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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32964 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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Some here may know of Keith Woods, who is a well-known figure on the Dissident Right. He had his Twitter account unbanned a month ago. Keith is Irish, and he made a tweet about an upcoming hate speech law being considered in Ireland:

Ireland is about to pass one of the most radical hate speech bills yet. Merely possessing "hateful" material on your devices is enough to face prison time.

Not only that, but the burden of proof is shifted to the accused, who is expected to prove they didn't intend to use the material to "spread hate". This clause is so radical that even the Trotskyist People Before Profit opposed it as a flagrant violation of civil liberties. Dark times.

Keith was retweeted by Elon Musk who replied "This is a massive attack against freedom of speech". He was subsequently retweeted by Trump Jr. and retweeted by Jordan Peterson.

So overall Keith's brief analysis of the hate speech law reached 11 million people, and sparked debate among opposition politicians and gave the law more public visilbity than it had before.

There's a very slim chance that any of those three know who Keith is or his politics. But it's still a good demonstration of why Twitter is important, and being banned from the public square really does shift the discourse. Of course that is the entire point.

New Florida hate speech law coming out of Jerusalem

After Trump Jr. retweeted Keith, Keith made a reply that was quite strategically intended to goad Trump Jr. into attacking Ron DeSantis for his recent trip to Israel:

Thank you for standing for free speech!

What's happening in the West is tragic. And now Meatball Ron is signing hate-speech legislation for Florida in a foreign country. I hope you take your country back!

You see, Ron DeSantis made a secret trip to Jerusalem (!) last week where he signed a new Florida hate-speech law which "aims to crack down on antisemitic and other heritage based threats." The press release, Governor Ron DeSantis Signs Legislation in Israel Further Combatting Antisemitism provides a summary, and one of the more significant parts of the legislation is:

Creating a new trespass offense if a person who is not authorized, licensed, or invited willfully enters the campus of a state college or university for the purpose of threatening or intimidating another person, and is warned by the institution to depart and refuses to do so

In tandem with Florida, a couple of weeks ago it was reported that several people from the 2017 torch-light march in Charlottesville on the UVA campus are being charged with felonies on the basis of burning an object with an intent to intimidate. So there seems to be a broader strategy of expanding the definition of "intimidation" to mean "politically incorrect protest" and ban those displays from public universities.

Another significant fact of this Florida Law which was signed in Jerusalem is that it mandates that all manner of offenses, including minor litter (i.e. flyering) are to all be reclassified as hate crimes for statistical reporting. The ADL and various Jewish organizations were recently up in arms that hate crime data did not show enough of a rise an antisemitism, so there's a significant effort to expand the reporting of "hate crime" to include all manner of things.

I am unfortunately not surprised by this affair- an American hate speech law being signed in Jersualem. It goes to show that just because a conservative plays tough on some culture war issues does not at all mean they are an ally. The conservative establishment is not an ally, it's entirely compromised. Supporting conservatism is not an option for people who oppose this sort of influence. I would support Biden over Ron DeSantis at this point- I would be genuinely afraid of what Ron would do at the behest of Israel.

I would support Biden over Ron DeSantis at this point- I would be genuinely afraid of what Ron would do at the behest of Israel.

I'm not sure if you intend this to be hyperbolic, but it seems like a rather strange point to me. If we take it seriously, this means that the primary issue by far that you care about is our foreign relations with Israel. Love them or hate them, it's a pretty small fraction of our overall GDP and total foreign aid budget, and a fairly minor factor in our overall foreign relations. Even so, that means to you, it's far more important than any of:

  • Abortion rights

  • Gun rights

  • Tax and economic policy

  • Criminal justice

  • Overall foreign relations

  • Environmental policy

And any number of other hot-button issues that have far more effect on any American's daily life than exactly what our relations with Israel are like and how much money we give to them.

Freedom of speech is an important issue. There were high hopes that Trump would make real progress in promoting free speech norms as public squares on the internet. With DeSantis signing hate speech laws in Jerusalem, the "free speech" issue would almost certainly be worse under a DeSantis administration than a Biden administration. Let's say he becomes president and signs a federal law like this one in Jerusalem. Do you think that's a silly concern, and can you see why I would give that a lot of weight?

DeSantis is signing law that is going to be used to crack down on right-wing expression. If I'm on the right wing, why wouldn't I give that a higher priority than taxes or abortion?

