Tag: Ron DeSantis

Disney vs. Florida, an Expert’s Take

 

Sometimes, the news happens to be on some issue where you have direct knowledge.  Andrew Esquire over at Legal Mindset is a Florida lawyer who specialized in Special District law and other areas of Florida corporate law – all of which are in the center of the Florida vs. Disney fight.  He actually worked with the Celebration, FL district as well as Universal Studios.  He has absolutely no patience for woke BS, and he explains how Bob Iger and Disney have massively screwed up, potentially admitting to securities fraud.

Ricochet Editor-in-Chief Jon Gabriel is in for Jim today. Jon and Greg think Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is playing it smart by laughing off the regular insults from Donald Trump instead of trying to respond in kind. They also groan as a police detective who was on scene at last year’s school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, says law enforcement took more than an hour to confront the shooter in part because he had a more powerful weapon than that first thought. Finally, they walk through the absurd reparations proposals under serious consideration by officials in San Francisco.

DC Freaks Out Over DeSantis’s Ukraine Comments; Voters Shrug

 

Several right-of-center politicians and commentators are outraged over Gov. Ron DeSantis’s latest statement on the war in Ukraine. The hawks accuse the Florida governor of showing American weakness. Trump accuses him of being too vague. Both claim his short statement threatens his electoral chances — a prediction which reveals a severe case of Beltway Brain.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson asked various potential presidential candidates for their positions on America’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This was DeSantis’s response:

While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.

Trump’s 5-Point Plan to DeStroy DeSantis Has Little Chance

 

Axios reported the hot scoop that Donald Trump doesn’t much care for Ron DeSantis. After endorsing Florida’s two-term governor in 2018, Don’s taken all responsibility for Ron’s landslide re-election — despite Trump’s inability to pull off his own.

The piece includes Trump’s super-secret five-point plan to deep-six Meatball Ron DeSanctimonius once and for all. (If only Trump had a plan to defeat Biden.) Anyway, here’s the strategy:

  1. DeSantis’ past support for changes to Social Security and Medicare, including votes as a U.S. congressman to raise the eligibility age for Medicare.
  2. Disloyalty to Trump after he helped DeSantis get elected governor in 2018. Trump also plans to pound DeSantis on likability.
  3. Trump wants to cast DeSantis as a lackey of former House Speaker Paul Ryan. On Trump’s social-media site, Truth Social, he attacked Ryan this week as a loser who “couldn’t get elected dogcatcher,” and said he should resign or be fired as a Fox Corp. board member.
  4. DeSantis’ response to COVID is a top Trump target, even though the governor is known for resisting mask mandates. Trump plans to attack DeSantis’ caution in the earliest days of the pandemic — and try to fight the issue to a draw. A March 2020 headline in the Tampa Bay Times said: “DeSantis orders major shutdown of beaches, businesses in Broward, Palm Beach.” (DeSantis pushesbackonthis.)
  5. DeSantis took heat for muddled comments, in a Fox News interview last week, about whether to maintain financial and military support for Ukraine. Trump plans to portray DeSantis as wishy-washy on the war, while he toes the MAGA line of cutting aid.

Eh, I don’t see it working. Let’s go through them one by one.

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(Updated at 8 p.m. EST) Strategists in both major political parties continue to digest this year’s elections (we can’t call it “Election Day” anymore), and mail-in votes continue to trickle in and are counted. And we still have a US Senate election to resolve in Georgia. Who knows how that will turn out? Preview Open

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Are Trump Supporters Ready for Change?

 

Most food packages come with one of two expiration dates. One says “best if used by” a date after which the quality slowly declines. The second one says “use by” or “expires by,” after which the product may be hazardous to your health.

It appears that Donald Trump may have hit his expiration date. It is hazardous for Republicans to nominate him for another White House run.

It’s Time for a Family Conversation, GOP

 

Dear fellow Republicans – especially those of you who remain loyal and ardently supportive of former President Donald Trump. We need to have a serious and frank family conversation.

I’m no “never Trumper.” I voted for Trump twice. Reluctantly the first time since I’d strongly supported my friend and former US Senator Rick Santorum’s (R-PA) candidacy for the GOP nomination, followed by US Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), and then finally a vote in the Pennsylvania GOP primary in 2016 for US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). Still, there was no way I was voting to help elect Hillary Clinton. Trump got my vote in 2016, Access Hollywood tape and all.

Ron DeSantis for President

 

He’s a superstar. He turned a fraction of a percent win four years ago to what looks like about a 20% win. He earned votes. He won people over, people from the right and the middle, and possibly even from the left. He did what was right. He led, and he won over one of the biggest states in the country.

Run, Ron, run. You got my vote.

Since we are getting down to the wire, I thought we could talk about some of this cycle’s great slate of Republican candidates (and their Dem challengers that deserve to be voted out of office). Also, screw the idea of “pandemic amnesty,” and let’s get preppin’.

Hogan vs. DeSantis, Who You Got?

