Going Lower Than Low
This morning’s news is disgusting on so many levels. Using people as political pawns. Flying them to a tiny island far from urban centers where more facilities and help are available. Using FL taxpayers’ dollars to pull the stunt. And you know a flight to Martha’s Vineyard isn’t cheap! Your constituents in FL must be so proud, Gov. DeSantis. Aren’t you something! BTW you obviously haven’t been to Massachusetts, where there are plenty of hard-working immigrants. Kudos to MV for doing their best to help these poor souls. I hate starting my morning angry. I haven’t even finished my first cup of coffee out here on the left coast. It will be a cold day in h-e-double hockey sticks before I ever set foot in FL again.
I can’t believe Florida and Texas make such unilateral decisions about these people. The governors could have flipped to the empathy side of the coin and requested help from other states because of lack of resources, but no….
1Reading this makes me wonder how it is possible that doing this breaks no laws. Kidnapping. Misuse of appropriated funds. Child endangerment.
And if he thinks these people are here illegally, isn’t transport illegal aliens a crime? Across state lines no less. That would be conspiracy.
But who would prosecute it?
2At least the Governor of Arizona lets the people in DC know when a bus will arrive and how many people will be on it. A Butt won’t even do that. Buses from TX just show up randomly at Union Station. All of these people are being told the Big Lie that jobs and housing will be given to them on arrival so that they will volunteer for the rides–which eliminates a kidnapping charge.
There’s a special place in Hell for these Rethugs and I hope the citizens of AZ, TX, and FL realize that it’s their state tax money being used to pay for all this transportation.
3What did that flight cost Fl taxpayers? Here in Texas it rounds out to $1700 a head for a charter bus trip to NYC.
But the state got double their sales tax revenue this year. And double their oil lease money. The governor is rolling in dough.
4Does anyone know how we can help these migrants? I would be more than willing to send money to the shelter or anyone who is helping them. It’s possible in the long run that every one of them has a blessing in disguise to be “dumped” in places that care rather than to be stuck in Arizona, Texas or Florida. Nevertheless may those governors responsible rot in hell for their inhumanity.
5the saddest thing about this is that these fools claim to be Christians. Their actions are so far fro Christian charity it hurts the brain!
6Ah yes, the maga mantra “You’ve got to be cruel to be one of us”. DeSantis and Abbott know heartless, cruel and stupid.
7We Texans have been paying Wynne Transportation $1,700 a pop for each person sent to NYC etc, when Greyhound and others charge less than $300. I’d love to know how much Wynne gave the GOP in Texas for that kind of contract!
8Agree with AlanYou’d think there would be laws against this, federal and state. Nothing repugnantican governors won’t do for votes. As HRC said, deplorables, even though desantis is doing it for his run for the White House against trumpf. His followers are every bit as deplorable as trumpf’s were/are.
9probably doesn’t know that Massachusetts has a very popular Republican governor
10Yes, I should have qualified that some repugnantican governors would do anything for votes. Let’s see if the MA governor stands up to desantis. He needs to admonish him at the very least.
11FYI: A very useful and eye-opening political funding sources tracker is “Transparency USA” [below].
Lots of ways and parameters to look up the donors to the critters. Really interesting numbers and stats, since 2015 over $2 Billion has gone to our politicians in various contributory modes. Never found anything on ‘Wynne Transportation’.
Surprisingly, for the 2022 PAC classification, ActBlue Texas is on top so far, around $55 million out of ~$297 million in total Texas PAC dinero [not that groups of Rethug PACs and individuals etc., aren’t way ahead in total].
https://www.transparencyusa.org/tx/donors?cycle=2015-to-now
“At Transparency USA, our mission is to provide clear, accurate, easy-to-understand information about the money in state politics.
What We Offer
Our database includes campaign finance data for 12 states: Arizona, California, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. You can search all state-level candidates, political action committees (PACs) that are active in that state, and the donors that support them. Texas is our first state to also include lobbying data.”
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12Charles C [H.E.B.] Butt is at the top of the individual donors [for ‘2015 to now’] and who he contributes to may prompt you to reconsider shopping at HEB… Damn, I’m going to see if the new Kroger delivery comes out to my boonies.