Biden has been better at foreign relations than Trump. Biden actually pulled US forces out of Afghanistan, Trump never did. Trump's most notable foreign policy accomplishments were moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and breaking the Iranian nuclear deal. All indications are that DeSantis would follow the exact same pattern.

More important than the law itself is that this signals that DeSantis is going to be beholden to the Jewish NGOs that have been the most influential in changing content policies on internet platforms. So I would have 0 expectation that DeSantis would fight that influence in any way, this is a clear signal that he's going to work with them to fight antisemitism.

SS has been very consistent with that priority list, yes.

Bari Weiss and other "anti-woke activists" have a long history suppressing critics of Israel. She herself even tried it as a student at Columbia. The same is true of the "IDW" people. Most of them were Zionist Jews and a few shabbos goyim like Jordan Peterson.

Cancel culture exists on the right too, just that it is often directed against anyone opposing Zionism. Lots of anti-BDS bills have been signed in red states in recent years and I don't see any of the "free speech activists" talking about it, thereby exposing their hypocrisy. Ben Shapiro is of course highly active here, too.

Lots of anti-BDS bills have been signed in red states in recent years and I don't see any of the "free speech activists" talking about it, thereby exposing their hypocrisy.

How dare you, there are dozens of us!

Glen Greenwald talks about them when they come up, if that counts for something.

I would support Biden over Ron DeSantis at this point

I just want to point out that as much as I get downvoted and accused of being "uncharitable" for suggesting that the so-called dissident right's interests are far more aligned with progressives than they are the mainstream right, here we have it from proverbial horse's mouth.

the so-called dissident right's interests are far more aligned with progressives than they are the mainstream right

The dissident right thinks that America should be a 95%+ white country. Progressives plainly do not want that, in any sense. How can you claim that their interests are aligned?

Because the dissident right wants to do something, not just sit and say "this too shall pass" until their children become trans.

Biden hasn't even been that bad on woke or progressive nonsense. By far progressivism gained massively more ground in the culture under Trump than it has under Biden. And DeSantis signing a hate speech law in Jerusalem tells me everything I need to know about how his administration would just double down on the MAGA failures that enable this.

What "failures" would those be?

Please be specific.

This is obnoxious and you are obnoxious. Your shtick is old and tired. @SecureSignals laid out word-for-word the failure of 'signing a hate speech law in Jerusalem'

Do you support American governors enacting laws curtailing American speech, on behalf of and enacted in foreign countries? If not, why are you so snarky about this?

There is no "on behalf of" in this.

What about this constitutes a "failure" in your eyes? What "success" has been thwarted or discarded? What I'm asking @SecureSignals (and now you) to do is to make your requirements and expectations explicit, because if you don't communicate your requirements how can you expect anyone to measure against them?

[don’t] know who Keith is or his politics

Judging by the context, I’m guessing he hates Jews? Spends all his time looking out for secret field trips? Somehow, I doubt that he’s trying to “goad” Trump Jr. into more socially acceptable forms of political speech.

The full text of the bill can be found here. Your summary is not correct.

Littering is classified as a hate crime if and only if it falls under the new section, “intentionally dumping litter onto private property for the purpose of intimidating or threatening the owner…” Sounds fair to me. Dropping a cup on the sidewalk will not pad any hate crime stats.

Edit: Definitely not. In addition to the above criteria, for it to count, the crime must have been motivated by "race, color, ancestry, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, homeless status, or advanced age."

In fact, these offenses are generally reasonable corollaries to existing Florida law. Anyone who “Does not have legitimate business on the campus,” is already committing a second-degree misdemeanor; first-degree if they refuse to leave. This act merely breaks out the “intent to threaten.” I much prefer specific, explicit laws to the generalist approach used by Virginia.

Maliciously disturbing a funeral? Added to an existing offense for disrupting schools and assemblies for worshipping God. Projecting images onto buildings? That one…I feel like there must be a headline behind that. But you know, if someone projects “I am going to kill netstack” on a building, I don’t mind making that a third-degree felony.

Just because Israel endorses something doesn’t make it a bad idea.

The same is true federally:

Applicants, employees and former employees are protected from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability and genetic information (including family medical history).

So it is equally illegal to discriminate against white and Black people on the basis of their race, but while preferring 30 year olds is banned, favouring people who saw Abraham is OK.

