Defending The Republic Good News

February 09, 24

Dear Patriots,

What a wild week. So much happens every single day.
We have sleuthed out the good news you may have missed.

Good News Friday is always free!

1- We have talked often about the concept of the states being laboratories of democracy. That means that different parts of the country can test out different ideas, experiment with unusual economic and social concepts.  Florida did an experiment and the results are great.  This action can be rolled out across the country. Read about all the results at the link.

City Journal 

Trust E-Verify

QUOTE: Critics warned that Florida’s crackdown on illegal immigrants would crater the state’s economy. They were wrong.

Florida progressives made many dire predictions before the state’s tough new immigration law took effect on July 1, 2023. They claimed that critical industries would face massive labor shortfalls, bringing soaring prices and perhaps even food shortages. Left-wing think tanks warned that Florida’s workforce would plummet by as much as 10 percent, with fearful immigrants fleeing the state. Some predicted that Florida’s economy would crater by $13 billion per year. More than half a year later, none of these predictions has materialized. If anything, the results so far show the opposite.

Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB 1718 into law in May 2023. Among other provisions, the new law invalidated out-of-state driver’s licenses given to illegal immigrants, required hospitals to quantify uncompensated care given to them, and, perhaps most controversially, compelled employers with at least 25 employees to use E-Verify to check new hires’ legal status. Local and national media sowed panic about the law, which they almost uniformly labeled an “anti-immigration crackdown” rather than an illegal-immigration crackdown. Some outlets highlighted video clips of empty store shelves in Florida supermarkets, which went viral after truckers promised a boycott of the state that never materialized. CBS fact-checkers confirmed that the empty shelves depicted were unrelated to the boycott or the law, but this hardly mattered to those in the media keen to condemn the law.

What happened after the law took effect on July 1? Well, Florida’s economy grew by 6.1 percent in the third quarter of 2023, seventh-best in the nation. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the state’s civilian labor force ticked up from about 11 million workers in July to 11.1 million in December. Despite all the hype about labor shortages, the state’s unemployment rate rose during that period, from 2.7 percent to 3 percent.

2- It is always good news when more people get truthful information and turn their backs on the disastrous polices of the left.  It is best not to get happy or sad about polls. What we look for are trends. All shift in the electorate has been trending this way for months.
For more numbers on this, you can go to Gallup.

Red State

The Dam Breaks: Panic at DNC HQ As Dems Hit Flashing Red Lights Territory With Black, Hispanic Voters

QUOTE: We’ve written before about the slow but steady erosion of support from black and Hispanic voters for the Democratic Party, something that became very pronounced during Donald Trump’s presidency as he and the RNC courted core left-wing voting blocs by explaining they had a lot more in common with the GOP than they did Democrats.

Since Trump left office, the decline in alliances among these same voters for Democrats has continued, but the most recent numbers from Gallup on this front suggest that Dems aren’t looking at just a trickling loss of support but a flood as fed-up black and  Hispanic Americans are saying “adios” to Democrats in droves.

To make matters worse for Joe Biden and his Democratic cohorts in this critical presidential election year, even independents – who are essential to any candidate’s victory – are swinging in Trump’s direction, with polling also showing third-party candidates will hurt Biden more than Trump in the general election:

Without the locks they’ve had for decades on the black and Hispanic vote, Democrats will find it harder to win elections as voters they’ve typically relied on to carry them over the finish line look elsewhere for leadership and for candidates whose views on the issues are more inline with their own.

This is what happens when your intelligence gets insulted year after year and you begin to feel taken advantage of. People start looking for alternatives and begin to realize they don’t have to put all their eggs in one basket (party) to get the type of representation they want.

I don’t think this is a fluke, either. The likelihood of Democrats continuing to bleed support among some of their party faithful is strong thanks in part to the rise of New Media and the sustained pushback at efforts by Big Tech and the Legacy Media, sometimes in coordination with powerful Democrats, to discredit, censor, and/or cancel alternative media sources.

The dam has not just broken in terms of Democrats losing support from core groups. The controlled information dam has broken as well, which is filtering through and is, in my opinion, leading to much of the second-guessing we’re seeing today from those same Democrats who are experiencing wake-up calls.

