Eighth Amendment to the Constitution:  “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

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As a resident of Florida, I shouldn’t be happy when I see my state being cheated out to $600 million, but I’ll make an exception in this case. Perhaps it has to cost Florida’s taxpayers $600 million to realize what a mess the Republicans and Governor Ron DeSantis have made of this state.

Ron is a small man, and I don’t mean just in stature—I’m talking about his character. He is small-man cruel, which seems to be a MAGA prerequisite. When problems arise, DeSantis almost always opts for a “final solution” that hurts the most people, most, especially the poor and powerless.

Being a bully, he lacks courage, compassion and any sense of decency. He tries to out-Trump at being nasty and crooked, while lacking any compassion.

He built a Nazi-style concentration camp for immigrants, placed it in the middle of a swamp, and jovially called it “Alligator Alcatraz,” to stress the cruelty he inflicted on helpless people.

To quote from the following article from the May 8th Sun-Sentinel: 

James Uthmeier, a Republican and DeSantis’ former chief of staff, had pushed to build the center at an old training airport, despite the lack of existing infrastructure.

Both men argued that it was crucial for the center to be in a remote location, saying that the inhospitable conditions would prompt immigrants to think twice about staying in the United States illegally and risking arrest.

Other states later opened immigrant detention centers of their own, though the one in the Everglades stood out as particularly unforgiving given that the site essentially consisted of tents.

In America, even convicted child rapists and murderers aren’t subjected to such cruel and inhumane conditions.

Yet the immigrants held in the horrifying environment at Alligator Alcatraz haven’t been convicted of anything—they’re simply people seeking better lives, like the rest of the immigrants who built America.

In DeSantis’s twisted view, these poor, powerless souls should be tortured before being deported –his way of “Making America Great Again.”

It’s hard to imagine what happened to him as a child that now could spark such hatred. Were his parents unusually cruel? Was he bullied by the other kids?

No normal human would create a place like that, yet there it is, right in the middle of Florida’s swamp.

Here is the article in its entirety:

Feds, state may shut Alligator Alcatraz
Homeland Security says detention center too expensive to keep open; Florida has not been repaid $608M in costs
By Patricia Mazzei and Hamed Aleaziz, The New York Times

Florida is in talks with the Trump administration to shut down a high-profile immigration detention center that opened last summer in the Everglades and has cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars to operate, according to a federal official, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, and a person close to the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The shutdown talks are preliminary, the people said. But officials at the Department of Homeland Security have concluded that it is too expensive to keep operating the center, known as Alligator Alcatraz.

Homeland Security officials have also come to consider the center ineffective, the federal official said. All three people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal talks.

The DeSantis administration has been spending more than $1 million a day to run the center, which is in a swampy, isolated area between Miami and Naples. Some private vendors hired by the state to operate it have been struggling to front costs, according to the person close to the DeSantis administration.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which operates the center, nor DeSantis’ office.

When politicians won’t answer questions, you can be sure they have much to hide.

DeSantis, a Republican, has repeatedly called the Everglades detention center a success, saying it has helped the Trump administration by providing more beds to house federal detainees. He has also said that the facility was intended to be temporary.

A success at what? Torturing people or spending money? And if it was such a success, and costs so much, why is it temporary?

But the center’s shutdown would be hailed by immigration lawyers, activists and many detainees and their families as a huge win. Critics have denounced what they describe as unsanitary and inhumane conditions at the center since it opened 10 months ago; state officials have consistently dismissed such descriptions as false.

As of last month, the center held nearly 1,400 detainees, all of them men, according to ICE data. The agency classified about two-thirds of the detainees in the center, which it calls the Florida Soft-Sided Facility South, as noncriminal.

Just think about it—two-thirds of the people in that monstrous insult to decency aren’t even criminals. And wasn’t this intentionally awful garbage dump supposed to be reserved for “the worst of the worst”?

DeSantis has said from the start that the federal government would pay back the state for operating the center. But Florida has yet to receive the $608 million federal reimbursement it requested to run the center for about a year. The money was held up in part by the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security that ended last Thursday. It is unclear why the reimbursement continues to be delayed.

