Wednesday, while one Florida Man was propping up the gutter-looks-like-up ratings of a once-proud and dominant cable news channel, another — who has a real job with responsibilities described in the state Constitution — already had fired a volley across the bow of the Joe Biden re-election campaign.
And he was just getting warmed up.
Thursday, the latter Florida Man, Gov. Ron DeSantis, put his signature to 37(!) bills sent his way, generally at his urging, by a Republican-dominated Legislature. And if that weren’t sufficient, Thursday evening the DeSantis administration earned, in federal court, a restraining order against the Biden White House’s plan for the southern border, a plan so rife with holes it would embarrass Swiss cheese.
Here’s what Florida Man and CNN one-night wonder Donald Trump had to say about all that:
Ron DeSanctimonious needs a PERSONALITY TRANSPLANT! pic.twitter.com/dR4oLtYqmF
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) May 12, 2023
It’s an insult Trump must like. His tweet Friday was a repeat of a trial balloon sent up in late April. As jokes and pokes go, this one does not get better with repetition.
Because, while Trump had the needle out for someone he regards as Low-Wattage Ron, the Man With Zero Personality was lighting up the Sunshine State by doing what, lately, he does best (and with considerable zest).
Yes, while Trump campaigns as the high-school dropout’s Don Rickles, DeSantis continues to expertly work the levers of leadership in the nation’s third-largest state and the world’s 15th-largest economy.
DeSantis’ activity Wednesday was instructively well-timed. In anticipation of the demise of Title 42, while the Biden administration scrambled to reassure Americans regarding its competence to manage the border chaos of its creation — How’d that work out for Victor Frankenstein? — DeSantis was signing tough anti-illegal immigration reforms into law.
The governor’s office was not coy about Florida’s intentions.
Today, Governor Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1718 to combat the dangerous effects of illegal immigration caused by the federal government’s reckless border policies. This legislation makes using E-Verify mandatory for any employer with 25 or more employees, imposes enforceable penalties for those employing illegal aliens, and enhances penalties for human smuggling. Additionally, this bill prohibits local governments from issuing Identification Cards (ID) to illegal aliens, invalidates ID cards issued to illegal aliens in other states, and requires hospitals to collect and submit data on the costs of providing health care to illegal aliens.
Stipulated: None of this builds the wall. None of this deports alien malefactors. Above all, none of this fixes the failure of Washington to repair a hopelessly antiquated, abused, and inadequate immigration system.
Nonetheless, DeSantis’ determination to create in Florida the ultimate opposite of a sanctuary state suggests the vigor with which he would pursue an immigration overhaul if voters give him the chance. (There’s also the Legislature-appropriated $22 million for additional migrant-relocation logistics.)
We mentioned DeSantis’ triumph in federal court. Here, too, is a clue. At the urging of Attorney General Ashley Moody, U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II spiked the Biden plan for rapidly releasing migrants from Border Patrol custody.
U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II wrote in his ruling that the border had been “out of control” for two years and said that the president and Congress had failed to fix it. He said he would not condone a new emergency policy Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz issued this week allowing for the release of some migrants into the United States, since it was similar to a policy he had rejected as unlawful in March.
The Biden administration had warned the judge, a Trump appointee, that border facilities could become dangerously overcrowded if he blocked the emergency releases, but Wetherell wrote that the administration’s “doomsday rhetoric rings hollow.”
Anyway, add the aforementioned signing of 37 bills Thursday — adding, among other things, protections for the consciences of medical professionals, reliable funding for charter schools, state inspections of Disney World’s monorail system, and banning Covid-related mandates by businesses and government agencies for entry into their facilities — and that’s how Florida Man of Action Ron DeSantis spent much of his week. Generally, the state that’s No. 1 for refugees fleeing blue-state tyranny and tumult is ever so much better for it. If that’s what we get from a fellow alleged to have all the personality of a protein bar, make our subscription a gross a month.
Meanwhile, given relentless opportunities to engage on the anxieties of an electorate worried that Joe Biden is close to taking us past the point of no return, Trump instead gives every indication of hoping Americans regard the 2024 campaign as a marathon, moveable roast.
What a hockey puck.