Projecting images onto buildings? That one…I feel like there must be a headline behind that

Probably targeted at NatSoc Florida, who projected hate symbols / "Kanye was right about the Jews" on to buildings.

https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/politics-issues/2023-03-10/in-florida-far-right-groups-look-to-seize-the-moment

Your guess on keith is (descriptively) correct, ctrl-f jew. Do hate crime laws serve any meaningful purpose, though? They are generally 'reasonable corollaries' to existing laws. And a doubled fine or two extra weeks in jail isn't going to deter a racist litterer, nor will a ten-year instead of five-year sentence deter someone who's assaulting people on the basis of their race. Similar laws might make sense in the context of, like, constant race-based white nationalist vs black nationalist gang warfare, but that doesn't happen in western countries nowadays. But by the same logic, hate crime laws aren't really an obstacle for dissidents, because 'burning crosses on lawns' or 'random terrorist attacks' isn't an effective strategy today anyway.

That same argument could apply to different degrees of murder or even felonies in general. Clearly there’s some value to creating a continuum of punishments. I find it reasonable to rate crime+intimidation slightly higher than the crime alone.

Is stereotypical intimidation not effective?

If I had a cross burned on my lawn, I think I’d be fearing for my life. That’s a sign someone really wants you dead or gone. Flyers, less so, but more due to history. It’d still be really unsettling.

I've heard that argument, yeah. But to be honest it moves me more towards "maybe we shouldn't have degrees of murder" than "maybe hate crime laws are good". I just can't agree that it is just to have laws where it's already illegal to do X, but if you do it to the wrong person then it's double secret illegal (TM).

But to be honest it moves me more towards "maybe we shouldn't have degrees of murder"

There are different degrees of murder to reflect different degrees of moral culpability. Moral culpability, of course, at the heart of Western ideas of criminal justice. See People v. Sanchez, 98 N.Y.2d 373, 407 (2002) ["This consequence violates a fundamental principle of the criminal law, which seeks to punish defendants in proportion to the blameworthiness of their offense."]. Certain forms of murder are also punished more harshly because they are deemed more dangerous to society, such as, in New York, murdering a police officer, murder for hire, and murdering a witness.

The argument re hate crime enhancements is similar: Those who select victims because of their race, gender, whatever, are deemed more culpable, and in addition "this conduct is thought to inflict greater individual and societal harm." * Wisconsin v. Mitchell*, 508 US 476, 487-488 (1993).

And note that "if you do it to the wrong person" is not the issue; a hate crime enhancement depends on the motive for the crime, not the identity of the victim per se. Note also the races of the victim and defendants in Wisconsin v. Mitchell.

Do hate crime laws serve any meaningful purpose, though?

Sure. You can use them to make trivial offenses that many people are guilty of (though they generally go unprosecuted or occasionally result in a fine) into serious offenses when committed by people pushing political views you dislike, thus effectively criminalizing expression of those views.

I don't think that happens enough to matter, in the specific case of hate crime laws. The case for something like that is much stronger for 'hostile work environment' / 'hiring discrimination' - I still think those are an effect, rather than a cause, for the most part, but just in terms of 'number of people affected' or 'amount of right-wing behavior suppressed' they have to be 10,000 times as impactful.

(also, even w/o hate crime enhancements, prosecutorial discretion still exists)

That's the whole point of the Florida law (which is aimed at the "Goyim Defense League"), and also the Virginia law against burning things on a highway which is being used against the tiki torch protestors. It was originally intended to be used against the Klan of course.

If you mean it was meant to outlaw cross-burning, you are mistaken. Virginia has a separate law specific to cross-burning. That law appears to date to 1950; the law in question appears to have been enacted in 2002.

I don't think that happens enough to matter, in the specific case of hate crime laws.

Lol that is literally the only thing that happens with hate crime laws. Take that littering one for example - how many stories have you heard of where some bigot dumped a bunch of racist flyers on someone's lawn to intimidate them? Never, because that's a dumb way to intimidate someone. But still! It could be used to intimidate someone! We need a law in place! Cut to 6 months later and some guy is getting arrested for passing out flyers calling George Soros an asshole. Every piece of hate speech legislation gets used this way, to add ambiguity to the system, because that is precisely what they are designed for.

Cut to 6 months later and some guy is getting arrested for passing out flyers calling George Soros an asshole

A whole third of the US population despises Soros, every other day there's a new Fox article calling him out. Enough to matter is the point, are hate speech laws actually materially preventing any right-wing progress or activism? Not that I know of. Something can be bad, yet also not effective at being bad.

“intentionally dumping litter onto private property for the purpose of intimidating or threatening the owner…” Sounds fair to me

The difference between "political flyer" and "dumping litter for the purpose of intimidation" is up to court interpretation, with Virginia stretching the definition of "intimidation" to include participation in a political protest.

Likewise the "intimidation" language for removing or arresting people at state universities, the line between a politically incorrect protest and "intimidation" is not as secure as you are implying.

This is new, if it wasn't new then there would be no point in the legislation.

Sure, it’s new. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. I’d much rather have hate speech and intimidation codified in law rather than trying to stretch a cross-burning statute to cover tiki torches.

The line for intimidation is secure enough for me. I don’t mind holding to the O’Brien test.

O’Brien

The O'Brien test is irrelevant; that's about laws passed for purposes other than regulating expression being used to prevent expression (and thus, destroying your draft card was able to be constitutionally prohibited). This is more like Texas v. Johnson, where Texas had banned flag-burning.

That’s a good point. Texas v. Johnson demanded exacting scrutiny because it was obviously speech. It did not meet that scrutiny, either by breach of the peace, fighting words, or threatening to ruin the flag in general. I’m not sure which cases drew the throughline from this scrutiny to “intent to intimidate” as in these laws.

For the record, I don’t expect the Charlottesville tiki-torchers to be convicted. Maybe if they’re on camera naming specific people, or if I’m otherwise missing information. I don’t think they’d fall afoul of these Florida statutes either.

I’m not sure which cases drew the throughline from this scrutiny to “intent to intimidate” as in these laws.

That language is trying to get through the loophole created by Virginia v. Black

I don’t see anything particularly bad about this law. The very, very bad possible future is if they decide criticism of Jews as a religion or culture constitutes a hate crime. Everyone should have unilateral permission to criticize religions and cultures. Knowing the ADL, they will try to get anything critical of Judaism, Jewish Advocacy Groups, and Israel labeled as hate. The law as written applies to all protected classes.

The very, very bad possible future is if they decide criticism of Jews as a religion or culture constitutes a hate crime

If criticism of Jews is regarded as intimidation, then this law already regards it as a hate crime. The question is how far they can stretch the definition of "intimidation."

Is saying "Jews will not replace us" with a tiki torch at a protest considered intimidation in your view? If a court says it's intimidation, then it's now a hate crime.

I think the rot is going so deep that I’m not sure there’s any way to save the West. It’s basically illegal to question certain things, or to oppose certain ideas, and I’ve yet to see anyone mainstream even grasp how serious the problem is. It’s not going to be fixed, I don’t think because as soon as the state can Devine the purpose of you entering a space (for example going to UCLA while conservative) with only the good will of those who oppose your ideas to keep you from violating the law. And honestly, if putting up flyers is now a hate crime, I just… how much freedom do you have to lose before you say something?

The OP is misleading. It’s not a hate crime unless you litter flyers on someone’s private property. Even then it requires “intimidating or threatening,” which, per Virginia v. Black, has additional safety rails. For what it’s worth, I’m still expecting acquittal on the tiki-torch cases.

Edit: there are actually even more limits than I thought. The law cites Florida s. 775.085, which defines a category of crimes that "evidence prejudice." In addition to threatening someone on their private property, it has to be motivated by "race, color, ancestry, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, homeless status, or advanced age," and the perpetrator has to know it. Sounds reasonably strict to me.

several people from the 2017 torch-light march in Charlottesville on the UVA campus are being charged with felonies on the basis of burning an object with an intent to intimidate

Objectively speaking, how many BLM-adjacent rioters could have been charged with that after 2020?

"No justice no peace" is a statement clearly intended to intimidate, and yet.

For more context, the Florida law is reaction to charming antics of group called "Goyim Defense League".

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-732553

https://twitter.com/BaruchSandhaus/status/1628429760622743553

(we all know most such groups in the past were found to be thick with feds, but this is not a reason to look suspiciously at these brave patriots)

I give it 45% feds, 45% leftist radicals "raising awareness", 8% 4chan trolls bored out of their minds, and maybe 2% genuine hateful idiots.

