The DeSantis campaign is not peaceful this Sunday morning. No, they’re too busy railing against a piece published in the New York Times describing Ron DeSantis in college at Yale, where he belonged to Delta Kappa Epsilon, a fraternity that “was known as boorish even by fraternity standards, with a reputation for over-the-top hazing of pledges.” The picture painted is not flattering.
When Mr. DeSantis was a senior, according to former brothers and pledges, a large group of pledges quit after one hazing episode turned violent. On another night, pledges were ordered to a frat house room, two of them recalled. After entering one at a time, each was blindfolded and ordered to drop his pants, with Mr. DeSantis, other brothers, and at least one female guest on hand to mock their genitalia. One of the pledges recalled that a blender was placed between his legs and abruptly turned on to scare him, splashing water on his groin.
During the fraternity’s “hell week,” pledges wore costumes smeared with rotten food and condiments. They might be ordered to simulate sex with one another or do outdoor calisthenics in the winter air. According to four former pledges and brothers, Mr. DeSantis required one pledge, for whom he served as “father,” to wear a pair of baseball pants with the back and thighs cut out, exposing his buttocks and genitals.
Another D.K.E. brother, Scott Wagner, a friend of Mr. DeSantis who served on the governor’s Florida transition team, said none of the pledges’ costumes involved nudity. Reached by The Times, the former pledge, who asked not to be identified, confirmed that he was made to wear the revealing costume but declined to discuss the experience further. Today, some of the former brothers and pledges regard Mr. DeSantis’s behavior as foreshadowing a comfort with power — and with using it to bully others.
You recall the allegations, which DeSantis also vigorously denied, that when DeSantis was a lawyer at Guantanamo in 2006, there was an incident where a detainee at the facility claimed that DeSantis was present at a force feeding session and that he laughed at the prisoner’s discomfort, i.e., that he was a sadist. This commentary took place when DeSantis was visiting the Museum of Tolerance and he immediately snapped. If you missed that memorable moment, here it is.
NOT. READY. FOR. PRIME. TIME.
Desantis melts down today outside the protective bubble of his carefully controlled, scripted FL events. pic.twitter.com/wV4t760Y1d— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 27, 2023
The Florida governor himself admitted in a 2018 interview that he was one of the people who suggested force-feeding prisoners, something that many human rights organizations have decried as torture. DeSantis was also sent to Guantánamo the same year that three inmates died, the worst loss of life in the prison’s history. The official report was that the three men died by suicide, but many people, including a former Guantánamo guard, dispute that finding.
Two former detainees have called out DeSantis specifically for his role in the unbearable situation at Guantánamo. One, Abu Sarrah Ahmed Abdel Aziz, told The Washington Post he is “100 percent” certain he spoke to DeSantis multiple times. Abdel Aziz spoke fluent English and was trying to report mistreatment claims to JAG officers.
Abdel Aziz said he didn’t know DeSantis’s name at the time, but the then JAG promised to look into the complaints. But conditions got worse instead.
I imagine a lot of the GOP is sadistic as well as racist. The torture exposed in Iraq should not be surprising. The horror of the American penal system has been made into a joke about rape. Here in Mississippi they have just started air conditioning the jails and prisons. I would say our prisons violate the Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
Not specifically replying to your excellent comment, but seems that, despite my continuing support of the site, I am mysteriously missing a comment box for a new comment. Anyway, what I wanted to add is this: The NYT report certainly makes one wonder about the bizarre fascination RONDA has with male genitalia. Smacks of a latent and guilt ridden attraction to the “sin that dare not speak its name.” Ergo the “Don’t say gay ” law
You have to keep scrolling down the page, past the block of 18 ads to find the comment box at the bottom. I appreciate there are fewer ads littering and blocking the articles now, that they are mostly in one spot so are easier to ignore.
Thanks. I did that when I first read this article and still found nothing. Today the box is back.LOL
So does the parole and probation systems, even for military offenders.
In the video, the very disturbing thing is that he’s not denying the prisoner account, but rather saying that no one would have remembered.
Makes me want to throw up.
Reaction Formation! Reaction formation is a defense mechanism in which people express the opposite of their true feelings, sometimes to an exaggerated extent. Ron is openly hostile to LGBTQ+ Seems like he protests a little TOO much . . .
Putting a suit on a vile sadist doesn’t change a thing. Everything he has done as governor proves he is, IN FACT, a vile sadist. Hundreds of years of slavery? Nah…never happened.
Rather than the Marquis DeSade with 120 Days of Sodom, The Marquis DeSantis wants to give America 1461 Days of Sodom. Nice that the GOP is dishing up such alternatives to Il Douche.