Haiti's implosion was years in the making. The country's president was assassinated on July 7, 2021. The next month, the island was rocked by a devastating earthquake, which killed more than 2,200 people. In the years since, the island nation has been gripped by a nightmarish confluence of crime and bloodshed.
While NBC News recently reassured its audience that the cannibal gangsters of yesteryear are not presently prowling the body-strewn streets of Port-au-Prince looking for their next meal, criminals have nevertheless taken over the country's capital, freed thousands of felons from jail, engaged in systematic rape, forced the prime minister to resign, and threatened genocide.
Recent news of both a Haitian illegal alien's alleged rape of a girl in Massachusetts and the attempt by a boat containing Haitian migrants and guns to reach Florida shores appears to indicate the failed nation has begun to export its problems.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has made clear he won't tolerate this risk to his state.
DeSantis reiterated last week, "In Florida, we do not tolerate illegal immigration, let alone lawlessness committed by illegal aliens who shouldn't be here in the first place."
In addition to deploying more soldiers to protect the coastline, the Republican leader has indicated he'll bus the Haitian arrivals who managed to steal into the country over to Martha's Vineyard. After all, the elite liberal enclave is home to at least three towns that have adopted sanctuary policies in recent years.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission revealed last week that a pair of officers conducting nighttime water-based patrol near Sebastien Inlet on Feb. 29 stopped a 42-foot boat containing dozens of Haitian migrants along with weaponry.
"In their boat, in their vessel, they had firearms, they had guns, they had night vision gear and were boating very recklessly, which would potentially endanger other folks," the governor told reporters during a March 15 press conference.
Two among the 25 individuals aboard the boat were American citizens, both of whom were turned over to the Brevard County Sheriff's Office. DeSantis indicated the the Haitian migrants were turned over to the U.S. Coast Guard for deportation.
Prior to publicly acknowledging the Feb. 29 incident, DeSantis announced that in anticipation of a flood of illegal aliens from Haiti, he had ordered additional state assets to the Florida Keys and the Sunshine State's southern waters.
"For quite some time, the State of Florida has been dedicating significant resources to combat illegal vessels coming to Florida from countries such as Haiti," said the governor. "Given the circumstances in Haiti, I have directed the Division of Emergency Management, the Florida State Guard, and state law enforcement agencies to deploy over 250 additional officers and soldiers and over a dozen air and sea craft to the southern coast of Florida to protect our state."
While the state already has a security presence in the area as part of Operation Vigilant Sentry, DeSantis' March 13 directive is sending additional personnel and assets to the area, including 39 additional officers from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement; 23 additional officers and eight seacraft from the FFWC; 48 additional soldiers and four more helicopters from the Florida National Guard; and 30 additional officers from the Florida Highway Patrol along with more drones and aircraft.
In addition to these reinforcements, the state will send up to 133 soldiers from the Florida State Guard to protect the Keys.
Days after issuing his directive, DeSantis ratified a triad of bills to make it more difficult for illegal aliens to get around the state: House Bill 1589, which increases penalties on individuals who operate a vehicle without a license; House Bill 1451, which prevents counties and cities from accepting identification cards issued to illegal aliens by other jurisdictions; and SB 1036, which enhances penalties for a crime committed by an illegal alien who was previously deported.
In recent years, Texas, Florida, and other border states have sent illegal aliens packing to those Democrat-run municipalities that have branded themselves sanctuaries for those who would flout the laws of the land.
This campaign has been greatly successful, not only in giving northern cities a taste of what border states have long had to deal with, but in proving leftists' sanctuary rhetoric hollow. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, for instance, called last month for changes to the city's "sanctuary" policy. Chicago recently began evicting illegal aliens from its overwhelmed shelters.
DeSantis told conservative radio host Dana Loesch this week that the Sunshine State may begin busing illegal aliens from Haiti to Martha's Vineyard.
The Republican governor bused around 50 illegal aliens to Martha's Vineyard in 2022. The liberal enclave was quick to get rid of the migrants, who were whisked to a military base shortly after their arrival.
The governor told Loesch that if Haitians manage to get into Florida, the Sunshine State can't simply fly them back to Haiti "because the federal government is going to tell the host countries not to accept our planes."
"We really have to get them before they reach the shores, which is why we're working so hard to do that," said DeSantis. "Although I will say this, we do have our transport program, also, that's going to be operational. So, Haitians land in the Florida Keys, their next stop very well might be Martha's Vineyard."
\ud83d\udea8 BREAKING\ud83d\udea8\n\n"Haitians land in Florida Keys, their next stop very well be Martha's Vineyard" ~ @RonDeSantis \n\n #DanaRadio\n\nPodcast: https://t.co/HHFoIyoQxb— (@)
Massachusetts — which has effectively been a sanctuary state since 2017 — is already overwhelmed by illegal aliens, and it's proving to be exceptionally costly.
Democratic Gov. Maura Healey's finance and housing secretaries indicated in December that the projected cost of sheltering migrants in fiscal year 2025 will be an estimated $915 million.
DeSantis also told Loesch that Florida will not be welcoming prospective waves of migrants from Haiti.
"I've got to defend my state," said the governor. "I've got enough issues just dealing with people fleeing from blue states moving into Florida."
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Florida is poised to become the first state to embrace the un-woke Classic Learning Test for public college admissions.
It comes down to a vote by the State University System of Florida's Board of Governors later this month, after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis already ratified legislation in May, authorizing school districts to select the CLT as an alternative to the SAT or ACT for administration to public school students in grade 11.
As with many initiatives that hearken back to the West's once and future cultural greatness or inspire confidence in the tradition of America's forebears, critics have suggested that it is problematic to place emphasis on Western and European thought, reported Axios.
Julian Vasquez Heilig, provost and vice president at Western Michigan University, has suggested that "classical education is really a wolf in sheep's clothing," adding, "what it's about is using selective Western thinkers to foment a specific moral ideology."
Other critics suggest it is part of an "attempt by Florida Republicans to reshape the state's education system, basing it on more conservative teachings," reported NewsNation.
Like the SAT and ACT standardized tests, the CLT, launched in 2015 and used early on by homeschooling families, assesses students' reading, grammar, and math skills, emphasizing foundational reading skills.
Besides consisting of only 120 questions and taking two hours to complete, the test differs greatly from others in that it focuses on "meaningful pieces of literature that have stood the rest of time."
The Tampa Bay Times reported that the test is rooted in the classical education model, focusing on the "centrality of the Western tradition."
Jeremy Tate, the founder and president of the CLT, told the Florida Standard that the College Board, which administers the SAT, "is a pretty radical organization. They don't try to hide it. ... They're very much one-sided [politically]. Most of the source material leans heavily into 20th century progressives and they really ignore the Western intellectual tradition that was foundational for America."
Rather than cramming in preparation for an engagement with the writ of middling leftist intellectuals and literary unknowns, students who take the CLT will instead enjoy exposure to Western greats, from Aristotle and Plutarch of antiquity, to St. Thomas Aquinas and Geoffrey Chaucer of the Middle Ages, all the way to modern American giants like Thomas Jefferson.
The stated purpose of this particular test is to "reconnect knowledge and virtue by providing meaningful assessments and connections to seekers of truth, goodness, and beauty."
Clay Daniel, founder of Clayborne Test Prep and Tutoring, told BestColleges, "It doesn't feel like you're just taking a multiple-choice test because, in the process, you might be comparing the work of Plato and the Federalist Papers, and really thinking about the interplay between the two. It's kind of a rich experience, taking the test, which isn't something that you normally associate with standardized tests."
Having an alternative to the ACT and SAT is critical, according to both Tate and the CLT.
CLT notes on its site that "standardized testing provides an invaluable opportunity to engage students with the texts and authors that have shaped history and culture," especially since teachers have the tendency to "teach towards the test."
Tate suggested that it was long understood that the "goal of education was always about human formation, especially the cultivation of virtue. ... It's why you educated the next generation. You're passing down an inheritance. You're teaching them integrity."
