A bill in the Florida Senate could cripple mail-in voting and add unwanted expenses to county budgets. (Photo: Author)
March 9, 2021 by David Silverberg
The most significant bill suppressing voting in Florida is scheduled for committee consideration tomorrow, March 10—and Florida residents can weigh in with their opposition.
Senate Bill 90 would require voters seeking to vote by mail to renew their mail-in request every year in the calendar year of the election rather than the current two years. That means that voters seeking a mail-in ballot for the 2022 election would have to wait until next year to request it.
Introduced on Feb. 3 by state Sen. Dennis Baxley (R-12-Sumter County), the bill has already been approved by the Florida Senate Ethics and Elections Committee.
The Florida Senate Government Oversight and Accountability Committee, has scheduled a hearing on it for tomorrow.
While the bill is ostensibly intended to prevent voter fraud, it has been denounced by county election supervisors, who worry that it will add unnecessary financial burdens to their counties.
The Miami Herald, editorialized that, “While not solving any real problems, it would force supervisors of elections to scramble to comply and notify voters, costing counties hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Further, it “smacks of a partisan attempt to confuse voters and catch them off guard in next year’s election.”
Florida Democrats have denounced the bill.
“Why do Florida Republicans want to limit vote by mail access? Well it all comes down to who has access to the franchise,” Marcus Dixon, Florida Democratic Party Executive Director told News4 in Jacksonville. “So even though the vote by mail system worked well here in Florida this past election, any time too many people have easy access to the ballot box, Republicans feel like they need to change the rules.”
Manny Diaz, Florida Democratic Party Chair, agreed. “This is not an issue of Republicans versus Democrats, but instead an issue of Republicans versus democracy,” Diaz said. “Florida Republicans keep showing us that when given a choice between defending the rights of voters, or suppressing voter access, disturbingly they will all too gladly suppress, harm and sacrifice our most sacred Constitutional right, on the altar of preserving power for the sake of power.”
Comment: What you can do
Florida residents can weigh in on this issue before, during and after it comes up for a hearing in the Senate Government Oversight and Accountability Committee.
They can contact their state senators and urge them to oppose it.
To find your senator, go to Find Your Legislators and enter your address. Your senator will appear along with a button to e-mail that senator. Tell your senator to oppose SB 90 and keep the mail-in voting provision the way it functioned in 2020.
The members of the Government Oversight and Accountability Committee are:
Rubio, Scott vote against bill with rest of Republicans; Donalds praises defunding Planned Parenthood
The US Capitol.
March 6, 2021 by David Silverberg
Today, shortly after noon, the United States Senate approved the American Rescue Plan (House Resolution 1319) by a party-line vote of 50 to 49.
Both of Florida’s Republican senators, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, voted against the bill along with the rest of the Republican caucus. One senator, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), did not vote.
The Senate worked through the night to consider and vote on numerous amendments following a demand by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) that the 628-page bill be read aloud in its entirety, an effort that added 12 hours to deliberations.
The amended bill now returns to the House of Representatives to be voted upon with the Senate amendments. The House is scheduled to reconvene at noon on Monday, March 8 and a vote may take place on Tuesday.
All of Southwest Florida’s members of Congress, Reps. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-25-Fla.) and Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.), voted against the bill when it was first considered in the House last Saturday, Feb. 27. Their positions are not expected to change when it returns to the House. Donalds has strenuously spoken out against the bill on the House floor and in subsequent statements.
Immediately after the Senate vote today Donalds tweeted: “I am happy to see that PPP [Paycheck Protection Program] money will no longer be going to institutions like Margaret Sanger’s Planned Parenthood. Taxpayer dollars should never fund abortion on American soil or abroad.” He also expressed thanks to Democratic senators who rejected a minimum wage increase: “Thank you to the Senate Democrats who sided with Senate Republicans on rejecting the $15 minimum wage increase. Bernie, Pelosi, and Schumer want to run America like California, New York, and Vermont; let me remind them that there are 47 other states in our union.”
Among its many provisions, the $1.9 trillion spending bill provides for $1,400 in economic stimulus to American families, $300 in weekly unemployment benefits to workers affected by the pandemic until Sept. 6, funding for COVID vaccine distribution, and aid to state and local governments affected by the pandemic.
In her own statement following Senate passage House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-12-Calif.), stated: “Today is a day of great progress and promise for the American people, as the Democratic Senate has passed President Biden’s American Rescue Plan to save lives and livelihoods.”
She concluded: “The American Rescue Plan is a beacon of hope for America’s families and a sign that, as President Biden has promised: Help Is On The Way.”
Michael Flynn, center, pledges “Where we go one, we go all,” a QAnon slogan, in a July 4, 2020 video he posted that was reported by CNN. (Image: CNN)
March 3, 2021 by David Silverberg
The dinner and fundraising event featuring Michael Flynn, former national security advisor, and Red Pill Roadshow, a QAnon-promoting traveling production, which was scheduled to come to Fort Myers, Fla., on March 11, has been cancelled in its originally scheduled location.
A new location will be revealed only to ticketholders 12 hours before the event, according to its organizer, The Florida Conservative blog.
Management at the Treehouse Rooftop Lounge, an entertainment venue in the Bell Tower Shops in Fort Myers, where the event was to have taken place, confirmed its cancellation there.
Word of the cancellation was also spread yesterday by an officer of the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.
The fate of a “secret” Michael Flynn dinner in Naples scheduled for March 10 remains unclear. (For more on the Fort Myers event, Red Pill Roadshow and background on QAnon, see: “QAnon show, Michael Flynn, coming to Fort Myers.”)
“I’ve never really believed in the Q doctrine, but I believe that Americans should have a right to free speech,” Gamble told Fabiano. “To say we’re a Q event or anything like that – nothing could be further from the truth. We’re a free speech event.”
The new announcement was made the day before some QAnon cultists hold out hope that Trump will somehow take power on March 4, when inaugurations occurred prior to passage of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution in 1937.
Rep. Byron Donalds, unmasked before his fellow Republican freshman representatives, denounces the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan just prior to the vote on passage. (Image: Byron Donalds/Twitter)
Editor’s note: With this article we open the Donalds Dossier, an occasional series of articles tracking, reporting and analyzing Rep. Byron Donalds’ activities in representing the 19th Congressional District of Southwest Florida in the US Congress.
March 3, 2021 by David Silverberg
Today marks two months since Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) took the oath of office—and it has been two of the most momentous months in American history.
Just how momentous needs to be fully appreciated: during the past 60 days a coup nearly succeeded, the Constitution was nearly demolished, an election was nearly overturned, the Capitol was violently attacked, congressional leaders were nearly killed, the Vice President was nearly lynched, a president was impeached for a second time and democracy barely survived—and all this amidst a deadly pandemic.
Into this turmoil stepped Byron Donalds, a former Southwest Florida state lawmaker, banking executive and financial advisor who unreservedly pledged his personal loyalty and complete obedience to Donald J. Trump during his election campaign.
