The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) begins on Friday. According to the event's schedule, today will feature speeches from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and others. Watch live video below:
At a news conference on Wednesday, Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis defended Florida's failure to publish an official vaccine distribution plan, making it the only state with such an oversight according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
"If you notice, a lot of [states] adopted plans, and then they've already had to change the plans," DeSantis said. "We haven't done that."
He echoed that defense on Thursday: "I would point out, people say, 'Oh, well these other states have all these plans of when they're going to do it.' A lot of those plans haven't worked out," the governor said. "I mean, they've had to change their criteria from the beginning. They had plans in December, had to shift, most of them have shifted to doing what Florida is doing and so we're gonna continue with seniors first."
While Florida is one of only two states to have first prioritized all persons over the age of 65, regardless of health or occupational concerns, it has not yet announced when other demographic groups will become eligible for a vaccine. Although the state is currently approaching 2 million seniors vaccinated, its plan has left out healthcare workers and younger residents with underlying medical conditions that may be more vulnerable.
DeSantis initially suggested that workers in education and law enforcement would be the next to receive a vaccine dose. "We'll start with probably 50 and up," he hinted on Tuesday. But during Wednesday's presser, DeSantis withheld any official plans for the vaccine rollout, emphasizing the need for an open-ended approach. The same day, data science firm Cogitativo released a report that found Florida's lack of a future distribution plan might leave the Sunshine State vulnerable to "complete chaos."
Even using the CDC's Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), which measures the relative vulnerability between populations in order to assess which ones should be prioritized for vaccines, Cogitativo argues, Florida will suffer excess deaths as a result of COVID because the SVI "does not account for social determinants of health such as air quality or access to fresh food," as the report notes. the study notes.
According to Cogitativo's projections, Florida's current distribution trajectory would leave 48% of Florida counties in a vaccine deficit, with the top five counties being Palm Beach, Broward, Orange, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade. Florida would have a "combined shortage" of 694,990 vaccine doses. Cogitativo's study found that if Florida implemented a plan with "clinical data provides a clear view of the prevalence of health conditions — such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension — that are major risk factors for negative outcomes with the virus" it could save nearly 100,000 lives and avoid 840,760 hospitalizations.
Several potential Republican contenders are jockeying for position on the "Trump turnpike" this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Former president Donald Trump, who will begin his re-entry into politics with his CPAC speech, remains the GOP's undisputed leader, but contestants in the next two election cycles will also fire off the starting line in the event that he decides not to run for another term, reported Politico.
"There isn't a Trump lane," said GOP strategist Chris LaCivita. "There's a Trump Turnpike with multiple lanes and multiple people."
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who met with the former president last week and will speak at CPAC, said the next GOP nominee would be Trump -- or a candidate who pledged full loyalty to him.
"The winner of our primary [in 2024] will be someone from the Full Trump lane who embraces Trump and is embraced by him," Gaetz said.
That would include, as of now, CPAC speakers Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Florida Sen. Rick Scott, as well as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as loyal aspirants who abide by a saying in Trump's circle: "If you're with him 99 percent of the time, you're a damn traitor."
"Trump remains the 800-pound gorilla in the room, he just happens to be sitting in the corner right now," said former Michigan state chair Saul Anuzis. "[His Twitter ban is] more like an electronic dog fence. … You can definitely still hear the bark."
Republicans who have tried to stay on Trump's good side while occasionally criticizing him -- Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley -- have longer odds in a Trump-dominated GOP, while there's probably no path at all for "Trump zero" candidates such as Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) or Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.
"It's probably not even a lane," said Republican strategist David Kochel. "It's more like a gravelly shoulder on the side of the mountain that's about to crumble into the ocean."
Palm Beach County, home to Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, defied an order from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to lower flags to half-staff in honor of right-wing radio Rush Limbaugh, who recently passed away after a bout with lung cancer, 11Alive reports.
This Tuesday, DeSantis ordered U.S. and Florida flags to be flown at half-staff. He also ordered the Town of Palm Beach and the State Capitol in Tallahassee to fly their flags at half-staff from sunrise to sunset on Wednesday -- both of which complied.
Palm Beach County announced that it would follow "normal flag protocols," but according to a statement from Commissioner Melissa McKinlay, the lowering of flags "should be a unifying gesture during solemn occasions, such as in remembrance of the young lives lost during the Parkland High School massacre or first responder line of duty deaths."
