As Always, WTF, Florida?

 

As Omicron surges, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo says the state is working to "unwind" the COVID "testing psychology" that the federal government has prioritized. pic.twitter.com/cju0o1uVJm

— The Recount (@therecount) January 3, 2022

You know, for the rest of my life, I am going to hear Donald Trump saying "Slow the testing down!" in my head. I thought then, and I think now, that this is a kind of criminal negligence. It's a wretched game to pretend that we don't really have a problem because we have very determinedly "not looked" at it for political reasons. It's the same game played when people try that "people dying with COVID-19, not of COVID-19". They are trying to minimize the problem by asserting "Oh well, people are always dying of something." Just like blaming the death toll on olds, disableds, and fats, instead of recognizing that disease strikes communities and communities needs to protect themselves and have a good defense.

Clearly, Ron DeSantis' Surgeon General is a problematic person to opine on matters regarding COVID-19, and that is, apparently, why De Santis chose him. Sure, he's lizard-people curious and demon-sperm adjacent, but that's no reason to discriminate against his very considered opinion, right?

And it seems really superfluous to requirements that Ladopo is anti-testing anyway, since DeSantis has already made every attempt to try and quash proper recording of Florida's COVID-19 statistics in order to look good. But DeSantis is a man on a mission.

How else would I explain Gov. DeSantis' disappearance from the public eye to emerge at a COVID-19 hootenanny? With his wife in tow, undergoing cancer treatment and presumed immunocompromised?  Clearly, DeSantis is firmly in the party of "giving exactly zero shits whatsoever about COVID-19" except for maybe asking for more monoclonal antibodies, please. But this is what he subjects his family to, for political reasons (and I see no gun to the Florida First Lady's head, so maybe this is her bag, too? After all, she let this man use her babies as political props, so whatever, right?) 

When I look at Ron DeSantis, I see a man who would cap his own parents if he thought being an orphan would benefit him in the slightest. This is only marginally an exaggeration. I would exaggerate a little bit about COVID-19 just to be fair, but it outdoes itself on the regular so I don't have to bother. 

Anyway he's a very distant 2nd to Trump in any 2024 primary showdown pregaming and I actually hope he gets tossed out as governor this year. There is no reason his calculated destructiveness should pay off. 

UPDATE: It would be mean for me to speculate about this, but "be nicer" was absolutely not one of my New Year's resolutions.

Here is a second angle of Ron DeSantis struggling with breathing problems during his event today. The longer this clip goes on, the worse it gets. pic.twitter.com/J9Jr55x8Py

— MeidasTouch.com (@MeidasTouch) January 5, 2022

Torn

.@SpeakerPelosi tears up of State of the Union speech.#SOTU #SOTU2020 pic.twitter.com/sIpi4G7KsL

— CSPAN (@cspan) February 5, 2020

I'm not one for that GIF-y kind of "yas queen" political gesture, but I easily get the sentiment behind tearing up a copy of Trump's campaign speech delivered in the place of the State of the Union. It was, indeed, better than the alternative which, one can assume, was shoving the packet of self-serving lies and stage-dressing back down his nasty throat. The White House comms team responded to her action with pure absurdity.

She was tearing up none of the things alluded to in the White House's hackish Tweet, but rather the contempt Trump showed for any positive thing at all that might have been discussed or celebrated there by lying, by smearing immigrants with racist assertions, and by hanging a medal around the neck of an infamous hate-spreader, Rush Limbaugh.

I'll level with you, cancer is a horrendous disease and I could and would wish it on no one. But suffering doesn't change what a person has done with their platform in the course of their highly-lucrative career, and watching this virulent racist be awarded a high honor on a night when we could celebrate the service of the Tuskegee airman, watching this soldier in a culture war be rewarded for his divisiveness against fellow Americans instead of focusing on our shared patriotism--this was an affront. In Rush Limbaugh's entire career, he has heaped vilification on feminists, calling a reproductive health care activist a "slut" on his platform for days on end, and generally referring to feminists as "Nazis" while offering up rape apology and misogyny on a regular basis. Whatever charitable things he's ever done (possibly for PR) are nothing compared to the harm he's done for the discourse--and of course, this Birther, this showman of the bizarre and bent opinion, is a hero to Trump--Trump's presidency is based on Limbaugh's act!

But who is he to be so celebrated? A person anathema to the values of millions of us?

The state of our union is, we are torn. A divisive president has highlighted the ways in which we are divided. The Republicans who enthusiastically applauded his deeply partisan speech, the GOP Senators who mean to acquit him later this week for things they even admit he has done, can't unite us. Our disunion is strong. And that is how Trump has liked it, and that is how he now has it.

So say what you will about Speaker Pelosi tearing the speech up. Trump tears at the Constitution and at whatever still exists of our national comity. You figure out for yourself who is more to blame--the one who errs, or the one who points it out.

Sen. McCain Diagnosed with Glioblastoma

My history regarding covering Senator John McCain has been one of serious criticism, and that is not something I easily set aside--as a public servant, he has long been about diminishing what government does for one domestically, and expanding what government does on the international stage. I have found him at times a diffident and biased actor--not always following through on political claims for what I have assumed was partisan reasons. But there is one thing about him I will say, especially in light of his recent diagnosis with glioblastoma, a difficult, aggressive, and generally tragic form of brain cancer--

Senator McCain is a hero and does have a code of honor. It isn't something he telegraphs, but something he just lives. I disagree with him politically, but especially in light of certain recent political events, I have come to find his occasional equivocations and arguments more honest than what I see from people boasting the same party label at times today. This isn't to praise nor bury him. I just wish him an easy time of it, because cancer is a son of a bitch of a disease and he's got a rotten one. And no one deserves what it can do.

(Which, in keeping with my traditions, is why I endorse keeping Obamacare alive, because this sort of shit happens to humans less fortunate than Senator McCain, who don't deserve it either, and who have families and lives and loved ones and jobs to do.  Fuck cancer. Also, fuck Trumpcare, repeal and replace, or even just repealing. Because this happens to fathers, and grandfathers, and respected elder statespeople. And yes, I am using McCain's diagnosis to raise a point. I don't know that he would go so far as to use it, politically, himself. But of the people I know who have had and survived cancer-- care matters, treatment matters, and access is a matter of human welfare--fully in the purview of Congress. I would like to see him have an understanding now of what less-privileged folks already know--they utterly need access, affordability, regulations that protect them and their pre-existing conditions, and how.  But what I like is not McCain's problem. His own bout with serious disease is. )