News of the Week for Dec. 18th<\/sup>, 2022<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Warning signal to Dems: Younger voters shifted away in 2022<\/a> House GOP Won Popular Vote in Four Key States Where GOP Senate Candidates Lost<\/a> Elections and consequences: Senate Dems finally get subpoena power — and plan to use it<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Court: Ohio can’t appeal block on ‘heartbeat’ abortion law<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n CDC Caved to Gun Control Advocates by Removing Defensive Gun Use Stats<\/a> Judge to halt provision making California gun suits costlier<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Biden’s EPA Prepares To Crack Down On Home Appliances<\/a> CHARLEBOIS: COP15’s absurd proposed planetary diet<\/a> Nuclear power is too slow<\/a> Biggest North Sea producer refuses to drill new oil wells because of windfall tax<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Assisted suicide plans for children unveiled at Toronto’s Sick Kids hospital<\/a> Now, It’s Carbon ‘Net-Zero Healthcare’ to Fight Global Warming<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n War game analysis: Up to 10,000 Americans could die in a battle for Taiwan<\/a> Shelters, backpacks, and FM radios: Kyiv prepares for nuclear war<\/a> Uyghur Groups Demand U.S. Executives at Chinese Surveillance Firm Resign<\/a> Why DO things keep blowing up in Russia? CHRIS PLEASANCE reveals a secret Ukrainian sabotage campaign is the most likely explanation for mystery blasts in this video guide<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n NASA’s Orion Capsule Splashes Down in Pacific, Completing Artemis I Mission<\/a> Finally, The Gibson’s Bakery Family Has Been Paid By Oberlin College<\/a> Artemis, Tiangong successes in US-China space race leave Russia eating cosmic dust<\/a> US scientists achieve fusion breakthrough: Net energy generation <\/a> Court: Catholic hospitals can’t be forced to perform “gender transition” surgeries<\/a> Daily Beast: White supremacy is racially diverse<\/a> Saying the quiet part out loud: PA school board member refuses to support “cis , white male” for president<\/a> Man zip-tied, set on fire by California car thieves after stopping to help seemingly stranded woman: Report<\/a> Loudoun County Superintendent indicted<\/a> Legal group scores win in fight against bias reporting systems<\/a> Another Crash at the Intersectionality<\/a> A Fifth of American Adults Struggle to Read. Why Are We Failing to Teach Them?<\/a> ‘I’m a cat. Meow, meow’: Mom dresses as a CAT and says she identifies as one in protest over trans school board member who ‘wears his deceased wife’s clothing in front of school kids’<\/a> Scholars work at ‘Decolonizing Light’ to combat ‘colonialism in contemporary physics’<\/a> Eugene Volokh Challenges New York Law Requiring Bloggers To Address Online Hate Speech<\/a> Trump ridiculed for ‘major announcement’ that he\u2019s selling digital trading cards<\/a> California “reparations” hearings go as you would expect<\/a> Google Partners With Top Universities For This Prestigious Fellowship. Lawyers Say the Racial and Gender Quotas It’s Imposing Are Illegal. <\/a> Capitol Rioter Laments He’s Going to Jail for ‘NFT Salesman’ Trump<\/a> Biden’s Student Loan Timeline: repayment freezes, cancelations, lawsuits<\/a> ‘Equity’ Rears Its Ugly Head in Academic Publishing<\/a> Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions<\/a> STEM Is DEI-ing<\/a> Texas Legislation Strikes Back Against University-Backed Discrimination<\/a> Crime Is Not Just a Statistic<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Money Supply Is Shrinking: The Fed Should Pay More Attention<\/a> Republicans Are Coming for ESG Investing<\/a> It takes 3 years to get a building permit in San Francisco<\/a> EU warns Biden over potential trade war<\/a> Authoritarian Evil of ESG Emerges at Texas Hearing<\/a> Gulp: Stock market drops sharply as retail sales show biggest decline in months<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Britain to build first Americium space battery<\/a> China Is Facing A COVID-19 ‘Nuclear Winter’. The CCP Can\u2019t Stop It<\/a> How Corrupt Is the European Union?<\/a> Mainers make considerably more than New Brunswickers<\/a> Peru to Mexico: It’s none of your business<\/a> Thought for the Day: Scruton on European “Subsidiarity”<\/a> China bans export of its Loongson CPUs to Russia<\/a> “Men Are Men”: Norwegian Artist Facing Criminal Charges, Potential Prison Sentence Over Gender Comments<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The unfree future of speech<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Newsboy.jpg\" "\\"News")
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<\/a>Election 2022<\/h1>\n
\nWhat? You mean young voters can’t relate to their “crazy \u2026 Uncle Joe,” as Barack Obama suggested in the Freudian Slip of the Year? The deuce you say. And get off my damn lawn, too.<\/p>\n
