News of the Week for Oct. 29^th, 2017

• Gun Rights
• Hide the Decline
• Obamacare
• War & Terror
• National News
• Economy & Taxes
• International News
• Opinion

 

Gun Rights

 

Rosen-backed gun control bill goes too far
It was entirely predictable that Democrats would use the horrific Las Vegas Strip shooting to renew their push for gun control. It was also entirely predictable that they would go too far.

Good guy with a gun stops kidnapping
It was habit, not heroism, that caused Justin Pearson to grab his gun.

 

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

California Governor Vows to Sue Trump Over Climate Change
California Gov. Jerry Brown plans to use what he calls a Republican tactic and sue the Trump administration over President Donald Trump’s climate change policies.

California Governor Vows to Sue Trump Over Climate Change
California Gov. Jerry Brown plans to use what he calls a Republican tactic and sue the Trump administration over President Donald Trump’s climate change policies.

Man with Down Syndrome Justifies Life
Imagine feeling the need to justify your existence before a Congressional sub committee.

 

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

The Right Prescription
A Repeal Bill That Even the GOP Can Pass

NHS pressured our kids to change sex
Transgender backlash as desperate parents accuse overzealous therapists of ‘blindly accepting’ children’s claims to have been born in wrong body

 

War & Terror

 

Honduran Citizen Plotted to Blow Up Miami Mall in the Name of ISIS
“The United States is the most terrorist country of all. I am going to plant a bomb.”

5 Ways the U.S. Navy Could Become Totally Obsolete (And Lose the Next Big War)
The U.S. Navy is a victim of America’s success. Thanks to America’s global network of interests and alliances, the Navy’s area of responsibility is for all intents and purposes the entire planet, with very few bodies of water off limits. From the Black Sea to the Yellow Sea, the Navy is expected to show the flag—or fight—around the world.

 

National

 

The Obama Administration’s Uranium One Scandal
Not only the Clintons are implicated in a uranium deal with the Russians that compromised national-security interests.

Scientists may have found a cause of dyslexia
A duo of French scientists said Wednesday they may have found a physiological, and seemingly treatable, cause for dyslexia hidden in tiny light-receptor cells in the human eye.

Catholic University May Disband Student Group for Holding Catholic Beliefs
A Catholic student group at Georgetown University is being threatened with defunding and becoming unrecognized as official after students at the college labeled them a “hate group” for stating their belief in traditional marriage.

Intersectional Feminist Dog Training
I’ve been giving this formerly regular feature a rest because I thought I was running it into the ground, and after a while every crazypants journal article starts to sound the same. But once and a while a new article comes along that truly breaks new ground. Such as this one, appearing in the current issue of the journal Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience (I never heard of it either).

Having fled Cuba, campus speaker warns Democrat Party hijacked by “socialist, communist movement”
Rafael Dagnesses was born in Cuba in 1965, and fled the communist country as a young boy with his family after Fidel Castro executed many of his adopted grandfather’s military comrades.

Anti-Shapiro student: Constitution not relevant
Ben Shapiro has been a target of numerous protests in recent months, with college students frequently accusing the conservative Jewish commentator of fueling fascist rhetoric, discrimination, and systematic racism.

Students accused of “hatred” for defending traditional marriage
Leaders of the Georgetown University “Pride” student group are demanding that student government cut all funding and benefits for Love Saxa, a pro-traditional marriage group.

Feminist prof says ‘traditional science’ is rooted in racism
A feminist professor at the University of California-Davis has vowed to “challenge the authority of Science” by “rewriting knowledge” through a feminist lens.

Student gov mandates diversity training for members
By a 33-3 margin, the Wichita State University student government recently passed a bill mandating that all members complete six one-hour trainings on issues like diversity and microaggressions.

Prof: Algebra, geometry perpetuate white privilege
Gutierrez worries that algebra and geometry perpetuate privilege because “emphasizing terms like Pythagorean theorem and pi” give the impression that math “was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans.”

Sen. Jeff Flake announces retirement with fiery speech
Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, who has sparred frequently with President Donald Trump, will not run for re-election, he said as part of a blistering floor speech bemoaning the changing tenor of politics in the United States.

