#utah governor

[bitstitchbitch]

The sad thing is that these are pretty good numbers for a democrat in my state

[govmattus]

Matt Field For Governor Of Utah

I’m Matt Field and I am running for Governor of the State of Utah because I feel compelled to do so. I’m not special, though I think my mom said I was a couple times, and I think a lot of people could do and do Govmatt.org Morality Over Monarchy, Root Out Corruption Matt Field for Governor of Utah better than what I hope to achieve…I mean that as sincerely as possible and hope others will run for governor, other state positions, and local offices to promote and uphold morality. It isn’t because what I’m going to present is solely my idea and it is so great that you should have a poster of me in your room…no, that’d be terrifying! What I will present are proven solutions to the issues we have in government and throughout our lives. These concepts are essentially natural laws that will help improve our lives in drastic fashion if we can get them implemented. They will seem extreme measures but if you haven’t noticed, morality has almost been completely.

When I was in college, I had the idea to run for governor at some point in my life…I even made a Facebook page not long after I graduated that I left up for a very short time and then promptly took it down. I took it down because I began to realize that at before too long, I’d be married, have kids, and have a life I wouldn’t want disrupted by the chaotic world of politics. You don’t have to believe me but I still want the same thing. I want to live my life without making it more complicated. I truly don’t want public attention and I seriously worry about the safety of my family in the pursuit of such a position. Government has become more and more authoritarian. Government officials have entirely forgotten that they aren’t the boss. They no longer act as servants that actively serve and accommodate the people. They have fully transformed into the monarch of our nightmares that will stop at nothing to take your money and wield power against you to service whatever purpose they deem worthy. I believe this is one of the reasons many of our best won’t run for office and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it makes me nervous.

However, how long should you wait for something to be done right before taking action yourself? I have reached out to politicians to address the ever-pressing matters of our day with no response and if I get a response, they talk about themselves for ten paragraphs before telling me they can’t help me. We may have a vote but does the sanctity of that vote actually make a difference to our elected officials?

I don’t think anyone would disagree with the fact that we have problems throughout our state and political system; the question that is constantly present, is can we actually come to an amicable solution? Is there a way to remove emotion for a moment to review the current conditions of our state and country? Can we attempt not to be offended, in either taking offense ourselves or for others? Are we really so far gone that we can’t listen to what others are saying and then follow it up with an actual discussion toward a solution? Most importantly, are we able to recognize what morality is and persevere to uphold it? I really don’t know but I hope we can. https://govmatt.org/blog/news/matt-field-for-governor-of-utah

Morality has been neglected and grossly manipulated through the years. What is perhaps not realized, is that when the government passes a law to protect or ensure something for someone, thing, or entity, it has endorsed it by making it legal. The first ten amendments of the U.S. Constitution, or bill of rights, were largely written along moral principles that should be inherent to all. However, many subsequent amendments, laws, and policies reject the overwhelming tone of morality in pursuit of something easier and more politically accommodating. In the State of Utah, we need to change this…we need to realize that morality is worth fighting for and work to uphold it.

It reminds me of a time when I was defending the libertarian view with illegal drugs with a friend of mine in college. I had been taught in one of my econ classes that if drugs were made legal the government would have more purview over it and, thus, be able to regulate it more effectively. Many of these arguments made sense to me but my little friend was on the side of morality. She understood that by making illegal drugs legal that it would create a pseudo and artificial morality which would undermine the truth. She was right, as I researched it further I found many others understood the argument the libertarian view presented, agreeing with it, but recognized it’s potential to erode society and undermining actual morality.