Shouldn’t this be considered trafficking?
13These migrants are legal. I saw pictures of some of them in the paper and they were holding IDs etc. to make their point. They were also lied to. They were told they were going to Boston. Imagine their mystification etc.when they got off on an island! The duplicty reminds me of some stuff I learned in history class. The Nazis fooled thousands of people by telling them they were being moved to safer places where thery could find work. Yeah. Right. Concentration camps with signs over the front gate telling them that work makes you free. I also read this as “sock it to the rich Bostonians with summer houses on the Vineyard.” Maybe therse Bostonians could sue Texas or at least the transportation company!
14RE: Campaign donations from Wynne Transportation [WT], could find very little in either Texas or federal elections.
The only thing that turned up were two paltry $1,000 contributions in 2015 to TFFG from WT’s CEO Bedford Wynne. Curiously, he apparently didn’t donate again to TFFG in 2020 [nor anyone else from 2015-2022]; so maybe not such a bad actor. Unless they’re wizards at hiding donations..
As far as WT the transport company, it looks like a first-class operation:
https://www.gowynne.com/
https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_name=Bedford+Wynne&min_date=01%2F01%2F2015&max_date=12%2F31%2F2022
15maggie @13, You’re mixing things up. The Martha’s Vineyard operation was from DevilSantis in Florida, not Texass/Abbott.
And it was done by chartered jets, so it had to be very expensive [at least they didn’t contract some old island-hopping DC-3 or 6s…], compared to Abbutt’s buses, so obviously a future campaign one-upmanship gambit.
Arbeit macht frei!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeit_macht_frei
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As far as the whole ‘illegal immigration’ thing, I’m not anywhere near the page y’all are on at all*.
However I do agree 150% that what these despicable Rethuglikkkan bastards are doing is way beyond the pale [please y’all, quit using the laughable word ‘deplorable’, the MAGAots jes luvs it].
* [Lived most of my life a few miles from the Rio Grande border, employed and transported illegals for decades, but the Rio Grande Valley is a different world from the rest of the US].
16According to MSNBC, these legal immigrants started their day in San Antonio and were told they were going to Boston. Obviously the duo of rat bastard governors of TX and FL orchestrated this sad political stunt. What will they do next?
17Rotten Ronny isn’t going to let a punk like Greg out stunt him when cheap political points are at stake
18I’m not sure it’s a good idea to add my 2 cents… but shall do it anyway. The thing is, I’m a (legal) immigrant myself. Green Card 2013, Citizenship 2021, registered Democrat. Also, I lived my first 3 years in US near El Paso, NM, 45 miles from the border.
Allow me borrow Sandrige@15 words: “As far as the whole ‘illegal immigration’ thing, I’m not anywhere near the page y’all are on at all. However I do agree 150% that what these despicable Rethuglikkkan bastards are doing is way beyond the pale.”
Long story short: Bastards like DeSantis and Abbott should not even have the opportunity to fill buses and/or airplanes with migrants. There is some very poorly done work on the border from the current administration, IMO.
19Sick white supremacist bastards …
‘JFK Library Brilliantly Calls Out Abbott And DeSantis Over Latest Stunt.’
“So, the JFK Library gave Republican Governors a history lesson. Most of us know this bit of shameful history, but apparently, Republicans failed on that subject.
“To embarrass Northern liberals and humiliate Black people, southern White Citizens Councils started their so-called “Reverse Freedom Rides,” giving Black people one-way tickets to northern cities with false promises of jobs, housing, and better lives,” the tweet reads. ”
https://crooksandliars.com/2022/09/jfk-library-brilliantly-calls-out-abbott
And …
20‘Gavin Newsom ‘strongly’ urges Justice Department to investigate the ‘kidnapping’ of relocated migrants.’
https://www.rawstory.com/gavin-newsom-strongly-urges-justice-department-to-investigate-the-kidnapping-of-relocated-migrants/
I liken this to the houseless crisis everywhere in this country in that there’s no easy answer. Humans are fleeing terrible conditions and regimes with the hope of a better life. Who wouldn’t. Decades of administrations have not come up with answers including the current one. The trumpf administration was inhumane to say the least but the at least the current administration has tried to deal with the mess that was created. If anyone has an answer here, let us know. Using these poor people (human beings) as political pawns is, well, just like the last administration and despicable (and deplorable), but is anyone surprised?
21Sandridge, per several media outlets, some of these people actually started out in Texas and were then melded with the other group. Seems as if that plane had a more landings and take-offs than expected.
22I’m sure it didn’t escape DeSantis that there’s NO available housing on the Vineyard, and certainly no affordable available housing. And because it’s the end of tourist season, there aren’t a lot of jobs there right now.
From the local NBC station —
23“Democratic state Rep. Dylan Fernandes, who represents Martha’s Vineyard in the Legislature, said anyone looking to help out can make a donation to Martha’s Vineyard Community Services at https://www.mvcommunityservices.org/“
The GQP goal is to “own the Libs” while at the same time offering no real solutions to problems.
But their playbook is not new:
“It’s not just that DeSantis stole the idea from Abbott. The idea was employed even earlier by White Citizens Councils in the 1960s, which — much like DeSantis — lured Black people onto buses with promises of jobs and then deposited them in the North.”
https://t.co/ZeM1kbY2ZN
24But MV people acted and helped and fed and housed…..people rallied to help these families……whole thing is sick sick sick.
25maggie @22, To summarize it [I’m still in STx and familiar w/all the locations and issues]:
Most of the TX border crossers are either just caught, or turn themselves in seeking ‘refugee’ status, by federal BPS [La Migra].
Or now, some are getting detained for ‘trespassing’ by Abbott’s multi-billion dollar ‘Operation Lone Star’ or whatever it’s called.
The crossers apprehended by the feds are processed in border facilities, and then many are sent to various ‘refugee centers’ further inland.
Abbott’s operation transports their catch directly back across the border to Tamaulipas or Nuevo Leon, MX [at a staggering per-capita dollar cost, but it’s only TX taxpayer money being misused for Abbutt’s political benefit, so what the hell..].
The refugee center in San Antonio is the source of DeathSantis’s Vinyard operation. I doubt that he advised Abbott, as part of his motivation is to one-up other Rethugs seeking a Prez nom, which Abbott is also eyeballing.
His operative[s] supposedly recruited migrant ‘volunteers’ to travel, and also paid a few to entice others, to go to Boston for ‘good jobs, etc’. Some of the group were put in local motels while waiting to get the planes filled.
One or two [discrepancy] chartered jets arrived and the group departed for a stopover in Florida, then another stopover in N/SC [probably fueling], before getting to Martha’s Vineyard.
The whole of all of these schemes are perverted appeals to the MAGAotty Rethug base voters [who lap it up no matter the cost].
And ‘to own the libs’ of course, plus jack with Biden. These asinine stunts earn enormous amounts of donation money from the braindead Rethug masses.
It’s all pretty f’ing amazing, there isn’t, nor ever has been, a Democratic equivalent to this kind of shitaction [except the Dixiecrat examples given above].
26I was also wondering about the cost of this jaunt. $615k, which works out to about $12,300 per victim. It came out of a $12M fund that DeSantis controls.
https://twitter.com/CharlieCrist/status/1570794372517732353
Wonder how the taxpayers in Florida feel about paying for the expulsion of immigrants in Texas?
27Surly @27, Wow, those jet charters cost even more than I expected, perhaps $275K-300K each plane, with the balance for the other misc expenses [Perla, paid helpers, motel, etc].
Unless of course is big chunk was just flat out grifted into somebody’s pockets…
$12,300 would buy a pretty fancy ocean cruise ship trip, wouldn’t it?
28[I wouldn’t know about the commercial ships, but my own personal oceangoing vessel costs even more to operate over a couple of years]
Although I don’t know how reliable the web site is, there is an article about the company that got the kidnapping transport contract. The article emphasizes a tenuous Russian connection from 2018, but also points out that “Montgomerie and/or VSC have donated thousands to Matt Gaetz and the Republican Party of Florida”.
https://forensicnews.net/aviation-company-awarded-florida-migrant-contract-purchased-helicopters-from-russian-government/
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