Tag Archive for: florida

DeSantis Denies ‘U-Turn’ On Revoking Disney’s Special Privileges

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A spokesman for Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis denied reports that Florida is walking back his plans to revoke Disney’s special tax district in Friday comments to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

DeSantis signed legislation eliminating Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District in April, ending special administrative and tax privileges the company had enjoyed since 1967, following a public spat between Disney and DeSantis over a bill banning classroom instruction on gender and sexuality for young children. Florida lawmakers were reportedly planning to walk back the elimination of Reedy Creek, due in part to concerns about the additional costs it could impose on the state, according to a Friday Financial Times report.

The Reedy Creek Improvement District allows Disney to operate its own government within Disney World in Florida, meaning it collects taxes to fund its own water, roads and other infrastructure.

“Florida lawmakers are working on plans to reverse a move that would strip Disney of its right to operate a private government around its theme parks,” the Financial Times report read. “State lawmakers are working on a compromise that would allow Disney to keep the arrangement largely in place with a few modifications.”

DeSantis’ team denied any plans to reverse course on its rebuke of Disney.

“Governor DeSantis does not make ‘U-turns,’” DeSantis press secretary Bryan Griffin told the DCNF. “The governor was right to champion removing the extraordinary benefit given to one company through the Reedy Creek Improvement District.”

“We will have an even playing field for businesses in Florida, and the state certainly owes no special favors to one company. Disney’s debts will not fall on the taxpayers of Florida. A plan is in the works and will be released soon,” he said.

The dispute between DeSantis and Disney began when then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek came out against Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill following widespread pressure to oppose the legislation, which activists had characterized as anti-gay. The legislation bans classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade.

Soon after DeSantis signed the bill eliminating the Reedy Creek Improvement District, Disney stepped away from politics and quietly removed itself from the fight with DeSantis in an apparent effort to preserve its special tax district.

Disney did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

AUTHOR

LAUREL DUGGAN

Social issues and culture reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Disney CEO Pledges To Double Down On LGBT ‘Storytelling’ In Animated Kids’ Movies

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Gov. DeSantis: ‘The Only Worn-Out Old Donkey I’m Looking To Put Out To Pasture Is Charlie Crist’

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WATCH: DeSantis debates Crist in Florida governor’s race showdown.

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took a shot at, what he called, his “worn-out old donkey” opponent at Monday’s debate against Democratic Florida gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist.

During the fiery debate that took place in the wake of the upcoming Nov. 8 election, the two clashed on issues including inflation, taxes, COVID-19 lockdowns and gender transitions for minors. The moderator also asked the candidates about their plans to reduce inflation and its effects on the people of Florida.

Crist argued that DeSantis repeatedly mentioned Biden in his answer because he intends to run against him in 2024, though the governor has never publicly announced his interests in running for president.

“Well listen, I know that Charlie is interested in talking about 2024 and [President] Joe Biden but I just want to make things very, very clear. The only worn-out old donkey I’m looking to put out to pasture is Charlie Crist,” DeSantis said. “And you want to talk about standing up for taxpayers, when Charlie Crist was governor, he ran saying he would not raise taxes and he signed off on the largest increase in taxes and fees in the history of the state of Florida. We just enacted the largest decrease of taxes in the history of Florida.”

“Well Ron, we know you love to bully people and the name-calling you just exchanged, I can take it. But you shouldn’t do it when children stand behind you at a press conference when they’re wearing a mask,” Crist said. “But apparently that’s your nature and that’s too bad.”

The Democratic candidate was referencing a moment in March when DeSantis told a group of college students standing behind his podium at the University of South Florida that they did not have to wear masks during his speech.

During the debate, Crist accused DeSantis of making “political war zones” out of the state’s public school system by signing the Parental Rights in Education bill earlier in the year to bar educators from teaching sexual orientation and gender identity to students in kindergarten through third grade.

“When you oppose the parents rights in education bill, which prevents six, seven [and] eight-year-olds from having sexuality, gender ideology injected into their curriculum, you are the one that’s waging culture war,” DeSantis said. “I’m simply defending parents and students because it’s inappropriate to have that in elementary school, it’s inappropriate to tell a six-year-old that they were born in the wrong body, it’s inappropriate to tell an eight-year-old that they may have been born a girl but maybe they’re really a boy. That’s wrong. We need to do the basics, we need to teach them to read, write, add and subtract.”

The governor also said that he will protect women’s sports by banning biological males from competing against females. In response, Crist accused him of “dividing” the people of Florida.

On the topic of abortion, DeSantis touted legislation that he signed in April, which banned abortion after 15 weeks gestation with the exception of saving the mother’s life.

The moderator asked the two candidates about their stances on performing transitioning procedures for minors, to which DeSantis stood firmly against puberty blockers and sex reassignment surgeries due to some cases where minors recover from gender dysphoria.

“You should not mutilate minors,” he said. “And they went through this when they were minors and now they regret it and other countries in Europe that went down this road have now backtracked and so we’re doing the right thing, it’s inappropriate to be doing what’s basically genital mutilation.”

Crist accused DeSantis of believing to know better than a medical professional and an individual on their “health” and “right to choose.” The governor said they are young kids who lack the temperament to undergo a “radical procedure” that changes their physical being for life.

AUTHOR

NICOLE SILVERIO

Media reporter. Follow Nicole Silverio on Twitter @NicoleMSilverio

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Marco Rubio Canvasser Brutally Assaulted And Hospitalized, Senator Says

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Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida claimed that multiple assailants attacked and seriously injured a canvasser backing the senator Sunday night.

