Gov. DeSantis got a state law passed in Florida to ship migrants out of Florida and send them to high profile liberal parts of the country as a sort of performative cruelty. So far so good. But The Miami Herald now reports that those Venezuelan migrants don’t appear to have started off in Florida. They appear to have been brought from Texas. At least that’s what a number of them say. And flight records show the flights did originate in Texas.

There were two flights and they made stops in Crestview, Florida and Charlotte, North Carolina. Both started in Texas. Florida picked up the tab.

There’s no analyzing Judge Cannon’s latest ruling in Florida. It’s absurd on its face and really makes no attempt to suggest its anything other than absurd. It’s an assertion of power rather than judicial interpretation. The Judge has now ordered a retired federal judge to review and recommend to her which highly classified documents should be covered by the executive privilege of a private citizen in Florida against the law enforcement and national security mandates of the President of the United States. I saw a respected legal commentator say this raises serious separation of power issues. That’s like saying turning someone’s body inside out might be harmful to their health. Judge Cannon further arrogates to herself the decision over what documents are actually classified. She won’t take the government’s word for which documents are or should be classified. Notably the former President has made no claim in court that he declassified anything. So on what basis the documents would not or should not be classified or on what basis a trial court judge in Florida could determine this is quite unclear.

Remember that there are remedies and processes that get into this at trial or prior to a trial. But no one has brought any charges against anyone. The only issue at the moment is the federal government has recovered its property and is using it to conduct both a national security and potentially criminal investigation.

From TPM Reader PP …

I just wanted to add a slightly different perspective to how women feel post-Dobbs and one reason for their anger.  I am a lesbian.  I have never been pregnant, I have never wanted to become pregnant.  I can have all the casual sex I want without being in danger of getting pregnant, so abortion doesn’t matter to me personally except … I can still be raped and end up pregnant as a result. 

It’s a given that this new GOP governor (with presidential ambitions) tactic of shipping migrants and asylum-seekers to symbolic “liberal” parts of the country as a sort of “own-the-libs” performance art is gross, degrading and the kind of thing that awful people do. That’s a given. But I’m very curious about this latest stunt by Ron DeSantis. First of all, Martha’s Vineyard? Again, it’s using these scared and generally helpless people as a stunt guffaw. But is this legal? In some cases migrants might be perfectly happy to be transported from Texas to New York. Maybe they have relatives there. Maybe the social climate seems more inviting. Who knows? But there’s news coming out today that these people shipped to Martha’s Vineyard were told they were being sent to Boston to get special job permits.