While the CLT seeks to once again pursue this goal, Tate has indicated that is not a common aim among all examiners and educators.
"That purpose for education has been lost in this age of credentialing," said Tate. "It's just about college and career readiness."
The Pensacola News Journal reported that there are presently four CLT exams students can take: CLT, the college entrance exam for grades 11 and 12; CLT 10, the college preparatory exam for grades 9 and 10; CLT 8, the high school readiness program for grades 7 and 8; and CLT 2-6, a diagnostic exam for grades 3-6.
Over 100,000 CLT tests have been administered so far.
Presently, over 200 colleges and universities accept CLT scores in the United States and in Canada, including Hillsdale College, Baylor University Honors College, and John Brown University. Many of the schools appear to be religiously oriented.
New College of Florida became the first public university in the state to accept the CLT as an alternative to the SAT and ACT in May, with Richard Corcoran, interim president, noting it was "an exciting step for educational choice and freedom in our state as well."
In addition to ratifying a bill funding all school districts in Florida to use the CLT for 11th-graders back in May, DeSantis also enabled the CLT to be used by students in order to qualify for the state's Bright Futures college scholarship.
Axios reported that the Florida Board of Governors is expected to vote on Aug. 30 concerning CLT adoption.
According to board spokesman Altony Lee III, if adopted at the end of the month, then universities could start accepting CLT scores for the 2023-2024 admissions cycle.
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Washington Post commentator and Biden devotee Jennifer Rubin recently penned an opinion piece entitled, "Florida might pay for MAGA cruelty and know-nothingism."
This hit piece targeting Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and his conservative initiatives, alternatively titled, "Why Ron Desantis's stunts may backfire," appears to have itself backfired and exposed the author's own "know-nothingism."
While the paper issued a pseudo-correction over the weekend, it appears the reputational damage has been done.
Rubin set out in her Friday piece to "examine the potential price Floridians might pay for MAGA culture wars."
"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his obedient Republican legislature have made bullying and attacking the vulnerable the hallmarks of their governance," wrote Rubin.
Citing DeSantis-ratified laws banning child sex-change mutilations and critical race theory, as well as the governor's initiative to provide Democratic sanctuary cities with busloads of illegal aliens, Rubin suggested, "Florida has become not where 'woke' died but rather where empathy, decency, and kindness go to die."
After bemoaning the governor's popular initiatives, Rubin stated her thesis: DeSantis' "MAGA war on diversity and tolerance might be negatively impacting the state."
This impact, according to Rubin, can be seen in the massive exodus of 674,740 people from the state in 2021. Only that never happened. Rather, the exact opposite phenomenon occurred.
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, 647,740 people moved into the state in 2021, leaving Florida with the biggest population boom of all 50 states.
Rubin appears to have based the crux of her argument on a blog derivative from a Business Insider article, wherein Kelsey Neubauer incorrectly stated that "an estimated 674,740 people reported that their permanent address changed from Florida to another state in 2021. That’s more than any other state, including New York or California, the two states that have received the most attention for outbound migration during the pandemic."
While Business Insider changed the headline of its July 11 story to "We got it wrong: More people moved out of New York and California than Florida in 2021" and noted in a corresponding correction that it had "switched those numbers," Rubin had already adopted the original false conclusion as a premise.
Rubin then attempted to build on this false premise, suggesting that "evidence points to a brain drain from Florida universities and colleges," but admitted "data is hard to come by."
After her article's publication, internet sleuths took notice.
Twitter Community Notes quickly tagged the article that had been posted to her page with links to the source of the facts she had inverted.
— (@)
DeSantis' press secretary Jeremy Redfern responded to the post, writing, "Oh...really?"
Redfern alluded to a July 13 CNBC article, which indicated Florida's 2023 economy score was 340 out of 360 points, resulting in an A+ grade; GDP growth was 4% in 2022; job growth was 4.9%; and its "economy is white hot."
Stephen Miller, contributing editor at the Spectator, responded, "You should be fired for this kind of mistake."