“Last night one of our canvassers wearing my T-shirt and a Desantis hat was brutally attacked by 4 animals who told him Republicans weren’t allowed in their neighborhood in #Hialeah #Florida,” Rubio posted on Twitter Monday. “He suffered internal bleeding, a broken jaw & will need facial reconstructive surgery.”

Hialeah police arrested one suspect Monday, according to the Miami Herald. Rubio posted photos of the canvasser wearing a T-shirt from the Rubio campaign on a gurney that loaded him onto an ambulance.

“Sadly, we get the news and we’re still waiting for details. It’s always important to have details,” Rubio said during a Monday rally, the Miami Herald reported. “We’re not like these other people that always jump to conclusions, but we know this: Someone wearing a Rubio T-Shirt and a DeSantis hat was walking in a neighborhood not far from here yesterday when four individuals assaulted him, broke his nose, broke his jaw.”

President Joe Biden, Democrats and the media have escalated attacks against Republicans since the Aug. 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago, the Florida estate owned by former President Donald Trump. Biden labeled Trump’s supporters “a threat to democracy” during a Sept. 1 speech in Philadelphia while Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan urged America to “kill and confront” a movement he described as “extremist” during a Sept. 13 MSNBC appearance.

An 83-year-old woman campaigning against Proposal 3 in Michigan was allegedly shot in the back Sept. 20 while passing out campaign literature. In North Dakota, a man who allegedly ran down 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson on Sept. 18, reportedly claimed the teen was a “Republican extremist.”

“On Sunday, October 23, 2022, at approximately 6:30 p.m., Officers responded to 140 E 60 Street in reference to a fight. At arrival, officers located the 27 year old victim with multiple bruises and a laceration,” a Hialeah Police Department spokesman told the Daily Caller News Foundation via email. “The Initial investigation revealed the victim, was walking on the sidewalk passing out fliers when he was confronted by Javier Lopez (Arrested). Mr. Lopez told the victim he was not allowed to walk on the sidewalk and pass out fliers in his neighborhood. The victim, in order to avoid the confrontation walked across the street where he was again confronted by Mr. Lopez. During the verbal dispute, Mr. Lopez then struck the victim multiple times in the face and head causing the injuries.”

“Officers on scene located Javier Lopez and took him into custody,” the spokesman concluded.

This story has been updated with comment from the Hialeah Police Department.

AUTHOR

HAROLD HUTCHISON

Reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Massive Florida Medical Center Boasted Of Helping Child Get ‘Gender-Affirming’ Surgery, Hormones

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  • UF Health’s Youth Gender Program offers medical treatments to minors to help them present as the opposite sex; the program boasted about helping a minor undergo hormones and feminizing facial surgery and obtain a referral for “gender affirmation surgery,” according to the institution’s website.
  • UF Health did not respond to dozens of requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation and ignored many requests for their age guidelines.
  • “Your parents may not understand and may fight your transition, but this is the way you were born,” one patient said in a UF Health testimonial prominently featured on their website. “Your authentic life is worth fighting for.”

UF Health, a medical network affiliated with the University of Florida located in Gainesville and Jacksonville, boasted about helping a child with gender dysphoria undergo hormone blockers and surgeries in a testimonial on their website.

UF Health’s Youth Gender Program boasts of nationally recognized endocrinologists who specialize in administering pubertal suppression and cross-sex hormone medications to minors and connects children and their families with a host of resources that unquestioningly encourage medical transition for children. One testimonial on their website highlights a minor who, with the help of UF Health, received facial surgery, hormone blockers and a referral for an unspecified cross-sex surgery before turning 18.

The patient, referred to as “Hunter,” underwent hormone blocker injections and sperm cryopreservation as a minor upon adopting a transgender identity at age 15 after watching “I Am Jazz,” a show about a transgender child, according to a testimonial featured prominently on the Youth Gender Program’s website. Hunter received facial feminization surgery, which can include altering the hairline, shaving down the chin and jawbone or augmenting the lips and nose, upon turning 16 with the help of then-UF Health clinical psychologist Anyaliese Hancock-Smith, and was slated to undergo “gender affirmation surgery” in the summer of 2017.

“At the age of 15, Hunter was watching TLC’s transgender reality series, I am Jazz, when she realized she could no longer continue living uncomfortably in the wrong body. Hunter immediately ran into her mother’s room and told her she needed to be on puberty blocking medication,” the testimonial reads.

Hunter was 17 in April 2017, and it is unclear whether the adolescent turned 18 before the surgery; it’s also unclear precisely which surgery Hunter had and whether UF Health performed it or wrote a referral, though Hunter vaguely gives credit to UF Health.

“After meeting with Dr. Silverstein and being diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria, Hunter was prescribed hormone blocker injections and later underwent sperm cryopreservation, a procedure which would eventually allow her to produce biologic children if she wishes,” the post read. “Hunter now believes she looks on the outside like the gender she has always been on the inside, and she credits much of it to her team at UF Health.”

“Hunter now meets with clinical psychologist Anyaliese Hancock-Smith, Ph.D., who assisted Hunter in healthy development of gender identity and expression congruency. This included Hunter getting some facial feminization surgery for her 16th birthday,” the post continued. “Now seventeen years old, Hunter is preparing to have gender affirmation surgery in the summer of 2017, which will allow her to finally feel comfortable in her own skin. She hopes her story will inspire others to embrace their true selves.”

UF Health also included a quote from the patient encouraging others to go against their parents’ wishes when pursuing medical transitions.

“Your parents may not understand and may fight your transition, but this is the way you were born,” Hunter said in the testimonial. “Your authentic life is worth fighting for.”

