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Ron DeSantis Delivers First Principles In Action

Ilana Mercer — Fri, 11 Nov 2022 05:55:18 +0000

Without listening to any of the other victory speeches—and without a shadow of a doubt—I’ll say that the best electoral victory address was that of Ron DeSantis, who has handily won a second term as Florida’s governor.

Tuesday noon is when David Vance and your columnist pre-record a new segment of our Hard Truth podcast. Aired on Thursdays, Tuesday’s recording saw us discuss Trump’s venal attack on marvelous Governor DeSantis. It was then that I again pledged (LinkedIn came first) my 2024 vote in support of the governor, should he run for president.

We discussed Casey DeSantis, the governor’s gorgeous, regal wife, who is nothing like Ivanka and her houseboy, Kushner. Those two will traipse right back into saboteur positions at the White House with Daddy, who has never said no to his daughter.

‘Jarvanka’: Davos Before Deplorables

As with most of my assessments; I do not need the one about Boss Lady Ivanka’s cerebral acuity confirmed. It so happens that it has been amply seconded by some top men, as recounted in “Meet The Kushners: First Couple In-Waiting“:

“It’s quite clear that President Trump’s promise to hire only ‘the best’ ought to have begun with firing The Family. Instead, Mr. Kushner’s national security portfolio [had] expanded in a manner incommensurate with his skills. It [soon included] … China, Mexico, Iraq, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The same can be said of Ivanka, who was soon briefing the South Korean president on sanctions against North Korea. That Ivanka lacked a permanent security clearance was the least of the country’s worries, given Steve Bannon’s assessment of her: ‘as dumb as a brick.’”

In no time at all had Jared and Ivanka Trump moved to consolidate power. This, as men like Steven Bannon and Stephen Miller were either fired, or confined to the basement, so to speak. Bannon was soon just a flinty glint in Ivanka’s eyes.

Indeed, political connections ensured that the two branding experts [Jared and Ivanka] beat Braveheart Bannon of the mighty Breitbart.com! ‘The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,’ he lamented, in August of 2017.

… ‘Jarvanka’ (the Jared-Ivanka organism) were also said to have orchestrated the ousting of the last of the old MAGA Guard, John Kelly, a most excellent man [take it from me]. Kelly took his role as chief of staff seriously. He was a hardliner who limited Ivanka’s access to Pater.

One of Trump’s superb personnel choices, Kelly’s fate, however, was sealed when he stated openly how sick-and-tired he was of the first daughter ‘playing government.’ The Goldman-Sachs wing of the White House, commandeered by the Kushners, had always wished him away. So, Kelly got the boot (or, rather, the Choo), too.

Of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, archconservative intellectual Heather Mac Donald observed the following:

Sessions was ‘the only member of the Trump administration who was absolutely staunch in speaking up for the right of Americans to determine what the character of their country should be.’

It takes a strong woman (Mac Donald) to recognize a scheming one (Ivanka).

Later, Heather Mac Donald was to express ‘no confidence’ that President Trump would stop being advised by his daughter, Ivanka Trump, on the issue of immigration.”

Ivanka had also vaporized Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, a tough ice-princess who instituted the zero-tolerance policy on the border and never caved over family separation.

Nothing will change should Trump waltz back into the White House. Ivanka is “The Donald’s peculiar problem.” “What Ivanka wants Ivanka gets.” Together, Jarvanka place Davos before The Deplorables.

From Day One, I had cheered “The Trump Revolution” and in particular, “The Donald’s Creative Destruction,” both components in the title to a book, published June 29, 2016. In it, Trump was celebrated as a “political Samson that threatened to bring the den of iniquity crashing down on its patrons. … An entrenched punditocracy, a self-anointed, meritless intelligentsia, oleaginous politicians, slick media, big money: You name it; Trump was tossing and goring it.”

I supported Donald Trump until he began to make nice with some of the most malignant neoconservatives around, bombed Syria for Ivanka, approved H-1B visas, and began firing and feuding with the architects of MAGA.

DeSantis: Principled Pragmatist

In Ron DeSantis we have a man who is acutely aware of the systemic rights violations to which Deplorables are subjected and is attempting to pragmatically govern in accordance with first principles.

