Wayne Besen

May 13, 2023 • Opinion, Politics • 123

Travel Law Shows That Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is Too Paranoid to be President

Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to hide his travel schedule from Florida taxpayers. What is he afraid of?

To shield his travel logs, the governor had his Republican sock-puppet legislature pass a bill. It conceals his whereabouts and denies access to his travel records. Politico reports that the House approved the bill 84-31, four votes above the two-thirds threshold needed to enact a public records exemption.

The governor’s sycophantic allies bizarrely justified the unnecessary and unseemly travel shield as a security measure. They painted a portrait of DeSantis as a scaredy-cat politician under siege, who must sequester himself from public examination as a matter of protection. DeSantis ally Rep. Jeff Holcomb, said:

“This is truly a simple bill that is about safety and security. This bill is necessary because our senior state officials receive threats and death threats all of the time.”

Politicians in both parties must deal with threats, but they don’t hide their travel schedules. I’d like to know why Ron DeSantis is thinks he’s special and under a greater threat level than more transparent lawmakers.

Democrats in Tallahassee pointed out that travel records were open when Jeb Bush was Florida’s governor, even though he was the brother of President George W. Bush during the Sept. 11 attacks.

Jeb Bush was theoretically a significantly greater target than DeSantis. If this isn’t disturbing enough, DeSantis also started his own personal state militia for protection.

Given this Herculean effort to conceal his travel, combined with his own private army, it appears that Ron DeSantis is too paranoid to be President of the United States. He also needs an urgent mental health evaluation to remain Florida’s governor. Something is seriously wrong with a guy who sees dire threats behind every nook and cranny. The state of Florida needs to give him a check-up to make sure he’s okay.

The claim of “security” also falls flat when the bill retroactively refuses access to information for past trips that have nothing to do with protection.

Perhaps, there is a time machine where the evil plotters in DeSantis’ wild imagination could go back into the past to target the governor on his foreign junkets?

This latest move also brings into question why DeSantis, who appears to be terrified of his own constituents, has loosened gun laws in Florida. In April, DeSantis signed a Republican bill that allowed Floridians to carry concealed guns without a permit.

It seems incongruous and peculiar that the governor would loosen gun restrictions, then expeditiously move to hide his whereabouts to avoid threats from armed Floridians. The governor also believes that ‘good guys with guns’ are the answer to ‘bad guys with guns’. Well, he’s surrounded by a crack team of heavily armed, well-trained ‘good guys’. So why would he consider his personal security in jeopardy unless he doesn’t believe his own rhetoric on firearms?”

The latest move also raised the possibility that DeSantis is not crazy, he’s simply corrupt. Politico reports:

DeSantis just returned from a week-long international trip that took him to Japan, South Korea, Israel and the United Kingdom. That trip was organized through Enterprise Florida, the state’s economic development arm, and is supposed to be financed through private donations.

Flight tracking records show that DeSantis used a chartered jet for the trip — an expense that could run as much as $10,000 an hour but Enterprise Florida so far has not answered questions about why the governor needed a chartered jet.

Something doesn’t smell right in Florida. Clearly, something is amiss. DeSantis autocratic move to shield his travel undermines open government laws, disrespects taxpayers, makes him appear severely paranoid and is the latest example of how Republican rule is wrecking Florida’s future.
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May 12, 2023 • Opinion, Politics, Video • 130

America’s Gun Glut Fueling Violent White Supremacist’s Sick Fantasies

In Texas a deranged gunman, Mauricio Garcia, stormed an outlet mall in north Dallas, killing at least eight people. Like many recent mass shooters, he was a Nazi. He wore a patch on his chest that read “RWDS,” which stands for Right Wing Death Squad. This phrase is frequently used by white supremacists.

The mass shootings by homegrown right-wing extremists are becoming so commonplace, that it’s difficult to keep track. We remember Dylan Roof from the church in Charleston. There was a slaughter in El Paso, another in Buffalo, a synagogue in Pittsburgh. The list keeps growing.

America must admit that our country is under siege. It’s a one-sided war where right wing nuts—who have been given access to weapons of war by Republicans beholden to the NRA—are open firing on civilians. Their goal is to destabilize America and start a race war. A number of these unsavory elements participated in the January 6 insurrection.

After September 11, the United States declared a War on Terror. We should be no less vigilant when the terrorists are born and raised on American soil.

While conservatives love to blame the left, our homegrown terrorists overwhelmingly come from the far right. The Anti-Defamation League has counted about 450 U.S. murders committed by political extremists in the last decade. Of these 450 recorded killings, right-wing extremists are responsible for about 75 percent of deaths. Left-wing extremists were responsible for 4 percent. Nearly half of the murders were specifically tied to white supremacists.

Right wing religious groups are also fueling violence. An August 2021 Public Discourse and Ethics Survey found that 27 percent of White evangelicals agreed that “true American patriots may have to resort to physical violence in order to save the country,” roughly double the percentage for other religious groups.