UF’s Youth Gender Program was following about 50 children receiving puberty blockers and had about 200 patients total on hormones, according to data supplied to the Tampa Bay Times. Fewer than 50 patients in the practice had mastectomies, which are not performed on children under 16, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

The program collaborated with transgender activist group Equality Florida, a group that supports childhood gender transitions and has staunchly opposed efforts to limit those procedures for minors in Florida.

UF Health did not respond to dozens of requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation, including numerous requests over phone, voicemail and email for the institution’s age guidelines for gender-related procedures. UF Health also has yet to share records requested through Florida’s freedom of information law regarding its Youth Gender Program.

Many medical professionals criticize administering puberty blockers and performing sex change surgeries on minors, arguing that children can’t consent to the irreversible procedures and questioning their purported benefits. However, prominent medical organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics support affirming transgender identities through medical procedures, even for minors, and view the procedures as a way to improve adolescents’ mental health.

“All the up-to-date evidence shows that puberty blockers are neither safe nor reversible. The evidence shows that 98% of children who take puberty blockers go on to cross-sex hormones,” Stella O’Malley, an Irish psychotherapist and founder of the gender-critical organization Genspect, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We are roughly 10 years into this large-scale experiment and already we have reports on issues with cognitive development, bone mineral density and fertility. It is only with class action suits, like that taken in the UK, will we see a full exploration of this issue.”

Detransitioners, people who regret undergoing medical gender transitions, are also speaking out against the procedures. Helena Kirshner, a young woman who took cross-sex hormones and socially transitioned to a male identity as a teenager, attributed her temporary trans identity to emotional struggles, peer influence and social media.

“The adolescent brain is in a developmental stage primed to incorporate experiences into the process of identity formation,” she wrote in a February Substack post. “At my first appointment, I was prescribed testosterone, and I would remain on this regimen for a year and a half. It had an extremely negative effect on my mental health, and I finally admitted what a disaster it had been when I was 19 … It has not been easy, and the whole experience seriously derailed my life in ways I could never have foreseen when I was that fifteen-year-old kid playing with pronouns on Tumblr.”

The Youth Gender Program offers consultation, psychotherapy and assessment of medical readiness for cross-sex hormone therapy, according to its website; though it does not list surgical procedures it provides for minors, the first item on its resource page is financing advice for “gender confirmation surgery.” Resources for transgender youth also include a guide to “tucking,” or using tape to hide one’s penis, along with various activist groups including GLAAD which are vocal proponents of childhood medical transitions.

The Youth Gender Program claims its services are consistent with World Professional Association For Transgender Health (WPATH) guidelines; WPATH’s most recent standards of care do not list any age restrictions for minors to be eligible for cross-sex procedures including surgeries, and the organization is generally supportive of adolescent medical transition.

Dr. Michael Haller, chief of pediatric endocrinology at the University of Florida, publicly criticized detransitioner Chloe Cole on Twitter in August after she voiced regret about undergoing a medical transition as a minor and criticized the interventionist approach to gender dysphoria that Haller endorses. Cole, who underwent a “gender-affirming” double-mastectomy at age 15 along with cross-sex hormones that permanently altered her voice, no longer identifies as transgender and advocates against sex change procedures for minors.

“She states she was ‘rushed’ through care but notes her first endocrinologist actually said ‘no’ to rapid transition,” Haller wrote. “She sought alternative avenues for treatment. She then speaks as if her case should justify full scale elimination access for all trans patients.”

“You chose internet notoriety over anything that will ever help patients,” he wrote in another tweet.

“At this point, Dr. Haller has a creepy obsession with me. He’s a corrupt Dr. and Prof. who recommends children for double mastectomies and cross sex hormones. Dr. Haller exhibits abusive habits towards outspoken victims of gender care,” Cole wrote. 

Haller initially agreed to an interview with the DCNF before cancelling and instructing the DCNF to direct questions to an outside organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics, which also did not respond to a request for comment.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

AUTHOR

LAUREL DUGGAN

Social issues and culture reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Court Upholds Florida Ban On Taxpayer Funding For Sex Changes

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A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Florida can move forward with a new rule barring Medicaid funds from being spent on sex-changes and other transgender-related care.

A group of transgender rights organizations filed a preliminary injunction request against the rule after it was implemented by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration in August, but Judge Robert Hinkle ruled against the request Wednesday. Hinkle stated that the challenge to the rule wasn’t a constitutional one, rather a question about the Medicaid statute.

Transgender advocates had alleged that the rule, which prevents the state from covering most “gender-affirming” care via Medicaid, violated the equal protections clause of the constitution. “There’s nothing wrong with the state saying they will approve treatment for this and not that,” Hinkle determined. “The question here is about the Medicaid statute.”

Gender-affirming care is a euphemism for treatments that facilitate sex changes. The Florida rule covers procedures including sex-change surgeries, behavioral therapy and hormone therapy.

The groups that filed the suit did so on behalf of four plaintiffs, two of whom are 12-year-old children. Florida has taken steps to push back on the promotion of transgenderism to children in recent months, including via the highly contentious Parental Rights in Education law.

One witness who testified for the state was New Jersey resident Yaakov Sheinfeld, whose 18-year-old daughter began the process of gender transition on the advice of a therapist who diagnosed her with gender dysphoria. Sheinfeld said his daughter’s anxiety and depression never went away, even after the “gender-affirming” care began, and she ultimately died of a drug overdose.

Florida is now one of ten states that doesn’t cover sex changes and related care under Medicaid.

AUTHOR

DYLAN HOUSMAN

Healthcare reporter. Follow Dylan on Twitter

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

U.S. State GDPs Compared to Entire Countries

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It’s pretty difficult to even comprehend how ridiculously large the US economy is.

Click here to view the U.S. State GDPs Compared to Entire Countries map.