Flake Retiring; McConnell-Allied PAC Vows to Keep Bannon Pick Out
The GOP senator who wrote a scathing critique of the Trump era and was being targeted in a Bannon-backed primary challenged will retire instead of facing re-election.

GOP Arizona Sen. Flake Will Not Seek Re-Election in 2018
“Mr. President, I rise today to say ‘enough.'”

Weinstein Company Hit with Subpoena
Another indication that the Harvey Weinstein scandal isn’t going away: namesake firm The Weinstein Company (TWC) has been issued a subpoena by New York’s attorney general Eric Schneiderman.

The Sexual Harassment Bonfire Continues in the Wake of the Weinstein Scandal
Famed fashion photographer Terry Richardson has been banned from working for Condé Nast publications including Vogue, GQ and Vanity Fair. Richardson “has been dogged for years by allegations of sexual exploitation of models,” according to the Telegraph.

CCSD superintendent bans Trustee Child from school property
Clark County School District Superintendent Pat Skorkowksy says he is banning Trustee Kevin Child from district property and directing staff to call police if he shows up. He says he took the action after Child repeatedly ignored the restrictions Skorkowsky put in place for visiting schools and staff.

The Next Big Hollywood Sex Scandal is Already Breaking…at Nickelodeon
The Harvey Weinstein scandal may have opened up a whole can of worms for Hollywood, but (to employ another metaphor) that is just the tip of the iceberg. The scandal is due to crack wide open any day now, and it’s not another Weinstein tale. It’s worse.

School Has XXX Party with Sex Toy Party Favors – for Kids as Young as 11
Last Wednesday, a dance teacher at a PreK-12 charter school in South Florida hosted a sex-themed birthday party – complete with all kinds of sex toys – for a male student. She has since been fired, although parents reported their kids were traumatized.

California Tried to Seize Millions of This Inventor;s Fortune. He Fought Back. And Won.
Gilbert Hyatt’s 25-year legal battle is a story of greed, harassment, anti-semitism, and the abuse of power.

Recall effort against Calif. state Sen. Josh Newman still on track after too few voters request to remove their names from petitions Patrick McGreevy
Of the more than 70,600 voters who signed petitions to hold a recall vote on state Sen. Josh Newman of Fullerton, only 849 asked that their signatures be withdrawn by the deadline, clearing a major hurdle for an election on whether to oust the Democratic lawmaker, officials said Tuesday.

Clinton Campaign and DNC Helped Fund that Infamous Trump Dossier
Making the click-through worthwhile: Hillary Clinton and the Democrats helped pay for the infamous Trump dossier; DNC chairman Tom Perez denounces Senator Jeff Flake, creating a disincentive for anti-Trump Republicans; Flake glides over the fact that Trump is only feeding the American appetite for scapegoats; and a long look at Nighthawks, a painting for our pensive national mood.

5 Potential Conservative Replacements for Sen. Jeff Flake
On Tuesday, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) announced he would not run for re-election in 2018. The Senate Leadership Fund super PAC announced it would not support the current frontrunner, state Sen. Kelli Ward.

Campaign Aides For Jeff Flake’s Primary Challenger Apologize Profusely For Ever Supporting Her
Two prominent staffers on Arizona Republican Kelli Ward’s primary campaign against sitting Sen. Jeff Flake have officially issued an apology to everyone in the state for helping to legitimize Ward as a serious political candidate.

Department of Justice files statement of interest in FIRE lawsuit
The Department of Justice on Tuesday filed a statement of interest in a California student’s lawsuit against his college’s free speech zone policies.

Las Vegas shooter’s laptop missing its hard drive
A laptop computer recovered from the Las Vegas hotel room where Stephen Paddock launched the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was missing its hard drive, depriving investigators of a potential key source of information on why he killed and maimed so many people, ABC News has learned.

Down the memory hole: ACLU removes support for campus free speech from statement
No longer willing to say “disruption” is not constitutionally protected

Neil DeGrasse Tyson Accused of Raping a Former Student
I am only reporting allegations, and not encouraging anyone to presume Tyson’s guilt. In fact, I firmly believe that a person is innocent until proven guilty, and this is no exception. I am only delivering the relevant information from the perspectives of the parties involved.

