Florida Governor Ron DeSantis admitted Thursday that up to one million COVID rapid test kits the state had stockpiled expired unused in a warehouse. We know about this only because a state government whistleblower told Nikki Fried about it:
The issue of the expiring tests was first raised by Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, a Democratic candidate for governor. In a Dec. 30 statement, she said: “It’s come to my attention that Governor DeSantis’ Department of Health has a significant number of COVID-19 tests stockpiled that are set to expire imminently.”
“Given the Governor’s lack of transparency throughout this pandemic, there’s no known public information about these tests or how soon they expire,” she said. “With omicron infections exploding throughout Florida, I beg of him to release these tests immediately to local counties and cities, and to stand up state-sponsored testing sites. To let these tests expire while Floridians anxiously wait for hours in testing lines is negligent at best, and heartless at worst.”
Responding to DeSantis’ remarks on Thursday, Fried tweeted: “He just admitted that they have a stockpile of ‘800,000 to a million’ expired COVID-19 tests they never sent out.”
DeSantis and his team are bold-faced liars who have brazened their way out of countless inexcusable failures during the pandemic. Predictably, they’re trying to brazen their way out of this jam too:
“Florida had one of the lowest COVID rates in the country during fall, so the demand for testing was correspondingly low,” DeSantis’ press secretary Christina Pushaw told CBS News. “Though tests went unused due to insufficient demand, as the governor said: it’s better to be overprepared than underprepared.”
Yet, in August, Florida reported 21,683 new cases of COVID-19 — the most infections in a single day since the start of the pandemic.
And the state currently has the second-highest 28-day COVID case average in the U.S., with more than 745,200 reported cases in that time frame, according to Johns Hopkins University, and 615 deaths. The state has had nearly 4.5 million cases since COVID first hit the nation.
Many Florida residents have questioned DeSantis’ claim of “low demand” for the tests.
Emphasis mine, and God I hope more Floridians are finally examining the sociopathic governor’s ridiculous claims. Before the holidays, people were desperately trying to find tests and mobbing any site where they heard tests were available. It was all over the news, and we now know this occurred while DeSantis and crew were sitting on a giant stockpile.
Days before Fried’s comments forced DeSantis to admit he had a massive cache of unused and now expired tests, DeSantis and his crackpot surgeon general, Dr. Ladapo, rolled out a Trump-like “there’s too much testing” media strategy. Ladapo scolded Floridians for supposedly “planning and living [their lives] around testing,” which, in addition to being condescending as fuck, contradicts Ladapo’s boss’s claim that demand for tests was low. As of Thursday, this became Florida’s official public health guidance:
Individuals who may have been exposed to COVID-19, but have no symptoms:
COVID-19 testing is unlikely to have any clinical benefits.
The mind-numbing idiocy and gaslighting continued yesterday:
“Think about it. Before COVID, did anyone go out and seek testing to determine if they were sick?” @GovRonDeSantis today pic.twitter.com/uPQFwQRJwN
— Christina Pushaw ? (@ChristinaPushaw) January 7, 2022
As these derelict chuckle-fucks surely know, tests for asymptomatic people who’ve been exposed to COVID isn’t about individual clinical benefits but rather PUBLIC health benefits, i.e., keeping asymptomatic infected people from spreading the disease to others. So what’s up with all the lying and bamboozlement?
I think the state almost certainly sat on those tests and is now issuing this guidance that contradicts the public health expert consensus because they want to limit political damage to DeSantis for his ongoing mismanagement of the COVID-19 crisis. DeSantis claims he didn’t know about the stockpile of now-expired tests, and possibly that’s even true.
But DeSantis has loaded every state agency with Republican hacks, sycophants and donors whose primary job is to turn the organizations into political assets for DeSantis as he gears up to run for president. He probably didn’t personally forbid state university professors from testifying as expert witnesses in cases opposing DeSantis-championed voter suppression laws or bans on mask mandates either. But his appointees/donors got it done, at great cost to the flagship public university’s reputation.
I keep hoping the growing evidence that DeSantis is focused on self-promotion at the expense of everything else — our health, our university and K-12 education system, the state’s economy — will finally motivate Floridians to kick his ass out of office later this year. But so far, he’s been a Teflon motherfucker, for reasons I cannot fathom. Maybe a sufficient number of the registered independents who decide every election will get a fucking clue this time, but I’m not holding my breath.
Open thread.
New Breed Leader
He belongs in prison for what he’s doing.
