Florida is Essentially a Nazi Death Camp

 

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari.)

 Hyperbole? Hardly.

     Imagine an extermination camp only with open borders. You'd have Ron DeSantis' 2021 Florida.

    It seems hardly a day goes by when we don't hear one of two things- Florida breaking its own COVID records and Ron DeSantis, during his childishly truculent press conferences, doubling, tripling and quadrupling down on his Jonestown agenda in the Sunshine state. But don't listen to me (and I'd certainly caution one not to listen to DeSantis), listen to the official, horrifying numbers coming out of Florida. Here's a sample:

    40,167 Florida residents have died of COVID. Until DeSantis' running mate floated back in the state, that number was half as large as it is now. 2,782,060 cases have been diagnosed in Florida so far and you always have to assume a shortage of tests to go around and the test-averse to further inflate that number. Only two places on earth are on a par with Florida among COVID hotspots- Louisiana and Botswana.

    40,000+ deaths is a lot for a state in which the death toll nationally is just over 620,000 (And that doesn't include the deaths of those who'd contracted the virus in Florida and died elswhere). That means nearly one in 15 Americans who die from COVID had Ron DeathSantis as their governor. One in 15. Out of 50 states.

     But, just as deficits didn't matter to Dick Cheney, sky-high body counts don't matter to DeSantis. Just a couple of days ago, DeSantis was in Jacksonville, the state capital, and crowing about the encouraging numbers that simply don't exist, especially as the state capital is the epicenter of the nation's epicenter of the worst pandemic in over a century. It didn't seem to faze the best friend a virus ever had this side of Mar a Lago that the Duval Co. sheriff couldn't be there because he was quarantining after catching COVID.

     But, considering DeSantis' bizarre conduct since this pandemic began over a year and a half ago, it shouldn't strike anyone as surprising that Florida is now becoming known as Auschwitz-on-the-Gulf. Long before Delta balefully appeared on the horizon, DeSantis had a press conference that had a weird Michael Jackson vibe to it as he'd shown up wearing just one rubber glove. And, as if there was ever any doubt as to what a homicidal, right wing asshole he is, when he had to cough or wipe his nose, guess which hand had the unenviable task of receiving his germs? Let me give you a hint:

 

 

   But DeSantis isn't merely a bad governor who makes bad hyperpartisan decisions. This is a motherfucker who goes after those who expose his deadly lies and duplicity. Rebekah Jones can tell you all about that. In case you need a refresher course, Jones was a data-crunching scientist who'd worked for Florida's Department of Health. She was fired well over a year ago in the middle of a relentless pressure campaign to get scientists like Jones to massage the numbers in order to justify prematurely opening Florida (something for which even Trump, a Florida resident, had yelled at DeSantis- twice).

     So Jones did what any socially-conscious scientist would do during a deadly pandemic-She'd set up a mirror site giving Floridians real time, accurate COVID information. Not content with that, DeSantis used the Florida State Police to raid her home as if she was receiving a ton of coke from the Medellin cartel.

    Then there was the cruise line fiasco in which DeSantis thought he could dictate to private companies as to whether or not they could require COVID-19 vaccine passports of their passengers. Norwegian Cruise recently won a court battle challenging the "small government" Republican's ban on even that basic mitigation measure.

    But what is perhaps DeSantis' most vicious dick move, moreso than the Jones raid, was his executive order banning Florida's towns and cities from issuing their own mask mandates, including school districts. As some Florida schools are reopening as early as this Tuesday, this has, naturally, resulted in several school districts that aren't run by other genocidal Nazis to defy DeSantis' death march to the classrooms.

     Apparently, when you're willing to place other peoples' children on the slippery altar of freedom, shit starts to get real for the parents of those children and the educators who have to teach them.

     In fact, it could be said that if Ron DeSantis' agenda was to murder as many Floridians as humanly possible, including as many from out of state as possible, he really couldn't do anything more than he is now.

     One can understand why a vicious prick like DeSantis is throwing red meat to his base. But what noone, least of all DeSantis, has realized is that, unless Trump's zombie fantasies are actually true, then dead people can't vote.