Throughout the events of his first two months in office, Donalds has remained ideologically consistent: still pledged to Trump and Trumpism and opposed to any Democratic measure brought forth in the House of Representatives.
A man in microcosm
Mike Lindell, MyPillow CEO, and former national security advisor Michael Flynn at the “Save America” rally prior to the Capitol attack on Jan. 6. Rep. Byron Donalds is in the background, right. (Image: Mike Lindell/Twitter)
Jan. 6, the day of the Capitol attack, illuminated Donalds in microcosm. In the morning he attended Trump’s anti-election rally on the Ellipse outside the White House. Then he went to the Capitol building at 11:17 am where he signed his objection to certifying the election. When rioters entered the building to stop the vote count he fled to safety with other members. That night, after the riot, when members returned, he voted against certifying the election, which was the object of the attack.
At 10:09 pm in a lengthy Twitter statement, Donalds called the rioters “lawless vigilantes,” “a bunch of lunatics” and condemned their actions as “thuggery.” He later altered the tweet to remove the criticism and watered it down to just state that the rioters “do not embody my constituents’ values and heart.” Despite their actions, he tweeted, “they will not alter my decision to object to the Electoral College certification.”
Donalds’ vote against it notwithstanding, Joe Biden’s election was certified and Donalds attended the inauguration on Jan. 20.
So despite Trump’s and Donalds’ best efforts, the results stood—including Donalds’ own election to his office—and there is still a legislative branch of the United States government in which he can serve.
A vocal ideologue
After an initial pause, Donalds has shown himself an active and vocal representative, taking to all forms of media—social, right-wing and mainstream—to get out his messages. For all the talk, his positions have been orthodox conservative and Trumpist. He:
Opposed invoking the 25th Amendment and voted against the second impeachment of Donald Trump, calling the trial “a partisan political sideshow;”
Voted against stripping Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-14-Ga.) of her committee assignments;
Condemned halting construction of the Trump border wall;
Supported retaining the Hyde Amendment prohibiting US funding in any form for abortions;
Denounced the Biden administration’s proposed immigration reforms;
Accused the Biden administration of planning to vaccinate terrorists and undocumented migrants before American citizens;
Denounced teachers’ unions for pressing for safe classrooms;
Praised Rush Limbaugh as being “our voice” and said his passing was “a tremendous blow to generations of patriots;”
Opposed The Equality Act (House Resolution 5) combating gender discrimination.
Some of these positions were merely cosmetic or superficial but Donalds’ really substantive efforts surrounded the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, aimed to stimulate the economy, bring relief to those affected financially by the pandemic and speed vaccine distribution.
Marching the party line
Donalds followed the Republican Party line against the plan but added his own extra effort from the beginning, when the legislation was in committee. Donalds sits on the Budget Committee and, in keeping with the Republican position, denounced the plan as “nothing more than a liberal wish list under the guise of COVID-19 relief, but in reality, this bill is using the pandemic to push forth the radical and misguided policies of the far-left.”
He opposed every aspect of it. First, he opposed using a procedure known as “budget reconciliation” to get it through Congress (which allows it to pass by a simple majority vote). He vehemently inveighed against the $15 minimum wage provision, which more than 60 percent of Florida voters approved in their own referendum last year. He opposed use of Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) funds for non-profit corporations, particularly denouncing Planned Parenthood’s receipt of the funds. He also complained that aid was going to states that skewed Democratic like New York and California that had locked down to halt the spread of COVID-19. He called these public health precautions “authoritarian measures,” and contrasted them with Florida’s lack of restrictions despite the virus (which he himself caught in October but from which he recovered).
The very night that the bill passed, Donalds joined other Republican freshmen in the Capitol to further denounce the bill. While the other members stood behind him, masked as required by House rules, Donalds, a vehement anti-masker, said that he’d forgotten his mask in his office. He proceeded to argue that the only reason Democratic members were supporting the bill was because they feared House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-12-Calif.) and needed the support of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. (Unlike the Republicans, who never acted out of fear of a presidential tweet.)
For all that, of course, the American Rescue Plan passed the House by a vote of 219 to 212 at 2:00 am on Saturday morning, Feb. 27.
On the fast track
Donalds, one of only two Black Republican members in the House (the other is Rep. Burgess Owens (R-4-Utah)), is clearly on a fast track in the Republican caucus and in the conservative movement.
The Republican leadership gave him committee assignments that offer numerous opportunities for political advantage. He sits on the Oversight and Reform Committee, which frequently generates headlines for its investigations and revelations of government misdeeds and shortcomings. His seat on the Budget Committee puts him in a very prominent position for consideration of the Biden administration’s annual budget initiatives, in this year’s case the American Rescue Plan. He also sits on the House Small Business Committee, which while generating fewer headlines, is helpful in the district.
(By contrast, Republicans have traditionally assigned less promising members to the Education Committee, which they regard as a backwater. It generates few headlines, offers few opportunities for high-profile work and congressional Republicans generally despise the Department of Education, which it oversees. It was where former Rep. Francis Rooney was initially placed and where Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was consigned before she was stripped of her committee assignments.)
Donalds also received recognition from the conservative movement at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the conclave that gathered in Orlando last week. While he was not one of the main speakers, he was given a seat on a panel discussing the political utility of supporting law enforcement, a slot in keeping with his rank as a freshman House member. On that panel he argued that while criminals need to be punished, they also need to be reintegrated back into society once they’ve completed their sentences. Donalds himself was arrested at 19 for drug possession and theft.
Back in the district…
While Donalds has been active on the front lines of conservatism and Republican ideology, he’s done little to no visible work in Congress yet on local issues like ensuring Southwest Florida’s vaccine allocation (dealt with in a broader sense by the American Rescue Plan he opposed), protecting the environment, strengthening measures against harmful algal blooms, bolstering infrastructure resilience against climate change or ensuring water purity. These were not key issues in his election campaign, either.
He has held no public town halls or constituent listening sessions—impossible in person right now, although possible virtually.
He did, however, conduct a very limited outreach session to local black businesses in a virtual roundtable on Thursday, Feb. 25, which was closed to the media.
Hospitality—and then some
Unmasked shoppers and employees at Alfie Oakes’ Seed to Table, taken in January. (Image: Twitter)
One of Donalds’ more interesting efforts with local businesses occurred prior to the election. On Oct. 26, 2020 he sponsored an online roundtable with the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association to discuss the needs and challenges of Southwest Florida’s hospitality industry with seven local restaurateurs and business owners. It didn’t hurt that he was connecting with local businessmen as early voting was taking place.
Two of the major points to come out of that panel were the need for COVID liability protection for local businesses and opposition to a minimum wage hike, opposition that Donalds clearly shared and took to Congress during the American Rescue Plan debate.
At the time Donalds agreed that economic stimulus was necessary but said it had to be targeted in concert with state governments. Ultimately, he voted against the stimulus contained in the American Rescue Plan.
