The liberal media once again show themselves to be at odds with everyday Americans: applauding lawless behavior when it fits their agenda – think BLM or Antifa riots – and denouncing those who try to enforce the law.
The latest target of this mindset is Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis – who is being villainized because the state Department of Health ensured that Florida’s ban on COVID-19 vaccine passports was followed.
The controversy stems from a June 2 letter in which the department informed organizers of the Special Olympics that they were forbidden from imposing their own mask mandate. The department reminded them this illegal behavior would subject them to a $27.5 million fine – or $5,000 for each athlete.
The Special Olympics rescinded the mandate – much to the anger of the media.
A USA Today columnist bashed DeSantis, whose “cruelty and white nationalist-adjacency go beyond attacking the vulnerable, for being “particularly awful” in dealing with the Special Olympics. Even though state data show that the vaxxed make up a large percentage of those being sickened in the most recent surge.
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The Los Angeles Times called the proposed fine “legal extortion,” and an example of the “sheer thuggishness of the DeSantis administration.” Never mind the guy in the White House who wanted people to lose their jobs and homes because they objected to the government forcibly sticking them with a needle.
The Palm Beach Post declared that DeSantis has “hit bottom,” while Rolling Stone said the Special Olympics were the latest effort by DeSantis and his administration “to essentially punish organizations he deems to be insufficiently conservative. One of their latest targets is the Special Olympics.”
At a press conference on Monday, the governor’s office noted people who would have been barred from competing because of the mandate.
They included Cody Wanklyn of Kansas, who opted against a COVID vax because he had a seizure and was hospitalized after being prescribed a laxative that had the same ingredient as one of the mRNA vaccines.
Patrick Donelan, also of Kansas, is a powerlifter who is blind, and who was almost excluded because he refused the jab. Donelan wanted an exemption because he is in a stem-cell research trial that may allow him to gain his sight, and didn’t want the vax because it may risk his clinical tests.
And there were Isabelle Valle and Frank Vernoia, both of whom are golfers from Florida.
Valle has cerebral palsy and epilepsy and was advised by her doctor not to get vaxxed, while Vernoia also has epilepsy and decided that a vax might produce an adverse reaction.
Vernoia said he appreciated the efforts of the governor’s office and the Health Department to allow him to participate. “I want to thank all of them for fighting and standing up for us,” he said. “We got the best governor.”
Because of the law, 70 athletes who would have been banned were allowed to compete, according to the governor’s office.
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