DeSantis believed Trump. When one miserable liar believes another miserable liar, taxpayers foot the bill.

The center became the nation’s first state-run facility to hold federal immigration detainees last July, as Florida pushed the boundaries of aggressive enforcement under President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Its remote location and brazen name gained it international notoriety before any detainees arrived.

At the time, Trump and Kristi Noem, then the homeland security secretary, toured the center with DeSantis and Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier. Uthmeier, a Republican and DeSantis’ former chief of staff, had pushed to build the center at an old training airport, despite the lack of existing infrastructure. 

Other states later opened immigrant detention centers of their own, though the one in the Everglades stood out as particularly unforgiving given that the site essentially consisted of tents.

Non-criminals were forced to live in tents in the middle of a swamp. That’s cruel by intent, and it sure is unusual. But hey, who cares about the Constitution?

Uthmeier, a Republican and DeSantis’ former chief of staff, argued that it was crucial for the center to be in a remote location, saying that the inhospitable conditions would prompt immigrants to think twice about staying in the United States illegally and risking arrest.

That’s the excuse for torture? That’s the excuse for inhumanity? Weren’t any whips, bone-crushers and fingernail pullers available?

But the location made it much more expensive to build and run. Vendors had to truck in things like tents, power generators and trailers for staff members to live in. They also had to constantly truck out sewage and other waste.

A lawyer for two detainees said in a federal court filing last month that guards beat and pepper-sprayed the men after detainees protested that their access to a phone inside the center had been cut off.

How dare those people demand their legal rights in America. Don’t they realize they’re in Florida?

As part of the sworn declaration, the lawyer submitted a photo of one of the detainees with a black eye. Also last month, a federal appeals court upheld an earlier decision to block a lower court’s order that the center dismantle operations because it had not conducted an environmental review required under federal law.

It was ordered dismantled, not because it was violating the Constitution and torturing people, but because it was violating the environment. Oh well, whatever will get the job done . . . 

A panel from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the center was not under federal control, and thus was not subject to the environmental review.

It’s under state review, and DeSantis doesn’t care about two things: The environment and human decency.

A landing strip allows flights to arrive at and take off from the Everglades center, though itis unclear how frequently detainees have been moved in or out. At least some of the center’s detainees have been flown to larger federal detention centers in Louisiana and Texas, often as a final stop before they are deported.

Fly them here; fly them there. Since the Republican administration has no idea what it’s doing, the cost of uselessly flying people hither and yon is just a drop in the bucket of wasteful activities paid for by taxpayers.

And the people keep voting for the criminals who are on the outside of Alligator Alcatraz. MAGAs, is this your example of what makes America great?

This article originally appeared in The New York Times

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell

Search #monetarysovereignty

Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell;

MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell;

https://www.academia.edu/

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A Government’s Sole Purpose is to Improve and Protect The People’s Lives.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

It’s difficult to decide when and why Florida Governor Ron DeSantis first became a Nazi. Did his parents beat him for the slightest infraction? Did the school children tease him about having tiny genitals?  Was he friendless — always the last kid chosen?

For whatever reasons, this hate-mongering bigot has turned to Hitler as his model.

Consider the eagerness with which he has embraced the ICE thugs as they roam and arrest unabated by conscience, compassion or legal restraint.

Consider his pride and joy, the vile “Alligator Alcatraz,” an unimaginably cruel concentration camp that’s missing only gas chambers and ovens to be complete. What kind of person could willingly throw desperate people—whose only “crime” was to follow in the footsteps of America’s early settlers in search of a better life—into such a nightmare?

And now, in his final months as governor, his latest insult to America: If you hope your children will be taught to be, hate-mongering, uneducated bigots, you might consider a Hitlerian college-qualification course DeSantis is foisting on Florida’s children.

Apparently, some Floridians are unaware—or prefer their children not to learn—that slavery existed in America and that it was brutally inhumane and morally reprehensible.

