News of the Week for Dec. 8th<\/sup>, 2019<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n New Zealand’s gun buyback website ‘a shopping list for criminals’<\/a> New York City Might Avoid Making Second Amendment History<\/a> ATF: 423M guns in America, 1.2 per person, 8.1B rounds of ammunition a year<\/a> Top European Court Upholds EU’s Anti-Gun Regulations<\/a> Following legalized campus carry, universities report no increase in violence on their campuses<\/a> Lawsuit filed to block Nevada’s ‘red flag’ law<\/a> CCW holders should not undergo background checks, too<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Incredible Story Of How Climate Change Became Apocalyptic<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Wages of Socialized Medicine – Overworked General Practitioners<\/a> ‘I feel like I’m in jail’: Hospital alarms torment patients <\/a> Elizabeth Warren Has A Plan For Your Health Care, Whether You Like It Or Not <\/a> Forget ‘Medicare for All.’ Mayor Pete Wants to Give Health Care a Social-Justice Overhaul<\/a> Hospitals Sue Trump to Keep Negotiated Prices Secret<\/a> Sure, sure, but hey: <\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The U.S. Army’s Worst Tradition: Never Ready for the Next War<\/a> Our torture chair is a COMFY chair, China insists: Nobody expected Beijing to copy the Spanish Inquisition for its interrogations<\/a> China Suspends Hong Kong Port Calls by US Military After Trump Signs Democracy Act<\/a> NAS Pensacola Killer Hosted Jihadi Snuff-Film Party, Praised bin Laden, Yet Pentagon Brass Balk at Calling It Terrorism<\/a> Warren Suggests She’ll Slash Defense Budget To Pay For Other Promises<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hallmark Channel holiday movies under fire from the diversity police<\/a> Ivy League TA accuses conservatives of supporting child molestation<\/a> Kelly Loeffler to have powerful ally after she’s tapped to Senate in Georgia<\/a> Canadian woman arrested for not holding escalator handrail awarded $20G in damages<\/a> Unprecedented Leaks Underscore Deep Discontent Inside China <\/a> Astronomers capture first-ever merger of three giant black holes <\/a> German military apologizes over “retro” Nazi uniform post <\/a> Kansas State “adulting” courses teach students basic life skills. Few are attending.<\/a> Conservatives release emails from prof alleging calling them a ‘white supremacist group’<\/a> Only one state’s top colleges all earned FIRE’s highest free speech rating. Mississippi just became the second.<\/a> Historians vs. the “1619 Project”<\/a> A “Misperceived Threat to Their Dominant Social Status” Is Probably Not What’s Killing White People<\/a> The document that reveals the remarkable tactics of trans lobbyists<\/a> Georgia governor’s adviser hits back at Gaetz: ‘We don’t care what you think’<\/a> Sasse’s Sharp Strike on Bloomberg’s China Comments: ‘The Kind of Stupid You Can’t Script’<\/a> Warren: I’ll Be “Last American President Elected By The Electoral College” <\/a> California Farmer Fights Government Claim That Dirt Is a Pollutant<\/a> Non-White Democratic Primary Voters Aren’t Interested in the Non-White Candidates<\/a> Georgia Senate appointee Kelly Loeffler: I’m pro-life, pro-military, pro-wall and pro-Trump<\/a> Two Hillary Clinton Donors Indicted for Funneling Illegal Cash to 2016 Campaigns<\/a> UC employee accused of nazism forced to apologize for ‘unfortunate’ numbers combo<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Newsboy.jpg\" "\\"News")
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<\/a>Gun Rights<\/h1>\n
\nPolice admit that at least one person had been able to access other firearm owners\u2019 personal information online<\/p>\n
\nWe gun nuts have long had our eyes on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. New York City, a challenge to one of the Big Apple’s myriad limits on firearm ownership. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the case yesterday, and hopes run high for the new conservative majority – but the litigation could still end with a whimper.<\/p>\n
\nNew federal data shows that there are 422.9 million firearms in circulation, or about 1.2 guns for every person in the country.<\/p>\n
\nThe Czech Republic, backed by Poland and Hungary, had challenged EU’s 2017 gun regulations<\/p>\n
\nIn some instances, crime actually dropped<\/p>\n
\nA nonprofit conservative group has filed a lawsuit seeking to block implementation of Nevada’s newly adopted “red flag” law before it takes effect next year.<\/p>\n
