Taken For Granite

The New Hampshire primary is today, and it's do or die for Nikki Haley, who could pull a classic Granite State upset against Donald Trump and win or go down swinging like Sonny Liston as the polls (which, in New Hampshire, are never right) suggest.

Haley has hit her heights.  Alliterations aside (well, after that second one), Haley has finally been going after Trump on his increasing cognitive disorder, as he's been confusing her with Nancy Pelosi in talking about January 6 and making beep-beep noises talking about nuclear-missile launch boards.  But she started doing so late - maybe too late to win. But we will see tonight. 

As for the other Republican contenders . . . well, Vivek Ramaswamy's fifteen minutes of fame are pretty much over, though he might have won himself  the Secretary of Commerce position in a Trump 47 administration, but given Trump's racist insinuations against Ramaswamy's fellow Indian-American Haley (oh yeah, South Asians are actually members of the Caucasian race, making them, as George Carlin once called them, dark brown white people, so it's actually ethnicism, or perhaps xenophobia), that's not likely.  Asa Hutchinson, the only 2024 Republican presidential candidate not from New Jersey who called Trump on his crimes, also quit the campaign, much to the delight of the Democratic National Committee, which sent out a press release joking that they hadn't even noticed that he was still running.  Sort of like when I learned this month that Joyce Randolph, who played Trixie Norton on "The Honeymooners," died at 99 and I said to someone that I hadn't even known she was still alive - except that I didn't say that as a joke!  Anyway, President Biden personally apologized to Hutchinson, realizing how mean-spirited that press release was, especially when Hutchinson was an anti-MAGA comrade in arms.  But that's the Democratic National Committee for you.  Heck, leading Democratic Party members ridiculed Martin O'Malley in 2016 when he exited the presidential campaign - and he's a fellow Democrat!

And then there's Ron DeSantis . . .

After a landslide re-election victory as governor of Florida that destroyed Florida's state Democratic Party like a hydrogen bomb, DeSantis was a colossus in the national Republican Party and seen as the logical heir apparent to Trump, and he looked like an attractive candidate, advocating Trumpist policies without Trump's toxic personality.  Unfortunately, DeSantis turned out to have a toxic personality of his own.  His inability to smile, for example, is clearly evident in the photo above, and he couldn't work up enough energy with voters to even display an affectation of warmth.

Democrats were hoping that DeSantis would be strong nationally as he's been in Florida and cause a knockout brawl with Trump that would mirror the Ford-Reagan battle of 1976.  Instead, the DeSantis campaign was destroyed like the Florida Democratic Party, and in both cases it was DeSantis who did the destroying.  He tried so hard to show his MAGA credentials that he came across as a vindictive, angry man who would do anything to further his political career - and not just as a presidential candidate. He had been going after gays and picking fights with Disney even before he declared his candidacy for President, as well as restricting abortion in his state even before Dobbs was handed down by the Supreme Court.       

DeSantis will still be governor of Florida for another three years, but his political career is all ready over.  By 2028, no one will want DeSantis to run for President.  His chances for a Trump 47 Cabinet position have already been blown to bits.   

He died with his high-heeled boots on.

Ron Is On

I took a break from not watching the news last night to watch the returns from Iowa.  I'd hoped to write Ron DeSantis's political obituary, at least in national politics, at the conclusion of the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses, but he actually eked out a second-place showing in the Hawkeye State, edging out Nikki Haley by just a couple of percentage points.

Haley was considered the favorite to give Trump a big scare in New Hampshire, but her calculations have possibly been scrambled as a result of DeSantis' better-than-expected run in Iowa.  As all this has happened, Chris Christie has withdrawn as a candidate, having seen that he has no chance of winning and wanting to avoid splitting the vote against Trump after his road-to-Damascus conversion from Trump acolyte to Trump adversary (COVID will do that to you), but not only has Haley been diminished at DeSantis's expense - Trump won an outright majority of caucus-goers' votes, the first presidential candidate to do that in Iowa in either party since, when?  Ever?

