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The MAGA mob goes after a Florida hospital

Published on 41 Comments on The MAGA mob goes after a Florida hospital

You should check out Kiera Butler's piece at Mother Jones about Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Florida (naturally). A couple of months ago the "medical freedom" movement suddenly decided to target them:

With an unprecedented 300 people at the February meeting, attendees lit into Sarasota Hospital physicians, accusing them of killing Covid patients....That’s when things got really chaotic. Mike Flynn, a resident of Sarasota, former national security advisor to former President Donald Trump, and conspiracy theorist extraordinaire, tweeted after the February board meeting, “I attended this meeting and the Sarasota Memorial Hospital took what could have been a rebuilding of trust and further damaged this institution with a ‘fox inside the henhouse investigation.’” He added, “Their little report is not the end of the investigation. More to follow.”

Dr. Jane Ruby, another live streamer and right-wing political pundit who has a show on Peters’ network, devoted a February episode to Sarasota Memorial, titled “Killing Hospital Begins Cover-Up.” Ruby referred to a doctor at Sarasota Hospital as “an arrogant, condescending piece of crap,” and criticized the staff. “You enabled that hospital to not only murder innocent people but to make millions of dollars doing it,” she thundered. “They’re coming for all of you. You’re all the targets now.” Stew Peters posted the episode to the 270,000 followers on his Telegram channel.

And what was Sarasota Memorial's sin? Apparently they had declined to treat COVID patients with ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine, both of which are still MAGA obsessions. As usual, the frightened MAGAnauts quickly presented an excellent opportunity for conservative hustlers to stoke the flames and make a little money on the side.

Read it all, but do it on an empty stomach.

41 thoughts on “The MAGA mob goes after a Florida hospital”

  1. Art Eclectic

    I feel like there's a business opportunity for savvy operators to set up Covid clinics across Florida with preferred treatments for those concerned with freedom. I doubt the Florida government would shut them down and it would give the citizens of Florida real choice and freedom. What's not to like?

      1. chester

        And then the non-whackos could sue the whaco clinics for killing the whackos signing up for the treatments?
        Turtles- I see stacks of turtles.

      2. Art Eclectic

        If freedom is what they want, freedom they should receive. If freedom drastically reduces their survival rate, it was their choice.

  2. J. Frank Parnell

    Any patient has the right to check themselves out of the hospital against medical advice and run down to the nearest livestock supply for their ivermectin. If these people really believe in ivermectin or hydroxichloriquine that is what they should have done. They are kind of people who go to a French restaurant and complain they can't get a hamburger.

  4. Justin

    I lived in Sarasota back in the 1990s. It was a nice place. I understand it has turned into some sort of hell by now. The hospital serves the community. And if the community refuses to be served, they might suffer or die. Ok with me.

    This is why none of you should give a crap about this country. Why bother? Let them die. It’s a win! M. Drum has this figured out. Suffering is alleged and then debunked with charts. All is well. And if it isn’t? Eff ‘em. 😴

    When a Floridian dies, an angel gets its wings and hell gets a new resident!

    1. J. Frank Parnell

      Parasites are typically tough critters to kill. It follows that anti-parasite drugs are typically toxic to parasites, but only slightly less to humans.

  6. gVOR08

    I live in Sarasota County. This is really happening. They’re going to destroy a well respected hospital system. And all because FOX/GOP took advantage of gullible people and created an alternate reality for them.

    1. CAbornandbred

      Well, then the residents who choose to stay will just die at greater rates. Self imposed Darwin's rules in action. The faster the better.

      As an aside, a good friend who is a native Californian (SF Bay area) moved to Tampa last year at age 73. Within 6 months she is spouting the crazy conservative crapola. This is a supposedly intelligent individual. It's very sad to see.

    2. shapeofsociety

      Hopefully the hospital can rally some allies. Find and hire a good crisis PR firm, persuade the saner members of the community to organize and defend their hospital, and get others in the national hospital community to realize that it is in their interest to defend Sarasota as well. After all, most hospitals in the country followed the same standard of care, but it's a lot easier to single out one hospital to make an example and produce a chilling effect than to go after a thousand or more hospitals at once.