\nIt appears that a bill passed earlier this year to require background checks prior to the sale or transfer of firearms from one private party to another is being misinterpreted to apply also to Concealed Carry Weapon (CCW) Permit holders, who are currently exempt from such background checks when buying from a licensed firearm dealer.<\/p>\n<\/a>Hide the Decline<\/h1>\n
Environment &
\n“Green Energy”<\/h2>\n
\nIn recent years the issue of climate change has taken a decidedly apocalyptic turn. Earlier this week United Nations Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres warned, “If we don’t urgently change our way of life, we jeopardize life itself.” A group of scientists writes that we “might already have lost control” over “tipping points” in the Earth’s climate, warning that the “stability and resilience of our planet is in peril.”<\/p>\n<\/a>Obamacare<\/h1>\n
Government in Healthcare<\/h2>\n
\nI am in London on a brief sojourn and a story in the Daily Telegraph struck me as highly relevant to the Bernie Sanders\/Elizabeth Warren push for socialized medicine, which they call “Medicare for All” (but which is really “Medicaid for All”). It turns out, new GPs in the U.K. plan to only work part time because the existing work load on the country’s GPs is untenable. Headline, “Full-Time GPs a Thing of the Past, Says New Chief Director.”<\/p>\n
\nWhen Kea Turner’s 74-year-old grandmother checked into Virginia’s Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital with advanced lung cancer, she landed in the oncology unit where every patient was monitored by a bed alarm.<\/p>\n
\nFor reasons both practical and philosophical, Warren and her technocratic ilk might benefit from some humility as they seek to remake the health care system\u2014and the nation.<\/p>\n
\nMedicare for All is so 2019. After Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Left of Karl Marx) disastrous attempt to finance her plan for socialized medicine without taxing the middle class (wink wink, nod nod), Democrats are moving to the “center” (i.e. the less ridiculous left) and proposing their own “Medicare for All Who Want It” public option plans. Yet Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-Church of Social Justice) has his own social-justice twist on health care – complete with a very confusing mantra.<\/p>\n
\nThe administration wants to require hospitals to reveal the rates they privately negotiate with insurers for all sorts of procedures, amid the public outcry over surprise medical bills.<\/p>\n
\nFree! A #Medicaid4All Story<\/p>\n<\/a>War & Terror<\/h1>\n
\nSince the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Army has been consistently ranked as the most capable land force on the globe by defense analysts of all stripes. So why are so many people in the American military community today worried about the Army’s ability to deter conflicts with likely adversaries or prevail against those adversaries in future wars?<\/p>\n
\nChinese officials claim notorious torture method is actually a comfy chair<\/p>\n
\nOne week after President Donald Trump signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act and the Protect Hong Kong Act into law, China suspended visits to Hong Kong by U.S. military vessels and aircraft and sanctioned US-based non-government organizations (NGOs).<\/p>\n
\nAs evidence piles up that the NAS Pensacola mass killer is a radical Islamic jihadi, the Secretary of Defense says that it’s too early to declare the shootings an act of terrorism.<\/p>\n
\nAmid declining poll numbers, Elizabeth Warren seems to be attempting to tune up a few of her standard answers to questions about her budget-busting campaign promises. While it didn’t garner much attention at the time, Warren gave an interview to the National Education Association last month. During that meeting she was asked whether or not she supported some expensive new education programs and, if so, how she planned to pay for them.<\/p>\n<\/a>National<\/h1>\n
\nThe liberal scolds are coming for the Hallmark Channel and Lifetime Channel, too. During the holiday season, the channels run Christmas-themed movies around the clock. It’s a nice diversion from the craziness in everyday life, so naturally, it must be destroyed.<\/p>\n
