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'They say I'm ancient': Joe Biden pokes fun at White House correspondents' dinner video US politics

The 80-year-old US president chooses annual address to have some fun with a crucial voter concern, mixed with digs at Don Lemon and Fox News

Age shall not weary him, but it might provide some good punchlines.

Joe Biden, the oldest president in American history, faced his biggest political liability with a smile on Saturday as he addressed a gathering of Washingtons political and media elites.

The 80-year-old, who this week announced a bid for re-election in 2024, flipped between a pugnacious defence of press freedom and crisp one-liners at the expense of political opponents as he addressed the White House Correspondents Association annual dinner.

As opinion polls show that a majority of Americans have little appetite for a second Biden term, with many citing his age as a defining concern, he chose not to hide from his most obvious vulnerability but run towards it.

I believe in the first amendment, not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it, he said, referring to one of Americas founding fathers, who died in 1836.

He went on: Look, I get that age is a completely reasonable issue. Its in everybodys mind and by everyone, I mean the New York Times. Headline: Bidens advanced age is a big issue. Trumps, however, is not.

The president had a dig at Don Lemon, a CNN host who was fired this week after a series of missteps including remarks that Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, 51, isnt in her prime because a woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s.

Biden earned a big laugh when he said on Saturday: They say Im ancient; I say Im wise. They say Im over the hill; Don Lemon would say, Thats a man in his prime.

There was also an indirect pitch that, despite concerns over his readiness for a gruelling election campaign, Biden is spoiling for the fight with Republican opponents.

He said of Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right congresswoman from Georgia: I want everybody to have fun tonight but please be safe. If you find yourself disoriented or confused, its either youre drunk or Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Referring to Florida governor and potential presidential candidate Ron DeSantiss protracted battle with Disney, he quipped: I had a lot of Ron DeSantis jokes ready but Mickey Mouse beat the hell out of me and got there first.

And Biden said of House of Representatives speaker Kevin McCarthy: Look, you all keep reporting my approval rating as 42%. I think you dont know this. Kevin McCarthy called me and asked me, Joe, what the hell is your secret? Im not even kidding about that.

Biden also had fun poking fun at the media, especially Fox Corps recent settlement of a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5m in a case that centred on Fox Newss false claims that the 2020 presidential election had been manipulated in favour of Biden.

Its great the cable news networks are here tonight. MSNBC owned by NBC Universal. Fox News owned by Dominion Voting Systems. That line earned laughter and applause.

Last year your favourite Fox News reporters were able to attend because they were fully vaccinated and boosted. This year, with that $787m settlement, theyre here because they couldnt say no to a free meal.

In a jab at former president Donald Trump, Biden quipped that comedian Roy Wood Jr, who also was a featured speaker at the dinner, had offered him $10 to keep his speech short. Thats a switch a president being offered hush money.

Earlier this month Trump was charged with 34 felony counts in a case involving an alleged $130,000 hush payment to an adult film star during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Biden assured Wood: Im going to be fine with your jokes but he put on his trademark sunglasses Im not sure about Dark Brandon. This was a nod to an internet meme that began as a rightwing attack but has been co-opted by Bidens supporters.

Wood, a regular on Comedy Centrals The Daily Show, naturally could not resist making Bidens age a target. He said: We should be inspired by the events in France. They rioted when the retirement age went up two years to 64. Meanwhile in America, we have an 80-year-old man, begging us for four more years.

For all the comedy, Biden also used his speech to issue forceful denunciations of attacks on press freedom and on misinformation that threatens to undermine democracy.

The president and first lady Jill Biden met privately with the parents of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich upon arriving at the dinner. Gershkovich has been imprisoned in Russia since March after being charged with spying, despite strong denials from his employer and the US government.

Also among the 2,600 guests in a cavernous hotel ballroom was Debra Tice, the mother of Austin Tice, who has not been heard from since disappearing at a checkpoint in Syria in 2012.

Biden said: Journalism is not a crime. Evan and Austin should be released immediately along with every other American detained abroad. I promise you, I am working like hell to get them home.

The president acknowledged Brittney Griner, a basketball player who was detained in Russia for nearly 10 months last year before her release in a prisoner swap. Griner attended with her wife, Cherelle, as guests of CBS News. This time last year we were praying for you, Brittney, Biden said.

In another preview of a 2024 campaign theme, Biden condemned news outlets that use lies told for profit and power to stir up hatred. Lies told for profit and power. Lies of conspiracy and malice repeated over and over again designed to generate a cycle of anger and hate and even violence.

