So much "winning" for DeSantis. He's now located his monoclonal antibody centers so only wealthy communities have access to them and no doses are available at hospitals in poorer communities. This is on top of allocating vaccine doses only to wealthy areas in the early days of vaccination roll-out. Then the lack of testing available in poor communities. Black pastors: Florida’s COVID response ‘neglected’ their communities In a letter, the pastors told Gov. Ron DeSantis the state is “failing to reach Florida’s communities of color and its most vulnerable.” https://www.tampabay.com/news/healt...s-covid-response-neglected-their-communities/ A group of Black pastors are urging Gov. Ron DeSantis to deliver adequate COVID-19 resources, such as state-run testing and vaccination sites to communities disproportionately impacted by the virus. “For nearly two years, we have served a population that has been closely and most easily plagued by the COVID-19 pandemic. We have witnessed and experienced firsthand the rollouts for vaccinations and testing failing to reach Florida’s communities of color and its most vulnerable,” the pastors wrote in a letter sent to the governor’s office last week. “Yet in all of this, we have felt neglected by the state government to deliver their abundance of resources to our underserved areas, and rather give preferential treatment to others.” (More at above url)
Let's see what Gov DeSantis and his primary financial supporters like Sheldon Adelson's family have been up to. Creating fraudulent petitions with the signatures of dead people and others to support the opening of gambling casinos in Florida. Didn't DeSantis just establish an "election integrity" office to investigate this type of fraud. Why aren't they doing anything. You would think the governor would firmly be putting a stop to this nonsense -- instead he has not lifted a finger. Of course, he is a firm supporter of the initiative to add casinos to the state. Florida elections offices seeing suspected fraudulent petitions in gambling effort Reports of fraudulent petitions have been forwarded to Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office. https://www.tampabay.com/news/flori...cted-fraudulent-petitions-in-gambling-effort/ TALLAHASSEE — Florida could be in the midst of one of the largest cases of election-related fraud in recent history. Across the state, elections supervisors say theyhave been sent thousands of fraudulent petition forms supporting a constitutional amendment to expand casino gaming in the state. Although the forms are supposed to reflect real Floridians voicing support for a change to the state’s constitution, many include the names of dead people or the forged signatures of real voters. The petition drive is financed by Las Vegas Sands, whose late owner, Sheldon Adelson, was a megadonor to Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Republican party. Miriam Adelson, Sheldon Adelson’s widow, has a majority stake in the company. Las Vegas Sands has spent $49.5 million trying to get an amendment on the November ballot that would allow card rooms in Florida to be converted to Vegas-style casinos. The number of suspicious or hard-to-verify petitions have buried county elections supervisors and their staff trying to sort through them. In one case, Marion County Supervisor of Elections Wesley Wilcox found both his and his wife’s signatures forged on petition forms. Opponents of the measure have also accused organizers of fueling their effort by paying petition gatherers by the signature, rather than by the hour, which DeSantis pushed the Legislature to make illegal in 2019. The petition activity caught the attention of Secretary of State Laurel Lee last year. In a Dec. 3 letter, her office referred claims of fraudulent petitions by six county elections supervisors to Attorney General Ashley Moody, warning her not to wait for a criminal investigation to stop “additional fraudulent acts against voters.” Lee’s office is reviewing the petitions and considering whether to levy fines. The committee created to get the proposed amendment on the ballot is Florida Voters in Charge. “The idea that our committee would purposely submit fraudulent petitions is ridiculous,” said Jim McKee, the attorney for the committee. “This would not help our effort in any way.” He noted that state law requires them to submit every petition they receive, and they’re not allowed to screen those petitions. “Every petition identifies the individual who collected it and we would encourage law enforcement to investigate any petitions of concern,” McKee said in a statement. Election fraud has been a popular refrain among Republicans and DeSantis, who has been under pressure by some in his party to audit Florida’s 2020 election. DeSantis has resisted, instead calling for tougher penalties for some forms of election fraud, the creation of a 52-person unit to investigate those crimes and a ban on vote-by-mail ballot drop boxes. DeSantis has not made much public