There’s a famous moment in television when Oprah Winfrey gave everyone in her audience a car. She maniacally pointed at people one at a time screaming “you get a car and you get a car and you get a car!”
Ron DeSantis had a better version of the “Oprah moment” last night on with Fox News host Laura Ingraham when he granted blanket pardons to anyone arrested for breaking the draconian Covid-19 lockdown rules. Instead of a Pontiac and a $6000 tax bill, the recipients of DeSantis’ gift get the much more valuable prize of freedom. It all started with a gym-owning couple who were arrested for breaking Covid restrictions.
“It’s a total overreach, Laura. This is exactly what we ordered against last summer many, many months ago, and so I was actually just recently briefed on this case, and we looked at it and so I’m glad you have Mike and Jillian on, and I’m also glad to be on to be able to say that, effective tomorrow morning, I’m going to sign a reprieve under my constitutional authority,” DeSantis said.
According to BizPacReview, gym owners Mike and Jillian Carnevale from Plantation, Florida appeared on the show as well. They have been repeatedly arrested for refusing to enforce a mask mandate. DeSantis surprised the couple by pardoning them live on-air.
“So that will delay the case for 60 days against both of them, and then when our clemency board meets in the coming weeks, we’ll issue pardons not only for Mike and Jillian but for any Floridian that may have outstanding infractions for things like masks and social distancing,” he declared.
According to a transcript from Daily Wire:
The Carnevales appeared on the “Ingraham Angle” along with their attorney, Cory Strolla.
Mike Carnevale told Ingraham, “Two months after gyms reopened in South Florida, Broward County came down with a mandate saying that facial coverings had to be worn during strenuous exercise. Wee filed a lawsuit against Broward County for this; 24 hours after the lawsuit was filed we were arrested. We were arrested three times in total; they seized our business; they offered us 10 days in jail. We declined that and now I’m looking at six months in prison. They also arrested Jillian here as well.”
Ingraham turned to Strolla, asking, “What are the prospects here of getting any assistance or help?”
Strolla answered: “Well, we really at this point have to rely on Governor DeSantis; I hate to put it into his lap and his executive general counsel’s lap, but we’ve got a politically activist judge that originally told Mike and Jillian before I was ever retained that the states was offering a diversion program and the judge said he was going to personally decline it and it was the judge that said the only resolution he would approve is a 10-day jail sentence for Mike and that was before Jillian’s case was transferred in. So the way Broward County charged it, Mike is facing actually two second-degree misdemeanors for a total of 120 days in jail and Jillian is facing one for a total of 60 days in jail. All for basically not having people not wear masks while exercising.”
Ingraham then turned to DeSantis, saying it sounded as if Broward County was thumbing their nose at him, asking, “What can you do?’
“It’s a total overreach, Laura,” DeSantis replied. “This is exactly what we ordered against last summer, many, many months ago. And so I was actually just recently briefed on this case, and we looked at it and so I’m glad you had Mike and Jillian on, and I’m also glad to be on to be able to say that effective tomorrow morning I’m going to sign a reprieve under my constitutional authority, so that’ll delay the case for 60 days against both of them. And then when our clemency board meets in the coming weeks, we’ll issue pardons not only for Mike and Jillian, but for any Floridian that may have outstanding infractions for things like masks and social distancing.”
“The fact is, it’s not even right to be wearing masks when you’re exercising,” he continued. “The World Health Organization advises against it. It’s not healthy for people to be doing that in the first place. So it was a bad restriction. But these things with health should be advisory; they should not be punitive. And so we’re happy to use our constitutional authority. I think they’ve been treated poorly and fortunately they’ve got a governor that cares.”
Ingraham turned back to the Carnevales, asking, “How dies that feel to the Carnevales? You just got your reprieve on national television?”
Mike, choking up, answered, “Thank you. Governor DeSantis.”
“Thank you,” Jill said.
“We appreciate that a lot,” added Mike.
As citizens, we must defend our own God-given rights. Reliance on government to do it for us is foolhardy. But for people in Florida, their job is a bit easier with Governor Ron DeSantis on the side of freedom.
YouTube, Spotify, and other Big Tech platforms are taking Freedom First Network down
It’s no secret we speak our minds and bring on guests who do the same. That’s one of the biggest reasons we put together the Freedom First Network in the first place. There are far too many news outlets, including so-called “conservative” media companies, who are so beholden to Big Tech that they temper their perspectives at best and outright coverup the truth at worst. Many, as you all know, will blatantly lie in order to maintain the narrative that supports the radical agenda taking over much of the United States.
We have had our YouTube channel taken down. Many of our shows have been suppressed or removed by Facebook and Twitter. Spotify banned one of our shows completely from their platform. Google hates us. We’ve even been censored by some of the smaller players like Medium, Transistor, and Captivate. But we stand behind our reporting and perspectives and we refuse to bow down to Big Tech tyranny for the sake of pageviews or video plays.
This isn’t the easiest road to travel, especially for a media company that is so new. We launched Freedom First Network in 2020 to fight against the very censorship that we’re seeing so widespread today. We have found great homes for our content on freer speech platforms like Rumble and we’re putting our best efforts forward into building our presence on Locals. Nevertheless, we cannot do it alone. We need help.
One of the things cofounders Jeff Dornik and JD Rucker agreed to from the start was to never be the pawns of companies that do not embrace our worldview. Finding advertisers and affiliates is easy; we receive requests by companies wanting to be pushed on our shows every day. But it’s important to us that we’re promoting companies, services, and products that are beneficial to maintaining a Freedom First stance in America. As a result, we do not take on sponsors easily. We would rather rely on our own products like Freedom First Coffee and the support of our wonderful viewers, listeners, and readers.
Those who want to support us and help keep the fight for America’s future moving forward can do so by donating through our Locals page. There, you can donate monthly or one-time. Some have told us to use Patreon or GoFundMe, but both of those platforms have demonstrated a hatred for free speech. Locals does not. They embrace it. We encourage everyone to join us on Locals, but donations are greatly appreciated as well. We do not have day jobs. Our fight for freedom is a full-time gig.
Please feel free to reach out to us through our contact form. It goes directly to our founders, so if you’re interested in getting involved, investing, sponsoring, or even bringing a show to our network, let us know. May God Bless the United States of America!