Stephan Goetz, a researcher at Penn State, found that “for every 10 percent more evangelicals that reside in a county, the number of hate groups in that county increases by 17 percent.”

Are these churches or indoctrination centers fomenting rage and retribution among their followers? When Americans see hate coming from radical Pakistani madrassas, we say, “Let’s act to stop this deadly ideology.” We need the same sense of urgency to combat the threat at home.

What we are facing is a warped sense of white grievance and false victimhood that is nurtured by the MAGA-wing of the Republican Party. We have nuts like Georgia Representative Margorie Taylor Greene calling for the states to divorce. The part of the country she wants to keep, would be a homeland for white Christian nationalists. Isn’t her dangerous and unpatriotic vision giving the crazies an incentive to further destabilize the country?

Recently fired FOX News hero, Tucker Carlson, pushed the Great Replacement theory – which posits that Jews are using immigration to push out white, Christian Americans. Donald Trump dined with white supremacist Nick Fuentes. What message are these messianic messengers sending to their bellicose base.

You can’t separate this neo-Nazi violence from the ability to secure weapons of mass murder. These extremists have the will to kill, and Republicans are providing the way. The GOP’s refusal to deal with America’s glut of 400 million guns, is assisting white supremacists with their deadly dreams.

If Republicans offer only thoughts and prayers after each mass shooting, Americans don’t stand a prayer against violent ideologues with extremist agendas who are armed to the teeth.

The time for prayers is over. The time for new policies is now.
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May 10, 2023 • Opinion, Politics • 148

CNN’s Toxic Town Hall Helps to Mainstream Traitor Trump

CNN made a grave error by giving former president Donald Trump a primetime platform to spew his propaganda. In doing so, CNN helped normalize an abnormal ex-president who is America’s number one national security threat.

The folly of amplifying Trump’s voice was made more grotesque coming one day after he was found guilty by a Manhattan jury of sexual assault and ordered to pay writer E. Jean Carroll $5 million dollars. The prosecution couldn’t quite prove the rape charge, but sexual assault counts as a moral victory for today’s value-free Republicans.

CNN has learned nothing from its sordid past. In 2016, television news was primarily responsible for electing Donald Trump. The cable networks pimped themselves out for ratings and ad revenue, giving Trump millions of dollars in free airtime.

Leslie Moonves, chairman of CBS while Trump was running his first campaign, explained to the Hollywood Reporter why soulless TV executives were excessively covering the Trump campaign:

“It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS. The money’s rolling in, and this is fun. It’s a terrible thing to say. But bring it on, Donald. Keep going.”

Well, thanks to cable and broadcast television, he did keep going and it was fun, until it wasn’t. Their networks were supposed to be responsible, adult conduits for informing American citizens and providing facts. Instead, they literally sold us out.

The result was the election of the worst president in American history. A crass lout who soiled the White House with more than 30,000 lies. Trump was impeached twice. The first time for extorting Ukraine to provide dirt on Joe Biden. The second impeachment was for Trump’s “incitement of insurrection” on January 6.

We had a president who nearly destroyed NATO and habitually worshipped the war criminal Vladimir Putin. During the Covid pandemic, Trump divided Americans and suggested we drink bleach. The result was unnecessary pain, death and destruction.

Yet, CNN moved forward to elevate this madman, for the seeming purpose of unrestrained greed. The Trump Town Hall in New Hampshire is a travesty perpetrated on the American people by CNN chairman and CEO Chris Licht, and his boss, David Zaslav, the CEO of CNN’s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery.

Licht and Zavlav are trying to rebrand CNN as the False Equivalency Network – at the expense of our country. They want to make the Republican Party palatable by mainstreaming criminals like Trump and extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene.

What’s next at CNN, a Long Island town hall for George Santos? The ratings would be great.

Trump previously called CNN the “enemy of the people”. Maybe he’s right—but for the wrong reasons. What makes CNN an enemy of truth, is that they have recklessly provided a megaphone to a megalomaniac who is proven to be a dire threat to American democracy.

CNN is shamelessly promoting “Make America Great Again” to “Make Ratings Great Again.” It seems at CNN that finances matter more than America’s future.

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May 9, 2023 • Opinion, Politics • 160

Right Wing Goons and Hucksters Pay for their Perfidy

Republican leaders have repeatedly incited their base to spew fallacies or commit felonies. Each time their followers are egged on, they end up with egg on their faces. This week, Republicans paid dearly for their misdeeds.

Exhibit A is Clarence Thomas and his treasonous wife, Ginni, who were publicly humiliated and exposed as frauds. For years, they have preened as morally righteous when their only loyalty is to personal pleasure and profit.

Prior to this week, we knew that Clarence Thomas had a generous Sugar Daddy, Harlan Crow, who collects Nazi memorabilia. He had provided the Thomas family with a half million dollars in free vacations on luxury yachts and private planes. Crow also bought the house Clarence Thomas’ mother lives in and refurbished it. It’s sort of like HGTV for crooks and grifters.

