Guns In The News Yet Again
A semi-automatic rifle in NYC
New York city had a terrifying evening the other day when a man carrying a large rifle entered a Park Avenue office building and killed four people, then took his own life. The full force of the NYPD arrived on the scene, I watched on the television news as it unfolded; it was remarkable how organized and powerful the force is.
I’ll just say it, again: we have got to do something about gun control.
Didarul Islam, Wesley LePatner, Julia Hyman, and Aland Etienne lost their lives.
In the fight for the House of Representatives, New York govenor Kathy Hochul announced that she is disscussing with NY lawymakers the idea of redrawing the distrcit maps for New York. Two other blue states, California and Illinois, are considering the same, this in response to Texas doing the same. The midterm elections are extremely important, and are what could determine the future of the country and how much damage Trump can continue to do.
From the NY Times: Democrats in the State Assembly and Senate will introduce a bill on Tuesday that would allow New York to redraw its own congressional lines mid-decade — instead of every 10 years, linked to the U.S. census — if another state does so first.
“Republicans have made it clear that they will stop at nothing to use this process to advance their political agenda,” said State Senator Michael Gianaris, the deputy majority leader sponsoring the bill in the Senate. “If other states are going to do this, we shouldn’t stand by and watch the Congress be lost.”
Republicans unveiled their map for Texas today, and it would allow the party to pick up as many as five additional congressional seats. Two Austin Representatives said that in this plan their seats would be merged, and claimed that it is “illegal voter suppression of Black and Latino Central Texans. If Trump is allowed to rip the Voting Rights Act to shreds here in Central Texas, his ploy will spread like wildfire across the country. Everyone who cares about our democracy must mobilize against this illegal map.”
Dems are attempting to use little known law to force the release of the Epstein files. Since the beginning of his term, Trump and the architects of Project 2025 have used little known laws to push through a variety of things they want to do, and have repeatedly been challanged in court. It’s unclear whether this tactic of the Dems will work; the idea is also to keep the topic in the news.
Kamala Harris announced yesterday that she will not run for governor of California. “For now, my leadership — and public service — will not be in elected office,” Ms. Harris said in a statement. The current govenor, Gavin Newsom, is finishing his second term and cannot run for a third. One wonders if Harris will seek to run for president in 2028.
Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell held fast on a decision to make no change interest in rates. A Trump appointee, he has recently been under pressure from Trump to resign, and he said he will not. Trump has no power over him, cannot fire him — which must make him furious. Powell was visably annoyed with Trump at a public event the other day, showing his disagreement very clearly on camera. It’s good to see people openly push back on Trump’s lies.
Today I had coffee with someone who expressed a measure of hopelessness, asking why isn’t anything being done (I’m paraphrasing). I said I believe that things are being done, there are many people working to fight this administration. Don’t lose hope — although at times, it seems like we are losing ground. If you don’t consume massive amounts of news, it may seem that way. I don’t think we are, there are so many signs of goodness and hard work. And part of that has to be hope.
