Author Topic: Gov. Ron DeSantis  (Read 18962 times)

DougMacG

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Crafty_Dog

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Gov. Ron DeSantis on Ukraine
« Reply #152 on: February 20, 2023, 11:07:30 AM »
No ‘Blank Check’: Ron DeSantis Enters the Ukraine Debate
By DAN MCLAUGHLIN
February 20, 2023 11:21 AM

As Russia’s war in Ukraine approaches the end of its first year, Republicans and conservatives face some difficult and divisive questions about America’s involvement. Robert Zubrin made the case on the homepage over the weekend that the Biden administration could be doing more to help Volodymyr Zelensky and his government deliver a disabling blow to Russia’s aggressive military machine, and noted that some on the right are so hostile to the Ukrainian cause that they may fairly be described as Putin apologists — more sympathetic to Putin and his regime than to Zelensky and his elected government. (I would part company with Zubrin to the extent that he identifies particular people in this way without specific quotations, and to the extent that he conflates opposition to supporting Ukraine with being a Putin apologist.)



There is, however, a very wide gulf between “We should do more in Ukraine to confront Russia” and “We should do nothing to help Ukraine,” and most Republicans and conservatives — whether they be elected officials, commentators, or ordinary voters — fall somewhere along that spectrum. That presents a challenge to Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell in managing their respective caucuses on this issue (McCarthy’s caucus is the more restive of the two), and it presents a challenge to Republican presidential contenders in framing both a political message and a policy that could be carried into the White House.

Enter Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor is looking more and more like a presidential candidate. He gave Salena Zito a tour of his hometown, is launching a book at the end of this month, and is speaking today to a law-enforcement group on Staten Island. As I noted in my review for the magazine of DeSantis on foreign-policy and national-security issues, he is the furthest thing from a Putin apologist, but he has been playing his cards close to the vest on aid to Ukraine:

When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, DeSantis branded the Russian leader an “authoritarian gas-station attendant,” blasted Europeans for buying energy that funds Putin’s regime, and argued that gaining independence from Russian oil and gas by boosting U.S. energy production would hit Putin where it hurts and weaken his grip on power by hitting the pocketbooks of Russian oligarchs. . . .

Unlike Donald Trump or other figures on the populist right such as Tucker Carlson (on whose show the governor is a frequent guest), DeSantis has not showered foreign authoritarians with praise or pandered to resentment of Ukraine and its leader. . . .

His rhetorical line has been consistently anti-Putin and pro-Ukraine. Nevertheless he defended Elon Musk, who used his satellites to aid the Ukrainian war effort, when Ukrainian officials criticized him for a comment he made about the war. That drew a reaction from DeSantis in defense of a magnate who has expressed support for the governor: “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you — good Lord!” But he has been circumspect on topics such as the limits of U.S. aid to Ukraine, other than taking an uncontroversial stance against direct American military intervention.

On Fox & Friends this morning, following Joe Biden’s visit to Kyiv, DeSantis waded further into the debate:

“These things can escalate, and I don’t think it’s in our interest to be getting into proxy war — with China getting involved — over things like the border lands, or over Crimea,” he said. “I think it would behoove them to identify what is the strategic objective they’re trying to achieve. Just saying it’s an open ended blank check that is not acceptable,” DeSantis said.

The governor was asked what a “win” would look like for Ukraine. “The fear of Russia going into NATO countries [and] steamrolling — you know, that has not even come close to happening. I think they’ve shown themselves to be a third rate military power,” he said. “I think they’ve suffered tremendous, tremendous losses. I gotta think that the people in Russia are probably disapproving of what’s going on. I don’t think they can speak up about it for obvious reasons.”

DeSantis downplayed the threat of Russia to the U.S. in comparison to China. “I don’t think that they are the same threat to our country, even though they’re hostile. I don’t think they’re on the same level as a China.”

All of this is correct as a general matter. It is true that Biden has failed to make the case to the American people regarding our strategy or desired end state in Ukraine, repeating the error of so many wartime presidents before him. He conspicuously refused to use this year’s State of the Union speech to make the case for what we are doing in Ukraine. It is true that there are limits to what we can or will spend on this conflict, and that we will hit those political limits sooner if the president fails to keep the public on board. National Review‘s editorials have been consistently supportive of aid to Ukraine, but as our editorial following Zelensky’s December speech to Congress observed:

We cannot indefinitely dodge the question of what we should do if the war drags on, or how we intend to pay for this. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, our current rate of spending on Ukraine is running at just under $7 billion a month. That means that, if the war continues (and it probably will), another aid package will have to be agreed to in the course of next year. That will be entirely deficit spending if no effort is made to sacrifice other spending priorities. The U.S. also needs to have formed a clearer view of its strategy before then. Waiting for Putin to die or be overthrown is not a strategy. And neither is waiting for a Russian economic or military collapse. However unlikely, the last of these possibilities, in particular, comes fraught with nuclear peril.

If our strategy is to continue on our current path, that needs to be acknowledged, as does the importance of ensuring that our European allies do their part, something that cannot be taken for granted. We must also face the reality that the longer this conflict persists, the greater the danger of a more widespread and, possibly, nuclear war. To reduce that possibility, we should still avoid supplying weapons that Ukraine could use to strike deep into Russia.

If we are unwilling to maintain our current level of support for Ukraine indefinitely, we should be working behind the scenes to push Kyiv toward a deal. One reason to do so now is the stronger bargaining power that Ukraine should enjoy as a result of its battlefield success.

It is also true that China is the larger threat than Russia, although simply saying so avoids the question: Are we better off demonstrating our resolve against the China-Russia-Iran axis by continuing to resist the tip of its spear in Ukraine, or by husbanding our finite resources in preparation for a possible conflict in Taiwan? DeSantis hints at his answer, but doesn’t say. For now, as merely a prospective candidate hawking a book, he doesn’t have to; soon enough, he will.

DougMacG

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Re: Gov. Ron DeSantis on Ukraine
« Reply #153 on: February 20, 2023, 01:33:58 PM »
quote author=Crafty_Dog
No ‘Blank Check’: Ron DeSantis Enters the Ukraine Debate
---------------
I agree. 

Famous people caught reading the forum.
https://firehydrantoffreedom.com/index.php?topic=1751.msg154322#msg154322

The quagmire belongs to Russia, not us.

ccp

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DeSantis on Rus - Uk - China
« Reply #154 on: February 21, 2023, 11:30:38 AM »


DougMacG

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Re: Gov. Ron DeSantis
« Reply #156 on: February 27, 2023, 04:21:29 AM »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Gov. Ron DeSantis
« Reply #157 on: February 27, 2023, 11:26:59 AM »
Caught the last ten minutes of him on Mark Levin last night.  Liked what I saw/heard.  I do have it recorded and so I look forward to watching it in its entirety.  One hour one-on-one with Mark Levin should be a good in depth introduction to the man.

ccp

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Re: Gov. Ron DeSantis
« Reply #158 on: February 27, 2023, 02:28:15 PM »
great interview
interesting Mark had him on last night promoting his book

I think DeSantis has or is converting him.

Trumpy bear must be SEETHING:

https://www.pngitem.com/middle/JJJRbb_emoji-anger-clip-art-transparent-background-angry-emoji/

of course, Fox is bad because they don't bow to the king:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-lashes-out-fox-news-ron-desantis-1234687509/


DougMacG

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Re: Gov. Ron DeSantis, Mark Levin segment
« Reply #159 on: February 27, 2023, 03:06:08 PM »
« Last Edit: February 27, 2023, 03:08:33 PM by DougMacG »

Crafty_Dog

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This resonates for me
« Reply #160 on: March 01, 2023, 01:33:11 PM »

with Brittany Bernstein

Wednesday, March 01, 2023


'Make America Florida': DeSantis Lays Out 2024 Blueprint, Takes Veiled Shots at Trump in New Book


Ron DeSantis’s new book introduces a could-be 2024 slogan: “Make America Florida.”

 

The Florida governor dedicates an entire chapter in his new book, The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival, to the topic.

