I live in Florida and I am 100% sure that DeSantis doesn't actually want this Disney bill to pass. If he did he would not be going about it the way he currently is. He is not targeting Reedy Creek directly. His proposed solution is to dissolve ALL special districts created on or before 1968. This would sweep up Reedy Creek since it was created in 1967 but it also dissolves:
1) Nearly every housing authority
2) Many airport authorities
3) Many port authorities
4) Many highway authorities
5) Redevelopment districts
6) Daytona Beach Raceway authority
7) Hundreds of other special districts
Florida currently has 1,844 special districts. A huge chunk of those would be eliminated.
It is for that reason that I don't think DeSantis wants this to pass because there is no way in hell the FL Republicans in the state Senate will go along with that. DeSantis is posturing and is setting up a scenario where he can look like he's hitting Disney, without really trying to hit them, and then fundraise the hell out of it when the (((Deep State))) stops the bill.
...and that blows apart the prevailing narrative about the media going soft on Hunter Biden. That's already received more coverage than all the Trump kid scandals combined. I'll play the "why isn't/wasn't it a scandal" game:
Jared's deal to sell 666 5th Ave. (many questionable aspects involving Qatar and the Saudis, and worthy of its own article or three)
Trump going soft on China in connection with the ZTE spying revelations, contemporaneously with Chinese copyright approval for Ivanka's home goods
Ivanka private e-mail server (Trump gaslighted the Khashoggi killing to knock the Ivanka story out of the news)
Trump's lawyer dropping money bags on Cy Vance's doorstep, after which investigations into Jr. and Ivanka for possible real estate fraud were dropped
There's more. But no one's heard about it. Must be the liberal media.
Why isn't the Jared-Saudi thing a bigger scandal? Because Trumpism is at bottom about giving the middle finger to anyone who believes that life can be lived on any higher principle than greed. The Saudi deal is simply on brand and everyone knows it.
Look-- Trump, is a disorganized, lazy opportunist and self-taught genius demagogue who although he would like to be Putin, Xi, or Kim Jong Il, can't quite get there because he allows himself to be distracted by flattery and applause.
DeSantis is different. He is the most dangerous man in America today because he sees reality for what it is: we have collapsed as an electoral republic, and just like the Roman republic, there are only two possible futures-- either a strong man siezes absolute power, or the nation disintegrates into something like a balkanized, militia benighted Lebanon, or a klepto-state torn apart by petty gangsters.
And when DeSantis looks in the mirror, he doesn't see a petty gangster. He sees a Caesar. He is blessed with a large measure of Trump's talent for demagoguery. Worse, unlike Trump, he also the ferocity and self-discipline to pull it off.
If Trump is still breathing on Jan 20 2025 he'll be back in office, and this time he will have stooges around him who will put in place the apparatus Caesar will need to create himself the supreme leader. Someone will get there. I'm guessing it will be DeSantis. And God have mercy on us all, because in DeSantis there is none.
I’m sure women today who are losing the rights to have control over their own bodies are concerned about men’s lacking masculinity.
“ ..and when societies fail to offer constructive paths for masculine expression, they court backlash.” This is another ridiculous Mona statement. Would like her to define a constructive path for masculine expression. Seems to me that almost half the men in our society today are expressing their masculinity by suppressing women’s rights through abortion bills, still keeping women’ s wages below their own and on every front trying to deny them jobs they are highly qualified for (Justice Jackson only one example). No, I want no pity party for these “poor” men trying to take us back to the “masculinity” of the 1950s.
Apr 21, 2022·edited Apr 21, 2022Liked by Charlie Sykes, author
I think this is part of a deeply embedded myth-idea of Hero morality in our culture. The Hero is not only allowed to act in ways not permitted to ordinary mortals, he is under a positive obligation to do so. For this purpose he is granted extraordinary traits, powers and privileges, including (and especially) powers to create, to destroy, and to decide who lives and who dies. Not only is he free from the jurisdiction of rules and limits which apply to lesser mortals, he is under a positive obligation to evade them.
[Insert here a couple of books detailing examples of this mythos in art and literature and film and philosophy, from Homer through Plato and the Bible and Westerns and Rambo movies and so on.]
The essence of being a hero is being free from mundane laws and rules. A hero who never strays outside those boundaries is by definition not being heroic, because he receives these privileges for the explicit purpose of breaking them. If he never violates them, he never acts heroically, leaving open the question of (a) whether he is a hero in the first place, and (b) whether he is avoiding his duty. It follows then that if the hero does violate laws and rules, and gets away with it, his success validates his heroic status, proving his anointed right to act as he pleases.