The map above (click to view and enlarge) matches the economic output (Gross Domestic Product) for each US state (and the District of Columbia) in 2018 to a foreign country with a comparable nominal GDP last year, using data from the BEA for GDP by US state (average of Q2 and Q3 state GDP, since Q4 data aren’t yet available) and data for GDP by country from the International Monetary Fund. Like in past years, for each US state (and the District of Columbia), I’ve identified the country closest in economic size in 2018 (measured by nominal GDP) and those matching countries are displayed in the map above and in the table below. Obviously, in some cases, the closest match was a country that produced slightly more, or slightly less, economic output in 2018 than a given US state.

It’s pretty difficult to even comprehend how ridiculously large the US economy is, and the map above helps put America’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $20.5 trillion ($20,500,000,000,000) in 2018 into perspective by comparing the economic size (GDP) of individual US states to other country’s entire national output. For example:

  1. America’s largest state economy is California, which produced nearly $3 trillion of economic output in 2018, more than the United Kingdom’s GDP last year of $2.8 trillion. Consider this: California has a labor force of 19.6 million compared to the labor force in the UK of 34 million (World Bank data here). Amazingly, it required a labor force 75% larger (and 14.5 million more people) in the UK to produce the same economic output last year as California! That’s a testament to the superior, world-class productivity of the American worker. Further, California as a separate country would have been the 5th largest economy in the world last year, ahead of the UK ($2.81 trillion), France ($2.79 trillion) and India ($2.61 trillion).
  2. America’s second largest state economy—Texas—produced nearly $1.8 trillion of economic output in 2018, which would have ranked the Lone Star State as the world’s 10th largest economy last year. GDP in Texas was slightly higher than Canada’s GDP last year of $1.73 trillion. However, to produce about the same amount of economic output as Texas required a labor force in Canada (20.1 million) that was nearly 50% larger than the labor force in the state of Texas (13.9 million). That is, it required a labor force of 6.2 million more workers in Canada to produce roughly the same output as Texas last year. Another example of the world-class productivity of the American workforce.
  3. America’s third largest state economy—New York with a GDP in 2018 of $1.68 trillion—produced slightly more economic output last year than South Korea ($1.65 trillion). As a separate country, New York would have ranked as the world’s 11th largest economy last year, ahead of No. 12 South Korea, No. 13 Russia ($1.57 trillion) and No. 14 Spain ($1.43 trillion). Amazingly, it required a labor force in South Korea of 28 million that was nearly three times larger than New York’s (9.7 million) to produce roughly the same amount of economic output last year! More evidence of the world-class productivity of American workers.
  4. Other comparisons: Florida (about $1 trillion) produced almost the same amount of GDP in 2018 as Mexico ($1.19  trillion), even though Florida’s labor force of 10.2 million less than 20% of the size of Mexico’s workforce of 59 million.
  5. Even with all of its oil wealth, Saudi Arabia’s GDP in 2018 at $683 billion was below the GDP of US states like Pennsylvania ($793 billion) and Illinois ($863 billion).

Overall, the US produced 24.3% of world GDP in 2017, with only about 4.3% of the world’s population. Four of America’s states (California, Texas, New York and Florida) produced more than $1 trillion in output and as separate countries would have ranked in the world’s top 16 largest economies last year. Together, those four US states produced nearly $7.5 trillion in economic output last year, and as a separate country would have ranked as the world’s third-largest economy.

Adjusted for the size of the workforce, there might not be any country in the world that produces as much output per worker as the US, thanks to the world-class productivity of the American workforce. The map above and the statistics summarized here help remind us of the enormity of the economic powerhouse we live and work in.

So let’s not lose sight of how ridiculously large and powerful the US economy is, and how much wealth, output, and prosperity is being created every day in the largest economic engine there has ever been in human history. This comparison is also a reminder that it was largely free markets, free trade, and capitalism that propelled the US from a minor British colony in the 1700s into a global economic superpower and the world’s largest economy, with individual US states producing the equivalent economic output of entire countries.

This article is reprinted with permission from The American Enterprise Institute.

AUTHOR

Mark J. Perry

Mark J. Perry is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus.

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EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Pelosi: Florida Farmers Need Illegal Immigrants ‘To Pick The Crops’

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Floridian farmers need illegal immigrants in their state to “pick the crops” during a press conference Friday.

“Right now the best thing we can do for our economy is to have comprehensive immigration reform. We have a shortage of workers in our country and you see even in Florida, some of the farmers and the growers saying why are you shipping these immigrants up north, we need them to pick the crops down here,” Pelosi said.

“But that doesn’t mean that we don’t recognize our moral responsibility to as well,” she added.

Pelosi’s comments come weeks after Florida governor Ron DeSantis sent two flights of illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. DeSantis’s office claimed the immigrants went to the area willingly. DeSantis joined Governors Greg Abbott and Doug Ducey of Texas and Arizona in sending illegal immigrants to liberal sanctuary cities.

Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a public health emergency in early September over the toll on the city’s resources caused by the influx of thousands of migrants.

AUTHOR

SARAH WEAVER

Staff writer.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘We’re A Second Amendment State’: DeSantis Warns Off Prospective Ian Looters

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Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a stern warning during a Friday press conference in Fort Myers to would-be looters in the wake of Hurricane Ian.

“I can tell you in the state of Florida, you never know what may be lurking behind somebody’s home,” the governor cautioned, according to Fox News.

“And I would not want to chance that if I were you — given that we’re a Second Amendment state.”

