Most Americans will never serve in the military or step foot on a battlefield, but many feel an obligation to support those who have.
This week we celebrate Veterans Day, a holiday created to honor all those who have served in an American war. It began as Armistice Day, on Nov. 11, 1919, the first anniversary of the cessation of hostilities in World War I-the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
Over 100 years later, the U.S. still counts a large population of veterans, a great many of whom are struggling to find a job, housing, or health care. Thanking veterans for their service can go a long way, but many feel we owe them and their families more.
There are 18.8 million veterans living in the U.S. today, 7.6 percent of the population. They are predominantly male (91.6 percent), though the number of female veterans is on the rise.
Veterans tend to be older than nonveterans. This reflects the characteristics of veterans who served during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam era, all of whom are now over 55 years old. Veterans who served during these war periods accounted for more than 45 percent of the total veteran population in 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
But veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan increase every year. In 2015, roughly one-quarter served during Gulf War era I (August 1990-August 2001) or Gulf War era II (September 2001 to present).
Minorities made up 23.6 percent of the population in 2015. Like women, this group will increase greatly in the years to come.
Veterans are generally better educated than nonveterans: 37.1 percent completed some college or an associate degree; 27.7 percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Veterans are also more likely to be married (59.8 percent vs. 47.8 percent).
Not surprisingly, veterans live in every state and community in the U.S. Three states-California, Florida, and Texas-have more than 1 million veterans. Another 10 states have more than 500,000-Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington.
Veterans make up 10 percent or more of the total adult population in six states-Alaska (12.5 percent), Virginia (10.8 percent), Montana (10.6 percent), Wyoming (10.2 percent), Maine (10 percent) and Hawaii (10 percent).
RPOF CHAIRMAN JOE GRUTER'S MESSAGE
Republicans thump Democrats in Florida and nationwide
Voters in Florida and across the nation soundly rejected the freedom-stealing, open-border, America-last agenda of the Democrats and the Biden administration during Tuesday’s off-year elections. Governor DeSantis described Tuesday as a wave building for 2022 that will be bigger than 2010.
Republicans in Florida won several key municipal races across the state, including multiple mayoral contests.
In Virginia, a blue state that went for Biden by 10 points just one year ago, Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated long-time Democrat establishment figure Terry McAuliffe for governor. Republicans swept all the statewide races in Virginia and flipped the state house. And the Republican challenger shockingly came within a whisker of winning the governor’s race in New Jersey, which went for Biden by 16 points.
Republicans also flipped seats in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Texas and New Hampshire.
It was a very good night and portends well for slamming the door on the Democrats’ radical agenda.
Seeing the shocking results in Tuesday’s elections in Virginia, New Jersey, Florida and elsewhere, Senator Marco Rubio tweeted this truism:
“364 days a year a powerful minority tells everyone what they are allowed to believe, do and say. And Election Day is the day the normal majority tells them they are crazy.”
Election integrity set for the 2022 Legislative Session
Governor DeSantis announced a new legislative proposal Wednesday for the 2022 session that begins in January that will further strengthen Florida’s election integrity.
“We are excited to say that next legislative session we are proposing another package of election integrity reforms that will make Florida the number one state for elections,” Governor DeSantis said. “I am excited that with this legislation, our state will be able to enforce election violations, combat voter fraud and make sure violators are held accountable. If potential violators know they will be held accountable, they will be much less likely to engage in improper conduct in the first place.”
Governor DeSantis called on the Legislature to take four additional steps to safeguard our elections:
- Establish an Office of Election Crimes and Security within the Department of State to investigate election crimes and fraud;
- Elevate the crime of ballot harvesting to a third-degree felony, recognizing that this offense is a serious attack on democracy;
- Require timelines for supervisors of elections to clean the voter rolls of ineligible voters; and
- Prohibit unsecure drop box locations in Florida.
“A recession is when your neighbor loses his job; a depression is when you lose yours; a recovery is when Dr. Fauci loses his.”
Governor DeSantis
Special Session Update:
Protections against vaccine status discrimination
Governor DeSantis announced that the Special Session to provide protections for Floridians who could lose their jobs due to vaccine mandates will begin on November 15, 2021, and go no later than November 19, 2021.