Let us recount some of the ways:

When Texas’ Greg Abbott “flat-out banned vaccine requirements; Florida Gov. DeSantis quickly followed suit. Rejecting the jabs-for-jobs deformed public policy, DeSantis vowed to sue the Biden administration. These two governors have been unique in upholding natural, inalienable, individual rights—the right of self-ownership and bodily dominion.

As inoptimal as DeSantis’ “Big Tech” bill was—the governor was the only Republican to have proceeded against Deep Tech in any meaningful way.

The governor was also unique among powerful men to spring into actions on behalf of the Canadian Truckers for Freedom. The Canadian Truckers converged on Ottawa, early in 2022, to reclaim their Charter rights and protest Trudeau’s anti-constitutional Covid-driven apartheid.

GoFundMe is an American crowd-funding site. It had happily collected and distributed funds to detritus like BLM (Black Lives Matter), which, by the most basic of measures, are scum of the earth. Having received $9 million dollars in donations for the Canadian truckers, GoFundMe right away announced it would steal the funds and funnel them to charities of its choosing.

Here was a crime in progress. DeSantis’s response to the GoFundMe cyber-robbery was righteous, principled and proactive. He tweeted:

“It is a fraud for Go-Fund Me to commandeer $9M in donations sent to support truckers and give it to causes of their own choosing. I will work with AG Ashley Moody to investigate these deceptive practices — these donors should be given a refund.” The thieving outfit soon backtracked pursuant to DeSantis’ show of force.

And how is it that only Gov. Ron DeSantis grasps that it’s illegal for state attorneys, whose job description is to uphold the law, to nullify the very law they are paid to enforce?

As the only elected official smart and dedicated enough to grasp and govern in accordance with first principles, DeSantis fired State Attorney Andrew Warren for “effectively nullifying Florida’s criminal law.” Unheard of. The great governor of Florida has also been steadfast in accelerating his pipeline of criminal aliens to the affluent areas of the northeast.

Service To The Citizen; Not Emotion On Twitter

A DeSantis tweet invariably concerns not his emotions, but his duties and obligations to constituents operationalized.

Contrast a typical DeSantis tweet with one put out by, say, Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert. She by no means deserves to be singled out. Her Republican colleagues are no different.

To wit, voters don’t seem to expects our Republican representatives to work for their pay, as in improve our lives. Politics being an extension of the cellphone Selfie; a good TV appearance or a “feisty” tweet is considered as good as work. Consequently, our US elected representatives think their role is to tweet their outrage. Or, rant flamboyantly on Tucker Carlson Tonight.

In any event, both the TSA and the DHS (departments established by Genghis Bush Republicans, if memory serves) have decided to extend President Biden’s Proclamation banning unvaccinated non-citizens from entering the United States at least until January of 2023.

(Naturally, if you are among the millions crossing the Rio Grande illegally into the US, are of a swarthy complexion and can produce a current, up-to-date criminal record—low scores on IQ and literacy tests help, too—you may enter America no questions asked, all expenses covered.)

Boebert tweeted her outrage over the renewed ban. The end. If she and the rest of the Republicans were working for their pay, like DeSantis, she’d have tweeted along these lines:

“The ban is an outrage. It flouts all scientific evidence, hurts Americans by hampering business and social ties with friends and family across the world. I intend to call on x, y, z in TSA, DHS as well as biz representatives; also meet with the caucus … Will keep you posted…”

That’s DeSantis style service to the citizen. That’s also the text of a working representative.

But no. Colorado Representative Boebert, and most of her colleagues, conducts herself as though she’s just a popular girl tweeting out to her Deplorable followers on social media; just an outsider to power—one of us—when our representatives are the consummate insiders.

Notice too that no TV ego in an anchor’s chair ever quizzes these representatives thus:

“What are you doing about said urgent matter? Specify the steps you are taking for the people to repeal assorted Covid tyranny,” as an example.

Laziness notwithstanding, I suspect that the intellectual quality of our representatives and the voters has so degraded—that neither voter nor candidate knows the channels and ropes through which action is to be taken to rectify wrongs.

Not so Ron DeSantis. Both effective and highly intelligent, the man understands the federal scheme and knows how to pull the levers of power, having faithfully and forcefully done so for the people of Florida. Such an intellectual grasp evades Trump. Moreover, a vote for Trump in 2024 is a vote for the Jarvanka organism, or familial mutations of it. The family will be back in the People’s House, minus the MAGA agenda.

Thursday’s Hard Truth podcast with David Vance and your columnist further discusses DeSantis’ unique gifts vs. Trump’s.

SUBSCRIBE:

https://rumble.com/c/HardTruthPodcast

WATCH: “Trump Trashes A Triumphant DeSantis”:

*Screen pic image credit

©2022 ILANA MERCER
WND, November 10
Unz Review, November 10
The New American, November 10
Townhall.com, November 10

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UCLA Bureaucrats Subvert Anti-Quota Law. But Where Is GOP?

Ilana Mercer — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Ask John McCain to free associate and in response to “illegal aliens” he’ll blurt “God’s children,” and vice versa. This apparently irresistible combination surfaced again in his convention address: “Everyone has something to contribute and deserves the opportunity to reach their God-given potential,” McCain bleated. “[F]rom the boy whose descendents[sic] arrived on the Mayflower to the [likely illegal] Latina daughter of migrant workers. We’re all God’s children and we’re all Americans.”

God, no doubt, moves in mysterious ways. But McCain needs to be reminded that the boy whose forefathers settled the country he professes to love has not been in the good graces of government for quite some time. The Latina daughter of illegal migrants is another matter entirely. She’s benefiting big time—at least at a top government school like the University of California, Los Angeles:

A growing body of evidence strongly suggests that UCLA is cheating on admissions. Specifically, applicants often reveal their own race on the essay portion of the application. This allows admission staff members to learn the race of the applicants; then, in violation of Proposition 209, readers use such information to evaluate applicants. To the extent that this happens—an extent which can only be assessed with systematic data on admissions—such practices are de facto implementation of racial preferences.

So wrote Professor Tim Groseclose, a political scientist at UCLA, in a cold-eyed Report on Suspected Malfeasance in UCLA Admissions and the Accompanying Follow Up. [August 28, 2008]

In August this year, Groseclose resigned from the admissions committee after the university refused to release the data he requested in an attempt to prove UCLA was flouting the will of Californians.

California’s Prop. 209 was supposed to ensure that race would no longer be a deciding factor in who gets into top government schools. When voters passed the Proposition, the California state government was supposed to ban any race or gender considerations in its hiring, contracting or educational policies.

But the decades-old race racket just went underground. Undaunted, university administrators proceeded to fashion an admissions process that utilized “stealthy surrogates for race.” As Heather Mac Donald has documented in rich detail, “Tutors in the university’s outreach programs [teach] students to emphasize their social and economic disadvantages in their application essay.” [Elites to Anti-Affirmative-Action Voters: Drop Dead, City Journal, Winter 2007] Minority applicants have become adept at belaboring the pigment burden in the essay section of the admissions process. Evidently, administrators are equally good at picking up cues that help them color-pick candidates.

The Orange County Register’s Marla Jo Fisher, who broke the story, provided the backdrop to Groseclose’s resignation and the blistering report he issued:

Campus officials have been under intense pressure to increase numbers of black students, particularly since a 2006 public outcry over the fact that only 96 of the nearly 5,000 freshmen who enrolled at the prestigious campus were African American. This year, 235 black freshmen plan to enroll for the fall term, about 5 percent of the freshman class and more than double the 2006 number. [UCLA official resigns over admissions concerns He suspects cheating in racial admissions, which are banned by state law. By Marla Jo Fisher, Orange County Register, August 28, 2008]

The subterfuge that Tim Groseclose has stumbled upon was unnecessary until 1996, which was when Californians passed Proposition 209. Before Prop. 209, it was standard practice in the University of California’s sclerotic system to admit minorities with low scores while denying admission to whites and Asians with top grades and test scores.