mention of this suspected fraud, although his administration is aware of the issue. Lee’s three-page letter, written by Lee’s assistant general counsel, mentioned hundreds of suspected fraudulent petitions submitted by more than a dozen petition gatherers across the state from Oct. 14 to Dec. 1 last year. (The letter did not specify which petitions are suspected of being fraudulent, but supervisors said the casino gaming amendment is the source of suspicious activity.) The letter noted a provision of state law that would allow the attorney general to stop the suspected fraud without having to wait for law enforcement to build a criminal case. READ THE LETTER HERE State law on initiatives allows the secretary of state to refer cases to the attorney general if the secretary “reasonably believes” someone, or some entity, has broken state law. The letter notes that under the statute, when the secretary of state makes such a finding, the attorney general can seek an injunction in court to temporarily, or permanently, stop that illegal activity. “While law enforcement and state attorney’s efforts continue,” the letter to Moody’s office states, “it may be appropriate and beneficial to voters and supervisors of elections offices to seek injunctive or other relief to prohibit the circulators at issue from continuing to circulate petitions and committing additional fraudulent acts against voters.” Moody hasn’t taken such action, however, and her spokespeople did not answer when asked why. They said that once the Department of Law Enforcement reviews the case, the Office of Statewide Prosecutor would review their findings. Organizers for Las Vegas Sands said they were not aware of any investigation by the attorney general’s office. (For years, Sands’ lead lobbyist has been Nick Iarossi, considered one of the closest lobbyists in Florida to Gov. Ron DeSantis and whose client portfolio has grown since DeSantis came into office.) The secretary of state’s letter also said it was referring the examples to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.A spokesperson for the Department of Law Enforcement said it was providing “investigative assistance” to state attorney Bill Gladson, whose district covers five counties including Marion. Gladson confirmed he’s assigned an investigator to look into it. Prosecutors in Duval County confirmed they are investigating the petitions as well. A spokesperson for DeSantis’ office said that the matter had been referred to Moody’s office and the state Department of Law Enforcement, adding that “the state office is not involved in political fundraising.” Illegal payments-per-signature alleged Over the last year, organizers for Las Vegas Sands have been in a literal street fight with the Seminole Tribe over its gambling initiative. While Las Vegas Sands has poured millions into gathering signatures, the Tribe, which has a monopoly on casino-style gambling in Florida, has been spending millions to stop it, hiring away the Sands’ petition circulators and paying people to observe and record signature-gatherers. Las Vegas Sands’ amendment would allow card rooms across the state to be converted to Las Vegas-style casinos under the condition that they are located 130 miles from the tribe’s Hard Rock and other casinos, a description widely believed to be intended for a casino in Jacksonville. Sands is also proposing another amendment that would authorize three new casinos to conduct Las Vegas-style games in Florida. The Tribe paid a Palm Beach-based firm, Cornerstone Solutions, $6 million through its political committee, Standing Up For Florida, and bought $4 million in campaign-style media ads to oppose the Sands effort. The committee launched a separate petition drive, known as a plebiscite, that asked voters to show support for their cause but was not intended to change state law. Sands accused the Tribe of using the plebiscite to confuse voters. Petitioners faced a Dec. 30 deadline to finish gathering the required 891,589 signatures in order to give election officials in each county enough time to validate the authenticity of the signatures so that the measures could be placed on the ballot by the Feb. 1 deadline. So far, they have about 566,000, an indication they likely won’t make it, although supervisors have until the end of January to count signatures. The infusion of unprecedented amounts of money into the petition-gathering process has led to fights at gas stations and parking lots across the state and accusations from both sides of intimidation and abuse. RELATED:Dueling sides on Florida gaming report physical fights, arguments Organizers for the Tribe have also alleged in court documents that organizers for Las Vegas Sands have been paying petition circulators based on the number of signatures they collect, which is a first-degree misdemeanor under state law punishable by up to a year in jail. They’ve produced contracts and affidavits from people who worked on the company’s petition drive. One of those people