Perhaps there are Floridians who don’t know, and don’t want their children to learn, that slavery was largely supported by white bible-quoting, anti-Christ Christians, some of whose descendants still deny its existence while mourning its passing. 

Some Floridians might deny that Black and brown people are equal to white people — they have families and children they love, along with hopes and dreams just like anyone else.

Some Floridians might reject the idea that Christianity is just one of many respected religions in America, and that people who accept Christ as their savior still can be bad, while some who don’t repeatedly praise Jesus still can be good—like those having no religion at all.

There even may be Floridians who deny that women have the same rights to health and happiness as men, and are just as intelligent and hardworking, often more so, but still remain the most brutalized segment of our population. Donald Trunp has paid millions of dollars denying that fact.

This nation was built by honest, hard-working immigrants in search of better lives, just like today’s newcomers, and without them, we lose part of what made America great.

I mention these facts because, while you may find them obvious, they appear to go against the teachings of Florida’s MAGA-Nazi leaders, especially Governor Ron, who seems to want Florida’s children to grow up as ignorant, hate-based bigots.

Does this sound familiar? Hitler and the Nazi Party systematically reshaped education to teach an ideological and distorted version of history. Schools in Nazi Germany were used as tools of propaganda.

History classes commonly taught that Germans were a superior “Aryan” race. The curriculum distorted or omitted facts that conflicted with Nazi ideology. 

For example, Jewish contributions to German culture and science were minimized or erased; atrocities were reframed or hidden; racist pseudoscience was presented as legitimate biology and history; German history was rewritten as a heroic racial struggle.

Textbooks, teachers, youth organizations, films, and radio all reinforced the same narrative. In another age, Hitler would have used the pejorative term, “woke.”.

That does not mean every single thing taught was false. Propaganda is usually more effective when mixed with truths, selective omissions, emotional framing, and repetition.

People experience reality through interpretive frameworks built from prior information. Control the framework, and you strongly influence what people perceive as obvious, moral, or true.

Keep Hitler’s methods in mind as you read the following:

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell

Search #monetarysovereignty

Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell;

MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell;

https://www.academia.edu/

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A Government’s Sole Purpose is to Improve and Protect The People’s Lives.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Many people repeatedly encounter and believe several common fallacies:

1. that the federal government can run out of dollars,
2. that it pays its bills by collecting taxes,
3. that it borrows money when taxes aren’t enough,
4. that the national debt is too high and needs to be reduced, and
5. that excessive federal spending causes inflation, which can be fixed by cutting spending.

None of these is true, yet most Americans, including many economists, accept one or more of them. Do you?

Fallacy 1. The federal government can run out of dollars

The U.S. federal government is Monetarily Sovereign, which means exactly what it says. The government is sovereign over the U.S.  dollar. It has the unlimited ability to do whatever it wishes with the dollar. It can create as many as it wants, simply by pressing computer keys. 

Who says so? Read what a few real experts say: “Monetary Sovereignty. Who Says So?” The abbreviated list includes current and former Federal Reserve chairmen, a Social Security Trusted, economists (including a Noble Prize winner) and a representative of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank.

The fact: It is functionally impossible for the federal government to run out of dollars unless it wants to. To quote one of the experts: ““The U.S. government is not like a household. It literally prints money, and it can’t run out. The government can always finance its spending by creating money.”

Fallacy 2. The federal government pays its bills by levying taxes

Not only is the federal government unlike a household, it also is unlike state and local governments, which are monetarily non-sovereign. Because they do not have the unlimited ability to create dollars, they need income to pay their bills. That income includes taxes and borrowing.

The federal government also levies taxes, but for different reasons:

1. To control the economy by taxing what the government wishes to discourage and by giving tax breaks to what the government wishes to reward. Examples are “sin” taxes on cigarettes and alcohol and tax deductions for charitable giving.

2. To assure demand for the U.S.  dollar by requiring taxes be paid in dollars.

The federal government pays all its bills with newly created dollars. It has no financial need for tax dollars.

Fallacy 3. The federal government borrows money when taxes aren’t enough

Having the unlimited ability to create dollars, the federal government never borrows dollars.   Much of the confusion about this is semantic, relating to the words bills, notes, and bonds.  

In the private sector, bills, notes and bonds denote debt. When you or I pay a bill, we are paying a debt. When we sign a note, we are signing a debt. When we buy a corporate bond, we are buying a corporate debt.

And yes, even a dollar bill signifies a debt of the federal government, which owes the holder of the dollar bill the full faith and credit of the federal government. 

To make matters a bit more confusing, dollar bills have the words, “Federal Reserve Note” printed on them.

A dollar bill is unlike an ordinary debt in several important ways:

• It never has to be repaid in anything else.
• It has no maturity date.
• It pays no interest.
• The government creates it at will.
• The issuer cannot become unable to “pay” more dollars.

Thus, a dollar bill is identical to a Treasury bill that pays no interest and has no maturity date.

So, calling Treasury bills “debt” uses accounting language that resembles household or business debt but functions very differently. 

Dollar bills are part of the federal “debt,” as are Treasury bills, Treasury notes and Treasury bonds, none of which resemble private sector debt.

Federal debt is paid off by exchanging it for other federal debt. Visualize you always being able to pay off your mortgage and credit card debts simply by signing up for more debt. You never would be unable to pay your debts; you endlessly could issue new debt to pay old debt.

That is exactly how the federal government works. It pays off all its debt by issuing more debt, i.e. dollar bills. It never can be unable to pay off old debt because it always can issue new debt.

While personal debts weigh heavily on individuals, the federal debt doesn’t burden the federal government. Worries about its size are largely misplaced, as the government could, if it wished, instantly cover a trillion or even a hundred trillion dollars in debt simply by issuing more debt in the form of dollar bills.

The federal government never borrows money (“Borrow” is another word that means something different for the federal government vs. the private sector). It simply exchanges old debt for new debt, which it can do, forever.

Fallacy 4. The national debt is too high and needs to be reduced.

We already have discussed the fact that government pays off the national debt by exchanging T-bills, notes, and bonds for more national debt, i.e., dollar bills. The only way to reduce the national debt is to reduce the amount of money in the economy. And that leads to recessions and depressions.

If dollar bills are part of the national debt, how is the national debt ever reduced?

The semantic confusion comes from lumping together very different things under the single label “national debt.” There are several major categories:

• currency (dollar bills),
• bank reserves,
• Treasury securities (T-bills, notes, bonds).

The term “national debt” usually refers to outstanding Treasury securities, not the total amount of currency in circulation. When these securities mature, the government reduces the securities account and increases a checking-type account (bank reserves).

In other words, one type of government liability is simply swapped for another. A dollar bill is just as much a federal liability as a Treasury bill, note, or bond.

Would you like to reduce the real federal debt? Burn a dollar bill. 

Fallacy 5. Excessive federal spending causes inflation, which can be fixed by cutting spending.

In one sense, this is a tautology. By calling it “excessive,” we already have made a claim: “When is federal spending excessive? When it causes inflation.”

And we even have a common slogan for this: “Too much money chasing too few goods and services.”

We have shown in previous posts, that it is shortages (i.e., too few goods and services) that are the cause of inflations. There can be no inflation unless there are shortages.

The real question becomes, “what caused the shortages?” Was it “too much federal spending” or some other factors? This is the key question, because federal spending is absolutely necessary for a growing economy.

Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Non-federal Spending + Net Exports

Insufficient federal deficit spending has caused every recession and depression in U.S. history.

All U.S. depressions come come on the heels of federal surpluses.

1804-1812: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 48%. Depression began 1807.
1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began 1819.
1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began 1837.
1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began 1857.
1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began 1873.
1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began 1893.
1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began 1929.
1997-2001: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 15%. Recession began 2001.

What led to the shortages that that caused inflations?

Every major inflation has been caused by factors other than federal spending. (See: The inflation myths debunked. It’s never “money-printing.” It’s always shortages.)

