Watch now (64 mins) | Rant: DeSantis Ends Vaccine Mandates; Guest: Maine’s Angus King III, Running For Governor & Answering Our Questions
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How Do We Campaign vs/Crush MAGA?

Rant: DeSantis Ends Vaccine Mandates; Guest: Maine’s Angus King III, Running For Governor & Answering Our Questions

Cliff Schecter, David Shuster, and Angus King III
Sep 5
 
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Florida’s War on Science

Folks, let’s not mince words, Florida Republicans—the dumber cousin of Florida Man—have declared war on science and public health. Dumpy, dingy, douchey Ron DeSantis and his Surgeon General just eliminated vaccine requirements for schoolchildren.

It is really hard to put into words how mind-numbingly, Dumb-&-Dumber, aluminum-rod-through-your-parietal-lobe-level stupid this is. It’s the intellectual equivalent of stepping off a 5th floor roof and assuming a nice breeze will overtake gravity.

What this means is kids in Florida classrooms may now be forced to sit next to a human disease vector of peers unprotected from measles, polio, rubella—the very pandemics modern medicine defeated generations ago.

We considered ending these plagues some of our greatest achievements.

Leave it to the MAGA Ivermectin-humpers to leave no stone unturned when trying to destroy America from within. Seriously, are we gonna give anyone with a high fever a good “bleeding” soon?

Side inquiry: How the fuck can anyone with a three-digit IQ be Republican anymore? Do you just plan to bury your brain in a pile of used kitty litter and hope the sand and stink cloud the fact that before the measles vaccine was introduced in the U.S., 2.6 million Americans died from measles every year.

Yes, that word before year was “every.”

As if this wasn’t all reckless enough, DeSantis’s top doc compared vaccines to slavery. Yes, slavery. JFC, is there any way we can turn the GOP off and back on again, see if they suddenly possess firing neurons?

In any case, this is what passes for leadership in the Sunshine State—a gerrymandered hellhole of strip malls, stand your ground and climate disaster. I’m sure this will turn your dying tourism industry right around, guys!

Old folks will really wanna keep moving and snow-birding there once kids start causing regular outbreaks of the hantavirus. Well done, DeSanctimonious.

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But, this honestly is personal. As David Schuster said on the show today, his kids just went through their vaccine updates before starting school in Connecticut. They cried a little at the doctor’s office, but they’re protected—and so are the other kids.

That’s what a functioning society does. Florida’s new policy isn’t “freedom.” It’s an invitation to bring back outbreaks that once crippled entire communities.

But the madness doesn’t stop there.

Across the country, Trump’s GOP continues to champion policies that literally kill people. They’ve ripped away abortion rights, leaving women to suffer sepsis in ERs. They’ve armed civilians with battlefield weapons that shred children so badly DNA testing is needed for identification.

And now, they’re gunning to roll back vaccines. This isn’t governing—it’s more state-sponsored terrorism.

Maine’s Fight for the Future

Amid this chaos, we talked with Angus King III, who’s running for governor of Maine.

King was earnest about his beliefs, not afraid to rip into Republicans and Trump, while allowing that his natural instinct is to try to work with people. But he’s a realist, and understands that with today’s Republican Party, “sometimes we’ll have to go it alone.”

King isn’t just surfing on his father, Senator Angus King’s, name. He has long worked as a leader and champion in Maine of renewable energy, as well as providing affordable housing.

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So King is focused on these issues, of paramount importance to Mainers right now: skyrocketing housing costs, collapsing rural healthcare, tariffs that squeeze working families, and education that’s fallen behind.

But he was also clear when I posed the question of whether he’d line up to stop Trump from illegally entering Maine—commandeering state troops and city police—that he’d be there to tell Trump to “stay out,” to his face. He’d defend democracy.

King’s message? Be authentic, fight when necessary, and never lose sight of who government is supposed to serve. He even joined in a few jokes to show he could take ‘em, and he could make ‘em.

Especially when it came to turning “cow poop” into clean energy.

So the contrast couldn’t be clearer. One side wants to drag us back to the 12th century, cheering on plague and ignorance. The other side is fighting to lower food and housing costs, strengthen healthcare, and invest in our kids’ futures—to make it affordable for Americans to live in America again.

In a democratic republic.

This isn’t just about politics—it’s about survival, dignity, and whether our children inherit progress or plague.

Stay tuned. Stay loud. And don’t let the rot of Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, or the GOP’s death cult define America’s future.

—Cliff

You guys Rock! After an amazing response to our Labor Day Sale of 25% off all Paid Subscriptions, we have decided to extend it for the rest of this week! Get a Subscription NOW!

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Thank you Cash Flow Collective, Sam(antha) M. Burns, Rhonda, Kim G, Bud Jones, and many others for tuning into my live video with David Shuster and Angus King III! Join me for my next live video in the app.

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A guest post by
David Shuster
David Shuster is an Emmy award winning broadcast journalist who is best known for his work at NBC News and MSNBC and his ongoing YouTube videos on "Rebel HQ."
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A guest post by
Angus King III
Mainer, husband, father, builder, and innovator. Running for governor to bring people together, solve the hardest problems, and build a better Maine.
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