Dear Patriots,
Our Founding Fathers were on to something amazing when they designed how this country would operate. Having Federalism at the core has allowed this country to experiment with ideas that work or see when they don’t work. In the past year, we have seen this form of government operate as a democracy saving tool.
Florida, 20 other states challenge CDC transit mask rule
QUOTE: Twenty-one states with Republican attorneys general sued Tuesday to halt the federal government’s requirement that people wear masks on planes, trains, ferries and other public transportation amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The lawsuit, announced by Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General Ashley Moody and filed in federal court in Tampa, Florida, contends that the mask mandate exceeds the authority of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Still, Florida and the other states are pressing on with the lawsuit, which comes amid a partisan divide over the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and issues of government control versus individual rights.
“It is well past time to get rid of this unnecessary mandate and get back to normal life,” said DeSantis, a Republican who has persistently challenged federal mask mandates including those involving cruise lines, schools, private businesses and other entities.
Besides Florida, the states filing the new travel mask lawsuit as of Tuesday were: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.
QUOTE- On Wednesday evening, the Iowa Senate passed a bill, SF 2369, that codifies a parent/guardian bill of rights and establishes an education savings account program by a 31 to 18 mainly party-line vote.
Those rights include:• The right to know what their student is being taught.• The right to review and access information related to those who are teaching their student, including guest lecturers, and those contracting with or receiving money from the school district unless the release of that information is prohibited by state or federal law.• The right to reasonable access to their student during the school day unless prohibited by state or federal law or a court order.• The right to access and review their student’s school records unless state law prohibits a particular record from being disclosed.• The right to access and review data and information on their student collected by the school• The right to access and review information necessary to ensure the accountability and transparency of the board of directors of the school district or the governing board of the charter school• The right to access and review information related to their student’s safety at school unless that information is deemed confidential by state or federal law
The bill also creates “Student First Scholarships,” an education savings account program. Scholarships would be worth 70 percent of the state’s per-pupil spending, currently $5,359, for qualified education expenses defined in the bill, such as non-public school tuition, textbooks, curriculum, tutoring, non-public online education, and vocational education.
Oklahoma governor signs bill to protect women’s sports
QUOTE: Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed the Save Women’s Sports Act into law on Wednesday, mandating that “athletic teams designated for ‘females,’ ‘women’ or ‘girls’ shall not be open to students of the male sex.
“With this legislation, Oklahoma joins the likes of Florida, Utah, and South Dakota, among other states to ban transgender athletes from competing.
Stitt called the legislation “commonsense” Wednesday, adding that “when it comes to sports and athletics, girls should compete against girls. Boys should compete against boys.”
Last week, the Utah Legislature overrode a veto from Gov. Spencer Cox to enact a law similarly protecting women’s sports and banning biological men from participating.
Indiana Republicans are likewise looking to override a veto of a bill defending women’s sports. “House Republicans will vote to override this veto when lawmakers meet again on May 24,” said House Speaker Todd Huston in a statement
Florida Ascendant
QUOTE: People vote most sincerely when they vote with their feet. One of the basic realities of our time, transcending and perhaps ultimately overwhelming many of our current political debates, is that people are fleeing blue states and moving to red states.
What states are in decline? California, New York, Illinois, Minnesota. What states are prospering? Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah. And above all, Florida.
Florida benefits, obviously, from excellent leadership. Governor Ron DeSantis and the state’s Republican legislature have scored another win with the state’s anti-grooming law, which protects small children from being indoctrinated with LGBTQ+ theories in the public schools. Remarkably, liberals have chosen grooming as a hill to die on, as in the Oscars last night, even though polls show the Florida law is supported overwhelmingly by Florida Democrats, let alone Republicans and Independents.
As usual, DeSantis gets the last word.
During remarks ahead of the signing, DeSantis blasted Hollywood elites for repeatedly lying about the bill and claiming it is discriminatory.“If the same Hollywood elites who upheld degenerates like Harvey Weinstein now oppose our efforts to protect parental rights, I wear that like a badge of honor,” DeSantis said.
The exodus of voters from blue states to red states is one of several demographic trends that bode well for conservatives in future decades.
5- Battles over redistricting are still being fought in several states. We won a few this week.