Vote Matt field for Governor of Utah! A visionary leader with a proven commitment to serving the community. Matt field's platform prioritizes each sector education, healthcare, economic prosperity, & etc. With integrity and innovative solutions, he'll ensure a brighter future for all Utahns. Make your voice count, vote Matt field for progress and inclusivity. Visit now @ https://govmatt.org/

[redsnerdden]

Utah Begins The School Year By Banning 13 Books, Including Works by Margaret Atwood and Judy Blume

Utah Begins The School Year By Banning 13 Books, Including Works by Margaret Atwood and Judy Blume #Books #Politics #Censorship #Writers #Creators

It’s that time of the year again, kids going back to school and as always, we have another statewide book ban on our hands. That’s right, the Utah State Board of Education has begun the school year by ordering schools to begin removing 13 books that include works by Judy Blume, Rupi Kaur, Sarah J. Maas, Margaret Atwood, and other authors for content that the state has deemed to be pornographic or…

[loveerran]

“I don’t blame any one for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I would not have believed it myself.” - Joseph Smith

This sounds so much like a trans thing, honestly. But even if people don’t believe trans people or understand who we are, they can still act with courtesy and respect. They can let us have autonomy in our lives and respect the agency of parents, doctors and ourselves when we make decisions about our bodies.

It certainly seems better than using the law to cast us into prison, take away our rights and privileges, and beat us or even just let us die in the metaphorical Carthage where you’ve locked us up.

‘If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets’ Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Matthew 23:30-32

[greaserink]

One of these days imma draw meself with my satanic orgy shirt and trans booty shorts on and it will be a glorious day

[valhikes]

Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, Utah

Last day backpacking the High Uintas Wilderness. Visited a few more lakes, then swapped the lakes for the Duchesne River. Dropped a while along the East Fork, then climbed again along the North Fork. There's a few more lakes to visit before returning to the trailhead at Hayden Pass.

[xtruss]

Illustration by João Fazenda

The Burning of Maui

The governor called the fires Hawaii’s “largest natural disaster” ever. They would more accurately be labelled an “unnatural disaster.”

— By Elizabeth Kolbert | August 20, 2023

The ‘alalā, or Hawaiian crow, is a remarkably clever bird. ‘Alalā fashion tools out of sticks, which they use, a bit like skewers, to get at hard-to-reach food. The birds were once abundant, but by the late nineteen-nineties their population had dropped so low that they were facing extinction. Since 2003, all the world’s remaining ‘alalā have been confined to aviaries. In a last-ditch effort to preserve the species, the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance has been breeding the crows in captivity. The alliance keeps about a third of the birds—some forty ‘alalā—at a facility outside the town of Volcano, on the Big Island, and the rest outside the town of Makawao, on Maui. Earlier this month, the Maui population was very nearly wiped out. On the morning of August 8th, flames came within a few hundred feet of the birds’ home and would probably have engulfed it were it not for an enterprising alliance employee, one of her neighbors, and a garden hose.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “many factors” contributed to the ‘alalā’s decline, including habitat destruction, invasive species, and the effects of agriculture on the landscape. Owing to these developments, Hawaii’s native fauna in general is in crisis; the state has earned an unfortunate title as “the extinction capital of the world.” Of the nearly hundred and fifty bird species that used to be found in Hawaii and nowhere else, two-thirds are gone. Among the islands’ distinctive native snails, the losses have been even more catastrophic.

Last week, as the death toll from the fires in West Maui continued to mount—late on Friday, the number stood at a hundred and eleven—it became clear that the same “factors” that have decimated Hawaii’s wildlife also contributed to the deadliness of the blazes. Roughly a thousand people have been reported as still missing, and some two thousand homes have been destroyed or damaged. The worst-hit locality, the town of Lahaina, which lies in ruins, was built on what was once a wetland. Starting in the mid-nineteenth century, much of the vegetation surrounding the town was cleared to make way for sugar plantations. Then, when these went out of business, in the late twentieth century, the formerly cultivated acres were taken over by introduced grasses. In contrast to Hawaii’s native plants, the imported grasses have evolved to reseed after fires and, in dry times, they become highly flammable.

“The lands around Lahaina were all sugarcane from the eighteen-sixties to the late nineteen-nineties,” Clay Trauernicht, a specialist in fire ecology at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, told the Guardian. “Nothing’s been done since then—hence the problem with invasive grasses and fire risk.”

Also contributing to the devastation was climate change. Since the nineteen-fifties, average temperatures in Hawaii have risen by about two degrees, and there has been a sharp uptick in warming in just the past decade. This has made the state more fire-prone and, at the same time, it has fostered the spread of the sorts of plants that provide wildfires with fuel. Hotter summers help invasive shrubs and grasses “outgrow our native tree species,” the state’s official Climate Change Portal notes.

As Hawaii has warmed, it has also dried out. According, again, to the Climate Change Portal, “rainfall and streamflow have declined significantly over the past 30 years.” In the weeks leading up to the fires in West Maui, parts of the region were classified as suffering from “severe drought.” Meanwhile, climate change is shifting storm tracks in the Pacific farther north. Hurricane Dora, which made history as the longest-lasting Category 4 hurricane on record in the Pacific, passed to the south of Maui and helped produce the gusts that spread the Lahaina fire at a speed that’s been estimated to be a mile per minute.

After visiting the wreckage of Lahaina, Hawaii’s governor, Josh Green, called the Maui fires the “largest natural disaster Hawaii has ever experienced.” In fact, the fires would more accurately be labelled an “unnatural disaster.” As David Beilman, a professor of geography and environment at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, recently pointed out, for most of Hawaii’s history fire simply wasn’t part of the islands’ ecology. “This Maui situation is an Anthropocene phenomenon,” he told USA Today.

A great many more unnatural disasters lie ahead. Last month was, by a large margin, the hottest July on record, and 2023 seems likely to become the warmest year on record. Two days after Lahaina burst into flames, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a revised forecast for the current Atlantic hurricane season, which runs through the end of November. The agency had been predicting a “near-normal” season, with between five and nine hurricanes. But, because of record sea-surface temperatures this summer—last month a buoy in Manatee Bay, south of Miami, registered 101.1 degrees, a reading that, as the Washington Post put it, is “more typical of a hot tub than ocean water”—noaa is now projecting that the season will be “above normal,” with up to eleven hurricanes. Rising sea levels and the loss of coastal wetlands mean that any hurricanes that make landfall will be that much more destructive.

A few days after noaa revised its forecast, officials ordered the evacuation of Yellowknife, the capital of Canada’s Northwest Territories. A wildfire burning about ten miles away would, they feared, grow to consume the city. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation called the evacuation order “extraordinary.” This summer has been Canada’s worst wildfire season on record, and, at times, the smoke has spread all the way to Europe. There are currently something like a thousand active fires in the country.

Two days after the Yellowknife evacuation was ordered, another Pacific hurricane—Hilary—intensified into a Category 4 storm. Hilary was being drawn north by a “heat dome” of high pressure over the central Plains, which was expected to bring record temperatures to parts of the Midwest. The storm’s unusual track put some twenty-six million people in four states—California, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona—under flash-flood watches.

How well humanity will fare on the new planet it is busy creating is an open question. Homo sapiens is a remarkably clever species. So, too, was the ‘alalā. ♦

— Published in the Print Edition of the August 28, 2023, New Yorker Issue, with the Headline “Fire Alarm.”

[the-cimmerians]

Today, ProPublica reports on yet another big change that stands to solve a decades-long problem we first learned about back in 2016, closing a huge loophole that allowed states to divert federal antipoverty funds to governors’ pet projects, like promoting abstinence, holding “heathy marriage” classes that did nothing to prevent out-of-wedlock births, funding anti-abortion “clinics” to lie about abortion “risks,” sending middle-class kids to private colleges, and other schemes only tangentially related to helping poor kids. It’s the same loophole that Mississippi officials tried to drive a truck through to divert welfare funds to former sportsball man Brett Favre’s alma mater, for a volleyball palace. [ ]

The agency has proposed new rules — open for public comment until December 1 — aimed at nudging states to actually use TANF funds to give cash to needy parents, not fill budget holes or punish poor people.

One change will put an end to the scheme Utah used to substitute LDS church funds for welfare, by prohibiting states

from counting charitable giving by private organizations, such as churches and food banks, as “state” spending on welfare, a practice that has allowed legislatures to budget less for programs for low-income families while still claiming to meet federal minimums.

Another new rule will put the kibosh on using TANF to fund child protective services or foster care programs, which are not what TANF is supposed to be for, damn it.

And then there’s the simple matter of making sure that funds for needy families go to needy families, not to pet projects that have little to do with poverty:

The reforms would also redefine the term “needy” to refer only to families with incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty line. Currently, some states spend TANF money on programs like college scholarships — or volleyball stadiums — that benefit more affluent people.