Charles C.W. Cooke, a senior writer at National Review Online, tweeted, "In which Jennifer Rubin writes a piece in the Washington Post on Friday that is based around the massive mistake that Business Insider made—and then corrected—on Tuesday. 'Does she have editors?' was just emphatically answered."
Cooke added, "It really is jarring to see. When I've written for the Post and the Times, I've been fact-checked until I bled. ... But, as is evident if you read those papers, it only happens in one direction."
The updated version of Rubin's polemic no longer contains her core premise, but maintains her dubious argument. It also contains a correction, which reads, "A previous version of this article mischaracterized Floridians' state-to-state migration in 2021. According to the Census Bureau, more people moved into Florida than any other state that year. This version has been corrected."
Just as she has not offered an apology for her hand in pushing the discredited Russian collusion narrative to smear former President Donald Trump, Rubin does not appear to have apologized for using falsehoods to smear DeSantis.
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MSNBC panelists' took turns belittling Florida's first lady on Saturday, characterizing Casey DeSantis as both "America's Karen" and as being akin to an antagonistic cultist from a dystopian novel.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Megyn Kelly and others quickly fired back, noting that the MSNBC talking heads' venom evidences not only their intolerance for strong conservative women but a fear of Casey DeSantis' efficacy as a mother, a wife, and a politico.
Former Republican Rep. David Jolly, voted out of office in 2016, and Tara Setmayer, the alleged-conservative Lincoln Project member who used to work for CNN, joined the titular host of "The Saturday Show With Jonathan Capehart" Saturday in watching an excerpt of a new DeSantis campaign ad.
Rather than engage with the political themes, which they cast as "dark," or address the specifics of what was said, the pundits decided instead to denigrate Casey DeSantis.
Jolly said, "Casey DeSantis is a fairly compelling political figure in Florida and now nationally. For many, she's the brighter side to Florida's angry governor. For others, she's become America's Karen."
Capehart laughingly repeated, "America's Karen," then noted Jolly had "taken his breath away" with this characterization of Florida's first lady.
Apparently this term was not yet in the MSNBC host's lexicon when in 2020 he raged against white women, suggesting that as a political force, they serve to enforce "patriarchal norms [rather] than dismantling them" and protect that system "where they and their children might lose the shared superiority and protection they get by being attached to powerful White men."
The MSNBC host, who elsewhere stated that men can be women, further insinuated white women maintain so-called institutional racism and that "the Democratic Party should stop wasting so much time on the lost cause of suburban wine moms."
According to the BBC, "Karen," used by Jolly as a pejorative, is a slang term "referencing a specific type of middle-class white woman, who exhibits behaviours that stem from privilege. ... 'Karen' is associated with the kind of person who ... is anti-vaccination, and carries out racist micro-aggressions."
The New York Post corroborated this reading of the term as a racial epithet, noting the term "has become social-media shorthand meaning a middle-aged white woman ... who makes a big fuss, and is not-so-blissfully ignorant."
Casey DeSantis, 43, is a mother of three and former news journalist who battled breast cancer and won. Extra to her successful career on television, she has championed various causes — such as cancer research and hurricane relief — for the betterment of her state while also actively supporting her husband, Gov. Ron DeSantis, both in Florida and in his current presidential bid.
While Jolly reduced Casey DeSantis' life, relations, and accomplishment to a single racially-charged word, albeit with a patriotic modifier, his co-panelist Tara Setmayer suggested Florida's first lady was a "Serena Waterford wannabe," referencing a major character in Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale."
Waterford is the barren wife of the villainous Commander Frederick Waterford in the book, which was inspired in part by "the brutal Communist reign of Ceaușescu in Romania" and evinced a "treatment of women [that] is very Islamic."
Setmayer further claimed that Casey DeSantis "needs to cut it out," adding "there's all kinds of names for her."
— (@)
The Independent reported that Gov. Ron DeSantis responded on Fox News Monday, saying that he and his wife would wear the term "America's Karen" as a "badge of honor."
