Free Republic

On his top-rated talk radio program Thursday, Rush Limbaugh kicked off a segment by announcing a rare honor bestowed by the “EIB Limbaugh Institute”: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is now officially “the closest that we’ve ever had to a graduate” of his prestigious institute, Limbaugh said. The reason the Republican governor has been awarded the honor, the host explained, is his thorough throttling of the media for their partisan coverage of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I want to start with a graduate or the closest that we’ve ever had to a graduate, of the EIB Limbaugh Institute, and...

The promises and predictions in the media have been plentiful. The failing of those pandemic predictions has nearly been as widespread. As consistently wrong as these seers of doom in the press have been there is one other failing they have been adept at delivering; holding local officials accountable. Headlines have blared about governors making decisions which could lead to disaster, but when it comes to those who have instituted provably bad policy there has been far less enthusiasm. For a time New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) had been something of a media darling. For a time he was...

Dozens of media outlets, both in Florida and nationally, published the sensational story of Dr. Rebekah Jones, a state Department of Health employee who was fired by the administration of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump ally, after – she says – she refused to manipulate data to support the governor’s plan to reopen the state. But a deeper look at the underlying facts expose a less sensational, yet all-too-common narrative: a media feeding frenzy caused by a deep-seated desire to report on scandal and cover-ups, which Rebekah Jones’ claims delivered – if only they were true. They are not....

The pandemic has stripped millions of work, community, and hope. As local governments extend quarantine orders, urbanites like me are starting to wonder: what is the point of city life? This week marks just over two months since most states instituted shelter-in-place orders to contain COVID-19, and with this milestone came an apparent turn in the tide of public opinion—or at least, public behavior—on social distancing.Even as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and one of President Trump’s most prominent pandemic advisors, warned against rolling back lockdown orders in his testimony to Congress...

At around the time New York’s state health department under Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a directive prohibiting nursing homes from testing recovering coronavirus patients prior to admission, Florida under Gov. Ron DeSantis issued its own executive order strictly regulating incoming patients to protect those facilities from the epidemic. About a month and a half later, the differences are staggering. The latest tallies show that in Florida 745 residents and staff at long-term care facilities across the state have died from coronavirus although the numbers continue to rise in the state and nationwide. This compared to New York’s 5,300 dead in...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had a message on Thursday for other governors who have implemented “really draconian, arbitrary restrictions” during the coronavirus outbreak, saying, “You don't have unlimited authority and people do have rights.” DeSantis made the comments on “Fox & Friends” in response to a question from host Ainsley Earhardt, who asked if he thinks that “some of these governors that are just doing a one-size-fits-all for the entire state” are “being too strict and going too far.” “I don't think any governor has the authority to restrict anyone unless there’s a direct relationship to combating this virus,” DeSantis...

The Wearing of the Masks and DeSantis By: Jordon Westcoat, BNJ Contributor Once again Trumpians are saying that the real reason for the mask is to scare the bejesus out of all of us so that we will be willing to give up our first born to the whims of so-called medical experts. Ridiculous! The masks save lives. Without them millions more people will die of the deadly Covid! All Trump cares about is money. He didn’t want to secure everyone in a safe space because he is afraid of losing the election; especially, if the economy crashes and many...

As Florida prepares to ease a month-long shutdown, Gov. Ron DeSantis delivered a scathing rebuttal of apocalyptic predictions for his state that were breathlessly hyped by the news media and proven wrong during the coronavirus crisis. The governor showed slides of media stories warning that Florida would quickly run out of hospital beds while predicting the state would be the “next New York” or even a disastrous “uber Italy.” Instead, the state with one of the most vulnerable populations due to age is faring well among the big states that were hit and is nowhere close to New York’s unfortunate...

The New York Times' Bret Stephens took a lot of heat for arguing New York lockdown rules don't fit the rest of the country. I know the feeling. Bret Stephens has a tough job. I don’t mean like 19th-century coal miner tough, but as one of the “conservative” opinion contributors at The New York Times, he winds up pleasing none of the people a lot of the time. This is because much of the Grey Lady’s leftist readership doesn’t think the Times should run conservative views at all and much of the American right finds the anti-Trump “can’t we go...