 

"The divisions in our society are not merely about different policy preferences regarding taxes, regulations, and welfare, but about our foundational principles," he writes. "The battles we have fought in Florida—from defeating the biomedical security state to stifling woke corporations to fighting indoctrination in schools—strike at the heart of what it means to be a Floridian and an American."

 

"The right path forward is not difficult to identify; it just requires using basic common sense and applying core American values to the problems of the day," states DeSantis, sounding an awful lot like a presidential candidate. "But it will not be easy to achieve. It will require successfully combating a lot of powerful, elite institutions that have driven the country into a cycle of repeated failures.”

 

To make America more like Florida, which he argues has “done a much better job than Washington in fostering accountability in government,” DeSantis advocates for term-limits for members of Congress and to make 50,000 federal workers at-will employees who can be fired by the president.

 

The book, which debuted at No. 1 on Amazon’s Top 100 list, paints DeSantis, a Yale University and Harvard Law grad, as an everyman who was raised in a working-class home with family ties to steel-country Ohio and Pennsylvania that made him “God-fearing, hard-working and America-loving.” He describes summers spent working at a local electric company to help pay for college and feeling like a working-class outsider at Yale.

 

While DeSantis mentions Trump more than 100 times in the book, he is not outwardly critical of the former president, choosing instead to deftly remind readers of Trump's weaknesses in a GOP primary without making value judgments of his own. He writes of the 2016 Republican opposition to a Trump candidacy:

The Republican party hierarchy was, unsurprisingly, almost universally opposed to Trump during the primaries. Some of this opposition was rooted in Trump’s liberal past, including his big donations to liberal candidates like Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and Harry Reid; and his support for liberal abortion laws and restrictions on gun rights. Some of the opposition was rooted in Trump’s unique but polarizing persona and his efforts to avoid being drafted, which they found unbecoming of a presidential candidate.

DeSantis will kick off a book tour this week beginning in Venice, Fla. The tour will crisscross the country, allowing DeSantis to fortify his already-bright national star power. He will headline two Republican fundraisers in Texas on Saturday before heading to an event for the GOP of Orange County, Calif., the next day. He’s set to give a keynote speech for the Alabama GOP next week.

 

Last weekend, he hosted a “Freedom Blueprint” retreat with more than 150 donors, elected officials, and conservative influencers, including Senators Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Ron Johnson (R., Wis.), former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Representative Chip Roy (R., Texas), and Texas-based donor Roy Bailey, a former member of Trump’s national finance committee.

 

This weekend, DeSantis will also attend Club for Growth’s annual donor retreat, which runs from Thursday to Saturday in Palm Beach, Fla., at a location just three miles from former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.

 

Trump, who will instead attend CPAC, attacked Club for Growth in a Truth Social post on Tuesday, calling the group “Club for NO Growth” and “an insignificant group of Globalists who I have beaten badly because of their anti America First views. They will only get the 'stragglers.'"

 

Other 2024 hopefuls slated to attend the Club for Growth event include former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, former vice president Mike Pence, Senator Tim Scott, New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu, and Woke, Inc. author Vivek Ramaswamy. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin were invited to the retreat but could not attend, CBS News reported.

 

DeSantis and Pence, meanwhile, declined to attend CPAC. Haley and Ramaswamy will attend both events.

 

The rift between Trump and his former ally comes after the former president and the Club for Growth supported different 2022 primary candidates in several Senate races, including in Ohio and Alabama. Club for Growth polling from earlier this month showed DeSantis defeating Trump in a hypothetical matchup.

 

“DeSantis has, in his style and the actions he’s taken as governor, shown a willingness to fight the traditional powers that be, the establishment,” Club for Growth president David McIntosh told the Associated Press. He called DeSantis’s style “refreshing,” as some critics have questioned DeSantis’s “lone wolf” persona.

 

DeSantis writes in his book that he has been able to achieve “great electoral triumphs by taking the political road less traveled." He does, however, acknowledge Trump's contribution to his upstart political career, explaining that he knew an endorsement from the then-president in the 2018 gubernatorial race would “enhance my name recognition.”

 

“I knew that a Trump endorsement would provide me with the exposure to GOP primary voters across the State of Florida, and I was confident that many would see me as a good candidate once they learned about my record,” he writes, adding that he had “developed a good relationship with the president largely because I supported his initiatives in Congress and opposed the Russia collusion conspiracy theory.”

 

In November, Trump infamously took credit for DeSantis’s 2018 victory and nicknamed the Florida governor “Ron DeSanctimonious.” Trump claimed at the time that his endorsement of DeSantis in 2017 served as a “nuclear weapon,” propelling DeSantis to the top of the GOP primary for Florida governor. He went on to falsely claim that he stopped DeSantis’s election from being stolen.

 

DeSantis writes in the book of meeting with Trump in the Oval Office to request additional federal assistance to the Florida Panhandle after Hurricane Michael in 2018. Trump agreed to send the funds but told DeSantis he had to give the president credit when discussing the funding with the area’s residents, DeSantis writes. However, the governor goes on to claim that Trump’s acting chief of staff at the time, Mick Mulvaney, asked DeSantis not to announce the funding because the president “doesn’t even know what he agreed to in terms of a price tag.”

 

He also writes of being a driving force behind Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

 

DeSantis, meanwhile, has been an “effective governor,” according to former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who suggested in a recent Fox Nation special that Florida “could be a model for the country." In the special, Who Is Ron DeSantis?, Bush went so far as to say that DeSantis could help lead a generational change in national politics and that it was the right opportunity to run for president.

 

But Bush, after a backlash from Trump loyalists, was left to clarify that his recent acclaim was “praising, not endorsing” in a statement to Politico Playbook. He avoided a question asking about his preference as to who should become the GOP nominee.

 

As DeSantis’s star rises, Trump has latched onto a Fox News clip that, while anecdotal, suggested a lack of enthusiasm for the governor in a Ponte Vedra, Fla., diner. Brian Kilmeade asked diners: “All right. 2024, who is pumped up for the election? Rapid fire. Who is your man? Who is your woman?” The first six people Kilmeade approached all listed Trump as their preferred candidate, including two who also mentioned Haley and one who also cited South Dakota governor Kristi Noem. Kilmeade then approached a woman wearing a DeSantis shirt and asked, “what about President DeSantis?” “Oh, gosh, I don’t know,” she replied. “Trump or DeSantis, either/or.”


• While California Republicans have no say in general elections for national and statewide office, a new BerkeleyIGS Poll for the Los Angeles Times that shows DeSantis’s eight-point lead over Trump is newsworthy because those voters can “still matter quite a lot in a presidential-primary contest,” Dan McLaughlin writes.

DeSantis leads Trump in the poll 37 percent to 29 percent, a reversal from the same poll taken in August 2022, when Trump led DeSantis 38 percent to 27 percent. Nikki Haley runs third at 7 percent, and nobody else is over the four percent who back Liz Cheney. Chris Sununu polls at zero. However, 11 percent say they are undecided, a measure of how much flux remains in voter preferences a year out, in a race with only three announced candidates, in a poll where 27 percent of respondents were either undecided or backing someone other than the top three potential contenders.

• Trump surged ahead of DeSantis in a hypothetical 2024 head-to-head match-up, a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll found. The new poll shows Trump leading DeSantis 47 percent to 39 percent among Republican voters, after previously trailing the Florida governor for the last three months. The poll also found 65 percent of Americans believe that Biden, 80, is “too old for another term as president,” while just 45 percent said the same of Trump, who is 76. More here.

 



 


ccp

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G M

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Re: Ron against the proposed Fla bill
« Reply #163 on: March 09, 2023, 07:07:29 AM »

Crafty_Dog

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NRO: What if DeSantis is less crazy than Trump?
« Reply #164 on: March 10, 2023, 07:19:35 PM »
What If Ron DeSantis Is Less Crazy Than Donald Trump?

Left: Florida governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., March 5, 2023. Left: Former president Donald Trump speaks at CPAC in National Harbor, Md., March 4, 2023. (Allison Dinner, Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
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By MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY
March 10, 2023 6:30 AM
For some Republicans, he represents a bridge away from Trump and Trumpism.
There’s a question haunting the minds of political junkies. What if Ron DeSantis is less crazy than Donald Trump?

There are several versions of it, because the semantic range of “crazy” in our politics is especially large.

For people on the left, the prospect of DeSantis has been met with some terror, because they fear he has Trump’s will to power but lacks Trump’s fundamental frivolousness and distractibility. Trump spent hours a day watching television coverage of the Trump administration and tweeting about it, rather than, you know, trying to get the Congress to build his wall, or ban Muslims, or take actual effective steps toward a coup after the 2020 election.

Brynn Tannehill gave voice to this view in the New Republic:


The damage Trump was able to do was limited by his lack of discipline, ignorance of how the system worked, laziness, and lack of motivation. He is simply a narcissist who likes feeling rich, powerful, and important. DeSantis, however, is none of these things. He is not lazy. He has discipline, motivation, and an intimate knowledge of how to use the system to get what he wants.

But there are those who think Trump’s greatest political asset was his craziness. Republican partisans worry about it, and committed Never Trumpers delight in the idea that DeSantis just isn’t crazy enough to win the Republican nomination. DeSantis won’t attack a Gold Star family. He won’t have an Access Hollywood tape. He won’t threaten to put his electoral opponent in jail. He won’t compare buttons with Kim Jong-un.

For them the theory is that the GOP primary electorate is entirely committed to Trumpism as a kind of troll of the existing political class. They are voting for the entertainment of it all — largely indifferent to policy or governance. This is the idea of Trump as post-scarcity political figure. Americans are so accustomed to things working out in the end that they vote for a breaker of norms just for the kick it provides.

The fact is, no one can quite agree on what Ron DeSantis following Donald Trump means. Some who loved Trump’s iconoclastic campaign for president are even more enthusiastic about DeSantis in 2024. They see him as an extension of Trump — more energetic, more competent, and more electable. In some cases, they see him as more populist — on Covid restrictions and vaccines. Other Republicans are going to support DeSantis enthusiastically because for them, DeSantis represents a bridge away from Trump and Trumpism. In their mind he’s a figure who can unite the party. He excites some populist and nationalist Republicans while simultaneously reopening the future leadership of the party to non-populist, non-nationalist factions. At the same time, there are Republicans who still find DeSantis too Trumpy to tolerate. Or not Trumpy enough.

But what if it’s just simpler than all this? I know it’s nuts to posit this, but what if Trump’s “craziness” was an electoral drag? What if that’s what drove people to embrace Ted Cruz as a potential alternative? What if it’s what drove suburban women away from the GOP, since Trump seemed both crude and unstable? What if that explains why Trump did worse among white men in 2020?

What if voters want competence in the execution of policy and administration, and they want someone who demonstrates self-possession?

If all that were true, and we turned our eyes to Ron DeSantis, what would we expect to see?

Well, it might look like Ron DeSantis in 2022 and 2023 — uniting his entire party, holding the affluent suburbs, and even making inroads in the cities while cruising to reelection in a year when other Republicans struggled. It would mean absolutely eye-popping fundraising numbers. It might mean that the Republican Party can benefit from political realignment on one side of the political spectrum — gaining a larger share of working-class voters of all races, while holding a reunion party on the other side, reaching back into the country clubs, and winning more of the white voters it shed in 2020.

Crazy as it sounds.



Crafty_Dog

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ccp

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Gov. Ron DeSantis: on Ukraine
« Reply #169 on: March 15, 2023, 07:57:24 AM »
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/ron-desantis-in-the-mainstream-on-ukraine

Mark Levin had a big angry rant against those who do not want to support Ukraines with jets missiles etc

he points out the Putin already said Poland is also on the menu
but Poland IS a NATO member  and that is  a distinction we could make very clear to Putin - I draw the line there myself

but there is the counter argument in favor of Ukraine; to set the example for  the Red Chinese

I am on the fence
I don't what the answer is.
Unless one can see into the future who knows

 

G M

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Re: Gov. Ron DeSantis: on Ukraine
« Reply #170 on: March 15, 2023, 09:05:10 AM »
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/ron-desantis-in-the-mainstream-on-ukraine

Mark Levin had a big angry rant against those who do not want to support Ukraines with jets missiles etc

he points out the Putin already said Poland is also on the menu
but Poland IS a NATO member  and that is  a distinction we could make very clear to Putin - I draw the line there myself

but there is the counter argument in favor of Ukraine; to set the example for  the Red Chinese

I am on the fence
I don't what the answer is.
Unless one can see into the future who knows

We are running out of weapons to send, and the Ukrainians are running out of Ukrainians.

Aside from that, Zelensy and his crew are fabulously wealthy!

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Gov. Ron DeSantis
« Reply #171 on: March 15, 2023, 11:26:25 AM »
I'm with you CCP.

In a chattering class segment on FOX the other night someone articulated that it was the weakness of Biden in Afghanistan that was key in emboldening Putin in Ukraine.  What message now to Xi if we pull the rug from under the Ukes? 

This is a potent argument and (Attention GM! haha) its merits vel non (Ah! A moment of law school Latin! have nothing to do with the stupidity of the Deep State in picking this fight with Russia-- e.g. Trump's management of conflict yielded peace instead of this fustercluck.

And yes (attention GM) there are plenty of potent arguments the other way on this too-- without needing to resort to Russian propaganda.

Either way it is a shit show of existential implications that will require bites of the shit sandwhich. 

How to take the smallest bite? 

Anyway, this is the DeSantis thread-- what are the implications for him of the position he has staked out for his presidential run?

The Uniparty, including GOPs Sens Rubio, Graham, et al will hit him hard from one side, and Trump will use Haley's line about "Why would you want DeSantis's echo to Trump's 'the original' "?

Already they hit him with waffling from what he said as a Congressman.  Reading for comprehension I think he properly nuanced at the time, but in the pant-hooting of a presidential campaign where the Uniparty and the Pravdas will be pant hooting, he is going to be taking fire.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2023, 11:33:01 AM by Crafty_Dog »

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Gov. Ron DeSantis
« Reply #173 on: March 18, 2023, 07:34:28 PM »

Crafty_Dog

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AMcC: What Gov. Ron DeSantis got on Ukraine
« Reply #174 on: March 21, 2023, 01:42:02 PM »
What Ron DeSantis Got Right in His Ukraine Statement
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
March 18, 2023 6:30 AM

The Florida governor’s stance on the war appears generally sound, despite his making the unforced error of describing it as a ‘territorial dispute.’

Today’s Russia is a pygmy compared to the Soviet Union of the 1980s. Yet, when Moscow invaded Afghanistan, the administrations of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan gave the mujahideen what they needed to sustain the fight. They did it because exhausting Russia was in the interests of the United States, not because we admired the pluck of the Afghans or hoped to strike a blow for freedom.



That’s the point I hope Ron DeSantis takes away from this week’s unforced error, in which he described the illegal war of aggression executed by Vladimir Putin’s thuggish regime against Ukraine as a mere “territorial dispute” — as if we should remain neutral in judging the relative merits of the armed robber and his victim. The flub was unfortunate, both because the promising Florida governor is just starting to introduce himself to much of the public as he readies a 2024 presidential bid, and because, on balance, the answers he submitted in response to questions by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson demonstrated a sound understanding of America’s interests in the world.

If he makes those interests his North Star, DeSantis will stay sharp — 1980s sharp.

It is a fair point that the world is a very different place than it was 40 years ago. At times, Republicans’ nostalgia for the party’s most successful modern presidency has attracted them to policy prescriptions that don’t fit contemporary conditions. (Read Rich Lowry’s superb Politico essay on the Reagan legacy for more.) Yet Reagan remains a worthy model. He is proof that practical politics always proceed best from a foundation of clear principle. He embodies peace through American strength, which is still the peace worth having — and, presumably, the kind of “peace” DeSantis had in mind when he described it as “the objective” for the United States in Ukraine.


To the limited extent that America is involved in the conflict, peace on our terms is the degrading of our Russian enemy.