DeSantis warned against taking advantage of vulnerable people in areas hit hardest by Ian’s destruction. “We want to make sure we’re maintaining law and order,” he said. Local law enforcement remains involved in monitoring any and all looting and state assistance could be called on for help, DeSantis noted further. One sign reading, “You loot, we shoot” was spotted by the governor in Punta Gorda, Fox News reported.

The Category 4 storm left more than 2 million without power after making landfall Wednesday. Flooding hit Fort Myers, Florida particularly hard, where looters were arrested Friday on Fort Myers Beach, according to ABC 3. The Lee County Sheriff’s Office expressed a zero tolerance stance on looting, promising to arrest any involved in criminal activity, the outlet said.

“We are not going to look like Chicago or New York where we’re letting people out in 24 hours so they can go back and loot another home,” tweeted Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody in response to reports of looting. “That will not be tolerated here.”

AUTHOR

ALYSSA BLAKEMORE

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden’s Handlers set to Deny School Lunch Funding to Christian School that Refuses to Obey LGBT Mandates

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The pontifex maximus enforces his new state religion.

Dems Poised To Pull Free Lunches From Christian School That Refuses to Obey LGBT Mandates

by Elizabeth Troutman, Washington Free Beacon, August 4, 2022:

The Biden administration is poised to deny free school lunch funding from a Florida Christian school that refuses to comply with the administration’s LGBT mandates, despite the school’s qualification for a religious exemption.

Grant Park Christian Academy in Tampa, Fla., represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, is suing President Joe Biden and Florida agriculture commissioner Nikki Fried for enforcing the Biden administration requirement that schools comply with its LGBT mandates or lose federal school lunch funding.

In May, the Biden administration redefined the meaning of “sex” in Title IX to include sexual orientation and gender identity, forcing schools to permit transgender students to use male or female bathrooms and play sports with either sex in order to receive National School Lunch Program funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. More than half of state attorneys general rejected the memorandum, with Florida attorney general Ashley Moody saying the Biden administration was “using hungry children to advance a political agenda,” the Washington Free Beacon reported….

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

EXCLUSIVE: Ethics Group Alleges Dem Rep Exploited COVID Rules To Campaign For Governor

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A watchdog group will file a complaint against Florida Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist on Friday accusing him of taking advantage of pandemic-instituted proxy voting to campaign for governor of Florida, according to a document obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) will send a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) accusing Crist, who reportedly voted by proxy 107 times between Jan. 7 and April 7 according to the Tampa Bay Times, of abusing the House’s COVID-19 policy to avoid spending time in Washington while he campaigns in Florida for governor. The letter asks OCE to open an investigation into Crist.

“It is evident that the true reason he is voting by proxy and virtually attending committee hearings is unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the complaint alleges. “Rather, the reason is so he can campaign for governor.”

The complaint cites Crist allegedly attending campaign events while voting by proxy and include screenshots of social media posts allegedly showing him on the trail on the dates he was absent from Congress.

“We want them to do an investigation, which even in the most straightforward cases, it requires them to compile evidence, get a response and make a decision,” Kendra Arnold, executive director for FACT, told TheDCNF. “Ultimately, we hope that this is referred on to the Ethics Committee and that they impose the appropriate punishment.”

Many members of Congress have taken advantage of the pandemic policy, with about 80% of all House members using it to vote remotely by mid-December, according to the Brookings Institution. Arnold said that while FACT, a conservative organization, is considering taking action against other politicians, Crist’s actions were “especially egregious” because his spokesperson acknowledged he was campaigning.

“The Congressman has two important missions: representing Florida’s 13th District in Congress and giving Floridians, exhausted by Ron DeSantis’ never ending culture wars, a clear choice in November,” Crist’s spokesperson, Chloe Kessock, told The Tampa Bay Times in April.

Crist’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

SEBASTIAN HUGHES

Politics reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘They Want To Stifle Dissent’: DeSantis Declares War Against Biden’s ‘Ministry Of Truth’ At DHS

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Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed to fight the Biden administration’s proposed Disinformation Governance Board Friday, which he said was an attempt to censor ordinary people and impose narrative control.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the formation of the board Wednesday, which will be run by Nina Jankowicz, a self-described “disinformation expert” who previously attempted to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story. DeSantis promised to fight the board in a Friday press conference.

“You cannot have a Ministry of Truth in this country. And so let’s get real here,” DeSantis said. “We’re not gonna let Biden get away with this one, so we will be fighting back.”

Critics including DeSantis have compared the board to the “Ministry of Truth” in the novel “1984,” an agency that produces government propaganda and decides what citizens are allowed to say and believe.

“They now have an idea – and I honestly thought this was a belated April Fool’s joke – but they are actually going to create in the Department of Homeland Security a Bureau of Disinformation. It’s basically a Ministry of Truth,” DeSantis said. “And what they want to do is, they want to be able to put out false narratives without people being able to speak out and fight back.”

“They want to be able to say things like ‘Russia collusion’ and perpetuate hoaxes and then have people like us be silenced. They want to be able to advocate for COVID lockdowns, they want to be able to advocate for school closures, things that are not supported by the evidence. But then when you speak out, they want to stifle dissent,” he added. “And so we reject this bureau in the state of Florida.”

The board announced Wednesday that it would begin by focusing on Russian disinformation in the lead-up to midterm elections and misinformation aimed at migrants at the southern border, according to the Associated Press. 

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said it sounded “like the objective of the board is to prevent disinformation and misinformation from traveling around the country” during a Thursday press conference, but declined to comment on Kankowicz’ appointment, claiming she had no information about her.

Kankowicz said “We should view it [Hunter Biden’s laptop] as a Trump campaign product” on ABC News in October 2020 and claimed Republicans had funded the claimed the now-discredited Steele dossier in a 2017 tweet.

Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson demanded answers from the DHS about the board in a Thursday letter which focused on potential biases Jankowics could bring into the position and called her a “beacon of misinformation online.”

DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

LAUREL DUGGAN

Social issues and culture reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Two Americas: Chasm Grows Between Red And Blue States On Hot-Button Social Issues

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  • Polarization on social issues is creating dramatically different legal landscapes between red and blue states. 
  • Republican-led states are passing laws limiting abortion and restricting child sex change procedures, while Democrat-led states are expanding abortion access and styling themselves as havens for transgender children fleeing red states.
  • “The divide between the American Left and Right on whether or not children should be sexualized in schools will continue to grow until the Left suffer real political consequences for their radical agenda,” Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Red and blue states are rapidly moving further apart on hot-button social issues as lawmakers and activists shift their focus to topics like abortion and transgenderism.

Republican-led states are passing waves of laws limiting elective abortions and sex change treatments for children, while blue states attempt to become havens for transgender children and abortion-seekers. Legislative efforts to impose 15-week abortion limits, restrict sexuality and gender ideology in classrooms and limit transgender participation in women’s sports have cropped up in GOP-led states across the country; each of these measures has recently passed in Florida alone.

“The policies that we champion are really common-sense positions that have broad support from among the average Floridian,” a spokesman for Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s office told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Children shouldn’t be indoctrinated or sexualized in the classroom. Parents have rights when it comes to their child’s education. Life is life and worth protecting, whether in the womb or outside of it. On these matters, we take a stand.”

Florida recently banned abortions after 15 weeks, restricted classroom instruction on sex and gender and required athletes to participate in divisions corresponding to their biological sex. The state’s new Parental Rights in Education law, which critics call the “Don’t Say Gay” law, banned classroom lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation for kindergarten through third grade, sparking outrage from prominent Democrats, LGBT activists and the corporate media.

DeSantis also signed a bill creating support programs to encourage fatherhood and released a proclamation declaring a female swimmer the winner of an NCAA championship race she lost to a biological male athlete who identifies as a transgender woman.

Terry Schilling, president of the pro-family political advocacy organization American Principles Project (APP), told the Daily Caller News Foundation that frustrated parents were a driving force behind many of these legislative efforts. APP has been active in promoting legislation targeting certain forms of gender education and Critical Race Theory (CRT) lessons in schools.

“Over the last couple years, as schools shut down and children were forced to ‘learn’ via Zoom, parents were given a glimpse at what was actually taking place in the classroom,” he said. “They weren’t happy about what they saw: indoctrination into radical racial and sexual ideologies while the important subjects — math, reading, science — were left by the wayside.”

‘California’s door is always open’

While Republican state lawmakers have pushed a socially conservative agenda, blue states have fired back with their own social policies, advancing legal abortion up to the point of birth and promoting sex change treatments for children who believe they are transgender.

As Texas attempted to prosecute child sex change procedures as a form of child abuse and Alabama passed a bill banning sex change treatments for minors, California lawmakers introduced a bill that would make the state a “place of refuge” for families putting their children through medical sex changes.

“Trans kids and their families should be celebrated – not targeted by the state! They are heroes,” Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom said. “To fearful families in Texas right now – California’s door is always open to you.”

California also introduced legislation to fund abortion tourism in anticipation of more women traveling to the state as Republican-led states passed numerous new abortion restrictions in 2021 and 2022.

Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, meanwhile, supported a bill requiring sex-segregated restrooms as well as a bill banning sex change procedures for children.

“Enough of this woke radical nonsense that preys on our kids,” Ivey said. “We’re going to focus on protecting our kids and keeping our schools focused on being a place where students learn the fundamentals.”

Jon Michaels, a law professor who studies government at the University of California, Los Angeles, told The New York Times that the waves of contrasting bills tackling social issues were driving a wedge between red and blue states.

“We’re further and further polarizing and fragmenting, so that blue states and red states are becoming not only a little different but radically different,” he said.

‘What happens to Roe’

Numerous Republican-led states passed 15-week abortion limits after the Supreme Court took up a case surrounding Mississippi’s 15-week limit in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. The case gives the Court an opportunity to potentially overturn Roe v. Wade or change the generally understood legal definition of fetal viability, which would allow states to make stricter abortion laws.

Several other states have passed even stricter abortion limits; Texas banned most abortions after six weeks, the point at which a fetal heartbeat can be detected, along with Idaho and South Carolina. Oklahoma passed a ban on abortion at all points in pregnancy except in medical emergencies threatening the life of the mother April 12, Ron DeSantis signed a 15-week abortion limit April 14, and Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed a similar bill March 31.

The Republican-dominated Kentucky legislature overrode Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of an abortion bill April 14, making a 15-week abortion limit law and requiring proper treatment of human remains following certain fetal deaths.

Meanwhile, Democrat-led states are expanding abortion access even further. Maryland lawmakers passed legislation enshrining abortion as a constitutional right March 11 and overrode Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto of a bill pouring millions of dollars into abortion trainings for non-physicians April 9.

Colorado legalized abortion throughout the entire duration of a pregnancy April 4, and Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer filed a lawsuit to make abortion a constitutional right in the state April 7.

“No matter what happens to Roe, I am going to fight like hell and use all the tools I have as governor to ensure reproductive freedom is protected,” Whitmer said upon filing the suit. “That’s a fight worth having.”

Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, told the DCNF that the chasm between Republican-led states and Democrat-led states would only widen as parents’ newfound political involvement continues to drive politics in the upcoming midterms.

“The divide between the American Left and Right on whether or not children should be sexualized in schools will continue to grow until the Left suffer real political consequences for their radical agenda,” Schilling said.