Republicans Secure an Election-Shaking Victory in Ohio Redistricting
QUOTE:The sweet smell of victory is in the air this morning after it became apparent that Republicans are going to win the redistricting fight in Ohio. As RedState reported previously, despite the Ohio Supreme Court once again striking down maps drawn by the GOP legislature, the decision itself was entered as a final judgment. What that meant is that any challenge to the next maps submitted would need to start all over as a new lawsuit.
Regardless, the Republican congressional map being in effect in Ohio for November is a massive win. We are talking about a pickup of several seats that may have gone to Democrats had that not occurred. With courts in North Carolina forcing a near-even R to D split despite Republicans controlling redistricting (a decision likely to be overturned in 2023), the ground gained in Ohio will be huge for attaining the majority in the House.
QUOTE: Congressional seats toward Democrats was struck down by a New York judge on Thursday.
Steuben County State Supreme Court Judge Patrick McAllister, a Republican, ruled the map the Democratic-controlled legislature created “was unconstitutionally drawn with political bias” and not have any competitive seats, CNN reported.
The New York state legislature has until April 11 to pass a new map with “bipartisan support,” McAllister said, and then submit the map to the court for review.
This is the second Democratic defeat in redistricting over the last week. A judge on Friday struck down Democrat-drawn districts in Maryland.
Federal Judge Blasts Double Standards in J6 Sentences
“I know that the government believes that the January 6th cases are sui generis [one of a kind] and therefore can’t be compared to other cases. But I don’t agree,” said U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden.
“It does feel like the government has had two standards here, and I can’t abide by that,” he added, noting that before January 6, he couldn’t remember an instance where a nonviolent, first-time offender was “sentenced to serious jail time … regardless of their race, gender or political affiliation.”
McFadden expressed his views during the sentencing of a defendant who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor trespassing. The Biden administration called for her to be sentenced to 75 days in jail and one year of probation, which McFadden believed to be excessive. “The government’s sentencing recommendation here is just so disproportionate to other sentences for people who have engaged in similar conduct,” he said.
Instead, McFadden sentenced her to two months probation and a $5,000 fine. McFadden noted the same U.S. prosecutor’s office that recommended jail time for the J6 defendant sought a much lighter sentence for a Code Pink activist with a lengthy criminal record who infiltrated Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings in September 2018.
McFadden also noted that last fall, government prosecutors treated pro-Trump rioters more harshly than violent BLM rioters in Washington, D.C. back in 2020, after the death of George Floyd.
8- We have watched for decades as the Democrats and the Clintons have skirted around being held accountable for their many illegalities. This FEC fine is a tiny start.
FEC fines DNC and Clinton for Trump dossier hoax
QUOTE: The Federal Election Commission has fined the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for lying about the funding of the infamous, and discredited, Russian “dossier” used in a smear attempt against Donald Trump weeks before he shocked the world with his 2016 presidential victory.
The election agency said that Clinton and the DNC violated strict rules on describing expenditures of payments funneled to the opposition research firm Fusion GPS through their law firm.
A combined $1,024,407.97 was paid by the treasurers of the DNC and Clinton campaign to law firm Perkins Coie for Fusion GPS’s information, and the party and campaign hid the reason, claiming it was for legal services, not opposition research.
Instead, the DNC’s $849,407.97 and the Clinton campaign’s $175,000 covered Fusion GPS’s opposition research on the dossier, a basis for the so-called “Russia hoax” that dogged Trump’s first term.
Russian state TV host called for former President Donald Trump to be reinstated
QUOTE: A Russian state TV host called on the U.S. to remove President Joe Biden and reinstate former President Donald Trump days after Biden made his own call for a regime change aimed at Vladimir Putin in an off-scripted remark.
On Tuesday, The TV host of Russia’s 60 Minutes show, Evgeny Popov, urged America to quickly replace Biden with Trump, whom he called a ‘partner’ to the Russian state. ‘It’s time for us, our people, to call on the people of the United States to change the regime in the U.S. early, and to again help our partner, Trump, to become president,’ Popov said.
His statement comes after Biden condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in an impassioned speech in Poland where he went off-script and made his own shocking declaration for Russians to push out Putin.
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Defending The Republic