WaterGirl
DeathSantis is definitely the correct name.
debbie
One million people elsewhere, not just Floridians, could have used those tests. ?
VeniceRiley
Cruelty is the point.
OzarkHillbilly
DeSantis makes Parsons look positively null.
cope
Sadly, DeSantis is too young to be on my list of asshole fucking fuckers whom I might reasonably expect to outlive but he is on my list of asshole fucking fuckers whom I hope to see fail spectacularly in the public arena and fall into irrelevance. I’m giving him 50/50 odds at this point. Fuck him.
Geminid
I hope DeSantis’ Democratic opponent can use his Presidential ambitions against him, and show Floridians that they are being used as stepping stones:
“If you elect me, I will serve you as a full time Governor, for all four years. Why can’t the Republican candidate say the same? You deserve no less.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
“Think about it. Before COVID, did anyone go out and seek testing to determine if they were sick?”
What does that even mean? What is the argument it’s making?
I feel the same way with the annoying people arguing that the vaccine isn’t really a vaccine. I don’t care. Call it what you want. What difference does it make?
Suzanne
In any not-insane country, this would be grounds for removal from office for gross negligence.
Geminid
@Geminid: I’m also hoping that the Rage of Mar-a-Loco decides to throw a spoke into DeSantis’ bicycle wheel. “Ours is a Jealous Clod!”
Chief Oshkosh
Betty, have any news stations been showing the long lines of people trying to get tested pre-holiday, overlaid with the governor’s office’s statements that tests weren’t needed because people had stopped testing or wanting to get tested?
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Gish Gallop.
VOR
@Geminid: he will pledge to serve Florida for the full term and then file papers for his 2024 Presidential run the day after the election. You cannot shame Trump-era Republicans.
New Deal democrat
I wonder how big a hit Florida’s economy has taken from snowbirds taking a pass for the second year in a row because of his objectively pro-COVID actions?
But the most discouraging thing of all is that even Blue State governors appear to have thrown in the towel. Just for example: mandatory vaccinations for school (just like for all other communicable diseases), Hello? It’s especially discouraging because while the Federal government has limited powers in this area (especially as knocked down by Trumpist judges), it has always been the case that States have plenary power. They could mandate vaccinations for everyone in-State, and quarantine for the unvaccinated entering the State, but no, let’s let-er-rip, and if we get a few 100,000 more deaths, oh well . . . .
Roger Moore
Emphasis on “clinical”. It could have enormous public health benefits, but apparently the “public” part of public health means Republicans don’t want it.
Scout211
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
And the obvious answer to that stupid DeSantis question is, YES!
My doctor and my husband’s doctor order lab tests at least twice a year for us to determine whether we are healthy or not. Twice yearly, and more often if we have symptoms.
So DeSantis’ stupid question about tests is ridiculous on its face and only designed to confuse. But it sure is not designed to promote the health of his constituents. Just deflect from his guilt ?
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: Josh Hawley was accused of running for MO AG for the sole purpose of using it as a stepping stone to higher office. He swore he would stay in Jeff City for the full 4 years and probably more. 2 years later he ran for US Senate and won.
Misery voters didn’t care, I suspect Floriduh voters won’t either.
RepubAnon
The standard corporate metrics philosophy is that if there’s no metric being gathered, the problem doesn’t exist. DeathSantis is following in Trump’s footsteps by discouraging testing – thus lowering the numbers of reported cases, thus making Florida’s Covid metrics appear better for political purposes.
It’s the same philosophy followed by Bernie Madoff, Enron, and many others – hiding one’s failures through fraudulent accounting practices. Hopefully the voters will figure this out.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@RepubAnon: Well call you a cock-eyed optimist!
Geminid
@VOR: Make it an issue. Get him on record, in a debate. Then call him a liar, in so many words. It doesn’t have to a principal issue. But DeSantis’ ambition might be a good coda for a stump speech:
“And you know what? Once he’s finished running Florida into the ditch, he’s gonna run away and leave us to call the tow truck!”
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Truth.
p.a.
Most medical test subjects volunteer, and the trial populations are small. Props to Floriduh and Gov. Lysenko for thinking big!
rikyrah
This lowlife muthaphucka.
What else is there to be said.
HE IS TRYING TO KILL PEOPLE
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: You may be right. But Governor in a state like Florida is a big, responsible job.
