Opinion
By Jeff Childers
05-07-23
Good morning, and Happy Sunday, C&C. Welcome to your bonus roundup: Florida passes historic sack of pro-conservative laws, but can other states follow Florida’s lead?; ultra-extreme Republican leads race for North Carolina governor, setting up another purple-state turnaround like Florida’s; new narrative seeks to torpedo DeSantis as a homophobic “culture warrior”; Coca-Cola shareholders sprint away from dabbling in the culture wars; Bud Light CEO kind of distances from female impersonator and gets another boycott for its trouble; bodybuilder’s coroner’s report shows he suddenly and unexpectedly died AT HOME one week after booster shot; and your daily C&C amusement.
🗞💬 *WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 💬🗞
🔥 The Tampa Bay Times ran a remarkable story yesterday summarizing the dizzying array of legislative accomplishments of Florida’s 2023 session, headlined “Florida Lawmakers Tout ‘Consequential’ Session as They Set Up Wins For DeSantis.”
The eight-week session’s phenomenal list of legislative gains is undeniably sensational. Nothing like it may have ever happened before. It is a unique and wonderful phenomenon, like spotting a rare tufted Alaskan squirrel in Nancy Pelosi’s hair, except even better.
Anyway, I’ll link the article below. Even though the Tampa Bay Times is a hopeless leftwing propaganda mill and can’t stand Republicans, or maybe even because of that, it’s worth a read. You can soak in almost every bit of lawmaking goodness and also read how painful each item was to committed Florida leftists who have helplessly watched the excesses of their own pandemic overreach eat away their previously solid grip on state government.
Here are many of the new laws, but not all of them, and not nearly in enough detail:
- Permitless gun carry.
- Tighter Immigration rules.
- Increased abortion limits.
- Limits on Chinese property ownership in Florida.
- Pronoun and sex-ed rules.
- Segregated bathroom rules.
- Restrictions on public adult entertainment (drag shows).
- Enhanced digital privacy rights.
- Expanded school vouchers.
- Restrictions on local government investing in ESG companies.
- Multi-billion dollar tax breaks.
- Landlord protections from local governments (to address housing costs).
- More election security.
- Expanded low-income child healthcare.
- Florida State Guard expansion (from 400 to 1,500 servicemembers)
- Significant lawsuit reforms.
- Teacher’s unions restrictions.
- Child rapist death penalty option.
- School board term limits (8 years).
- The strongest health freedom law in the country.*
It’s even more impressive when you consider the legislators only had 40 work days. How on Earth did the Republican legislators manage to stay focused and organized and haul all this controversial legislation across the finish line, making it look practically easy? The truth is, it’s far from easy. Quite the opposite.
LINK: Florida lawmakers tout ‘consequential’ session as they set up wins for DeSantis.
*Curiously, the Tampa Bay Times omitted the health freedom bill from its list. Why? Do they think it’s that politically dangerous? Was it just an oversight? Is it the Trump-DeSantis thing?
On another note, I should acknowledge that several committed Florida health freedom folks are chaffed about the health freedom bill (SB252) because it eclipsed their much stronger bill (SB222). It’s worth noting that, pre-pandemic, health freedom groups previously aligned with democrats (see, e.g., RFK, Jr.). Oddly, when the rubber hit the road, conservatives were much better friends to health freedom types than democrats.
Among the many new laws are a handful that various conservative groups feel were bad or overreaching, such as a provision that removed lawmakers’ travel schedules from open-records laws. But the vast, overwhelming majority of new legislation was a home-run for Florida and the country.
Remember this one? “I’m just a bill, yes I’m only a bill, and I’m sitting here on Capitol Hill.”
While Governor DeSantis will receive (and take) the credit, since he’s the corporate head of state government, nothing like this could never have happened without the Republican super-majority in Florida, or absent each individual lawmaker’s commitment to the party and it’s agenda.
The question is, while these new laws are (almost all) terrific for Floridians, can other states hope to reproduce the magic?
🔥 Maybe. The UK Guardian ran a story two days ago featuring the alarming headline, “Fears Grow in North Carolina as Ultra-Extreme Republican Eyes Governor’s Mansion.”
The article never explains WHO, exactly, “fears” Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson. Presumably its the Guardian.
And, “ultra-extreme!” That’s even worse than regular extreme. Apparently Robinson is an ultra-extremist. And of course, that makes the Guardian racist, since Mark Robinson is a black American.
Check out the sub-headline. The Guardian is worried that what just happened in Florida might also happen in North Carolina: “If Mark Robinson wins gubernatorial race in 2024 there would be no one to hold back a wave of rightwing bills in the state.”
My goodness!
Currently North Carolina’s first African American Lieutenant Governor, Robinson drew demands for his resignation in 2021 when he told Asbury Baptist Church members that, “There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth.”
See! He called gay people “filth!” A least, according to the Guardian, he did. Presumably Robinson might also think telling kids about straight sexual practices is filthy, too, but that wouldn’t fit the Guardian’s fearmongering narrative.