The Washington black-tie dinner returned last year after being sidelined by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Biden was the first president in six years to accept the invitation after Trump shunned the event while in office.

This year the gala drew politicians including Vice-President Kamala Harris and celebrities such as actor Liev Schreiber and singer John Legend and his wife, Chrissy Teigen, a model and television personality.

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They say Im ancient: Biden speech to White House media proves to be one for the ages - The Guardian US

Senate legislation advanced on a 28-12 party-line vote, largely aimed at stopping children from attending Drag showDue to the passage of SB 1423 and likely signing by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Space Coast Daily reached out to Melbourne City Councilman Tim Thomas, above, who, in November 2022, sent a letter to the Brevard County Legislative delegation urging them to pass a bill protecting children from exposure to Drag Queens in public places.

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA Due to the passage of SB 1423 and likely signing by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Space Coast Daily reached out to Melbourne City Councilman Tim Thomas, who, in November 2022, sent a letter to the Brevard County Legislative delegation urging them to pass a bill protecting children from exposure to Drag Queens in public places.

The Senate legislation, which advanced on a 28-12 party-line vote, is largely aimed at stopping children from attending Drag shows.

It authorizes state government officials within the Department of Business and Professional Regulation to suspend or revoke the liquor license of any establishment that admits minors to a live, adult performance.

Prohibited performances would be those that include lewd conduct, or the lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts, meant to appeal to prurient, shameful, or morbid interests, and displays that are patently offensive and without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for the age of the child present.

A person who admits a child to such a performance, as the bill defines it, would face a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to $1,000 in fines and up to a year in prison.

Following is Melbourne City Councilman Tim Thomas letter to the Brevard County Legislative delegation:

As a Melbourne City Councilman, Im proud to stand against Drag Queens having access to underaged children on public property, to read them books, or through exposure to Drag Queen shows, exposing them to sexually explicit themes and concepts.

The First Amendment has limits; You cant yell fire in a theater. As a result of SB 1438, the protection of our children trumps the Drag Queens First Amendment to indoctrinate them with these sexualized concepts.

Ten years ago, it would have been unheard of for a municipality to issue a permit for Drag Queen Story Time or a Drag Queen show in the middle of downtown. The public outcry would have been significant, and the event seen as perverse. Today, municipalities cow tail to the woke mob and routinely permit such events for fear of being sued or being canceled if they dont.

According to the Drag Time Story Hours own website, their purpose is to capture the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive and unabashedly queer role models.

This is nothing but an attempt to indoctrinate young children through visual presentation and interaction to be gender fluid or even question their biological sex. Young children cant comprehend these sensitive concepts, nor should they need to.

Im very pleased and proud our State legislature had the courage to take on the woke mob and pass this bill. The House and the Senate overwhelmingly voted in support. Our legislative delegation, including Representatives Altman, Fine, Sirois, and Tramont, as well as Senators Mayfield and Wright unanimously voted in support.

Once this bill is signed by Governor Desantis, I hope the guidance from Attorney General Ashley Moody to municipalities is perfectly clear for the implementation of the law as well as the punishment for non-compliance. If municipalities cant protect the innocence of our children in public from Drag Queen shows and Drag Queen Story Hour, you can rest assured it wont stop there. The next venues they will demand access to will be churches and synagogues.

We can bury our heads in the sand and sing Zippity Doo Dah, or we can fight to have some sort of control over what our young children are exposed to. I choose to fight and will continue to do so as your elected official.

Excerpt from:
Melbourne City Councilman Tim Thomas Urged Support of Senate ... - SpaceCoastDaily.com

Striking a serious blow at constitutional protections, Department of Justice prosecutors got a federal grand jury in Florida April 18 to indict three members of the African Peoples Socialist Party and Uhuru Movement on trumped-up charges of being foreign agents. This pretext has been used by the government for decades to go after militant workers, Black rights fighters, the Socialist Workers Party and others.

Omali Yeshitela, Penny Joanne Hess and Jesse Nevel are charged with acting as an agent of a foreign government and foreign officials, to wit, the Russian Federation, and doing so without prior notification to the Attorney General. Along with former APSP member Augustus C. Romain, now a member of Black Hammer, they are also charged with defrauding the U.S.

Three Russians no longer in the U.S. are named in the indictment. Federal prosecutors claim Aleksey Sukhodolov and Yegor Popov work for the FSB, Vladimir Putins political police. A third, Aleksandr Ionov, is alleged to have worked with the APSP to advance Moscows interference in an election in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 2019. The APSP ran Eritha Akile Cainion for City Council there.

