COVID doesnât care whether youâre going on spring break or visiting your ill father.
If variants spread by being out-of-state is a concern, which Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says it is, then she should realize viruses donât care about why youâre in another state. This is particularly true if youâve told people to steer clear of one particular state and â well, what do you know! â you end up there.
But like every politician under COVID who declares certain fruits forbidden, Whitmer doesnât plan on refraining from eating that fruit herself. According to the Detroit Free Press, Whitmerâs office confirmed she traveled to another state over a month ago to visit her ill father. She didnât say which state it was, although a state political newsletter noted that he has a home in Florida.
The reason Whitmerâs spokeswoman, Tiffany Brown, said she wouldnât give details involving the date or the state sheâd traveled to was due to âongoing security concerns.â
âThe governor did not go on spring break, and she has not left the state in over a month,â Brownâs statement read, according to WJBK-TV.
âIn the past six months she has left the state three times, once for the inauguration, once to assist her elderly father who is battling a chronic illness, and once to visit with Michiganâs National Guard troops.
âAll trips were very brief, two full days or less, closely followed public health guidelines, and were made when Michiganâs daily positivity rate was in the low single digits. Due to ongoing security concerns, we will not comment further on the governorâs personal schedule.â
When she talks about âongoing security concerns,â one assumes it had to do with the alleged kidnapping plot directed at her last year by extremists. This wouldnât even be a reasonable excuse if her father lived in Rhode Island, however, much less Florida â a rather large state, and one which she warned people several weeks ago not to visit, especially not for spring break due to a high prevalence of variants.
The Associated Press reported earlier this month that Whitmer âurged people returning from Florida to work from home and have their kids learn virtually for at least a week. She and health officials later recommended that people get tested after in-state, out-of-state or international travel. Michigan will provide about three-dozen pop-up testing sites to make it easier for travelers.â
Whitmerâs father was vaccinated, according to the Free Press. Of course, as Anthony Fauci would tell you, that pretty much means nothing â so remember, follow the science, people.
This is the second time that Whitmer has faced some kind of Florida-centric controversy. The first time actually involved spring break (or something like it).
Just days after Whitmer said no one from Michigan should visit Florida, Breitbart reported the stateâs chief operations officer, Tricia L. Foster, was in the Florida Keys for a spring break getaway while an individual she was supposed to be traveling with â reportedly her son â was âhome with covid.â
âMissing his trip to the Bahamas so planned girls plan b 24 hours before flight,â a Facebook message from Foster read.
âWhitmerâs office did not deny the report, but dismissed it as a partisan attack,â the Free Press reported at the time.
Whitmerâs press secretary, Bobby Leddy, went even further, calling it âa partisan attack from a garbage white nationalist website.â
In other words, the story was factual â but you know whatâs really terrible? Breitbart! Thatâs what we should be focused on, right crew? Whoâs with me?
Leddy further said that Foster âis fully recovered from COVID and fully vaccinated.â Again, apparently, sheâs not listening to Dr. Fauci, whoâs warning us all that we shouldnât be eating out even if weâve been vaccinated, much less going on a girlsâ spring break trip.
Letâs keep in mind, Whitmer is the governor who banned her stateâs residents from buying gardening supplies in big-box stores once upon a time because that would apparently stop the spread of COVID. These are the actions of a petty dictator, especially one that doesnât feel bound by any of their own strictures.
âWhitmerâs rampant hypocrisy continues to insult hard-working Michiganders who struggle to get past her disastrous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic,â said Republican Governors Association spokesman Chris Gustafson, according to the Free Press.
Meanwhile, Republican Michigan House Appropriations Committee Chairman Thomas Albert said he understood full well why Whitmer would want to visit a sick relative, according to WKAR-TV.
âBut I have heard countless stories of heartbroken Michiganders who wanted to visit sick family members during this pandemic and havenât been able to do so,â he said. âI donât understand how the governor thinks itâs OK for her and members of her administration to travel out of state while issuing recommendations to the rest of us that we stay home.â
And thatâs the thing: If itâs so imperative that her constituents donât go to Florida, what makes her immune? Gretchen Whitmer might not care about her own rules, but COVID doesnât care who she is, either. Her constituents donât think sheâs above her own rules, too â and rest assured, theyâll remember that she tacitly blamed the Sunshine State for Michiganâs COVID numbers at the same time she was visiting it.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
