Crooked Media - What A Day: Swinging for the Pences

Another mass shooting, this time with an even-more horrifying GOP response than usual.
 

• The Nashville Police Department released the bodycam video from yesterday’s tragic school shooting at The Covenant School. The video depicts officers entering and searching the elementary school before confronting and firing on the assailant who murdered three children and three adults. 
   

• Police earlier identified the shooter as 28-year old Audrey Elizabeth Hale, a former student at the private, Christian elementary school. According to Nashville PD, Hale had purchased 7 guns from 5 different stores, all legally, and used three of them the day of the incident. Hale had drawn several maps of the grounds and conducted surveillance of the campus prior to the attack.
   

• Early reports indicate that Hale was transgender, and used he/him pronouns on social media, a fact that was immediately exploited by right-wing media before it was even confirmed. On Twitter, several high-profile accounts circulated transphobic disinformation, including a specific post that right-wing trolls have shared almost every time there has been a mass shooting since 2015 to falsely blame mass shooting on trans people by intentionally misidentifying the shooter as a different person (again, from 2015).

The point of this rhetorical diversion is obvious: The right wing is determined to blame anyone, anything, except themselves, and all the guns they’ve flooded our society with by blocking federal gun-control legislation in lockstep. 

• Right-wing disinformation spreading on social media is nothing new but it’s a bigger black eye for America when our simpler, less tech-savvy, more-bigoted lawmakers pick those stories up and amplify themRep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-CO) wasted no time tweeting, “How much hormones like testosterone and medications for mental illness was the trangender Nashville school shooter taking? Everyone can stop blaming guns now.” America does not have more mentally ill people than any other developed country, ours just have nearly-unfettered access to guns. 

• The right-wing attempt to fashion the Nashville shooting as a weapon to use against the trans community is expected, but horrifying to watch unfold in real-time nonetheless. Professional faux-populist charlatan Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) tweeted, “We're still learning about the horrific shooting in Nashville. But if early reports are accurate that a trans shooter targeted a Christian school, there needs to be a lot of soul searching on the extreme left. Giving in to these ideas isn't compassion, it's dangerous.” Republicans were already trying to whip up hatred of trans people for political gain, now they’re doing it both to rally their most hateful voters AND protect guns. Was there ever any “soul-searching” on the right, when mass shooters like Dylan Roof and Payton Gendron (and many, many more) explicitly referenced extreme right-wing talking points in their manifestos that have been promoted by figures like Vance? Of fucking course not.

While the sentiment is understandable, the response from those of us on the sane side of this debate absolutely cannot be “there are no words,” or “there is nothing left to say.” That non-response absolves Republicans, who are both to blame, and prepared to exploit moments like this to loosen gun restrictions. Moreover, we owe it to every single person who has died at the hands of senseless gun violence to never shut up until we get an assault weapons ban.

The Crooked Store’s new collection is all about the fight to codify Roe v. Wade. We thought about getting “codify Roe” tattooed on our faces, but t-shirts just made more sense. Codifying Roe means passing legislation that protects the right to abortion in all 50 states. We can’t rely on the courts to uphold reproductive rights, so we’re turning to our legislators, and the Crooked Store has everything you need to spread the word. The collection includes water bottles, stickers, and unisex tees, because it’s on all of us to get the message out there.
 

In another extremely concerning news item out of the state of Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) officially signed a bill into law effectively defunding the state’s public schools. Under H.B.1, which cleared the state legislature last week and was signed into law on Monday, every school-age child in the Sunshine State can get a taxpayer-funded education voucher or savings account to be used outside of the public-school system. That means families can use that money (projected to be about $8,700 per year per student) for private schools, including religious schools, or for outside educational expenses like exam prep. It was originally going to include homeschooling as well, but homeschooling advocates argued against being included in the voucher program because they didn’t want to be subjected to additional state regulations over educational choices (nothing weird going on there, we’re sure) but they’re still eligible for the savings account. Students cannot receive or use a voucher or a savings account while attending a public school. As with many of the extreme right-wing laws passed in Florida that the Republican Party hopes to replicate in other states and eventually at the federal level, this overt measure to defund public schools towards their aim of eventually abolishing the institution altogether is not far behind. 

A federal judge ruled that former Vice President Mike Pence must testify before the grand jury investigating January 6 and disgraced former president Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, without hiding behind any claims of privilege to avoid incriminating his former boss/attempted murderer. 

The British Labour Party has barred its former leader Jeremy Corbyn from running as one of its candidates in the next parliamentary election. It’s the latest definitive break from the left-wing of the party under the leadership of Corbyn’s successor Keir Starmer. 

The United Kingdom’s intelligence agency has increased the threat level for domestic terrorism in Northern Ireland to “severe” (i.e. an attack is likely) ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is doing a fun little performance publicly calling on president Biden to start debt-limit negotiations despite taking the debt limit hostage without making any specific demands. President Biden responded to McCarthy with a letter of his own, calling his bluff and telling him to hand over the GOP budget proposal, which they definitely don’t have.  

A conservative activist group called “Crowdsourcers for Culture and Liberty” (someone please deliver me from this hell) led by Ginni Thomas collected nearly $600,000 in anonymous donations to wage culture wars against THE LIBS over the past three years. 

At least 39 people were killed at a migration center along the United States-Mexico border after a fire broke out there. 

Gov. Glenn Younkin (R-VA) told state lawmakers that he would rescind his predecessor’s policy of automatically restoring the voting rights of people with felony convictions upon their release from prison. 

Violent clashes between police and protesters continue in Paris, and the wildly unpopular pension bill being pushed through the French legislature has evolved into a broader movement against President Emmanuel Macron.

As violence continues to unfold in Israel over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned judicial coup, many have begun to follow the money and trace where it began. A little-known American-style think tank based in Jerusalem called the Kohelet Policy Forum has quietly penned and helped introduce the wide-ranging package of authoritarian judicial “reforms” which has brought the nation to crisis. Netanyahu reportedly fast-tracked the bills supplied by Kohelet, never discussing them even with members of his own party. The group is financially backed by billionaire GOP megadonors Jeffrey Yass and Arthur Dantchik through a complex web of third-party channels. In February, prominent Republican officials gathered with Netanyahu, Kohelet researchers, and others for a three-day conference. In a keynote address, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said, “When we support our friends, not only do we protect our interests, but we also give them the confidence to undertake reforms.” Republicans: committed to supporting authoritarianism at home and abroad.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen affirmed America’s commitment to corporate transparency at this week’s Summit for Democracy, pledging that her department would prioritize this aim while also protecting the personal data of individuals. 

Prosecutors unveiled new charges against disgraced former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, alleging that he paid a $40 million bribe to Chinese officials so they would reverse the freeze on his hedge fund’s accounts.