[minnesotafollower]

Other States Join Iowa in Encouraging Immigration To Combat Aging, Declining Populations 

A prior post discussed the various ways the Iowa State Government was encouraging the resettlement of refugees and other immigrants in their state to combat its shortage of workers.[1] Now the Republican governors of Indiana (Eric Holcomb)and Utah (Spencer Cox) have jointly voiced the same desire. They start their appeal as follows: “Indiana has about 220,000 open jobs right now and Utah has…

[neil-gaiman]

Hi, Neil. Can you please share this email form? It's for telling the Governor of Utah to veto the state's book ban.

letutahread.org/veto

Sure.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

The Navajo Nation doesn’t allow radioactive uranium ore to be transported through its lands without permission, but that’s exactly what a mining company began doing this week on roads administered by the state—which has no such restrictions.

Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren told tribal police to stop the trucks, and he issued an executive order Wednesday that called for the company to negotiate a hauling agreement with the tribe before any other trucks enter Navajo land. First Lady Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren announced a “No Illegal Uranium Hauling” walk along part of the transportation route in Cameron. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, under pressure for months from tribes and environmental advocates over the situation, subsequently brokered a deal with the company to hit pause.

In a Thursday night call, Hobbs told Nygren that shipments would halt until the company—Energy Fuels Resources—and the Navajo Nation hold discussions about safety concerns.

While Nygren is glad the governor acted, he wants to know how long transportation activities will stop.

“I don’t know what temporary hold means on the governor’s side,” Nygren said in an interview after the walk, held Friday morning. “Does that mean five days? Does that mean 10 days? Does that mean a month? … I hope temporary means six months, aligning with my executive order, so that we can have those discussions.”

Asked by Inside Climate News about timing, a Hobbs spokesperson said, “At this moment, there’s no additional information on when the end date will be.”

Energy Fuels Resources, the owner of Pinyon Plain Mine in Arizona and White Mesa Mill in Utah, confirmed it started hauling ore from one site to the other on Tuesday. In a statement issued before the agreement to pause that work, the company said this transportation is “safe and legal” and “in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.”

State law doesn’t bar that transport, but a Navajo law enacted in 2012 does. The situation cuts to the heart of U.S. history with Indigenous people: Treaty agreements that acknowledge tribal nations’ right to determine what happens on their lands are routinely ignored by states, companies and the federal government.

“Energy Fuels is subject to Navajo authority when accessing Navajo territory and can be excluded from Navajo territory for threatening the well-being of the Navajo People, although they likely claim they are beyond Navajo authority when on a state highway running through the Navajo reservation,” Gabe Galanda, an Indigenous rights attorney and the managing lawyer at Galanda Broadman, said in an email. “The state of Arizona may likewise claim regulatory power over a state highway running through the Navajo reservation but that assertion affronts Navajo inherent sovereignty and territorial control.”

[qqueenofhades]

Leaving aside possible reversals, disasters, doom & gloom, can we take a moment to savor the Trump meltdown over Harris/Walz and the momentum that makes a possible blue tsunami seem an entirely plausible outcome? I'd love to give you the space to ramble about it if you'd like, as my current fandom at least for the moment has shifted back to US politics (but not, for the first time in a while, to doom scrolling politics!).

Aha, I feel as I have probably already said most of my current thoughts, but here are a few things that really make me desire a heaping helping of butt-whooping blue wave in November:

The state that has had the most volunteer sign-ups since Harris took over the ticket? Fucking Florida, with over 18,000. The Villages, formerly a hotbed of Trump support (and y'know, probably still is), also had a major pro-Kamala event, and she is allegedly up 15 points in Miami-Dade (after Biden won the county by 7% and lost the state only by 3%). Now, we all know that Obama won Florida twice, but it has become such a symbol of retrograde Trumpian/DeSantisian politics that winning there would be literally seismic. I'm not going so far as saying that it's in PLAY play, but let's just hold onto that happy, happy idea.