signed an affidavit stating he was hired to gather signatures, and his contract stated he was paid $450,000 for every 25,000 petitions he submitted, up to $2.7 million. Another person, Larry Laws, was hired by a different company to produce signature-gatherers for the effort. His affidavit states that while the contracts stated that employees would be paid hourly, instead of per signature, petition circulators would also be paid a “bonus” of $2,500 for every 300 signatures, which was not in the contract. In response, McKee said, “All of (Florida Voters in Charge’s) contracts comply with Florida law.” Laws also said that he was instructed by the company that hired him to destroy at least 2,000 petitions that they suspected would be rejected by local elections supervisors. The petitions were from 15 counties in the state. Instead of destroying them, his affidavit says that he sent them to the secretary of state. (Laws stopped working for the Sands contractor, and he said he’s now working on a variety of other jobs, including helping the Seminole Tribe.) In an interview with theTimes/Herald, Laws said he’s been in the petition-gathering business for decades, and helped gather signatures for many successful ballot initiatives, including the 2018 amendment allowing people with felony convictions to vote and the 2020 amendment raising the state’s minimum wage. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this, in the money that’s been spent, in my whole 25 years,” Laws said. He said that since sending the petitions to the secretary of state in late November, he hasn’t heard back from that office or from any law enforcement agency. Laws estimates that the contractors he hired helped collect at least 200,000 signatures for the effort. He said all of those were collected by paying petitioners per signature. Elections supervisors overwhelmed Thousands of suspected fraudulent petition forms have inundated local elections supervisors, who are responsible for verifying they were completed and signed by a Floridian. Wilcox, the Marion County elections supervisor, said his forged signature, and that of his wife, were on petition forms submitted to his office in November. He’s mailed letters to about 900 voters in his county whose names are on petition forms that are suspected of being fraudulent. Petition gatherers have been dropping off bundles of forms by the thousands at his office, but often more than 80 percent can’t be verified, he said. “Somebody will do 300 petitions and have two acceptances. It’s just astronomical,” said Wilcox, who also leads the Florida Supervisors of Elections, the organization representing the officials overseeing elections in the state’s 67 counties. Considering the number of petitions people are dropping off, and how many are suspected fraudulent, some petition circulators could face serious jail time, he said. Each petition includes the name of the circulator, along with an attestation the information is true under penalty of perjury, a violation ofwhich is a third-degree felony carrying up to five years in prison. “You put 20 of these together, oh my gosh, people are going to go to jail for 20, 30, 40 years,” Wilcox said. The secretary of state’s memo included suspected complaint forms from Duval, Gulf, Pinellas, Marion, Brevard and Bradford counties. The memo mentions that some forms include the names of dead people. In some cases, a petition circulator signed another circulator’s forms. The Duval supervisor referred more than 1,200 petition forms to local prosecutors, her memo states. In Broward County, Elections Supervisor Joe Scott said about half of the more than 125,000 petitions he’s received for the gaming initiative have been rejected. He doesn’t know how many, if any, are fraudulent, but he said he met with his state attorney on Wednesday to discuss a potential investigation. Rejected petitions take about three to four times longer to process than verified petitions, he said. All supervisors charge a fee to process those forms, and both he and Wilcox said they would be raising rates because of the sheer number of rejected petitions received in the last year. “That’s the biggest concern,” Scott said. “They’re making it harder for other people to do petition drives because they’re raising the cost for everybody.”
But ....why is everyone flocking to Florida if DeSantis is so bad.... $5,000 Bonuses For Police Who Move To Florida? DeSantis Wants Reward For Officers Who Oppose Vaccine Mandates Florida is “actively working to recruit out-of-state law enforcement,” DeSantis said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, claiming Covid-19 vaccine mandates are “unconstitutional.” The governor said he is “going to hopefully sign” legislation that would give each police officer a $5,000 bonus if they relocate. “NYPD, Minneapolis, Seattle: If you’re not being treated well, we’ll treat you better here, you can fill important needs for us, and we’ll compensate you as a result,” DeSantis said Sunday.
