'State of the State' shows Ron DeSantis' state of mind is not really on Florida

The 2022 State of the State delivered by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was more a continued tour for his national profile than a report on the Sunshine State. All state-of addresses are really craftily disguised campaign speeches. But DeSantis seemed adamant to let his White House ambitions show.

The guv said some form of the word free or freedom at least a dozen times. He took a gratuitous swipe at Dr. Anthony Fauci and called what we can assume is the Center for Disease Control a “coercive biomedical apparatus.”

Is it because he knows his audience?

The following is a play-by-play of much, but not all, of what the governor said, which can also be read here.

“Together we have made Florida the freest state in these United States,” DeSantis began, addressing the joint chambers and the cabinet, of which only Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Nikki Fried — the only Democrat and a potential opponent in November’s guv race — wore a face mask as they walked into chambers.

“While so many around the country have consigned the people’s rights to the graveyard, Florida has stood as freedom’s vanguard,” DeSantis said, with much disregard for the families of the 62,813 Floridians who had died of COVID-19 as of Tuesday.

“We have protected the right of our citizens to earn a living, provided our businesses with the ability to prosper, fought back against unconstitutional federal mandates and ensured our kids have the opportunity to thrive.”

Nothing about how the hospitalization rate for children under five has nearly doubled since mid-December. Nothing about Florida having daily records of new cases for weeks in a row. Instead, he talked about how everyone from California and New York are coming here — a perfect segway into the national issues he’s been dabbling in for a 2024 VP slot.

“Florida has become the escape hatch for those chafing under authoritarian, arbitrary and seemingly never-ending mandates and restrictions,” DeSantis said, or read from teleprompters. “Even today, across the nation we see students denied an education due to reckless, politically-motivated school closures, workers denied employment due to heavy-handed mandates and Americans denied freedoms due to a coercive biomedical apparatus.

“These unprecedented policies have been as ineffective as they have been destructive. They are grounded more in blind adherence to Faucian declarations than they are in the constitutional traditions that are the foundation of free nations.”

There he goes with the Faucian word. Can we come up with something for DeSatan? DeSastre is not for everybody. Fascist-in-training is too long.

“Florida is a free state,” DeSastre said, as the mostly GOP legislature applauded. “We reject the biomedical security state that curtails liberty, ruins livelihoods and divides society. And we will protect the rights of individuals to live their lives free from the yoke of restrictions and mandates.”

Yeah, he likes that word, too.

“Florida has stood strong as the rock of freedom. And upon this rock we must build Florida’s future,” he said.

What happened to this rock of freedom last year when he pushed for an “anti-protest” bill in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter demonstrators in the aftermath of yet another black man unnecessarily killed by police? What happened to this rock of freedom when DeSantis tried to deny university faculty their right to free speech by threatening their funding?

Maybe pebble of freedom is a better analogy.

DeSantis also got into the budget and bragged about Florida’s outlook and strong economic performance amid the burdens experienced nationwide. His recommended $99.7 budget has more than $15 billion in reserves. “One of the largest surpluses in state history,” he said.

And is that the best thing to have right now? Especially if revenues continue to “exceed estimates by billions of dollars.” We don’t have any pressing needs?

The governor also boasted about job creation in Florida exceeding the national average and how business formations have spiked by 61% — since he took office in 2019. But no mention of the thousands of businesses that have closed permanently because of COVID19. And how many of these new jobs are really old jobs that are finally coming back online?

“Freedom works. Our economy is the envy of the nation. And the state is well-prepared to withstand future economic turmoil,” DeSantis said.

“Our nation is, though, facing economic problems stemming from reckless federal policies, especially the most sustained Inflation our country has witnessed in decades. The federal government has borrowed and printed unprecedented sums of money, and the bill is coming due.”

Well, aren’t those $15 billion in reserves thanks to the federal stimulus dollars from the White House that he loves to criticize? What a hypocrit.

Seizing on the topic of gas prices, DeSantis — who, remember, is facing a challenged re-election in 11 months — proposes a $1 billion gas tax holiday to reduce prices at the pump. “If Washington, D.C., won’t change course, then we have a responsibility to step up on behalf of Floridians.”

This stinks of campaign strategy.

So does the $1,000 bonus to all teachers, school principals and paramedics.

On education, DeSantis did say he wanted to eliminate the FSA test and replace it with period progress monitoring which will provide teachers with more time to teach and parents with more meaningful, regular feedback.

But he also couldn’t help but crow about the school mask fight. He does want keep being invited to Fox News, right?

“Florida has led the way in putting our kids first,” DeSantis said. “In the summer of 2020, when it wasn’t fashionable, we made clear that kids needed to be in school. We faced opposition — from hysterical media, from unions and the politicians they control. We even faced lawsuits aiming to close the schools, but we wouldn’t allow fear or politics to harm our kids.”

Nah. The virus can harm them instead.

As has become standard during these state-of speeches, DeSantis paraded a bunch of Floridians to connect with different voter blocs — the teacher, the parent, the law enforcement officer (from the North Miami Police Department), the elderly war veteran and his wife who both used monoclonal treatments to make full recoveries from COVID and a guy who caught 41 pythons in the statewide “contest” to rid the Everglades of this invasive species.

He topped it all off with the family of a victim of the Champlain Towers collapse in what turned out to be a pretty grotesque use of the tragedy to further his political agenda. Ladra winced for the family of 92-year-old Hilda Noriega, one of the 98 victims who perished June 24.

“The grief and anguish endured by the Noriega family and the other Surfside families has been overwhelming, and reminds us that ‘The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he saves those whose spirits are crushed.’”

And if that’s not scary enough, he brought up possible new restrictions on abortions, expansion and protections for gun laws and mass shootings, a “voting integrity unit” to ensure voting laws are followed (read: voter repression), supply chains that are “captive to the whims of a country such as Communist China,” the crisis at the US-Mexico border — which last seen was not near Florida — a massive influx of fentanyl and the federal government releasing hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, “shipping them to Florida at alarming rates, including by sending clandestine flights in the dark of night.”

In the dark of night!

For a second there, it sounded like a fireside story at summer camp.

“As a state, we cannot be a party to what is effectively a massive human smuggling operation run by the federal government. Companies who are facilitating the movement of illegal aliens from the southern border to Florida should be held accountable, including by paying restitution to the state for all the costs they are imposing on our communities. I am also requesting funds so that when the feds dump illegal aliens in Florida, the state can re-route them to states that have sanctuary policies,” he said.

This is good for fundraising efforts. Which was what the State of the State address really was: a giant fundraiser.

Ron DeSantis

‘State of the State’ shows Ron DeSantis’ state of mind is not really on Florida added by Ladra on January 12, 2022
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