Trump to bypass U.N. and send aid directly to persecuted Christians in Middle East
Will work with faith-based groups and private organizations

“Smoking gun” email reveals Obama DOJ blocked conservative groups from settlement funds, GOP lawmaker says
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee claims he obtained a “smoking gun” email that proves the Obama Justice Department prevented settlement payouts from going to conservative-leaning organizations, even as liberal groups were awarded money and DOJ officials denied “picking and choosing” recipients.

Sessions Highlights 2 Most Vital Liberties Justice Department Will Aim to Protect
Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke about the accomplishments of the Justice Department and its new direction in a speech at The Heritage Foundation on Thursday.

USC professor defends tweet promoting violence against whiteness
A University of Southern California professor says he stands behind his tweets that include obscenities directed toward President Donald Trump, calls for whiteness to be “destroyed,” and the promotion of violence against the “white supremacist heterosexist patriarchy.”

Yale “decolonizes” English dept. after complaints studying white authors “actively harms” students
English majors no longer required to take class focused on Chaucer, Shakespeare

Horseshoeing school sues California for ban on teaching students without high school diploma
California really doesn’t want people with less education to have a bright economic future.

The Free Beacon was Fusion GPS’ “Republican client”
Since the Washington Post revealed Tuesday that the DNC and the Clinton campaign funded the Russia dossier there have been questions about who the prior funder of Fusion GPS’ oppo-research was.

Don’t Be Shocked By The Naked Contempt Conservative Media Will Show The Free Beacon
With last night’s revelations that the Washington Free Beacon paid Fusion GPS for opposition research against Republican candidates, including Donald Trump, there is a very visible, and very stupid, backlash against a publication which has gone out of its way over the years to provide both the best anti-Clinton coverage and the best support of conservatism.

Reese Witherspoon’s Neighborhood Papered With Street Art Ahead of Political Fundraiser
An artist known as Sabo created door hangers mocking California gubernatorial hopeful Gavin Newsom for his perceived sexual foibles and hung them on 300 houses in a Westside neighborhood.

Newsweek: What’s Up With All These Loudmouth Conservative Irish-Americans?
“This can’t be accidental.”

Progressives Are Now Arguing that the First Amendment Is Profoundly Limited on College Campuses
Here’s why they’re wrong.

Authorities put brakes on information flow in Las Vegas shooting
Fifty-eight people killed. More than 500 injured. And yet, nearly a month after the Las Vegas Strip experienced the worst mass shooting in modern American history, local and federal authorities are refusing to fill in the blanks.

Mysterious object from deep space has entered the solar system
It was first seen just a month ago. A tiny blip of light was seen to be moving through the sky by the PanSTARRS1 telescope in Hawaii.

College’s “deconstruct masculinity” program doubles in size
Northwestern University will begin offering two installments of its “NU Men” program in an effort to help more men talk “about emotions” and the “patriarchy.”

Jail time for HIV transmission
The Ohio state supreme court has handed down a ruling which will likely wind up at the Supreme Court one of these days. The court found that a law allowing jail time for an HIV positive person who has sexual intercourse with someone else without informing them of their status was constitutional. I had been vaguely aware that this was going on, but not of the extent. (It turns out that 34 states have some version of this law on the books and more than 300 people have been charged under them.)

Astronomers discover sunscreen snow falling on hot exoplanet
Astronomers at Penn State have used the Hubble Space Telescope to find a blistering-hot giant planet outside our solar system where the atmosphere “snows” titanium dioxide – the active ingredient in sunscreen. These Hubble observations are the first detections of this “snow-out” process, called a “cold trap,” on an exoplanet. This discovery, and other observations made by the Penn State team, provide insight into the complexity of weather and atmospheric composition on exoplanets, and may someday be useful for gauging the habitability of Earth-size planets.

 

Economy & Taxes

 

A punter’s guide to a true but non-obvious proposition in economics
The great mathematician Stanislav Ulam challenged the great economist Paul Samuelson to name a principle in the social sciences that was both true and non-obvious. I suppose Ulam’s standard for true and non-obvious was something like the Goldbach Conjecture, that every even number is the sum of two prime numbers, and every odd number the sum of three primes. Samuelson thought for a bit, and replied, “Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage”. “That this idea is logically true”, he continued, “need not be argued before a mathematician; that it is not trivial is attested by the thousands of important and intelligent men [and even women, dear] who have never been able to grasp the doctrine for themselves or to believe it after it was explained to them”.

NAFTA negotiations “going very badly,” Stephen Harper writes in memo blasting Trudeau government
Officials in Ottawa accused Harper of essentially negotiating in public — against the government of Canada, and called the memo ill-timed and perplexing

 

International

 

Venezuelans use bitcoin ‘mining’ to escape inflation
Inside a locked room in an office building in Caracas, 20 humming computers use their data-crunching power to mine bitcoins, an increasingly popular tool in the fight against Venezuela’s hyperinflation.

Multiple injuries ‘after man goes on rampage with an axe’ in village in Switzerland
Witnesses have claimed a number of shots were fired by police in Flums, in the east of the country

EU parliament revealed as “hotbed of sexual harassment” after women accuse politicians of indecent exposure, stalking and being “treated like meat”
After the Harvey Weinstein scandal engulfed Hollywood, now workers in Brussels say there is a problem at the heart of the European Union too

New Zealand’s incoming Labour prime minister appears to be some kind of insane person.
According to Jacinda Ardern, capitalism is a “blatant failure” and New Zealand has “the worst homelessness in the developed world”

What Japan’s Election Outcome Means for the US, East Asia
From a distant American viewpoint, the Japanese election on Sunday was much ado about nothing.

Why we in the West should tremble at the crowning of the new Mao
President Xi is ruthless in his determination to return China to greatness

Chinese Young People Are Rejecting Communist Party Propaganda and the Government Is Freaking Out
Young people in China are rejecting Communist party propaganda for Western-style movie stars and celebrity culture – that’s the lesson behind the box office flop of a series big budget propaganda films according to observers.

Sex robot inventor says he will soon have ‘children’ with his creations
Sergi Santos, sex robot inventor, says he will soon have a child with his robot Samantha.

Cambridge University may be forced to ‘decolonise’ its English literature course and put more emphasis on ethnic authors after student demands
Professors being asked to ‘ensure the presence’ of BME writers on their courses

Britain’s Tories: From Edmund Burke to Burke & Hare
To be fair, May is not actually advocating that people be killed for their kidneys (but the whole Burke/Burke & Hare thing was too tempting to pass up).

Catalonia’s Parliament Votes to Declare Independence From Spain
The crisis in Spain is set to worsen now that Catalonia’s Parliament has voted in favor of declaring independence from Madrid. Parliament’s speaker has announced that 70 MPs voted in favor of declaring independence, with 10 votes against. Two blank ballots were also counted.

Pressure Builds on Venezuela With Big Payments Due This Week
More than $2 billion in bond payments are due over the next several days from oil-rich, cash-strapped country

Russian ambassadors: “next we’ll take Catalonia, Venice, Scotland and Alaska”
Unauthenticated, expletive-laden recording of pair joking about which countries to annex after Crimea is leaked online

Finland preparing to go against Spain and RECOGNISE Catalonia’s independence
FINLAND could be the first country to officially recognise Catalonia as a republic state, in a move that would put the Scandinavian country in direct opposition to the European Union (EU).

The Maduro regime has more global, socialist support than you think
The overthrow of what used to pass for democracy in Venezuela (such as it was) is now complete. The opposition party in that country has been effectively ousted from any legislative power and Nicolas Maduro has established himself as a tyrant in complete control of the country. Those who dare to speak out against him are quickly tossed into prisons or simply disappear. Any protests in the streets are quickly put down by armed militias supporting the ruling party. But aside from some individual sanctions by the United States and a few other half-hearted measures in Europe, not much is being done about it.

Catalonia: We’re free! Madrid: No, you’re fired
As Ed reported yesterday, Catalonia took the final step of formally declaring their independence on Friday. This led to all sorts of cheering in the streets of that region of Spain, but the jubilation is likely to be short-lived. Less than 24 hours later, Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy was given permission by the legislature to invoke a rare constitutional measure and dissolve the government of the autonomous region and discharge all of their elected leaders.