AUTHOR

LAUREL DUGGAN

Social issues and culture reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Florida Company Shows California How to Build a Railroad With Its Brightline Rail System

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A private company in Florida already has a new intercity passenger railroad up and running for a fraction of the cost of California’s ambitious high-speed rail.

When the Federal Government ordered the construction of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s and 1960s (at a cost to taxpayers of roughly $580 billion in 2022 dollars), it all but killed America’s privately operated passenger railroads. Since then, rail travel in America has mostly consisted of government-subsidized Amtrak services of deteriorating quality that amble across the country, catering to a niche market of leisure travelers and those with no other options. On the busy Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington D.C. there is still enough demand to operate a busy, profitable service, but elsewhere Amtrak’s services are too slow, inconvenient, and infrequent to effectively compete with highways and airlines.

But with gas prices rising and traffic congestion strangling many American cities, passengers, investors, and government planners are all reconsidering railroads. Several new projects have sprung up across the country, aiming to link major cities a few hundred miles apart, where a train might provide a more convenient journey than a plane, car, or bus. Some of these projects are led by state governments, others by private companies. The contrast between the two is dramatic. To illuminate that difference, compare the government-run California High Speed Rail project with Brightline, a new private rail system in Florida.

Approved in 2008, California High Speed Rail (CHSR) was expected to deliver a 520-mile two-track, electrified high-speed railway on an all-new route between Los Angeles and San Francisco by 2029. Fourteen years later, CHSR is now only expected to have a 171-mile single-track section between Madera and Bakersfield will be operational by 2030. Meanwhile the project’s cost has ballooned to $80 billion from an original budget of $33 billion, and costs are expected to rise further to $100 billion, or triple the original budget.

Meanwhile in Florida, a very different kind of passenger railroad is already up and running. Brightline was launched in 2012 by the Florida East Coast Railway, a private freight railroad. Unlike CHSR, Brightline mostly uses existing routes, removing the need to acquire (or appropriate) large amounts of land. Instead of building the whole line before beginning any passenger services (as CHSR is doing), Brightline began construction on a 70-mile section from Miami to West Palm Beach in 2014 and opened it to passengers in 2018. This meant that Brightline already had an operational, revenue-producing service before embarking on the 170-mile northward extension to Orlando Airport. That extension is expected to open in 2023, and the entire project will cost about $1.75 billion, raised through private financing.

This equates to about $7.3 million per mile for Brightline, compared to $153.8 million per mile for CHSR (using the current $80 billion budget). Why will CHSR cost at least twenty times more per mile than Brightline? How has Brightline managed to deliver a high-speed intercity passenger rail system within ten years whereas CHSR needs twenty-two years to deliver an incomplete, scaled-down version of its original plan? Much of the answer comes down to the fundamental nature of public works projects such as CHSR.

In his Economics in One Lesson, economist Henry Hazlitt noted that many (if not most) public works projects do not even aim to address a clear need. Instead, said Hazlitt, they are justified in two ways: in terms of the jobs they create, and the end product they will produce. However, this overlooks the many alternative ways in which private individuals and businesses may have spent the money that the government instead appropriated through taxation and allocated to the project. When a private business spends money on a project, it expects a return on its investment. As such, it aims to provide a product it expects people to want or need.

However, a government agency advancing a public project doesn’t need to do this. The government can force people to pay for whatever undertaking it chooses, regardless of whether there is a real need, or whether the project is a wise solution for that need. The result of this, as Hazlitt notes, is that projects are created for their own sake, for the activity and job creation that follows, not to solve an actual need. Such a project does not deliver good value for money, as the motivation is not to produce the best product for the cheapest price, but to create a large project involving as much activity as possible.

The comparison between CHSR and Brightline is an excellent example of Hazlitt’s observation. Both projects will, if completed, provide a useful service that will benefit many people, but CHSR will do so using an astronomical amount of money that could have been put to myriad other uses. It will succeed in its goal of creating a project to generate activity, regardless of whether it ever delivers a viable or even operational railway. A private company considering providing a new transport option must assess demand for that new service, determine the likely revenue, and therefore how much it can afford to spend creating it. Brightline did this, planning its project with a budget proportional to demand and raising that money from investors who expect a return.

Conversely, CHSR’s budget is completely divorced from the revenues it will produce, and there is no expectation for it ever to make a profit. As such, the project is massively over-engineered, with numerous large viaducts that pass over empty desert, and several grand landmark bridges and structures designed more to look impressive than to satisfy a need. This, combined with CHSR’s promotional materials, show that the project is designed to “create” jobs and give California an impressive megaproject. In a recent press release, CHSR proudly celebrated having created 6,000 jobs for local workers—but it’s not even close to finishing the much-reduced central section of the high speed railway it’s building. Not only does Brightline have a system moving passengers and producing revenue, but it’s also provided Miami with a shining new retail and residential development above its station in the heart of downtown. This is because private railroads rely on more than just passenger revenues to pay the bills—they also get revenue from developing the property they own. This is commonplace in Japan, where private railways build and operate shopping malls around their city center stations, with the mall and the railway both driving up each other’s revenues.

We should let businesses identify demand and satisfy it accordingly. The resulting projects will do a better job of serving actual needs, will be more numerable, and will encourage more economic growth to fund further projects in the future. Private projects may not create as many jobs in the short term as public ones, but they create a far more prosperous economy in the long run. Brightline is now planning another railway to span the 270 miles between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Let’s see how quickly it will deliver a completed project compared to CHSR, with the latter’s fourteen-year head start.