And let's take a look at the record of the police officers who have been attracted to move to Florida by DeSantis. Most have long disciplinary records. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/desantis-for-the-win.345108/page-532#post-5493568
So much "winning" by DeSantis. He now has won the award for deliberately undermining the state's capability to properly report Omicron information. Florida’s omicron wave could be worse than data shows Missing data and strained testing infrastructure hamper the ability of experts to track COVID-19. https://www.tampabay.com/news/healt...-omicron-wave-could-be-worse-than-data-shows/
DeSantis won’t say if he’s boosted against COVID-19, says status could be used as ‘weapon’ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis refused to answer a question on whether he’s received a COVID-19 booster shot, calling it a “private matter.” “So that’s something that, you know, I think people should just make their own decisions on,” DeSantis said when asked directly about his booster status at a news conference on Friday in Sarasota. “I’m not going to let that be a weapon for people to be able to use.” The comment could be taken as an acknowledgment that admitting his booster status could be a political problem for DeSantis, said Mac Stipanovich, a Tallahassee consultant.
The Feds are going to take action to stop DeSantis from peddling expensive snake oil that doesn't work for treating Omicron Covid. Feds May Stop DeSantis From Loading Up On Monoclonal Antibody Treatments Ineffective Against Omicron https://www.wonkette.com/feds-may-s...tibody-treatments-ineffective-against-omicron Republicans have always loved to complain about "tax and spend" liberals, but the fact is, both parties like to spend — Democrats just usually like to spend money in ways that benefit regular Americans and Republicans like to spend money on things that either benefit rich people or involve messing with other countries in some capacity. When they do want to spend money on things that supposedly help people, those things are traditionally the least effective way to reach a particular goal. Taking funds from struggling schools in order to partially pay for a few kids to go to private school is not a particularly constructive use of tax dollars. Tax breaks for rich folks don't do a ton to stimulate the economy. Let's not even get started on trying to spend money on border walls when planes exist. And yeah. It is completely ridiculous to spend as much money as we do on defense when we don't have universal healthcare. Like we have to spend 40 percent of the entire world's military spending to "protect American lives," supposedly, even when no one is trying to attack us, but we're totally fine if people die because they can't afford health care. I'd say this makes no sense, but I suppose it does make sense if you only care if rich people live or die. Speaking of health care — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has gone balls to the wall when it comes to monoclonal antibody treatments. This initially made a little bit of sense, despite the high price tag, given that these treatments are the only treatments that are known to be both effective and accepted by the kind of people who would elect Ron DeSantis to do anything. Alas — the treatments are not effective for Omicron. Tests have shown they're not effective against Omicron. Regeneron, the company that makes them has been saying for several months now that they are not effective against Omicron. Despite this, 13,000 monoclonal antibody treatments have been given in Florida over the past two weeks, and the state plans to open up even more monoclonal antibody treatment centers in the coming days. However, it's possible that he may not be able to keep this up, as federal authorities are considering limiting the amount of monoclonal antibody treatments being given out, due to the fact that 99 percent of US COVID cases are Omicron and the treatments won't do anything for that. Via CNN: Federal regulators are considering limiting the authorization of certain monoclonal antibody treatments that have not proved effective against the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, a source familiar with the decision-making told CNN. The US Food and Drug Administration could decide in the coming days to take steps to curb the use of antibody treatments produced by Eli Lilly and Regeneron, the source said, pointing to the growing body of evidence that shows their monoclonal therapies don't effectively neutralize the virus' Omicron variant.The National Institutes of Health had recently updated its guidelines to advise clinics against using these treatments on patients with mild to moderate Covid-19 due to their diminished effectiveness against the Omicron variant. This, clearly, makes the most sense. Otherwise it's the "the food was terrible, and in such small portions" treatment of the pandemic. Of course, DeSantis probably can't backtrack now, and will likely insist that the treatments are effective, while claiming that the federal government is trying to murder Florida by not letting the state have all of the monoclonal antibody treatments — because that is what he does. And the people who vote for him in Florida will believe him, because, again, they are the kind of people who would vote for Ron DeSantis to begin with. [CNN]