Why? Their group has a history of operating, and has prominent 'real' antisemites as members. In general, no matter how noble or correct your cause is, stupid people can latch onto it and do stupid things. And they aren't "fake believers", just stupid. Even in a world where the alt-right would NEVER do such a thing, aryan prison gang antisemitism would still exist, and do stuff like this.

Not to dox myself, but as someone who has lived in Florida (including but not only Tampa) for a good chunk of my life, I would lower the fed slightly, lower the leftist radicals a decent chunk and up the trolls and hateful idiots. Maybe like 40% / 25%/ 20% / 15%.

Unless the radicals are dedicated enough to LARPing that they also go out to bars dressed normally and talk about this stuff to really sell the act (though I guess those could also be feds trying to infiltrate? I just know a lot of drunk dudes at the bars here start getting into politics and the Jews do come up). I will add that I would not take it turning out that these folks were actually recent moves from New York or California as meaning they were actually disguised leftists. The people (well, young people, not retirees) who have moved to Florida from New York and California in past couple years seem both more outspoken in their politics and more right wing than the average pre-covid Floridian (once again, ruling out truly dedicated LARPing that extends to work and bars).

Guessing a lot of them are kind of "cutting loose" after being in cities where being vocally conservative was asking to be a pariah.

I think there's a distance between drunkenly ranting about Joos in a bar and soberly dressing up into a Nazi garb, grabbing a swastika flag and standing in public for hours screaming Nazi slogans and harassing the passer-bys. A random low-IQ asshole is much more likely to do the former than the latter. A troll would rather do the latter, obviously.

"Cutting loose" sounds plausible, but there's a huge distance between being openly conservative and waving a swastika flag. It looks much more like LARPing "Conservatives are Nazis" meme than actual Nazis. Most genuine anti-Semites do not march with swastika flags, they are much more likely to do "I am not an anti-Semite, but..." than openly prance and scream "heil hitler". Of course, given it's like four people, among millions there would be exceptions to any rule, but in general that's what it looks like.

Agreed on broad strokes, hence keeping the order of likelihood if not the %s, mostly felt the need to bring it up because my %s would've looked more like yours if this had happened 2015-2019 (prior to that up the feds and lower the leftists) and only differ now due to personal experiences in Florida over the last couple years.

My experience has been that blue collar whites have similar views to their black counterparts about many topics, including Jews, and that the schizo window dressing makes the substance look much more different than it actually is.

Growing up I only ever heard the standard stereotype stuff (but that also applied to every race), plus maybe some conspiracy stuff that was at least ostensibly not actually about Jews even if there happened to be a lot of overlap.

Honestly surprised you didn't hear any in New York City, pre-2020 basically all the antisemitism I heard was from New Yorkers lol (though then it was almost entirely directed at Orthodox Jews).

Frankly most of the stuff I'm used to is anti-black or anti-mexican (obviously also lots of stuff about muslims in the 2001-2011 stretch) the anti-jewish stuff seems to be newer.

I would support Biden over Ron DeSantis at this point

Nice try. Biden would support such laws too, just as enthusiastically. This law is stupid and at least in part unconstitutional, but it doesn't give Biden an edge over DeSantis in terms of "conservatism", it just reduces DeSantis's edge.

In tandem with Florida, a couple of weeks ago it was reported that several people from the 2017 torch-light march in Charlottesville on the UVA campus are being charged with felonies on the basis of burning an object with an intent to intimidate. So there seems to be a broader strategy of expanding the definition of "intimidation" to mean "politically incorrect protest" and ban those displays from public universities.

Wait just a moment. What makes you say that the charges at UVA are going to inform how DeSantis' new law is enforced?

What makes you say that the charges at UVA are going to inform how DeSantis' new law is enforced?

It's more accurate to say that political pressure is motivating both the charges at UVA and DeSantis' new law. I am not saying the law is due to the UVA case, I am saying the crackdown on right-wing protests is due to the same forces in both cases.

The protestors who were on the UVA campus are being charged with "intimidation" and the Florida law is outlawing displays of "intimidation" on state campuses. You could say that there's no indication Florida will interpret "intimidation" the same way as the new DA in Virginia, but you can't say it's just a coincidence that DeSantis is outlawing "intimidation" on Florida campuses while in Jerusalem.

the crackdown on right-wing protests is due to the same forces in both cases . . .the Florida law is outlawing displays of "intimidation" on state campuses.

