Hope for the wicked

By BRUCE LOWITT

Ron DeSantis has admitted privately that he ginned up a scandal which has enveloped his wife and probably derailed her plan to run for governor of Florida, succeeding him in 2026.

Casey DeSantis, whose principal political experience has been sleeping with the governor occasionally since September 26, 2009, when they were married  - ironically at Disney World - founded Hope Florida, a charity designed to connect people receiving government assistance with non-government resources. The program is run out of the governor's office.

“I'm not going to get into the business of who did what with how much money,” said Ron DeSantis, who is term-limited and can't run for reelection. “I'm sure my wife has a perfectly reasonable explanation for how ten million dollars illegally funneled to her charity ended up with a couple of groups running anti-marijuana legalization campaigns that coincidentally happened to be connected to me.”

One of the governor's close personal friends, a former Florida attorney general who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Ron DeSantis told her he made sure the inappropriate transfer of funds would become public “in order to throw a monkey wrench into Casey's political aspirations. He told me that having a woman governor, or a woman even running for governor of Florida, especially one who looks like a Disney princess, would be too woke, too DEI,” she said.

The ten million dollars, part of a fine paid by a Medicaid contractor for inflating drug costs, and which should have gone to the state, went instead to the Hope Florida Foundation. DeSantis said he initially hoped no one would notice that the money was then split between a pair of his PACs opposing legalized marijuana, “but when Casey said she planned to run for governor I had to put the brakes on that idea and this publicity was the best way to do it.”

With president Donald Trump having already endorsed the gubernatorial candidacy of barely-known Congressman, failed U.S. House speaker candidate, and former Tea Party member Byron Donalds, R-Anon, the Republican-controlled Florida House of Representatives went after Casey DeSantis when it discovered the Florida Hope funds meant to guide people toward economic self-sufficiency wound up elsewhere.

Voters favored the proposed constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana by a 55.9% margin, but DeSantis “won” because it needed 60% approval to pass. Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Botox, who somehow shockingly opposed the amendment, said at the post-defeat celebration that DeSantis looked “stoned out of his fucking mind, and, trust me, I know what stoned out of my – or anyone's – mind looks like.”

The governor, denying he ever used cannabis, told reporters at the party, “I'm favored of my spelish- … special Run Rummer's cocktail and El Teniq-... Tequimn-... Tequilemo tequila, and Johnny ... uh, Jimmy Beam Sunshine bourbon … I'll make that the Shunsine shtate's official … heh-heh. Get it? Blaaaargh.”