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‘Campaigning on Summary Extra-Judicial Executions’: Critics Scorch DeSantis Over New ‘Stone Cold Dead’ Marketing

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Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is using violent remarks he made last month during the GOP presidential debate in an attempt to advance his White House run, but critics are expressing concern.

“The cartels are killing tens of thousands of our fellow citizens,” DeSantis claimed. “We have to defend our people. We’re going to use force and we’re going to leave them stone cold dead, no excuses. We will get the job done.”

Those words now appear in a political ad (below) from the pro-DeSantis Super PAC, Never Back Down, as well as on a $35 “Stone Cold Dead Black 100% Cotton T-Shirt” sold by the DeSantis campaign. The new ad is “part of an almost $12 million ad buy the group is doing ahead of the early primary states. The ad includes video of DeSantis’ immigration talking points from the debate, where he called for military action in Mexico to target drug cartels,” City & State Florida reports.

ABC affiliate WMUR reports the new ad is “highlighting the governor’s proposal to kill people carrying drugs into the US to cross the southern border.”

The ad itself delivers a bit of a different message.

READ MORE: DeSantis Pledges to Install His Surgeon General, Who Reportedly Said Anti-Vax Policies Are God’s Plan, at CDC

The PAC included in its ad a comment from Fox News’ Bill Melugin, who says that DeSantis “intends to allow for deadly force to be used against anybody cutting through the border wall.”

“Analysts say the ad is another instance of DeSantis running to the right of Trump on a key GOP primary issue,” WMUR reports, while warning, “activists like Sebastian Fuentes say the ad sounds to him like open season on undocumented immigrants.”

“How do we know people are crossing the border are bad people?” Fuentes asked WMUR. “They know that’s pretty much telling not just law enforcement, but also the local folks in the southern areas that if you see somebody, hey, guess what you can you can go ahead and harm them.”

DeSantis told the news station, “it’s not just willy nilly going after anybody you know who shows up. It’s identifying people as representing either a hostile, committing hostile acts or demonstrating hostile intent.”

Asked, “How do you ensure you’re not killing innocent people or, say, asylum seekers who are not carrying drugs?” DeSantis responded, “Same way you would do on anything that we do. Same way a police officer isn’t just shooting random civilians.”

But critics are blasting DeSantis, and his PAC, for doubling down on his violent rhetoric, a charge he has repeatedly ignored.

In late July, DeSantis pledged to root out the deep state from the federal government, and vowed, “we are going to start slitting throats on Day One,” he told supporters. That same month the Florida governor told the right wing website Real America’s Voice that he would not promote a current military officer to become Secretary of Defense – not because he believes in a civilian-run military, but because he wants his Defense Secretary to “slit some throats.”

DeSantis has also used the “stone cold dead” threat several times before he used it in a nationally-televised prime time presidential debate.

READ MORE: Fani Willis Slams Jim Jordan’s ‘Illegal Intrusion’ in Scathing Rebuke: ‘You Lack a Basic Understanding of the Law’

“If they’re trying to bring fentanyl into our communities that’s going to be the last thing they do because at the border they’re going to be shot stone-cold dead,”  he told New Hampshire voters in late July.

Law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis, commenting on DeSantis’ “stone old dead” remark after the governor used it yet another time, in August stated: “Extra-judicial executions are just murder by another name.”

Former CNN and CNBC journalist John Harwood, responding to news of the new DeSantis ad, on Friday wrote: “Republican candidate for president campaigning on summary extra-judicial executions.”

Marketing strategist and Obama campaign alum Jason Karsh warned: “A Republican candidate for president explicitly calling for extrajudicial killings. The implication is it’s just gonna be brown people, but once you start summarily executing people, who’s to say where it stops, especially when this guy has so many perceived enemies.”

Former Lincoln Project Executive Director Fred Wellman called it, “Fascism and international crime as policy.”

MSNBC anchor Medhi Hasan added, “This is what authoritarianism looks and sounds like.”

Watch the full 30-second DeSantis ad from Never Back Down below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘I Am Not Going to Take That’: DeSantis Lashes Out at Man Accusing Him of Allowing ‘People to Hunt People Like Me’
 

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Trump Appears to Think Jeb Bush Was President: ‘He Got Us Into the Middle East’

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September 25, 2023

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During a rally in South Carolina on Monday, Donald Trump appeared to confuse former Florida GOP Governor Jeb Bush with his brother, former President George W. Bush, while bragging to supporters how he beat him.

Jeb Bush, who was largely considered to be the default Republican Party nominee for the 2016 presidential election when he launched his campaign, dropped out in February of 2016 after the South Carolina primary.

“When I come here, everyone thought Bush was going to win,” Trump said, before claiming he was “up by about 50 points” over Bush. “They thought Bush because Bush was supposedly a military person.”

“You know what he was…He got us into the Middle East,” Trump claimed, wrongly. “How did that work out?”