Likewise the poll I mentioned the other day, where Trump is struggling to break 50% in Ohio, once a swing state and now also reliably red. The fact that this is Vance's home state and he's dragging the ticket down every single time he opens his mouth, thus offering the smallest sliver of hope that Ohio (which DID legalize abortion and weed by major margins last year) could also go blue? Incredible. Amazing. Showstopping.

Harris is also tied with Trump (46%-46%) in North Carolina and there is a lot of chatter about how the terrible GOP governor candidate could give a boost to Democratic turnout statewide.

The Mormons have apparently announced their intention to abandon (or at least support much less than they usually do) the Republican presidential ticket in 2024. Remember when Obama won Indiana in 2008? In my wildest dreams, I imagine Utah going blue in 2024. It won't but shh.

Basically, where we were braced for another agonizing nail-biting grind-it-out three-day election determined by a few thousand votes in key states (because etc etc the Electoral College sucks) we are now looking at the very real possibility that Harris wins at least one state, and possibly more, that Biden didn't, and which have been seen as out of reach for Democrats since Trump came on the scene. I don't think I need to counsel anyone against complacency, because we're all too damn scared for that, but yeah. Polls, even the good-looking ones that we like, don't vote. They are still skewed and subjective and do not represent the actual reality, whatever that may end up being. The Republicans and the media will be trying their absolute goddamnfuckingest to ratfuck us again in the 80-something days that remain, but:

WE CAN DO THIS, WE WILL DO THIS, WE MUST DO THIS.

WHAT IS THIS.... JOY SCROLLING? FOR AMERICAN POLITICS? IN THE YEAR 2024 WITH DONALD TRUMP ON THE TICKET FOR THE FUCKING THIRD TIME?

UNPOSSIBLE.

[govmattus]

Morality Over Monarchy Root Out Corruption Priorities

Many people vote for a politician because they like them in a personal way. They are charismatic, good looking, or have a way with words. I won’t lay claim to any of those as we need to focus on what actually matters. We are looking for someone to govern and to pass laws for our state. this is a job interview! The artificial doesn’t matter…it is the rubber hitting the road, the proof in the pudding, the getting down to business is what we should be looking for.

I’ve always taken a lot of time researching candidates to see what they actually stand for unfortunately, most of them just point to their party and say, “Yeah, what he said”. However, in reality when push comes to shove, they lean toward something else and likely something you didn’t expect. That is why I am going to give you my list of priorities and what I will focus on. I will focus on my top three priorities and will accomplish them any way I can ethically complete them. If I’m able to complete my first three priorities then I won’t run for a second term, if not, I’ll go for two but no more!

I want to be as clear as I possibly can be. Which is why I have developed this list so everyone will know where I’m at on the agenda. With some of these items I will be extremely ridged with the order and the content and others the order and content won’t matter as much. I will provide a concrete idea and some elements to go along with it but I don’t claim to know it all (I did when I was fourteen but I guess age makes you dumber) so input from your legislators will be vital in many cases. I will do my best to define and follow this but like the route we take to a destination there may be construction, detours, and the like…that being said, I will do my level best.

Priority #1– Free Agency and Liberty

 One of the most important things we do with government is elect our officials and we trust that the process is done competently, we have misplaced our trust. If we want to ensure our free agency remains intact, we have to make certain our voting system will warrant the least number of errors.

With that in mind, I’m running as a WRITE-IN candidate, yes you heard it right, WRITE-IN. “Matt Field, that’s crazy! No one wins a write-in candidacy!” Well, I wouldn’t say “no one” but yes, it is quite slim. I am doing it for a very specific purpose. Doing a write-in vote forces the following:

• People have to actually know my name because they literally have to write it in. They can’t look to the little letter next to my name to determine if I am a worthy party member. Which is perfect, because I don’t want a passive vote. I need you behind me!

• It forces additional security measures. Every write-in vote has to be reviewed to make sure the voter’s intention is respected.

• It also helps prevent fraud, in that, the competent teller can call into question those that have rewritten the name over and over on multiple ballots.

·•That being said, be sure you write M-A-T-T F-I-E-L-D as clearly as you can.

