I was trying to think of someone who in recent weeks has gotten worse press than Ron DeSantis.

The piling on the Florida governor has gotten so bad that not a day goes by without him being pummeled by the pundits. This is all the more striking because DeSantis was previously held up as the man who could trounce Donald Trump and take the Republican Party in a new direction – an avatar of Trumpism without the baggage.

Now that post-indictment Trump has surged in the polls and DeSantis has been sliding, the geniuses of the fourth estate are treating him like a piñata – despite the fact that he hasn’t entered the race.

I have been arguing for some time that DeSantis needs to punch back at the increasingly rough attacks by the former president. He has largely sidestepped or deflected these assaults, and is very much running the risk of being defined by Trump.

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While DeSantis won’t declare his candidacy until the Florida legislature finishes its session, the fact is Trump has drawn him into the presidential race. In the social media era, you no longer have the luxury of deciding when to become an official candidate. DeSantis has also made some missteps, but while he loves to slam the media, the 180 flip to negativity is amplifying and exaggerating his weaknesses.

Just over the weekend, two liberal female columnists for the New York Times ripped Ron:

"DeSantis is making the mistake of believing that the primary race is about issues, while Trump instinctively understands that it’s about dominance," says Michelle Goldberg.

Turning the other cheek "didn’t work in 2016 and it’s not working now. Witness the parade of Florida Republicans turning their back on DeSantis and bending the knee to Trump with their endorsements."

Maureen Dowd writes: "DeSantis seems mean, punching out at Mickey Mouse, immigrants, gays and women; pushing through an expansion of his proposal to ban school discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity to include all grades, as well as a draconian ban on abortion after six weeks. He even admonished some high school kids during the pandemic for wearing masks." Not a fan.

But I have, after deep contemplation, come up with someone who’s getting hammered more aggressively than DeSantis, perhaps because he transcends politics.

His name is Elon Musk.

Now the sometimes-world’s richest man has always made news, given that he also owns Tesla, SpaceX and other companies. But ever since he set his heart on buying Twitter, he has been consistently trashed by the left-leaning media, which consider him an increasingly extreme right-winger. (Never mind that he just admitted voting for Joe Biden.)

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So the longstanding problems of Twitter – some of which have gotten worse as he’s laid off 80% of the staff – have provided fodder for Musk’s media antagonists. He has made things worse with some erratic moves and petty fights, such as denigrating the Times and NPR. 

And he has stripped hundreds of thousands of users (including me) of their blue checkmarks, ticking them off as what was intended to be a verification process morphed into an elite status symbol – for which users now have to pay an $8 monthly subscription fee. 

Musk removed the blue symbols from lots of big-name pundits, along with the likes of Pope Francis and Paul McCartney. Weirdly, Musk tweeted he is personally paying the fee for LeBron James, William Shatner and a few other celebrities. (What, LeBron can’t afford to pay?) At the same time, accounts sprung up featuring dead celebrities, making clear the process ain’t working perfectly. 

Politico writer Jack Shafer blames the press for overcovering what he calls the "vapor trail of broken Musk promises and failed predictions…

"He’s knocked a U.S. senator with a vulgar tweet, called a Thai cave rescuer a ‘pedo guy,’ ridiculed Bill Gates’ beer belly and mocked a disabled Twitter employee…

"This unbroken stream of Musk blarney and BS should be enough to deter the press from automatically reporting the tycoon’s publicity hounding." Except that Musk’s tweets – artificially boosted by an algorithm – are outrageous, funny, inflammatory, aggravating – filling the void left by Trump.

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Shafer said: "Reporters on the Musk beat have a point when they say you never know which one of Musk’s outrageous stabs at grabbing attention will actually blossom into genuine news. He’ll do anything to keep it and himself in the news, and every day the news media rewards his showboating with an avalanche of running coverage and commentary." Guilty as charged. 

In the Atlantic, Charlie Warzel says Musk’s transformation of the site – filled with "culture-war drivel" – "is to witness the platform working at its purest, basest level. Forget offensive; his behavior is cringe. It shows us what has always existed deep down in Twitter’s molten core, an elemental feeling shared by the platform’s most ardent users and that powers much of social media: shame."

