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Martha’s Vineyard Welcomes Planes of Migrant Families Sent ‘Like Cargo’ by DeSantis: ‘We’re Going to Take Care of You’

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Florida’s far-right wing GOP Governor Ron DeSantis, locked in a tight re-election race with Democratic Congressman and former Governor Charlie Crist, sent two planes filled with migrants from Venezuela, including children, to the tiny resort island of Martha’s Vineyard Wednesday, without notifying local authorities.

Residents, elected officials, and law enforcement welcomed their unexpected guests with open arms, providing them food, water, and shelter and the promise of care and support.

“We’re going to take care of you,” Sheriff Robert Ogden told the immigrants, The Martha’s Vineyard Times reports. “The most important thing is we get you food and shelter and water.”

“Later, the group was taken by school bus to St. Andrews Church where they will get a dinner of pizza from Edgartown Pizza and spend the night. A short time later folks from Mocha Motts arrived on the scene and provided coffee,” The Times adds.

“We’ve always been an Island of immigrants,” Democratic state Rep. Dylan Fernandes said. “We saw how incredible it is; how the Island rallied to support everyone. We’re stronger because of immigrants. America is stronger because of immigrants, and we’re going to welcome them with open arms.”

It’s unclear how the immigrants get to the island. Some reportedly say they came through Texas, but DeSantis was quick to take “credit” for what at least one legal expert wondered was legal.

“How on earth is this legal and not kidnapping?” asked former longtime DOJ official Andrew Weissmann.

Local officials were not without response to DeSantis’ “unchristian” act.

“This is deeply disgusting. This is a cruel ruse that manipulates families that are seeking a better life,” Democratic State Sen. Julian Cyr said, noting the “fundamentally racist tactics” have been used before.

NEW: Newsom Urges Garland to Open RICO, Kidnapping Investigation Over ‘Inhumane’ Use of ‘Kids as Political Pawns’

The Times reports that during the Civil Rights movement, “segregationists tricked 95 Black families into moving to Hyannis. ‘And what happened is people in Hyannis helped the families and they stayed on Cape Cod,’ Cyr said.”

U.S. Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA) blasted DeSantis.

“History does not look kindly on leaders who treat human beings like cargo, loading them up and sending them a thousand miles away without telling them their destination,” Keating said. “Still, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis made that choice today. Instead of working to find assistance for a group of refugees, he chose to turn them into political pawns.”

“Instead of trying to help them, he chose to charter a private jet and send them to a rural Island community late in the day and without warning so they wouldn’t have the resources at the ready to support them. But the people of Martha’s Vineyard, its vibrant immigrant community, and the Commonwealth as a whole are already calling Governor DeSantis’s bluff and rising to meet the challenge because that’s what Americans do — we help those in need,” Keating added. “I applaud Governor Baker for his administration’s efforts to step up and assist these refugees despite the lack of notice of their impending arrival, and I am disgusted by Governor DeSantis’s decision to prioritize cruelty and chaos over human dignity in today’s taxpayer-funded stunt.”

State Democratic Rep. Fernandes was not without criticism as well, and on social media he did not mince words.

“Republicans who call themselves Christians have been plotting for some time to use human lives – men, women, and children – as a political pawns. It is evil and inhumane.” he tweeted.

“These governors or whoever it is, all they care about is scoring some political points on Tucker Carlson and Fox News and the fact that they are using human lives — women, children, men — as pawns in that and just really abusing these people dropping them off in a place where they don’t know where they are with no food and water just to be able to get in Tucker Carlson and Fox News’s good graces is disgusting,” Rep. Fernandes told The Times. “It’s inhumane. These people claim to be Christians? This is about as unChristian a thing as you could be doing. It’s evil.”

 

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Tennessee Governor Slammed After ‘Praying’ for Nashville School Community Without Mentioning Mass Shooting

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March 27, 2023

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Governor Bill Lee quickly drew tremendous outrage in the wake of a school mass shooting where six people including three young children were shot to death. Social media users criticized the Tennessee Republican, who had signed a permit-less gun carry law, for declaring he was “praying for the school, congregation & Nashville community,” without posting any mention of the mass shooting.

Tweeting he was “closely monitoring the tragic situation at Covenant,” Gov. Lee said, “As we continue to respond, please join us in praying for the school, congregation & Nashville community.”

There was no mention of any loss of life, and, as Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts passionately noted, the “situation” was a mass shooting.

“If thoughts and prayers alone worked to stop gun violence, there wouldn’t have been a shooting at a Christian elementary school. It’s your actions – including weakening the state’s gun laws – that’s killing kids in Tennessee,” Watts also tweeted. “SHAME ON YOU.”

Gov. Lee signed a permit-less carry bill into law in 2021, at a Beretta gun manufacturing plant.