Democrats hoping for a bruising battle among Republicans that could affect Trump's chances in November might still get their wish.  Haley, who finished only a couple of points behind the Florida governor, could still make this difficult for the Donald in New Hampshire, where independents can vote in the primary, or DeSantis' new-found momentum could result in the knock-down brawl between Don and Ron that once seemed likely only a year ago.  But the Biden campaign had best not count on too much drama in the early state GOP presidential nomination contests, because, as Trump's success last night proved, it's ultimately not going to matter much.    

Slavery Benefited . . . Slaves?

The state of Florida, under the direction of Governor Ron DeSantis - who somehow won re-election in a landslide last year - has just issued guidelines to teach in public schools that slavery had positive benefits for those who were enslaved, as they developed skills such as blacksmithing, carpentry, painting, and, for all I know, bellows-mending.

Unless you're talking about Nat Turner using the organizing skills he developed as a slave to lead a rebellion of slaves against their white masters, I don't see how that idea makes a ton of sense.

Even if the slaves did indeed learn skills, how many of them were able to put them to use for their own benefit once they were freed?  How many were actually freed?  I'm willing to bet that a majority of slaves who learned skills - and many if not most of them probably didn't, because their masters simply had them pick cotton or shine shoes - never lived long enough to gain freedom and employ their skills.

Let's get real.  The only people who benefited from slavery were white people.  Not just the Southern plantation owners but the Northern textile mill owners who bought all that cotton and employed low-paid white workers - "wage slaves," as John C. Calhoun called them - to turn the cotton into cloth.  But at least in the early nineteenth century, the white working class of the Northeast could pack up and venture west for land and opportunity.  Slaves didn't have that liberty, even if they were more skilled than the white textile workers in New York or Massachusetts.  

As for Ron DeSantis, he clearly lacks the necessary skills to be a successful politician . . . at least outside Florida.

Latter Days

At the annual Nuremberg rally - er, Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, Trump revealed the Coming of the Apocalypse by declaring to be the "warrior, justice and retribution" of all those patriots and defenders of the state who have been sinned and libeled against by the radical left.

Also, at the same underattended conference, 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley, speaking to a bunch of empty chairs,  made a statement that was as well reported as the conference was attended.  She said that "wokeism" is a virus more deadly than a zoonotic virus of any pandemic.  This is going on while anti-abortion governors crack down on abortion pill distribution.  Walgreens has already decided not to offer abortion pills in at least twenty states. 

And though black women like April Ryan and Zerlina Maxwell say it's up to the sistas to save America, Fani Willis, the one sista who could actually do that by indicting Trump for illegal interference in the 2020 Georgia presidential electoral college vote, might not get that chance.  A bill quickly circulating through the Georgia state legislature will give the state government the authority to remove district attorneys like Willis for abuse of power, defined as "black women who investigate and obviously hate white men."  This racist bill will allow Trump to escape indictment in the one slam-dunk case against him, although he says he will continue running for President if he's indicted to fulfill his promise of destroying the bleeding-heart liberals who want to make us give up our American way of life.

This is happening as the Florida state legislature may consider a bill "canceling" the Florida Democratic Party for its support of racism . . . in the 1850s and 1860s - while Ron DeSantis continues to ban black history from being taught in schools . . . even in February. 

And in Tennessee, the governor has singed a bill outlawing drag shows, which will likely punish cable providers with fines and imprisonment for their corporate officers if they air "RuPaul's Drag Race" in the state.  (Yeah, and maybe they'll ban Hillary Clinton from visiting Tennessee for being a drag king - those pantsuits!)  The RuPaul program, a celebration of drag-queen culture, is a favorite of New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who, to the Make America Great Again crowd, is an obvious obstruction to their agenda, and she is clearly un-American for her solidarity with transsexuals and for her environmentalist agenda, and of course every true-red MAGA Republican knows what a threat to the Republic AOC and Jennifer Lopez are as Puerto Rican women for their solidarity with undocumented immigrants as well as J-Lo's anti-American, pro-migrant, indecent 2020 Super Bowl halftime show performance, the likes of which are likely to be banned in Tennessee if the Super Bowl is ever held in the state. 

I just have one question . . .

When did this country suddenly become Utah?

The last days are here.  Blow your trumpet (or your harmonica), son. 

Immigration Man

A couple of border-state Republican governors have been sending migrants to Democratic-run sanctuary cities in the northern United States, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida - which is not a border state unless you consider its tenuous proximity to the Bahamas or Cuba - went them one better by sending migrants to Martha's Vineyard in a deliberate attempt to instigate the most embarrassing incident to happen to the Democratic Party in Dukes County, Massachusetts since Ted Kennedy made a wrong turn and drove his Oldsmobile into a pond and swam away with a young lady still in the car.

DeSantis, running for re-election as governor of Florida in November, wanted to show up the liberal elite who live and vacation in Martha's Vineyard (and, of course, Chappaquiddick) by giving them a taste of what states on the southern tier of the country have to deal with on more regular basis.  He made a few strategic errors, however.  First of all, most if not all of the migrants he sent to Martha's Vineyard were Venezuelan; they'd been escaping the left-wing dictatorship of President Nicolas Maduro, whom Republicans hate with a cold passion.  Many Republicans happily welcome Venezuelan immigrants to this country to show up Maduro.  What would DeSantis have done if he couldn't send them elsewhere in the United States, send them back to Venezuela?  Send them back to live under the very sort of left-wing socialist government he despises?   Second, the people of Martha's Vineyard were happy to receive these migrants, because people on the island have a history of welcoming outsiders.  It's why many black families have vacationed there for decades, in fact.  They gave the migrants a warmer welcome that they would have gotten if they'd stayed in Florida.  Third, DeSantis sent them there under false pretenses, promising them "work opportunities, schooling for their children, and immigration assistance – in order to induce them to travel," according to Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-based lawyers' group, which is calling for DeStanis to be criminally investigated.

Alas, none of that matters. DeSantis achieved exactly what he wanted - to make Americans stop talking about abortion and voting rights and start talking about immigration, an issue that Democrats are trusted in handling well as much as an elephant can be trusted to bring you a bag of peanuts.  The Republican elephant just motivated the peanut gallery to come out and vote in November  - not just for DeSantis in Florida but for Trumpist candidates in other states.  

Democrats somehow thought that they could play Republicans over the loss of fundamental reproductive rights, but given that immigration has been an issue for longer than the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision on abortion has been, they forgot one thing in taking on the Republicans - you can't play a player.  

Charles, The Third

How moribund is the Florida Democratic Party these days?  Let's examine the evidence:

• Florida hasn't elected a Democratic governor since 1994, when the biggest story in America was O.J. Simpson.
• Florida hasn't elected a Democratic U.S. Senator since 2012, and voters last elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate seat in Florida up for election this year in 1998.
• Democrats haven't held a majority of the Florida U.S. House delegation since 1988.
• Florida Democrats haven't controlled the state Senate since 1994 and haven't controlled the state House since 1996.
• Florida Democrats Alan Grayson, Alex Sink, Kendrick Meek, Gwen Graham and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell were all considered Democrats to watch in the 2010s.  Now the FBI couldn't find them even if it did have time to spare while searching Mar-a-Lago. 
• Andrew Gillum, the previous Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Florida, was expected to be a visible voting-rights activist after his loss, like Stacey Abrams.  Instead, he got in trouble when he was found getting high on crystal meth and has since been charged for wire fraud and fraudulent political fundraising. 
• The only current Democratic statewide elected official in Florida is Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, and the state party's queen bee is U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, best known for giving us Donald Trump by rigging the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries for Hillary Clinton as Democratic National Committee chair.