And Florida elections are close, especially Governor elections.* If the issue swings just a hundred thousand votes, it could make the difference. I think the Democratic candidate will have to take it to DeSantis, put him on the defensive. This may be one good way to do it.
*Rick Scott won in 2010 by 60,000 votes out of over 5 million cast, in 2014 by 66,000 out of over 5 million. DeSantis won in 2018 by less than 40,000 out of over 8 million votes cast.
VOR
@RepubAnon: Agree. DeSantis “won the pandemic” according to some pundits, so news like a 948% jump in cases was at odds with the story. One could solve that by addressing the actual problem. But instead they are going to solve the metric by lowering the number of tests. Same logic as TFG yelling “slow the testing down” at his super spreader rally in Tulsa June 2020.
Another Scott
They should have a big ceremonial bonfire using the expired test kits. “Yay! Covid is over!!1 No need for these evil things because we have no Covid here because of Ron’s leadery leadership!!1” I’m kinda surprised they haven’t done so already.
:-/
I posted this link from BlueVirginia.US in the AL Covid thread this morning. I’d never heard this before:
As someone pointed out a year or more ago – Covid isn’t just a “bad cold”. It can be a systemic disease, that just happens to start in the respiratory system. Be aware that Omicron symptoms (he says that 93% of what they’re seeing in Arlington is Omicron) can be different from the earlier ones. If you’re feeling weird, don’t assume that it can’t be Omicron.
Good luck, BC. Stay safe, everyone.
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
I’m just thinking of the amount of warehouse space that many testing kits would take up.
germy
Mrs. DeSantis weighs in.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I hope the eventual Dem nominee also clubs DeSantis for wasting taxpayer dollars. Not just with the tests, but political stunts like traveling to the town of Brandon, FL solely to make hay over the dumb wingnut “Let’s Go Brandon” meme, unethically using the state jet for campaign-style events, spending more than a billion sending FL national Guard soldiers to the TX border, hiring an unqualified FL GOP hack to run the state cybersecurity agency (and spending half a million on office furniture), hiring the crackpot Ladapo for $500k per year, etc. He spends like a drunken sailor for cronies and self-aggrandizement, but is stingy with citizens.
Gvg
You know, I think all these stupid republicans don’t actually understand what contagious is and how it works.
They also don’t understand exponential growth, or science doesn’t care about politics and viruses aren’t deflected by morals….so many other things. But I really think they flat out don’t get that people who are not “sick” can carry the virus to many other people. And also, we don’t know when we get it.
Another failing is to not be able to understand anything that isn’t solved by political spin. They take people reporting bad news as personal enemies. Then they make us (people who live in the real world) enemies because they are such a problem for us. They cause their own enemies.
Ramalama
@New Deal democrat: Who keeps records like that of visitors to a state (like the snowbirds to Florida)? Is it the Chamber o’ Commerce? That would be an interesting number to see.
Another Scott
@Geminid: Pledges not to run for future higher office are meaningless. Especially coming from a known liar.
But, yes, make him deny it.
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
“Oh, you want peace of mind knowing you didn’t catch COVID? Hahahahahaha!!!!???”
Kalakal
@Kalakal: Sorry the link fucked up. This should work.
Link
ps how do you delete posts?
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: +1
“The Covid vaccine didn’t stop me from getting shingles, therefore it is useless” – makes as much sense.
Grrr…,
Scott.
germy
mrmoshpotato
Obviously no! Medical science didn’t even exist before 2019!
Rusty
Alito’s comments yesterday at the SCOTUS hearing on the vaccine and testing mandate are just in line the Dr. Ladapo’s. Health concerns are purely personal, there is no concern for anyone else, be that fellow workers, or the public. It is a world view of self centered nihilism. The 6 reactionaries on the court are not only going to kill the mandate (I think they will likely kill it for health workers too which was a separate case), but will use it as the launch pad to destroy other public health, workplace safety and environmental regulations. They are radicals, wanting to remake the whole country in their bizarre vision.
Roger Moore
@Another Scott:
Then they can throw on some CRT books, just for fun. And maybe a witch or two.
OzarkHillbilly
It is here in Misery too, but if you belong to a party that has at it’s philosophical core the idea that govt isn’t the solution, it’s the problem, then fucking up in office seems like a good thing.
Ksmiami
@germy: and that is why we have to destroy the Rt wingers on the court. I’m talking biblical ways.
Phylllis
@Kalakal: You can’t. Your shame and ignominy remain there, for all to see forever.
Actually, I think front pagers can delete upon request.
Ken
@germy: My, that was fast, though not entirely unexpected. I wonder if they’ll now try some idiocy like claiming having cancer is different from being sick.
Kalakal
Where the Dems should nail the POS is on this. A week ago he was blaming test shortages on the Feds for not supplying enough. At the same time his administration was letting a million tests expire because they didn’t want to distribute them
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/desantis-blames-feds-treatment-testing-213100066.html
Ksmiami
@Rusty: We the people need to limit the courts jurisdiction and either reform it or burn it to the ground
OzarkHillbilly
@Kalakal: You can’t. Your mistakes are up for all eternity so that our grandchildren can point and laugh at us.
@Phylllis: Damn it Phyllis, you beat me to it. My excuse is that I was making breakfast.
WaterGirl
@Kalakal: You can ask for a comment to be deleted.
“Can you please delete my comment at #10?” Or if you can still edit your post, you can delete what you had and just leave a “.” or “deleted” as the content of your post. Whenever I see those I delete them
edit: I fixed the link in your original comment.
Another Scott
ICYMI…
The Zen in that one is very strong.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kalakal
@germy: AWKWARD indeed
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: DeSantis has given Democrats plenty to attack him on without having to exaggerate or make stuff up. They should use it all.
People say they don’t like like negative advertising, but social scientist studies show that it works anyway. It doesn’t hurt to mix in positive stuff like Nikki Fried’s cheerful introductory ad. But Democrats will have to be ready to fight dirty, because DeSantis will. I hope their attitude is, “Below the belt? What belt!?”
Kalakal
@WaterGirl: Thanks, yeah the edit window had elapsed
Betty Cracker
@Kalakal: I hope that blows up in their faces in a huge way. It should. They are lying and gaslighting and wasting money.
Kay
@Rusty:
There’s going to need to be a huge educational effort by Democrats because regulations have been in place so long people know nothing about them at all. They’re background, and all but invisible. “Why do I wear safety glasses? Because it’s required”. “Why is there a guard on this machine or equipment? Because it’s required”.
First we’ll have to explain that they exist – were deliberately PLACED, not by employers but by regulators- and then what happens when they’re eradicated. You’re safer at work because there’s a whole suite of regulations that made it safer. There was never a time in anyone’s working life when those regulations weren’t there. It’s a hypothetical.
ET
The real question is in Florida will he be rewarded or punished.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I agree. Of the three main contenders for the nomination so far, Fried has been the most aggressive, so that’s a factor in her favor in my book. I’ve got concerns about all three, but apparently no better candidate is going to emerge from the woodwork, so maybe we should go with the puncher.
Kay
@Rusty:
I see it with wage and pay regulations for the lowest paid and youngest workers. They’ll accept outrageous tactics to screw them out of money- a dishwasher in a restaurant who is working absolutely free because he was told it was a “trial period”. If he makes the cut they’ll start paying him. They don’t even know it’s illegal let alone what made it illegal.
Kalakal
@Phylllis:
OzarkHillbilly
Confusion will be my epitaph
Alison Rose
It’s like every day, DeSantis wakes up and flips a coin to decide if he’ll focus on being stupid or evil that day. And apparently most days the coin lands on its edge and he goes, “Welp, guess we’re doing the twofer today!” Ugh. What a putz.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: Are you hearing anything over there from the Kuntz for Senate campaign? I run into some mentions on Twitter.
trnc
MSM three days after omicron determined to spread much more rapidly than delta: “Why hasn’t Biden delivered tests yet?”
MSM after finding out DeSantis withheld test supplies: “”
Kay
The main concern with a governor like this- and it was one of my top concerns with the Trump Administration- is that they corrupt information. It becomes impossible to catch them out because they corrupt each agencies reporting of what are supposed to be facts. That’s one way to solidify power – he simply hires corrupt hacks who will tell the public anything they’re supposed to tell them, and massage any numbers necessary to get there.
An additional 4 years of Trump and we would have been getting bullshit numbers from “official” sources. You’re screwed then. No coming back from that.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
DeSantis is the spiritual twin of UK prime minister Boris Johnson.
trnc
That’s the beauty of that kind of bullshit. It makes no specific claim, but his supporters can fill in the blanks however they like.
A good followup question would be, “Which specific pre-covid deadly disease that can be tested in 15 minutes are you thinking of? Do you have a stockpile of a million tests for another pandemic that we should know about?”