No one would confuse Ronald Reagan for a populist anti-interventionist banging on about “forever wars.” Yet, his commitment to confronting the Soviets in Afghanistan came with significant restrictions that should resonate in today’s debate over America’s response to revanchist Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

There was, of course, no consideration of deploying American troops. Nor was there any transfer of advanced American weaponry to the Afghans — certainly not anything that could be used to attack Russian soil. The main American aid to the mujahideen took the form of Stinger missiles, whose use did not require much in the way of training. And even with respect to this modest aid, the Reagan administration used Pakistani intelligence as a cut-out, providing a fig leaf of deniability that might restrain the Kremlin from regarding us as a formal combatant.


Particularly given the unique topography of Afghanistan, the Stingers proved extraordinarily effective against the arsenal the Red Army had dedicated to the conflict. But that was only because the Afghans were willing to dig in and fight a long, withering campaign — to do what it took to convince a superpower that it could never win at a reasonable cost the dubious prize it sought.


This was the Cold War. Understanding that we had an identifiable, formidable enemy did much to concentrate the national mind, especially as the delusions of Carter and the foreign-relations clerisy gave way to Reagan’s hardheaded “we win, they lose” assessment of the twilight struggle. This was not post-9/11 Afghanistan or Iraq. Such inanities as “sharia democracy” were not being bandied about, let alone directing policy. No one was so daft as to claim that America’s vital interest in Afghanistan was Afghanistan. It was Russia. The Afghans were our proxies, not our protégés. We weren’t pretending to vindicate such abstractions as democracy and the post-war international order.

No, we were degrading our mortal enemy. At the time, few expected the USSR to collapse in a heap shortly after marching out of Kabul with its tail between its legs. But nobody doubted that tying down and humiliating the Soviet armed forces in Afghanistan would make them less of a threat and diminish their power in other Cold War hot spots. That was America’s interest in the Afghan conflict. That conflict was not the center of our universe. U.S. support was thus limited by the practical political, economic, and security realities of the situation. Nevertheless, U.S. support was also resolute and sufficiently audacious to make clear that the White House, not the Kremlin, was dictating the extent of American involvement.

To acknowledge that the Ukrainians are not our first-order priority is not to say that their fate is irrelevant to us. To the contrary, as I’ve previously conceded, while I am no fan of Kyiv’s deep-seated corruption (and I truly hope President Zelensky is sincere in his determination to eradicate it), we are obliged to support Ukraine because we induced it to disarm, in 1994 and 2006, on the assurance of such support. No, we didn’t enter a binding treaty, but we gave our word and Kyiv relied on it, so our honor is at stake.


It is in our vital interest that American security promises be kept, for miscalculation by our enemies on this point can lead to wider wars, and securing peace on America’s terms hinges on America’s credibility. It would also be a good thing for us and the world if Europe was at peace and Ukraine was thriving and productive rather than imperiled and burdensome. We can debate whether establishing that state of affairs is a “vital” American interest, but its desirability cannot be gainsaid.

All that said, our chief objective in Ukraine must be the weakening and dispiriting of Russia. Moscow should be made to understand that it may end up controlling parts of Ukraine, just as it controlled Afghanistan for a time; but it will sustain losses that it cannot afford in the process, and its control will never be secure because Ukrainian insurgents will continue to fight. China should be made to understand that, in Russia, it is backing a burdensome loser. It should also see that while our commitment to confronting Putin in Ukraine is real, it is commensurate with our interests — and in calculating those interests, we are mindful that Beijing is the greater threat.

Marrying policy to American interests means that the president we inaugurate in January 2025 will have to step up preparations to meet that greater threat. The attractive parts of DeSantis’s comments highlighted the imperatives of “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.”

Pace the “forever war” agonists, that’s the roadmap to peace through strength. It never goes out of style. If Ron DeSantis remembers that, he’ll be fine.

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Re: Gov. Ron DeSantis
« Reply #175 on: March 21, 2023, 01:47:13 PM »
while I am no fan of Kyiv’s deep-seated corruption (and I truly hope President Zelensky is sincere in his determination to eradicate it)

His funniest line yet!

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NRO: The DeSantis Make-Up Call
« Reply #176 on: March 23, 2023, 08:50:01 AM »


The DeSantis Make-Up Call
by JIM GERAGHTY
March 23, 2023 9:48 AM

On the menu today: Florida governor Ron DeSantis significantly revises and extends his previous remarks on Ukraine, suddenly sounding much more critical of Vladimir Putin and Russia’s territorial claims and much more supportive of the Ukrainian cause. If DeSantis were a referee, we would call that a “make-up call”; House progressives affirm my assessment that the new White House chief of staff, Jeff Zients, is steering the administration in a different direction; and getting a sense of just how much “wokeness” played a role in the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

DeSantis’s Revised Ukraine Remarks

Hey, remember how so many folks — left, right, and center — spent so much of last week arguing about Florida governor Ron DeSantis and his answers to Tucker Carlson’s questions about Russia and Ukraine?


This was a big, meaty topic of debate here at NR. Mark Wright had serious questions about the ramifications of how DeSantis perceived the Russian invasion and its consequences. Dan McLaughlin said DeSantis was trying to have it both ways. Noah Rothman concluded that DeSantis had “staked out a position he will struggle to defend and, should he emerge as the GOP nominee next year, potentially represents a significant liability for his campaign.” Jay Nordlinger said that DeSantis’s characterization of the war as a “territorial dispute” “betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of something very important to understand.” Michael Brendan Dougherty said the criticism of DeSantis from the hawks was unpersuasive and illegitimate, and an inaccurate reinterpretation of Ronald Reagan’s true record.

And I wondered how much a presidential candidate’s campaign-trail remarks actually reflect what he will do in office.

Earlier this week, Ramesh observed that, “Ron DeSantis’s remarks about Russia’s grinding war in Ukraine have now sustained more scrutiny than some treaties,” and concluded, “Americans should want both moral clarity and prudence in our foreign policy. Florida’s Republican governor is showing too little of the first, and many of his critics too little of the second.”

Now, as Emily Litella would say, “Never mind.”

For some reason, the man who is one of the two most likely Republican nominees in the upcoming presidential cycle, and probably one of the four figures most likely to take the presidential oath of office on January 20, 2025, chose to elaborate on his foreign-policy views on Piers Morgan Uncensored. (So much for “America first.” Clearly DeSantis is internationalist in his press outreach.)

Morgan lays out DeSantis’s revised and extended remarks on Ukraine in today’s New York Post:

Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis has branded Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” and demanded he be “held accountable” for his barbaric invasion of Ukraine.

Taking a tougher tone from his statement last week appearing to dismiss the year-long war as a “territorial dispute,” DeSantis now says Russia was WRONG to invade Ukraine and was WRONG to invade and take over Crimea in 2014, and won’t win the war.

And he’s made his strongest attack yet on Russia’s dictator, calling him a loser who is “basically a gas station with a bunch of nuclear weapons. . . .”

When I asked him specifically if he regretted using the phrase “territorial dispute,” DeSantis replied, “Well, I think it’s been mischaracterized. Obviously, Russia invaded (last year) — that was wrong. They invaded Crimea and took that in 2014 — That was wrong.

“What I’m referring to is where the fighting is going on now which is that eastern border region Donbas, and then Crimea, and you have a situation where Russia has had that. I don’t think legitimately but they had. There’s a lot of ethnic Russians there. So, that’s some difficult fighting and that’s what I was referring to and so it wasn’t that I thought Russia had a right to that, and so if I should have made that more clear, I could have done it, but I think the larger point is, okay, Russia is not showing the ability to take over Ukraine, to topple the government or certainly to threaten NATO. That’s a good thing. I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified (in invading) — that’s nonsense. . . .”

“I think they have the right to that territory,” he replied. “If I could snap my fingers, I’d give it back to Ukraine 100 percent. But the reality is what is America’s involvement in terms of escalating with more weapons, and certainly ground troops I think would be a mistake. So, that was the point I was trying to make but Russia was wrong to invade. They were wrong to take Crimea.

“Russia did not have the right to go into Crimea or to go in February of 2022 and that should be clear. . . .”

“I think those regions in the (eastern) border, and Crimea, are likely to be a stalemate for quite some time, and unfortunately a lot of people will end up dying if that’s the case. But I do not think it’s going to end with Putin being victorious. I do not think the Ukrainian Government is going to be toppled by him and I think that’s a good thing.”

Many hawks will see this as the most stirring and appealing walk-back since Michael Jackson moonwalked.


So, does this mean that as DeSantis and his team were crafting that written response to Tucker Carlson, they just forgot to characterize Putin as a war criminal who must be held accountable? Did he just absentmindedly overlook a need to mention that the Russian invasion is wrong and that Russia’s territorial claims are nonsense?

Or were those, as I had described, remarks that were tailor-made for the Tucker Carlson audience, and now DeSantis is realizing he has some repair work to do with the parts of the GOP that aren’t in the Tucker Carlson audience?

I like DeSantis’s answer to Piers Morgan more than his answer to Tucker Carlson, but that doesn’t mean I have to pretend that the governor has handled this all smoothly or deftly with his sudden back-and-forth. The two sets of statements may not directly contradict, but they certainly have sharply different areas of emphasis. It’s as if DeSantis had a full page of thoughts on the proper U.S. response to the Russian invasion, and tore the page in half, offering the top half to Carlson and the bottom half to Morgan. The top featured the criticism of the so-called “blank check” for Ukraine, the denial of any military aid that could be used beyond Ukraine’s borders, and the argument that Ukraine is a distraction from the rising threat of China. The second half included the denunciation of Putin, the dismissal of Russia’s territorial claims, and praise for the righteousness of the Ukrainian cause.


It’s okay to have nuanced and complicated views on how to respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s a nuanced and complicated global crisis! I want the Biden administration to send the Ukrainians the weapons systems they say they need when they say they need them, instead of hemming and hawing for six months and then sending them a half-year later. I also am wary about sending combat air patrols to escort surveillance drones in international air space near Ukraine, because that seems likely to lead to U.S. and Russian fighter jets confronting each other and perhaps firing at each other, leading to a shooting war between the U.S. and Russia. Naturally, I’m too hawkish for the doves and too dovish for the hawks.

But when you’re asking for the job of commander in chief, at least in the old days, you were expected to have a coherent and well-defined foreign policy that you could articulate in a clear and direct manner. Now, a Republican former president can just boast, “I will prevent — and very easily — World War III, very easily before I even arrive at the Oval Office. I will have the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine settled and it will take me no longer than one day,” and the audience applauds. Apparently, large swaths of the GOP believe in magic wands and wishing wells.

ccp

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NBC: stoking doubt about DeSantis
« Reply #177 on: March 25, 2023, 09:44:18 AM »
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ron-desantis-donors-allies-hes-022355757.html

The LEFT really wants Trump to be the nominee I am thinking


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WSJ: Gov. Ron DeSantis wins one against the Trial Lawyers bar
« Reply #180 on: April 01, 2023, 08:40:42 AM »
DeSantis Defeats Trump on Lawsuit Abuse
The Florida Governor beats the trial bar and its Mar-a-Lago ally.
By The Editorial BoardFollow
March 31, 2023 6:35 pm ET


Donald Trump is grabbing anything to attack Ron DeSantis, and he’s even joining forces with the plaintiff bar in a bizarre alliance. Fortunately for Floridians, their Governor won this exchange.

Mr. DeSantis last Friday signed legislation that will reduce legal costs for businesses, insurers and their customers. Litigation abuse is a tax that every citizen pays into the tort system, costing each Florida household more than $5,000 in 2020, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform.

Enter Mr. DeSantis, who this year proposed a package of tort reforms to curb abuses. Several changes target plaintiff attorneys’ common practice of inflating damages by presenting to juries the charges for medical costs billed by healthcare providers rather than what health insurers would pay out, which is typically much less.

Collusive agreements between physicians and lawyers to inflate charges will no longer be protected by attorney-client privilege. Lawyers could previously ensure that juries saw only the inflated amounts billed by their hand-picked doctors, and juries often based awards on those trumped-up bills.

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Florida law also previously allowed juries to allocate damages even for accidents caused by a plaintiff. If someone burned himself by spilling hot coffee on his lap, a coffee shop could be on the hook for paying some of his medical costs. No longer. Now if a plaintiff is found to be more than 50% at fault, he can’t recover damages.

Another change eliminates “one-way attorney fees,” which let plaintiffs collect massive attorney fees from defendants and their insurers if they win a lawsuit—but not the other way around. One-way fees encourage plaintiff attorneys to file more lawsuits and defendants to settle cases to avoid paying even larger legal bills.

Mr. DeSantis’s reforms provoked a five-alarm panic among plaintiff attorneys who ran ads targeting immigrants that recalled power grabs in socialist Venezuela and Cuba. “Today in Tallahassee powerful lobbies are spending millions to take our rights,” one ad warned. “If they succeed the law will protect them, but not us. It will let them take everything. We’ve seen it before, lived it before.”

Donald Trump piled on at Truth Social: “RINO Ron DeSanctimonious is delivering the biggest insurance company BAILOUT to Globalist Insurance Companies, IN HISTORY.” With his usual nuance, he called the reforms “the worst Insurance Scam in the entire Country!”

He’s got the wrong scammers. By reducing payouts for dubious claims, the Florida reforms will cut insurance premiums for businesses and citizens. Irony alert: This will benefit Mr. Trump’s properties in the state.

Plaintiff attorneys last week rushed to file claims before Mr. DeSantis signed the legislation since the changes aren’t retroactive. Over three days last week, Morgan & Morgan says it filed 23,000 cases, 3,000 more than in all of 2022. Some lawyers may move north to Georgia, which the American Tort Reform Association last year rated as the country’s worst judicial hellhole.

The Georgia Legislature has defeated several efforts to curb lawsuit abuse, but maybe Mr. DeSantis’s victory will prod Gov. Brian Kemp to take up the cause. As for Mr. Trump, we doubt he cares about the substance.

ccp

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Re: Gov. Ron DeSantis
« Reply #181 on: April 01, 2023, 08:47:03 AM »
"Donald Trump is grabbing anything to attack Ron DeSantis"

yes
probably you have also noticed MAGA attack adds on cable stating DeSantis wants to hurt Soc Sec.


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Re: Gov. Ron DeSantis
« Reply #182 on: April 01, 2023, 09:00:11 AM »
"probably you have also noticed MAGA attack adds on cable stating DeSantis wants to hurt Soc Sec."

Indistinguishable from Dem demagoguery!

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WSJ: Gov. Ron DeSantis is right to raise this issue
« Reply #183 on: April 14, 2023, 08:55:03 AM »
Ron DeSantis has focused his book tour remarks—a test drive for his presidential campaign—mainly on his Florida record. But lately he’s also hit on a larger theme: the failures of monetary policy and the Federal Reserve. The Governor is on to something, and the debate could be good for the economy and the country.

Speaking in Naples, Fla., last week, Mr. DeSantis criticized the Fed for contributing to inflation by printing “trillions and trillions of dollars.”

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“That obviously is going to create inflationary pressures,” he said, as recounted in the Miami Herald. “And so people were saying this, that this was always going to happen. They didn’t want to listen. And so you had inflation start to percolate.” He criticized Fed Chairman Jerome Powell for calling inflation “transitory” before realizing the mistake.

“So then what does the Fed do?” Mr. DeSantis continued. “Jerome Powell, they start hiking rates very rapidly. And that’s causing dislocations in the banking sector. It’s causing individuals to suffer just because they took their eye off the ball and didn’t know what they were doing. And, you know, I think the Fed has done a horrible job over these last few years. And they really are creating potential significant turmoil in the economy going forward.”

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This is unusual because most Republicans blame inflation solely on President Biden’s spending. But monetary policy has also played a major role, and it’s notable that a leading Republican politician is willing to say it.

It’s also notable that he puts the onus on the Fed for creating the inflationary pressures that have caused it to have to raise interest rates so rapidly as an antidote. Most political critics of the Fed today warn about rising rates, but they ignore the monetary cause and effect.

Mr. DeSantis has also criticized the Fed for contemplating a digital dollar, which is a more complicated subject for another day. But he is properly hitting the Fed and other financial regulators for rescuing the politically well-connected depositors of Silicon Valley Bank after it failed last month. “If there was a bank in this part of Pennsylvania that serviced, like, agriculture or small businesses, do you think that they would have been bailed out under similar circumstances? No,” Mr. DeSantis said recently in Pennsylvania.

Mr. DeSantis is teeing up an important debate if he’s willing to follow through and develop the theme. The Fed has largely been immune from criticism in recent years because it has always been seen by the political class as riding to the economy’s rescue. But it is never held accountable for its mistakes in creating the financial manias that eventually lead to panics and crashes.

In the 2000s, the mistake was keeping rates too low for too long and creating a subsidy for credit that led to the housing bubble and bust. After the Great Recession, the Fed kept interest rates near zero for more than a decade and contributed to distortions in asset prices and the highest inflation in 40 years. Financial casualties now are inevitable as the Fed abruptly raises rates and trips up banks and others that bet on zero-rates continuing for years, as the Fed’s misguided “forward guidance” forecast.

Any other institution that failed in such spectacular fashion would be held politically accountable, but the Fed skates past each crisis because it has the protection of elites on Wall Street and in Washington. The press corps is also in the Fed’s corner, and it’s already circling the wagons against the Governor’s criticism.

***
Mr. DeSantis could do a public service if he makes the Fed a campaign issue, and this may be the right moment to do it. Inflation has given every American a painful insight into failed monetary and fiscal policy that doesn’t require an economics degree. The mistakes are clear and understandable.

This is also an issue that cuts against both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Mr. Trump first appointed Mr. Powell as Fed Chairman, and Mr. Biden reappointed him. Mr. Trump attacked Mr. Powell for raising interest rates before the pandemic, and Mr. Biden encouraged the Fed to keep rates low to finance his extravagant and needless spending. Both are free-money, weak-dollar advocates.

As for policies, Mr. DeSantis can argue that the Fed economic model is flawed and the board of governors needs fresh thinking. He might also promise to appoint a commission that would assess the Fed’s record and report on how and why it has gone so astray. In the 1980s Ronald Reagan understood the appeal of stable prices and their importance to the well-being of the middle class. There’s another opportunity now.

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Re: Gov. Ron DeSantis
« Reply #185 on: April 17, 2023, 11:29:56 AM »
Good!


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WSJ: The Stupid War Between DeSantis and Disney
« Reply #187 on: April 17, 2023, 01:29:16 PM »
second

The Stupid War Between Disney and DeSantis
Neither the company nor the Florida governor should want an extended brawl over sex ed for third-graders.
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. hedcutBy Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.Follow
April 14, 2023 5:31 pm ET


Disney is still living with a mistake quite a few business leaders have made in recent years, letting itself be bullied—or bullying itself—into taking a needless political stand.

Last year’s Florida law, contrary to the “don’t say gay” moniker promoted by opponents, was reasonable. The interests on both sides were reasonable. LGBT people want their lifestyles respected and not stigmatized in the classroom. Parents want their third-graders not to be bombarded with messages they or their parents aren’t ready for.

Some activists clinging to an issue fret teachers might now interpret the law to mean they can stigmatize away, but the law says the opposite. It prohibits them from raising such subjects at all. In essence, it says such discussion should begin in the fourth grade.

Disney at first steered clear but then tripped over its own feet by unwisely projecting on Florida its own internal fights, then raging at the same time, over what constitutes “age-appropriate” representation in shows and movies aimed at kids—ironically, the phrase CEO Bob Iger lately highlights for guidance is also the phrase enshrined in the Florida law.


When previous CEO Bob Chapek panicked, of course, it didn’t matter what the law said. It didn’t matter, around the same time, what Georgia’s new voting law said either. CEOs ran as fast as their quivering knees could carry them to whichever side was calling the other side racist.

But hardly to his credit, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has also given the impression of enjoying the fight too much for fundraising and news-making purposes, rather than helping Florida’s leading corporate citizen get back in the state’s good graces.

He gives the impression also of thinking the electorate consists entirely of political hobbyists looking for entertainment rather than sound governance.

For anyone test-driving Mr. DeSantis as a possible president, the real mistake was needlessly parlaying the original dispute into an open-ended fight. He mobilized legislators to take away the county-like authority that Disney, since 1967, exercised over 25,000 acres where its Florida theme parks are located. In duly notified public meetings, Disney used the interim to transfer back to itself certain business-like powers, over its trademarks and characters, over the design and appearance of future park buildings.

Any sane company would have done so, rather than let purely commercial decisions be handed to a politically appointed board at the beck of Florida’s governor. Even more so because Gov. DeSantis seemed to want to load the board with his anti-gender-wokeness allies, as if this has anything to do with roads, sewers, police and fire protection.

With the help of Florida’s cackling if legally uncomprehending liberal media, Mr. DeSantis may also have felt obscurely mocked by one provision. Related to a common-law prejudice against perpetuities, it conventionally assures that the transferred rights will remain with Disney at least until “21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, king of England . . .”

For whatever reason, Mr. DeSantis has decided he now needs to fight a possibly endless legal war to claw back these changes by the now-defunct Reedy Creek Improvement District, never mind that the changes have zippo to do with sex ed for 8-year-olds.

All this makes Mr. DeSantis look a mite unbalanced, with a Trumpian propensity to crank to 11 a dispute that would be better left at 4. The lessons are many but come down to a time-honored admonition for both sides: Grow up.

Very large contracts doled out to corporate chieftains are meant to make them brave in the face of risks that make sense to diversified shareholders, which are economic risks, never mind a CEO’s own natural incentive to seek a gilded safety.


Mr. Iger at one point claimed the Florida law was a matter of right and wrong, which is exactly what it’s not. It’s a conflict with defensible views on both sides. When business leaders adopt the uncompromising language of their mau-mauers, neither safety nor shareholder interests are served. It only indicates to the mau-mauists that corporate terrorism works. Mr. DeSantis is playing the same game from the other side.

Mr. Iger has now allowed that Disney did not handle its opposition to the Florida law well, though this recent statement wasn’t what the press most wanted to quote. On Thursday, he further offered to sit down with Florida’s governor to bury the hatchet. His shareholders would thank him. The right response from day one would have been to wish Florida voters and elected officials well in dealing with a knotty question, while hoping consensus would be achieved and all sides would at least feel respected and that their views were heard.

But when CEOs instead start lauding themselves for their courage in “taking a stand,” they should understand nobody believes they are brave. Just the opposite: They hear only a surrender to personal terrorism and bullying in a way that belies their duty to put shareholders before their own desire not to be called names.




Holman W. Jenkins Jr. is a member of the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal. He writes the twice-weekly “Business World” column that appears on the paper's op-ed page on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Mr. Jenkins joined the Journal in May 1992 as a writer for the editorial page in New York. In February 1994, he moved to Hong Kong as editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal's editorial page. He returned to the domestic Journal in December 1995 as a member of the paper's editorial board and was based in San Francisco. Mr. Jenkins won a 1997 Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business and financial coverage.

Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Jenkins received a bachelor's degree from Hobart and William Smith Colleges and a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University. He was a 1991 journalism fellow at the University of Michigan.





ccp

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wsj above
« Reply #190 on: April 19, 2023, 12:45:27 PM »
Holman W. Jenkins
must be Disney stock holder

yeah I guess grooming children is not and issue and just plain stupid

and yeah as CD pointed out in another thread Disney has every right to operate as the 51 st state :wink:

from some 18 century law... I think I read or something like that .


« Last Edit: April 19, 2023, 12:47:12 PM by ccp »

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Re: Gov. Ron DeSantis vs. Disney-- continuing
« Reply #191 on: April 21, 2023, 06:28:49 AM »
https://dailycaller.com/2023/04/17/desantis-unveils-bill-revoke-disneys-attempts-ignore-oversight-board/?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking&pnespid=6qA6ATkZavoBwKfFvzToEp7S4E.3TJgrMvamwrI1rQ9m3lsWrU_G5s.WFdV8HTI6kOjgoAot

Burn Disney to the ground. Salt the earth.


Padraig Martin



Why DeSantis has to beat Disney

Whether you support DeSantis or not, his fight with Disney is a much bigger struggle than most on the right realize. The left knows why the fight is important. As usual, the American political right does not. To many Republicans, the dispute seems superfluous. Republicans lose because they focus on the trees, not the forest. In fact, the struggle between Disney and DeSantis may be the most important fight the American political right has had since the beginning of the 21st Century.

The reason that we find the United States in our current detestable condition is due to "woke" economics. As long as the Left was anti-corporations, their brand of politics was marginalized. The long march through the institutions would always get stymied by a Capitalist system that saw no reason to invest in woke social programming. It is not too long ago that a leftist group called "Occupy Wall Street" was fighting the same companies that are now allied to their leftist ideals. What changed? A merger of globalist goals.

Leftists have always hated the Constitutional restrictions placed upon their agenda. They have always hated the United States as it was built. The Left has constantly elevated systems that are decidely antithetical to our values. European-style democratic socialism and gun restrictions are good examples of the types of systems the Left routinely embraced as better alternatives to the American way of life. They want change.

Meanwhile, corporations have very little investment in the US because they seek ever expanding markets. The more "middle class" Chinese they can create, the more potential consumers. Thus, if the US falls and that creates a rise elsewhere, so be it. The need for uniform consumerism over national distinctions became the priority. Overtures to American "rivals" began in earnest, namely the Communist Chinese, who were more than happy to help kill American power with corporate facilitators. This is how Hollywood and Apple got into China - betraying their homeland.

Consequently, Corporate America and the Left finally found common ground. Defeating American hegemony, elevating systems and states that are anti-American, and introducing cultural uniformity became shared goals. To the Left, blurring social norms is the goal. To corporations, it is profit driven. If biological males and females are wearing the same jeans and have the same hairstyles from Beijing to Boston, profitability rises. The end results are the same, the origins of the goals simply differ. Neither party cares that they are being exploited by the other. This is a globalist alliance predicated on change and consumerism.

Correspondingly, this is why corporations have gone woke. They do not care that a few million Americans will boycott their products. They know that most will not. They also know that overseas markets will not care - provided they do not go afoul with global cultural censors. Movies like the latest "Buzz Lightyear" failed because they ran into Chinese and Islamic censors for lesbian content. Disney eventually exported a non lesbian version of the movie. They understood their limitations.

Here in the US, the Corporate-Left alliance accelerated over the past decade as corporations, seeing an opportunity to reduce and redirect wealth away from a shrinking America to other markets, began funding leftwing causes. The largest financial supporter of Black Lives Matter is Ford - despite the fact that Ford-150 is the most popular truck in rural America. The largest financial supporters of a variety of antifa causes have been American staples for generations - GM, Nike, Coca Cola, and Disney. "Go Woke, Go Broke," never really impacts the companies that increasingly rely on overseas consumerism.

Enter the fight with DeSantis

Democrats have predictably attacked DeSantis over this fight. The media has predictably mocked the Florida governor, claiming Disney victories while never reporting on the myriad of counter punches and wins accumulated by DeSantis. Republican politicians from Donald Trump to Chris Christie to Mitt Romney only see an opportunity to pounce on a potential political rival. They do not care that DeSantis is literally fighting a small war to choke-off the Left's corporate financiers.

When Disney injected itself into the Parental Rights in Education debate (aka, "Don't Say Gay") it ostensibly showed itself to be a political actor - not a corporation. In fact, it was acting like corporations have acted for the past decade - taking decidedly anti-American, pro-Leftist positions to advance its corporate goals. DeSantis' fight is not with Disney alone. DeSantis' fight is to kill ALL of the corporate wokeness that is funding deleterious political positions in states like Florida. It's their money supply he is after.

Republicans do not see it. The Left does. Corporate America does, too. That is why they are after DeSantis over this fight. Republicans should not help them.

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Re: Gov. Ron DeSantis
« Reply #192 on: April 21, 2023, 07:20:37 AM »
"It is not too long ago that a leftist group called "Occupy Wall Street" was fighting the same companies that are now allied to their leftist ideals. What changed? A merger of globalist goals."

really excellent point!

yes big wall street corporations see a profit motive to support the LEFT Woke religion. 

I was thinking
1) cater to the Woke crowd as one profit motive
2)and maybe support a party (democrats ) they can bribe and control.
3)virtue signal / remove the MSM going after corporations (rich vs poor hustling )
4) the party of cheap labor (illegal endless immigration )
and maybe most important to drive them to promote the party of wokism =>
5) ****Chinese  investment******








G M

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Re: Gov. Ron DeSantis
« Reply #193 on: April 21, 2023, 07:38:19 AM »
None of this is accidental.

The long march through American institutions has paid off for the left.

Know who is at the core of leftist ideology ?

Saul Alinsky dedicated Rules to Radicals to "That first rebel who rebelled against God and won for himself his own kingdom, Lucifer"

"It is not too long ago that a leftist group called "Occupy Wall Street" was fighting the same companies that are now allied to their leftist ideals. What changed? A merger of globalist goals."

really excellent point!

yes big wall street corporations see a profit motive to support the LEFT Woke religion. 

I was thinking
1) cater to the Woke crowd as one profit motive
2)and maybe support a party (democrats ) they can bribe and control.
3)virtue signal / remove the MSM going after corporations (rich vs poor hustling )
4) the party of cheap labor (illegal endless immigration )
and maybe most important to drive them to promote the party of wokism =>
5) ****Chinese  investment******

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: DeSantis vs. Disney
« Reply #194 on: April 27, 2023, 06:59:28 PM »
The Disney-DeSantis Knife Fight
A dispute over corporate favoritism becomes a political blood feud.
By The Editorial BoardFollow
April 27, 2023 6:43 pm ET



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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis PHOTO: KOBI WOLF/BLOOMBERG NEWS
The donnybrook between Disney and Ron DeSantis keeps escalating, and what should be a dispute over corporate welfare has devolved into an unfortunate political brawl that both could lose.

Disney sued Florida this week claiming the state is retaliating because the company opposed its law that bars instruction on sexuality and gender ideology in grades K-3. The state’s alleged retaliation, Disney says, violates its First Amendment rights and the U.S. Constitution’s contracts and takings clauses.

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The media fueled a backlash against Florida’s law by giving it the false label of “don’t say gay.” Disney then felt pressure from its employees to denounce it. Republicans in Tallahassee responded by dissolving the 56-year-old Reedy Creek Improvement District that let Disney essentially regulate itself.

Lawmakers later replaced Reedy Creek with a new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District with a board handpicked by the Governor. But before the handover, Disney and Reedy Creek executed two contracts that cemented long-term development rights and obligations.

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The state raised no objections at the time. The state’s Department of Economic Opportunity had signed off on Disney’s land development plans last summer. The agreements also didn’t restrict the ability of Mr. DeSantis’s board to impose taxes, reject building permits, exercise eminent domain or otherwise regulate Disney.

But as Disney’s lawsuit explains, “A public narrative about these Contracts quickly formed around the idea that Governor DeSantis was ‘caught off guard’ and ‘had the rug pulled from under him,’” to quote news stories. The press crowed that Mr. DeSantis had been humiliated by Disney. “Despite the facts, the political story was set,” the lawsuit says.

Mr. DeSantis then dug in. “There will be round two in terms of those fireworks,” Mr. DeSantis vouched. He promised to pass legislation to “make sure that people understand that you don’t get to put your own company over the will of the people of Florida.”

The Governor’s board followed through on Wednesday, which prompted Disney to sue. Its strongest claim is that the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from impairing contracts unless “necessary” to serve an “important” government interest. Why is it in the government’s interest to cancel Disney’s land development plans that it had earlier approved?

Disney also alleges that it was targeted for expressing its political opinions, which has a chilling effect on protected speech. This is hard to refute given how many times Mr. DeSantis and Republican legislators threatened to punish Disney for its “woke politics” and criticism of Florida’s education law. “Go woke, go broke,” Mr. DeSantis’s former press secretary warned.

