As other Kossacks have noted, Florida state senator Jason Brodeur has introduced a bill that would require bloggers and other non-newspaper writers who mention Gov. Ron DeSantis and other politicians to register and disclose any payments. Here’s the email I sent him on his contact form yesterday:
Dear Sen. Brodeur,
I’m not sure I qualify as a blogger, but I often post on the social media site Spoutible. I also had a letter published in today's Sarasota Herald-Tribune pointing out that Gov. DeSantis's and Florida Republicans' nonstop use of state power to punish anyone who mentions facts about American history, Black Americans' experience of racism, or toleration of or the mere existence of gay and trans people meets the dictionary definition of fascism.
So does your grotesquely un-American, wildly unconstitutional, all-out Nazi proposal to shred the First Amendment and require writers who mention the governor or other state officials to register with the state. You should be ashamed to pretend to hold public office, or American citizenship, and I wish you all the worst. May your life be an eternal root canal.
Sincerely, Eric Grevstad
As for DeSantis, he’s Trump with an IQ over 70, hence extremely dangerous, but even his fans won't buy paintings of him as Rocky or Superman. He's not a celebrity tycoon; he's a short, sullen, bitchy prick who acts tough but won't face Trump at CPAC or allow Trump fans at his rallies.
DeSantis offers a vista where Blacks, gays, and uppity women have been banned, suppressed, driven out. That appeals to MAGA, certainly, but in a weird way they'd rather own the libs than eradicate them. They don’t want us gone, they want us in the stocks in the town square so they can taunt us.
Today’s GOP is about reveling in hate and making others suffer. Hitler was a mesmerizing speaker, but compared to Trump DeSantis is Albert Speer -- a petty functionary, an evil apparatchik. If he has the nerve to run in 2024, I think Trump will eat him alive.