Among the panelists was Alfie Oakes, the extreme conservative grocer and farmer. Oakes told the panel that COVID is “not a pandemic in my mind.” If any of his employees became sick “We would get some hydroxychloroquine and give it intravenously and within two days they were perfect. We didn’t jump into the fear of everything.”
But even Oakes, a vehement anti-masker, had to admit that despite his having called it a “hoax,” COVID caused him some concern. “Some people may still think I’m handling this in a reckless manner,” he said. “I have customers coming in, he’s 97, his wife is 94, they’re not wearing masks and I was worried for them but they’re still shopping every day. They didn’t buy into the fear.”
Oakes, who is otherwise a vociferous opponent of the federal government, stated that the PPP program helped stave off layoffs on his farm and the federal Farmbox program, which provides food to the needy directly from farms, aided his enterprise.
When it came to raising the minimum wage, Oakes said, “It would be asinine. It would be socialism. The people it would hurt are the people who it’s supposed to help. I’d have to squeeze more out of existing employees. It is a total liberal sham and I pray it doesn’t pass as I hope that Joe Biden doesn’t get elected.”
Analysis: Getting what you say you want
Make no mistake; in Byron Donalds the majority of voters in the 19th Congressional District got what they said they wanted: “a strong, Trump-supporting, gun-owning, liberty-loving, pro-life, politically incorrect black man,” as he put it during his campaign. His actions in office to date have followed logically for someone meeting that description.
Donalds is clearly ambitious and his election put him on a path to greater national glory and possibly higher office. But it’s not an easy path, it’s more of a tightrope over a chasm and Donalds is like a juggler trying to walk it while keeping three balls in the air.
One ball is the Republican congressional leadership. Donalds has to keep them happy to advance. So he follows the Party line, with which he seems to actually agree at the moment. So far they like him, are promoting him and he seems to really share their pronouncements and positions.
The second ball is Donald Trump and he is a ball that isn’t perfectly spherical and doesn’t follow the normal laws of aerodynamics. Donalds has to stay in his good graces or at least out of his line of fire. At CPAC, Trump declared that he will be staying in the Republican Party, he will be purging its heretics and when it comes to the 2024 presidential race, “I may even decide to beat them for a third time. Okay? For a third time. True.” To keep from dropping this ball, Donalds has to go along with the complete and utter fantasy that Trump won and had the election stolen from him. It takes a lot of willful credulity and a lot of sycophancy to keep that ball in the air—and it’s a ball that can fly off in any direction at any moment or suddenly hit him in the face.
The third ball is the “base,” the conservative movement and Donalds’ hard-core Trumper constituents in Southwest Florida. This includes the “lawless vigilantes” and “bunch of lunatics” who attacked the Capitol but whose votes Donalds needs to stay in his seat. These have been among some of Donalds’ most faithful supporters and donors to date. Donalds has to be conscious, though, that on Jan. 6 these people were a lynch mob just as surely as the lynch mob that rampaged through Fort Myers in 1924—only in 2021 they were seeking to hang the faithful and subservient Vice President of the United States. They could riot again, in person or at the ballot box, and turn against anyone, including him.
If Donalds can keep all three of these balls in the air and keep his footing on the tightrope, he just may get to the other side of the chasm.
And what is on that other side? Presumably whatever Donalds thinks constitutes “success.” But what Donalds considers “success” for himself may not necessarily be “success” for Southwest Florida.
Rep. Byron Donalds presents proxy votes for fellow congressional Republicans during last night’s legislative session. (Image: US House)
Feb. 27, 2021 by David Silverberg
This morning at 2:01 am, by a vote of 219 to 212, the US House of Representatives passed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, House Resolution 1319, providing $1.9 trillion in relief, support and COVID countermeasures.
Unsurprisingly, Southwest Florida’s members of Congress, Reps. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-25-Fla.) and Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.), all followed the Republican Party line and voted against it.
The bill proposes providing every needy American household $1,400 in immediate cash relief. It will boost the national vaccination program by setting up federal vaccination sites and increasing testing. It will support small businesses and is projected to boost an economy badly damaged by the pandemic. (A full analysis of the impact of the plan and the need for it can be read here.)
Donalds had long opposed the bill, which was first considered by the Budget Committee, on which he sits. When the committee considered the bill on Feb. 22, he called it “bloated and misguided” and denounced it for supporting Planned Parenthood and women’s choice. He also attacked the plan in his first speech on the House floor on Feb. 3.
On Friday, Feb. 26, Donalds appeared on WJLA-TV, a local Washington, DC television station to further denounce the bill, accusing Democrats of “using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to pass just about every liberal wishlist policy.” He also said that state and local governments only needed help because they mismanaged their economies and they should imitate Florida, which has opened up despite the pandemic.
“Unfortunately in too many states and too many localities, they have decided to go with these radical, drastic lockdown policies that have hurt businesses and have hurt Americans,” he said.
(According to state official figures, as of this writing Florida has had 30,624 deaths since the start of the pandemic. According to the COVID Action Site created by dissident data scientist Rebekah Jones, the actual number is 31,162, or 538 more than the official number.)
With House passage the Recovery Plan bill now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to be narrowly approved.
A provision providing for a $15 minimum wage was stripped from the bill when the Senate parliamentarian ruled that it could not be included as part of a budget reconciliation bill.
Donalds vociferously opposed raising the minimum wage throughout its consideration in the House, arguing that it “will be devastating to businesses in my district and throughout our country. Democrats need to leave their radical policy echo chambers and listen to the American people.”
In a speech advocating passage, House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-12-Calif.) said “This legislation is transformative, lifting 12 million Americans out of poverty and generating $1.25 for every dollar spent. And a great source of pride for us all, because this legislation will cut child poverty in half.” She also vowed “we will continue our ‘Fight For 15’ [an increase in the minimum wage], which would give 27 million Americans a raise.”
Michael Flynn, center, pledges “Where we go one, we go all,” a QAnon slogan, in a July 2020 video he posted that was reported by CNN. (Image: CNN)
Feb. 23, 2021 by David Silverberg
Michael Flynn, the disgraced former national security adviser, and a QAnon-promoting traveling roadshow are coming to Fort Myers.
Two fundraising events with Flynn are scheduled for Thursday, March 11. One will be a dinner at the Roots Restaurant and Treehouse Rooftop Lounge on Bell Tower Drive in Fort Myers, according to the organizers.
The event marks the emergence of Flynn from a previously announced “secret location.” He was to have been the main speaker at a fundraising dinner in Naples on March 10.
However, when the original venue, Shula’s Steakhouse, canceled the booking, the dinner was moved to the “secret location,” according to its organizer, Christy McLaughlin, a former Republican congressional candidate and conservative activist. That dinner was intended to benefit her Constitutional Warriors Political Action Committee.