Founded in 1972, the Black nationalist party runs a range of small businesses and has engaged in constitutionally protected political activity for decades.

The indictment says Ionov gave money to APSP members to build support for Moscows agenda in the U.S., especially Putins seizure of parts of Ukraine. APSP leaders have never made any secret of their support for the Kremlins attempt to crush Ukraines independence. And that opinion is shared by others, including a number of Stalinist-trained groups here. All of them collaborate with forces abroad who share their views, as is their right.

Prosecutors lost no time making clear their real target is the Constitutions protections of free political expression. Russian spies weaponized our First Amendment rights, complained Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Departments National Security Division. Whenever the government says someone is weaponizing the First Amendment, it means theyre voicing opinions it wants to shut up.

Throughout the indictment prosecutors target APSP members political activities. These include campaigning for reparations for descendants of slaves, and publishing articles by Ionov. It also cites a visit by Yeshitela to Moscow in 2015. Prosecutors charge the groups members because they didnt sign up as Moscows agents with the U.S. attorney general. If convicted, they face up to 15 years in prison.

Heavily armed FBI agents raided the APSP and Uhuru Movements offices in St. Petersburg last July, battering down the doors, throwing flashbang grenades inside and handcuffing those there at gunpoint, as they seized computers, financial records and files. They also raided the homes of APSP and Uhuru members.

This case is not about whether or not I have a position around the war in Ukraine that was the same as what the Russians had, Yeshitela, chairman of the APSP, wrote late last year. This attack was perpetrated against us because we have always fought for the liberation of Africa. The group also supports the Cuban Revolution and one of its members is currently on a delegation from the U.S. to Havana to take part in activities around May Day.

Foreign agent laws are a key part of the governments national security arsenal a direct attack on First Amendment protections. If any of your political positions are similar to some other countrys government, youre fair game to be spied on, disrupted and prosecuted.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act was adopted in 1938 by the Democratic Party administration of Franklin Roosevelt. It was part of a package of laws attacking political rights in preparation for crushing opposition to Washingtons entry into the second imperialist world war.

The FBI launched an assault on the Socialist Workers Party for building opposition in the labor movement to the U.S. rulers imperialist war drive in the late 1930s. The attack began under the Foreign Agents Act. It led to the frame-up and conviction of 18 SWP leaders and Teamsters union members under the thought-control Smith Act in 1941.

For decades afterward, Democratic and Republican administrations have used foreign agent and a raft of other witch hunt laws as weapons to spy on, harass and disrupt the SWP, Communist Party, opponents of Washingtons wars and others.

Acting as unregistered foreign agents was one of the charges against five Cuban revolutionaries who had come to the U.S. to gather information about counterrevolutionary groups plotting violent assaults on Cuba. The Cuban Five were targeted by the FBI, framed up and imprisoned for up to 16 years. The last of them won their freedom in 2014.

Months before Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, the FBI tried to cook up a case claiming he too was a threat to national security, operating in collusion with Moscow. It raided the homes and offices of Trump supporters.

The FBI broke into Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate last summer under the ruse of protecting national security. The government claimed he improperly took secret documents when he left the White House. It turned out later that many presidents do the same, including Joseph Biden. This assault was a part of the Democrats six-year effort to drive Trump out of politics or to prison.

Whenever one ruling-class party attempts to criminalize its differences with the other, their assaults batter constitutional protections and inevitably come back on the working class. The raid at Mar-a-Lago and against the APSP were followed by another FBI operation, where agents attempted to interrogate some 60 people in Puerto Rico who had taken part in a solidarity brigade to Cuba. So far no charges have been issued.

Defending constitutional freedoms against government assault remains central to advancing the common struggles of workers and the oppressed.

Drop the charges against the APSP!

Excerpt from:
Drop all charges filed against the African People's Socialist Party ... - The Militant

I want you to be the first to know I intend to run for some high political office in the near future.

(I know, I know. I have falsely claimed in the past that I was going to run for office and didnt. And I said last August I had quit writing forever, due to popular demand. So, I lied. That is nothing new in either politics or fringe journalism. Get over it.)

I havent decided what the office will be only that the office will be at the state or national level and will be very powerful. Voters will back me because I know the secret to solving all of our national problems.

Best of all, I will not run as either a Republican or a Democrat. Both of these historic political parties are too much of a mess for even a brilliant person like me to salvage.