Equally alarming to the Guardian’s reporter was the fact that Robinson has also accurately described the transgender movement as “demonic and full of the spirit of the antichrist.” He also once nodded along with someone who was pointing out the sinister influence of the Rothschild family which, to the Guardian, smacks of anti-semitism.
Isn’t it weird how the Guardian can condemn Israel all day long over the Palestinian conflict, but can suddenly discover its zeal for defeating anti-semitism whenever the Rothschilds are criticized? Disconcerting. But I digress.
Like Florida, the Guardian observed that, until very recently, North Carolina Democrats held all the momentum and were headed toward painting that purple state all blue:
There was a time, not that long ago, when North Carolina was seen as a future Democratic state.
But times change, don’t they? Especially after pandemics and attempts to “Reset” the world. Florida sure reset. Now, North Carolina Republicans hold re-setting super-majorities in that state’s legislature and have been busily passing bills over the veto of “ultra-extremist” democrat Governor Roy Cooper.
Under North Carolina term limits, Roy Cooper’s Governorship end this year, in 2023. The race is on.
Hinting at the developing corporate-media playbook against Governor DeSantis’ 2023 presidential aspirations, the Guardian’s article about Mark Robinson darkly warned its readers against Republican crypto-homophobia:
If Robinson wins the Republican primary – which is “bordering on a certainty,” Cooper said – it could potentially cause problems for the Republican party at large, highlighting the extreme anti-LGBTQ views that lurk within the GOP.
Say it isn’t so! Not “lurkers!”
In order to spread what just happened in Florida a little, do you think we should support “ultra-extreme” crypto-homophobe and blatant Christian Mark Robinson for North Carolina Governor, if he wins the primary?
🔥 There is a new corporate media narrative featuring new attacks on Governor DeSantis. Democrats are trying to paint DeSantis as obsessed with gay people, bordering on some kind of homophobic mania. Here are a few recent selections to give you the idea:
And my personal favorite:
The narrative-makers seem to think that the transformer hill is the hill they want to die on. Before dismissing that out of hand, recall how effective they were with the 2022 midterm campaign’s focus on the abortion issue. I’m not sure, because I’m biased towards the culture wars, but it feels to me like they’re making a huge mistake.
🔥 Speaking of the culture wars, the DC Enquirer ran a story yesterday headlined, “The Bud Light Effect: Coca-Cola Shareholders Reject Going Woke In Fear Of Going Broke.”
The Enquirer reported that Coca-Cola shareholders recently met and voted against a proposal that the beverage giant should investigate how state laws restricting abortion might impact the company’s business performance in those states.
Specifically, the shareholder proposal stated, “Shareholders request that Coca-Cola’s Board of Directors issue a public report prior to December 31, 2023, omitting confidential information and at a reasonable expense, detailing any known and potential risk or costs to the company caused by enacted or proposed state policies severely restricting reproductive rights, and detailing any strategies beyond litigation and legal compliance that the company may deploy to minimize or mitigate these risk.”
In other words, the proposal was suggesting that the cola behemoth should boycott states with strong abortion restrictions. But the shareholders conclusively voted the woke proposal down, with an overwhelming 87% of shares voting against.
The Coca-Cola vote came in the wake of the Bud Light controversy, and Anheuser-Busch’s president recently trying to walk back the brand’s connection to the female impersonator Dylan Mulvaney.
But even that tepid, half-hearted distancing from the Mulvany meltdown triggered LGBTQIA+ people, who began to organize their own boycott of the brand.
The good news is that Bud Light is, in fact, bringing people together, just not over a Bud Light. The brand may never recover from its colossal, business-school project hangover.
💉 Doug Brignole was the 63-year-old bodybuilder, trainer, and author who bragged “Use me as a test — If I die, you were right,” then died one week after taking a pre-travel booster shot last October.
Yesterday, healthcare philanthropist Steve Kirsch tweeted about having ordered and received Brignole’s coroner report. The coroner ruled Brignole’s death was caused by covid-19 — because his body tested positive for covid. Case closed! That’s what you get from science these days.
But the coroner is a pathetic joke. Brignole was found face down AT HOME by his housekeeper, and as far as anyone knows, covid has never killed anyone like that. It makes you unable to breathe and you die from pneumonia, kidney failure (remdesivir), or the ventilator. You definitely don’t catch covid then keel over suddenly and unexpectedly, like Brignole did.
But you do catch covid right after getting one of the safe and effective shots though.
The bottom line is, per Mr. Brignole himself, we were right and he was wrong. I’m sorry he had to die for the experiment, but he sacrificed himself for science. Mr. Brignole’s life (and death) have meaning — just not the meaning that he thought he’d have.
🔥 To make you smile a little, enjoy this fake but true headline, seen online:
Have a super blessed Sunday! Thank you so much for your loyal support, and I’ll see you guys back here tomorrow for the weekly kick-off roundup.
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© 2022, Jeff Childers, all rights reserved
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