Another Scott
2025 reported dead of COVID-19 in the US yesterday on Worldometers.info, 30% of the world total. With 4.25% of the world’s population.
Be careful out there.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I read an article about Trump’s jealousy of DeSantis. It quoted Trump telling associates that DeSantis had better watch out, that Charlie Crist was “a killer.” I dont think Crist was ever called that before. I like Crist, but I’d call him “a plodder.”
germy
Baud
@germy: Stop blackmailing me.
trnc
Absolutely, and obviously a chief executive can’t know what’s tucked away in every agency, but there’s obviously no excuse for either not knowing or not immediately investigating why it happened. It takes a special kind of asshole to just go, “Meh,” not to mention support that pattern of buffoonery and obfuscation.
ETA: Did DeSantis personally make any negative comments about Biden not having enough covid tests available?
OzarkHillbilly
@Kalakal: Mine will be, “I’m still waiting” as waiting on others to get their shit together is what I have done for most of my life.
Another Scott
@germy: Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but that oh so clever hot take is nauseating.
Repost – Wikipedia:
Grr…,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: No, I’m not hooked into much local media.
Almost Retired
Obviously, this odious nutsack should have no career other than living under a bridge and shaking down goats for an inflated toll.
But I honestly don’t understand his strategy with his reelection looming. He has to get past this year’s gubernatorial election before he can audition for coronation as the “Real Don Jr.” in 2024. And — (puts on helmet prior to making a tentative positive observation about the Florida electorate) — Florida is somewhat close to evenly divided and doesn’t seem to be one of those places that would elect a rabid vole if it had an R behind its name on the ballot.
Doesn’t he risk completely alienating the substantial sane and sane-adjacent constituency in Florida? Or is his reelection irrelevant to his Presidential ambitions because he can blame a loss on fraud or Black Lives Matter Ninjas? Florida baffles me.
WereBear
@Geminid: We tell the truth, they think it’s hell. ~Harry S Truman
Almost Retired
@Baud: Fine. Give away my entire trial strategy for next week’s arbitration.
kindness
I have to figure Trumpers love DeSantis almost as much as the Orange Menace. He’s a bully. He’s purposefully cruel. He takes revenge. He boldly lies, knowing everyone knows it’s a lie and he doesn’t seem to care. And just like Trump it doesn’t matter with his fans. They love him even more for it.
Yea if Trump isn’t on the 2024 ticket I have to figure he’ll be the one.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: Lucas Kuntz will face another opponent in the Democrat primary, so that race will get a little attention. The Republican Senate primary will have the spotlight, though, especially with grimy Greitens in the race.
I see Kuntz being talked up on Twitter by some lefties who believe he’s one of them. I don’t think he really is, but they have hopes.
gene108
@Rusty:
When the Republican puppet* masters add a new song to their prayer book, they all sing this same song. It doesn’t matter if it’s a local sheriff or a Supreme Court justice.
The new theme their puppet masters want is to overturn vaccine mandates, so they all fall line. I wouldn’t be surprised if Fox News personalities coordinated with Republican Supreme Court justices on what Supreme Court decisions should be, because the Fox News have to sell it to the public to make the justices look good.
* Sen. Whitehouse has made a point to emphasize that the Republican justices vote in line with what Republican big money donors want from a case 100% of the time.
Another Scott
@kindness: Of course polling this early has the usual problems, but, … FloridaPolitics.com (from December 11):
He’s a weak candidate at the moment.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
@trnc: Yes, and so did the crackpot surgeon general, who wrote a grandiose, two-page letter about it.
Edmund Dantes
@Dorothy A. Winsor: man I wish I could find it again. Someone posted his wife’s Twitter where she did a PSA about getting tested early that caught her cancer.
Who searched out testing before they were sick?
Bill Arnold
@Rusty:
When one donates blood, that blood is tested with multiple tests. The results of those tests may have (depending on what is detected) no effect on the health care of the donator, but the results are used to determine whether and how that donation is used. This is to protect the safety of the nation’s blood supply. It’s an imperfect system, to be clear, but it is testing that is not particularly interested in the donator.
About 15 years ago one of the two screening tests for Hepatitis C triggered on my last Red Cross blood donation. One (or more, I forget) tests by my doctor came back negative, but nonetheless, I can no longer donate blood, at least not without jumping through hoops (they wanted proof of the subsequent testing including paperwork).
