Sun Sentinel. November 1, 2022.

Editorial: The hate around us draws a pathetic DeSantis response

Silence speaks volumes. Sometimes it screams.

It’s now shouting at peak decibels amid the failure of Gov. Ron DeSantis, and many lesser politicians, to speak out more forcefully against the ominous rise of antisemitism in Florida and across the country.

These hateful incidents have risen steadily since 2016, rising to a record 2,717 last year, an increase of 34% over the previous year, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

In the sedate Broward suburb of Weston, racial and ethnic slurs were scrawled at the main entrance to the Hunters Pointe subdivision. In early October, over Yom Kippur, no less, swastikas were painted on kids’ playground toys in a park — a safe space for kids. This is disgusting and heartbreaking.

“This is not the world I want to raise my children in,” said Rep. Robin Bartleman, D-Weston.

What happened in Weston wasn’t graffiti vandalism. It was pure hatred.

It also wasn’t an isolated incident.

On an I-10 overpass in Jacksonville, a bedsheet displayed the despicable stenciled message “End Jewish supremacy in America.”

Also in Jacksonville last Saturday, a vile message was projected on the exterior of TIAA Bank Field after the Florida-Georgia football game. It referred to the poisonous conduct of Kanye West and replicated a banner hung over a freeway in L.A.: “Kanye is right about the Jews.”

A failure of leadership

The Jacksonville incident brought swift condemnations from both universities, their athletic conference, Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony and many others.

But for two days there was only silence from DeSantis, who commands Florida’s premier bully pulpit and a huge national following.

Late Monday, a spokesman for the governor told Newsweek: “Gov. DeSantis rejects attempts to scapegoat the Jewish community. It has no place in Florida.”

Spokesman Jeremy Redfern cited DeSantis’ support for the Jewish community, including his opposition to the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, and approving more money for Jewish day schools for security and to support the Florida Holocaust Museum.

A tepid statement is better than nothing, but not by much. It’s a poor substitute for DeSantis speaking forcefully in his own words. Being personally AWOL on this issue will only embolden the haters.

DeSantis’ opponent, Charlie Crist, called the governor’s silence “a disgusting and absolute failure of leadership.”

We suspect DeSantis’ hesitancy is a fear of offending some of those whose votes he needs in next week’s election.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

He said nothing last January after neo-Nazis marched at an Orlando intersection (except to attack those who criticized him for not speaking out), and again when extremists waved swastikas at a right-wing student convention in Tampa in July.

The silence of Donald Trump, DeSantis’ potential rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is not surprising. After all, he validated antisemitism with the imprimatur of the American presidency five years ago by declaring that “very fine people” were among the Nazis and other white supremacists who rallied with deadly consequences at Charlottesville, Va.

Trump doesn’t bother to conceal his antisemitism, most recently displayed when he denounced American Jews over what he perceives as their lack of support for Israel. But then, Trump goes out of his way to curry favor from the bottomless sewer of American politics.

Deplorable silence

The same deplorable silence characterizes much of the Republican establishment, including DeSantis, after the attack last Friday on Paul Pelosi, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, at their home in San Francisco.

While Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and others in Congress spoke out forcefully, others — notably Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin — sought to make crude political humor of it. Rather than condemn the attack, Rep. Chip LaMarca, R-Lighthouse Point, callously attacked Democrats as soft on crime.

“Maybe now,” LaMarca tweeted, “they’ll get tough on crime, theft, assault, murder and no-cash bail that has plagued a once great American city?”

What? The attack on Paul Pelosi wasn’t a random street crime; it was a premeditated, politically motivated assassination attempt.

“Your MAGA colors are showing,” Broward’s Dolphin Democrats tweeted to LaMarca in response.

Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, even tweeted a bit of conspiratorial idiocy over the attack that does not bear repetition here. Musk deleted it, but not before he showed the world how unfortunate it is to have any social media enterprise under his control.

DeSantis and others owe Floridians more than a perfunctory statement in the face of history’s most persistent and deadly hatred. As the Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said, silence favors the oppressor.

“This is not OK anywhere — but especially here, in our community,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, who joined other leaders in loudly condemning the acts of hatred on Monday. “We are better than this.”

___

Tampa Bay Times. October 27, 2022.

Editorial: Where are Florida’s marijuana licenses?

DeSantis’ foot-dragging flouts voters’ will and state law

Florida voters in 2016 overwhelmingly approved Amendment 2, intent on creating a market for medical marijuana to help those suffering from debilitating illnesses. But a Florida appeals court judge rightly chided the state last month month for failing to serve this growing market, in what’s become only the latest betrayal of the voters’ will by the governor and Legislature.

The shot across the bow from First District Court of Appeal Judge Ross Bilbrey’s came as Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration continues to drag its feet on issuing new licenses to medical marijuana operators. As the News Service of Florida explained, a 2017 law creates a framework for the state’s medical marijuana industry. Florida has 22 medical marijuana operators, but the law requires the Department of Health to grant new licenses as the number of patients increases. With more than 700,000 patients, the state should have issued at least another 22 licenses — double the current number — to keep pace. Bilbrey said that potential applicants are “understandably frustrated” and the judge suggested they file legal challenges to force the state to open the permit pipeline.

Since taking office in 2019, the governor has left the application process in limbo, blaming a delay on litigation over the 2017 law. But the Florida Supreme Court upheld the statute last year, and Bilbrey has repeatedly questioned state health department attorneys about the apparent bad faith behind the delays. The judge even noted that Florida had failed to grant a license earmarked in the 2017 law for a Black farmer. (The state finally announced this week that it had selected a north Florida farmer for the license.)

This obstruction has become standard operating procedure in Republican-led Florida. First lawmakers ignore the voters’ demand for political change. So Floridians go over their heads and pass a constitutional amendment. Then lawmakers ignore those amendments or distort their intent — forcing Floridians to seek justice in the courts. It’s happened with redistricting, environmental spending and felon voting rights. No surprise it’s happening here.

The state should be carrying out the voters’ will and meeting the demands of the market. Restricting permits only dampens competition. It sends the wrong message to investors, stigmatizes medical use and further embroils the state health department in yet another political issue. The department has had ample time to do its diligence and get the applications process in gear. It shouldn’t fall on companies to seek relief from the courts when these regulatory functions are a matter of routine.

Supporters are hoping to put a measure to legalize recreational marijuana on the statewide ballot in 2024. Will our state leaders put up similar obstacles if that measure passes?

It’s beyond time that state officials recognize that Floridians made a choice to support medical marijuana, and that customers and businesses alike deserve a fully-functioning marketplace.

___

Orlando Sentinel. October 30, 2022.

Editorial: Will voters be surprised by attempts to block their ballots?

January 6, 2021, and its aftermath taught us something about this nation that’s hard to fathom: There’s a growing group of people who view elections as threats to democracy.

And no, we’re not talking about the ridiculous claims about elections officials tampering with ballots. Yet those lies — starting with The Big Lie, that Donald Trump was somehow cheated of victory in an election he lost by 7 million popular votes and a decisive Electoral College tally — should be viewed as part of the campaign to discourage people who might otherwise vote.

Discourage them. Trick them. Harass them. Frighten them. Block them. Pick your anti-voter poison. It’s all happening. Florida might not be seeing the crazed extremes of other states, such as the armed and obviously intimidating folks “guarding” ballot drop boxes in Arizona.

But paranoia is on the rise. Many Florida elections officials have seen an upswing in the number of people who want to watch ballots being verified — and have expanded rights, under a 2021 state law, to inspect and challenge a ballot. Before the passage of SB 90, these poll watchers could only do that once a questionable ballot had been handed off to the county’s canvassing board. Why did GOP lawmakers want to allow partisan forces to interject themselves more deeply into the vote-counting process? Why did Gov. Ron DeSantis and then-Secretary of State Laurel Lee grant several meetings to a group called DefendFlorida, which claims to be nonpartisan but links to extremist groups on its website ? and which says it has evidence of thousands of voting “irregularities’ from the 2020 elections. Their proposed remedy? Kill the two most popular forms of voting in Florida: Mail and early voting.

Meanwhile, we’re waiting to see what DeSantis’ new elections law enforcement unit does next. Its first stunt in August — staging humiliating arrests of 20 former felons who were accused of voting even though they were ineligible — is crumbling rapidly, as evidence mounts that most of those arrested had been told by various government officials that they could register and vote. On Oct. 21, the first of those cases was dismissed. We expect other acquittals to follow, but we also know the damage that’s been done.

Former felons who want to vote might now think twice, afraid that they will be the next to hear that knock on their door.

Meanwhile, local and state voter-advocacy groups are wondering what threats might emerge in the coming weeks. They recall the wild rumors that spread on Florida Spanish-language radio stations prior to Election Day 2020, including rumors that Black Lives Matter was engaging in some form of “brujería,” (witchcraft) to steal votes for Joe Biden. Most of us also saw disinformation circulating on social media.

That discouragement is bad enough. But Florida’s leading civil-rights groups wrote Attorney General Ashley Moody last week because they’re worried about more confrontational, even violent efforts to block voters at the polls during early voting and on Election Day. It cites groups emerging from the shadows — including an apparent resurgence of Florida’s Proud Boy faction, which has intimidated voters in the past and One More Mission, a new group backed by former Trump official and election-conspiracy pusher Michael Flynn. PBS’s Frontline recently aired an episode that took viewers inside Flynn’s appearance at a bunker-like far-right community venue in Sarasota County known as The Hollow, where he urged members to sign up to become poll workers and poll watchers. The Princeton University Bridging Divides Initiative ranks Florida third in the number of voter-intimidation incidents in the past two years. The nonpartisan Election Protection Initiative logged hundreds of calls from Florida in 2020.

The groups signing the Moody letter, which include the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Common Cause Florida, All Voting is Local Florida, LatinoJustice, the League of Women Voters of Florida and others, asked Moody to issue a statement condemning these acts and promising to prosecute. We hope such a statement is forthcoming.

Because unlike the imaginary sins contemplated by DeSantis’ new police force, voter harassment and intimidation are real crimes, prosecutable under state and federal law, and they can take many forms — Employers who threaten their workers if they vote against management’s wishes. Neighbors who vandalize cars because they object to a political bumper sticker. Scary social-media posts about retribution against the “woke left.”

If you feel targeted by this, help is out there. We’ve included voter-help hotlines which will have advice and if needed, legal help standing by. On our website, we’ll have the editorial we published earlier this week, with an overview of voters’ rights and responsibilities.

We struggle to comprehend the mentality of people — from Florida’s top officials to the thuggish groups behind the Jan. 6, 2021 invasion of our nation’s Capitol — who call themselves proud Americans but then fight to make voting more difficult or block access to the polls altogether. But we don’t need to understand it. We just need to stand against it. Hold on to this most precious right. And remember that if you are targeted, you are not alone: There is help out there. This is your right, and they have your back.

___

Miami Herald. November 1, 2022.

Editorial: DeSantis causes political stir at Luke Bryan’s Florida concert. So what?

Music and politics, at times, have collided or complemented each other. They did so again over the weekend, and Gov. Ron DeSantis was in the middle of it as the country music played in Jacksonville.

It was another example of how popular he is — and isn’t.

This time, it wasn’t about Bill Clinton playing Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” at his inauguration, with permission.

Or Bruce Springsteen asking Donald Trump to stop playing “Born in the U.S.A.” at his events without permission.

Or Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless America,” played for George H. W. Bush at just about every event.

It was over DeSantis appearing on stage at Luke Bryan’s concert in Jacksonville. The singer is one of country music’s biggest stars and a current “American Idol” judge.

Did DeSantis’ appear to help raise donations for Hurricane Ian victims or to drum up votes as he runs for reelection and, allegedly, eyes the White House in 2024?

That’s the tempest in this teapot. We have to ask: And the problem is...?

Some Bryan fans are accusing him of being a DeSantis supporter and giving the governor’s controversial culture wars and revenge politics a platform at a place where they did not expect it, since they were paying for the concert ticket.

No doubt, DeSantis is a divisive public figure. Bryan admitted as much in a tweet Sunday night.

Bryan is defending his decision to invite DeSantis on stage during his Friday night concert. DeSantis was there to raise money for victims of Hurricane Ian, which decimated parts of Southwest Florida in late September.

“Thanks for letting me crash the party last night, @lukebryan!” DeSantis said in a Twitter post the following day, drawing attention across the country.

A tweeted video of the event showed Bryan introducing DeSantis to a loud ovation. “We’re gonna have some fun and raise some money tonight for the great state of Florida,” Bryan tells the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the stage, Governor Ron DeSantis!”

DeSantis comes on stage, tossing a few hats, described as campaign hats, and high-fiving Bryan as the crowd loudly applauds, the video shows. An image showed both men walking arm-in-arm offstage.

That’s when the backlash began, apparently from Bryan’s more-liberal fans angered by DeSantis’ appearance. They expressed their displeasure on social media, where Bryan was trending. Threats were flying that he was done, but there was also support for Bryan.

“Two Rock Stars celebrating freedom in Florida,” one tweet said; another said: “Look, I understand this is for hurricane relief... But when you do this 10 days before the midterms, it’s nothing but a political stunt... Shame on you, Luke Bryan.”

Bryan released a statement on Twitter after footage emerged, though he has not publicly spoken out about whether he supports DeSantis or not.

“I typically don’t respond to stuff when I’m getting run down on a social platform, but here’s the deal,” Bryan wrote. “I understand Governor DeSantis is a very polarizing figure. But I grew up in a country where if a governor asks you if they can come and raise awareness to help victims of a natural disaster, you help.”

Here’s another song to consider: Petula Clark’s “A Sign of the Times.”

Just about every aspect of our lives is a political team sport nowadays, even attending a concert. Everyone picks a side — and digs in.

We don’t think Bryan or DeSantis did anything wrong. Of course, Bryan’s fate will be decided by the free market. And that of DeSantis will be decided at the ballot box.

END

News from © The Associated Press, 2022