If a half-eaten watermelon and Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis are engaged in a single-digit math battle for America’s safety, bet on the watermelon.
Seriously, if you accidentally shit on yourself, it should be called “pulling a DeSantis.”
Seriously seriously, the Florida governor’s lax behavior surrounding the latest wave of the coronavirus is going to get people killed.
As schools began to open back up, dumbass DeSantis announced that the “state Board of Education could withhold pay from school leaders who implement mask mandates for students,” NPR reports.
You read that correctly: DeSantis would punish educators for following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, which the Florida governor has ignored because he’s just going to white-man his way through a pandemic.
“Ultimately—Education funding is for the students. The kids didn’t make the decision to encroach upon parents’ rights. So any financial penalties for breaking the rule would be targeted to those officials who made that decision,” the governor’s spokeswoman, Christina Pushaw, said in a tweet, NPR reports.
NPR noted that “teachers and other employees’ pay would not be withheld.”
“Only the salaries of those superintendents and school board members who intentionally defy the EO and the subsequent rules protecting parents’ rights” could be affected by the latest directive, Pushaw explained.
Currently, Florida is battling an alarming COVID-19 spike fueled by ignorance and beer. NPR notes that case numbers are soaring and hospitals are full with COVID-19 patients, which include children.
Some 135 children have been hospitalized with the coronavirus as of Sunday.
“At no point shall I allow my decision to be influenced by a threat to my paycheck; a small price to pay considering the gravity of this issue and the potential impact to the health and well-being of our students and dedicated employees,” Miami-Dade Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said.
And what do Texas and Florida have in common?
Racism. And, a massive COVID outbreak because elected officials refuse to adhere to CDC mask guidelines.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is now begging for help to fight off the third wave of COVID-19 while two of the state’s largest school districts are like, “Fuck the governor, we are issuing are own mask mandate.”
From The Associated Press:
Abbott’s request Monday came as a county-owned hospital in Houston raised tents to accommodate their COVID-19 overflow. Private hospitals in the county already were requiring their staff to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Meantime, the Dallas and Austin school districts announced Monday that they would require students and staff to wear face masks. The Houston school district already announced a mask mandate for its students and staff later this week if its board approves.
The highly contagious delta variant is fueling the wave.
The Republican governor has directed the Texas Department of State Health Services to use staffing agencies to find additional medical staff from beyond the state’s borders as the delta wave began to overwhelm its present staffing resources. He also has sent a letter to the Texas Hospital Association to request that hospitals postpone all elective medical procedures voluntarily.
Hospital officials in Houston said last week that area hospitals with beds had insufficient numbers of nurses to serve them.
And while all of this is happening, the governor of Texas still won’t lift his dumb-ass ban on masks mandates because, well, he’s a fucking idiot.
“Abbott has said repeatedly that Texans have the information and intelligence to make their own decisions on what steps to take to protect their health and the health of those around them,” AP reports.
It would seem….Wait, I was starting to make sense, and we all know that you can’t argue with stupid.
You know who understands how we all feel? This guy: