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| Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spoke before a group of local citizens on Tuesday, May 10th at Jackson's Steakhouse in Downtown Pensacola |
I was invited to attend the event-- and the room was filled with about 50 other invitees-- consisting of locally elected officials, several state representatives, several political candidates, local and regional business owners, law enforcement officers, community leaders, individual citizens, and several college presidents.
After some brief socializing among the attendees, host Collier Merrill, owner of the event venue Jackson's Steakhouse, gave a warm welcome to the folks in attendance. He began by introducing the event's host committee and several attendees including the mayor who was seated up front. Upon being introduced first, Mayor Grover Robinson rushed up front to shake Gov. DeSantis's hand.
"Okay, no one else do that when I introduce you!" Merill quipped after Robinson returned to his seat to some chuckles in the room.
Then Governor DeSantis took the mike and began giving a very well timed, fact and data-filled stump speech to the assembled group lasting about 25 minutes or so. I was surprised at the amount of time from the twenty-five minutes the governor spent on issues of education and school boards. I was glad to hear that. It was also interesting to watch literally everyone stop eating and put down their foks and knives when he started his speech.
He began with The Walt Disney issue that has been all over the press lately.
"Listen, Disney wishes they could get a mulligan on some of their statements about our legislature and our state--they've lost about $60Billion in Market Capitalization since we passed the [Reddy Creek] law." He went on. "They're a California company and they think they can tell us how to run our Florida schools?--that's not happening!" He also mentioned some of the Zoom meetings among Disney Executives held in the lead up to their very public statements vowing to support overturning Florida's Parental Rights in Education Bill--urging folks who hadn't yet seen these videos to watch them. "Everyone who hasn't seen those should watch them" DeSantis stated.
Then he transitioned to the election, discussing his assessment of the 2018 election, in which he defeated Democrat Andrew Gillum by a slim margin. "Look, we dodged a bullet in 2018--imagine if we had not won that election? We would have been locked down with the rest of the other Democrat states in the COVID Pandemic and we would have lost jobs and businesses. In this [2022] election we have the opportunity to win and not just win but to win big--which is not just a win for me but also a win for the state and other Republicans and conservative candidates in the election all across Florida. Congress, the state legislature, and local school boards--this election is an opportunity to win all of this-and win big"
He talked about the growth of the state, particularly from Blue states. "Listen, a lot of people have asked me about people moving here from Democrat states, and the concern is this will somehow change our state to a Democrat state. What we are seeing is the opposite of that, conservative people and businesses are moving here because they like our tax structure and they like the fact that we are the beachead for freedom during the pandemic when other states--even nearby Republican states--were locked down. He continued "What we are seeing with voter registrations is that there are fewer registered Democrats now and more Republicans --meaning like-minded citizens are coming to Florida in bigger numbers. And we are also getting some Independents and Democrats to switch to Republican as they like the way we are running things here in Florida."
He took a good bit of time touting Florida schools: "Look, our schools never locked down when other states' schools did. We kept schools open and we kept kids in schools and as a result our perfomance compared to every other non-rural state puts us at #1. It's because we kept our students in school where they need to be to learn."
He also touted Florida's fiscally austere stewardship. "We are doing a great job with our budget compared with these Democrat states." he stated flatly. "We have a $100 Billion Dollar budget--a state like New York has 3 million fewer citizens and budget that is double ours, double, $200 Billion. No, Florida is doing it right and we also have reserves coming out of this session that total nearly $20 Billion Dollars." He continued "Look, we might go into a recession. I hope we don't, but with this crazy inflation coming down on us from Washington, we could. If we do, we have reserves and we can plug the hole and carry on."
After he completed his speech to a room that was literally silent and hanging on every word, he took a few questions.
The Mayor thanked him for his leadership and discussed NW Florida's need for the state's continued assistance with infrastructure.
One gentelman behind me shouted out to the governor his approval. "I'm one of those transplants Governor. I brought my company down here two years ago from Louisville"
Another question came from an attendee asking about the 2024 Presidential election. DeSantis didn't take the bait on that loaded question, though, instead pivoting back to 2022's election and the recent legislation Florida has passed tightening security at elections and establishing an election integrity unit.
"Florida will have fair elections--we won't be like those other states that take two weeks to count the votes after election night" he continued "We counted 99% of all the votes on election night by midnight. Other states take weeks. And if you take that long, and a candidate is winning on election night and then after weeks of additional votes being counted that candidate loses--it calls the election into question" He went on "We've done away with unattended ballot boxes and 'ballot harvesting' in Florida, we're not having that. In other states they have these boxes all over the place and people stuffing ballots into them in the middle of the night. You've got other states mailing out ballots to people who didn't request them, we're not going to do that here. And we are going to require a photo ID to vote and out elections are going to be secure" he concluded
After the questions the Governor concluded his remarks to sustained round of applause. He spent a little time speaking with some attendees and taking photos with others. It was a very short time later that he was whisked out of the venue and the room cleared out. It was good to hear from the governor in person in Pensacola. I suspect there will be many more stops here prior to the general election in November.
