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Tennessee House passes bill allowing teachers to carry guns –

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Tennessee House, Bill, Teachers Carry Guns


On April 23, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill authorizing the training teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns on school campuses. HB1202/SB1321 also doesn’t allow parents or other teachers to determine exactly who’s armed. The bill will go to Governor Bill Lee’s desk to be signed into law.

As reported by the Associated Press, the bill passed the Tennessee House by a 68-28 vote, largely along party lines. All but 4 members of the Tennessee Republican House voted in favor of the bill, which didn’t go down well with members of the state Democratic Party or members of the general public who chanted “Blood on your hands” as Republicans voted for the bill.

The bill is a pointy turn from the response to the Covenant School shooting in 2023. After that incident, Governor Lee expressed his desire to keep guns away from individuals who could pose a threat to themselves or others. State Republicans also refused to add a lot of Democratic amendments, including parental consent, notice when a teacher is armed and college district civil liability for injuries, damages or deaths suffered by staff carrying weapons.

Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones told the AP that he thinks Republicans within the state are too attached to money from gun lobbyists. “My Republican colleagues continue to hold our state hostage, holding our state at gunpoint to appeal to their gun industry donors,” said Jones, a Republican. “It’s morally crazy.”

After the vote, the House voted to reprimand Jones for recording on his phone, leading to him barring him from speaking on the ground until April 24. It is value noting that the Republican response to the shooting was not to introduce gun control. This have to be fought, even when the proposal to restrict gun sales got here directly from Governor Lee himself. Shortly after the shooting, Republicans actually passed a bill giving gun manufacturers, dealers and sellers more protections, in addition to allowing teachers in pre-K and kindergarten classrooms to carry handguns on those campuses.

Meanwhile, parents too protested against the potential law in a letter which was presented to Republican Jones by Sarah Shoop Newman, with the support of his adviser. The letter, which collected over 5,300 signatures, expressed concerns that the weapon posed a threat to children. “Anyone who has not received extensive training resembling that provided to law enforcement officers is probably going to be psychologically unprepared to take their very own life, especially the lifetime of a student aggressor.

Such training should include many elements, resembling threat assessment, de-escalation, how to work with students with disabilities, school law, trauma-informed practice and, most significantly, specific responses to an armed attacker. Many of those requirements were specifically rejected within the proposed amendments to SB1325, contrary to the recommendations of NASRO and the FBI.

The letter continues: “We must ensure that every student in every school has adequate protection so that they are truly safe when their parents walk them off each morning, rather than inadequate security measures that could put students and staff at risk. Ultimately, we need preventative measures against gun violence to ensure that no other community in our state experiences the tragedy that occurred at Covenant School on March 27, 2023.”


This article was originally published on : www.blackenterprise.com
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Politics and Current

Trump’s Successor to Four-Star General Lloyd Austin: 44-Year-Old ‘Anti-Wake’ Veteran and Former FOX Host Pete Hegseth

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Lloyd Austin and Pete Hegseth

America’s next defense secretary could also be completely different from any the country has ever seen.

On Tuesday, just in the future after Veterans Day, President-elect Donald Trump chosen 44-year-old Pete Hegseth, a former FOX News commentator and former Army Ranger, to lead one of the crucial powerful military forces on the earth.

Hegseth will succeed Secretary General Lloyd Austin III, the nation’s first Black Secretary of Defense, a historic 2021 selection by President Joe Biden.

Austin, 71, is a four-star general with 41 years of service within the Army. He earned the Silver Star for his leadership within the Iraq War and later, as commander of the United States Armed Forces, oversaw all combat operations in Iraq in addition to military operations in Afghanistan within the 2010s.

Hegseth, a Trump loyalist who previously influenced the previous president to pardon a bunch of military men accused of war crimes, has been outspoken against women serving in combat and critical of what he calls a “woke” military.

“Any general, any admiral, anyone, with ties to DEI or ‘woke’ must go,” Hegseth was quoted as saying on the show latest podcast.

Hegseth can also be a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, universities often criticized by conservatives as bastions of the “liberal elite.” He first served within the Minnesota National Guard, working in finance. A yr later, he was sent to Guantanamo Bay as an infantry platoon leader.

After the Baghdad tour, Hegseth entered politics, forming a conservative group called Vets For Freedom and becoming a television commentator.

