DeSantis: Getting even and (maybe) getting richer

By BRUCE LOWITT

Angered by what he called “Dominion’s total capitulation to Fox,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has filed defamation suits against multiple media outlets, schools, religious institutions and Walt Disney World, claiming they have unfairly damaged his campaign to become America’s first despot.

“They’ve taken what I’ve said and done and accurately reported or characterized them, a total violation of my rights to clandestinity, subjugation and impetuousness, not to mention tempestuousness,” he said while frantically leafing through a a copy of Synonyms for Dummies, “and I will not stand for their veracity.”

Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp., for $1.6-billion over its false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election “and settled for about half that without the aggravation of a trial,” DeSantis said. “The way I see it, I can threaten lawsuits out the wazoo and pick up a pile of cash from anyone who doesn’t want to fight me in court.”

According to a filing by Ryan Newman, the governor’s general counsel, DeSantis is suing The Associated Press, NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe and several dozen other newspapers, plus the University of Florida, Florida State University and Florida’s four HBCU schools. Also a majority of Florida’s 1,485 public high schools and 3,650 elementary schools and an unspecified number of synagogues and mosques.

Among the witnesses he expects to call are Tucker Carlson, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Dana Perino, Sean Hannity, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jeanine Pirro, QAnon Shaman Jake Angeli, Editor-in-Chief Peter Schreiber of the German newspaper Deutsche Stimme, “and my new Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propagan- … I mean chief speechwriter, Nate Hochman.“

DeSantis said he intends to shut down the “spurious reporting” by national media.

“Newspapers and television falsely report that I’m a negativist, but I’m for a lot of things,” he said. “I’m for restricting voting by eliminating ballot drop boxes and voting by mail. I’m for opposing abortions after conception except to save the mental health of the rapist. I’m for parental rights that prohibit teachers from even thinking about gender identity or sexual orientation on public school grounds or teaching grade-school students about historical racism and sexism, and I’m for prohibiting diversity, equity and inclusion programs at state universities. I’m for the death penalty for killers and maybe rapists and definitely protesters who tie up traffic. I’m for eliminating immigration and health care. And I’m for guns, any kind of guns and anyone who wants to own or secretly carry them.”

DeSantis also has turned his attention to what he said is negativity in Florida schools’ student-run newspapers.

“For example, when Laila Harris, a second-grader who contributes to Hillsdale Elementary’s Kids Report, writes that ‘Mr. DeSantis is a poopy-pants’ and when Leo Schvantz, who contributes to Temple B’nai Gonif’s Weekly Pupik, says ‘our governor is a shande’, whatever the hell that means, I think it’s time to eliminate these woke attitudes,” DeSantis said.

“We fought the woke in the kindergartens. We fought the woke in the bathrooms. We fought the woke in the mezzanines. We fought the woke in the mikvahs. We fought the woke in the shtetls. We fought the woke in the konzentrationslager. We … Wait. Nate? Did you write this?”