3- Yet more evidence of the massive election fraud.

United States Department of Justice  

Political Organizer and Former President of City Council of Atlantic City Charged with Submitting Fraudulent Mail-In Ballots

QUOTE: CAMDEN, N.J. – An Atlantic County, New Jersey, man was arrested today for his role in procuring, casting, and tabulating fraudulent mail-in ballots submitted in the Nov. 8, 2022, general election, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced.

Craig Callaway, 64, a former member and president of the City Council of Atlantic City and a political organizer who assisted campaigns for elected offices in New Jersey, is charged in a criminal complaint unsealed today with one count of depriving, defrauding, and attempting to deprive and defraud the residents of the state of New Jersey of a fair and impartially conducted election process by the fraudulent procurement, casting, and tabulation of ballots. Callaway is scheduled to make his initial appearance today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew J. Skahill in Camden federal court.

“Voter fraud at any level chips away at the faith people have in our system,” FBI – Newark Special Agent in Charge James E. Dennehy said. “We’re unable as American citizens to hold our government accountable if our votes are compromised. The FBI and our law enforcement partners understand the gravity of protecting the process and will bring those criminals who break the law to justice.”

4- More and more of people thrust into office by unlimited money from Soros are proving to be compromised.

Yahoo 

Former top prosecutor for Baltimore convicted of mortgage fraud

QUOTE: A former top prosecutor for the city of Baltimore was convicted Tuesday on one count of mortgage fraud, concluding a lengthy criminal trial in which Marilyn Mosby testified she unwittingly made false statements on loan applications to buy two Florida vacation homes.
The jury announced a split verdict Tuesday evening after deliberating most of the day, finding Mosby not guilty on a second mortgage fraud charge. She was previously convicted on two counts of perjury in a separate criminal trial that took place in November. She hasn’t been sentenced in either case.

The federal criminal charges stemmed from allegations that Mosby claimed a pandemic-related hardship to make early withdrawals from her retirement account, then used that money for down payments on the Florida properties. Prosecutors alleged she repeatedly lied on the mortgage applications.

Mosby served two terms as state’s attorney for Baltimore, earning a national profile for her progressive policies and several high-profile decisions. She brought charges against the police officers involved in the 2015 death of Freddie Gray, which ignited widespread protests against police brutality. None were convicted.

Mosby lost re-election in 2022 after being indicted by a federal grand jury.

5- Add this one to a long line of hysterical predictions, based on models and simulations, that we’ve heard for the past 50 years.  Again, those fake predictions have been proven completely wrong.

The Epoch Times

UN Says Melting Arctic Ice Is Key Indicator of Climate Change—But It’s Not Melting

QUOTE: Climate policy based on an assumed relationship between CO2 and Arctic ice levels is problematic, say scientists.

“All climate models are projecting an ice-free summer within the next 20 years or so,” Ron Kwok, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in July 2013. “It’s not very far away.”

However, a new report by Allan Astrup Jensen, research director and CEO at the Nordic Institute of Product Sustainability and Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology in Denmark, shows that from September 2007 through September 2023, Arctic sea ice declines were near zero.

“The facts are that the Arctic Sea ice extent measured by satellites since 1978 expresses annual variations, and it has declined considerably from 1997 to 2007. However, before that time period, from 1978 to 1996, the downward trend was minimal, and in the last 17 years, from 2007 to 2023, the downward trend has also been about zero,” the report states.

“Therefore, there is no indication that we should expect the Arctic Sea summer ice to disappear completely, as predicted, in one or two decades.”

6- The farmers across Europe have spent months protesting the leftist climate change policies that threaten to destroy all farms. It looks like they are making progress on turning back the craziness that will result in famine. These events are still being ignored by the world media. We will continue to monitor the situation as we are wary of any promises the left makes. This looks like real progress.

The Gateway Pundit

EU FOLDS, FARMERS WIN: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen Will Scrap Green ‘Sustainable Use Regulation’ Aiming To Halve Fertilizer Usage

QUOTE: After months of continental mobilization, all signs seem to indicate that farmers have achieved a major victory against the European Union and its failed, crippling ‘green’ policies and regulations.