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – NOVEMBER 16: Host Pete Hegseth speaks on stage in the course of the 2023 FOX Nation Patriot Awards at The Grand Ole Opry on November 16, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo: Terry Wyatt/Getty Images)

Richard Brookshire, Army and National Guard veteran and CEO Black Veterans Projectrespectfully acknowledged Hegseth’s service, which incorporates earning the Bronze Star Medal. However, Brookshire questions the balance between Hegseth’s experience and the seniority required for the position.

Brookshire also noted that DEI efforts, often maligned by conservatives like Hegseth, have played a key role in ensuring that qualified candidates like Secretary Austin are usually not missed.

“I attended the White House Veterans Breakfast the other day, and meeting in person with Secretary Austin and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made me reflect on how they got to their positions – not because they didn’t do a great job, because they absolutely did, but through concerted recruiting efforts in the Black community that began in the 1970s.” Brookshire said. “There has been a commitment to provide pathways that did not previously exist, and now there is an attempt to dismantle those efforts through affirmative action.”

Lloyd Austin, theGrio.com
WASHINGTON – SEPTEMBER 16: Gen. Lloyd Austin III, commander of U.S. Central Command, testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee on ongoing U.S. military operations to counter the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) during a hearing within the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill, September 16, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Bakari Sellers, a CNN political analyst, echoed the concerns of many Americans about Trump’s recent cabinet selections, but Hegseth particularly.

“People argue about DEI and the lack of qualifications, then rave about Pete Hegseth being put in charge of the most powerful military in the world,” Sells wrote on Twitter. “Watching mediocrity rewarded is a hallmark of the Trump administration.”

The Department of Defense oversees a budget of roughly $842 billion– says the department’s website.

Brookshire expressed concern that with President-elect Donald Trump and a possible defense secretary so hostile to diversity efforts, legitimate issues resembling racial disparities in veterans’ disability compensation will proceed to omitted.

For Black veterans, it could actually be life-changing.

“Sometimes my biggest concern is that the civil rights ecosystem is just not being attentive to the military-industrial complex. And so far as I can see, the veteran ecosystem doesn’t care about black veterans. So nobody is actually going to fill that support gap, Brookshire said.

Hegseth will need to be confirmed by the Senate before he officially replaces Austin as Secretary of Defense.

Harriet Tubman was posthumously commissioned general during a Veterans Day ceremony

This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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Politics and Current

Op-Ed: Fear of Large Groups of Black Men Voting for Trump Was Misguided and Misplaced – Essence

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Photo: kali9/Getty Images

Before Election Day, headline after headline suggested that enormous groups of Black men didn’t intend to vote or would vote against Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential candidacy. Following the discharge of exit polls, it is obvious that this fear was misplaced and resulted from misinformation and misinformation. And as we legitimately analyze all of the “hows and whys” the electorate voted the best way they did, it is usually critical that we dispel the parable that almost all Black men were either blithely unaware of their political options or could be easily swayed by misinformation.

2020 exit polls showed that 80% of Black men supported President Joe Biden in 2020. Four years later, polls show that 78% of Black men supported Kamala Harris; a marginal difference of 2%.which is throughout the margin of error and hardly represents a tectonic shift in support for President Trump. In fact, Black men supported Harris greater than another male demographic group — especially in key swing states. In Michigan, for example, nearly 9 in 10 black men voted for Harris, in response to the info exit polls from the Washington Post.. And for the record, 91 percent of black women voted for Vice President Harris.

These results weren’t a shock to me and my team on the stadium Global Black Economic Forum because in our work now we have seen that black men have all the time been part of her support. In fact, we have had rather a lot of discussions on this topic in our virtual voter registration and awareness town halls, Paint the surveys black. And while Black Men are on no account a monolithic voting bloc, Kamala Harris has repeatedly made a powerful case for sustained leadership and economic policies that may improve our lives. The undeniable fact that her candidacy was not successful with a majority of voters shouldn’t be placed on the shoulders of black men. However, many elected officials and pundits have laid the groundwork to position blame on black men if Trump wins. By using racist tropes that Black men fall for every product Trump sells, now we have been used as a crutch to sow discord and spread disinformation.

Every student of history knows that these disinformation campaigns are nothing latest. It’s a convention that dates back to Reconstruction, when former slave owners commonly misled and intimidated Black people into not voting. While the methods and technologies for spreading disinformation have modified and develop into more sophisticated, their intentions haven’t modified. This election cycle, we saw an enormous increase in AI-related images suggesting that Black voters – especially men – supported Donald Trump, when most of these images were false. According to A BBC Panorama reportTrump supporters intentionally targeted black voters with deepfakes showing that black voters support him.

