Tinker, Tailor, Maniac 🌻🌻🌻

Bridge of Spies: As awful as Hurricane Ian was and as monumental as the recovery effort will be, this morning Florida Governor DeSantis is probably relieved that the news about the storm’s devastation is providing him cover from his Martha’s Vineyard migrant mess because it turns out that the back story for that escapade is far from flattering for presidential wannabee Ron.  Among the details included in the NY Times, DeSantis sent Perla Huerta, a recently discharged CIA counter-intelligence agent, to Texas to source the migrants that he then had flown to the Vineyard because despite DeSantis’ populist, anti-immigrant rhetoric there weren’t enough migrants “flooding” into Florida to find them there and he couldn’t handle Texas’ Governor Abbot, who he never informed about his plans, benefiting from all that love and admiration from the anti-immigrant set.  He misused Florida state funds specifically appropriated for “dealing” with the Florida migrant “invasion” and, in addition to employing the services of the ex-spy, used a charter air service owned by a political crony who was previously represented by Panhandle putz Matt Gaetz to fly his travel weary victims to the Vineyard.  Also, as previously reported the migrants were lured to the flight with pamphlets detailing promises of jobs, housing and other benefits that aren’t available to migrants seeking asylum.  Kudos again to those Martha’s Vineyards residents who greeted their unexpected visitors with such warmth. Regarding Ian, perhaps because he was basking in the success of his migrant trickery, DeSantis underestimated the unpredictable nature of Ian’s path and was late to ordering Lee County residents to get out of Dodge. Sure, hindsight is 20-20 but had anyone in his administration heeded their own emergency planning guidelines, evacuation orders would have been delivered when they could have saved lives. And you’ll be forgiven if you think that DeSantis asking donations to the Florida Disaster Fund being headed up by his wife to help storm ravaged Floridians is just a bit hypocritical given the money he directed to his migrant fiasco.  Anyway, contributing to help those suffering is a good thing, but stick with an established organization because something tells me we could read some stories about grifting at some point especially if DeSantis follows in the mango one’s footsteps.   

The Imitation Game: Notably none of Florida’s Congressional representatives voted for any of the aid that is now flowing into Florida’s coffers, but that hasn’t stopped them from demanding more and taking credit for what the state is currently receiving.  On the give me more front, Matt Gaetz, who has been vocal about his preference for Russia’s Putin over Zelenskyy’s Ukraine, tweeted against aiding those corrupt Ukrainians, asserting that the funds going there should be going to Florida despite his anti-storm aid vote. But then again, in his love for all things Russian, Gaetz is just following the lead of his party leadership, the Former Guy and CPAC who stuck with their pro-Putin views his past week.  GOP Leader, Speaker wannabee, Kevin McCarthy’s leadership group tweeted a platform statement with a patriotic backdrop that turned out to be stock footage of Russian rather than US troops, that was the platform that they accidentally released earlier than they had planned, something to do with failing to password protect a file that was supposed to be seen by only a few party diehards. Funny until you remember that McQarthy could soon be third in line for the presidency.  For their part CPAC, the right-wing organization that hosted one of its recent meetings in Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban’s backyard, had him as a speaker at another more recent one and recently celebrated the victory of Italy’s new fascist leader Georgia Meloni, sent out a tweet criticizing aid to Ukraine that used pro-Russia language to describe Putin’s annexation of sections of Ukraine only to delete it hours later, blaming what they are now calling a drafting error on an internal approval process hampered by time zone delays.  

Enemy of the State: The Former Guy, who last week offered to solve the Ukraine crisis probably by ceding all of the country to his BFF Putin, spent this week at another one of his smaller but increasingly nutzoid rallies where one of his keynote speakers, Representative Margie Q threatened violence against anyone who doesn’t share her views, a violence she said was appropriate given all of the Republicans who have been murdered by Democrats.  How did I miss that carnage?  Darkly humorous, until you consider that she will have a seat at the table if Republicans retake the House during next months midterms.  As to the oddly bronzed FG he’s been “truthing” frantically these days.  One of his recent ones claimed Mitch McConnell has a “death wish” and called his “Chinese loving” wife “Coco Chow.”  It’s not a stretch to think that somewhere in his fan base there’s at least one crazy who is taking that death wish comment as an order to fulfill his orange leader’s desires.  So far no comment from Mitch or anyone else in party leadership, not even about the anti-Asian ethnic slur,  because that’s how they are and they fear any slap back from their twisted leader.  On the Mar a Lago front, expect some more news this week as the Department of Justice is seeking to fast track its appeal of pocket judge Cannon’s ruling that delays its investigation into the purloined documents.

And:  Lastly, since it’s now October the Supreme Court is back and what’s on the docket this session may make the anti-Roe Dodd opinion seem like an outlier especially if you are among those who think that your vote should count even if countervailing forces in your state’s legislature beg to differ.