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Ron DeSantis. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Ron DeSantis is Govenor of Florida. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of the puzzle into the white squares on the bottom half (answer grid) belowEach letter must stay in its own column within the gridEach...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that his state has beat back the COVID-19 epidemic without using “draconian orders.” “I got to give credit to the people of Florida,” DeSantis said on “Fox & Friends,” adding that there were predictions that Florida would be “worse than New York” state, which is the U.S. epicenter. DeSantis came under fire from critics who said that he was too slow to implement a statewide stay-at-home order like other states. Some said that because of the state’s significant amount of elderly and retired residents, Florida would suffer greatly during the pandemic. “If you look...

Hello welcome aboard as we consider the "Dictatorship of Covid 19" and some protests like the one in the key battleground political state of Michigan last Wednesday and the one planned in another key battleground political state of Pennsylvania set for Monday. They aim at the Democrats who govern the states President Trump won in 2016 and needs to win this year. But where are the protests against the Republican governors and their house arrest, shut down the economy orders in the battleground states of Florida and Ohio? Ohio's Republican Governor Mike DeWine an early imposer of house arrest and...

<p>ACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Florida’s governor on Friday gave the green light for some beaches and parks to reopen if it can be done safely after being closed because of the coronavirus.</p> <p>Gov. Ron DeSantis’ announcement came as north Florida beaches became among the first to allow allow beach-goers to return since the virus-induced closures.</p>

A federal judge in Florida on Monday shot down an emergency request from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) and fellow beachfront property owners to be exempted from a public health order that cut off beach access during the pandemic. Huckabee, the father of President Trump’s former White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, argued that a county ordinance blocking him from access to the Gulf of Mexico shoreline behind his estimated $3.3 million home violated his constitutional rights. U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson on Monday denied the suit brought by Huckabee and more than a dozen other plaintiffs that...

Why are governments the world over rendering hundreds of millions of their citizens jobless, impoverishing at least a billion people, endangering the family life of millions (straining marriages, increasing child and spousal abuse, and further postponing marriage among young people), bankrupting vast numbers of business owners and workers living paycheck to paycheck, and increasing suicides? The reason given is that we must lock down virtually all human social and economic activity in order to prevent millions of people from dying of the coronavirus and overwhelming hospitals. But is it true? Was this lockdown necessary? In order to answer these questions,...

ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a news conference Tuesday that he believes COVID-19, the novel coronavirus responsible for the current global pandemic, was circulating in the state during this year’s Super Bowl game, which was held in South Florida, the area of the Sunshine State with the most positive cases of the virus. Super Bowl LIV was held Feb. 2 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, but it wasn’t until about one month later, on March 1, that the governor announced Florida’s first positive cases of COVID-19. According to the Sun Sentinel, attendance at Hard...

There now seems to be a magic word that triggers many liberals including those who work at Politico. And that magic word is "hydroxychloroquine." Why? After all the early reports from doctors around the world reveal that it can be an effective treatment for coronavirus. So what's not to like? Well, President Donald Trump, that's who. Since the Orange Man has stated that hydroxychloroquine could be a great aid in treating coronavirus, liberals reflexively reacted that it must be bad. All evidence pointing to the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine must now be written off by them as some sort of Trump...

BAHAM: At The Florida State Line, “Your Papers, Please” March 31st, 2020 Mike Bayham Governor Ron DeSantis issued an executive order adding people traveling to Florida who are from Louisiana or have stayed a night in the Pelican State to a 14-Day “self-isolate” order, with the highway patrol charged with enforcement along the state line Florida shares with Alabama and Georgia via checkpoints. That a state would set up screening stations along the borders for more than weighing 18-wheelers was hard for me to even conceptualize. And as we are living through an unfortunate historic time, I wanted to see...

Republican governors issue orders to stay home giving them a new and different name but first.... "We discussed with each other whether our rights can be taken by an order from a governor or an agency, and if they can be, what good are our rights?" Ammon Bundy spoke those words Friday following a Thursday night meeting in Emmett, Idaho in response to the "stay at home" order issued by Idaho's Republican Governor Brad Little.... In Iraq the United States has deployed two Patriot missile batteries and is expected to eventually deploy at least four.... The Saudi-led coalition staging air...

ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday announced that he is issuing a stay-at-home order for the southern portion of the state as the number of positive coronavirus cases grows. The order will apply to Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Monroe counties through the middle of May. “The ‘Safer-At-Home’ [order] is the right move for southeast Florida,” DeSantis said at a press conference at the Hard Rock Stadium, just north of Miami. “This is the time to do the right thing. Listen to all of your local officials.” “We will do this through the middle of May,...