12 comments:
Thank you for this Comm Bergosh. Good job on getting all his words into text in way we can be apart of it. Well done.We absolutely did dodge a bullet last election for Governor. We are fortunate he is running again.
Oh boy. There goes your head blowing up even more.
The very face of the rise of fascism in this country.
More dangerous than Trump, and he would be far more effective at finally toppling our democracy, if a coup hungry GOP House and Senate don't get there first.
A carnival barker with a mug that belongs on the cover of Mad Magazine, coupled with an insatiable thirst for authoritarian power.
He would have put me off my lunch, too.
DeSantis is doing a great job as Florida Governor. No doubt this is why his favorability polling is so high, why so many citizens are fleeing the tyranny of the Blue states to settle here, and why so many want to come here for vacations. His numbers tell the story: The strategy of not locking down the state paid off and Florida is well positioned to weather the coming recession which we are probably already in but which will be finally acknowledged once the latest GDP figures are announced and we see another contraction. Blue States= Huge Budgets, deficit spending, MASSIVE long term liabilities and Debt. Florida = Balanced budget, healthy pension fund, 20 Billion in reserves for the coming Washington Created economic firestorm. Plus, and most importantly ad I quote from the Governor's breakfast "Florida is the beachhead of freedom." Yes it is. Yes it is.
My post had nothing to do with republican versus democrat values and strategies, Commissioner Bergosh. I'm an NPA and despise platform politics.
My post had to do with fascism, and the fact--fact--that this country is in the process of losing our democracy.
It had to do with the rapidly increasing totalitarianism that the republican party is embracing, instituting, and utilizing to take ironclad control of authoritarian power.
Trump, his obsessed cult, and the morally bankrupt republicans who slobber allegiance on him took us a good deal of the way towards becoming an oligarchic dictatorship--and I mean that literally. If January 6th had been successful, Trump would be dictator of the United States and we would no longer be clinging to our democracy. It would already be over.
DeSantis will be more than happy to get us across the finish line of fascism, and has already turned Florida into an authoritarian hell while distracting his base with woke culture wars. For anyone familiar with historical precedent on how fascism takes flame in societies that were previously democratic, everything he is doing is textbook fascism, to a T. He is methodically checking off the list of what elements need controlling for one person to gain total control, and if he wins reelection there will be literally nothing to stop him but a thin blue federal line from doing absolutely anything he cares to do. Then will come, quietly at first, all the ways he already has lined up to start seizing property. The probate court is already seeded with the start of that.
But the most key element authoritarians *have* to have is a critical mass of devotees to conflate their ruler's sick charisma and suicidal ultimatums with magical, godly, all-powerful abilities. He needs adulatory posts just like the one above to get done what he's trying to do, and it's a chicken or an egg question of why you're writing a post now that heaps adoration on a politician--a politician--which you wouldn't have dreamed of doing, say, five years ago. I'm sure if he sees it, he'll be very pleased. At the same time he'll be very amused at how easily he spins people up into a cultish lather to lavish praise on his incoherent propaganda standing in for intellect and governance.
If he wins reelection, which he likely will, I predict it will only take another couple of years for Florida to be in more ungodly fiscal and regulatory messes than he and his slavish legislature have already put the citizens of this state. Perhaps then people will wake up. I doubt it, though. The fervor for fascism in this state is too far down the road. It may be too late for the country as a whole, also.
DeSantis has a lot of common sense and fortitude which is tantamount in leading our country and state.
Since the end of World War II in 1945, few parties have openly described themselves as fascist; the term is more often used pejoratively by political opponents.
Since the end of World War II in 1945, the term is more often used pejoratively by political opponents. hmmmm
922, yes those rants posted on here about GOP and fascism are so outrageous and ridiculous one really should not try to engage, in my opinion. Fruitless.
It doesn't hurt to research about the rise of fascism in post WWI Italy and Germany and also about communism, learn the history of what it is and isn't and the nuances if one actually want to discuss those.
Reade about conservatives policy and populism. Nationalism ect
There are extremists, such as BLM robbing millions and the radical shooter at the grocery.
Socialist vs Fascist at the time.
I think a governor, exercising his authority through an elected legislature and enacting policy by the Florida constitution is with in his elected authority. He can also dissolve special districts that have outlived their time.
The point of the blog was to highlight the present Govoners speech.
He is not a violent fascist. He does have spine. I think he could have implemented more broad health measures during COVID, but his policies do seem to have paid off.
He is definitely for Individual freedom.
What hurts our Republic, is sanctioning cheating on elections for power, as in what happened in 2020, media propaganda that is still ongoing and social media companies like Twitter, stoping free speech, because as one employee admitted.. they are communist as F@#%.
I somewhat disagree with DeSantis, for what it is worth on the COVID response, I think he could have encouraged more vaccinations and even mask wearing-- keeping everything going was good policy.
but an FYI to you, I just noticed that Escambia and Baldwin AL counties are back in a high rate of COVID 19 transmission, we may be also.
Thought you might like to be aware of that, going into the meeting later.
florida was in the top 3 of covid deaths in this country.......
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