You must live in a different universe than I do if you think a law outlawing "enter[ing] the campus of a state university or Florida College System institution for the purpose of threatening or intimidating another person" is aimed at right-wing protests, given that it has been the woke that has been doing that for the past few years. And given DeSantis's stance re wokeism.

You live in a different universe than I do if you think woke protests are going to be charged with felonies with hate crime enhancements. There is already a case, right now of protestors on a campus being charged with a felony for intimidation.

Hate crime enhancements by Florida.

It's so secret that it is featured on his official website: https://flgov.com/2023/04/27/governor-ron-desantis-delivers-keynote-address-in-jerusalem-to-commemorate-the-75th-anniversary-of-the-founding-of-israel/

Doesn't get any more secret that that. And of course, a man gearing up for a presidential campaign going on foreign relations tour and going to Israel among several other key US allies is super-nefarious - I mean, Joos(!)!11oneonme11 are involved. He surely is part of the ZOG now, it is proven.

It's so secret that it is featured on his official website:

The Representative described it as secret, Florida State Representative Randy Fine. Obviously they publicized it after the fact, but the Representative himself described the trip to Jerusalem to deliver the bill to be signed as secret:

Made a secret trip to JERUSALEM (!!!) with @RepMikeCaruso to deliver @GovRonDeSantis HB 269, the strongest antisemitism bill in the United States. To Florida’s Nazi thugs, I have news: attack Jews on their property and you’re going to prison. Never again means never again.

So the Representative himself described it in even stronger terms than I did- it was a secret trip to JERUSALEM (!!!) to deliver the strongest antisemitism bill in the United States (!!!!).

Imagine if the white house was full of staffers from Saudi arabia and they were all staunch pro Saudi, had a clear pro Saudi agenda and continuously talked about Saudi Arabia. Many openly called themselves Saudi firsters. That would be considered weird. We are supposed to forget about the extreme overrepresentation of a small minority of jews whose interests and views differ from the rest of the population.

Except nothing like that is actually is happening - nobody calls themselves "Israel firsters", nobody "continuously talks about Israel" (in fact, the current administration is pretty hostile to Israel though thankfully most of the time ignores it by now), and White House is not "full of staffers from Israel" (unless you consider anybody with Jewish blood to be "from Israel", which makes as much sense as considering anybody with Arabic blood be "from Saudi Arabia"). There are, indeed, a number of Muslim staffers, and the number of ethnically Jewish ones (most of them are not even practicing Jews, in fact, I am not sure there's one practicing Jew among top current officials). It is not "weird" in any way.

I think you've accidentally stumbled onto a generalization; any group that holds an important resource will get preference in how our policies are shaped to please others. Arabs have oil, Israelis have Jerusalem, Iowans have swing votes.

Could be a hold over from the days when only the federal government got the .gov suffix or perhaps its because that site is being run by DeSantis himself (or rather his campaign staff) instead of the state government proper.

I'm joking; that site's at least halfway navigable! Is it just me or is it kind of odd it's a dot com instead of dot gov, though?

Florida be open for business, yo.

Having some experience with non-US governmental internet management, it might be much easier to buy a .com domain than to fill in all necessary forms for setting up a .gov one and wait until the wheels finish turning. So somebody might just lose patience, buy a .com and when the .gov finally comes through just put a redirect on it. At least I've seen such things happening.

DeSantis' visit to Israel isn't really surprising even from a statewide political perspective.

Of course none of this is surprising, it is 100% aligned with my mental model. It's still significant even if it isn't surprising.

I was recalling the wording of Florida State Representative Randy Fine:

Made a secret trip to JERUSALEM (!!!) with @RepMikeCaruso to deliver @GovRonDeSantis HB 269, the strongest antisemitism bill in the United States. To Florida’s Nazi thugs, I have news: attack Jews on their property and you’re going to prison. Never again means never again.

So the State Representative who participated in the signing of the bill characterized it as a "secret trip to Jerusalem". He was describing his trip to Jerusalem to deliver the bill as secret rather than Ron's trip, but in any case the "secrecy" of this stunt is established by the very Representative who described it as such.

I was recalling the wording of Florida State Representative Randy Fine:

No, you weren't. As evidenced by the tedious back and forth about your claim downthread, you just found this tweet after the fact.

