Florida Gov. DeSantis denounces blogger bill, silent on other anti-First Amendment bill
Of the anti-free speech bills making their way through the Florida Legislature, Gov. Ron DeSantis opposes one but likely to enthusiastically support the other based on past precedent
As a follow-up to a piece I wrote last weekend, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has finally come out to denounce the Orwellian ant-free speech bill submitted by State Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-FL10).
As I previously reported, Brodeur submitted Senate Bill 1316 on Tuesday, Feb. 28 which would require bloggers to register with the State of Florida anytime they merely mention a select group of elected officials (governor, lieutenant governor, cabinet officers and members of the Florida Legislature). Every blog post that referenced an elected official would be subject to fines as much as $2,500 for every single blog post that references an elected official if said blogger did not submit to the dictate.
It took a week, but DeSantis denounced the bill on Tuesday, March 7 stating at a press conference:
“Every person in the legislature can file bills, right? I see these people filing bills and then there’s articles with my face on the article saying that ‘oh, bloggers are going to have to register [with] the state,’ and it’s like attributing it to me. And I’m like, okay, that’s not anything that I’ve ever supported. I don’t support [it].”
As I also wrote last weekend, Brodeur had not made any public comments on the bill at the time I posted my piece. He did, however, post something to Twitter after my post the same day, March 5, in which he actually defended the ludicrous bill.
Brodeur, who remains the only name on the bill, called it “an electioneering thing” because bloggers could theoretically be paid to have a story written to be used on campaign literature.
I’ll note, I’ve been covering local elections for some time now. I’ve watched quite a few state and national elections in my day. Mailers generally do not cite bloggers. They cite mainstream narrative whore media. Brodeur’s bill had nothing to say about the mainstream narrative whore media. They’re alright with him.
Even further, it should be noted that Brodeur’s bill only applies to bloggers who reference elected officials, or cabinet members, not candidates. So, his bill aims to be a protection bill for the “elected.”
By the way, here’s an idea for stopping the worse of the worse lobbyists. Stop stealing peoples money and taking so much power that government was never supposed to have. The reason there are so many lobbyists is because government is where all the money and power is. That’s never what was intended at the founding of the nation. But never expect either of the two criminal parties to ever give up control. Instead, they try to protect themselves and violate the peoples’ rights.
DeSantis says nothing about draconian “hate crime” bill
Another bill I wrote about last weekend, House Bill 269, was not mentioned by DeSantis. The bill, sponsored by State Reps. Mike Caruso (R-FL87) and Randy Fine (R-FL33), is much more likely to be passed with 40 co-sponsors. In fact, I bet it’s enthusiastically approved, and DeSantis may even sign it in a foreign nation as he has done in the past.
That bill, admitted by its sponsors, would make things like vandalism or littering a felony with up to 5 years in prison if the government deems it was done out of hate, “antisemitism” in particular.
As I wrote previously, Florida has already approved of HB741 in 2019. The dangerously vague bill purported to criminalize “antisemitism” that could set up any criticism, justified or not, of anyone who happens to be Jewish as being labeled “antisemitic.”
DeSantis not only signed it, he took a taxpayer funded trip to Israel to sign it on foreign soil.
If you look at the debate from 2019, you can see just how authoritarian the Florida Republicans are. Florida Politics reported on a letter to DeSantis from over 30 Jewish Floridians who opposed that bill, ranging from constitutional lawyers to rabbis.
That letter stated:
“While HB 741 is to be commended for adding ‘religion’ to the prohibited categories of discrimination in the existing law, as Jewish Floridians, we strongly object on two grounds to those provisions of the bill relating to anti-Semitism.”
“First, the bill offers some examples of anti-Semitism that do not relate to anti-Semitism but, instead, to criticism of the State of Israel.”
“Second, the proposal identifies anti-Semitism, and only anti-Semitism, as an example of religious discrimination.”
“At a time when we should be welcoming and valuing open debate on issues of social concern, HB 741 is a heavy-handed attempt to silence public criticism of the Israeli government’s human rights violations. Agree or disagree with the critics, the Florida Legislature has no business intruding on those discussions. Additionally, the accusation that such criticism is anti-Semitic does a disservice to the real issues of anti-Semitism that should concern all of us today….”
“We are deeply opposed to the bill’s implication that anti-Semitism is a greater concern than other forms of religious discrimination.”
For opposing that bill, the bill’s sponsor Fine, sounding like a good little leftist, accused them of not wanting “to ensure their own children and grandchildren (to) be protected,” and he said any member of the Florida Legislature who opposed his bill should be “held accountable.” Yeah, free speech is meaningless to Fine.
It is fair to also point out that the government that the Florida Republicans, and quite frankly most members of the GOP nationwide, want to protect from any criticism.
Benjamin Netanyahu, who was recently reinstalled as Israel’s prime minister, was one of the most authoritarian dictators around the world during the covid scam. He literally bragged about Israeli citizens being used as guinea pigs for the experimental gene therapy regime, and he bragged about the digital tracking capabilities that the Israeli government has:
I wrote about Netanyahu in 2021 when he was removed as prime minister at the time for The Liberty Loft.
Netanyahu went as far as suggesting microchipping Israeli’s to make sure they practice social distancing, and he told Israelis they would need to submit to the vaccine to have freedom. He pushed for a new law requiring personal information be shared for anyone who refuses the shot.
Israel, especially under Netanyahu, has been openly hostile to practicing Christians where Christian missionaries can be arrested for handing out Gospel tracts and Christian televisions networks are cancelled for “seeking to proselytize in Israel.”
And American taxpayers, through foreign aid, subsidize Israel’s socialist “universal healthcare” system and abortion on demand in Israel.
That’s the government Republicans want to protect from criticism.
Georgia’s GOP Joins Florida with own Draconian “Hate Crime” Bill
This past week, the Republican dominate legislature in Georgia passed it’s own pathetic anti-free speech “hate crime” bill, according to Chris Menahan for Information Liberation.
As Menahan notes, the GOP channeled their inner leftism chanting, “Hate has no place in Georgia.”
Menahan wrote:
“No other ethnic or religious group in America is afforded any such privileges.”
“As I reported last week, the Florida GOP is working to pass similar legislation to expand what constitutes a ‘hate crime’ in order to ‘combat anti-Semitism.’…”
“For the ‘Free Speech Warriors’ in the Republican Party, the First Amendment must take a backseat to ‘fighting anti-Semitism.’”