\nA teaching assistant at Cornell University said that their College Republicans chapter is supporting catholic priests who sexually abuse children because of their decision to bring Scott Walker to speak.<\/p>\n
\nWhen Gov. Brian Kemp announces on Wednesday that he’s picked Kelly Loeffler for an open U.S. Senate seat, she’ll have some powerful backup to help defend her new post. <\/p>\n
\nA Canadian woman who was arrested for not holding on to an escalator handrail has been awarded $20,000 in damages by the nation’s Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
\nWhile the world was still digesting the Xinjiang Papers, two more China-related intelligence information bombs were dropped the weekend before Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n
\nA trio of monster black holes have been spotted crashing into each other.<\/p>\n
\nThis example of “retro” German fashion was a heil of a fail.<\/p>\n
\nFour people showed up for “Healthy Housing”<\/p>\n
\nKennesaw State University employees reportedly bashed the KSU YAF chapter for hosting Michael Knowles.<\/p>\n
\nJackson State University eliminated or revised all of its speech policies that conflict with the First Amendment, becoming the sixth institution in Mississippi to earn the highest, \u201cgreen light\u201d rating from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Mississippi is now the second state, after Arizona, to have all of its top universities earn a green light rating from FIRE. Mississippi is also home to more green light schools than any other state except North Carolina. <\/p>\n
\nWell, I can’t say I expected it to be the International Committee of the Fourth International that most effectively ripped the New York Times’s “1619 Project” apart, but here we are. I\u2019d heartily recommend these devastating interviews with Gordon S. Wood, James McPherson, and James Oakes, all of which have been published on that known hotbed of conservative reaction and racial whitewashing, the World Socialist Web Site.<\/p>\n
\nThose of you who didn’t spend the holiday weekend watching political Twitter might have missed a mild uproar over a silly study and the uncritical way that Newsweek chose to cover it.<\/p>\n
\nA great deal of the transgender debate is unexplained. One of the most mystifying aspects is the speed and success of a small number of small organisations in achieving major influence over public bodies, politicians and officials. How has a certain idea taken hold in so many places so swiftly?<\/p>\n
\nAn adviser to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) hit back at Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Friday after Gaetz, a top ally of President Trump, warned that Kemp could face a primary challenger if he doesn’t appoint Trump’s preferred candidate to a soon-to-be open Senate seat. <\/p>\n
\nBillionaire presidential contender Mike Bloomberg — never one to put his mouth where his money is — claimed that Chinese leader Xi Jinping is “not a dictator,” and Senator Ben Sasse is having none of it.<\/p>\n
\nProgressives like Warren want to abolish the Electoral College because they want to get rid of our constitutional system entirely.<\/p>\n
\nNo one told Jack LaPant that he could be in violation of the Clean Water Act for farming his own land.<\/p>\n
\nNate Silver observes that the six candidates who have qualified for the December Democratic primary debate are all white: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Tom Steyer, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar. (Insert your “wait, one of them is Native American” joke here.)<\/p>\n
\nJokes aside, I continue not to understand the ferocious opposition to this appointment in some quarters. I get it on a basic level: Republican women *in the aggregate* lean a bit more moderate than Republican men, and there’s no telling how far a completely unknown political quantity like Kelly Loeffler might lean. It reminds me a bit of the backlash to Bush nominating Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court in 2005. Why the hell would you roll the dice on someone who might prove unpredictable when you could choose a reliable conservative like Sam Alito – or, in this case, Doug Collins?<\/p>\n
\nTwo Lebanese-American businessmen have been indicted for their role in a scheme to funnel $3.5 million in illegal campaign contributions to political campaigns in 2016.<\/p>\n
\nA Graduate Student Adviser at the University of California Santa Cruz has apologized for “confusion, anxiety, or inconvenience.”<\/p>\n