“Your right to earn a living should not be contingent upon COVID shots,” Governor DeSantis said. “We have somehow gone from 15 days to slow the spread to 3 jabs to keep your job. In Florida, we believe that the decision whether or not to get a COVID shot is a choice based on individual circumstances, so we are litigating against the Biden Administration and will be passing legislation in this Special Session to protect Florida jobs and protect parents’ rights when it comes to masking and quarantines.”
He added: “The health, education, and wellbeing of our children are primarily the responsibility of parents. As long as I am Governor, parents in Florida will play a strong role in determining what their kids are learning and how they’re treated in school.”
Here are some of the elements Governor DeSantis is calling on the Legislature to consider in the Special Session:
- Protect employees against unfair discrimination on the basis of COVID-19 vaccination status and ensure robust enforcement for this protection;
- Ensure that educational institutions and government entities are prohibited from unfairly discriminating against employees, students, and residents on the basis of COVID-19 vaccination status;
- Clarify that the Parents’ Bill of Rights, Chapter 1014, Florida Statutes, vests the decision on masking with parents, not government entities, and that schools must comply with Department of Health rules that govern student health, including rules that ensure healthy students can remain in school;
- Repeal the authority for the State Health Officer to order forced injections or vaccinations under Section 381.00315, Florida Statutes, originally enacted in 2002; and
The New York Post recently published a column titled:
The country needs a dose of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to battle COVID-19
“Florida has the lowest COVID-19 case rate in the country. They did it without vaccine mandates, without mask mandates in school and with no restrictions on businesses. Life simply went on.
“Over the summer, when Florida was experiencing a spike in cases, the media was wall-to-wall news about the numbers. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was a frequent target for the blame. His sensible moves, such as not forcing low-risk kids to wear masks, was treated as akin to murder by the media.
“In August, President Biden criticized DeSantis, although not by name, saying: “Some state officials are passing laws that forbid people from doing the right thing. I say to the governors, please help. If you’re not going to help, get out of the way of the people that are trying to do the right thing.”
“But what DeSantis understood is that there is no absolute “right thing” where COVID-19 is concerned, that we are living in an endemic (no longer a pandemic thanks to vaccines) and that there is very little political action that can be implemented to stop it. At the time of Florida’s spike, the state had an above-average vaccination rate when compared with the rest of the country. They weren’t doing anything differently than places with lower case rates, they were simply at the peak of their seasonal spike.
“Florida is doing better in per-capita cases and deaths from COVID than states that put in universal mask mandates and lockdowns. But you won’t hear that from the media. Now that DeSantis’ strategy has worked, they have quietly moved on without acknowledging their predictions of doom were wrong.
“It’s a lesson that we need to quickly learn. Encouraging vaccination is important, but ultimately COVID will be something we need to handle with less hysteria going forward, and DeSantis has been a model for that.”
Newsmax reported Senator Marco Rubio’s stinging denunciation of the Biden Administration.
“Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, ridiculed the deviations between then-candidate and now-President Joe Biden, explaining to the National Conservatism Conference on Monday that the reasons for the difference are – if expressed during the campaign – he would not have been elected.
“‘I think it's telling that the agenda promoted by the candidate Joe Biden is very different from the one that's being pushed by President Joe Biden,’” Rubio said via a livestream video conference to the three-day gathering in Orlando, Florida.
“‘Candidate Joe Biden, for example, promised a return of competency and professionalism; President Joe Biden delivered chaos: Historic calamity on the southern border, humiliating and deadly debacle in Afghanistan, stranded cargo ships off the coast of California, and the skyrocketing prices of literally everything.’”
“Rubio was slated to join in person but was affected by the ongoing American Airlines flight cancellations.
“He began declaring Biden is governing differently than he campaigned because he knew from the outset his actual ideas were unpopular with the majority of ordinary Americans – as opposed to those managing society on a day-to-day basis.
“‘The problem is they have power beyond the numbers,’” Rubio said. “‘They happen to be the people who run our schools and our universities, our tech companies, our large corporations, meetings, boards, the entertainment industry; they are the most generous donors and enthusiastic activists in one of our two major political parties.’”
Unity- We can't win without it.
As we approach the 2022 mid-term elections and the 2024 presidential election, and in light of the abject failure of the Biden administration, we know that the very survival of our republic depends on the outcome of those elections. Therefore, we must stay unified. Never lose sight of who our political opponents are… the progressive left Democrats who are taking our country off a cliff with the active help of Big Tech and the old-line national news media. Our fellow Republicans are not the enemy!
HAPPENINGS