Because of our belief in the Five Fallacies, we’ve ended up paying far too many taxes while missing out on easily affordable health care for every American, quality education, updated infrastructure, the end of poverty, and a fairer distribution of income, wealth, and power between the rich and everyone else.

All of these are within reach—if only we understood the facts.

Now, compare the above with these excerpts from an editorial in the Florida Sun-Sentinel:

As Social Security withers, Congress dithers
By The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. April 8, 2026

Americans who might agree on little else share a common interest in preserving Social Security and Medicare. Nearly all of us are either enrolled in those universal programs or expect to be as we get older. Social Security is far and away the nation’s most important safety net.

So, it should alarm Republicans, Democrats and independents that Congress is doing nothing to prevent the enormous benefit reductions threatening both programs in just seven years. That is when the trust funds are on track to exhaust their reserves and reduce payouts to no more than what existing earmarked taxes will collect.

There’s no reason for trust funds to cut back on anything—in fact, there’s no need for them at all. The federal government could fund Social Security the same way it funds the military, the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, and most other federal programs: simply vote and create the dollars.

A lifeline for millions Across the board, everyone receiving old age or survivor assistance from Social Security would get 23% less. For the average recipient, who gets about $2,000 a month before taxes, that’s a $600 cut.

No need for cuts. The government has infinite money.

For every four of 10 retired Americans, Social Security provides at least half of their income. For one of every seven, it is more than 90%. Social Security keeps 20 million older people and a million children out of poverty. To let them down would be a catastrophic national disgrace.

Medicare would have to reduce spending by 11%, most of which would impact doctors and hospitals and result in diminished care. A reasonable tax increase would avert that. The longer Congress puts off reckoning with these problems, the more difficult the solutions will be.

Reductions would be the result of ignorance.

Earmarking tax revenue from Social Security to its trust fund is one fix proposed to prevent the 2033 shortfall. 

Tax earmarking is not necessary.

“It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual
things,” President Trump told an Easter Sunday luncheon at the White House. “We have to take care
of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.”

The usual Trumpian lie. It is easily possible to “take care of daycare, Medicaid, all these individual things” while also taking care of the military. But the rich want you to believe that you must sacrifice.

Few members of Congress are in favor of impending cuts in Social Security and Medicare, but it would be just as daunting to find many to specify how they would prevent it.

Ignorance comes with consequences. Congress could, and should, vote to support Social Security and Medicare, and like all other federal funding, the necessary dollars would simply be created.

The Brookings Institution summarized them in a white paper that proposed making Social Security fully solvent for another 75 years. The plan would raise the ceiling on income subject to Social Security tax and increase the tax rate from 12.4%, paid jointly by workers and employers, to 12.6%; raise the retirement age, in stages, from 67 to 70 for people in the highest two fifths of income brackets; and earmark to the trust fund all taxes paid on Social Security benefits.

The Brookings plan is an unnecessary ode to ignorance. Not one of its benefit cutting, tax increasing suggestions is necessary.

It would fully tax Social Security benefits paid to individuals with adjusted gross incomes of $100,000 or $125,000 for couples. It would base payouts on the highest 40 years of earnings rather than the present basis of 35, and it would reduce some spousal and child benefits for retirees. 

The Brookings program asks for something from everyone, but not too much from anyone.

Either the Brookings people are ignorant of the facts or being deliberately deceptive.

The urgent need for this is the falling birthrate and the declining ratio of taxpaying workers to retired beneficiaries. That is a real fiscal time bomb that could set off generational warfare in Washington. 

The ratio of taxpaying workers to benefits is irrelevant. Federal taxes don’t fund anything; all federal spending is covered by the creation of federal money.

Congress is already a day late to the duty of saving it. It’s one of the most important issues that voters should demand every candidate address in this election year.

No, every candidate should be honest and not pretend that the federal government is financially constrained by taxes. Why do they keep up the pretense? The wealthy run America, and the tax code only widens the gap in income, wealth, and power between them and everyone else.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell

Search #monetarysovereignty

Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell;

MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell;

https://www.academia.edu/

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A Government’s Sole Purpose is to Improve and Protect The People’s Lives.

 

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY