What’s That Saying About Getting Your House In Order First?

All that gallivanting around the country assailing immigrants and trans people maybe DeSantis should take care of the state needs firsts.

Florida has a health care crisis. The obsession with culture wars won't fix it
Sarasota Herald-Tribune Editorial Board
September 20, 2022


Sarasota Memorial Hospital deserves praise for its move to hire scores of medical staffers from the Philippines, including 50 nurses, between now and early 2023.

[…]

But the mere fact that Sarasota County’s largest employer is actively recruiting foreign medical professionals to boost its personnel levels shows – yet again – why health care should be a prominent issue in the November gubernatorial contest between Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist.

That makes it even more galling that thanks to our state's seemingly endless loop of culturewar debates and stunts – the latest being DeSantis’ utterly dehumanizing decision to use taxpayer money to fly two planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard under clearly suspicious pretenses – Florida’s health care challenges are unlikely to receive the focus they deserve during the governor's race.

DeSantis goes around the country lambasting immigrants and LGBTQ+ people but meanwhile the state is crumbling!

According to the United Health Foundation’s 2021  “America’s Health Rankings” report, which was released last December, Florida ranked a woeful 47th in the nation in providing access to health care for its uninsured citizens.

His answer to the lack of teachers is to hire retired police officers!

After giving military veterans easier access to temporary teaching certificates, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday said he wants state legislators to expand that same option for law enforcement officers and other first responders next year.

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“Just like we do for veterans, we will do for the other first responders,” DeSantis said at a news conference in New Port Richey on Tuesday morning. “We will waive the exam fees for the state certification program.”

Participants must have a bachelor’s degree and those who sign up will be eligible for a $4,000 bonus. If they teach courses or subject matters that are experiencing “really acute shortages,” DeSantis said they will get another $1,000.

Oh yeah they really know how to teach! And they don’t even have to take any teaching classes! Can you imagine a policeman teaching calculus? Our a former Afghan veteran teaching a class about dangling participle?

Just like the professor in the Wizard of Oz, don’t look behind the curtain… look… look at these DRAG QUEENS!

Don’t look at the shy high insurance rates!

Don’t look at the shortages in teachers!

Don’t look at the shortages in healthcare providers!

Don’t look at the crumbling infrastructure!

Just look at these horrible drag queens reading stories to children!

But instead of Florida problems, DeSantis goes around the country rallying votes against us and immigrants for his presidential candidacy.

And you know what?

The voters eat it up, eat up all the white supremacists talk about immigrants taking jobs away from the citizens (Never mind that they take jobs that no one else wants), they eat up that the immoral drags queens are grooming child (Never mind the fact that nothing immoral is happening.), and never mind that all the voter fraud is being done by Republican voters.

It is time to wake up to the smoke and mirrors.

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An editorial in the Washington Post by Andreas Kluth Texas and Florida Are Going Full Belarus on Migrants says;

Here’s an opening question: Are Greg Abbott and Ron Desantis, the Republican governors of Texas and Florida, respectively, moral analogs to Alexander Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus, or Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the strongman president of Turkey?

Lukashenko and Erdogan have used some of the most vulnerable human beings in the world — refugees from the Middle East — as pawns in their games against perceived political enemies in the European Union. Erdogan has prodded migrants to cross Turkey’s land and sea borders with Greece. Lukashenko has flown refugees to Belarus before herding them toward Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

Abbott and Desantis are doing something similar. In their games, Venezuelans and other Latin Americans assume the role of Syrians or Afghans. And “blue” states such as New York, Illinois or Massachusetts, and “sanctuary cities” such as New York or Washington, D.C., play the part of the EU.

[…]

Almost all European countries nowadays have far-right populist parties whose rhetoric ranges from merely anti-immigrant to downright xenophobic. In places such as Hungary and Poland they’re in power; in Italy and elsewhere they could soon be. They do well whenever parts of the electorate feel anxious — about their wallets, safety or way of life — amid the ominous presence of large numbers of exotic-looking foreigners. (When refugees look less exotic, like the Ukrainians who’ve fled to Poland, the backlash tends to be manageable.)

And lets not forget us.

Turkey and Belarus both had anti-LGBTQ+ rallies and have passed laws against us.

The Republicans are taking us down the path to a dictatorship and authoritarianism.