DeSantis Won the Week & Jesus Saved the Day - Top 3 Takeaways – March 29th, 2024
- DeSantis won the week. It’s been a great week for Governor DeSantis. Legislatively he’s signed numerous new laws which will make a meaningful impact within the state including instituting parental rights over social media accounts for those under the age of 16 and the strongest-in-the-nation law to combat squatters infiltrating properties. Legally he’s also had two huge wins. First, he had the settlement of all outstanding legal matters with Disney, which left everything he instituted in that dispute in place – including the Central Florida Tourism Board which will govern Disney – as opposed to Disney effectively governing Disney. Next, he won with his congressional map. In what’s one of the biggest stories within this state that’s receiving the least amount of attention is this...the unanimous decision by a federal appeals court striking down the legal challenge to Florida’s congressional map. The last time we had an update on the status of Florida’s legally challenged congressional map was mid-February when the decision by the Florida Supreme Court, to not expedite a hearing challenging the map, ensured that it would stand for this year’s election cycle. Once that decision was made there wouldn’t be time to create a new map before deadlines would come into play. But the just rendered unanimous federal appeals court decision likely means DeSantis’ map stands – until the next Census. Florida’s current congressional map, was effectively drawn by Governor DeSantis and approved in a special session preceding the 2022 midterm election (after he rejected the map drawn and ratified by the legislature). Ever since we’ve been told by left-wing interest groups like the League of Women Voters (one of the parties in the suit), that Florida’s map was racially gerrymandered. As cited in the decision: Whatever might be said about the Legislature’s decision to give up the fight for preserving a Black-performing district in North Florida, it did not amount to ratification of racial animus in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. While the decision could still be appealed to the US Supreme Court, and probably will, the unanimous decision of a federal appeal’s court makes it much more likely they’d not even take the case up and still even less likely to overturn the ruling even if they did.
- In many ways it’s apropos that DeSantis had both of these big legal victories in the same week. They involve two of the topics that have been most dishonestly covered by news media and most lied about by those opposed to the governor’s position. Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law was never about homosexuality and quite literally never mentioned the word gay – let alone prohibiting the use of the word in school. It was about banning teaching of sexuality of any kind to children in grades K-3, and age-appropriate context thereafter. Yet your news media to this day still commonly falsely characterizes the law as “Don’t Say Gay”. As I’ve always said...you have to be a sick and disgusting freak to think we should be teaching sexual orientation of any kind to children under eight. That's why it was even more disturbing that Disney, of all companies, was fighting for the ability to sexualize children under eight (it makes you wonder what’s on the Disney channel). In the end the irony was that while Disney was trying to take out Florida’s chief executive, it was Disney’s own chief executive who got taken out, along with Disney’s self-governance. That’s appropriate. A sick disgusting freak who wants to sexualize young children shouldn’t be running what’s primarily a children’s company. Similarly, for two years, we’ve heard about Ron DeSantis’ allegedly racist congressional map. Except now a federal appeals court has unanimously decided it’s not. It’s still possible the Florida Supreme Court could eventually overturn the map...or even the United States Supreme Court, but if a federal appeals court unanimously won’t...it’s not very likely. So yeah, DeSantis won the week. But more importantly Floridians did. Governor DeSantis won a record reelection two years ago because he was a great governor – not because most Floridians wanted him to be the next president. Ever since he dropped out of the presidential race, he’s gotten back to what he’s great at doing – governing the state of Florida with good policy. Speaking of good policy...
- When in doubt error on the side of God. On this Good Friday my final takeaway today is this... How many times in life have you found yourself thinking of saying something that’s faith-based, but haven’t? Perhaps it's because of political correctness, or maybe fear of how someone might react? How many times have you thought of doing something selfless but haven’t because you opted for self-interest instead? In our society we’ve been conditioned to error on the side opposite of our faith. Choosing the opposite of God. It’s the easy thing to do. Here’s a thought and my challenge for all of us. Today and through this Easter weekend (as least to start)... If we’re going to potentially error in one direction or another, how about erroring on the side on God? May God bless you. Happy Easter.