READ MORE: ‘Isn’t Glock a Good Gun?’ Trump Asks Before Saying He Is Buying One – Campaign Forced to Deny He Did

“But they also thought that Bush might win. Jeb. Remember Jeb? He used the word ‘Jeb,’ he didn’t use the word ‘Bush,’ I said, ‘You mean he’s ashamed of the last name?’ and then they immediately started using the name Bush,” Trump claimed.

The ex-president went on to continue denigrating Jeb Bush, accusing him of bringing his mother to campaign with him.

“Remember,” Trump said, “he brought his mother, his wonderful mother who’s 94 years old and it was pouring and they’re wheeling her around and it’s raining and horrible. I said, ‘Who would do that your mother, 94 years old. How desperate are you to win?”

Media Matters’ Craig Harrington, commenting on Trump’s latest gaffe, observed: “In the past two weeks, Donald Trump has:

– Warned that Joe Biden might start ‘World War 2’
– Confused his 2016 election opponent (Hillary Clinton) with former President Barack Obama
– Confused his 2016 primary opponent (Jeb Bush) with former President George W. Bush.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Careening’ Toward ‘Risk of Political Violence’: Experts Sound Alarm After Trump Floats Executing His Former General

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Fulton County Judge in Trump Case Orders Jurors’ Identities and Images Must Be Protected

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11 hours ago

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September 25, 2023

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The Fulton County Superior Court judge presiding over Georgia’s RICO, conspiracy, and election interference case against Donald Trump on Monday afternoon ordered the identities and images of all jurors and prospective jurors to remain secret, ordering they may only be referred to by a number.

“No person shall videotape, photograph, draw in a realistic or otherwise identifiable manner, or otherwise record images, statements, or conversations of jurors/prospective jurors in any manner” that would violate a Superior Court rule, Judge Scott McAfee ordered, “except that the jury foreperson’s announcement of the verdict or questions to the judge may be audio recorded.”

“Jurors or prospective jurors shall be identified by number only in court filings or in open court,” he added.

READ MORE: ‘Careening’ Toward ‘Risk of Political Violence’: Experts Sound Alarm After Trump Floats Executing His Former General

Judge McAfee also ordered no juror’s or prospective juror’s identity, “including names, addresses, telephone numbers, or identifying employment information” may be revealed.

MSNBC’s Katie Phang posted the order, and added: “Another important part of the Order: no responses from juror questionnaires or notes about jury selection shall be disclosed, unless permitted by the Court.”

Judge McAfee’s order comes after Donald Trump’s weekend of attacks on his former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley. Trump strongly suggested he should be executed for treason. Trump also strongly suggested he would target Comcast, NBC News, and MSNBC if he wins the 2024 presidential election.

Responding to the news, MSNBC’s Medhi Hasan observed, “We have just normalized the fact that the former president, and GOP presidential frontrunner, is basically a mob boss.”

 

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‘Isn’t Glock a Good Gun?’ Trump Asks Before Saying He Is Buying One – Campaign Forced to Deny He Did

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13 hours ago

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September 25, 2023

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During a photo shoot at a South Carolina gun shop, Donald Trump posed with and then said he wanted to buy a Glock, asking if it is “a good gun.”

Some say it might be illegal to sell a gun to anyone under criminal indictment, and if he took the gun with him that too might be illegal. It was not clear if, despite saying he would, he actually bought the firearm. The Trump campaign initially said he had, although later backtracked on its claim, and deleted the social media post saying he had.

In the photo op (video below,) Trump posed with several people, including the Republican Attorney General of South Carolina, Alan Wilson, who has held that elected position since 2011.

“Trump’s spokesman announced that Trump bought a Glock today in South Carolina. He even posted video,” wrote former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob. “If Trump took the gun with him, that’s a federal crime since he’s under indictment. There’s also a law against selling a gun to someone under federal indictment like Trump.”

READ MORE: ‘Poof’: White House Mocks Stunned Fox News Host as GOP’s Impeachment Case Evaporates on Live Air

Reuters’ crime and justice reporter Brad Heath posted the federal laws that might apply, as well as Trump’s campaign spokesperson’s clip of the ex-president’s remarks, and his spokesperson saying, “President Trump purchases a @GLOCKInc in South Carolina!”

CNN analyst Stephen Gutowski, who writes about gun policy, added, “It would be a crime for him to actually buy this gun because he’s under felony indictment. Did he actually go through with this purchase?”

“People under felony indictments can’t ‘receive’ new firearms. That also means you can’t buy them,” he also wrote.

MSNBC anchor and legal contributor Katie Phang wrote, “I don’t know if he actually bought the gun. At least it didn’t happen in this video. Also, the Attorney General of South Carolina is in this video. Is he watching Trump commit a crime?”

But some pointed to a federal judge in Texas’ ruling from last year. Reuters reported, a “federal law prohibiting people under felony indictment from buying firearms is unconstitutional.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

 

 

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