Unprecedented protests rocked Europe from east to west, from north to south. A non-exhausting list would include France, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Italy, and of course Belgium – with farmers converging to Brussels to protest in front of the European Parliament.

Mostly, the MSM tried to characterize the protest as being about ‘subsidies’ and ‘protection against products from lesser regulated countries’ – but a core demand that united all nationalities was the stark rejection of the ‘Global warming’ climate alarmism, and the policies and regulations derived from it.

One such monstrosity is the ‘Sustainable Use Regulation’ (SUR), who aimed to halve the use of pesticides – and possibly bankrupt all the farmers in the process.

Now, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed withdrawing the EU’s plan, calling it a ‘symbol of polarization’.

Besides farmers protesting against rising costs, taxes, and cheap food imports, one main demand is against constraints meant ‘to fight climate change’.

This was not the first or only ‘concession’ by the EU. Last week, the EU proposed ‘an exemption on rules requiring farmers to leave part of their land fallow’.

So, in an attempt to undo the knot that farmers tied around Europe’s cities and roads, Ursula von der Leyen announced today (6) the withdrawal of the SUR, marking ‘the first defeat of the Green Deal’.

7- It is always good to see a company, bent on grooming our very young children, lose money. It is less money available to devote to their far, far leftist agendas.

Breitbart 

Canceled: Disney+ Loses 1.3 Million Subscribers After Hiking Prices More Than 25 Percent

QUOTE: The Disney+ streaming service lost 1.3 million subscribers worldwide during the last three months of 2023 as a steep price hike took a toll on fans’ wallets. In the U.S. and Canada alone, the streamer bid goodbye to 400,000 customers — Disney+’s largest-ever reported domestic decline.

The drop represents a major hit for Disney, which has been pouring billions of dollars into its streaming services without yet reaching profitability. Domestic Disney+ subscriptions have stagnated at around 46 million for the past year, an ominous sign for a streaming service that is only four years old.

The left-wing studio recently hiked Disney+’s monthly subscription price to $13.99 from $10.99 — a 27 percent increase. In 2022, the price rose to $10.99 from $7.99, which means Disney+ subscribers saw their monthly bill climb a total of 75 percent in less than two years.

On Wednesday, Disney announced that its streaming services — which also include Hulu — lost $216 million for the final three months of 2023. That represents an improvement over more recent quarters, when the company was losing more than $1 billion on streaming.

Disney is coming off a disastrous 2023.

8- Another classic American brand that has fallen into the LGBTQ quagmire. You know what to do!

National Legal And Policy Center 

NLPC Blasts Oreo for Gender Ideology Indoctrination of Kids

QUOTE: As Oreo prepares to make a splash with its first Super Bowl commercial in 10 years, National Legal and Policy Center today released a 30-second video that delivers stinging criticism of the cookie brand over its longtime partnership with PFLAG. The LGBTQ advocacy group condones gender transition treatments for children as young as three years old, and battles to make sure books with explicit content are allowed in public schools and libraries.

You can watch the video at the link above.

NLPC owns stock in Oreo’s parent company, Mondelez International, and will sponsor a shareholder proposal at the annual meeting in May. The nonprofit corporate watchdog and shareholder activist initiated its campaign to highlight the cookie-maker’s inappropriate relationship with PFLAG after it noticed the brand’s social media accounts – primarily on X.com(formerly Twitter) – were heavily populated with posts in support of PFLAG’s various narratives, causes and social advocacy.

“Oreo is a beloved brand with a strong identity and a reputation for connecting with all ages, especially kids, because it’s not only delicious, but fun,” said Paul Chesser, director of NLPC’s Corporate Integrity Project. “Now the cookie’s image-managers are taking it down the same dangerous path that Bud Light, Disney and Target have trodden, which led to extensive brand destruction. We urge Mondelez to terminate Oreo’s controversial relationships before it’s too late.”

9- A shift is happening on universities campuses and that is good! We take any progress as a win!

Paul Mirengoff on Substack

Good news: Dartmouth reinstates SAT/ACT requirement for undergraduate applicants

QUOTE: Dartmouth’s president Sian Leah Beilock has announced that Dartmouth will reinstate a standardized testing requirement for undergraduate admissions. It will become the first Ivy League college to do so.

