Lawless Pro-Covid Gov. Ron ‘DeathSantis’ Defies The Court In Pursuit Of Killing Florida’s Children

Last week, the AP reported, Judge blocks Florida governor’s order banning mask mandates:

Florida school districts can legally require their students to wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, a judge ruled Friday, saying Gov. Ron DeSantis overstepped his authority when he issued an executive order banning such mandates.

Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper agreed with a group of parents who claimed in a lawsuit that DeSantis’ order is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced. The governor’s order gave parents the sole right to decide if their child wears a mask at school.

Cooper said DeSantis’ order “is without legal authority.”

His decision came after a three-day virtual hearing, and after 10 Florida school boards voted to defy DeSantis and impose mask requirements with no parental opt-out. Cooper’s ruling will not go into effect until it is put into writing, which the judge asked the parents’ lawyers to complete by Monday.

Cooper said that while the governor and others have argued that a new Florida law gives parents the ultimate authority to oversee health issues for their children, it also exempts government actions that are needed to protect public health and are reasonable and limited in scope. He said a school district’s decision to require student masking to prevent the spread of the virus falls within that exemption.

The law “doesn’t ban mask mandates at all,” Cooper said during a two-hour hearing that was conducted online because of the resurgent pandemic. “It doesn’t require that a mask mandate must include a parental opt-out at all.”

The judge also noted that two Florida Supreme Court decisions from 1914 and 1939 found that individual rights are limited by their impact on the rights of others. For example, he said, adults have the right to drink alcohol but not to drive drunk, because that endangers others. There is a right to free speech, but not to harass or threaten others or yell “fire” in a crowded theater, he said.

“We don’t have that right because exercising the right in that way is harmful or potentially harmful to other people,” Cooper said. He added that the law “is full of examples of rights that are limited (when) the good of others … would be adversely affected by those rights.”

DeSantis has dismissed the recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that people wear masks, saying it is not applicable to Florida. But Cooper cited numerous Florida laws and statutes — such as those covering health care in nursing homes, prisons and elsewhere — that direct decision-makers to give great weight to CDC guidelines.

This week, the lawless pro-Covid Gov. Ron “DeathSantis” defied a court in pursuit of killing Florida’s children. NPR reports, Florida Is Blocking Money From 2 School Districts Over Mask Mandates, Defying A Judge:

Despite a judge’s ruling last week declaring that the Florida governor’s ban on mask mandates in schools is unconstitutional, the State Board of Education has forged ahead with its threat to withhold school board members’ salaries in districts that require the face coverings in classrooms.

Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran announced that school board members in Alachua and Broward counties will not be getting paychecks from the Department of Education this month, saying their mandatory face mask policies violate parental rights. The board will hold onto the funds until each school board complies with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ now-overturned executive order.

“We’re going to fight to protect parents’ rights to make health care decisions for their children,” Corcoran said in a statement Monday. “They know what is best for their children.”

Actually, NO, they do not. Too many of them are members of the MAGA/QAnon Trump death cult, and get their information from the anti-vax and anti-mask Fox News, and from random anti-vax and anti-mask Facebook Groups. They are the same domestic terrorists engaging in physical violence and threats of violence against teachers and school board members across the country. Proud Boys Are Teaming Up With Anti-Maskers to Threaten School Boards Over COVID Mandates. They represent a public health threat to themselves, to their children, and to society at large, and also a domestic terrorist threat.

Florida School Districts are following a lawful court order, unlike the lawless Covid mass murderer Gov. Ron “DeathSantis.”

It’s unclear if others counties will be penalized

Local reports indicate that several other school districts have implemented mask mandates, including Orange, Duval, Miami-Dade, Hillsborough, Sarasota, Palm Beach, Indian River and Leon counties. It is unclear whether school board members in those counties will also have their pay withheld.

The bitter fight is playing out as a rash of coronavirus infections sweeps across Florida, including among children who are not eligible for vaccination. On Monday, officials reported 18,608 new cases.

Florida leads the nation in kids hospitalized for COVID, and Florida children’s hospitals see pediatric COVID cases soar amid delta variant surge.

A judge said DeSantis’ order lacked authority

On Friday, following a four-day trial, Judge John Cooper ruled in favor of parents who sued, arguing DeSantis overstepped his authority in forbidding the face covering requirement and said it cannot be enforced. He noted that face mask mandates that follow guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are “reasonable and consistent with the best scientific and medical opinion in this country.”

Cooper also added that DeSantis’ order “is without legal authority.”

DeSantis is appealing the decision and on Monday called Cooper’s ruling “obviously problematic.”

The move could potentially garner federal attention

The decision to withhold funding from Alachua and Broward counties could open the state up to further legal troubles.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights announced it had launched an investigation into five states “exploring whether statewide prohibitions on universal indoor masking discriminate against students with disabilities.”

At the time, the office said it had refrained from opening investigations in Florida, Texas, Arkansas or Arizona “because those states’ bans on universal indoor masking are not currently being enforced as a result of court orders or other state actions.”

However, officials said they would continue to monitor those states and take action “if state leaders prevent local schools or districts from implementing universal indoor masking or if the current court decisions were to be reversed.”

It is unclear if Florida’s decision not to pay school board members will trigger an investigation. The Education Department did not immediately return NPR’s requests for comment.

What it should trigger is a DOJ criminal investigation into GQP governors in the Trump death cult for negligent homicide of their state residents.