According to the CDC, as of 2020 – one year before the permit-less carry bill was signed into law – Tennessee ranked tenth in the nation in per-capita firearm mortality.

READ MORE: ‘Our Children Deserve Better’: First Lady Jill Biden Speaks Out After Six Die in Nashville School Mass Shooting

Meanwhile, others took notice of the gun culture Gov. Lee has fostered in “The Volunteer State.”

MSNBC analyst and Bulwark writer Tim Miller commented, “Tennessee governor Bill Lee issued a statement recently about how the drag ban in Tennessee ‘protects children.’ If only he would have instead focused on laws that might have prevented the mass murder of children in his state today.”

Historian Kevin Kruse pointed to an article from last year, after the Uvalde, Texas school shooting, titled: “Rep. Clemmons Seeks Renewed Gun Laws, Gov. Lee Requests Prayer.”

“You chose prayer over gun reforms last year after the Uvalde massacre,” Kruse wrote. “And now here we are.”

The progressive website Tennessee Holler pointed out that Gov. Lee, along with GOP lawmakers, “just appointed Jordan Mollenhour to the [state] board of education— whose company was sued for selling ammo to an underage mass killer (SANTA FE) and sold ammo to at least one more (AURORA) He has ZERO education experience.”

Let’s Give a Damn founder Nick Laparra tweeted, “We are 86 days into 2023. So far, 9859 people have died by gun violence and there have been 128 mass shootings. Meanwhile, @GovBillLee spends his days being outraged over drag queens and CRT and book bans. This is Bill Lee’s and the GOP’s fault.”

See the tweets and video above or at this link.

READ MORE: New WSJ Poll Is Devastating for DeSantis and His ‘Anti-Woke’ Policies

 

 

 

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Mystery Grand Jury Witness in Trump Hush Money Probe Is Former ‘Enquirer’ Publisher and Trump Ally

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March 27, 2023

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Avid followers of the Manhattan District Attorney’s moves noted the grand jury had been called into service for Monday, and soon news leaked that yet another witness would be testifying in the probe into Donald Trump’s alleged hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.

Monday afternoon, NBC News’ Garrett Haake reported live on MSNBC that the mystery witness was David Pecker, the former tabloid publisher of the “National Enquirer,” who reportedly had been looking for stories in 2016 to protect Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Haake notes Monday was Pecker’s second appearance before the grand jury in the hush money case.

The New York Times also reported David Pecker as the grand jury witness, calling Pecker “a key player in the hush-money matter. He and the tabloid’s top editor helped broker the deal between the porn star, Stormy Daniels, and Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s fixer at the time.”

READ MORE: ‘Our Children Deserve Better’: First Lady Jill Biden Speaks Out After Six Die in Nashville School Mass Shooting

“While the focus of Mr. Pecker’s testimony is unclear, he could provide valuable information for prosecutors. A longtime ally of Mr. Trump, he agreed to keep an eye out for potentially damaging stories about Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign,” The Times reports. “For a brief time in October 2016, Ms. Daniels appeared to have just that kind of story. Her agent and lawyer discussed the possibility of selling exclusive rights to her story of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump to The National Enquirer, which would then promise to never publish it, a practice known as ‘catch and kill.'”

Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman weighed in, noting, “nothing about that decision [to have Pecker testify] suggests any change of heart on Bragg’s part to indict Trump.”

Former Dept. of Defense Special Counsel Ryan Goodman, an NYU professor of law, notes that Pecker’s “testimony can show the [hush money] scheme was designed to affect outcome of election.”

“He reportedly communicated directly with Trump on payment,” Goodman adds.

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‘Our Children Deserve Better’: First Lady Jill Biden Speaks Out After Six Die in Nashville School Mass Shooting

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18 hours ago

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March 27, 2023

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First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, speaking Monday afternoon at a National League of Cities conference, told attendees, “Our children deserve better,” as she broke the news of the Nashville school mass shooting at Covenant Presbyterian School where three children and three adults were shot dead.

“You know,” Dr. Biden, herself an educator and clearly pained by the news, began her remarks by saying, “I hate to say what I’m gonna say next because you know you’re so enthusiastic and with so much energy and hope and I feel it.”

“But while you’ve been in this room, I don’t know whether you’ve been on your phones but we just learned about another shooting in Tennessee, a school shooting and I am truly without words and our children deserve better, and we stand – all of us – we stand with Nashville in prayer.”

READ MORE: New WSJ Poll Is Devastating for DeSantis and His ‘Anti-Woke’ Policies

The First Lady, a former public high school English teacher and currently a professor of English at a community college, was speaking at the organization’s Congressional City Conference.

Watch Dr. Biden below or at this link.

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