"My wife is an incredibly strong first lady of Florida, a fantastic mother and a great wife, and that threatens the left," said DeSantis. "So she and I kind of shrug it off because we know it just shows they view her as a threat, because the message that she was bringing in Iowa about the rights of parents and how we are not going to take this anymore with the left trying to indoctrinate our kids, they understand that that resonates not just with Republican parents, with independent parents, and, yes, with Democrat parents."
Gov. DeSantis noted that his wife is "a great advocate for families, a great advocate for children. And I'm thankful that she's my wife. And I'm really honored that she's willing to go out there and press the case. And so we wear criticism from MSNBC as a badge of honor."
— (@)
While the DeSantis couple opted to outclass the MSNBC panelists, Megyn Kelly fired back on her podcast, saying, "If [critics] were saying this sort of thing about a leftie, these same [commentators] would be outraged by the rampant misogyny," reported the New York Post. "But as always, it’s always fair game against a Republican wife. ... They hate her in a special way. It’s almost coming at her more viciously than with [former first lady] Melania [Trump]."
Kelly added, "I think the reason they are reacting so angrily to [Casey DeSantis] is they accurately perceive her as a threat."
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) suggested that Capehart and his panelists' attacks on DeSantis were "classless, and consistent with that network's chronic and indefensible mistreatment of @MELANIATRUMP. All this is indicative of MSNBC's status as the unscrupulous media arm of the Democratic Party."
TheBlaze reported last month that the executive editor at the Daily beast targeted Casey DeSantis in a deranged rant, stressing that she had neither the ideological mooring nor the aristocratic bona fides needed to qualify for acceptance by the media and the political establishment.
Rather than "America's Karen," Katie Baker, the executive editor of the leftist blog, called Florida's first lady "the Walmart Melania."
"While Casey may be trying to position herself after Jackie Kennedy (good luck) and even Melania, if this weekend is any indication, she’s falling far short. It doesn't matter how many times she wears that ice-blue Badgley Mischka cape-dress. The DeSantis’ will never be Camelot," wrote Baker, adding that DeSantis could never "embody the class and effortless elegance of Michelle Obama or Dr. Jill Biden."
Baker made explicit her classist digs with an allusion to "The Great Gatsby," suggesting that unlike F. Scott Fitzgerald's fictional characters Tom and Daisy Buchanan — inheritors of affluence and wealth — "the DeSantis’ are more like poseurs," bereft also of the Gatsbian wealth that the Trumps can "retreat into."
MSNBC recently provided tips on "how to counter the 'tidal wave of misogyny' spurred by anti-feminist influencers."
While the guidance was tailored to younger minds, juvenile mindsets fitting to disparage a woman in prime time on the basis of her immutable characteristics, age, and political affiliation, might similarly be cured with "consistent and positive engagement with men who are role models for respectful treatment of women."
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The executive editor at the Daily Beast has targeted Casey DeSantis in a deranged rant, emphasizing that Florida's first lady has neither the ideological mooring nor the aristocratic bona fides necessary to qualify for acceptance by the media and the political establishment.
Casey DeSantis, 42, is a mother of three and former news journalist who battled breast cancer and won. Extra to her successful career on television, she has championed various causes — such as cancer research and hurricane relief — for the betterment of her state while also actively supporting her husband, Gov. Ron DeSantis, both in Florida and in his latest presidential bid.
Doug Lambert, vice chair of the Republican Party in Belknap, New Hampshire, recently told Reuters, "She's the real deal."
Politico said she was "unquestionably the most important person influencing DeSantis’ policy and political operations ... taking both public positions on key issues like mental health funding as well as more behind-the-scenes duties, including playing a leading role in changing the makeup at the Republican Party of Florida."
The New York Post called her the governor's "not-so-secret political weapon."
However, to Katie Baker, the executive editor of the Daily Beast, Florida's first lady is just "the Walmart Melania."
The Daily Beast, a floundering leftist blog that was recently exposed for advancing a false report, published Baker's rant over the weekend, which was thematically centered on a jacket worn by Casey DeSantis at a biker charity event in Iowa, during which the governor told an audience, "We will never ever surrender to the woke mob."
The criticism of the jacket — which Baker used as an excuse to similarly lambaste former first lady Melania Trump's "I Really Don't Care" coat, but not Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's expensive "Tax the Rich" Met Gala dress — spiraled out into what appeared to be an attempt at character assassination, not unlike the profile run on May 19 by Politico, entitled "The Casey DeSantis Problem: ‘His Greatest Asset and His Greatest Liability."
The leather jacket that drew Baker's ire had an American flag on the front. On the back was a silhouette of the state of Florida and an alligator along with the caption, "Where woke goes to die."
\u201cIowa and Florida: Where woke goes to die\u2026\n\n\u2026.thanks to the leadership of @KimReynoldsIA and @RonDeSantis.\u201d— Casey DeSantis (@Casey DeSantis) 1685839545
Baker wrote the jacket "brought to mind nothing so much as the racks of a Red State big-bin store where it would be retailing for $24.99."
"Casey DeSantis’ coat is just like her husband Ron DeSantis’ campaign: Crude. Grasping. Saying the ugly part out loud," wrote Baker.
Rather than sporting a "big-bin store" jacket that other Americans could similarly afford and wear, Baker made clear what the political elite should look like: "Think the pure sweetness of Michelle’s Jason Wu floral gown for the Obamas’ first inaugural ball, or Jill’s pastel blue coat that echoed the colors of Ukraine’s flag when Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House."
While the Daily Beast's executive editor suggested "that fashion is a joyous extension of who you are and a symbol of what you want the world to know about you and about what you stand for," she intimated the American flag, gator, and "Where woke goes to die" slogan are altogether unacceptable, claiming that DeSantis' jacket signals Florida is not just where woke goes to die but where "a lot of other people die as well."
Baker linked the promise of wokeness' end, as signaled by DeSantis' jacket, to COVID deaths, alleged book bans, Jim Crow-era lynch mobs, and the 2016 Orlando Pulse nightclub mass shooting, further claiming the jacket serves as a "warning" to America of more in that vein.
Beyond "reading too much" into the DeSantis' war on identitarianism, ESG and gender ideology, Baker proceeded to make a classist argument for why Casey DeSantis, a daughter of a former USAF officer and a Sicilian immigrant, will never receive the acceptance of the liberal establishment as she lacks both Jackie Kennedy's progressive politics and the wealth of the Trumps.
"While Casey may be trying to position herself after Jackie Kennedy (good luck) and even Melania, if this weekend is any indication, she’s falling far short. It doesn't matter how many times she wears that ice-blue Badgley Mischka cape-dress. The DeSantis’ will never be Camelot," wrote Baker, adding that DeSantis could never "embody the class and effortless elegance of Michelle Obama or Dr. Jill Biden."
Baker made explicit her classist digs with an allusion to "The Great Gatsby," suggesting that unlike F. Scott Fitzgerald's fictional characters Tom and Daisy Buchanan — inheritors of affluence and wealth — "the DeSantis’ are more like poseurs," bereft also of the Gatsbian wealth that the Trumps can "retreat into."
Despite insinuating the DeSantis' are barred from the upper echelons of American society and the media acceptance that entails, the Daily Beast's executive editor managed to parrot Roger Stone's claim in Politico's May hit piece comparing Casey DeSantis to a famous literary aristocrat, but only as a means to denigrate.
"We’ve got a Sunshine State Lady Macbeth, in her green cape and white gloves, with her middling husband and her thirst for the crown," wrote Baker.
Jenna Ellis, a conservative lawyer who previously worked on former President Donald Trump's legal team, tweeted in response to Baker's article, "Tell me you’re elitist without telling me you’re elitist."
Given Baker's framing of Casey DeSantis as "the Walmart Melania," one commentator asked, "What's wrong with (shopping at) Walmart?"
Another commentator wrote, "No, these people don't hate the peasants, why do you ask?"
Philip Melanchthon Wegmann, a White House reporter with RealClearPolitics, suggested Baker's hit piece served as "an early in-kind contribution to DeSantis."
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