Men's Lifestyle August 28, 2026 0 Comments

How Ron DeSantis’ Latest Move Could Backfire Big Time—And What It Means for Your Workout Grind

Ever get that feeling like the universe is playing some cosmic joke — then you turn on the news, and yep, it’s just politics remixing itself into a circus you can’t look away from? Take Florida’s cronies for example: Ron DeSantis going from “Man Who Won the Pandemic” to the star of a leaked grand jury report scandal involving ten million bucks, a charity with ties to his wife, and a political campaign against legal weed. Politicians, money, and misappropriation — it sounds like a bad reality show plot, but no, this is Florida’s latest episode unfolding in slow motion. And if you think that’s wild, just wait ’til you hear who else is tangled up—spoiler: a U.S. senator and the state attorney general make the guest list. Makes you wonder: at what point do you just throw your hands up and grab the popcorn? Here’s a deep dive into the drama, plus a look at other jaw-dropping headlines that prove truth can be wilder than fiction.

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9 min read

Out on the Weekend

(Permanent Musical Accompaniment to the Last Post of the Week from the Blog’s Favourite Living Canadian)

For my money, Florida governor Ron DeSantis would have been better off remaining as roadkill along a country road in Iowa, which is where they left him in 2024. Instead, DeSantis, who was considered a meathead when he was in the House of Representatives, went and got himself elected to run Snowbirdland. Soon, he was anointed as the Man Who Won the Pandemic, which proved to be a) premature, and b) rendered completely irrelevant by, ah, subsequent events. From The New York Times:

Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration “misappropriated” $10 million in taxpayer money by diverting it to a charity tied to his wife, according to a leaked Florida grand jury report that took a sharply critical view of the dealings. The report also said grand jurors found insufficient evidence to levy charges. But it intensified a controversy over the investigation into the fund-raising arm of Hope Florida, the charity that the first lady, Casey DeSantis, started in 2021. The charity’s goal is to keep families off public assistance by connecting them with churches and aid groups. In 2024, the charity’s fund-raising arm, the Hope Florida Foundation, received $10 million from a state Medicaid settlement. It was quickly redirected to political committees backing a campaign led by the governor against a ballot measure that would have legalized marijuana.

It gets better. From CBS News:

The grand jury identified the nexus for much of the activity surrounding the transfer as the state’s current attorney general, James Uthmeier. “We find that James Uthmeier, as the Governor’s Chief of Staff at the time of settlement, was in a position of authority over those involved in settling …” the grand jury wrote. “Testimony identified him as having involvement in directing the money after it went to Hope Florida. Testimony also revealed that Mr. Uthmeier’s Keep Florida Clean, a political action committee, was the prime recipient of the majority of the $10 million taxpayer funds.”

The grand jury also concluded that Ashley Moody, who was the attorney general at the time, was aware of the plans to divert the $10 million to Hope Florida and “authorized” her former chief deputy, John Guard, to sign the settlement agreement. The grand jury noted that Guard signed the settlement “without conducting his due diligence to ensure the proper appropriation of taxpayer funds.”

Ashley Moody currently is the junior U.S. senator from Florida, a job she would dearly like to keep. So, if you’re keeping score at home, this scandal now involves the governor’s wife, the incumbent state attorney general, and a U.S. senator. And all of them accused of running a political laundromat to deny poor people health care. It’s an assembly line for oppo TV ads. Crank it up, Florida. Have some fun.

Crime is increasing / Trigger-happy policing / Panic is spreading / God knows where we’re heading

Lotta law enforcement gunplay news these days.

Item: From CNN:

Tennessee National Guard members assigned to a federal anti-crime task force in Memphis fatally shot an armed 20-year-old man in the back in July, an autopsy report obtained by The Associated Press shows, contradicting police accounts that the man was facing the troops when they fired.

Authorities have said Tyrin Johnson turned toward guard members with a gun while running from them in the early morning hours after the Fourth of July holiday when he was fatally shot in the chest.

But according to an autopsy report shared Thursday by Johnson’s family, a single bullet went in the right side of his back and exited through his upper right chest. The autopsy findings, reported earlier by The Commercial Appeal newspaper, were prepared by the West Tennessee Regional Forensic Center Office of the Medical Examiner, which did not respond to a request for comment.

The National Guard doing law enforcement? Who was the Brainiac who came up with this? Oh, right.