In the past, McLaughlin had organized a Naples fundraiser that featured Proud Boys Chairman Enrique Tarrio, who appeared unannounced at the event. McLaughlin also promised unnamed and unannounced guests at the Flynn dinner.
The new dinner is being presented by The Florida Conservative, a conservative blog, and Red Pill Roadshow. No names for specific individuals are provided by either organization’s website.
Red Pill Roadshow is a traveling production that promotes the QAnon conspiracy theory in a tent-revival atmosphere. It was born out of a 2019 Washington, DC rally called “The Great Awakening,” which in QAnon mythology is an apocalyptic battle between Donald Trump supporters and their enemies. (In American history “the Great Awakening” was a religious revival that swept the American colonies in the 1730s and 40s.)
QAnon is a widely-repudiated online conspiracy theory holding that a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping, cannibalistic pedophiles are running a global child sex-trafficking ring and controlling the country and its culture. The cabal was said to be plotting against Donald Trump who was secretly fighting them while in office. This battle was to culminate in “The Storm” or “The Great Awakening,” when Trump was going to round up members of the cabal in mass arrests. Q is supposedly a high-level intelligence officer who chronicled the battle.
Red Pill Roadshow was founded in 2019, according to its website, and is dedicated to “Bringing The Great Awakening to your town.” The “red pill” is a reference to the 1999 movie The Matrix, in which a red pill reveals the truth about a falsely constructed world.
The video on the Red Pill Roadshow website features a “Great Awakening” event in Washington, DC event held on Sept. 11, 2019.
“While putting the show together, we experienced how the fake media and big tech worked hand-in-hand in attempting to silence our opposing political views,” states the text on the website. “However, their efforts to censor us and to deny us our right to peacefully assemble and to free speech didn’t have the desired outcome the opposition had hoped for.
“So, now enter the Red Pill Roadshow, created specifically to bring The Great Awakening free-speech events to your town!”
According to the website, Red Pill Roadshow has been banned from Twitter and Instagram.
In Florida, Red Pill Roadshow has held events in Jacksonville and Tampa. An extensive account of the August 2020 Jacksonville event appeared on the website DailyDot.com, an online news outlet, in an article, “On the floor for the Red Pill Roadshow, a QAnon tent revival.”
According to that article, McLaughlin addressed the Jacksonville crowd, saying that “If Donald Trump isn’t re-elected in November, America will cease to exist.” The article quotes her saying she was “thrown out of law school for being a conservative. ‘Now I’m Florida International University’s worst nightmare,’ she snarled, then suggested defunding colleges.”
The article also stated that: “A stack of fliers on a trashcan encouraged joining right-wing militias, including Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters.”
QAnon was specifically condemned by a resolution passed in the US House of Representatives in October 2020, which found that “the conspiracy theories promoted by QAnon undermine trust in America’s democratic institutions, encourage rejection of objective reality, and deepen our Nation’s political polarization.” The resolution passed by a vote of 371 to 18, with two of Southwest Florida’s representatives voting for it. (Then-Rep. Francis Rooney was absent.)
According to the announcement on the Florida Conservative blog, the Fort Myers event consists of two fundraisers, one for SW Florida Heroes Foundation, Inc., which benefits first responders.
The beneficiary of the second fundraiser is not revealed in the announcement.
In the past, McLaughlin has been an adamant opponent of COVID-related masking. While the event announcement does not say if masks and social distancing will be required, the likelihood is that it will be unmasked.
In his departure from this world, Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk radio commentator who died Wednesday, Feb. 17 at age 70, bequeathed Florida two things: his $50 million mansion in Palm Beach (which presumably goes to his wife Kathryn) and the idea of Florida seceding from the union.
No doubt Kathryn will enjoy the 34,000-square foot, seven-bedroom, 12-bath palace with pool, putting green and private beach on two oceanfront acres.
But for the state that he called home since 1996 his most recent legacy was his floating the idea of secession from a United States presided over by Joe Biden. It was an idea that found receptivity among numerous Florida Republicans. (See: “No need to secede: Welcome to Florumpia!”)
Limbaugh did not specifically call for Florida to secede: he raised the idea of secession in general on Dec. 9, 2020 when a caller to his radio show asked if conservatives could ever win over Democratic cities in northern states. Limbaugh interpreted this as asking whether they could ever be won over culturally, rather than electorally.
Limbaugh said he thought the big challenge was winning over the culture rather than the votes.
“I thought you were asking me something else when you said, ‘Can we win?’” said Limbaugh to the caller. “I thought you meant: ‘Can we win the culture, can we dominate the culture?’
“I actually think that we’re trending toward secession,” he said.
“I see more and more people asking what in the world do we have in common with the people who live in, say, New York? What is there that makes us believe that there is enough of us there to even have a chance at winning New York? Especially if you’re talking about votes.”
He continued: “I see a lot of bloggers—I can’t think of names right now—a lot of bloggers have written extensively about how distant and separated and how much more separated our culture is becoming politically and that it can’t go on this way. There cannot be a peaceful coexistence of two completely different theories of life, theories of government, theories of how we manage our affairs.
“We can’t be in this dire a conflict without something giving somewhere along the way. And I know that there’s a sizable and growing sentiment for people who believe that that is where we’re headed, whether we want to or not—whether we want to go there or not,” he said. “I myself haven’t made up my mind. I still haven’t given up the idea that we are the majority and that all we have to do is find a way to unite and win.”
Limbaugh said all this when a lawsuit by the state of Texas and 17 other states—including Florida—was before the Supreme Court, seeking to overturn the election results in four key states. It was five days before the Electoral College was going to cast its votes confirming Joe Biden’s victory. Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud were threadbare, rejected by every court where they’d been heard and seemed unlikely to sway the Supreme Court but were nonetheless being loudly propagated by the president and his followers.
Limbaugh made many outrageous and extreme pronouncements during his 54-year radio career. While his constant and deliberately provocative statements had somewhat depleted the pool of available outrage, reference to secession brought more than the usual opposition and blowback.
“I think talk of secession is treason, Martha, I want to be very clear,” fellow conservative pundit Geraldo Rivera told Fox News host Martha MacCallum the next day. “That talk is reckless. It’s irresponsible.”
It was on the 11th that the Supreme Court issued its ruling dismissing the Texas lawsuit. References to secession spiked, especially in Texas where the state Republican chairman, Allen West, said “Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the Constitution.”
But that was also the day that Limbaugh backtracked. “I simply referenced what I have seen other people say about how we are incompatible, as currently divided, and that secession is something that people are speculating about,” Limbaugh said. “I am not advocating it, have not advocated, never have advocated it, and probably wouldn’t. That’s not something — 32 years — that’s not the way I’ve decided to go about handling disagreements with people on the left.”
Neither Texas nor Florida nor any other state seceded.
On Dec. 12, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-16-Ill.) tweeted: “I want to be clear: the Supreme Court is not the deep state. The case had no merit and was dispatched 9-0. There was no win here. Complaining and bellyaching is not a manly trait, it’s actually sad. Real men accept a loss with grace.”