The Governor’s best defense is that the state has a right to rescind special privileges that it once granted to Disney, which is true. Corporate welfare and favoritism for some businesses but not others is an unseemly political habit. The legal difficulty is that Republicans appear to have targeted Disney and abrogated contracts for political reasons.

Disney’s denunciation of Florida’s education law was gratuitous, but so are Mr. DeSantis's threats of retribution. The lawsuit doesn’t paint the Governor in the best light, and he will get a black eye as he runs for President if Disney prevails in its lawsuit.

But why is Disney CEO Bob Iger escalating the fight when he has bigger business problems? Millions of his customers—i.e., parents—don’t appreciate the company’s woke turn, which may be one reason that subscriber growth for its Disney+ streaming service is flagging. In this fiscal year’s first quarter, Disney+ reported its first subscriber loss. Mr. Iger said in February the company would slash 7,000 jobs. How will battling Florida’s Governor boost Disney’s profits?

Mr. Iger appears to be playing politics himself, trying to please his progressive employees and taking on a Republican disliked by media and culture elites. It’s hard to see a happy ending here for Disney or Mr. DeSantis.

G M

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Re: WSJ: DeSantis vs. Disney
« Reply #195 on: April 28, 2023, 09:18:49 AM »
WSJoke.

The Demonmouse needs to be destroyed.

No compromise.


The Disney-DeSantis Knife Fight
A dispute over corporate favoritism becomes a political blood feud.
By The Editorial BoardFollow
April 27, 2023 6:43 pm ET



260

Gift unlocked article

Listen

(4 min)


image
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis PHOTO: KOBI WOLF/BLOOMBERG NEWS
The donnybrook between Disney and Ron DeSantis keeps escalating, and what should be a dispute over corporate welfare has devolved into an unfortunate political brawl that both could lose.

Disney sued Florida this week claiming the state is retaliating because the company opposed its law that bars instruction on sexuality and gender ideology in grades K-3. The state’s alleged retaliation, Disney says, violates its First Amendment rights and the U.S. Constitution’s contracts and takings clauses.

OPINION: POTOMAC WATCH
WSJ Opinion Potomac Watch
A Debt-Ceiling Victory for Kevin McCarthy, but Joe Biden Won't Negotiate


SUBSCRIBE
The media fueled a backlash against Florida’s law by giving it the false label of “don’t say gay.” Disney then felt pressure from its employees to denounce it. Republicans in Tallahassee responded by dissolving the 56-year-old Reedy Creek Improvement District that let Disney essentially regulate itself.

Lawmakers later replaced Reedy Creek with a new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District with a board handpicked by the Governor. But before the handover, Disney and Reedy Creek executed two contracts that cemented long-term development rights and obligations.

NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP

Morning Editorial Report

All the day's Opinion headlines.


Preview

Subscribed
The state raised no objections at the time. The state’s Department of Economic Opportunity had signed off on Disney’s land development plans last summer. The agreements also didn’t restrict the ability of Mr. DeSantis’s board to impose taxes, reject building permits, exercise eminent domain or otherwise regulate Disney.

But as Disney’s lawsuit explains, “A public narrative about these Contracts quickly formed around the idea that Governor DeSantis was ‘caught off guard’ and ‘had the rug pulled from under him,’” to quote news stories. The press crowed that Mr. DeSantis had been humiliated by Disney. “Despite the facts, the political story was set,” the lawsuit says.

Mr. DeSantis then dug in. “There will be round two in terms of those fireworks,” Mr. DeSantis vouched. He promised to pass legislation to “make sure that people understand that you don’t get to put your own company over the will of the people of Florida.”

The Governor’s board followed through on Wednesday, which prompted Disney to sue. Its strongest claim is that the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from impairing contracts unless “necessary” to serve an “important” government interest. Why is it in the government’s interest to cancel Disney’s land development plans that it had earlier approved?

Disney also alleges that it was targeted for expressing its political opinions, which has a chilling effect on protected speech. This is hard to refute given how many times Mr. DeSantis and Republican legislators threatened to punish Disney for its “woke politics” and criticism of Florida’s education law. “Go woke, go broke,” Mr. DeSantis’s former press secretary warned.

The Governor’s best defense is that the state has a right to rescind special privileges that it once granted to Disney, which is true. Corporate welfare and favoritism for some businesses but not others is an unseemly political habit. The legal difficulty is that Republicans appear to have targeted Disney and abrogated contracts for political reasons.

Disney’s denunciation of Florida’s education law was gratuitous, but so are Mr. DeSantis's threats of retribution. The lawsuit doesn’t paint the Governor in the best light, and he will get a black eye as he runs for President if Disney prevails in its lawsuit.

But why is Disney CEO Bob Iger escalating the fight when he has bigger business problems? Millions of his customers—i.e., parents—don’t appreciate the company’s woke turn, which may be one reason that subscriber growth for its Disney+ streaming service is flagging. In this fiscal year’s first quarter, Disney+ reported its first subscriber loss. Mr. Iger said in February the company would slash 7,000 jobs. How will battling Florida’s Governor boost Disney’s profits?

Mr. Iger appears to be playing politics himself, trying to please his progressive employees and taking on a Republican disliked by media and culture elites. It’s hard to see a happy ending here for Disney or Mr. DeSantis.

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NRO: Gov. Ron DeSantis so much winning!
« Reply #197 on: May 05, 2023, 08:26:04 PM »
By CHARLES C. W. COOKE
May 5, 2023 11:51 AM
What the GOP has achieved in Florida is astounding. Republican primary voters should credit the governor who spearheaded it.

Is this what it felt like to be a progressive during the Great Society?

Today, the Florida legislature concludes its 2023 session. And good Lord has it made the most of it. In the space of just three months, Governor DeSantis and the Republican supermajority have created the largest school-choice program in American history, banned abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, made Florida the 26th constitutional-carry state in the nation, forced unions to abide by the Supreme Court’s Janus decision, cut taxes by $2 billion, banned sex-change operations from being performed on minors, barred DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives in universities, expanded the use of mandatory E-Verify in the state, achieved a previously unthinkable collection of tort reforms, declared driver’s licenses issued to out-of-state illegal immigrants invalid in Florida, prohibited state and local governments from considering ESG (environmental, social, and governance) factors in their contracting and investing decisions, extended last year’s Parental Rights in Education law through twelfth grade, made it illegal for financial institutions to discriminate on the basis of “religious, political, or social beliefs,” and prevented credit-card companies from tracking their customers’ gun purchases.

In recent weeks, Governor DeSantis has been keen to point out that politicians who wish to effect change must first win their elections. The GOP’s achievements within this legislative session underscore his point. Florida is not Florida by accident. It is Florida because, for the last 28 years, the Republican Party has controlled the state’s legislature, and, for the last 24 years, it has controlled the governor’s office. This, not posting memes on Twitter, has allowed it to prohibit the taxation of any form of income, to require any tax or fee increases to receive the blessing of a supermajority of both legislative houses, to create the top fiscal and economic environment in the country, to ban affirmative action, to reject Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, to appoint six out of the state’s seven supreme court judges, to provide the sane response to Covid that attracted hundreds of thousands of émigrés during 2020 and 2021, and to accumulate all of the other policy wins that, frankly, are just too numerous to list.

I do not like every last thing that Republicans have done in Florida, and I have been happy to say as much. But that is not my point here. My point — the sine qua non point, really — is that Florida provides a remarkable example of a political organization having conceived of, and then executed, a coherent vision. Until 1999, Florida had elected only two Republican governors since Reconstruction. Since then, voters have refused to elect a single Democrat to the mansion. Better still, Republicans have been rewarded for their efforts. From the end of the Civil War until 2021, there were more registered Democrats in the state than Republicans. Today, the Republicans have an advantage of 454,918, the Republican governor has a 59–39 approve–disapprove rating, and the legislature has so many Republican legislators sitting in it that it could pass any legislation it wished to over a gubernatorial veto.

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