The guard members were assigned to the Memphis Safe Task Force, created by President Donald Trump, who last year sent troops and federal agents to Democratic-run cities that he described as overrun with crime. The task force was involved in four fatal shootings between May and July.

Item: From KTLA:

According to the department, deputies were responding to information from a 911 caller who claimed Rabon had threatened them and was possibly wanted and armed.

The lawsuit stems from the Jan. 22 fatal shooting of Jaque Rabon. His family and attorney announced the legal action outside the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department on Monday. “We’re asking for full accountability, transparency,” the family’s attorney, Dale Galipo, said.

Rabon’s mother described her son as an aspiring rapper and someone his family could depend on.

According to the department, deputies were responding to information from a 911 caller who claimed Rabon had threatened them and was possibly wanted and armed. Authorities said Rabon had a no-bail warrant in connection with a case involving robbery and assault, prompting the department to deploy a specialized team to arrest him.On Jan. 22, deputies located Rabon in the parking lot of a Riverside shopping center and attempted to take him into custody .Body-worn camera footage released by the department shows a deputy getting out of an unmarked vehicle and ordering Rabon to show his hands.

“Let me see your hands. Put your hands up, put your hands up,” the deputy can be heard saying.

A second deputy then emerged from another vehicle as Rabon ran through the parking lot, with deputies chasing after him. Within seconds, three gunshots can be heard on the footage. Several more shots follow shortly afterward before someone can be heard yelling, “Cease fire!” The Sheriff’s Department said that during the foot pursuit, Rabon reached toward a bag despite commands from a deputy to stop. At one point in the video, Rabon appears to look back toward the pursuing deputies while his right hand is concealed.

There is ambiguity about these events. But there is no ambiguity about what came next. One shot brought Rabon down. He reached for a bag. The next 19 were probably unnecessary.

No weapon was ultimately found on Rabon. Galipo questioned why reaching toward a bag would justify the use of deadly force. “If anyone other than a police officer showed up to a shopping plaza and shot someone 20 times who was unarmed, they would immediately be jailed, immediately charged with murder,” Galipo said. “Why are laws so different for police?”

Throw up both my hands.

Weekly WWOZ Pick to Click: “I Want To Be Happy” (Kid Sheik): Yeah, I pretty much still love New Orleans.

Weekly Visit to the Pathé Archives: Here, from 1968, is the wedding of Crown Prince Harald to Sonja Haraldsen, which was a big deal at the time because the bride was a commoner. Horrors! Harald’s father, King Olav, tried to block the wedding, but Harald said, if he couldn’t marry Sonja, he wouldn’t marry anyone.

Olavbacked down. Later, King Harald and Queen Sonja had some family troubles in later years. Daughter Märtha Louise accused her country folks of racism because they objected to her marriage to one Durek Verrett, a black American “alternative healer” with a past that can charitably be called murky. Anyway, Harald V died this week, a day short of his 58th wedding anniversary. His son, who has no connection to quack healers that I can find, has ascended to the throne. History—and Norwegian politics—is so cool.

Speaker Moses is taking a meeting. What can possibly go wrong here? From Politico:

The effort, first reported by Politico, comes as Johnson stumps for Republican candidates across the Lone Star State ahead of the midterms. It’s the latest sign that GOP leaders hope Musk will spend heavily to help the party keep control of Congress. The people familiar with the planning, who were granted anonymity to discuss private details, cautioned that Musk’s schedule is fluid and there could be a last-minute change.

Just what this country needs right now: a return of Apartheid Boy and his billions. Citizens United looks better and better as the years go by.

The tech billionaire is reportedly considering spending at least $100 million for the GOP through his super PAC, America PAC, on this year’s midterms — but the full scope of where that spending will take place remains unclear. Some Republicans believe Musk is weighing directing some of that money to key House GOP battleground races, according to two of the people.

Speaker Moses sure keeps some shady company.

Discovery Corner: Hey, look what we found! From Gizmodo:

Danish archaeologists with Arkæologi Vestjylland (Archaeology West Jutland) recently discovered the final resting place of a woman—whose 1,300-year-old tomb, remarkably, still retained pieces of textiles and a brooch from the Viking Age. As the team explained in a Facebook post (translated via Google), the preservation is “absolutely magical,” given the highly acidic nature of the soil in western Jutland, Denmark. Initial analyses indicate that the metallic ornaments in the tomb protected the textiles from natural degradation, somewhat like a preservative. The body’s dentures were also well-preserved, and researchers expect the discovery to reveal unprecedented insights into the lives of those from the distant past.