It’s scandalous that the standardized testing requirement was dropped in the first place. It has long been known that test standardized scores are the best predictor of academic performance. This truth was reaffirmed by a committee of Dartmouth professors (mostly from the college’s outstanding economics faculty) that reviewed the relevant data. Their study becomes the springboard (or pretext) for reinstating the test requirement.

Even left-liberal professors prefer to teach highly intelligent students who can perform well in their classes without the aid of grade inflation. Thus, reinstating the test requirement will benefit them.

It will also benefit America. It’s in the national interest to have the smartest professors teach the smartest students. Such a matching-up of intellect and talent promotes excellence. The American left isn’t so fond of excellence (i.e., merit) these days, but promoting it is essential if this country is to be successful in global competition.

10- Healthy people are harder to push around. So, plan your weekend food around nutritious meat!

Dr. Georgia Ede at CNBC

Harvard-trained nutrition expert: If I could only prioritize one food in my diet, it’d be this

QUOTE: Meat is good for you. There are experts who might disagree with me, and many researchers continue to search for evidence linking meat to heart disease, for example.

But as a Harvard-trained, board-certified psychiatrist specializing in nutritional and metabolic psychiatry, I’ve long been curious about the relationship between food and brain health, as well as overall well-being. And in my research, I’ve yet to find a credible, plausible health argument against eating meat of any kind (including red meat, seafood, and poultry).

In fact, no other food group is nutritious enough, safe enough, or geographically accessible enough to recommend as the healthy foundation of the optimal human diet.

So if I could only afford to buy food from one food group, I’d prioritize meat.

Meat is good for gut health because it’s non-irritating, easy to digest, and supports healthy insulin levels without promoting blood glucose spikes.

It also provides all of the macronutrients and micronutrients we need, including some that are difficult or impossible to obtain from plant foods. For instance, it’s an excellent source of every B vitamin, including B7, which plants contain very little of, and B12, which plants do not contain at all.

Only meat contains heme iron, a form of iron at least three times easier for us to absorb than the non-heme iron in plants. And only animal-source foods contain the MK‑4 form of vitamin K2, which is easier to absorb (and is the form used by the human brain).

11- We long ago gave up watching leftists giving each other awards, so we did not see this Grammy event live. One performance was a rare and beautiful moment which we want to be sure you knew about. Read the back story and watch the performance at the link.

Breitbart

Tracy Chapman’s Grammy Moment of Pure Americanism

QUOTE: Using only her art, the legendary Tracy Chapman took to the Grammy stage Sunday night and made the most American of statements.

The story behind Chapman’s iconic, Grammy-winning hit “Fast Car” dates back 36 years to 1988, when it was first released. She was only 23 then, but in the synthesized-saxophoned eighties, “Fast Car” was something all its own.

The Clevelend-born Chapman was lucky. America was still a young country then, a country eager to embrace The New, an anxious culture always glancing over the shoulder of the latest superstar, eager for whatever was next.

Like something from a hokey movie, Chapman’s life changed forever in 1988 during a birthday tribute to Nelson Mandela. At the last second, Stevie Wonder freaked out over a technical mishap and walked off. With only her guitar, a microphone, and talent, Chapman was pushed on stage in front of 72,000 fans expecting Stevie Wonder. And then this happened…

According to the legend, many years after it was first released in 1988, “Fast Car” was the first song 33-year-old country superstar Luke Combs fell in love with as a kid. Fast-forward another dozen or so years, and Combs’ cover turned “Fast Car” into a platinum-selling megahit all over again. Chapman’s timeless and poetic plea then went on to win the 2023 Country Music Award for Song of the Year, an award that went to Chapman.

Sunday night’s otherwise obnoxious, hateful, and puerile Grammy Awards, Tracy Chapman said everything that needed to be said. After being out of the spotlight for years, she returned for only a few minutes to respond to all this ugliness in the most effective, gracious, and American way imaginable:

With class and elegance, with her eyes sparkling with joy and gratitude, and using only her art and artistry, Tracy Chapman grabbed a guitar, stepped to a microphone, and delivered one of the greatest moments in award show history that said it all.

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