DeSantis and Scalia are literally asserting that such tests performed for reasons of the health of others are philosophically unjustified. They are on team mass stochastic murder. (They are quite deliberate about it.)
trnc
@Geminid:
Enough voters either like what he’s doing or they don’t. If they do, the idea that he’ll run for president will fire them up more, not turn them off.
Betty Cracker
@Almost Retired: Florida baffles me too, and I’ve lived here all my life. I think kindness at #76 is correct — Trumpers love DeSantis as much as Trump ever since DeSantis stopped pretending to be governor for all and started engaging in “own the libs” stunts full time. So, he’s got a rabid fan base, and they will turn out for him this year.
But, like Trump, it’s possible DeSantis has pissed off Democrats and alienated the mushy middle so much that he’ll outperform his 2018 numbers (a sure thing, IMO) and STILL lose the race. That’s what I’m hoping, obviously, but the electorate is so weird here. It’s impossible to predict, but the state party is weak, and we haven’t had a Democratic governor this century. The state SEEMS to be trending redder. We’ll see.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: He’s a Marine, so I’m sure he’s more conservative than I am but so are my dogs. He’s got anti corporate monopolies at the center of his campaign, which makes him far better than any Republican. I don’t usually place a stake in the primaries as my campaign money is limited, but if he wins the DEM nomination, he’s about the only kind of DEM who could win in this state.
Kalakal
@Edmund Dantes: Germy at #29 is what you’re looking for I think
trnc
@Betty Cracker: Ah, thanks. I found this.
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2022/01/06/desantis-announces-hell-do-what-biden-couldnt-deliver-1-million-at-home-tests-to-floridas-most-vulnerable-1185177/
So, I guess Ron’s brilliant plan for embarrassing Biden about test supply is to send out a million expired tests. Win-win for RD.
Edmund Dantes
@Another Scott: you are writing like that’ll matter when we have a Supreme Court that literally ignores plain text.
a court that said couple years ago a a president’s words have no bearing on his mindset then flip around several years later and say “yes utterances by executives or agencies do matter in determining intent”
Dont be obtuse. This court has already shown they have ZERO problem contradicting themselves or just going “argle bargle you lose”.
Unkess do you actually believe when this case comes along this is going to be the one time they go “oh fuck you used our own words to trap us. Oh well. We give up. Hoisted by our own petard.”
Almost Retired
@Betty Cracker: Thanks! DeSantis scares me as much as anyone, even Trump. Although he looks and acts like an old man, he was actually born when I was in High School. So he’ll be around for awhile unless Florida voters or some specialty COVIC mutation that targets the disingenuous finishes him off.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker: What do you make of the Niki Fried and Matt Gaetz apparent friendship? A liability for Fried? A hit job? Will it actually make her look “bipartisan” (whatever that means these days)? Link from May:
trnc
@Betty Cracker:
As of Thursday, this became Florida’s official public health guidance:
And apparently on literally the same day they put that out, DeSantis was on Fox saying this:
“We’ve secured a million at-home tests,” he continued. “We’re going to be distributing them to nursing homes and long-term care facilities throughout the state of Florida and then to the broader senior communities throughout our population because we view testing as something that should lead to then a clinical result.”
Geminid
@kindness: A few weeks ago Hew Hewitt talked about a straw poll taken at a dinner party he attended, about who they favored for the 2024 nomination. DeSantis won it easily. I assume this was a group of wealthy white assholes like Hewitt. These people are not that big in number, but they usually punch above their weight in Republican politics, 2016 being an exception. Of course, DeSantis has to win reelection before he can run for President, and that is not a certainty.
So, why did these wealthy white assholes not favor Trump for 2024? My guess is that they think he’d lose. The dinner was after the Virginia election, and I thought Trump was a big loser that day. How potent can Trump’s electoral MAGA magic be if Youngkin can outperform him by 12 points just one year later?
West of the Rockies
I’m in California and despise the fucker and his glowering, smug mug.
trnc
@Yarrow: Maybe it’s eleventy dimensional chess on her part. Gaetz seems gullible, and maybe Fried thinks the feds have the goods on him.
Another Scott
@Edmund Dantes: What’s the alternative?
We have to work within the system as it exists, not as some twitter bro thinks it should.
The SCOTUS said the Voting Rights law had to be changed. There is a bill, that seems likely to pass eventually, to do that using the parameters that the SCOTUS said were required.
