Free Republic

REAL AMERICA -- Dan Ball W/ Roger Stone, People Are Losing Trust In Ron DeSantis, 3/23/23

14 min clip from Viva/Robert Barnes podcast. Barnes explains why DeSantis is running for president, donors convinced him Trump would be kneecapped by numerous indictments (most have failed) and thus DeSantis would win the primary. Secondly, DeSantis will not win the general because Trumpers will not vote. Outcome - destroy Trump, DeSantis and MAGA in one swoop. Barnes also explains the case against Trump and other insights. Worth the time.

DeSantis silent, Vivek speaks.

There’s zero reason for DeSantis to stay silent. Complete political miscalculation. Gonna bleed more support in the polls.— Gavin Mario Wax 🇺🇸 🗽 (@GavinWax) March 18, 2023RON DeSILENT— Alex Bruesewitz 🇺🇸 (@alexbruesewitz) March 18, 2023DeSantis committed career suicide today. It's a wonderful sight to behold! DeSimps are jumping ship for Vivek (and others!) faster than you would believe! https://t.co/FHrxPbOy1X— Paul Ingrassia (@PaulIngrassia) March 18, 2023You know I'm 100% Trump 2024 but I still love DeSantis as my Governor - but if DeSantis doesn't come out soon and make a bold statement against this political witch hunt against Trump - the...

If former President Donald Trump is trying to make it look like he isn't bothered by Ron DeSantis, his Truth Social feed this weekend told a very different story. Over the weekend, Trump's Truth Social profile was filled with post after post about DeSantis, the governor of Florida and Trump's main rival in the GOP. On Saturday, Trump kicked off his DeSantis-posting spree of at least 10 posts, by Insider's count. The first was to insult DeSantis by writing that he thought it was "totally inappropriate to use the word 'meatball' as a moniker for Ron" — in the process...

Donald Trump was a great if imperfect president. By the third year of his presidency, the country was flourishing. The economy was roaring, jobs were up, incomes were up, gas prices were down, and America & Americans were doing fairly well. But then a funny thing happened on the way to the election. The swamp struck back via Covid and the George Floyd protests. Neither of those was of Trump’s making, but both were utilized by Democrats to steal the election. The Democrats didn’t create Covid or put Floyd in the morgue, but they used the lockdowns and the riots...

The Trump administration has finalized a roll back of Obama-era regulations for oil trains. The rules, which date back to 2015, required railroads carrying crude oil or other flammable liquids to outfit their trains with more responsive electronic braking systems. The rules came in response to concerns about explosions and spills from mile-long trains of crude and ethanol. In the Northwest, those trains move along the Columbia River and through cities to coastal refineries. The U.S. Department of Transportation, which has been working on rescinding the rules since last December, said in statement this week that its analysis showed the...

Politics aside, if you study the data trends, the 13 “Keys to the White House, ” created by analyst and historian Allan J. Lichtman, have demonstrated an uncanny knack for calling U.S. presidential elections. There have been a few hiccups, where it called Al Gore over George W. Bush in 2000, with Gore winning the popular vote and Bush winning the Electoral College. When a reverse phenomenon occurred in 2016, it correctly called Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016, with Trump winning the Electoral College and Clinton winning the popular vote. The key’s predictions now focus solely on the...

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott is taking steps to run for president, people familiar with his plans said, adding to the stable of Republicans looking to wrest the party mantle from former President Donald Trump. Mr. Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, is testing a message with GOP voters in key early states focused on unity and optimism as some Republicans say it is time to move on from the Trump era. Mr. Trump has announced a bid for president in the 2024 election. Jennifer DeCasper, a Scott senior adviser, said he was “excited to share his vision...

An odd thing happened at this week’s State of the Union: President Biden and congressional Republicans got into a skirmish about an issue over which, apparently, they completely agree. Neither party, it seems, wants to make changes to Social Security or Medicare during upcoming negotiations to raise the debt ceiling.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida prizes preparation and the way it allows him to control his political narrative. But suddenly, he was on the verge of going off message. He had traveled to a Central Florida warehouse this past week to promote a $2 billion tax cut proposal when he was confronted with the inevitable: an especially ugly attack from former President Donald J. Trump that seemed to warrant a strong response. Mr. Trump had insinuated on social media that Mr. DeSantis behaved inappropriately with high school girls while he was a teacher in his early 20s. As a reporter...

<p>Former President Trump’s 2020 election campaign hired an outside research firm to try to prove allegations of voter fraud, but never released the results because the company disputed many of its theories and, according to Four, could not provide any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election was people who are familiar with the matter.</p>

... For too long Washington has refused to think strategically about some of the major foreign policy issues of our time. In the rare instance where Washington’s policymakers do think strategically, the strategies they concoct seem less like realistic attempts at applying state power and more like they were conceived over a game of Risk while under the heavy influence of alcohol. Such is the case with the current American preoccupation in Ukraine. The Russians have invaded Ukraine. They’ve committed their entire society to the war. In the words of popular geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan, this is “Russia’s last war.”...

State of the Union: A Trump ’24 focus on foreign policy restraint is very good news. And we shouldn’t be surprised.Over at Politico, there’s a noteworthy report on some early jockeying in the 2024 GOP primary:Those close to Trump’s campaign operation say he plans to try and paint himself as an anti-war dove amongst the hawks. They believe doing so will resonate with GOP voters who are divided on, but growing wary of, continued support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.This is a smart political move from 45. “Growing wary” of Ukraine support could prove to be an understatement,...

Bennett speaks out. Former Israeli PM talks about Zelensky the coward.

Trump gave an interview on Thursday to Hugh Hewitt, who repeatedly asked him to spill on what disparaging nicknames he plans to use against those who compete with him in the 2024 Republican primary. When Hewitt floated Glenn Youngkin (R) as a possible bid, Trump referred to the Virginia Governor as a “disappointment,” complaining that he didn’t get enough gratitude from Youngkin or his team even though “I did a lot for him. And he got elected because of me, just like Ron DeSantis. Even more so.” DeSantis is often considered Trump’s biggest potential primary threat, and the former president...

Carlson added, "I wish we could stop and acknowledge this is a serious election. It is a crummy selection, but there has to be someone who understands the issues better than Herman Cain."

I once asked a senior American official about why he accepted honoraria from the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or the MKO, given the group’s cultlike nature and its lack of popularity inside Iran. His response: Even if the group lied about its support, they said the right things about democracy and regime change, and so he saw no harm in collecting the cash. The regime’s fall, he said, would be a moment of truth: Either the MKO would prove itself right, or its political Ponzi scheme would collapse. The problem with engaging in the MKO’s endorsement-for-cash scheme is the impact it has on...

American conservatives love to imagine immigrants as secret Republicans desperate to flee the Democrat barrio. The fantasy goes something like this: “Immigrants are hard-working, God-fearing people who love America more than any native! We just need to stop being bigoted and speak to these people in Spanish.” This line has been propagated for as long as I’ve been alive. Despite the billions Republicans have spent on outreach, they only started doing well with immigrant communities when they were led by a guy who called them criminals and rapists. Can immigrants save America? The answer is obviously no. By any metric,...

Advisers to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are actively preparing for a possible presidential run, according to two Republicans with knowledge of the conversations who described meetings and preliminary staffing moves — the latest indication that DeSantis is laying a foundation for a national campaign. DeSantis’s political team has already identified multiple potential hires in early primary states such as New Hampshire and Iowa, according to one of the Republicans, who said experienced operatives have expressed interest. This Republican also said that Phil Cox and Generra Peck — two key members of DeSantis’s 2022 reelection team — are involved in ongoing...