\nConservative GOP governors outpaced GOP Senate candidates by a wide margin in some key states. Georgia governor Brian Kemp, for example, won by 7.5 points in November while GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker was bested by Democratic senator Raphael Warnock by one point. While some of that difference can be chalked up to some voters’ preferring GOP governance at the state level and Democratic governance at the federal level, that preference does not actually explain why GOP Senate candidates failed in four key states: Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. <\/p>\n
\nNew Republican control of the House promises a lot of investigatory efforts into Joe Biden and his administration. Among the GOP, the question debated is just how many investigations to start, and how to balance that with a positive agenda to allow a springboard for the 2024 election.<\/p>\n<\/a>Abortion<\/h1>\n
Dobbs Decision<\/h2>\n
\nOhio’s ban on most abortions will remain blocked after the First District Court of Appeals denied the state’s request to appeal a judge’s preliminary block on the law<\/p>\n<\/a>Gun Rights<\/h1>\n
\nThe advocates whined the stats make it too hard to pass gun control laws.<\/p>\n
\nA federal judge on Friday said he will block a provision in a new California law to take effect next year that gun advocates argued was designed to hinder anyone from challenging the state\u2019s famously restrictive gun laws.<\/p>\n<\/a>Hide the Decline<\/h1>\n
Environment &<\/a>“Green Energy”<\/h2>\n
\nThe Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new rules on Friday that would restrict the use of refrigerators, air conditioning equipment and heat pumps that utilize hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).<\/p>\n
\nThe we-know-best approach and claiming to exclude groups that may not share your view is utterly condemnable.<\/p>\n
\nOne common and plausible argument against nuclear power is that it is too slow. But is this inherent in the technology?<\/p>\n
\nHarbour Energy opts out of licensing bid in blow to government ambitions to boost domestic supplies<\/p>\n<\/a>Obamacare<\/h1>\n
Government in Healthcare<\/h2>\n
\nIn a prestigious medical journal, doctors from Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children have laid out policies and procedures for administering medically assisted death to children, including scenarios where the parents would not be informed until after the child dies.<\/p>\n
\nI always say that if you want to see what is going to go very wrong in the near future, read the professional journals. The New England Journal of Medicine just published an advocacy article urging that mandatory regulations be imposed on all health-care facilities \u2014 including warehouses \u2014 to eliminate carbon emissions in health care. And, the editors thought the column was so important that they allow it to be read for free. (Readers may recall one of the authors, Donald Berwick, a proponent of NHS-style health-care rationing who was appointed by President Obama to head Medicare.)<\/p>\n<\/a>War & Terror<\/h1>\n
\nFor some reason, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington decided to create a new war game model and play out what a direct American military engagement with China would look like if the United States decided to defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion. (As Joe Biden has repeatedly threatened to do before someone was rushed out to “clean up” his comments.) The prediction generated by this new model does not look great for America. They concluded that the losses America would suffer in fending off the Chinese would “break the back of U.S. military power for a generation.” And the death toll just among America’s military would run anywhere from four to ten thousand troops. But the “good news” coming out of CSIS is that we would eventually prevail and the Chinese military would be utterly destroyed as well. As a result, the architect of the study concludes that it would still be “worth the cost.” <\/p>\n
\nIf Kyiv is struck by a nuclear bomb, Serhiy Dmytruk’s biggest fear is that he will survive the blast but die anyway from hunger, thirst or cold. So he has assembled what he calls his “nuclear backpack,” crammed with enough provisions and survival paraphernalia to sustain him for a week.<\/p>\n
\nSeveral Uyghur human-rights organizations have asked employees of Dahua, a Chinese video surveillance firm involved in mass atrocities, to step down, and for the company’s various business partners \u2014 which include some big-name companies like Amazon, Costco, and Walmart \u2014 to “decouple” from it.<\/p>\n
\nSince the war in Ukraine began, a series of mystery explosions have rocked military bases inside Russia. <\/p>\n<\/a>National<\/h1>\n
\nThe Orion successful mission is part of the long-range plan for crews to return to the lunar surface.<\/p>\n
\nThe Gibsons have collected the over $36 million owed them. Sadly, David Gibson and “Grandpa” Allyn Gibson did not live to see this day. By stretching out the appeals Oberlin College waited them out, but the rest of the family survives. We wish the Gibson family well.<\/p>\n
\nThe US and China have revived the space race as Nasa has started its return to the moon and China’s Tiangong space station is complete and operational<\/p>\n
\nYou know the saying about fusion power: It’s the energy source of the future and always will be. That bit of dark humor was an acknowledgement of the fact that physicists have been promoting the limitless clean energy possible with fusion for decades without much to show for it. But that may finally have changed. According to a report in Financial Times, US scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have achieved a breakthrough. For the first time, they have achieved net energy gain from a fusion reactor.<\/p>\n
\nOn Friday, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by a federal judge in North Dakota who said that the federal government can not force a group of Catholic doctors and hospitals to perform “gender transition” surgeries. While the government will likely take this to the Supreme Court at some point, this case may offer a tentative first step toward curbing the transgender madness currently engulfing the nation’s healthcare system. The basis for the ruling is a bit odd, at least as I see it, but you take your victories where you can get them. This ruling also renews a standing debate over certain provisions in Obamacare that have been wildly twisted in recent years to redefine “sex” and “gender” to suit progressive activists. <\/p>\n
\nThe Daily Beast has pretty much admitted that “White Supremacist” is a made up term.<\/p>\n
\nA nine-member school board in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania voted for a new president of the board last week. Two of the nine were running to be the new president. One was a “cis, white male” and the other a female. One board member gave her reason for voting for the female candidate instead of the male candidate \u2013 it would “send the wrong message to our community.” She said the quiet part out loud.<\/p>\n
\nA California man who stopped to help a seemingly stranded woman on the side of a road in Northern California last week was allegedly zip-tied and set on fire by her and two men who then stole his car, police said, according to a report.<\/p>\n
\nFormer Loudoun County Public Schools superintendent Scott Ziegler was indicted on three misdemeanor charges, and the Public Information Officer of the schools is charged with felony perjury.<\/p>\n
\nThe University of Maine recently revised its bias reporting system following a demand letter from Southeastern Legal Foundation.<\/p>\n
\nIt was only four years ago that Los Angeles City Councilman Kevin de Leon was the new shiny object for California progressives. He finished second in California\u2019s jungle primary for the U.S. Senate seat held by Dianne Feinstein, and even if he couldn\u2019t beat the fellow Democrat in the general election, he appeared set up to succeed her when she finally retired or resigned from office. Just today Feinstein, who hasn\u2019t been heard from in months, issued a statement that she intends to finish out her current term.<\/p>\n
\nThe nation’s approach to adult education has so far neglected to connect the millions of people struggling to read with the programs set up to help them.<\/p>\n
\nAn Arizona mother went viral after she showed up to a school board meeting in a cat costume and makeup to mock what she says is the school’s ‘woke agenda’ <\/p>\n
\nProject intentionally targeted physics for decolonization due to field’s ‘unique scientific authority’<\/p>\n
\nNew York politicians are slapping a badge on my chest. A law going into effect Saturday requires social-media networks, including any site that allows comments, to publish a plan for responding to alleged hate speech by users.<\/p>\n
\n‘Biden is winning Montana and Alaska in 2024 at this rate’<\/p>\n
\nCalifornia is a bundle of contradictions. It is simultaneously the American promised land\u2013it is literally where the American Dream was first formulated\u2013and a declining hellhole of a state where the major industry is whining for dollars.<\/p>\n
\n‘Third and fourth nominees must self-identify as a woman, Black\/African descent, Hispanic\/Latino\/Latinx, Indigenous, and\/or a person with a disability,’ the fellowship guidelines read. <\/p>\n
\nFar-right internet troll and infamous Capitol rioter Anthime “Tim” Gionet joined fellow supporters of former President Donald Trump on Twitter Thursday in expressing disappointment over Trump’s “major announcement” earlier in the day.<\/p>\n
\nStarting in April, the White House extended the federal student loan freeze until Aug. 31. Prior to this decision, Americans were set to resume loan repayments on May 1.<\/p>\n
\nThe leftist obsession with “equity” is showing up all over. Some people insist on ending blind auditions for orchestral openings on the grounds that it’s more important to get a “better” racial mix of musicians than to identify the best ones. And this same mindset is now showing up in the world of academic publishing. It has always been the case that submissions were evaluated “blind” \u2014 that is, without the reader knowing anything about the writer.<\/p>\n
\nFeather bans, tent curtilage, and youngsters and their sweets.<\/p>\n
\nA recent National Association of Scholars Report finds DEI “has spread rapidly through the universities and colleges of the United States. The most alarming spread has been that which infects the natural sciences, where it undermines the norms of open discourse, objectivity, devotion to evidence, and intellectual independence that constitute robust science.”<\/p>\n
\nTexas state Rep. Carl Tepper, R-Lubbock County, has introduced legislation to abolish “diversity, equity, and inclusion” departments and programs in public universities. <\/p>\n
\nA friend sent me the video of a robbery in Chicago this week in which the victim was his mother-in-law. The robbers stole her $50,000 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and police tell CWB Chicago that this gang of robbers is believed to be responsible for many other such recent crimes.<\/p>\n<\/a>Economy & Taxes<\/h1>\n
\nMoney still matters, and better measures of the money supply exist now than before.<\/p>\n
\nAn interview with Representative Andy Barr of Kentucky, who will soon be in the leadership of the House Financial Services Committee.<\/p>\n
\nThe San Francisco Chronicle did an analysis of the timeline for building permits in the city and even to an SF pessimist like myself the results are pretty shocking. On average it takes more than two years to get a building permit for a single family residence in the city. It’s only slightly less for a multi-family dwelling.<\/p>\n
\nMost of Europe is already dealing with a depressed economy and threats of widespread labor strikes. The war in Ukraine, combined with the self-inflicted energy crisis has created even more angst in many European nations. But now, European Union leaders are openly speaking out about another threat that they are facing and it’s coming from Washington, not Moscow. Several European leaders have expressed concerns and “disappointment” over the possibility that their economies will be further depressed (if not collapsed) as a result of Joe Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act.” Any drive to put “America first,” in terms of manufacturing, particularly in the energy sector and the automotive and computer chip markets, means that Europe will be “second,” if not further down in the pecking order. One EU leader complained this week that they already have a shooting war on their doorstep and the last thing they need is a trade war with America.<\/p>\n
\nThe pushback against ESG steps into high gear with hearing at the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs.<\/p>\n
\nWill Janet Yellen continue promoting this economy as “back on track” even after this Census Department report on retail sales? If so, perhaps we need to know which track the Treasury Secretary has in mind, and where it leads. Based on the nearly two-point reversal from October \u2014 before adjusting for inflation \u2014 it looks like the Last Train to Darksville<\/p>\n<\/a>International<\/h1>\n
\nThe British government is collaborating to build the world’s first-ever space battery powered by the element Americium-241.<\/p>\n
\nPerhaps as many as 90% of China’s 1.41 billion people will come down with COVID-19, said Feng Zijian, former deputy chief of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, to Bloomberg News. Feng predicts 60% of the population will be infected in the first wave.<\/p>\n
\nThe European Union is a liberal’s dream: no pesky national sovereignty, an attenuated democracy, a government of, by, and for self-appointed elites. Just what America’s liberals aspire to. How could it go wrong?<\/p>\n
\nEarlier this fall, census data revealed that households in New Brunswick earned less than all other Canadian provinces in 2020. And now, findings from a recent study reveal some glaring disparities between New Brunswick and New England states including Maine.<\/p>\n
\nAs you may remember, Peru has a new president. A few days ago, President Pedro Castillo was impeached and arrested and VP Dina Boluarte moved up to the presidency. It was orderly but dramatic. Up in Mexico, President Andres Lopez-Obrador, a man who thinks that he has to stick his nose in everything, told Marcelo Embrard, Mexican Foreign Secretary, to have his ambassador in Lima visit with the disgraced president and discuss political asylum in Mexico. Talk about putting the cart before the horse.<\/p>\n
\nThe European Union supposedly respects “subsidiarity” (the European version of federalism), in which law and policy decisions are supposedly made at the lowest feasible level. <\/p>\n
\nNot for reasons related to Ukraine<\/p>\n
\nA woman in Norway is facing criminal charges and a possible prison sentence of up to three years for stating that men can not be lesbians. Tonje Gjevjon, a lesbian artist, was notified on November 17 that she was under police investigation for hate speech over a statement she posted to Facebook.<\/p>\n<\/a>Opinion<\/h1>\n
\nAmericans are having a huge fight over the meaning of free speech. On the one hand there are sane people who believe the old adage “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me,” and on the other hand there are the people who claim that any criticism directed at the “right” sort of people is violence and should be suppressed and\/or punished.<\/p>\n