Well, I’m not ashamed, even though Twitter can sometimes be a sewer. The app also has its upside, serving up breaking news and conversations about everything from policy issues to media to cute dog videos.

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Now I think Musk’s bad press edges out DeSantis’ bad press, but maybe you disagree. Perhaps you’ll decide to tweet about it. 

Biden administration officials have consulted a number of left-wing environmental groups as they craft a rule forcing fossil fuel-fired power plants to substantially curb emissions.

Over the last two weeks, senior White House and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials have met with the organizations — including Climate Action Campaign, Union of Concerned Scientists, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Clean Air Task Force and Evergreen Action — to discuss a highly-anticipated plan to tackle power plant emissions, according to federal filings.

"Among all of those groups, there aren't really any energy experts or electric grid experts or scientists. It's activists who use environmental issues to advance the Democrat agenda," Daniel Turner, the executive director of Power The Future, told Fox News Digital. "So, it's totally unsurprising that these are the ones calling the shots."

"It shows who's really pulling the strings at the Biden White House," he continued.

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The most recent of the meetings, meanwhile, came Monday afternoon with leaders of the Climate Action Campaign which advocates for federal policies that would replace the current U.S. power grid with one fueled only by green energy sources like wind and solar. The group's website argues that transitioning to a 100% green energy-powered grid is crucial for "ensuring a just, climate-safe future."

Similarly, some of the other groups the White House has consulted with about its upcoming power plant rule have recently issued policy briefs arguing in favor of a rapid decarbonization of the nation's power grid. The reports were attached as part of the federal filings reporting the meetings.

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"To close the gaps between our climate and clean power targets and our current trajectory, and to further advance President Biden’s critical climate and environmental justice commitments, the Biden Administration must take decisive executive action to cut pollution and advance clean electricity in the power sector over the next two years," states one of the briefs published in January by Evergreen Action and NRDC.

The brief advocates for the federal government to pursue an aggressive regulatory framework ensuring 80% of the nation's grid is fueled by green energy by 2030 and is completely carbon-free by 2035.

Another report, commissioned by the Sierra Club, criticized efforts to expand carbon capture technology to reduce emissions. The Inflation Reduction Act, which President Biden signed into law last year, included sizable tax credits for carbon capture and storage, an advanced technology that reduces emissions from fossil fuel power plants.

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"The results of this assessment highlight how a generation owner might seek to game the new tax credit policy for the benefit of investors or other incumbent interests at the expense of the environment and ratepayers," the Sierra Club report states. "New tax credits may appear to justify an enormous upfront capital investment to build carbon capture, which favors incumbent generation interests."

"Whether capture equipment will ultimately work as intended, however, is uncertain. Even if it does work as intended, the investment may barely reduce, or even increase, net emissions."

In addition to the environmental groups, White House officials also met with representatives of nine Democratic state attorneys general led by New York and California; the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group that advocates for a green transition; and various utility companies that have installed a large share of the nation's green energy capacity in recent years.

The revelation that top administration officials have engaged with leading left-wing climate groups to craft the power plant rule, comes days after reports indicated the EPA is prepared to issue the most aggressive-ever power plant emissions reduction plan.

On Saturday, The New York Times reported the EPA is finalizing the plan which would require coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to cut or capture the vast majority of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2040. The regulation, if finalized, would represent the first-ever federal action curbing power plant emissions.

Overall, there are 3,393 fossil fuel-fired power plants nationwide, the majority of which are natural gas plants, according to the most recent federal data. Those plants generate more than 60% of the nation's electricity, compared to the roughly 14% of electricity generated by wind and solar projects.

However, EPA data shows that the electric power sector accounts for about 25% of total U.S. emissions, placing it behind only the transportation sector and slightly ahead of the industrial sector. As such, fossil fuel power plants have been targeted by environmentalists and Democratic lawmakers who argue that emissions must be reduced in an effort to stave off cataclysmic climate change.