This week, ProPublica reported that the Sugar Daddy had paid $6,000 per month in private school tuition for Thomas’ teenage grandnephew Mark Martin.

Crow responded with an absurd statement:

“Harlan Crow has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially at-risk youth.”

Yes, that poor, neglected young man living at the home of a wealthy Supreme Court justice. It’s practically one step removed from being a hobo. The only thing that Mark Martin was ever at risk of, was learning ethics and morality from the bribe inhaling Thomas family.

If that weren’t bad enough, we learned that right wing activist Leonard Leo funneled $25,000 in clandestine payments to “Ginni” a decade ago. He knew that his payments were wrong, so Leo instructed “No mention of Ginni” on the hidden documents.

The same year this obvious bribe occurred, the Judicial Education Project, the nonprofit Leo used to funnel the money to Ginni Thomas, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a key voting rights case. No conflict of interest to see here. None at all.

In a perfect world, Clarence Thomas would resign in disgrace from the Supreme Court and his sleazy family would repay Crow for his bribes. But for now, at least we can exult in the fact that the Thomas family’s bogus mask of morality has fallen, and the world can see Clarence and Ginni Thomas for the corrupt, two-bit hucksters they truly are.

Exhibit B: Leaders of the Proud Boys were convicted of seditious conspiracy. They were found guilty on 31 of 46 counts. Donald Trump’s January 6 foot soldiers will now be trading in their brown shirts for orange jumpsuits.

I hope the judge sentences the defendants to 20 years in prison. He should show the same mercy the Proud Boys offered police officers defending the capitol on January 6. Maximum prison sentences will give them plenty of time to stand back and stand by in their prison cells.

Attorney General Merrick Garland reminded Americans that his January 6 criminal investigations have netted more than 600 convictions. Of course, the Justice Department’s work won’t be complete until Donald Trump and his inner cabal of coup plotters are behind bars.

In Arizona, the lying lawyers for failed gubernatorial candidate, Kari Lake, were sanctioned. Arizona’s Supreme Court fined Lake’s attorneys $2,000 for making “false factual statements to the Court.”

A more appropriate penalty would have been $20,000 and disbarment. But, at the very least, the truth was put on trial, and it won. This fine won’t make everything fine within a GOP that thrives on conspiracy theories. But perhaps it will dissuade future attorneys from ruining their reputations by acting disreputably for clients that put personal power over patriotism.

The only way to stop Republican criminality is by ensuring that there are consequences. This week served a healthy dose of comeuppance that hopefully puts future right wing goons and hustlers on notice.
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May 8, 2023 • Opinion, Politics • 176

Biden’s Economic Success Driving Republicans Crazy

Bidenomics continues to deliver results for the American people. The Labor Department announced that employers added 253,000 jobs in April. The unemployment rate was down to 3.4 percent, matching the lowest since 1969.

If you have a new job, thank Joe Biden.

Conservatives are thrilled with the news, because they want Biden to succeed for the good of the country. That was a joke.

President Biden followed through on his promise to create an economy that works for everyone. Wages at the bottom end of the pay scale increased faster than they had in decades. The unemployment rate for African Americans reached its lowest point on record in April, at 4.7 percent. The New York Times reports:

The gap between the unemployment rates of white and Black people was also the smallest ever measured. The share of working-age people participating in the labor market reached 83.3 percent, matching a level not seen since 2008.

The economic success of a Democratic president should not surprise anyone. A New York Times analysis found:

Since 1933, the economy has grown at an annual average rate of 4.6 percent under Democratic presidents and 2.4 percent under Republicans. In more concrete terms: The average income of Americans would be more than double its current level if the economy had somehow grown at the Democratic rate for all of the past nine decades. If anything, that period (which is based on data availability) is too kind to Republicans, because it excludes the portion of the Great Depression that happened on Herbert Hoover’s watch.

The six presidents who have presided over the fastest job growth have all been Democrats. The four presidents who have presided over the slowest growth have all been Republicans.

The main issue inhibiting our economy today are Republican attacks on immigration. Contrary to their propaganda, hardworking immigrants are good for the economy. The Labor Department found:

A rebound in immigration eased labor shortages, especially in fields like leisure and hospitality and health care, allowing those to continue to grow quickly.

Republicans are reacting to Biden’s economic success by threatening to not raise the debt ceiling. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is demanding Joe Biden cut trillions of dollars, or Republicans will crash the world economy.

A new study by the White House Council of Economic Advisers found that if McCarthy holds the economy hostage, the results could be devastating. The report warned:

The nightmare scenario of a “protracted” standoff over the debt limit — or one that lasts about three months — would lead to a 6 percent contraction in the size of the economy…The stock market would also fall by an estimated 45 percent… failing to increase the nation’s borrowing limit could wipe out more than 8 million jobs.

Republicans would rather sabotage the economy than acknowledge Biden’s success. They would wreck the economy at the moment of recovery.

McCarthy is so focused on Republican power, that he seems prepared to drive us into poverty. The modern Republican Party is depressing enough, without leading America into the next Great Depression.

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