Republicans have worked hard at turning their Grand Old Party into a Less Than Adequate New Party. They have been somewhat successful at promoting enough red herrings to distract voters even those who have read more than door hangers from real issues. Yet efforts to become the answer for the world of the 20s seem to be more about the 1920s.

Democrats have risen to the challenge by proving over and over they cannot organize a one-float parade. They continually focus on being a big tent party that embraces the views of both the common folk and the elite egg heads, while never noticing the tent has no center pole.

I will create a new political coalition called the TeePee Party. (Liberals will claim this name is racist and conservatives will see it as a reference to illegal public urination on golf courses. But, I digress.) TeePee will be short for the Thoughts and Prayers Party.

Every patriotic American should be able to get behind T&P as the only solutions to our national woes. Yet, while government leaders say thoughts and prayers solve every problem from gun violence to insurrections to hang nails, no bill has been introduced in either Washington or Indianapolis to turn the solution into enforceable law.

Imagine what our nation would be like if everyone were required by law to both think and pray to think before they pray or pray before they think? And this law needs to have teeth with penalties for violators.

Someone who shares their thoughts in a coffee shop while forgetting to pray before they eat the donut would be fined. Those who bother the deity with a thoughtless, ill-conceived prayer or meditation would likewise pay for the transgression in either civil or religious court.

I predict both learned Republicans and prayerful Democrats will flock to my party.

Democrats likely will complain the new law violates First Amendment guarantees of religious freedom but Republicans will overlook the problem as long as prayers are Christian and the Second Amendment right to own and carry military-type weapons while praying is upheld.

Please support this new party with your donations to build a strong financial war chest. The party will accept cash, checks, electronic transfers, stocks, bonds, bit coin, unredeemed Green Stamps, gently worn MAGA hats and unopened cans of Billy Beer from Jimmy Carters 1980 campaign.

The time has come to end the culture wars. We cannot continue to sidestep our responsibility to solve the pressing problems that threaten the future of our nation. Thoughts and prayers are the proven solution already used extensively and successfully by a wide range of political leaders.

Lets write it into the law.

Bud Herron is a retired editor and newspaper publisher who lives in Columbus. He served as publisher of The Republic from 1998 to 2007. Contact him at [emailprotected]

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Bud Herron: A new political party? Hallelujah! - The Republic

Tennessee lawmakers completed their annual session April 21, approving Gov. Bill Lee's $56.2 billion budget, which includes a$3.3 billion road planthat allows the state to use private companies to build, operate and run toll lanes in urban areas, branded as choice lanes by the governor because people can choose not to use them.

Amid protests throughout much of the session centering on gun control and transgender rights, the Republican supermajority was able to pass legislation shielding gunmakers from liability, criminalizing drag shows with minors present and banning transgender medical procedures for Tennessee children, among other priorities.

Here's a rundown on some of the major actions state lawmakers took this year, including votes cast by Southeast Tennessee lawmakers:

Number:Senate Bill 1

Topic: Transgender medical procedure ban for children

Transgender health care bill bars most transgender medical procedures for children and teens under age 18 in Tennessee. Prevents access to transition treatments such as surgery, puberty blockers and hormone therapies, in addition to surgeries for gender dysphoria, a term used to describe anguish and other symptoms as a result of the disparity between someone's assigned sex and their gender identity.

Votes:Senate: 26-6. House: 77-16.

Status:Gov. Bill Lee signed into law March 3. The ACLU, Tennessee ACLU, Lambda Legal, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP filed a federal lawsuit April 20, challenging the law. Litigation pending. On Wednesday, the U.S. Justice Department filed suit in U.S. District Court in Nashville challenging the new law, which is set to take effect July 1.

How Southeast Tennessee lawmakers voted:

House Ayes: Reps. Yusuf Hakeem, D-Chattanooga; Patsy Hazlewood, R-Signal Mountain; Esther Helton-Haynes, R-East Ridge; Greg Martin, R-Hixson; Greg Vital, R-Harrison; Dan Howell, R-Cleveland; Kevin Raper, R-Cleveland, Ron Travis, R-Dayton.

House Nays: None

Senate Ayes: Sens. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga; Bo Watson, R-Hixson; Adam Lowe, R-Calhoun, Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma.

Senate Nays:None

The debate: House Majority Leader William Lamberth, R-Portland: "These children do not need these medical procedures to be able to flourish as adults. They need mental health treatment. They need love and support, and many of them need to be able to grow up to become the individuals that they were intended to be."