And, in this environment, Florida Democrats have decided to give Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor who became a Democrat and got elected to the U.S. House, a third try at statewide office since leaving the governorship.  Having run for the U.S. Senate as an independent in 2010 and as a Democrat to get his old job back in the governor's office in 2014, Florida Democrats nominated him once again for the governorship of Florida against incumbent governor Ron DeSantis. 

There could hardly be a more dubious opponent for DeSantis than Crist, who defeated Nikki Fried in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.  Unlike Fried, who was strongly pro-choice, Crist's record on abortion is mixed at best, and he once called himself pro-life when he was an independent.  He also supported capital punishment, which is about as popular with Democrats as fast food is with Frenchmen.  He was also against same-sex unions before he was for it.  The anti-Crist ads the DeSantis campaign hopes to run have, apparently, already written themselves.

Maybe the third time to try to win statewide office is going to be the charm for Crist, because DeSantis is such an awful human being who is trying his darnedest to make Florida resemble Fascist Italy, right down to interfering with private businesses like Disney and instituting racist and homophobic education policies designed to indoctrinate children and teenagers into espousing black-shirt values as adults.  The sad truth is many Florida voters love their Duce, and this could be Crist's last stand as a Florida politician.

Right now, I think the best way Crist can become a governor again is if he moves to a Democratic state.

Val Demings? I'll get to her later. 

Il Duce Floridiane

Mussolini was born twice.  The second time he was named DeSantis.

Don't believe me?  Among the atrocities Ron DeSantis has committed as governor of Florida:

He signed a voting restriction bill that will make it easier for Republicans like himself to win re-election.

He signed a bill banning education in non-heterosexual orientations for elementary school below fourth grade.  It's called the "don't say gay" law.  Maybe it's not appropriate to teach children that young about non-hetero issues, but, as Michael Smerconish conceded, it produces a serous dilemma for a teacher who has to deal with a student asking why her friend has two mommies.

When the Walt Disney Company, which of course operates Walt Disney World and other amusement parks (and resorts) in Florida - in an area the size if San Francisco - objected to the don't say gay" law, DeSantis pushed for and signed a bill removing the company's ability to run its complex as a separate municipal entity.  The bill takes effect in June 2023. 

It's as if DeSantis, having defeated for the governorship in 2018 a Democrat who was both black and bisexual (Andrew Gillum, whose personal issues with drink and drugs led to his downfall after the 2018 Florida gubernatorial election), has fixed things so there is no way a Democrat who checks those diversity boxes can never get elected to anything in Florida again.

But wait - there's more!  The DeSantis administration also rejected math books for including references to critical race theory.  I imagined an example of critical race theory in a math book as being something like this:

"Five white male/black female couples arrive at the senior prom twenty minutes after leaving their homes. Meanwhile, five black male/white female couples arrive at the senior prom thirty minutes after leaving their homes. If the white male/black female couples all arrive at 7:30 PM, three black male/white female couples arrive at 7:45 PM, and two black male/white female couples arrive at 8:00 PM, how many school board members does it take to bust up the senior prom?" 😛 😠

Actually, the "examples" of CRT-based math are quite innocuous, as this article from the Washington Post demonstrates.  But such policies are no surprise coming from a right-wing populist like DeSantis, who has successfully established the first dictatorship in the United States.  Right down to the rubber-stamp legislature in Tallahassee.

DeSantis calls his state the "Free State of Florida" - which sounds more fascistic than you might think. 😱

The Delta Corona

A week ago, I wrote about the disaster that would result once the Delta variant of SARS CoV-2 hit - really hit - in the U.S.  Well, it's really hitting now.  More people are catching the delta corona in numbers we haven't seen since we had to worry about the British Alpha variant, and states like Missouri and Florida are in full pandemic mode once again.   Even states where new numbers are low, like my home state of New Jersey, are seeing cases surge, though nowhere nearly as much as in states out west or down south.  The only thing keeping the delta corona from getting as bad as it was this past winter is the relatively large number of people already vaccinated, and a majority of people happen to be fully vaccinated in New Jersey.