CHSR exemplifies what happens when the government manages a major project—delays, budget overruns, and needless expenditure. Brightline shows what is possible when a private business is in control. Sadly, America’s original railroads were driven out of business by government-funded roads and airports (many of which are now in dire need of repair). Let’s hope Brightline is the first of a new generation of private rail projects that will reintroduce some entrepreneurial spirit into the transportation industry in the United States.

COLUMN BY

Thomas Walker-Werth

Thomas Walker-Werth is a Hazlitt Fellow with FEE and an assistant editor of The Objective Standard.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Governor DeSantis Blocks Biden Admin’s International Child-Trafficking Scheme In Florida

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DeSantis steps up again to battle the party of evil.

DeSantis Blocks Biden Admin’s International Child-Trafficking Scheme In Florida

By: Jordan Boyd 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is seeking to block federally funded housing organizations from incentivizing child trafficking promoted by President Joe Biden’s border crisis by stripping their licenses to operate.

The Republican first directed the Florida Department of Children and Families to look into the situation in September, followed by an emergency rule in December that halted issuing and renewing the licenses of organizations that accepted federal money to house unaccompanied migrant children. In September 2021 alone, border officials encountered 14,358 alien minors along the Southern U.S. border.

It wasn’t until last week that the DCF released a permanent rule proposal solidifying the state’s intent to cut off licensing for organizations harboring unaccompanied alien children at the request of the federal government. While the state will continue to participate in refugee resettlement programs with federal agencies, DCF Secretary Shevaun Harris confirmed that Florida “will no longer be complicit” in Biden’s border crisis which funnels more than $66 million to childcare and child-placing agencies in the Sunshine State.

As border apprehensions reach record-breaking highs nearly every month, the Biden administration has been conducting covert “ghost” flights to ship and resettle illegal aliens including minors across the country with little to no transparency or vetting. As a result, federal officials have lost track of almost 40 percent of migrant children who were released from border officials’ custody between January and May of last year.

DeSantis, however, made it clear that he doesn’t want Florida involved with the federal government’s attempts to incentivize illicit practices at the Southern border, including human smuggling, which is often facilitated by drug traffickers and criminal gangs.

“The current [unaccompanied alien children] process smuggles in illegal immigrants from many different countries with no vetting, no transparency, and no consideration for child and public safety,” DeSantis explained last week.

During an event with Cuban Americans who were ushered into Florida under Operation Pedro Pan, a pre-planned mission in the early 1960s designed to rescue unaccompanied minors from the communist regime in Cuba and bring them to the U.S., DeSantis explained that the Biden administration is endangering migrant children by spreading them across the country.

“I just think there’s a lot of bad analogies that get made in modern political discourse. But to equate what’s going on with the Southern border with mass trafficking of humans, illegal entry, drugs, all this other stuff — with operation Pedro Pan, quite frankly, is disgusting. It’s wrong. It is not even close to the same thing,” DeSantis said.

Like many times before, corporate media and leftist activists quickly attacked the Republican based on lies. Among those opposed to the new rule is Catholic Archbishop Thomas Wenski of the Archdiocese of Miami, who accused DeSantis of participating in political theater and lied about the governor’s comments.

“At Governor DeSantis’ Monday meeting with a few former Pedro Pan kids in Miami’s Museum of the Cuban Diaspora, he described any comparison of unaccompanied minors from Cuba in the early 60’s with those from Central America today as ‘disgusting,’” Wenski falsely claimed. “This was a new low in the zero-sum politics of our divisive times. Children are children — and no child should be deemed ‘disgusting’ — especially by a public servant.”

DeSantis, a father to three kids, never said children are “disgusting” but Wenski’s comments fit the Democrat narrative too well for pro-illegal immigration activists to pass up.

The American Business Immigration Coalition Action quickly sprung to action and released a “six-figure buy” radio advertisement using Wenski’s false claims to smear DeSantis.

“‘Disgusting’ is that Gov. DeSantis is trying to benefit himself politically by attacking innocent immigrant children who are only seeking refuge and to top it off, he did it in Miami, Florida’s own Ellis Island,” an English translation of the ad script states.

One thing the archbishop didn’t mention in his now-prolific falsehood about DeSantis was that the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami, which he presides over, received millions of dollars from the Biden administration to harbor child migrants.

Financial documents obtained by The Federalist via an open records request indicate that in 2021 alone, CCAM raked in $10,048,439 from the federal government to serve 352 unaccompanied alien children in the state of Florida — more than $28,500 per child.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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TAKE ACTION: Illegal Aliens Being Housed in Maitland, Florida at the Extended Stay America Motel

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“Any excuse will serve a tyrant.” – Aesop

“Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.” – Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 2.

There is an ongoing protest of the large number of illegal aliens who have been bused to the Extend Stay America Motel, located at 1760 Pembrook Dr. in Maitland, Florida.

Watch: Bus loads of illegal dumped in Florida District 11

These illegal aliens have been provided with rooms (at a cost of $84+ per night), clothing and food at taxpayers expense by U.S. Government.

Illegal aliens (and those helping them) are violating U.S. immigration laws.  They should be detained and deported back to their home countries.

As retired Senior Special Agent with the Immigration and Naturalization Service wrote in his column “Biden Admin Now Running Biggest Human Trafficking Operation in History“:

Incredibly, AG Garland abjectly ignores the way immigration law enforcement could act as a force-multiplier to combat violent crimes, including where international terrorism and transnational gangs are concerned.

The Attorney General should review 8 U.S. Code § 1324 (Bringing in and harboring certain aliens), which deems the actions of any person or organization acting as the Biden administration currently is as felonies.

TAKE ACTION

Email and call Governor Ron DeSantis’ office.

Email:  ron.desantis@eog.myflorida.com  phone:  (850) 717-9337

©Royal A. Brown, III. All rights reserved.

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