It is advisable therefore for the hero to publish proof of his rights by defying law and custom. One of the best ways to do this is to strike down those who try to constrain him. Not only does this prove he is one of the elect, it also exposes his enemies as enemies of the right and true.
If this seems like a moral self-licking ice cream cone, it is.
1. Important issues like Jared's 2 billion haul and Mike Lee's texts get no coverage because the "zone" has not just been flooded, it undergoes a tsunami on a daily basis. And the media fears the backlash from the highly coordinated GOP attack machine.
2. I certainly hope that everyone from the owners of small businesses to the boards and stockholders of major corporations are paying close attention to the multiple ways the GOP wants to control their operations unless they toe the line. And I hope they radically change their political donations accordingly. ASAP.
3. As far as improving and possibly even perfecting Dem messaging for 2022 and 2024 RE Republican tactics and goals, you must see this from MI State Senator Mallory McMorrow. THIS is the way.
There seem to be some people who doubt that Trump will be running in 2024. But would the Saudis be giving Trump's son-in-law $2 billion if they didn't think Trump was running? And what are the Saudis willing to do in 2024 to ensure a return on their investment? And if Trump is elected, how will he handle being beholden to both Putin (let's hope he's dead by then. Hell, Trump, too) and MBS? How will that effect America and the world?
As to the why isn't the Jared story a bigger deal.......maybe the media isn't as liberal as the R's have shouted that it is for the last 40 f'ing years.
Maybe the MSM is concerned with making money and returning to shareholders?
Maybe the MSM is concerned with maintaining access to power?
Maybe the MSM is concerned with telling "stories" that don't inform as much as entertain?
DeSantis isn't "authoritarian socialist." He's Totalitarian Fascist. As in Mussolini's corporatism, the melding of state and corporation - "pure" fascism. Or, as a late friend who survived "the twelve bad years" once told me: "The Nazis didn't elect Hitler, the conservatives did! They believed him when he told them he was one of them, a lie they discovered too late."
The reason MBS went to Jared's and didn't cause a scandal is that no one believes that the DoJ, Congress or anyone else will pursue it. It's clearly bribery, almost certainly a violation of lobbying and foreign agency regulations and most likely an illegal campaign donation in a different uniform but, if someone can foment an insurrection, call for the illegal voiding of a demonstrably valid election and perform in office such that 1,000,000 Americans die from contracting a substantially preventable disease and not just get off Scott free but be lionized for it what's a little bribery among friends. The "Rule of Law" has become a joke, at least if one is wealthy and therefore powerful.
Mona Charen’s article is written from such a Western Chauvinist perspective. There have been MANY types of societies in our collective world history where gender roles were very different than what we see today. There were/are matriarchal societies, societies with female warriors, and societies where male shamans dressed as women and were considered to be both genders. Recess being shortened isn’t just bad for boys, it’s bad for everyone. Also, as much as I like Theodore Roosevelt, he and others like him promoted eugenics. So maybe not the role model we need right now… especially when the right is getting so very Hitlerish.
Gender identity is a social construct, and while we are now evolving to what is a more fair and just society, Charen still believes in the Western Chauvinist idealism of masculinity. The problem is too many men are unemployed. If you go back to all those moments in history Charen refers to, I guarantee disgruntled, unemployed men are usually the problem. They just need stuff to do, but it could be baking or sewing or chopping down trees. It’s okay for men to not be “manly” and it’s fine if they are. It’s just an adjustment, but I for one don’t need to be told that my “march” towards equal civil rights needs to be put on pause because insecure men feel left behind. The younger generation gets it, and thank goodness for that.
One of the major problems with our country right now, wholly the fault of conservatives, and part or most of the reason the Bulwark even exists, is that conservatives, and principally DJT, have made it toxic to hold conservatives accountable for anything. They can just retreat to their own news ecosystem and then the argument changes to who's playing politics? It's the reason we're losing democracy and why we'll ultimately turn into Hungary. What galls me is that the conservatives allowing this to happen think they'll be spared the devilish constraints on speech, media, and daily life, because they "won," but that's because they're also not good at history.
Just from a messaging standpoint I wouldn't call DeSantis's actions "authoritarian socialism", but rather "Soviet style rule". It sounds more accurate and rings truer.
Wanted to call your attention to an upcoming event in my state of Nebraska. Trump will be holding a rally for a candidate for governor, Charles W. Herbster. This week we learned that Herbster is a serial ass-grabber. (One of his victims is a mid-20's state senator and his other victims ranged in age from late teens to mid-20's. Herbster is 67.) Thought the ass-grabber sharing the stage with the pussy-grabber during a time of discussion about masculinity would make a good story.
I live in Florida and I am 100% sure that DeSantis doesn't actually want this Disney bill to pass. If he did he would not be going about it the way he currently is. He is not targeting Reedy Creek directly. His proposed solution is to dissolve ALL special districts created on or before 1968. This would sweep up Reedy Creek since it was created in 1967 but it also dissolves:
1) Nearly every housing authority
2) Many airport authorities
3) Many port authorities
4) Many highway authorities
5) Redevelopment districts
6) Daytona Beach Raceway authority
7) Hundreds of other special districts
Florida currently has 1,844 special districts. A huge chunk of those would be eliminated.
It is for that reason that I don't think DeSantis wants this to pass because there is no way in hell the FL Republicans in the state Senate will go along with that. DeSantis is posturing and is setting up a scenario where he can look like he's hitting Disney, without really trying to hit them, and then fundraise the hell out of it when the (((Deep State))) stops the bill.
It's another grift, a scam.
...and that blows apart the prevailing narrative about the media going soft on Hunter Biden. That's already received more coverage than all the Trump kid scandals combined. I'll play the "why isn't/wasn't it a scandal" game:
Jared's deal to sell 666 5th Ave. (many questionable aspects involving Qatar and the Saudis, and worthy of its own article or three)
Trump going soft on China in connection with the ZTE spying revelations, contemporaneously with Chinese copyright approval for Ivanka's home goods
Ivanka private e-mail server (Trump gaslighted the Khashoggi killing to knock the Ivanka story out of the news)
Trump's lawyer dropping money bags on Cy Vance's doorstep, after which investigations into Jr. and Ivanka for possible real estate fraud were dropped
There's more. But no one's heard about it. Must be the liberal media.
Why isn't the Jared-Saudi thing a bigger scandal? Because Trumpism is at bottom about giving the middle finger to anyone who believes that life can be lived on any higher principle than greed. The Saudi deal is simply on brand and everyone knows it.
Look-- Trump, is a disorganized, lazy opportunist and self-taught genius demagogue who although he would like to be Putin, Xi, or Kim Jong Il, can't quite get there because he allows himself to be distracted by flattery and applause.
DeSantis is different. He is the most dangerous man in America today because he sees reality for what it is: we have collapsed as an electoral republic, and just like the Roman republic, there are only two possible futures-- either a strong man siezes absolute power, or the nation disintegrates into something like a balkanized, militia benighted Lebanon, or a klepto-state torn apart by petty gangsters.
And when DeSantis looks in the mirror, he doesn't see a petty gangster. He sees a Caesar. He is blessed with a large measure of Trump's talent for demagoguery. Worse, unlike Trump, he also the ferocity and self-discipline to pull it off.
If Trump is still breathing on Jan 20 2025 he'll be back in office, and this time he will have stooges around him who will put in place the apparatus Caesar will need to create himself the supreme leader. Someone will get there. I'm guessing it will be DeSantis. And God have mercy on us all, because in DeSantis there is none.
It's odd that the Army and Navy have chronic troop shortages when there's all these manly men looking for ways to prove themselves
I’m sure women today who are losing the rights to have control over their own bodies are concerned about men’s lacking masculinity.
“ ..and when societies fail to offer constructive paths for masculine expression, they court backlash.” This is another ridiculous Mona statement. Would like her to define a constructive path for masculine expression. Seems to me that almost half the men in our society today are expressing their masculinity by suppressing women’s rights through abortion bills, still keeping women’ s wages below their own and on every front trying to deny them jobs they are highly qualified for (Justice Jackson only one example). No, I want no pity party for these “poor” men trying to take us back to the “masculinity” of the 1950s.
I think this is part of a deeply embedded myth-idea of Hero morality in our culture. The Hero is not only allowed to act in ways not permitted to ordinary mortals, he is under a positive obligation to do so. For this purpose he is granted extraordinary traits, powers and privileges, including (and especially) powers to create, to destroy, and to decide who lives and who dies. Not only is he free from the jurisdiction of rules and limits which apply to lesser mortals, he is under a positive obligation to evade them.
[Insert here a couple of books detailing examples of this mythos in art and literature and film and philosophy, from Homer through Plato and the Bible and Westerns and Rambo movies and so on.]
The essence of being a hero is being free from mundane laws and rules. A hero who never strays outside those boundaries is by definition not being heroic, because he receives these privileges for the explicit purpose of breaking them. If he never violates them, he never acts heroically, leaving open the question of (a) whether he is a hero in the first place, and (b) whether he is avoiding his duty. It follows then that if the hero does violate laws and rules, and gets away with it, his success validates his heroic status, proving his anointed right to act as he pleases.