  7. steve22

    I would leave the place. Lots of job openings anyway. If after posting way above average success and working extra hours under stress for a couple of years that was the community reposes they could just go hire a bunch of quacks.

    Steve

  10. Dana Decker

    I want the authorities to do what it takes to identify and charge those people leaving threatening voice mails. Consequence-free harassment must stop.

    1. J. Frank Parnell

      I know who one of these people is. His name is Mike Flynn. Who do we turn him into? Oh, that's right, he was already pardoned by Donald Trump.

  11. cephalopod

    It certainly looks like the aim in Florida is to destroy public services by making them unworkable. Schools and libraries without books, teachers unable to teach, hospitals crushed by violent threats and staff losses.

  12. tigersharktoo

    If this continues to in Sarasota, I suspect the "Medical Freedom" folks will find out how hard it is to run a hospital without any medical staff.

  15. sonofthereturnofaptidude

    I guess some folks in Sarasota will be happy about DeSantis' takeover of New College, another public institution with a long history there of giving back to the community. You have to wonder how Republicans got be so against res publica.

    1. shapeofsociety

      "res publica" the etymological root of "republic" literally means "public stuff".

      Republicans are against public stuff because it has to be paid for with taxes, and they want to defend the elevated social status of the rich by defending the source of that status, their money, against efforts to make society more egalitarian by taxing the rich. Everything else about the modern Republican Party is ultimately in support of that one goal.

  16. Yehouda

    According to the arttgicle this hospital: "its core mission is to serve people who are uninsured or underinsured." Isn't the point of this attack screwing up uninsured people?

  17. jvoe

    I had a republican family member mention that their local rural hospital was losing doctors. I said maybe they got sick of people who likely got a C in high school biology telling them how to treat a highly infectious disease. Her response was that she heard they were leaving because they had to get vaccinated. Uggh.

    I know Sarasota is not rural, but this endless bullshit is going to have a long-lasting negative effect on medical care in rural areas. I think the excess deaths data is going to start to show it.

      1. Austin

        If they start being unable to fill all their openings for doctors, and/or only get the doctors who barely passed their medical school exams, red counties will start showing higher mortality rates for all sorts of diseases and injuries.

    2. shapeofsociety

      A study was recently done showing that universities that imposed vaccine mandates reduced cases and deaths significantly in their surrounding communities, compared to universities that didn't impose vaccine mandates, even though students are mostly young and unlikely to die of covid.

  18. KJK

    Why doesn't DeathSantis just set up covid clinics at all the local horse racing tracks, where they have ample supplies of "Seabiscuit" sized doses of ivermectin for all his MAGA followers. Perhaps they should also revert back to the highly effective procedure of blood letting as a cure for all their other ailments instead of going to doctors or hospitals.

    These fucking morons deserve to die from the carnage they instigated.

  19. ConradsGhost

    Let's say it out loud - the red states are going to collapse. They are and will continue hollowing out every public sector until each collapses. They are "starving the beast," i.e., bleeding public monies dry, have cratering tax bases, (except FL and TX) and are 'educating' a generation of functional imbeciles. They are creating socio-cultural wastelands that are increasingly populated by rigid, indoctrinated, and broken people, and people who cannot leave. DeSantis supporters in Florida have created a Hungary style propaganda system in which only good things are said about the dear leader - this is the model, and these angels are falling over each other to implement it in every red state.

    The parallels with Russia are obvious. These folks are not going to stop of their own volition. Their kind never - never - do. Without external forcing - catastrophe, intervention, whatever - they will collapse. The implications are significant.

  20. Martin Stett

    From her IMDB bio--presumably supplied by her:
    "Jane Ruby is a Washington, DC based television personality, New Right political pundit, film producer, author of "A Sea of New Media" and has hosted several television shows such as Dr Jane's DC and InsideLookTV Magazine. A graduate of the University of Rochester, she holds two doctoral degrees in Education and Psychcology, two Masters Degrees in Nursing and International Health Economics "

    So, no indication that she can write a prescription.
    Except for one in Psychcology.

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