Rep. Bo Mitchell, D-Nashville: "It has nothing to do with protecting children from unnecessary medical procedures. Some children can get their breast enhancements, their nose jobs, that's OK, but these children can't have any medical procedures?"

Number:Senate Bill 12

Topic:School vouchers for Hamilton County

Voucher bill sponsored by Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, brings Hamilton County into the state's Education Savings Account program and will provide taxpayer-funded vouchers worth about $8,100 a year per student that can be used to send a student to a private school willing to accept the voucher.

Votes:Senate: 19-6, four members present and not voting on the bill. House: 57-27, five representatives present and not voting on the bill.

Status:The bill has been transmitted to Lee.

How Southeast Tennessee lawmakers voted:

House Ayes: Hazlewood, Helton-Haynes, Martin, Vital, Howell

House Nays: Hakeem

House present and not voting:Raper

Senate Ayes: Gardenhire, Watson, Bowling, Lowe

The debate:Gardenhire: "I want to give the parents and the students the opportunity to have a choice and not be trapped in failing schools. Whether you like the ESA bill or not, it's here and passed its legal challenges."

House Minority Leader Karen Camper, D-Memphis: "Here again, we're in a situation where we're going to be taking even more funds from our public systems. We said this was going to happen with the first legislation they agreed there'll be only X number of students, X number of areas. And we knew they had plans to expand this ESA program."

Number:Senate Bill 3

Topic:Drag shows, minors

Creates an offense for a person who engages in an "adult cabaret performance" on public property or in a location where the adult cabaret performance could be viewed by a person who is not an adult. Applies to adult-oriented performances that are "harmful to minors" and references Tennessee Code Annotated 39-17-901. The code section contains a provision stating an average person applying contemporary community standards would find the performance appeals predominantly to the "prurient, shameful or morbid interests of minors." Applies to topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators or similar entertainers.

Votes:Senate: 26-6. House: 74-19.

Status:First-in-the-nation law signed by Lee on March 2. Federal judge temporarily blocked law after Memphis-based Friends of George's, an LGBTQ+ theater group, sued saying the law violates the First Amendment. Lawsuit still pending.

How Southeast Tennessee lawmakers voted:

House Ayes: Hazlewood, Helton-Haynes, Martin, Vital, Howell, Raper, Travis

House Nays: Hakeem

Senate Ayes: Gardenhire, Watson, Lowe and Bowling.

The debate:Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, R-Franklin: "I would encourage you to direct (constituents) to the obscenity statute."

House Rep. Torrey Harris, D-Memphis, the Tennessee legislature's only openly gay member: "We have three other, nonopenly LGBTQ Republican colleagues of mine who can't really open up their mouth and speak freely about their situation because they're hiding as well. And so I say that because there's young people who are uncomfortable with who they are and can't speak on behalf of themselves because of people like us in this legislature."

Number:Senate Bill 446

Topic:Pronouns

Specifies that a teacher or other employee of a public school or LEA is not required to refer to a student using the student's preferred pronoun if the pronoun is not consistent with the student's biological sex.

Votes:House: 72-22 with one person present but not voting on the bill. Senate: 25-7 with one person present but not voting on the bill.

Status:Has yet to be signed by House and Senate speakers

How Southeast Tennessee lawmakers voted:

House Ayes: Hazlewood, Helton-Haynes, Martin, Vital, Howell, Raper, Travis

House Nays: Hakeem

Senate Ayes: Gardenhire, Watson, Bowling, Lowe

The debate:Sen. Paul Rose, R-Covington: "Senate Bill 446 will help protect the First Amendment right of teachers should they choose to establish a pronoun policy in their classroom. This bill will protect them from any adverse disciplinary action."

Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis: "I think ... we give teachers a license to essentially bully a student and someone who identifies in a certain way. It's about respect and decorum."

Number:Senate Bill 1440

Topic:Defining term "sex" for birth certificates, driver's licenses

Defines the term "sex" for use throughout Tennessee code, unless the context otherwise requires, as a person's "immutable biological sex" as determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth. Requires a person's sex be listed on the original birth certificate and driver's license. A fiscal note says the law could jeopardize $1.29 billion in federal education funds coming to the state and another $750 million in grants to the state Department of Health and lead to civil litigation.

Status:Has yet to be signed by House and Senate speakers

Votes:House: 71-21. Senate: 27-6

How Southeast Tennessee lawmakers voted:

House Ayes: Hazlewood, Helton-Haynes, Martin, Vital, Howell, Raper, Travis

Nays: Hakeem

Senate Ayes: Gardenhire, Watson, Lowe, Bowling

The debate:Rep. Rusty Grills, R-Newbern: "God created man, He created woman. He put them in this world to procreate and to read and replenish the world. And when we continue to spit in the face of God as a nation, we're going in the wrong direction."

Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis: "You are saying the government is the decider of someone's sex and the 'immutability' that you mention. Not only is it a bad piece of legislation, the message that's being signaled to people particularly in our LGBTQIA community that you were signaling is really strong. And it's harmful and it's hurtful."

Number:Senate Bill 269

Topic:Juneteenth

Designates Juneteenth, the date on June 19, 1865, in which a Union general issued an order freeing remaining enslaved people in Texas and ending slavery in America, an official Tennessee holiday. Provides time off for state employees. Juneteenth is already a state Day of Special Observance. A fiscal note estimates an annual $691,890 cost for state employees whose jobs require they work that day.

Votes:Senate: 24-4. House: 61-18 with 10 present and not voting on bill.

Status:Lee supported the bill, which has yet to make it to his desk.

How Southeast Tennessee lawmakers voted:

House Ayes: Hakeem, Hazlewood, Raper

House Nays: None

House present and not voting: Helton-Haynes, Vital

House not listed as voting: Martin, Howell, Travis

Area Senate Ayes: Watson, Lowe

Senate Nays: Bowling

Senate present and not voting: Gardenhire

The debate: Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis: "It marks the emancipation of enslaved people in America. ... This is an important celebration for not just African-Americans but for folks all across the state of Tennessee."

Sen. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald, in Senate Finance Committee: "I asked several people in my district if they knew what Juneteenth was, and very few did. I don't think we need to be making a holiday for something that happened in Texas. This is going to cost the state $700,000. It's a holiday that most people don't know what it is."

Number: House Bill 1189

Topic: Firearms lawsuit protections for gun manufacturers

Provides special protections for firearms manufacturers against lawsuits. The House passed the bill prior to the March 27 deadly shooting of three children and three adults at The Covenant School in Nashville. Senators gave final approval April 18, shortly before another planned mass protest the same day by students, parents and others over the shooting and gun violence.

Votes: House: 71-24. Senate: 19-9

Status:The bill as of Thursday was awaiting the signature of House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, before going to Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, the Republican Senate speaker. It would then go to Lee for his consideration.

How Southeast Tennessee lawmakers voted:

House Ayes: Hazlewood, Helton-Haynes, Martin, Vital, Howell, Raper, Travis

House Nays: Hakeem

Senate Ayes: Gardenhire, Watson, Bowling, Lowe

The debate:Sen. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald: "This is just to try to help businesses in this state that have chosen to come here, to give them a little civil liability" protection.

Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville: "There are people that we should be going out of our way to protect this week. And we've been receiving emails and calls, people are holding up signs, telling us to go out of our way to help those people. Not one of those signs says to protect the gun manufacturers."

Number:Senate Bill 1012

Topic: Prohibits mandatory 'implicit bias' training for educators

The bill, sponsored by Gardenhire, prohibits a local education agency, public charter school, public institution of higher education, State Board of Education, and Department of Education from requiring implicit bias training for employees. Defines "implicit bias training" as training or other educational programs designed to expose an individual to biases of which one may not be consciously aware, against a specific group.

Votes:Senate: 24-5. House: 71-22

Status: Awaiting House speaker signature before going to the governor

How Southeast Tennessee lawmakers voted:

House Ayes: Hazlewood, Helton-Haynes, Martin, Vital, Howell, Raper, Travis

House Nays: Hakeem

Status:Has not reached House speaker as of Thursday

The debate:Gardenhire: "It doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree with this type of training or searching your soul or accusing you of being something that you are or not, what this bill says is if you fundamentally disagree with what you're being forced to take or agree to, you don't have to. And what's more, they can't hold it against you if you don't want to take it or you fail to take it."

Akbari: "Those types of thoughts affect our judgment," Akbari said, using as an example that if she sees someone from a rural area, "I automatically assume they're uneducated, or I see someone from an urban area and I automatically assume they're a criminal, and I make my decisions based on those beliefs."

Number:House Bill 1545

Topic:State's FY 2023-204 $56.2 billion budget

Tennessee lawmakers approved the annual spending plan that injects a record $3.3 billion into national highway projects and premises as well as other large investments, including nearly $1 billion for Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology and $223 million to enhance security at public and private schools.

Read more from the original source:
What did the Tennessee General Assembly do this year? - Chattanooga Times Free Press