Of course the SCOTUS can decide there’s something wrong with the new bill and we all recognize that there are different Justices on the court now. 3 RWNJ justices could get sick and die next month, too. Lots of things could happen. What could happen cannot drive our response.
But saying, “haha the SCOTUS will throw it out anyway, stupid libtards”, doesn’t do anything except build feelings of helplessness.
We always have to try. Always.
If they strike down a JLVRAA or similar, then that is yet another reason to Fight for 15, and the mewling-to-the-press RWNJs on the SCOTUS know that. The SCOTUS isn’t the only institution that has agency in this fight.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@trnc: A potential DeSantis Presidential run may well fire up Florida Republicans. But Independents may see it differently. They will be a major factor in a close race. They were in Arizona last year.
trnc
@Geminid: Fair enough.
Betty Cracker
@Yarrow: I don’t know what to make of it, and it’s a liability as far as I’m concerned. Fried used to be a medical marijuana lobbyist, and her husband-to-be (a shady character, IMO, who could end up being the source of political damage) is a pot entrepreneur. Gaetz was an ally on that back in the day, so I can see why she was friendly with him professionally, but he’s obviously a scumbag, so if they are personal friends, that’s a red flag.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: Lucas Kuntz could actually be a lefty. Former Marine Lee Carter was the only self-described socialist in Virginia’s House of Delegates until he lost his primary last summer. But I think Kuntz’s ideological North Star is his ambition. He first ran for office while in his early twenties. When he lost, he joined the Marines. Now he’s in his thirties, and he’s running for his second major office- U.S. Senator.
I generally don’t like the non-politician type of candidate, but I think you’re right that Kuntz has a shot. People don’t like professional politicians as a class, and sometimes an “amateur” outsider can take advantage of this animus.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yarrow: (you didn’t ask me, but….) Ro Khanna also used to talk about Gaetz as a friend (personally, I’m pretty skeptical of Khanna, too). A lot of what Gaetz does is purely performative (and he strikes me as the sort of trust-fund baby who never evolved much past nineteen) so who knows how far back these relationships go, how deep they were, or how they’ve changed. Adam Schiff says he and Nunes were always cordial colleagues pre-trump, I think Schiff goes so far as to say he respected him. As I recall Elijah Cummings let Mark Meadows claim him as a friend.
Miss Bianca
@New Deal democrat:
Tell me about it. Very disappointed in Gov. Polis right now, who seems to have made the political calculation that his chances of getting re-elected will be better if he *doesn’t* enforce mandates than if he does.
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Fried and Gaetz have a political nexus in the cannabis industry. I don’t know know if the herb has been legalized yet in Florida, but Fried was a lobbyist for the industry before her election as Agriculture Commissioner,and Gaetz is a big proponent, probably an investor.
Mike in Pasadena
Before Covid, did anyone get tested to see if they were sick. There are about a million tests to see if you are sick from colonoscopies to breast xrays. Everyday, millions of people get a test to see whether they are sick. Did any reporter in the room try to question that fatuous statement?
trnc
@Geminid: Wait, a name like Fried … cannabis … sometimes, you can’t make this shit up.
Miss Bianca
@Mike in Pasadena: Yeah, interestingly, I did not wait until I felt sick to get either a mammogram or a colonoscopy. Or the blood tests that revealed my high triglyceride levels. But obviously I should have waited for years and felt sicker than a dog to go, because any other option is just CRAZY TALK.
James E Powell
@Geminid:
Do people in Florida still believe he won the pandemic? I have no faith in the voters of that state – burned too many times – but it isn’t like he was a landslide winner in the first place.
Geminid
@Geminid: In any event, Gaetz will almost certainly be charged or not charged by March. That’s when his ex-wingman Joel Greenberg’s new sentencing date is. To repeat a report from the other day, federal prosecutors asked a judge to delay Greenberg’s sentencing last October:
Two business associates of Greenberg’s were charged with federal crimes in December. Greenberg, a former Seminole County Tax Collector, faces a minimum 12 year sentence for the six counts he pled guilty to. It’s possible he could get less time for coopererating with prosecutors, who appear to be gunning for Gaetz.
James E Powell
@Miss Bianca:
Purple state governors have every right to be concerned that rabid Republicans will outperform Democratic voters in a midterm election. And I’ve read several “even Democratic voters are tired of the mandates” articles.
NotoriousJRT
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
When you’ve got nothing, filling the space with squid ink and word salad is the only strategy available.