 

Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan admits that he never read the Parental Rights in Education bill (the one Disney calls the “Don’t Say Gay” bill) but that didn’t stop him from throwing shade at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

“I didn’t really actually see the details of the legislation, but the whole thing seems like … just a crazy fight,” Hogan said.  “It concerns me that DeSantis is always talking about, he was not demanding businesses do things but he was telling the cruise lines what they had to do, he was telling local schools what they had to be mandating and now he wants to criticize Disney for expressing how they feel about that bill. I mean, they have every right to, we have a thing called Freedom of Speech,” he continued. “They can come out and say what they think. I think the bill was kind of absurd, and not something that would’ve happened in our state.”

Join Jim and Greg as they cheer Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for his blistering, accurate rebuttal to President Biden on COVID response. They’re also stunned to see a new poll showing California voters favoring the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom by a convincing margin.  Is the poll an outlier or are Californians souring on Newsom at a critical time?  And they blast Missouri Rep. Cori Bush for saying she needs protection because she’s doing important work but we still need to defund the police.

Join Jim and Greg as they applaud Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for refusing to spend “one red cent” of taxpayer money on Critical Race Theory on the Florida civics curriculum. They also hammer the naked hypocrisy and opportunism of Senate Democrats who constantly tried to filibuster the Trump agenda but now insist it’s an ugly impediment to democracy and equality. And they shred New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for wanting police to confront people who have committed no crimes but may have hurt someone else’s feelings.

Join Jim and Greg as they note the New York Times and other liberal media grudgingly admitting that Florida did better than lockdown states in fighting COVID and in keeping its economy alive. They also dig into immigration and border policy as the Biden administration finds out governing is a lot harder than coming up with misleading slogans.  And they tee off on dictionary.com as it adds “supposably” as a real word instead of trying to teach people to use “supposedly.”

Join Jim and Greg as they chronicle the second accusation of sexual harassment against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his ever-changing response to it. They also get a kick out of the possibility that Florida Democrats might dust off Charlie Crist to challenge Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022. And they fire back at an NBC “explainer” on hate crimes, which suggests reporters need to be very careful about labeling something a hate crime if the offender is not white.

Join Jim and Greg as they applaud Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for speaking the truth that schools should be open and there’s only one reason why they aren’t. They also shake their heads as a brutal cold snap causes power system failures and rotating blackouts through Texas – and the lessons that should be learned. And they take a bite out of Bill Gates for wanting all “wealthy nations” to switch to synthetic beef.

 

Another day, another round of all good martinis.  After a brief analysis of the Washington Nationals winning the World Series, Jim and Greg enjoy watching the Kamala Harris presidential campaign suffer its worst poll numbers yet and shrink the campaign staff to save its dwindling resources.  They also marvel at the stratospheric approval numbers of Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, who enjoys a 72 percent approval rating and gets thumbs up from a majority of every major demographic, including Democrats.  And they’re fascinated by poll numbers showing the possibility of impeaching President Trump is far less popular in the swing states than it is in national polls.

Trump and DeSantis May Do Well by Doing Good [Updated 1 Sept.]

 

After Hurricane Maria fully exposed the extent of Puerto Rican public corruption and incompetence, President Trump allowed his supposedly expert professional advisors and disaster response agency leaders to drive the pace of response. As a result, Puerto Rico is still in significantly worse shape than Texas. Also as a result, Puerto Ricans, who are all American citizens, moved in large numbers to Florida, where they may well flip the state to the Democrats in 2020.

It is in President Trump’s and Governor DeSantis’s interest to very publicly show what a difference Republican leadership makes in response to a hurricane. President Trump took the first right step by canceling his trip to Poland. He is sending Vice President Pence in his place to commemorate Poland’s valiant struggle against the Germans and Russians, a place they find themselves in again today on the economic level. President Trump has communicated to the public and the government where his priorities lie.

President Trump addressed the American people on August 29th in a 90-second video, and had his team build in satellite time-lapse imagery of the approaching storm, to make the point of how serious it seems:

Make Florida Great Again

 

President Trump has been very busy this weekend in Florida. On Friday, he honored Small Business Administration Administrator Linda McMahon, with a second proper presidential farewell and send-off, as he had done for Ambassador Nikki Haley. Earlier in the day, he appeared with Florida officials and the Corps of Engineers on the shore of Lake Okeechobee, highlighting an important infrastructure project.

Lake Okeechobee is a large freshwater lake described as the heart or the kidney of Florida. It is girded by a dike system, which has been in long-standing need of repair. The US Army Corps of Engineers has federal responsibility, as with other large waterways.

The first embankments around Lake Okeechobee were constructed by local interest from sand and muck, circa 1915. Hurricane tides overtopped the original embankments in 1926 and 1928, resulting in over 2,500 deaths.

School Voucher Plans Can Stop the Propaganda Machines of the Left

 

Florida’s new governor, Ron DeSantis, has been going at warp speed to make changes in the state. His latest effort is to deal with a 14,000-student waiting list for a state tax credit scholarship program. But he’s getting resistance from the usual suspects—the school unions and traditional administrators. I realized, however, that the fight is about much more than union control; it’s about who controls the minds of our children.

Gov. Jeb Bush started the first-in-the-nation private voucher program, enacted in 1999. Unfortunately his efforts were stopped: