Ron DeSantis

This week, the Florida Democratic Party released a YouTube video entitled “My Body, My Choice," featuring Florida Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book, who represents part of Broward County in the Senate. She said in the video that “any attempt to do what has been done in Texas is a complete, all out assault on women's rights."

“And we will do everything in our power to stop this from happening," said Book.

Although far-right Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has drawn a great deal of criticism from health experts for downplaying the severity of COVID-19 in his state, none of that criticism has inspired him to change course. And when a press conference on vaccines was held this week, DeSantis failed to push back against false claims promoted by an anti-vaxxer.

The anti-vaxxer, according to Washington Post reporter Timothy Bella, was Darris Friend, a 22-year-old employee of Gainesville, Florida's city government. Friend is a plaintiff in a right-wing lawsuit challenging Gainesville's requirement that employees get a COVID-19 vaccine.

The White House correspondent for the right-wing Newsmax network suggested on air that the Biden administration was withholding COVID-19 medication from Florida to politically hurt Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Emerald Robinson agreed with host Rob Finnerty, who was, in turn amplifying a conspiracy theory floated by Donald Trump Jr., that President Joe Biden was punishing his political enemies by "restricting their ability to secure life-saving monoclonal antibody treatments for all that need them."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is fighting subpoenas for depositions from Surgeon General Dr. Scott Rivkees in the lawsuit with school boards over mask mandates. The challenge, in this case, is that the Health Department overstepped its authority when it issued an emergency rule banning masks in schools.

According to the Miami Herald, Florida Department of Health lawyers are trying to block the deposition from the doctor, who has been mum on the mask issue as COVID-19 ravages the state.

Florida, which has been hit hard by the recent COVID-19 surge, is seeing some intense battles over mask mandates in public schools. Gov. Ron DeSantis, by executive order, has prohibited such mandates — and schools officials in Sarasota County are defying them, much to the chagrin of chiropractor Dan Bush. Things quickly became testy when CNN's Randi Kaye wanted to talk to him why he's signed medical exemptions for "hundreds" of Florida students.

Kaye wanted to know: "Are you examining each and every child? Are you putting child's lives at risk by signing these forms?"

Lawyer Daniel Uhlfelder, better known as the beach Grim Reaper, was one of those who sued Gov. Ron DeSantis during the 2020 season for relaxing the lockdown to ensure tourism. When DeSantis refused to close beaches, Uhlfelder dressed up as the Reaper and went walking through sands as a reminder to folks that they were endangering lives.

Uhlfelder took DeSantis to court which was dismissed, but the three-judge panel on the First District Court of Appeal took things a step further seeking to punish the lawyer for the lawsuit. Earlier this week, the Orlando Sentinel accused the court of playing favorites, citing a slew of cases against city ordinances by state Rep. Anthony Sabatini.

On Wednesday's edition of CNN's "OutFront," William Marsh, the New Hampshire lawmaker who made waves this week by switching from Republican to Democratic, blasted his party for attacking vaccines — and compared the efforts of the state GOP to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who has sought to block all local health mandates as Florida sees some of the worst COVID-19 rates in the nation.

"I also want everyone to know, Representative, you're also a doctor," said anchor Erin Burnett. "So these objections to vaccine mandates obviously aren't new among Republicans, so what led you to do this now?"

On Tuesday, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that a doctor in east-central Pennsylvania could face professional sanctions after offering a form letter on his website allowing families to claim an exemption from school mask mandates.

"Joel Yeager, of Heritage Family Health in Newmansville, Pa., in Lebanon County, posted the form letter on his website last week and the link began circulating among Pennsylvania anti-mask Facebook groups," reported Juliana Feliciano Reyes. "The Wolf administration said it is aware of these stock exemptions and would be referring doctors that author them 'to the appropriate licensing boards for possible disciplinary action.' Yeager has since removed the letter from his website and his practice's Facebook page but it is still available online."

The Editorial Board of the Orlando Sentinel is accusing a Florida court of playing politics with a lawyer known for attacking Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and his role in making the COVID crisis worse.

Attorney Dan Uhlfelder became known during the pandemic for walking around beaches dressed as the Grim Reaper, but he also sued the DeSantis administration for opening beaches despite the spread of COVID-19. As a result of his lawsuit and a quip Uhlfelder made about it, the three-judge panel on the First District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee are demanding an investigation into him for misconduct and criminal contempt of court.

On Tuesday, writing to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Patrick Bennett of Dade City, a self-described conservative who voted for former President Donald Trump twice, proclaimed he was "totally fed up" with Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Bennett singled out DeSantis' refusal to apply for federal pandemic food aid for children, saying that "he literally takes food out of the mouths of babes because his own table is bountiful" and that he appears to think he is the "dictator" of Florida.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday stood by and watched as a man at an anti-vaccine mandate event spewed misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine, and then didn't correct him when given the chance.

At the event, one of the speakers claimed that the COVID vaccine "changes your RNA," when in reality the vaccines use messenger RNA to instruct your cells to produce protein spikes similar to the ones that the novel coronavirus uses to penetrate cellular membranes.

Republican presidential hopefuls are dipping their toes into the 2024 campaign but steering clear of the former president.

Donald Trump seems increasingly likely to announce he'll seek a rematch against President Joe Biden, but several would-be challengers -- Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence -- tiptoed around the twice-impeached one-term president Sunday at a Nebraska steak fry just across the Missouri River from Iowa, where the first presidential primary will be held in less than three years, reported Politico.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) abandoned his state to go on the road while his state continues to suffer from a high number of COVID cases and deaths, Politico reported Sunday.

In Nebraska, DeSantis sat with other Republican leaders like Vice President Mike Pence over steaks for the fifth steak-fry event with about 1200 GOP voters. The event is just across the river from the first-in-the-nation Iowa election.