Marco Rubio threw a hissy fit after his hometown Miami Heat urged fans to contact him and demand "commonsense gun laws."
Uh, Senator, what's wrong with the organization exercising its First Amendment right to freely speak about a burning social issue after the horror in Uvalde, Texas?
But no, Rubio played the classic card Republicans use after mass shooting tragedies — the old "let's not politicize this" gambit.
"The NBA doesn't like to talk about the billions they make from a China that enslaves Uyghur Muslims and harvests their organs, But they have no problem politicizing a horrific tragedy in America," Rubio tweeted.
He kept going.
"The (Miami Heat) runs commercials calling #Florida a racist state," he tweeted. "But because (NBA China) is worth $133 million for each team, they say nothing about how China puts Muslims in concentration camps & allows no one to vote."
The commercial that set Rubio off never says Florida is a racist state, not even close. It was the team's response to the (cough) voting "security" measures pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Those "security" measures appear to disproportionately target the favored options Black people used to vote — mail and drop boxes.
And the announcement about "commonsense gun laws" came from the Heat, not from the NBA's central office.
It's disingenuous for Rubio, a favorite of the National Rifle Association (NRA), to criticize anyone for politicizing the Texas tragedy. No one plays the political game better than the NRA, which stuffs Rubio's coffers with cash.
Rubio loves to denounce totalitarian regimes in China and Cuba, where the government crushes dissent. But he's saying that the Heat should just shut up and dribble, as Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham famously said when LeBron James expressed a political opinion.
Athletes and teams have as much right to use their platforms for social justice as Rubio has to push his agenda.
It's called freedom.
Now, it's on to our weekly game of winners and losers.
Honorable mention: DeSantis. His undeclared campaign for President just picked up more steam.
Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of 2022. Then, Newsweek did a cover story on the Governor, headlined "President DeSantis?"
"His every utterance seems calculated to send progressives into a frenzy. He's one of the most prolific political fundraisers in America. His endorsements of other like-minded America First conservative candidates help those beneficiaries pull ahead in crowded Primaries," reporter Steve Freiss wrote.
"And the worst-kept secret in American politics is that he wants to swap out his Sunshine State address for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as soon as possible."
Oh, who is that? Donald Trump?
"No, the politician is not Donald Trump but rather Florida Governor Ron DeSantis," Freiss wrote.
He added that DeSantis "lately seems bent on executing just about every page of the former President's political playbook — only with a sunnier demeanor, less offensive language, and fewer of the personal antics that make Trump so polarizing."
Former Gov. Jeb Bush wrote the tribute to DeSantis in Time.
"His approach works. It's one that has allowed Florida to emerge from the pandemic as a national model of personal freedom, economic growth, environmental protection, and education excellence," Bush said.
"Florida continues to see record population growth, unemployment remains below the national average, the private sector is growing, and Florida remains a national leader in school choice."
Almost (but not quite) biggest winner: Big tech. It wasn't all cake and balloons for the Governor.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals gave DeSantis a bloody nose. The three-judge panel unanimously agreed with the major parts of a lower court decision that struck down the Governor's ballyhooed attempt to keep major social media platforms from banning conservatives.
"Put simply, with minor exceptions, the government can't tell a private person or entity what to say or how to say it," Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom wrote. Newsom added that. "We hold that it is substantially likely that social-media companies — even the biggest ones — are 'private actors' whose rights the First Amendment protects."
Newsom was appointed by — wait for it — Trump!
The biggest winner: Condo reform. It took a Special Session to get it done, but Florida lawmakers finally passed much-needed condominium reform.
In both chambers, the vote was unanimous nearly a year after the 12-story collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside killed 98 people.
The Miami Herald reported that an engineer warned in 2018 that the building had a "major error" in the drainage that had caused "major structural damage."
Florida's new law requires more frequent and vigorous building inspections, especially if they're within three miles of the coast.
It also requires developers to keep a cash reserve sufficient to pay for needed repairs. The reserve fund was a major sticking point during the Legislative Session, eventually leaving lawmakers unable to agree.
House members remained insistent that the fund was necessary, and the Senate agreed during the Special Session.
A judge also recently ruled that survivors of the collapse will share in a $96 million settlement.
Losers
Dishonorable mention: Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. It seems like inflation is affecting public records too.
A routine records request by Anne Schindler, an executive producer at Jacksonville's First Coast News, drew this shocking response.
The Sheriff's Office said sure. You can have them. Just send us $87,401, and we'll get right on it.
Jacksonville Times-Union columnist Nate Monroe detailed the exchange, but it comes down to a simple fact. These are PUBLIC records. Anyone who works in government or the public sector understands this.
If a member of the public or media wants to see something, the law says they can. The institutions are allowed to charge, but what the Sheriff's Office demanded was absurd.
It begs the question: What are they hiding?
Schindler was following up on a story she broke about rogue cops. In Jacksonville, the State Attorney's Office kept a list of local cops who couldn't be trusted. And as Monroe wrote, "a police officer who was, remarkably, removed from the list for unclear reasons."
We ask again: What are they hiding?
Almost (but not quite) biggest loser: Ghost candidate. Three people face multiple criminal charges for their alleged participation in a "ghost candidate" scandal in the Senate District 9 election in 2020.
Republican Jason Brodeur won the race over Democrat Patricia Sigman by 7,644 votes. Independent Jestine Iannotti was third with 5,787 votes.
The office of Seminole-Brevard State Attorney Phil Archer announced the indictments against Iannotti, James "Eric" Foglesong and Benjamin Paris following an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Fogelsong is a veteran Central Florida political consultant, and Paris is the Seminole Republican Chair.
The charges against the three stem from alleged campaign finance violations.
"Some NPA candidates, commonly referred to as 'ghost' candidates, have been used by political parties as a way to close elections or siphon off votes. While not illegal per se, many have questioned the ethics of the practice," Archer said in a statement. "However, when that candidate and the partisan political operatives involved violate election finance laws by illegally funding those races and filing false reports, it is the responsibility of government to act."
Columnist Scott Maxwell noted that The Orlando Sentinel started poking into the story shortly after the election.
"For 21 months — as Sentinel journalists pulled public records, knocked on doors and studied election laws — the political insiders laughed and tried to downplay our work, saying we had a big pile of nothing," he wrote. "A dozen criminal charges seems like something to me."
The biggest loser: Randy Fine. It's not even close.
After President Joe Biden's emotional reaction to the horror of the mass murder of children in Uvalde, Texas, the state Representative from House District 53 proved that he's a punk who craves attention.
He keeps doing and saying stupid things while deluding himself into thinking he's clever and tough.
Fine tweeted, "I have news for the embarrassment that claims to be our President — try to take our guns and you'll learn why the Second Amendment was written in the first place."
Well, we have news for you, Mr. Fine.
First, Biden doesn't claim to be the President; he IS the President.
Second, Fine is the embarrassment, as he repeatedly proves.
And finally, that sure sounded like a threat to the President of the United States. The Miami Herald editorial board urged the Secret Service to investigate.
Good idea.
"Biden can go on TV and not wait one minute before he blames the GOP and demands guns be seized. That's apparently peace and unity," Fine told Florida Today.
"We respond, and we're riling people up. If POTUS wants to politicize a tragedy, he should expect people to get angry in return."
Biden never said he was coming for anyone's guns. He didn't blame the GOP.
He did correctly say that "the gun manufacturers have spent two decades aggressively marketing assault weapons, which make them the most and largest profit. For God's sake, we have to have the courage to stand up to the industry."
Facts matter to most of us, but apparently not to Fine.
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