How is it that Ron DeSantis is making against TV stations carrying ads that he does not like not a criminal conspiracy to violate those stations civil rights?
A federal judge feels similarly, though he did not break out the cuffs:
A federal judge ordered Gov. Ron DeSantis’ state Health Department to stop threatening television stations with criminal prosecution if they kept running ads in favor of an abortion amendment on the ballot next month.
In a sharply worded ruling on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker rebuked the DeSantis administration for trying to quash what he called constitutionally protected political speech.
“To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid,” Walker wrote, granting a request for a temporary restraining order. A hearing for a preliminary injunction is scheduled for later this month.
The ruling puts a temporary halt to one of DeSantis’ most brazen attempts to defeat Amendment 4, which would overturn the six-week abortion ban he signed into law.
On Oct. 3, the Florida Department of Health sent letters threatening to criminally prosecute television stations if they did not stop running an ad that features a woman named Caroline who was diagnosed with brain cancer two years ago while pregnant with her second child. In the ad, the woman says Florida’s six-week abortion ban would have prevented her from receiving a potentially life-saving abortion.
I've said it before, and I will say it again: Today's Republican Party is not the opposition, it is the enemy, and they are a clear and present danger.
Once again, I quote what historical novelist Robert Graves put into the mouth of Germanicus Caesar, Republicans "Must be struck into the dust, struck down again as they rise. Struck again while they lie groaning, while their wounds still pain them; they will respect the hand that dealt them."
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