The 2022 election didn’t have any controversial figures on the ballot like Donald Trump so I would estimate the potential for election fraud would be a bit lower and yet they have several alarming issues with the voting system. If you were coerced into believing the narrative that the 2020 election was the freest and fairest election ever then you may want to review chapter 7 in my book Living the Fable Tale: “The Emperor’s New Clothes” (which is free to listen or read on my website) where I find, among other things, through official government websites and reports that five states had recorded more than 100% of registered voters’ votes…which, of course, is impossible.

These are the key findings from the report on the 2022 Utah election:

Priority #2 Mistakes within the voter registration database highlight opportunities for increased oversight.

This point made me audibly laugh or as the kids say ‘lol’! I’m glad they see ‘opportunities for increased oversight’. This is basically saying that

(1) There are mistakes within the voter registration database and

  (2) They are significant enough that they recommend the need for additional oversight.

The voter’s database is critical in every state but especially in Utah. How do we receive our ballots? Yup, the mail. In 2022 and 2023 the US Census Bureau said Utah had about 148,000 new residents move-in. Not to mention, the average person in America moves 11.7 times in their lifetime, people don’t live forever and must die, I once heard a lot of people get married in Utah, oh and has anyone noticed a lot of building recently? The idea that the government, historically the most inefficient institutions ever due to lack of competition, will manage to mail every voter their ballot without issue is laughable. In fact, the report itself say, “Our audit found that these ongoing tasks [referring to updating voter rolls] are done inconsistently from county to county”. There are innumerable scenarios that they would have to stay on top of and it just isn’t possible.

3.1 Canvass ballot totals from Utah’s 2022 primary election did not match those recorded in the central voter database.

This is a big problem…do you know what this means? It means the vote you intended doesn’t match what was actually counted. They also counted more votes than were processed. In 13 counties they counted 1031 more ballots than were processed (pg. 26). If that error holds consistent across all 29 counties, then we would have 3093 additional votes that don’t exist. It could be enough to elect the wrong person depending on the office sought.

3.2 Some counties’ chain-of-custody practices make it difficult to account for all ballots.

If you have ever watched a legal drama, you’ll know that people have avoided a murder conviction because certain evidence had left the chain of custody and was thus made inadmissible. Many of our votes are leaving the chain of custody during which anything can happen.

4.1 Utah lacks clear legal standards for election signature verification

This is a common problem throughout the country. Having a computer system to verify signatures electronically is expensive and unnecessary and as has already been discussed, difficult to maintain. The solution is so simple and it is silly that anyone should oppose it. We must vote in person. (https://le.utah.gov/interim/2023/pdf/00001111.pdf)

Vote Matt field for Governor of Utah! A visionary leader with a proven commitment to serving the community. Matt field's platform prioritizes each sector education, healthcare, economic prosperity, & etc. With integrity and innovative solutions, he'll ensure a brighter future for all Utahns. Make your voice count, vote Matt field for progress and inclusivity. Visit now @ https://govmatt.org/

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for "ruining" my mother in laws Thanksgiving by doing a land acknowledgement?

For context, my wife (29f) and I (29m) grew up Mormon in Utah, and we were perfect Mormons until we learned about feminism, anti-colonialism, etc. and left the church. This is a point of contention among family.

So every Thanksgiving, my in laws go around the table and everyone has to say what they are thankful for. Often this is used to drop passive aggressive testimonies to try and get us to come back to church.

This Thanksgiving, we were at my in laws, and they did the obligatory "what are you thankful for" around the table. Having put up with this stupidity for years, I decided to mix it up. When it was my turn, I said

"I'm grateful for the Shoshone and Goshute tribes for maintaining this land before we came here, and surviving despite Brigham Young's best efforts."

For those unaware, Brigham Young was the second prophet and first governor of the state of Utah, and continued manifest destiny in what was then Mexico, with all the violence that implies.

Anyway, after that it was a little awkward, and some relatives were suddenly thankful for their "pioneer ancestors making hard choices." The vibe was basically ruined until we left. My mother in law and some cousins were visibly upset, but they didn't say anything directly to me about it.

AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[orca-iguana]

Gonna make this It's own post, but Natalie Cline, a member of the Utah board of education, is yet again fucking things up for Utah kids. This time she posted an image of a *16 year old girl* without her permission to question if she was potentially trans. Then she lead a private investigation against a *16 year old girl* and it came out she was cis. When asked to comment she responded "it is normal to pause and wonder if people are what they say they are because of the push to normalize transgenderism in our society." Which is. Um. A fucking lot. And she's still on the school board. While Utah just banned trans adults and kids from going into restrooms. I'm so so sorry Utah kids but it is very much not safe right now to be trans in Utah, especially a trans kid. I know my audience is small but please fucking do something. Anything. Write to Governor Cox, ask him to do something about this woman, to appeal the trans bathroom ban, anything at this point. I'm lucky, I have a ticket out of the state and am out of public education. The next generation isn't as lucky. They need help.

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - March 13, 2023

🐝 - Did you hear about the honeybee vaccine? It's creating quite the buzz! But seriously, it's a major breakthrough in the fight against American foulbrood and could save billions of bees.

1. Transgender health care is now protected in Minnesota

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed an executive order protecting and supporting access to gender-affirming health care for LGBTQ people in the state, amidst Republican-backed efforts across the country to limit transgender health care. The order upholds the essential values of One Minnesota where all people, including members of the LGBTQIA+ community, are safe, celebrated, and able to live lives full of dignity and joy.

Numerous medical organizations have said that access to gender-affirming care is essential to the health and wellness of gender diverse people, while states like Tennessee, Arizona, Utah, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Florida have passed policies or laws restricting transgender health care.

2. First vaccine for honeybees could save billions

The US government has approved the world's first honeybee vaccine to fight against American foulbrood, a bacterial disease that destroys bee colonies vital for crop pollination.

Developed by biotech company Dalan Animal Health, the vaccine integrates some of the foulbrood bacteria into royal jelly, which is then fed to the queen by the worker bees, resulting in the growing bee larvae developing immunity to foulbrood. The vaccine aims to limit the damage caused by the infectious disease, for which there is currently no cure, and promote the development of vaccines for other diseases affecting bees.

3. Teens rescued after days stranded in California snowstorm: "We were already convinced we were going to die"

The recent snowstorms in California have resulted in dangerous conditions for hikers and residents in mountain communities. Two teenage hikers were rescued by the San Bernardino County sheriff's department after getting lost in the mountains for 10 days.

The boys were well-prepared for the hike but were not prepared for the massive amounts of snow that followed. They were lucky to survive, suffering from hypothermia and having to huddle together for three nights to stay warm.

Yosemite National Park has had to be closed indefinitely due to the excessive snowfall.

4. La Niña, which worsens Atlantic hurricanes and Western droughts, is gone

The La Nina weather phenomenon, which increases Atlantic hurricane activity and worsens western drought, has ended after three years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That's usually good news for the United States and other parts of the world, including drought-stricken northeast Africa, scientists said.

The globe is now in what's considered a "neutral" condition.

5. Where there's gender equality, people tend to live longer

Both women and men are likely to live longer when a country makes strides towards gender equality, according to a new global study that authors believe to be the first of its kind.

The study was published in the journal PLOS Global Public Health this week. It adds to a growing body of research showing that advances in women's rights benefit everyone. "Globally, greater gender equality is associated with longer [life expectancy] for both women and men and a widening of the gender gap in [life expectancy]," they conclude.

6. New data shows 1 in 7 cars sold globally is an EV, and combustion engine car sales have decreased by 25% since 2017

Electric vehicles are the key technology to decarbonise road transport, a sector that accounts for 16% of global emissions. Compared with 2020, sales nearly doubled to 6.6 million (a sales share of nearly 9%), bringing the total number of electric cars on the road to 16.5 million.

Sales were highest in China, where they tripled relative to 2020 to 3.3 million after several years of relative stagnation, and in Europe, where they increased by two-thirds year-on-year to 2.3 million. Together, China and Europe accounted for more than 85% of global electric car sales in 2021

7. Lastly, watch this touching moment as rescued puppy gains trust in her new owners

By the way, this is my newly started YouTube channel. Subscribe for more wholesome videos :D

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Let's carry the positivity into next week and keep spreading the good news!