Ron DeSantis
March 27, 2023 — John Hinderaker
On Saturday evening, Sunday morning in Australia, I did a fun appearance on Outsiders, the excellent Sky News program that I have been on a number of times. Rowan, Rita and James asked me about some of the issues we have been covering here on Power Line: the Left’s insidious effort to make us eat insects, the U.S. government’s insane energy policies, and the three-cornered battle now going on among
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March 23, 2023 — Scott Johnson
As I have mentioned a time or two previously, the Star Tribune is a pathetic excuse for a newspaper. My theory is that (a) owner Glen Taylor has a high tolerance for mediocrity and (b) gets his news from the paper, so he thinks it’s doing pretty, pretty well. Today the Star Tribune is featuring Brianna Bierschbach’s contribution to DFL public relations in “Gov. Tim Walz draws contrast between Minnesota
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March 21, 2023 — John Hinderaker
In an interview with Piers Morgan that will be broadcast on Thursday, Ron DeSantis finally takes aim at Donald Trump. Until yesterday, he had remained silent in the face of Trump’s usually childish attacks on him. No more: Morgan provides a preview: [I]n a series of jabs at his likely biggest Republican nominee rival, DeSantis slammed Trump over his character failings, chaotic leadership style, and for his handling of the
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March 18, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Ron DeSantis struck a moderate note in his recent comments on the war in Ukraine, drawing criticism from many Republicans. The Wall Street Journal headlines: “Pence and Other Potential GOP 2024 Rivals Pounce on DeSantis Over Ukraine Aid.” Former Vice President Mike Pence, without mentioning Ron DeSantis by name, rebuked the Florida governor Saturday for his isolationist approach to the war in Ukraine. Isolationist approach? Seriously? A sharp divide inside
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March 16, 2023 — John Hinderaker
A dark horse candidate for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination has been identified: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. If that sounds far-fetched, consider this Daily Beast puff piece: “Minnesota’s Gov. Tim Walz Is the Anti-DeSantis. Dems Should Take Note.” It is actually true that Walz is the anti-DeSantis. His policies are the negative image of Florida’s governor’s. But you would have to be deeply delusional to think that the comparison is
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March 14, 2023 — Elizabeth Stauffer
Donald Trump was a great president. Despite the relentless pursuit by members of a deep state determined to remove him from office, he accomplished a great deal in four years. To name just a few of those achievements: His tax cuts and focus on deregulation triggered an economic boom. He reshaped the judiciary, made America energy independent, strengthened our military, secured our border, and stood up to China. I voted
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March 13, 2023 — Steven Hayward
A lot of our loyal readers, who we greatly value, insist on saying we are a nest of Never Trumpers. I deny it. I won’t go through the complete case now, because it would be long and tedious—and wouldn’t convince anyone dug in on the theme. For the record: I have stated recently that Trump might well be the best GOP candidate in 2024. I have doubts he can win
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February 20, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Several years ago, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation started a show called “Insiders,” featuring three liberal hosts. In an inspired moment, Sky News, which is more or less the Fox News of Australia, started its own program called “Outsiders” with three conservative hosts. I frequently appear as a guest on Outsiders, most recently on the show that aired yesterday. Ringleader Rowan Dean was out this week, so regular hosts Rita Panahi
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February 10, 2023 — Steven Hayward
As already hinted, the middle of my week was a visit to Tallahassee to meet Gov. Ron DeSantis and several of his senior staff, followed by dinner with the governor and Florida’s first lady Casey DeSantis at the Governor’s Mansion in the evening. I was along with a small group of our friends at the Claremont Institute, which is launching a special project in Florida, at the governor’s encouragement, and
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January 7, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Governor Ron DeSantis had a busy day yesterday. He followed through on last year’s legislation that ended the Disney Corporation’s unique self-governing status through the Reedy Creek Improvement District. The Orlando Sentinel reports: A notice published on Osceola County’s website on Friday states that lawmakers will take up legislation “increasing state oversight, accountability, and transparency” of the district, which gives Disney quasi-government control over its theme park properties in Florida.
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January 3, 2023 — John Hinderaker
First, the bad and ugly: the House adjourned today with no speaker for the first time in a century. Nineteen Republican spoilers have prevented Kevin McCarthy from taking the gavel. Reportedly, some of the dissident Republicans have told McCarthy that they don’t mind if far-left Democrat Hakeem Jeffries becomes Speaker. I don’t want to believe that, but there are some conservatives who are only comfortable as outsiders and who shun
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December 13, 2022 — John Hinderaker
This Suffolk/USA Today poll of 1,000 registered voters shows, not surprisingly, that support for Donald Trump as a presidential nominee is dropping rapidly. The poll finds Trump deeply unpopular at 30% favorable, 62% unfavorable. That places him well below Joe Biden at 46%/50% and Kamala Harris at 36%/52%. In a rematch between Trump and Joe Biden, Biden wins easily, 47% to 40%. Perhaps equally important, Ron DeSantis leads Biden by
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November 23, 2022 — John Hinderaker
2024 is a long way off, and much may happen between now and then. For one thing, Donald Trump may have been indicted and may have served some kind of sentence by then. But putting such possible drama aside, I have seen commentators suggest that Trump could be hard to beat. Even if he only draws, say, 35% of the vote in the early primaries, he could win them if
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November 10, 2022 — Steven Hayward
A couple days ago I posted this chart showing the partisan split by education, which liberals like to talk about—see, Republicans are stupid and Democrats are smart, because we went to kollege! Especially people with advanced degrees in gender studies and such: Well have a look at the NBC News exit poll from Florida, which shows Ron DeSantis got a majority of advanced-degree holders: Chaser, from Michael Barone: DeSantis carried
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October 21, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Yesterday the out-of-control Centers for Disease Control’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 15-0 to add the Covid-19 vaccine to the CDC’s child and adolescent immunization schedule. I don’t think there is any scientific basis for this action. Covid has proved not to be dangerous to children and young people; certainly not to infants who are routinely undergoing vaccination. For reasons I frankly do not understand, our establishment has resolved
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October 19, 2022 — John Hinderaker
I saw an interview with Robert Cahaly, who runs the Trafalgar polling operation, the other day. (It may have been off a Power Line link.) As I recall, he said that he isn’t polling in Florida because he doesn’t think there are any serious races there. I agree. For a time, Democrats believed, or pretended to believe, that retread party-switcher Charlie Crist could seriously challenge Ron DeSantis. In my opinion,
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October 1, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Hurricane Ian is moving up the Atlantic seaboard and apparently passing into history. It was tremendously destructive as it hit the Gulf coast of Florida, and Democrats didn’t even wait for the hurricane to make landfall before politicizing it. Democrats hope Ian will bring down, or at least put a chink in the armor of, the heretofore invincible Ron DeSantis. But I am confused: didn’t we learn during Katrina that
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