"Although Rush Limbaugh was a significant public figure, he was also an incredibly divisive one who hurt many people with his words and actions," she added.
McKinlay's statement comes on the heels of Florida's agricultural commissioner saying that she would ignore DeSantis' order.
"Lowering to half-staff the flag of the United States of America is a sacred honor that pays respect to fallen heroes and patriots," Nikki Fried said. "It is not a partisan political tool."
"The View" co-host Meghan McCain wondered why Democrats weren't doing enough to court Republicans like herself after Donald Trump's presidency ended, and then accidentally answered her own question less than a minute later.
The conservative McCain said the party's post-presidency embrace of Trump left many Republican voters up for grabs, and she thought Democrats would already be trying to reach across the divide to them after President Joe Biden won.
"For me, I expected for Democrats to be happy and wanting Republicans like me to be open to their side of the party, and all I hear almost hourly, if it's on social media or on TV, is the world is coming to an end and it's all Republicans' fault -- screw Trump and anybody who has been associated with the Republican Party in any capacity for the last 50 years," McCain said.
However, she immediately admitted there wasn't much common ground between herself and most Democrats.
"There is no home for me on the left in any capacity, whatsoever," McCain said. "The fact that I watch Tucker Carlson's show is probably blaspheming enough in the house of politics, and, by the way, there's a lot of Republicans in the country that were really opening to working with the other side, and all I feel is anger and hate and, arguably, more vitriol than happened during the Trump years simply because you're associated for being a Republican. So it's open season for someone like [Florida Gov.] Ron DeSantis. You just can't isolate non-Trump Republicans like me going forward, because I'm not going to be voting for a Democrat."
Host Whoopi Goldberg was briefly taken aback by the outburst, but said McCain should look a little more carefully at DeSantis' record on delivering vaccines to all Floridians.
"Well, I wouldn't expect you to vote for a Democrat," Goldberg said. "But I would expect that you know the difference between right and wrong. You are a smart person, and you know that when somebody says, 'I'm going to give this vaccine to my friends,' instead of saying, 'You know, I want to make sure that everybody in my state gets it,' maybe that's -- that's not the best thing you want to hear, and it would be nice if somebody on the Republican side [did]."
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One of the speakers booked for the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference was a musician and conspiracy theorist named Young Pharaoh, who according to Media Matters' Eric Hananoki, has a history of "virulently anti-Semitic" posts.
After Media Matters posted its story exposing his comments, CPAC announced it was pulling his speaking slot:
CPAC 2021 is set for Feb. 25-28 in Orlando, Florida, where the lineup of far-right speakers will include former President Donald Trump as well as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. Pharaoh was scheduled to speak on Sunday, Feb. 28 — the last day of the four-day event — at a session called "Please Check the Number and Dial Again: Doubt, Dysfunction, and the Price of Missed Opportunities." Feb. 28 is also the day that Trump is scheduled to speak.
According to Hananoki, Pharaoh has "promoted the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories" and made the false claim that vaccines for COVID-19 will "alter your DNA." And he has described Judaism as a "complete lie" that is "made up for political gain" and posted that "all the censorship & pedophilia on social media is being done by Israeli Jews." Pharaoh, Hananoki notes, has posted that "all of these big tech (companies), media, & social media platforms are controlled by CCP & Israel through Jewish CEO & corrupt Democrats" — and he has even attacked far-right radio host Ben Shapiro for being Jewish.
Media Matters has posted screenshots of Pharaoh's anti-Semitic tweets with Hananoki's article. These are some of them:
CPAC, according to Hananoki, described Pharaoh as a "philosopher, scholar, musician" and links to youngpharaoh.net, which redirects to a website called "Pharaoh Aten University."
Republican lawmakers are split over whether to pay tribute to Donald Trump by visiting the former president at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Representatives Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO) are visiting for a Saturday night fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago to help raise money for the 2022 re-election campaign of Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was spotted at Mar-a-Lago on Friday night.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is planning a visit.
But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) won't be going.
"The Kentucky Republican is 'not going to bend the knee' and travel to Mar-a-Lago, a close McConnell associate told CNN, adding that McConnell will 'probably never speak' to Trump again if he can avoid it," CNN reported Saturday.
"If they don't figure it out soon, some GOP leaders fear, there could be a major crash ahead. As some see it, that presents the greatest risk for McConnell, who -- despite his power in the Senate -- isn't nearly as popular as Trump with Republican voters across the country," CNN explained. "It's a "collision between a tractor-trailer and a Volkswagen," said one person familiar with both Trump and McConnell's thinking, emphasizing the damage that Trump and his massive base of loyal supporters are capable of inflicting."
On Saturday, The Washington Post reported that although Republicans have introduced a hailstorm of new bills to restrict access to the vote in states that President Joe Biden won or nearly won in order to placate Trump voters, many GOP state lawmakers aren't on board with this plan — afraid that it could blow up in their faces.
"Other Republicans in Georgia say making it harder to vote, without evidence of the problem they claim to be fixing, will prompt a dangerous backlash from Democrats and voting advocates," reported Amy Gardner. "They say the effort is mostly for show, to appease the party's most ardent Trump supporters, and they are pressing Republican legislative leaders to thwart passage of all but a few of the measures."
"Their concern has grown sharply after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob echoing Trump's rhetoric — which some Republicans say threatens to dominate the 2022 midterm cycle if they don't find a way to move past it," said the report. "Investigators for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the Justice Department and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation found no evidence of widespread fraud, and the Fulton County district attorney is now investigating Trump's efforts to subvert the state's result."
The GOP has particular turned its ire on mail-in voting, a practice both parties have historically used to equal benefit, but which was adopted more heavily by Democrats during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This week, Republicans in the Georgia state House released a lengthy voting bill that, among other things, would require people submit a photocopy of their ID to receive a mail-in ballot, restrict mobile voting buses in heavily Black and Democratic Atlanta, and eliminate early voting on the Sunday before Election Day — the traditional day for "Souls to the Polls" drives in Black churches. A separate bill in the state Senate would limit no-excuse mail-in voting to people over 75 — a restriction so draconian that it could prevent a lot of Republicans from voting as well.
And Georgia is not alone. Some 100 bills to change voting laws have been introduced around the country, including such battleground states as Arizona, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
"Even some Republican proponents of the measures have acknowledged that there is no evidence that widespread fraud or irregularities tainted the 2020 elections," said the report. "Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a state Trump won by more than three points, said as much Friday as he announced a broad new proposal to curtail ballot drop boxes and limit so-called ballot harvesting, when third parties are permitted to collect and turn in absentee ballots."
You can read more here.
On Thursday, following a press conference earlier in the week when Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) suggested he might divert vaccines to counties that don't criticize him, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, the only statewide Democrat currently elected in Florida, tore into the governor for letting whiter, richer communities cut to the front of the line.
"Tonight a county commissioner in Southwest Florida admitting that she chose two of the richest and predominantly white ZIP codes in her county to receive vaccine doses," said anchor Erin Burnett. "This is pretty incredible. She is admitting all this, saying it chose two affluent ZIP codes to receive these vaccines. Then ostensibly wanted to get on the line herself. She's admitting all this."
"This is a public health crisis," said Fried. "There is absolutely no excuse for why the governor and the commissioner is using politics in order to give out these vaccines. And this is corruption at its worst. This is why people don't trust the system. And just to give you another statistic, right now in the state of Florida, 3.7 percent of the Black population has been vaccinated while 9.7 percent of the white population has been vaccinated at this point. So as the governor is rolling out the red carpet for his donors and political allies, he's pulling the rug out from the minorities from different minority communities and communities of color."
"It's outrageous," continued Fried. "It's absolutely ridiculous the fact he's using these vaccines and how they're being distributed as a political tool. There is absolutely no reason why an elected official should be using their power to put their family and their friends and political allies before the public good. That's what public service is supposed to be about, serving the public, that's the public as a whole. We're looking into it and seeing what other measures we can take to hold the governor accountable and to make sure that this vaccine is being distributed equally across our entire state. This is just outrageous and borderline illegal."
Watch below:
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Florida's governor has been caught fudging COVID-19 numbers.
According to NBC Miami, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) distorted the data to justify reopening schools. DeSantis presented data saying that Florida has fewer pediatric cases of COVID-19.
The problem, however, is that DeSantis' data compares Florida children under the age of 14 with children of other states under 20 years-old.
It dramatically skews the results since data shows that COVID-19 is more infectious the older children get.
DeSantis blamed Democrats, saying that they were putting teachers' unions "ahead of the well-being of our children."