Oh yeah, about vaccinations . . . I'm not as hopeful about the very incremental rise in vaccination rates as I used to be.  The national vaccination rate, according to the Web site Our World In Data, went from 47.8 percent to 48.5 percent between July 3 and July 11 - a daily increase of one tenth of a percent - suggesting that we could reach 70 percent of Americans vaccinated by some time in February 2022 if that rate continues.  But it's July 15 now, and so many people seem to have shunned a COVID vaccine lately that Our World In Data hasn't updated its figures since July 11 (this past Sunday).  

And yet the foolishness continues.  Right-wingers at the latest Conservative Political Action Conference applauded the news that vaccination rates have gone down.  Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a 2024 Republican presidential possibility, is basing his 2022 gubernatorial re-election campaign on demonizing Dr. Anthony Fauci.  Even as French President Emmanuel Macron (below) is now requiring vaccine passports, which caused vaccination appointments in France to go up rapidly, the very idea of vaccine passports remains as popular in America as proposals to legalize LSD.

Before you start checking out rental properties in Paris and looking at where you can get a good deal on a Renault once you're there, however, there is still a modicum of hope.  Republican leaders such as Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell and Arkansas governor Asa Hutchison are pushing for more COVID vaccinations ("We're in the red zone, but not in the end zone," Senator McConnell explained).  The Biden administration is preparing to fight back against vaccine misinformation, doubling down on efforts to get local political figures, clergy, and doctors to convince people to get vaccinated.  President Biden has even enlisted Olivia Rodrigo - a singer who's popular with American youth, though she's unheard of by folks whose idea of a great female singer is Janis Joplin or Stevie Nicks - to encourage more young people to get the jab.  President Biden is also preparing to send surge teams to areas of the country where COVID is rebounding to get treatments and testing for those who caught the bug.  And there's anecdotal evidence that, in hot spots like Springfield, Missouri, people are beginning to get vaccinated based on the alarming surge in COVID cases.

Despite all that, the pandemic in America is clearly going to get worse before it gets better.  Even those who get sick or know someone who does may not be convinced enough to get vaccinated, and if even any variant that arises from the Delta isn't vaccine-resistant, it's likely to be an even bigger deal in terms of transmission and symptoms.  Considering natural immunity from infection and any spike in vaccinations that may occur based on the current situation, the pandemic will likely end in America soon enough.  But it's going to end with a bang, not a whimper; once the Delta variant burns out, it's going to leave a lot scorched earth in its wake.

And it may even upend Ron DeSantis' campaign strategy.

Viruses, vaccines, variants . . . I'm surprised that the "v" key on my laptop hasn't worn off completely by now.

Ron DeInsanis

The governor of the state of Florida, Ronald Dion DeSantis, just announced that the state is opening up all bars and restaurants despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and Florida municipalities and counties are not allowed to fine people for not wearing face coverings in the effort to retard the spread of the virus.

To add insult to injury, DeSantis (above) won't allow restaurants to operate under 50 percent capacity.  He wants the state to rev up full tilt boogie to get back to a pre-COVID normalcy.  He's even vowed that will be open for business when Super Bowl LV is played there in February.

Look, I want to get back to normal as soon as possible, because I'm getting sick - almost literally - of breathing in the smell of cloth against my nose, but it's too soon to open up anything anywhere in America as if the the virus were no big deal.  The second wave of the virus is already forcing lockdowns in Britain and Spain, and it's already coming down hard on the Midwest here at home.  Now is not the time to go into a reopening of eateries and drinkeries (I just invented a word).   But DeSantis doesn't care, except what Donald Trump thinks, and I'm sure the Trumpster will be pleased with DeSantis' declaration that the virus is behind Florida.  After all, Trump is a legal resident of the state and wants its slate of electoral votes again.

