The Greene County Democrat

Tag: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

  • Newswire : Florida lawmaker blasts Alligator Alcatraz as ‘Concentration Camp’  

    Inhumae cages inside the prison for immigration deportees

    By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

     

    Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon has condemned the state’s $450 million immigration detention facility in the Everglades—dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”—as an inhumane, politically motivated stunt that is detaining people accused of minor infractions like driving without a license or running a stop sign.
    Speaking on the Black Press of America’s “Let It Be Known” program, Nixon described what she called a “hyper-curated, super-sanitized tour” of the sprawling compound. “What I saw was a waste of taxpayer dollars,” she said. “Countless SUVs, law enforcement officers, military personnel—many of whom claimed to be volunteers—are all being paid to carry out a political stunt.” During her tour, Nixon said she observed more than 30 people crammed into cages with just three restrooms. “There was no privacy,” she said. “Folks were getting water from the toilet.” Detainees she saw in shackles included asylum seekers awaiting court dates. “These are construction workers, people who care for our elderly and our children. They are not hardened criminals.”
    Nixon, who filed legislation to improve prison conditions in Florida, said the facility is consistent with a state correctional system that historically fails to provide adequate care and basic needs. She recounted that state officials rushed her group off-site, citing a supposed security lockdown as rain began, preventing lawmakers from seeing whether flooding, previously documented on video, was recurring. “They kept saying a storm was coming,” Nixon said. “When we insisted on staying, suddenly there was a lockdown, and we were escorted out.
    We don’t believe it was a real security issue.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has defended the project as necessary to detain what he has called the “worst of the worst.” But Nixon said the facility’s population tells a different story. “My daughter is 18 and she just got a ticket for running a red light. Under this logic, she could end up there too,” she said.
    The facility comes as public support for harsh enforcement has waned. According to Gallup polling, only 38% of Americans now favor mass deportations, down from 47% last year. Approval of Donald Trump’s handling of immigration stands at just 35% nationally, and among Hispanic Americans, only 21% approve. While the Trump administration has promoted expanded detention and deportation policies, Gallup found that 78% of Americans support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Nixon said Florida’s approach is out of step with public sentiment and legal norms. “They couldn’t even tell us who was mixed together—people who committed no crime at all and people waiting for due process,” she said. “And since when does the state of Florida have the jurisdiction to deport people?”
    The lawmaker and four colleagues have sued DeSantis and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, claiming the state violated their statutory rights to conduct unannounced inspections. DeSantis has called the lawsuit “frivolous” and suggested countersuing the lawmakers. Nixon argued that resources wasted on detention should be directed to Floridians’ needs. “They are closing schools in Duval County, our property insurance rates are the highest in the country, we have people with disabilities waiting years for help, and instead, they are spending hundreds of millions on this,” she said.
    As reports circulate that Florida could soon expand detention camps, Nixon urged Americans to pressure state and federal leaders. “If we don’t stop this here, it’s coming to your backyard next,” she said. “They just revoked TPS for Haitians. What happens when they say, ‘I thought you were undocumented’ and pick up Black Americans without due process?”
    Nixon warned that the growing disregard for civil rights should alarm all Americans. “Everything Trump has said he would do, he has done. We can’t take this lightly.” She encouraged citizens to call lawmakers, sign petitions, and demand accountability. “We should all be outraged,” she said. “If they can do this to them, they can do it to us.”

  • Newswire : Tim Scott dropped out of Presidential race reportedly without telling his campaign staff

    Tim Scott campaigning

    By: NewsOne staff

    Tim Scott’s suspension of his presidential campaign came as a “surprise” to his campaign staff members, his allies and his supporters, the latter of whom were sent a last-minute fundraising solicitation shortly before the Republican Senator from South Carolina made his announcement, according to reports.
    Scott, who was never able to be a serious polling threat to front-runner Donald Trump, let alone several other candidates, made his announcement Sunday afternoon during an interview on Fox News conducted by Republican and former South Carolina U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy.
    “When I go back to Iowa it will not be as a presidential candidate,” Scott told Gowdy, who appeared to react as if he was not expecting to hear that breaking news. “The voters, who are the most remarkable people on the planet … They’re telling me, ‘not now, Tim.’ I don’t think they’re saying, Trey, ‘no,’ but I do they’re saying, ‘not now.’”
    The announcement was apparently either unplanned or top secret among campaign staffers who theoretically should have known Scott planned to quit.
    Politico reported that “[multiple campaign staff members confirmed … that they had no prior knowledge of Scott’s decision before he” announced that he was dropping out of the race on live television.
    Also from Politico: Scott’s Sunday night announcement came after he canceled a scheduled swing through Iowa this weekend, a change the campaign on Friday attributed to him having the flu. Scott started the interview by saying he was “looking forward to getting back on the campaign trail” after he recovers from the flu before adding that he would no longer be a candidate.
    While it’s naive to assume that the upper levels of Scott’s campaign were blindsided by his announcement, previous suspensions of presidential campaigns — both in this current and past political cycles — have been absent of such reports of a “surprise.”
    In part because he was never able to break through on the polling front, political analysts predicted Scott’s campaign suspension as being inevitable. Only the timing of it was in question.
    Scott was noncommittal about which candidate he’d endorse for the Republican presidential nomination and encouraged voters to do their own research.
    Scott’s announcement to suspend his campaign came just days after he finally made good on his promise to reveal his long-spoken-about girlfriend. He posed with Mindy Noce, a design and renovation manager in Charleston, South Carolina, following a lackluster performance in the third Republican primary debate on Wednesday night.
    With Republican donors reportedly pressing the issue of Scott being single while seeking the presidency, his bachelorhood dominated headlines in September as Scott was unable to avoid the scrutiny of being unmarried.
    Beyond his personal life, Scott displayed an astounding tone-deafness during the third debate – and, by extension, his short-lived campaign – by doubling down on his presidential promise for a national abortion ban less than 24 hours after voters in Ohio cast ballots to defeat such a proposition.
    Scott’s staunch refusal to acknowledge racism in America certainly didn’t help his cause, as evidenced by the way he recently scolded a Black congregation in a Chicago church that he suggested was overly focused on race — a tactic that polling showed resonated with white voters, in particular.
    Nadia Brown, a political scientist and professor at Georgetown University, described Scott last week to ABC News in terms of a political and racial token. “What Tim Scott and those of his ilk are doing, they’re trying to play on these emotional push pins that most African Americans don’t see. It’s not landing for them,” Brown said. “I think that is a call out to other conservatives, particularly white conservatives, who want to say, ‘I have a Black senator,’ or, ‘I feel comfortable voting for a Black candidate.’” 
    The remaining Republican candidates for president include Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.