By Pat V. Bryant a southern journalist on assignment in Florida during 2022
Covid deaths and infections in Florida are among the highest in the nation and world. Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis seems focused only on treating covid infected people who are overwhelming hospitals and not preventing the disease.
Gov. DeSantis has demanded President Biden send Florida Regeneron, a drug that the Center of Disease Control (CDC) says was effective in treating Delta Covid infections, but research has shown the drug is not effective against the Omicron covid variant. Meanwhile more than 1 million unused covid test kits are in a Florida warehouse expiring, there are long lines of people seeking to buy home non-existing tests. The leader of a Jacksonville coalition was arrested for a not leaving DeSantis’ press conference.
Democratic Congressman Charlie Crist, the former governor defeated by DeSantis and Donald Trump in 2017, says that Governor DeSantis should be focused on preventing covid infection through vaccines, indoor mask wearing, and extensive testing, a position overwhelmingly shared by scientists and health experts worldwide.
Dark money may have a hand in Florida’s anemic pandemic response, sickness, and death. DeSantis judgment is questioned as being influenced by campaign contributions.
The Associated Press reported that a Regeneron investor, through a political action committee, Ken Griffin gave $10.7 million to DeSantis’
DeSantis’ campaign. Governor DeSantis, running for governor this year, is obviously campaigning for President of the United States in 2024. He did not respond to interview requests. Nor did the governor respond to a question you will find at the end of this story.
Congressman Crist is campaigning to defeat DeSantis. Charlie Crist plan versus DeSantis is sure to be front and center of the campaign. Crist says not only is DeSantis running for governor of Florida this year, but he is running for president in 2024 and all his policies are designed for the narrow Donald Trump base.
Another Florida elected official, Democratic Congresswoman Val Demings, an African American and the former Orlando police chief, is running for U.S. Senate for the seat currently held by Republican Marco. Rubio supports DeSantis covid measures. The Congresswoman is very critical of “any politician playing politics by undermining the importance of testing, wasting public resources like test kits, or downplaying the effectiveness of the vaccine…”
Demings can’t be happy with Marcos’s tweet in response to the Center for Disease Control statement that Florida had in the previous day 75,900 new covid infections. Marco tweeted “Record numbers testing positive for sore throat isn’t a crisis. And people in the hospital for car accidents testing positive isn’t a surge…The real crisis is the irrational hysteria which has people with no symptoms waiting hours for a test or missing work for 10 days.”
Another Florida elected official, State Senator Audrey Gibson who represents Jacksonville says Governor DeSantis’ Republican friends control Florida’s legislature and now it is not possible for unhappy to force the Governor to change. All these officials say the November 8, 2022, election will be critical saying lives.
The November 8 election will be one of the most important, if not the most important elections in Florida’s history. Excitement in Georgia where Stacey Adams is running for governor and Reverend Raphael Warnock, is running for re-election is surely to spill over into Florida. Val Demings running for U.S. Senate and Crist for governor will provide a lot of drama that will spill over into Georgia.
The political drama is becoming community drama, in Jacksonville where the Northside Coalition and its leader Ben Frazier have called on DeSantis to resign. The community-political drama with national politicos like former President Obama, Hollywood actors, and athletes will undoubtedly increase the progressive voter turnout. Whether the increase will be sufficient is debatable. Florida, Georgia and 40 other states have enacted voter suppression measures that are to prevent and discourage voter participation. Similar measures like “white democratic primaries,” voter registration tests, voter purges, political violence and massacres eliminated Black and progressive voting in the 1890’s to the enactment of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The U.S. Supreme Court gutted important federal oversight of elections which account partially for Donald Trump election in 2016. Now Republicans in the U.S. Senate will not consider passing voter protections passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. But President Biden and Senator Chuck Summer are set for a full court pressure.
Enters Ben Frazier stage left with 10 volunteers ready for un-robbing DeSantis/Republican program in Florida. Clad in dapper blue suit, with matching shirt and fedora on a motorized scooter for the disabled, Mr. Frazier announced in a deep bass voice he wasn’t leaving till he attended the press conference and spoke to Governor DeSantis. “We are here to make the governor accountable to we the people.” Threatened will arrest by two state employees who said the governor’s press conference was a private meeting and he could not attend, Frazier refused to leave, was arrested and his statement went across the world like wildfire. By evening the former journalist was being interviewed by Joy Reid on MSNBC the Reidout.
Congressman Crist says the arrest was as wrong as DeSantis’ policies and people around the state and nation should stand up for our rights and peacefully protest like Mr. Frazier was attempting to do.
A Florida Task Force has been set up to make it easier for vaccines and test kits to be distributed through Historically Black Colleges and Universities. With the anti-vaccine and anti-test governor this task for cannot expect resources from the state until another governor is in Tallahassee.
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