"We've been in-person (learning) as much as anybody in the country. And yet we're 34th out of 50 states and DC for COVID-19 cases on a per capita basis for children," he said.
DeSantis claimed that Florida was 34th in the nation for pediatric COVID-19 cases using his skewed data. Comparing all children under 18 nationally and in Florida, the state moved to the 9th worst in the country, NBC 6's analysis said.
The rate DeSantis assigned to Florida, 3,794 cases per 100,000 children, doesn't include anyone over the age of 14. Where the numbers for Ohio are for anyone under the age of 20 and California's numbers are for children under the age of 18.
Conservatives have voiced support for DeSantis as a potential 2024 presidential candidate. His clashes with the media over his handling of the pandemic have "made DeSantis ascendant in the GOP," Politico reported this week.
Republican-controlled state legislatures are responding to former president Donald Trump's election loss by brutally clamping down on voting rights.
GOP lawmakers have entered at least 165 proposals in 33 states to restrict mail-in ballots, impose new voter ID requirements and squeeze registration choices, and those efforts are already moving full-steam-ahead in Florida, Georgia and other states, reported The Daily Beast.
"We should make no distinction between the failed Capitol insurrection and the GOP doubling down on antidemocratic voter repression schemes, except the latter could be even more far-reaching," wrote Democratic strategist Max Burns for The Beast.
Georgia state lawmakers have introduced at least eight bills that would rebuild the state's "red wall" knocked down by Stacey Abrams and other Democratic activists on the way to Trump's defeat, and those efforts are endorsed by GOP secretary of state Brad Raffensperger -- who drew the former president's ire and widespread praise for his refusal to overturn the election loss.
The state would require valid photo ID for absentee ballots, even as it shuts down DMV locations that serve lower-income or minority communities, and another proposal would cut the automatic voter registration system without notifying voters they must opt in to remain enrolled.
"Republican attacks on our elections are cloaked in the dense legalese of state legislatures and buoyed with RNC campaign funds and a pro-suppression right-wing media machine," Burns wrote. "If these efforts succeed, the GOP will have achieved a coup against democracy far beyond anything the QAnon Shaman could have imagined."
Other states critical to Trump's election loss are quickly moving to restrict access to the polls, with 19 such proposals in Arizona and 11 in Pennsylvania, while New Hampshire, South Carolina and Texas are each considering proposals that could have helped the former president claim victory.
New Hampshire would open the doors for anyone to observe polls "without obstruction," while South Carolina would require signature matching on absentee ballots and Texas would take away voter registration authority from county clerks and require the Department of Public Safety to verify voters' citizenship.
"[Republicans are] trying to stop eligible voters from voting because they don't like the decisions voters are making," said Arizona Democratic state Rep. Athena Salman.
In Arizona, Republicans are trying to cancel the permanent early voting list and require mail-in ballots to be formally notarized, and Burns said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has backed a series of possibly illegal segregationist anti-voting laws that are the most repressive since the Jim Crow era.
"Voter suppression began as a tool to sustain white supremacy in the Jim Crow South," Burns wrote. "It is now wielded with cold efficiency by Republican legislatures for much the same reason. What's new is how overt GOP efforts to strip the franchise have become."
NBC News producer Susan Kroll tweeted Wednesday evening that the FBI and the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office have begun preliminary investigations into Gov. Andrew Cuomo's (D-NY) administration for their handling of nursing home data on COVID-19.
Cuomo has been accused of intentionally hiding unflattering data on nursing home infections.
"Nearly three weeks after the governor's task force was announced last year, the state health department issued an order directing nursing homes and other long-term care facilities that they must accept residents who were being discharged from hospitals even if they were still testing positive for the infectious disease, as long as they were able to care for them properly," reported the Times Union, confirming the investigation. "That directive, which was rescinded less than two months later, has been the focus of a firestorm of criticism directed at Cuomo's administration..."
Gov. Ron DeSantis is also being accused of hiding COVID-19 data in the early months of the pandemic. According to the Sun-Sentinel, DeSantis misled Floridians on COVID-19 data and deaths. When a health department employee was sounding the alarm about COVID-19 information that conflicted with DeSantis, she was fired. When she continued to report on the data, agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement raided her house.
Even DeSantis' judicial commissioner, Ron Filipkowski, resigned out of frustration with what he witnessed in Florida. No investigation has been announced into DeSantis.
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