In a miraculous (or natural?) turn of events, the corrosion of the bronze or silver in the brooch leaked metallic salts onto the fabric, which ended up shielding the fragile fibers from natural decomposition. The team believes it can reveal information about the woman’s outer clothing and undergarments. Fascinatingly, one buckle seems to have been repaired at some point, leading the experts to wonder if it was an heirloom.

People order game jerseys on the Intertoobz that fall apart before halftime the first time they wear them. This woman’s clothes have survived underground for 1,300 years. Are we just more incompetent, or are we just bigger suckers? Operators are standing by.

Hey, SciNews, is it a good day for dinosaur news? It’s always a good day for dinosaur news!

The newly identified dinosaur species roamed Earth during the Late Cretaceous epoch, between 96 and 94 million years ago. Named Nipponopelta yezoensis, it is the first ankylosaur ever formally described from Japan, and only the second Asian member of its subfamily, the nodosaurids, known from skull material rather than bones from the body alone.

Using three-dimensional CT scanning, they were able to digitally reconstruct parts of the skull that had never been visible before, including a section of the lower jaw, two intact teeth, and, notably, the dinosaur’s left inner ear. The scans also exposed a distinctive combination of features at the back of the skull.The team’s phylogenetic analysis indicates that Nipponopelta yezoensis is deeply nested among derived nodosaurids from North America and Europe, such as Pawpawsaurus, Panoplosaurus, Edmontonia and Denversaurus, rather than grouped with the handful of other nodosaurids previously described from Asia.

To explain this pattern, the paleontologists modeled how the dinosaur’s ancestors might have moved across the globe over millions of years. Ancestral geographic analysis suggests that Nipponopelta yezoensis and its close relatives originated in Laramidia, Appalachia, and Asia, indicating a wide ancestral area,” they said. The researchers also traced how ankylosaurs’ preferred habitats changed over time. Their reconstruction suggests that these dinosaurs in general arose in coastal settings before some branches moved inland, but that nodosaurids, and Nipponopelta yezoensis in particular, retained a preference for marine-influenced habitats.

I love these living tanks. They might be my favorite dino family of all. Glad to see they got over to Japan then to make the Japanese happy now.

I’ll be back on Monday for whatever fresh hell awaits. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line and wear the damn masks, and take the damn shots, especially the boosters and any New One. In your spare time, spare a thought forall the victims of our current epidemics, includling the killer countertops, and for the victims of the horrific glacial collapse and flood in Nepal, and for Rep. Max Miller’s wife and child, and for the Iranian people, and the Lebanese people and all the other people downrange in our newest war, and all the people in ICE detention, and the Epstein victims, whose trauma is back in the news again,and the victims of the storms in Hawaii, and the victims of the Canadian wildfires, and also the ones in Spain, and the victims of the floods in Missouri, and the victims of the heat domes, and those affected around the world by wildfires, and the victims of the Venezuelan earthguake, and for the victims of the earthquake in Japan, and the victims and their families in the Tumbler Ridge school shooting in Canada, and for the shooting victims in Austin, and for the families of the victims of the mosque shooting in San Diego, and in Michigan, and in Virginia, and in Louisiana, and for the victims and their families of the shootings in Wilmington, Delaware and Kansas City, and for the families and victims of the mass shooting in Midland, Texas, and for the brilliant journalists of the Washington Post, and for the citizens of the occupied city of Minneapolis and South Burlington, Vermont,, and for all the people and the people in the flooded areas of southern Africa, and in the flooded areas in Ireland, and in the flooded areas of Brazil, and for the storm-clobbered, flooded areas of the upper Midwest, including my alma mater, and in Georgia, and for the people affected by the tornados in Mississippi, and for people suffering from the hantavirus outbreak on the Hondius, the outbreaks of measles, the Hegseth Flu down in Texas, the explosive diarrhea bug, and the Legionnaire’s disease outbreak in Harlem, and the victims of the heat wave in Europe, and for our LGBTQ+ citizens, who deserve so much more from this country than they’re getting.