Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis are transporting migrants to other states to boost their standings with the far right and to draw attention away from festering problems in their own states.

DeSantis is governor of a state which doesn't even have a border with a foreign country, but he's been scooping migrants up in other states and dumping them in California, Massachusetts, and elsewhere.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is now threatening criminal charges against DeSantis. THIS is what needs to be done. Other blue state governors and attorneys general, please take note!

For the second time in four days, Florida picked up people seeking asylum and took them by private jet to Sacramento at taxpayer expense, California officials said on Monday after another flight arrived at a local airport.

California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, on Monday branded his rightwing Republican Florida counterpart, Ron DeSantis, a “small, pathetic man”, and appeared to threaten kidnapping charges after the first incident in which a group of migrants was dumped at a Sacramento church.

Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, said in a statement that 16 South Americans abandoned outside the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento on Friday were “in possession of documentation purporting to be from the state of Florida”, and may have been duped into boarding charter flights via New Mexico after entering the US in Texas. On Monday morning, a second flight of 20 migrants arrived in the state’s capital.

DeSantis is using Florida taxpayer money to conduct these stunts. His rubber stamp legislature lets him get away with stuff like this.

The episode has parallels to what critics called a similar “soulless” stunt orchestrated by DeSantis last year in which his administration abandoned several dozen mostly Venezuelan migrants in Martha’s Vineyard.

Newsom, in a tweet posted Monday lunchtime directed at DeSantis, said: “You small, pathetic man. This isn’t Martha’s Vineyard. Kidnapping charges?” and linked to a section of California’s penal code stating anybody who “abducts or takes by force or fraud” a person found within the state “is guilty of kidnapping”.

Republican governors should not be allowed to conduct kidnappings at taxpayer expense. And their accomplices need to be penalized as well.

“While we continue to collect evidence, I want to say this very clearly: state-sanctioned kidnapping is not a public policy choice, it is immoral and disgusting,” Bonta said in the statement.

The flight was operated by Berry Aviation, an active US defense contractor, according to flight tracking data on FlightRadar24. When reached on the phone, the company declined to comment. Acorn Growth Companies, an aerospace investment firm, which owns Berry Aviation, did not answer calls.

Acorn’s managing partner, Rick Nagel of Oklahoma, is a major Republican fundraiser. He was the campaign treasurer for congressman Tom Cole, who chairs the House rules committee. Cole is a former head of the Republican National Congressional Committee and a fervent backer of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies.

Planes and buses used to transport migrants under such circumstances should be impounded as evidence and the companies which own them should be indicted.

Given the disproportionate number of mass shootings in Florida and Texas, DeSantis and Abbott are trying to deflect attention from their failure to keep assault weapons out of the hands of extremists and criminals.

What if Texas women disguised themselves as migrants to get free transportation to states where abortion is legal? 🤔

It seems that most cartoonists have a hard time drawing a convincing caricature of Ron DeSantis.

✈️ Air DeSantis has probably been grounded for the time being. Voters can permanently ground him and other Trump Republicans in the upcoming elections.