Florida Handles ICE Attacks Correctly, & U-Haul Documents Flight from Blue States (posted 1/18/26)

(I’m posting this column a day early because I’m heading down to the Sarasota area to hang out with a cousin for a few days.) 

I swore that I wouldn’t write about Minneapolis in this column, so I’ve got one quick item about the anti-Minneapolis: the free state of Florida.

This one is about an unhinged woman who attacked ICE agents in Jacksonville,

I don’t like to body shame or looks shame, but…this gal has a lot to be ashamed of on both counts.  If I can repeat a very old joke – and I’m the boss of me, so I can – when this gal gets on an electric scale, the message flashes, “Whoa! One at a time!”

Anyway, this lady is named Jennifer Cruz, and when she saw ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws, she got furious.  She jumped out of her car – actually, she unwedged herself from her car – ran over to the police (slowly) and punched one of them, while screaming the usual sweet reason of a leftist irritated by law enforcement.  (“F this and F that and stop doing the right thing!!  Aieeee!”)

Unlike what would happen in a certain misgoverned northern state, this dysfunctional mammal was immediately tased and stuffed into the back of a squad car.  (Vigorous cop workout for the day completed?  Check.)  Then she was driven off to jail, where she was charged with multiple felonies, including resisting with violence, battery on a LEO, and driving with a suspended license. 

By the way, great judgment Jen: “I don’t have a driver’s license, or any impulse control, so let me jump out of my car and attack officers, rather than slowly driving out the parking lot and living to continually drive illegally another day.”  Brilliant!

Governor DeSantis (peace be upon him) responded to the story on X: “Really bad decision to attack one of our troopers.  This isn’t Minneapolis…”

I pray that that man becomes president some day.   

In other news which is also related to what is going on in benighted blue states vs better-governed red states, a few weeks ago U-Haul released its yearly Growth Index, which is a compilation of data which tracks the number of people renting U-Haul vehicles to move out of some states and into others.

And once again, the data show that people are fleeing blue state governance and moving to red states.  Unexpectedly!

For at least the sixth year in a row, California is dead last, i.e. is losing more people than any other.  Which is freaking amazing, because CA is unlike many other states where other factors such as weather, terrible sports teams or rust-belt decay might incentivize some people to leave.

California has been blessed by the most amazing natural beauty and human capital of any state, with great weather and scenery (you can go to the beach in the morning and snow skiing in the afternoon, etc.), and a glut of revenue-generating businesses.  Forty years ago, CA looked unbreakable; they had Hollywood, Silicon Valley, bustling ports and a world-class university system. 

But nothing is so unbreakable that leftism – applied relentlessly and ruthlessly for four decades – cannot break it.  

It’s incredible.  California is the state equivalent of a gorgeous 20-something blonde at the height of her powers, in a room full of 100 straight, single guys. Somehow, the Dems found a way to make that hottie so repulsive that everybody in the room eventually fled, except for one serial killer, two mental patients, and a guy who has been blind since birth.

Of course leftist pols and the legacy media (but I repeat myself) have been denying and/or lying about why this is happening for decades: “Hey, maybe straight guys are finally coming around to the fact that female beauty, youth, perfect skin and a .7 waist-to-hip ratio are kind of gross.  Now they’re looking for a Jennifer Cruz or a Dylan Mulvaney type.”          

But unlike Jazzy Crockett, brother-banging Ilhan Omar, Jazz Hands and Small Frey, the data don’t lie.  

You can find the best overview of the numbers in an article titled, “The Great Divorce Continues,” at Issues and Insights.  It shows that TX, FL, NC, TN and SC lead the pack for the most in-migration, and CA, IL, NJ, NY and MA have the worst records. And the data is remarkably consistent: the five red states at the top were all in the top five last year, and four of the bottom five blue states were in the bottom five last year, with the exception of IL, which dropped from 45 to 49.

In fact, the larger pattern is even clearer with a little more distance.  Of the top 14 best states in retaining their citizens, 13 are red, with the only exception being Washington state at #6.  (If that state still has Seattle in it, I don’t understand that one.)  Of the bottom 10 states, only Ohio (at 43) is red.  (I don’t get that one, either.)

Of course, there are blue cities and counties in red states, and vice versa.  So it also makes sense to look at county-level migration patterns.

Annnnddddd…the leftist dysfunction is even more clear.

From the I&I article: 

“Of the 555 counties that voted for Joe Biden, 343 (or 62%) lost population since 2020. Of the 2,589 counties that voted for Trump, 1,726 (or 67%) gained population.

The 11 counties that had the biggest population declines over the past three years all voted for Biden. They lost a net total of 2 million people.

Of the 11 counties with the biggest gains in population, eight voted for Trump in 2020.”

The one measurement that I haven’t been able to find is an analysis of WHO has been migrating.  I know that CA lost more than 1.6 million people (net) in the ten years before 2022. (And it’s only gotten worse since). But that doesn’t include the likely million-plus illegals, drifters and addicts who have migrated into Cali for the welfare, free needles and judgment-free zones about pooping on the same sidewalks they are sleeping on.

Meanwhile, common sense – and what data I’ve been able to find in scattered sources – suggests that the people who have been leaving blue states are the ones a sane state would most like to keep: functional, productive, hard-working earners, tax payers and business owners. 

The results are as obvious as the dead muskrat that Maxine Waters calls a wig.  They’re as obvious as Ketanji’s horrifically flawed reasoning.  They’re as obvious as Lizzie Warren’s existential caucasian-ness.  (#wemustneverstopmockingher)

Leftist governance is a disaster. 

Now, if only Trump and the GOP can aggressively pursue a crackdown on voting irregularities and fraud – requiring voter ID, cleaning the voter rolls of illegals and the dead, rolling back the fraud-friendly COVID era scams (unvetted mail-in voting for weeks, ballot harvesting, counting votes for weeks after election day until you get the results leftists want, etc.) – we’ll have a better chance of ensuring that in future elections, leftist politicians get to reap what they’ve sown.

Hamas (and Trantifa) delenda est!

0-0-0

If you enjoyed this column, please share it and click Subscribe (on the bottom of your phone screen, or the right side of your computer screen) to receive a notice when new columns post.