Chief Oshkosh
@Mike in Pasadena: I guess DeSentence has never heard of a thermometer. Maybe we should it explain it to him.
Step 1: Remove head from ass.
Step 2: Install thermometer into orifice.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Officially, pot is legal here for medical use only and recreational use is a misdemeanor, but that’s complete bullshit in practice. As I originally learned from some cool snowbird retiree neighbors and have since confirmed, it’s very easy to get a card for state weed, and half the state is stoned out of its gourd on state-controlled pot.
It’s ironic because Republicans run the state and did during the transition to legalized medical pot. Before it was approved, there was much moralizing about it and tut-tutting about hippies in those other states.
I don’t personally know this, but I suspect that young folks and non-white folks probably find it much harder to get state weed. But for middle-aged white people, it’s apparently a snap. (I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but here we are.)
Starboard Tack
@James E Powell: We have an additional rep seat in a competitive district and a reshuffle in others that might bring out more voters.
Geminid
@James E Powell: I don’t know that people in Florida actually believed that DeSantis “won the pandemic.” That assertion was made by a writer for Politico. It may have been based on polling, but the pollsters likely did not frame it like the reporter did.
Miss Bianca
@James E Powell: We have a state mandate for health-care workers to get vaccinated. And still eight of 16 of the workers at my local clinic claimed a “religious exemption” to get out of it. So maybe a mandate from the state’s Department of Education to mask up and get vaccinated to keep the schools open would meet the same fate, but I still think it’s a chickenshit move not to go for it. To just shrug and say “eh, what are you gonna do, people are just TIRED of dealing with it!” when there’s a public health crisis the size of COVID is just irresponsible governance, and I reserve the right to feel pissed off about it.
James E Powell
@Geminid:
Somewhere I got the impression he was popular with Florida voters.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Legal weed has it’s upsides and downsides, but I think there is so much money to be made that it’s unstoppable. The money politicizes the industry; the number of dispensaries is limited so the licenses are hot commodities.
Medical cannabis enables a gray market. I bet there are some people with licenses who don’t even use the product but mark it up for sale instead. They might even have turf wars in the Villages.
Geminid
@James E Powell: I wonder. There will be a fair amount of polling this year, both favorable/unfavorable ratings and candidate matchups. The last poll I saw showed DeSantis with a lead over Fried and Crist, but it wasn’t very big. Crist ran a point or two better than Fried.
James E Powell
@Miss Bianca:
I’m not agree with it, I’m just saying I understand it.
Elected officials from the president down to mayors are struggling with the pandemic itself, Republican party & FOX & right wing radio resistance, and independent & Democratic voters’ frustrations. Nobody’s happy.
The question is, will the people who support vaccine mandates & mitigation efforts ever be the loud & angry people who all come out to vote for their local Democratic pandemic fighter? Or will their dissatisfaction give them a Republican who will do nothing?
Mart
@OzarkHillbilly: Governor Hee Haw is committed to killing his constituents and flooding the hospitals even though not running for reelection. And last night I watched our AG brag about taking down OSHA mandates to save lives. Just do not get how this is a winning strategy, but afraid it will be.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
The DNC should do this for every GOP candidate. They’ve done so much of this kind of thing, their taxpayers would be appalled at the dollar amounts.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@James E Powell: Private businesses will start their own vax mandates, the Home of the Orange Apron did last Tuesday. Businesses are seeing a drop in customers and staffing is a problem right now, lots of folk out sick.
takeApowder
Republican pols and their donors see covid as a business opportunity. Covid was a opportunity to buy a million tests from a donor. They never wanted to actually use them.
My kids were out of school sick for several days and are required by their schools to have a negative covid test before they could return. Seems prudent to me. (fyi they are both fully vaxed and are scheduled to get a booster next week.)
The county send the tests to Mako Medical of North Carolina. Whose CEO, Chad Price, made thousands of dollars in contributions to the political campaigns of a number of Republican candidates in his sister’s name, who is mentally incompetent and of whom his is the guardian.
A tidy little grift: the CEO asshole gives money to Republicans who in turn encourage and do everything they can to get people and their kids sick. And sick kids have to take covid tests to return to school. Very tidy indeed.
Someone should follow the money on Florida’s million test kits. It’s always a grift and fraud with these people.
RaflW
Very late to this party, but wanted to stop in to say in response to this absurdity “Before COVID, did anyone go out and seek testing to determine if they were sick?”
I hope Ron never has a PSA test. Why go looking for bad news?