But now that the votes have been counted, we should always take this moment to do not forget that a majority of Black men didn’t give the White House to Trump. We want the chance to construct economic security and wealth, receive inexpensive health care, live in communities that usually are not affected by violence, and live in a rustic where our civil rights are protected.

Throughout the presidential campaign, Donald Trump proposed a framework that pitted our fight for fair treatment against the search for economic opportunity, as if these concepts were mutually exclusive. And on top of that, he repeatedly attacked Kamala Harris dehumanizing and racist tropes. Trump also went to this point as to suggest that almost all Black people would discover together with his current legal entanglements – dared to check his situation to the racial disparities and injustices that black men face within the criminal legal system. As more polls and analyzes of the election emerge, the decision on this issue is obvious: A majority of black voters paid attention.

Disinformation campaigns proceed. As we move forward, we must make a more concerted effort to know Black male voters — and not only during presidential election season. If we do that, we can have more comprehensive data that reflects what people actually consider and may help us higher thrust back against these false narratives.

Black voters (including Black men) will proceed to be on the front lines, fighting for each economic opportunity and social justice, as we remain unwavering and unwavering in our commitment to fight for each our wallets and our dignity.

This article was originally published on : www.essence.com
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Donald Trump slammed for proposing ‘restitution’ for Americans harmed by ‘unjust’ DEI policies; Joy Reid, Don Lemon Audible alarm

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onald Trump Slammed for Proposing

It isn’t any secret that Donald Trump’s increased popularity in politics is attributable to the reluctance of white people. The president-elect routinely portrays the MAGA nation as victims of well-educated elites.

“Colleges and universities have received hundreds of billions of dollars from hard-working taxpayers, and now we will rid our institutions of this anti-American madness once and for all,” he said in a video posted Wednesday on several social media platforms. “We will have a real education in America.”

Billed as “payback,” Trump’s plan to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs at U.S. colleges and universities features a provision requiring reparations to those allegedly harmed by measures enacted to offer greater opportunities for marginalized racial and ethnic groups.

onald Trump slammed for proposing 'restitution' for Americans harmed by 'unjust' DEI policies; Joy Reid, Don Lemon Attacks
MSNBC host Joy Reid, President-elect Donald Trump and former CNN host Don Lemon. (Photos: Getty Images)

“In other words, reparations for white people,” said MSNBC host Joy Reid, who never shies away from difficult words and phrases.

However, it’s difficult to query her position. This is confirmed by Trump’s statement on the matter:

“I will further direct the Department of Justice to pursue federal civil rights cases against schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination, and schools that continue to engage in blatant, unlawful discrimination under the guise of equity will not only have their grants taxed, but through budget reconciliation, I will file a motion to impose a fine on them in the amount of the entire amount of their equipment. Some of the confiscated funds will then be used to compensate the victims of the illegal and unjust policies that have harmed our country so much.”

Seizing funds after which giving them to “victims of these illegal and unfair policies” is textbook reparations. Trump, nonetheless, opposes reparations for the descendants of enslaved Black individuals who, it needs to be noted, have been victims of centuries of illegal and unjust policies.

When asked about reparations for Black people in 2019, Trump said Hill“I think it’s a very unusual thing. It was a very interesting debate. I don’t see that happening, no.”

Author Keith Boykin, former advisor to President Bill Clinton, sent with an X that it’s clear who Trump thinks is experiencing racial discrimination.

“Trump announces reparations for white people,” Boykin wrote. “He says he will ask the Department of Justice to penalize and fine colleges that embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) so he can pay ‘reparations’ to white people whom he considers the true victims of racial discrimination.”

However, compensation for the descendants of slaves stays controversial. In California, the answer was to create an agency to manage funds (that had not yet been put aside) for compensation defeated earlier this yr, and even supporters say it’ll take one other decade for the movement to succeed.

Since Republicans control the Senate and the House, it shouldn’t take Trump that long to push through a reparations plan.

Some X commenters blamed black voters who supported Trump.

“Now imagine you are one of the 12% of black voters who crossed your fingers to vote for Trump.” he said one reader. “Lmao he’s fooling them all.”

Former CNN host Don Lemon also slammed the proposal on social media.

“You voted for this,” Lemon said.

Others saw it as a golden opportunity to talk on behalf of Black people.

“Most black people want to be judged on their merits, not the color of their skin.” he replied one white woman per X. “Not everyone thinks black people should have the bar lowered like you do.”

Trump has proposed wholesale changes to the U.S. education system, including searching for to eliminate the Department of Education, which might give full power to states. Congressional approval is required.


This article was originally published on : atlantablackstar.com
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