DeSantis Powerful Pennsylvania Performance — We surprised ourselves and managed to attend Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presentation today, April 1, at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference in Camp Hill and found ourselves pleasantly impressed.
If an election were today we still vote Trump — credit Alvin Bragg — but DeSantis made the points and brought the receipts. He can get our vote if he keeps doing this and The Donald better not be cocky about a debate. DeSantis may be mild, almost boring, but he has the ammunition.
He was introduced by Congressman Keith Rothfus, a Republican who represented Pennsylvania’s 12th District from 2013 until it was redistricted in 2018, and with whom DeSantis served.
DeSantis pointed out that Florida has a bigger population than New York but less than half its budget. He says what the Sunshine State spends is actually on par with just New York City. More significantly he noted that Florida gives better services.
He said Antifa and BLM riots are not happening in Florida because it has adopted anti-riot polices at his instigation.
“You riot you see the inside of a jail cell,” he said.
Without mentioning either Trump or Bragg by name, he condemned the “Manhatten D.A.’s” indictment of the “former president” and said the law has become weaponized.
“Soros-backed D.A.’s are a menace to society,” he said.
He said he removed a Soros-backed district attorney from Tampa, something the governor can do in Florida. He has also prohibited municipalities from defunding police and nullifying law.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and Trump should feel flattered. DeSantis without ambiguity or irony defended building a wall on the Mexican border.
He spoke about the fentanyl crisis.
“Biden laughs about fentanyl,” he said.
School Reform
He said Florida now has a super-majority Republican legislature and has passed universal school choice. Florida now requires curriculum transparency and bans critical race theory.
“We are not teaching kids how to hate their country or hate each other,” he said.
But wait, there’s more.
Florida now requires schools to teach a civics course based on the citizenship test for immigrants, and to specifically teach on or about Nov. 7, the atrocities committed in the name of communism .
Also Florida now prevents teachers from telling students they were born the wrong gender. It bans men from competing in women’s sports and doctors who perform sex reassignment surgery on minors in Florida will now lose their licenses.
He says Florida is eliminating Diversity/Inclusion/Equity programs from universities and requiring all tenured professors to undergo a review every five years.
“Our state is where woke goes to die,” he said.
He said Florida is also about to ban the use of a proposed federal digital dollar and is looking at ways of ending “woke banking”. This is where financial institutions refuse to let your money be used for things like unapproved political speech, gun purchases or cars someone has deemed bigger than necessary.
DeSantis gave a nod to 2020 election skeptics when he condemned the social media companies who censored them.
Regarding elections, DeSantis said Florida has become a role model for the nation. “
Zuckerbucks” or money contributed to local elections departments by rich people, who are invariably partisan, have been banned as has ballot harvesting, which is the collection of absentee ballots by private organization.
Further, while Florida has long had vote-by-mail, the rules are clear and strict.
DeSantis noted that he has removed shady poll election officials and his administration has created an Office of Election Crimes and Security which is now making arrests.
Other Matters
In a panel discussion with Rose Somma Tennent, Sean Hannity producer Lynda McLaughlin made the on-the-record statement that Fox News prohibits its hosts from discussing certain topics such as matters relating to the persecution of the Jan. 6 protestors.
Former Montgomery County GOP Chairwoman Liz Havey read endorsements for Pennsylvania justices in this year’s primary. We’ll probably vote for the ones running against them. That she is now helping the DeSantis campaign is one of the few strikes against Ron.
Scott Davis read the results of a straw poll of 179 respondents from the conference. Among the results were that 40 percent have been threatened for their political beliefs and 67 percent think their children will be worse off.
We missed that election integrity activist Heather Honey was among the speakers on Thursday. Good for the PLC for having her.