“For several decades,” Mac Donald chronicled, “the university had divided its applicants into two categories: it admitted one half only by objective tests of academic merit, such as standardized test scores and honors classes; it evaluated the other half subjectively, weighing such factors as race, economic status, or leadership. From this tier, where racial preferences had free rein, the vast majority of blacks and Hispanics were drawn.” Consequently, “[t]he median SAT score of blacks and Hispanics in Berkeley’s liberal arts programs was 250 points lower (on a 1,600-point scale) than that of whites and Asians.”

Due to the high drop-out rate of affirmative-action admits—and to prevent further attrition—UCLA had created a bunch of BS majors. Examples are Critical Race Theory and Black Studies.

This racial spoils system is a testament to the tenacity of diversity devotees. Preachers and practitioners of “benevolent” discrimination have institutionalized this collectivist quota culture in the teeth of popular opposition and legal injunctions against such practices.

Fortunately, affirmative action has offended the sensibilities of one black American: Ward Connerly, president of the American Civil Rights Institute. The libertarian Connerly is the force behind the drive to rid America of the invidious “race preferences, set-asides, and quotas,” and the man who has placed the issue on the ballot in states such as Nebraska, Arizona, and Colorado. Connerly’s aim is to restore the primacy of individual merit to American institutions.

Or, as he told an unsympathetic correspondent for the PBS program NOW: “to do what’s best for the country.”

After Prop. 209 passed, the number of “underrepresented minorities” accepted at UCLA dropped by half. As is their wont, energetic ethnic advocates framed this retreat from equal bean-counting as a grave injustice. While the California courts, surprisingly, upheld Prop. 209, California’s byzantine college bureaucracy, and the UCLA scheming machine, worked overtime to thwart the popular will.

To increase the Lilliputian number of minorities, admission standards were thus lowered for all students. For example, the importance of LSAT scores was diminished in the admission to UC Berkeley’s Boalt Law School. Similarly, students graduating with top marks from failing schools that award As for showing up were deemed as eligible—if not more so—than students graduating with honors from highly competitive secondary schools. In an attempt to net yet more minorities, “all students in the top 4 percent of their high school class, regardless of their standardized test scores,” in Mac Donald’s words, were accepted.

But UC Berkeley was not quick enough to adopt bush-college standards. The measures taken by California university campuses failed to yield the critical mass of minorities ethnic lobbies were clamoring for. So, Mac Donald reported, the university began ignoring all together “its applicants’ objective academic rankings”, and considering a “holistic” method of assessment. Academic scores are currently “contextualized”. To wit, an applicant with a lower SAT score who mentions having taken a bullet or quit a gang will be given preference over a high-scoring applicant burdened by a two-parent family.

Surprisingly, Groseclose, a scholar who has produced rigorous research on bias in the media, is said to favor the bias he uncovered at UCLA. Or, as he put it, “the idea of offering preferences to bring in more black students.” He just disapproves of the secretive nature of the selection process.

However, if a system that pays tribute to a type, not to the individual, doesn’t irk the good professor, one wonders why he went to all the trouble.

The accommodation of elites to racial preferences has been studied by Frederick R. Lynch, the author of Invisible Victims: White Males and the Crisis of Affirmative Action. When polled, corporate, political and academic elites mostly foreswear quotas/affirmative action. But they seldom resist its implementation.

Republicans, the consummate drag queens of politics (no offense to drag queens), are no different.

These days McCain, a Johnny-come-lately to conservatism, disavows affirmative action—sort of. But in 1998 he supported it.

And in 2003, the Bush administration filed a brief challenging racial preference in student admissions at the University of Michigan. The university was awarding candidates 20 points out of 150 for having the right complexion (non-white) and only 12 points for the right mind (a perfect SAT score).

Bush’s was a most unusual brief because, as it transpired, the administration’s challenge was a cover for the very system Professor Groseclose has exposed at UCLA. Race, the administration’s Solicitor General conceded, could be a factor in admissions under certain conditions. Racial cue cards in the form of “a statement people can make about whether they’ve overcome hardship” were quite kosher.

Barack Obama’s honest support for affirmative action may be more irritating. But is there really a dime’s worth of difference between the parties?

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