I am cautiously optimistic that Trump will lose in November, in spite of all the mischief he's made.  But I'm even more confident that because he's reopening his state prematurely, the virus will get so bad in Florida that DeSantis will be in deep trouble when he runs for re-election in 2022.

Unless Florida Democrats - known for blowing it over and over over and over - come up with another doozy of an opponent.

Amy Coney Barrett?  Relax, I'll get to her . . .

Election 2018: Game On

After numerous setbacks involving his cronies and John McCain's beautifully orchestrated funeral - orchestrated by McCain himself - Donald Trump finds himself staring at his worst poll numbers in over a year - a Washington Post/ABC News poll gives him a 60 percent presidential disapproval rating and a mere 36 percent approval rating.

I'm curious about the 4 percent of poll respondents who have no opinion!

Right now, All signs point to a Democratic takeover of the U.S. House in November, though it's not certain how big the Democratic House majority in the next Congress will be.  The real action will be in state legislative elections and gubernatorial elections, and the biggest governor's race is shaping up in Florida, where progressive Democrat Andrew Gillum, who is black, is going against Trump Republican Ron DeSantis.             

DeSantis has wasted no time in portraying Gillum's liberal agenda as dangerous for the state, but he's also wasted no time in fighting dirty.  He warned Floridians that Gillum sounds articulate while advocating for his policies, which most blacks hear as a backhanded remark from racist whites who find it astonishing that black people are able to speak the king's English and have a high intelligence.

Of course, it's easy to interpret DeSantis's remark as a warning to centrist and conservative Florida voters not to be taken in by Gillum's rhetorical ability to present a liberal governing policy as if it were mainstream (actually, it is; more about that in a moment) - that is, one could assume that he's less concerned with Gillum's dark brown skin than he is with his silver tongue.  But no one could possibly misinterpret What DeSantis said next - that a Gillum governorship could "monkey up" Florida.

This was clearly a racist comment.  DeSantis aides quickly came out and said that "monkey it up" is an expression DeSantis came up with himself that isn't meant to have racial connotations, but no one is buying it.  I've invented my own expressions, like the wholesome "No kidding, Kojak!" to use instead of the more vulgar "No sh--, Sherlock!"  But when I describe someone causing something to go wrong, I usually say that someone "screwed it up," fouled it up," or whatever.  "But "monkey it up"?  Uh, no.

The monkey here is the one on DeSantis's back - that of bigotry.

As for Gillum's policies . . . look, he's talking about expanding health insurance to everyone, improving education, making the wealthy pay for it . . . all actually quite mainstream positions.  Not that establishment Democrats have ever cared to notice; they've been too busy trying to move to the center for the past quarter century and getting their rear ends handed to them at the ballot box, both in Florida and elsewhere.  This makes it all the more crucial that Gillum wins in November.  Phil Murphy's 2017 gubernatorial victory in New Jersey attracted zero interest outside the state because New Jersey is so heavily Democratic it would have elected a ficus plant to succeed Chris Christie so long as it was a Democrat.  Florida is a swing state - a state that can go either way not just in presidential elections but in any statewide election - where a Democratic victory would mean something. Not that that there have been that many Democratic victories in Florida; as I noted last week, the state's Democratic Party is on death's door, holding neither house of the state legislature and possibly losing a U.S. Senate seat this fall.    Also, Florida Democrats have lost all of the five most recent gubernatorial elections there, manly by nominating squishy centrists (including, ironically, former Republican governor - and now Democratic congressman - Charlie Crist).  Gillum is running for governor as something different, and I'm not talking about his race.  He's offering a bold, progressive, social democratic agenda that could re-invigorate the party, get the masses to finally vote for their own interests, and also carry Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson to victory on Gillum's coattails.  But if he loses, Democrats will likely learn the wrong lesson and try to keep the party in the center - a center defined by the Republican right.

Andrew Gillum not only can win the governorship of Florida. He must win the governorship of Florida.