23 Comments

Being a "maverick" who goes against the grain isn't a virtue when a deadly virus is surging. Let's hope a national audience sees DeSantis for what he is: a fraud.

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I would like every person in Florida who is ill, dying or dead from COVID to write DeSantis a thank you letter for all he has done (and continues to do) to further the spread of COVID in his state. Of course, those who died will need to have a family member write the letter unless they are dead too. I wonder how many doctors, nurses or other healthcare workers in Florida will be voting for DeSantis again? Obviously he feels being the GOP candidate for President is more important than people’s lives. He learned a great deal from trump.

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What's worse is that we KNOW Florida has cooked the COVID numbers right from the start. My faith in the accuracy of the current reports is quite low, most likely the situation is and has been even more dismal than the official numbers would indicate.

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Who's calling the kettle black? When it comes to apportioning out who wants to control people, DeSantis is right at the top. All for the sake of his own power grab.

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Terrific column, Judd. DeSantis v. Science.....putting school kids at risk. Horrifying!

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When the 9/11 style commission on Covid takes place (oh there isn’t one? For shame!), there really needs to be consideration of a regulation mandating standardized federal assessment and reporting of health stats such as Covid.

Desantis is well known for “cooking the books” and fired the state health statistician for refusing to assist in the cooking.

I have no doubt that republicans will not go along with this because well Science but it still should be put forward to let republicans show their ignorance.

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Re: Desantis banning vaccination validation at government entities.

President Biden’s recent order to vaccinate all federal employees should set up an interesting scenario. By law, federal reservations (originally the VA but now all federal agencies) are not required to follow state or local laws. Keeping the peace, federal reservations generally “comply” with state and local law but there are instances were they don’t (concealed or own carry of firearms would be an example; doesn’t matter what the state law is).

In addition to federal employees all federal contractors must be vaccinated. This will be huge. Not only in numbers but also in spread. Many federal contractors may not work at a normal federal reservation but still be required to vaccinate. Some contractors may have enough staff and jobs to shift non-vaxxers around but most contractors can’t do that or won’t want to be bothered with playing games.

As the federal mandate makes its way into DOD (a problem now as legally vaccine must not be experimental), the number of federal reservations expands tremendously as will the number of active duty DOD as well as civilian employees and contractors.

I’m quite sure that desantis will bitch and moan about this and probably even file suit but this is one battle he can’t win.

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A friend in southeast Florida planned a big party to celebrate her 80th birthday. It was cancelled when 14 relatives - all fully vaccinated - from three other states refused to stay in hotels or eat at restaurants in Florida for fear of the escalating Covid. That's a lot of tourist bucks not going to the Florida economy. BTW, I'll party with her, but only because I'm already a Florida resident, fully vaccinated, and a fellow octogenarian.

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Good article about Florida. Note this in the NYT today regarding anomalies in covid data: June 4, 2021: Florida stopped providing daily updates and removed many nonresident cases.

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At every turn, GOP leaders are betting against science, and either lucking out (temporarily) or lying about their success (Hi, South Dakota!). The Delta variant seems to be the wall that none can scale, and the worst part is that it's not these soulless ghouls who will pay the price - it's regular people trying to live their lives who have to try to get by in an environment where the government has made it illegal for local leadership to protect its people.

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Three people died of Covid here over the weekend. None vaccinated. 12 breakthrough cases in vaccinated people. Dozens of these folks visited southern beaches. An entire family sick from their Florida vacation.

The school division here made masks optional on July 27.

DeSantis led the charge in Florida, but plenty of others are culpable. The Trump admin set the stage of politicizing this disease and made Fauci the fall guy. Truth is vaccinated are getting it as it mutates. There are multiple variants now. I am hoping vaccine tweaking is going on, but honestly who knows. Congress recessed for seven weeks right when this hits. Cowardly lot in mho after all the concessions in the infrastructure bill. But worse yet, there are going to be alot of folks evicted to the curbside and you will see more suffering at th

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founding

Since this Virus mutates every third person and develops a new Variant, what, every three months, how long before it turns into a child killer, since they will be the only vectors left! I which Fauci or anyone from the CDC would talk about this as the problem it's going to become.

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Why the mainstream media can’t be trusted. And trusting them can be literally deadly.

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DeSantis is another Nero, fiddle farting around while his state burns with Delta. I’m thankful that I no longer have to go to Florida any more or Georgia either, for that matter. I’m just sorry a couple of our grandchildren are in Florida and I’ve friends in Georgia. I think of all of them daily and just hope we don’t get a bad news phone call.

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