On Jan. 6 Trump decided to vent his rage before his followers and incite them to attack the Capitol Building to overturn the election—and in the process destroy the legislative branch of government, kill its leaders and the Vice President. The effort failed.
Although he had retreated from secession, Limbaugh defended Donald Trump and his sedition: “There’s a lot of people calling for the end of violence,” he said the day after the insurrection. “A lot of conservatives, social media saying any violence, any aggression at all, is unacceptable—regardless of the circumstances. I’m glad Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, the actual Tea Party guys, the men at Lexington and Concord, didn’t feel that way.”
After Limbaugh
The Capitol attack and the subsequent impeachment of Donald Trump seem to have lanced the boil of hatred, prejudice and rage that was swelling with the encouragement of Trump and Limbaugh. The smashed glass and dead police and rioters appear to have brought home to Trumpers and dittoheads the dangers and reality of violence and insurrection—and that rhetoric has repercussions.
Then, Mother Nature and climate change drove home the point: after all the anti-government rhetoric about going it alone and secession, the deep freeze crushing Texas has made clear that the Lone Star State needs the rest of the nation to survive in a modern, technological world with running water and reliable electricity.
The secession talk was never as strong in Florida as it was in Texas. Now, with Limbaugh gone from the American airwaves and Donald Trump banned from Twitter, sanity seems to be returning. Insurrection has been defeated and secession is not a serious notion.
In Florida Limbaugh’s legacy seems as ephemeral as the airwaves on which he broadcast and his ideas as impermanent as a passing tropical shower. His more concrete legacy lies in his palatial mansion, which is only one of many in the Sunshine State’s pricey precincts.
There are many evaluations and analyses of Rush Limbaugh being written now. There’s no denying that he created the genre of talk radio. At a time when AM radio was moribund and seemed headed to obsolescence (it couldn’t broadcast music in stereo like FM radio), Limbaugh’s torrent of words revived it and gave it a new role. It caught on and made him rich, famous and influential, inspired numerous imitators and created a right-wing mediasphere. He presented and shaped a political point of view held by millions of Americans, no matter how delusional, hateful and prejudicial it may be.
Perhaps the best summation of Limbaugh appeared in a 1999 book written by humorist Al Franken, who went on to be elected Minnesota’s junior senator.
That book was called Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat Idiot.
People celebrate Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election on Nov. 7, 2020, in Atlanta. (Photo: AP /Brynn Anderson)
Feb. 12, 2021 by David Silverberg
Florida Democrats are just starting to gear up for the challenges of 2022. The governorship, a Senate seat and, of course, all congressional seats are up for election.
Aside from the potential change of power, 2022 presents a chance for state Democrats to redeem themselves from the disastrous defeat of 2020.
In making their preparations, Florida Democrats can look north to Georgia where a stereotypically deeply conservative Republican stronghold voted Democratic for President and two senators.
Can the kind of work and effort that flipped Georgia blue be duplicated just south of the state line next year?
Hope, of course, springs eternal. Florida Democrats are trying to stand up, brush themselves off and regain their footing.
But getting from aspiration to actuality is a long and difficult road and the roads that run through Georgia’s clay and Florida’s sand are very different.
What adjustments need to be made? What factors were unique to 2020 and how will they change in 2022? What can Georgia teach Florida for next year?
Georgia’s march to victory
There were many factors that contributed to the Democratic victory in Georgia but some that stand out include:
Stacey Abrams
Stacey Abrams (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
There’s long been debate among historians whether history is made by individuals or vast, impersonal forces. Stacey Abrams is living proof that people make history. A woman of extraordinary intelligence, drive and achievement, she demonstrably and individually steered this quintessentially southern and tradition-bound state in a new direction.
Most Floridians first heard of Stacey Abrams in 2018 when she came within 55,000 votes of winning the Georgia governor’s race. She did this despite rampant and blatant voter suppression and a Republican Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, who oversaw the election rules even as he was running for governor. But after losing the election, instead of giving up she redoubled her efforts.
With Georgia flipping blue Abrams is now a political star but her overnight success was 10 years in the making—48 years if one starts counting from her birth. She tirelessly and relentlessly worked to increase voter registration, turn out minority communities and after her gubernatorial run, founded Fair Fight Action to oppose voter suppression. She saw the political possibilities in Georgia long before any other politician or pundit and worked to make them real. She drew up the strategy that ultimately resulted in victory.
Suburban growth and change
Atlanta has long billed itself as “the city too busy to hate.” From its earliest days it has been a commercial hub focused on business. Atlanta’s suburbs have grown exponentially and rapidly. According to the US Census Bureau, between 2010 and 2019 they went from 5.3 million people to more than 6 million, at the same time racially diversifying.
Throughout the 2020 campaign, polling repeatedly found that there was an educational divide between college-educated and non-college educated voters, with the former less favorable to Donald Trump. The nation’s suburbs, and Atlanta’s in particular, were better educated and more inclined to the Democratic Party. Also trending Democratic were educated, suburban women, to the point where Trump at a speech in October 2020 pleaded, “Suburban women, will you please like me? I saved your damn neighborhood, OK?”
His pleadings didn’t work. “For a lot of women in the state, Trump kind of pushed them to the edge,” a Georgian named Jen Jordan told Emma Green in The Atlantic magazine article, “What Just Happened in Georgia?” When the Georgia legislature considered an anti-choice bill that would have made abortions illegal once a fetal heartbeat was detected, “The heartbeat bill was the thing that made them jump.”
“After the 2016 election, it became clear that the counties north of the city of Atlanta—Cobb, Gwinnett, the upper part of Fulton—were no longer homogenous conservative strongholds,” Green wrote. As a result, “The Trumpian brand of Republican politics does not play well in Atlanta, which prides itself on low taxes and business-friendly attitudes.”
African-American turnout
When it came to Georgia’s Senate runoff elections, “Black voters showed up at stratospheric levels and white voters did not. You saw really big shifts in heavily Black counties,” David Wasserman, an editor at the Cook Political Report was quoted saying in a Vox.com article, “Georgia went blue. Can Democrats make it happen elsewhere?”
Getting that stratospheric turnout took Stacey Abrams and Democratic activists ten years to achieve—155 years, if counted from the end of the Civil War. But it was really propelled in the last two years.
Georgia’s Black voters had turned out in 2008 and 2012 to vote for Barack Obama. Abrams attributed her 2018 loss to voter suppression but in 2020 a combination of factors propelled by grassroots activism managed to galvanize Georgia’s communities of color and propel them to the polls.
The New Georgia Project, a voting rights group also founded by Abrams, “knocked on more than 2 million doors, made more than 6.7 million calls, and sent more than 4 million texts urging people to vote ahead of the runoffs,” Nsé Ufot, chief executive officer of the group, told Vox. “A larger coalition of progressive voting groups coordinated by America Votes knocked on more than 8.5 million doors, made about 20 million phone calls, and sent over 18 million texts.”
The growth of Georgia’s ethnic populations, more accessible voter registration and grassroots mobilization combined to deliver the state to Joe Biden for president and Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock for Senate.
But there was another factor that energized Georgia voters.
Trump, of course
Say what you will of Donald Trump, he certainly drove voters to the polls—whether they loved or hated him.
The massive voter turnout around the nation was true in Georgia as well and it yielded eye-popping results. It was one of 16 states where Trump lost ground from 2016. For the first time since 1992 Georgia voted more Democratic than Florida and it was the first time since 1860 that its Laurens and Monroe counties did not vote for the statewide winner. For the first time in 40 years Cobb County supported a Democrat for president.
The urgency, the implications and the magnitude of the Trump threat powered every election in the country and led to the unprecedented turnout, the massive absentee balloting and the critical need to reach all voters, no matter their political parties. As a result, in Georgia, Joe Biden won by 11,779 votes.
What was remarkable in Georgia was that the same forces that powered voters in the presidential race didn’t let up for the Senate runoff, which ultimately gave Georgia its two Democratic senators.
Marjorie Taylor Greene and the 14th District
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Image: Fred Guttenberg/Twitter)
While Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-14-Ga.) appears to have taken Trumpist delusion and paranoia to the limits of lunacy, she is as much a part of the Georgia story as Stacey Abrams.
Greene represents Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, a combination of 11 counties northwest of Atlanta. It bears some striking resemblances to Florida’s 19th Congressional District along the Southwest Gulf coast, not least in being 85 percent white.
However, the Florida 19th has a rating of R-13 from the Cook Political Report, the bible of congressional politics, meaning it is 13 percent more likely to vote Republican than the average district. By contrast, the Georgia 14th has a rating of R-27, meaning it is twice as conservative and Republican as the 19th—which, for a Southwest Floridian, is pretty hard to imagine.
In the past, the 14th’s elections have broken in the 75 percent range for Republicans, while the 19th usually breaks in the 60 to 65 percent range.
In 2020 the 14th’s representative in Congress, Rep. Tom Graves, retired. After an initial primary that featured nine Republican contenders—like the Florida 19th District—Greene beat challenger John Cowan, a neurosurgeon and businessman, in the Republican runoff. Kevin Van Ausdal, the Democratic candidate, then dropped out of the race in September, for “family and personal reasons”—i.e., a divorce that led him to leave the state for his parents’ home in Indiana. This left Greene the unchallenged candidate and sent her to Congress.
“Is this the best the 14th District can do?” mourned an editorial in the Dalton, Ga., Daily Citizen-News [grammar theirs]. “We don’t think so. … We challenge patriotic citizens to examine their life and to determine whether they should put themself forward in the next race for the congressional seat in two years. … The more and varied voices, the better. And we must do better.”
Comparing peaches and oranges
In looking at differences between the two states, one can start out with size and population.
Georgia is half the size of Florida. According to 2019 Census figures, Georgia has a population of 10.9 million people. By contrast, Florida has 21.48 million people.
Florida gained the greatest population of all states in 2019: 601,611, which works out to roughly 1,650 arriving every day. Georgia gained 284,541, or roughly 780 per day. Georgia has five television markets, Florida has 10.
Florida is widely acknowledged to be a fragmented, unwieldy state politically and a very tough state in which to manage a statewide political campaign. Georgia is much more compact.
But aside from those physical and demographic differences, there are other important contrasts between the two states.
Personalities and parties
While Georgia had the driven, persistent efforts of Stacey Abrams, Florida does not have the same guiding force.
Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum came within a heartbreaking 32,463 votes of defeating Ron DeSantis in 2018. Like Abrams, he vowed to continue his fight for Democratic victories and policies after the election. He founded Forward Florida, which, like Abrams’ organizations, aimed to register voters. He seemed to have momentum and potential until a crushing personal scandal ended his public possibilities, seemingly permanently.
In Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried is the highest ranking elected Democrat in the state and a very likely candidate for governor. But between her day job and her aspirations, driving voter turnout and fighting suppression is not her main focus.
“In Florida, Democrats have struggled to unite a sprawling, diverse coalition around a coherent plan to win races,” wrote Kirby Wilson in the article “What Florida Democrats have to learn from Stacey Abrams” in The Tampa Bay Times. “Even though nearly 5.3 million Floridians voted for Biden in 2020, some question whether Florida remains a swing state.”
Rick Wilson, the acerbic Republican operative and a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, put it more succinctly: “The Democratic Party of Florida cannot organize a two-car motorcade,” he told The Palm Beach Post. “They are terrible at this work — nothing personal against any one person. The Florida GOP is the best-run Republican Party in the country.”
And he’s also said that Democrats “don’t understand this is not a blue state, it is a red state with a blue tip on the south end.”
For many years, knowledgeable political observers warned that it was misleading to view Hispanic voters as a monolithic block despite the tendency of many Democratic politicians and experts to see them that way. There are many different and diverse Hispanic communities, especially in Florida, and the 2020 election proved it.
Trump’s 2016 racist rants against Mexicans and Hispanic migrants and his incompetent handling of the 2017 Puerto Rico hurricane disaster were huge turnoffs to many Hispanics. But in 2020 his hardline policies and rhetoric against the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes and his targeted—and strident—anti-socialist message resonated among Florida’s Cuban-American and Venezuelan-American communities.
“Trump showed up in Florida. He asked us what our issues are and he addressed them. He didn’t take us for granted,” Bertica Cabrera Morris, a Republican strategist and a board member of Latinos for Trump, told NBC News immediately after the election.
As a result, while Biden made inroads in Miami-Dade County and ultimately won it, he did so by a far smaller margin—7 percent—than might otherwise be expected from 2016, when Trump lost it by 29 points.
Demographics
One myth that has persisted among Florida Democrats is that turning out minority votes, specifically Black votes, can swing the state. While every vote is important, the fact is that if every single non-white Floridian cast a Democratic ballot, Black voters constitute only 16 percent of Florida voters—in contrast to Georgia where they represent 31.9 percent. In a close Florida election minority communities can make a difference but even if fully mobilized they don’t have the same decisive weight as in Georgia.
Although Florida has a huge influx of residents moving in, it is also not clear that they are necessarily changing the political complexion of the state, as new Georgia residents did there. While New Yorkers constituted the largest number of new Florida residents (57,488) according to 2019 Census figures, it’s not clear that their political allegiances were necessarily Democratic or outweigh those of other contributors to Florida’s population. (Interestingly, the next largest influx to Florida came from Georgia with 49,681 people.)
The bottom line: Georgia and Florida have very different populations and political orientations and require different efforts and strategies.
Analysis: What’s new in ’22?
People expecting the 2022 elections in Florida to be a replay of 2020 will be more than disappointed—they will be wrong, no matter which party they support.
Aside from it simply being a different year, overall conditions will be significantly altered, not just throughout the world but especially in Florida. Some major changes include:
Gerrymandering
The importance of the decennial redrawing of political boundaries cannot be overstated. Florida may be in line for as many as two new members of Congress, which would mean two new congressional districts. With a Republican governor and legislature, the lines are overwhelmingly likely to be redrawn to Republican advantage. Democrats may resort to the courts to change them but Florida’s courts have been in conservative Republican hands since Jeb Bush’s governorship starting in 1999. The results of redistricting will have implications for at least the next decade and probably beyond.
Not Trump but Trumpism
As this is written, the impeachment trial of Donald Trump is underway. Whether he will run or be eligible for future office is unclear. But what seems very certain is that Trumpism is unlikely to die, especially in Florida. (For more on this see the article, “No need to secede: Welcome to Florumpia!”) Even if support for Donald Trump and the authoritarianism he represents cools, the sentiment powering his cult will likely continue to be a factor in Florida politics well beyond 2022. As of this writing Gov. Ron DeSantis seems all in on Trumpism and will likely be running as a full-fledged Trumper in 2022. There’s much talk of Trump’s spawn seeking statewide office and possibly taking on Sen. Marco Rubio for the US Senate.
Nowhere is the divide between Trumpism and Republicanism clearer and more obvious than in the Sunshine State. That could produce a split in the electorate, especially if Trump or someone else forms a “Patriot” or “MAGA” party, which would effectively be the Trump cult with a Florida mailing address. In 2022 three major parties—Democratic, Republican and Trumper—may be battling for Floridians’ ballots.
The pandemic
The state of the pandemic on Nov. 8, Election Day 2022, will no doubt be a major factor in the results. No one can know now whether the whole thing will be over or if new variants will continue to take their toll.
Gov. Ron DeSantis is betting that by 2022 Florida voters will remember him more for getting seniors vaccinated and not for the frustration, desperation and uncertainty that accompanied Florida’s vaccine rollout.
In 2020 the pandemic had a major impact on campaigning. In Florida Democrats heeded COVID warnings and did much of their campaigning remotely or in cars. Republicans, by contrast, either followed Trump’s lead and dismissed COVID as a hoax or simply ignored it when they did in-person campaigning. It didn’t matter to them if their voters, volunteers and staffers sickened and died as long as they lived long enough to cast ballots. Say what one will, it was a strategy that worked.
In 2022 Democrats will have to resume in-person campaigning, whether that means rallies, canvassing or get-togethers of any kind if they’re going to be competitive again. Presumably this will be possible with largely vaccinated populations but one cannot be sure at this point.
One other point that needs to be made: if President Joe Biden’s vaccination efforts work and if Floridians can connect his decisions to the end of the pandemic and their own health, it may just rebound to the benefit of state Democrats when people go to the polls. But getting people to connect good national policy to their personal benefit and rewarding politicians and parties with their votes is a long stretch—especially in Florida.
The economy
Measures taken by the Biden administration may lead the economy—both in Florida and nationally—to at least a modest recovery by Election Day 2022. Clearly, that will be a stark contrast with 2020 when the pandemic led to a massive downturn.
But recovery is not certain and the economic blows the nation took in 2020 will take a long time to heal. However, if there is some recovery, if the pandemic can be stopped or slowed and if “normal” economic activity can resume with some degree of safety, it may rebound to the Democrats’ benefit.
Throughout the pandemic DeSantis—following the lead of Trump, his patron—de-emphasized anti-COVID measures in favor of keeping businesses open. The political calculation here was that a relatively functional economy was worth the cost in lives.
The next election will tell us if that calculation paid off and how voters weigh the results.
The nominees
Of course, in looking ahead to a new election, personalities make a big difference. It is sufficient to say that if Democrats field vibrant, exciting and inspiring candidates at all levels who have messages that resonate with their voters, they will have a chance against an old guard tainted by its association with Trump, its complicity in his crimes and its self-destructive adherence to his delusions.
Georgia on my mind
So what must Democrats do to follow the Georgia playbook and flip Florida—despite the obvious differences between the two states?
In her book, Our Time is Now Stacey Abrams goes through her daily checklist as she evaluates the state of her campaign. It’s a good checklist for any campaign:
Early investments in infrequent voters;
Consistent, authentic progressive messaging;
Outreach in multiple languages;
Centering the issues of communities of color and marginalized groups typically exiled to the fringes of statewide elections.
In addition, just before the Senate runoff election, the Democratic Party of Georgia issued a six-page memo analyzing its 2020 presidential victory. While particular to the state, it also yielded some broader principles that could be applicable in Florida:
Build “a robust coalitions program aimed at engaging voters and elected officials in the Latino, AAPI [Asian American and Pacific Islander], African American communities, faith and religious leaders, military and veteran families, sportsmen and sportswomen, as well as youth, LGBTQI, women, progressive and Jewish coalitions.”
Build a digital-first organizing approach allowing the campaign to reach voters in new and creative ways, creating digital organizing hubs, speaking with voters on every platform, and hosting daily virtual events all over the state.
Using a combination of daily virtual and in-person events, drive the news cycle to parallel the broader campaign strategic imperatives on persuading and turning out voters. A strong surrogate program and regular principal travel also helps drive the news cycle and increase voter mobilization and engagement.
Blanket the airwaves on TV and radio, while leveraging targeted digital efforts and direct mail to boost turnout and bolster persuasion efforts.
Expand voter contact efforts to help voters apply for absentee ballots as early as possible and make voting by mail as easy as possible.
Obviously, Florida Democrats have some unique imperatives: they must win back the Hispanic voters that they lost in 2020; they must meet and defeat the “socialist” canard that Republicans threw—and continue to throw—at them; they must defeat voter suppression in all its forms; as the state of the pandemic allows, they must resume in-person campaigning. More than any other imperative, they must turn out voters from every nook and cranny and hiding place, from Florida’s swamps to its beaches to its urban jungles to its retirement villages and nursing homes.
The demographics of Georgia and Florida are very different. But Stacey Abrams has a very telling observation in her book and it is one Floridians can take to heart.
“Demography is not destiny,” she writes. “It is opportunity.”
Maybe, just maybe, Florida Democrats can find the opportunity in the changing demographics of their state by next year and make 2022 a year when Florida returns to its democratic traditions—but in a fresh, new and hopeful way.
A conservative fundraising dinner in Naples, Florida featuring Michael Flynn, the disgraced former national security advisor pardoned by former president Donald Trump, is moving to a “secret location” after being booted from Shula’s Steakhouse in the Naples Hilton, according to its organizer.
Christy McLaughlin announces a ‘secret location’ for her PAC’s dinner event. (Image: Christy McLaughlin/Facebook)
The dinner, scheduled for March 10, was organized by Christy McLaughlin, a former Republican congressional candidate, Proud Boys supporter and conservative activist.
The dinner, promoted as a “constitutional gala,” was intended to raise money for McLaughlin’s Constitutional warriors Political Action Committee. McLaughlin announced creation of a group with that name at the time of the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6. The Flynn dinner marks its public debut as a political action committee.
McLaughlin insisted that despite the cancelation of its original venue, the event would go forward.
“The radical left—Antifa, BLM [Black Lives Matter], who knows? —has come after us in the form of cancel culture yet again,” McLaughlin said in a 90-second Facebook video posted on Thursday, Feb. 4. “They’ve even gone so far as to attack the venue of our event, the location of our event, personally going after the manager of Shula’s, the restaurant that we were going to hold the event at. The radical left can try to prevent this event from happening all they want but I want to tell you one thing and I want to be very, very clear: cancel culture will not cancel this event.”
Because Shula’s had declined to provide the venue, McLaughlin said “we are now going to reassess the location and keep it a total secret.” Existing ticketholders could discover the location by getting in touch with her, she said, but “we are going to have it at a secret location where the radical left will not be able to protest or interfere with our meeting event with Gen. Michael Flynn.”
Also scheduled to speak was Kimberly Klacik, Republican candidate for Maryland’s 7th Congressional District, who was defeated in the 2020 general election.
The Jan. 25 announcement of the dinner mobilized progressive activists in Naples to protest Flynn’s presence and contact Shula’s management, which responded.
Enrique Tarrio, Proud Boys chairman and FBI informant, addresses a gathering at the Naples Mercato on Dec. 3, 2020. (Image: Christy McLaughlin/Facebook)
On Dec. 3, 2020 McLaughlin organized a similar fundraising dinner for the Republican candidates in the Georgia Senate runoff elections at The Counter in the Mercato in Naples. Although John DiLemme, founder of the Conservative Business Journal, was the featured speaker, the group was addressed by Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the Proud Boys, a Trumpist, conservative group advocating violence and white supremacy that played a prominent role in the Capitol insurrection. Pre-event publicity for the gathering never mentioned that Tarrio or the Proud Boys would be present.
The original announcement of the Dec. 3, 2020 event in Naples, which did not mention the presence or attendance of the Proud Boys and its chairman.
Although Flynn and Kacik were the featured speakers at the Shula’s event, McLaughlin stated that there would be “a few more special guests who might be attending as well. Any body want to guess who it is?”
In first floor speech, Donalds attacks $15 minimum wage, Biden plan to aid the needy
Forced to wear a mask under House rules, anti-masker Rep. Byron Donalds delivers his first speech on the floor of the US House yesterday. (Image: C-SPAN)
Feb. 4, 2021 by David Silverberg
Tonight, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-19-Fla.) voted to allow Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-14-Ga.) (also referred to by her initials, MTG) to retain her committee assignments in the House of Representatives—in contrast to fellow Southwest Florida congressman, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-25-Fla.), who voted to strip them away.
Donalds, along with fellow Southwest Floridian Rep. Greg Steube (R-17-Fla.), was in the minority and House Resolution 72 passed by a vote of 230 to 199.
Committee assignments are critical for members of Congress to have input into legislation, represent their districts and contribute to governing the United States.
Greene had propagated baseless conspiracy theories like QAnon, called for the assassination of fellow members of Congress, including House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-12-Calif.), denied the reality of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said the Sandy Hook and Las Vegas shootings were fake and staged by anti-gun activists, made anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic accusations including that lasers in outer space run by the Rothschild family created California wildfires, and supported former President Donald Trump’s contention that he won the election, which he has conclusively been shown to have lost.
The resolution was extremely short and simple:
“Whereas clause 1 of rule XXIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives provides, ‘A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.’; and
“Whereas Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene should be removed from her committee assignments in light of conduct she has exhibited: Now, therefore, be it
“Resolved, That the following named Member be, and is hereby, removed from the following standing committees of the House of Representatives: Committee On The Budget: Mrs. Greene of Georgia. Committee On Education And Labor: Mrs. Greene of Georgia.”
House Resolution 72
As of this writing, Donalds had not issued a statement on his vote.
In contrast, Diaz-Balart tweeted: “I’ve previously stated that MTG’s comments are unacceptable, & today I voted to remove her from her committee assignments.” Diaz-Balart went on to list Democratic members whom he thought should also be punished for their remarks including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-5-Minn.), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-43-Calif.) and former representative Cynthia McKinney. “If MTG is being removed from her committee positions for her past inappropriate comments, then these members should’ve received the same treatment. I’ll continue to demand that Democratic leadership & the press stop the double standard & hold these members equally accountable.”
As of this writing Steube had not issued a statement on his vote but had tweeted criticism of Democrats for not wishing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance before House Judiciary Committee hearings.
Donalds denounces Biden
In addition to his vote to protect Greene, Donalds delivered his first floor speech on Wednesday, Feb. 3, denouncing President Joe Biden’s plan to stimulate the economy and assist Americans in need due to the pandemic.
Donalds participated in the debate over House Concurrent Resolution 11, establishing the US budget for fiscal year 2021 and setting future budget levels for the decade ahead.
The bill passed by a party-line vote of 218 to 212, with Donalds voting against it.
“This budget resolution is not about economics, it is not about COVID-19, it is not about helping our schools reopen,” Donalds said in his 4-minute speech. “This budget resolution is purely politics. It is an opportunity to push through an agenda through budget reconciliation where, if you actually studied our economy, and studied the fact that now close to 40 million Americans have been vaccinated by the vaccine from the tracks that are getting reopened. We should study this. We should be more targeted and we should not be putting forward a massive spending bill where no study has ever been given.”
In the speech he argued that $1 trillion from the previous year had already been appropriated and not yet spent. He argued that opening up economies—despite the pandemic—was the best way to fight unemployment. He also opposed raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, which is in the Biden plan, arguing that it would actually decrease employment.
He opposed a $170 billion provision to help local school districts reopen, pointing out that teachers picketing for safe schools, particularly in Chicago, would not help schools reopen, unlike Florida, where schools are opening despite the pandemic. “All they need is leadership,” he said of schools. “They don’t need more money.”
He also opposed any aid to state and local governments. “If you want to help state and local governments take care of their revenue problem, you should open up. They should not come back to this Capitol and get money. Because why should Florida pay for New York?”
He also sent a letter with his objections to Pelosi.
Donalds now on committees
Donalds has now received his committee assignments and sits on the Committee on Oversight and Reform, House Budget Committee, and House Committee on Small Business.
On the Oversight and Reform Committee, Donalds will sit on the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee and the Economic and Consumer Policy Subcommittee.
Other well-known members of the full Oversight and Reform Committee include three Democratic members of the progressive “squad:” Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-14-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-13-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-7-Mass.). Rep. Jim Jordan (R-4-Ohio), a vocal defender of Donald Trump, sits on the Republican side.
On the House Budget Committee, Donalds will be serving with Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-3-Colo.) an extreme right-wing member. This was the committee on which he would have served with Greene had she kept her assignment.
The Paradise Progressive 