise all free public schools.

An executive order by the governor Friday threatens to withhold state-controlled funding from school districts that do not comply with constitutional freedoms and parent rights related to face-masking requirements at schools.

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site.

DIANE RADO

Diane Rado has covered state and local government and public schools in six states over some 30 years, focusing on policy and investigative stories as well as legislative and political reporting. She spent most of her career at the St. Petersburg (Tampa Bay) Times and the Chicago Tribune. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and did a fellowship in education reform at the University of Michigan in 1999-2000. She is married to a journalist and has three adult children.