So you think me saying "Secret trip to Jerusalem" with the (!) after was just a coincidence? TBF it was a screenshot I saw last week from someone who retweeted Laura Loomer. But that characterization stuck, which I absolutely maintain. I didn't remember where I saw that verbiage earlier today, but I found the screenshot again.

You can replace:

Ron DeSantis made a secret trip to Jerusalem (!) last week

With

Two Florida State Reps made a secret trip to JERUSALEM (!!!) last week to deliver to Ron DeSantis

And it doesn't change the meaning of my post. This was a secret political stunt by DeSantis intended to pander to Jewish interests with new a American hate speech law. Period.

Why lie

Our dear SS is our resident holocaust, ahem, "revisionist". Anything he says that even remotely touches the topics of Israel or Jews is to be read in this context. This isn't the first time he has been blatantly lying in this regard.

Neither the purpose nor destination (Jerusalem) were known as far as I can tell. There was speculation that the purpose was political rather than the deceptively stated purpose of the trip. Nobody knew DeSantis was going to show up in Jerusalem randomly to sign a new Florida hate speech law and give a keynote address at the Museum of Tolerance. That's "secret" in my book, you are welcome to split hairs if you want.

You say "split hairs," I say "moving goalposts." First it was a "secret trip," which you intentionally phrased as if De Santis were covertly slipping off to Israel to sign American legislation at the behest of his Jewish masters under cover of darkness. When multiple people pointed out to you that it was widely publicized and there was nothing secretive or unusual about his trip, now it's "Well, I didn't see a complete, detailed itinerary and schedule of activities, therefore it's 'secret' in my book."

Went to Israel, "randomly showed up in Jerusalem" - come on, man.

there was nothing secretive or unusual about his trip

Not sure what else to say, I think DeSantis signing a Florida hate speech law in Jerusalem is unusual. You are free to take the position that it's not unusual, but it's important anyway.

I'd be open to an argument that it's unusual for an American politician to sign a bill while traveling abroad (I don't actually know how unusual this is), and hell, I'd even be open to an argument, if you could make it, that there is something particularly significant about him signing this particular law in Israel, though your implied "Because Da Joos told him to" needs a lot more groundwork.

The problem is, you started with "secret trip to Israel" and are now backpedaling so obviously that it's hard to take any such argument from you as sincere or concerned with factuality.

I'd be open to an argument that it's unusual for an American politician to sign a bill while traveling abroad

There was a lot of talk about Obama's famous autopen he used to sign legislation while being out of DC. So it's not unprecedented. I remember this discussion because I never seen that device before and then learned its use goes back to Thomas Jefferson (Obama likely used a more modern version of it). Example: https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2011/05/27/136724009/obamas-autopen-signing-of-patriot-act-raises-eyebrows-has-unlikely-ally

And of course the idea that Da Joos can't command their thrall De Santis to sign the bill by phone or any other remote communication, but must be hypnotizing him in person in Jerusalem is as hilarious as most crazy ideas this kind of folks spits out.

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I'd be open to an argument that it's unusual for an American politician to sign a bill while traveling abroad

This just seems super disingenuous. This isn't just "an American politician signing a bill while traveling abroad", it's a Florida presidential hopeful signing a hate speech law in Jerusalem.

though your implied "Because Da Joos told him to" needs a lot more groundwork.

Ok, so what's your theory for why this happened? Are you just going to say the same thing but in different terms? He's trying to get support for his campaign.

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March 28, CNN: "DeSantis plans to travel to Jerusalem as tumult strains Netanyahu-Biden relationship". So, the destination was known.

Washington Free Beacon April21: "Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is expected to run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is set to begin a trip abroad on Saturday taking him through Japan, South Korea, Israel and the United Kingdom." Note that that was before the bill passed, and that he visited several other places. So it is unlikely that the purpose was to sign the bill.

Yeah, that puzzled me, can any politician sign a bill while outside the country? I guess the answer is "no."

The answer is "yes", at lease since 2011. Example: https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2011/05/27/136724009/obamas-autopen-signing-of-patriot-act-raises-eyebrows-has-unlikely-ally

TLDR: As long as the authorized politician directly gives his consent and his command to sign the bill, he can direct his subordinate to perform the physical act of affixing the signature without being present at the same place.

Huh, TIL.

Why wouldn't he be able to sign it while outside the country?

I mean, having a rule that bills have to be signed in a certain place is just asking to be coup'd

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