03/30/23

Good morning! It’s Thursday, March 30th. National pencil day.

I love a good pencil. Really, just any writing instrument I like. I like to take my terrible handwriting and just… put it to task. Write all my silly little thoughts with a solid pencil. Never erasing anything, even when I know I’m not going to be able to read it later.

National pencil day.

And now, the news.

Kentucky Overrides Governor Veto, Makes Hate a Law

-Main Story via AP News

-Nashville information via CNN

Let’s start in Kentucky, where Republican lawmakers have veto’d a veto.

So here’s what went down… Previously, Kentucky’s democratic governor, Andy Beshear, veto’d a bill that would do a range of things, from banning gender-affirming care for trans youth in the state to restricting which bathrooms they can use.

Then yesterday, the GOP supermajority in the state house and senate went ahead and circumvented that veto. They veto’d the veto and basically just criminalized trans youth for have the audacity to know themselves. The bravery to life their fullest life out loud.

And don’t get it twisted in the timeline… this happened on Wednesday. Two days after someone went into an elementary school and shot and killed six people, including three nine-year-olds. But they’re not going to do anything about that.

Protestors gathered outside of the Capitol, with, as of this recording, 19 already having been arrested and charged with third-degree criminal trespassing. Because their chants were too loud.

Kids are dying. They are being murdered. But yeah, arrest the ones protesting too loudly.

Listen, I’m in a mood but luckily for you… it’s all going to be focused on this.

Arrest the protestors. Sure. They have a first amendment right to be there, but we don’t care about that, right? Who cares about the first amendment when we’ve got the second one to coddle.

Now, because this is the news, somehow, I do also have to mention another factor here this week. Which is that the shooter in the Nashville shooting, while their gender indentity is unclear because we don’t make assumptions about that, they were assigned female at birth and used male pronouns on social media.

I have not talked about that because I don’t talk about gender identity in any other story, unless it’s relevant. But now all the anti-LGBTQ+ groups and elected officials seem to be hyper-focused on this detail.

Let’s ignore the fact that the majority of these shootings are done by white men who, as far as we know, are cisgender. But ignore that since it doesn’t fit into the narrative, right?

Make no mistake. They are focusing in for two reasons… one. Because they want to distract you from the fact that the GOP does not want to do anything to regulate guns. If anything, they want to deregulate. More freedom for guns. They want to distract you and, at the same time, they want to hold up an instance like the Nashville shooter, where we don’t know the motive of the shooting, and say – yes. THIS is why we’re making all these laws.

These two things are connected only in this one way… because the GOP is working very very quickly to criminalize LGBTQ+ folks for simply existing.

And every time they pass a law like what they passed in Kentucky, and we don’t speak up and speak out, they’re going to take the privilege of your silence and move towards passing more laws that only exist to be cruel.

FDA Approved Narcan for OTC Sales

-via NY Times

The FDA has approved Narcan, a prescription nasal spray that reverses opioid overdoses, for Over the Counter sales. It is expected to be for sale this summer. New York City plans to install Narcan vending machines later this year.

This is great news.

Senate Votes to Repeal Iraq War Authorization

-via NPR

On a 66-30 vote, the Senate has voted to formally repeal the Iraq war authorization.

So, in our government, the idea is supposed to be that the President can’t just say “hey, we’re going to war now!” They have to ask Congress, “can I have money to go to war?” And then Congress votes on it. However, after 9/11, this authorization gave presidents the legal authority to conduct counter-terrorism operations around the world.

The passing of this bill in Senate doesn’t have any immediate effects, but it does restore the war authority power to Congress.

It heads next to the House, where Kevin McCarthy was busy having no comment on fixing the horrific gun epidemic we have in this country to commit to a vote. However, the bill has bipartisan support.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

I’m in a mood. And frankly, I can’t apologize for it.

But pencils are nice, and that’s a start.

But more than that, more than a freshly sharpened number two pencil, or actually… more than a perfectly sort of dull but basically sharp pencil, because you know it’s going to write SO WELL… because you’re sharp (see what I did there)… I’m proud of you.