It is advisable therefore for the hero to publish proof of his rights by defying law and custom. One of the best ways to do this is to strike down those who try to constrain him. Not only does this prove he is one of the elect, it also exposes his enemies as enemies of the right and true.
If this seems like a moral self-licking ice cream cone, it is.
Just a few short thoughts:
1. Important issues like Jared's 2 billion haul and Mike Lee's texts get no coverage because the "zone" has not just been flooded, it undergoes a tsunami on a daily basis. And the media fears the backlash from the highly coordinated GOP attack machine.
2. I certainly hope that everyone from the owners of small businesses to the boards and stockholders of major corporations are paying close attention to the multiple ways the GOP wants to control their operations unless they toe the line. And I hope they radically change their political donations accordingly. ASAP.
3. As far as improving and possibly even perfecting Dem messaging for 2022 and 2024 RE Republican tactics and goals, you must see this from MI State Senator Mallory McMorrow. THIS is the way.
https://youtu.be/0-dhbYHw-Jw
There seem to be some people who doubt that Trump will be running in 2024. But would the Saudis be giving Trump's son-in-law $2 billion if they didn't think Trump was running? And what are the Saudis willing to do in 2024 to ensure a return on their investment? And if Trump is elected, how will he handle being beholden to both Putin (let's hope he's dead by then. Hell, Trump, too) and MBS? How will that effect America and the world?
As to the why isn't the Jared story a bigger deal.......maybe the media isn't as liberal as the R's have shouted that it is for the last 40 f'ing years.
Maybe the MSM is concerned with making money and returning to shareholders?
Maybe the MSM is concerned with maintaining access to power?
Maybe the MSM is concerned with telling "stories" that don't inform as much as entertain?
DeSantis isn't "authoritarian socialist." He's Totalitarian Fascist. As in Mussolini's corporatism, the melding of state and corporation - "pure" fascism. Or, as a late friend who survived "the twelve bad years" once told me: "The Nazis didn't elect Hitler, the conservatives did! They believed him when he told them he was one of them, a lie they discovered too late."
The reason MBS went to Jared's and didn't cause a scandal is that no one believes that the DoJ, Congress or anyone else will pursue it. It's clearly bribery, almost certainly a violation of lobbying and foreign agency regulations and most likely an illegal campaign donation in a different uniform but, if someone can foment an insurrection, call for the illegal voiding of a demonstrably valid election and perform in office such that 1,000,000 Americans die from contracting a substantially preventable disease and not just get off Scott free but be lionized for it what's a little bribery among friends. The "Rule of Law" has become a joke, at least if one is wealthy and therefore powerful.
Mona Charen’s article is written from such a Western Chauvinist perspective. There have been MANY types of societies in our collective world history where gender roles were very different than what we see today. There were/are matriarchal societies, societies with female warriors, and societies where male shamans dressed as women and were considered to be both genders. Recess being shortened isn’t just bad for boys, it’s bad for everyone. Also, as much as I like Theodore Roosevelt, he and others like him promoted eugenics. So maybe not the role model we need right now… especially when the right is getting so very Hitlerish.
Gender identity is a social construct, and while we are now evolving to what is a more fair and just society, Charen still believes in the Western Chauvinist idealism of masculinity. The problem is too many men are unemployed. If you go back to all those moments in history Charen refers to, I guarantee disgruntled, unemployed men are usually the problem. They just need stuff to do, but it could be baking or sewing or chopping down trees. It’s okay for men to not be “manly” and it’s fine if they are. It’s just an adjustment, but I for one don’t need to be told that my “march” towards equal civil rights needs to be put on pause because insecure men feel left behind. The younger generation gets it, and thank goodness for that.
One of the major problems with our country right now, wholly the fault of conservatives, and part or most of the reason the Bulwark even exists, is that conservatives, and principally DJT, have made it toxic to hold conservatives accountable for anything. They can just retreat to their own news ecosystem and then the argument changes to who's playing politics? It's the reason we're losing democracy and why we'll ultimately turn into Hungary. What galls me is that the conservatives allowing this to happen think they'll be spared the devilish constraints on speech, media, and daily life, because they "won," but that's because they're also not good at history.
Just from a messaging standpoint I wouldn't call DeSantis's actions "authoritarian socialism", but rather "Soviet style rule". It sounds more accurate and rings truer.
Charlie-
Wanted to call your attention to an upcoming event in my state of Nebraska. Trump will be holding a rally for a candidate for governor, Charles W. Herbster. This week we learned that Herbster is a serial ass-grabber. (One of his victims is a mid-20's state senator and his other victims ranged in age from late teens to mid-20's. Herbster is 67.) Thought the ass-grabber sharing the stage with the pussy-grabber during a time of discussion about masculinity would make a good story.