Catalonia Declares Independence From Spain, Madrid Imposes Direct Rule
Spanish prime minister dissolved Catalan parliament after emergency Cabinet meeting.

 

Opinion

 

We Corrupt Our Children But Turn Our College Students Into Babies. That’s Horrifying.
In our society, we expect our children to be adults but our adults to be children. We protect college students from opposing ideas but we make no effort to protect elementary school students from all manner of perversion and deviancy. We provide safe spaces at universities but not kindergarten classrooms. We’ve determined that our kids are capable of choosing their own gender by the age of 3, but not capable of living on their own or paying for their own health care at the age of 25. We demand that our 5-year-olds be eighteen so that our 18-year-olds can be five. We expose when we should shield and shield when we should expose. We have everything inside out and backwards, and the result is a country filled with inside out and backwards people.

Is STAR TREK DISCOVERY guilty of plagiarizing the Tardigrade?
In November 2014, Anas Abdin released TARDIGRADES on the Steam Greenlight, and nearly 3 years later his core idea of using the micro-animal as a form of intergalactic space travel is being used on CBS All Access’s STAR TREK DISCOVERY. This leads us to ask if someone on the show stole the idea, or its a happy coincidence.

The assault on academic freedom at UCLA
Over the past few years, UCLA has lost four prominent scholars: James Enstrom, Keith Fink, Val Rust and Tim Groseclose.

“Progressive Stack” racial/gender speaker hierarchy an Occupy Wall Street legacy
That U. Penn Teaching Assistant is not the problem, she’s the symptom of a greater rot in the progressive movement and academia

Corporation Promotes Lesbian Feminist Slogan Expressing Anti-Male Rage
“The Future Is Female” originated in the extreme fringe of the lesbian separatist movement of the 1970s. By the time Alix Dobkin was photographed wearing this slogan on a T-shirt – promoting a feminist bookstore in New York – the so-called Women’s Liberation Movement that arose in the late 1960s had burned out and fragmented. Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, however. In the aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s defeat, Third Wave feminists have repeated the error of their predecessors, doubling-down on their anti-male rhetoric and hurling accusations of “misogyny” at anyone who criticizes them.

Liberals Claim Electoral College Is Biased. Here Are the Facts.
In 1824, Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams were both members of the same political party. But in every other election with a discrepancy between the electoral and popular votes, the losing candidate has been the Democrat.

Trump’s Idiot Svengali, Steve Bannon, Is Going To Make Things More Difficult For Trump
Steve Bannon purportedly told somebody he’s a Leninist. His goal is burning it all down – in this case, the dreaded Republican “establishment.” Bannon and his ilk at Breitbart have decided that their number one enemy of the Trump/Bannon agenda is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Sorry, Cosmopolitan. Dressing As Moana For Halloween Isn’t Offensive.
Mag claims Disney princess costume is “racially insensitive.”

What the Left Hopes to Achieve by Attacking the Founders
Our nation’s leftist progressives have long sought to undermine the American values expressed in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

Fusion GPS Illuminates the Brave New World of Manufactured News for Hire
Donald Trump, Jr. appears to be the latest figure in President Donald Trump’s inner circle to be caught in the giant web of the Great Kremlin Conspiracy. Trump the younger said he was promised dirt on Hillary Clinton, but that all he got in his June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer was an earful about dropping the Magnitsky Act, which sanctions Russian officials involved in the death of a Russian lawyer who was killed in detention.

The left-wing effort to drag the Russia dossier before the public
Over at the Federalist, Mollie Hemingway has a primer of sorts on the Steele Dossier which is aimed at clarifying some of the facts around the document. I was particularly struck by point #8 which is a bit more speculative than the rest/

The Case of @radicalbytes and the Suspiciously “Progressive” Male
In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, “male feminists” everywhere are understandably nervous, wondering if one of their ex-girlfriends or female acquaintances might be the next to jump on the #MeToo hashtag and accuse them of harassment or sexual assault.

The Worst Kept Secret in Hollywood is also in CA’s Capitol
Sexual harassment is apparently a problem in California’s State Capitol, despite voluminous binders of sexual harassment rules and training guides. However, the “casting couch” is used in many industries besides Hollywood, and especially in politics.

Top Democrat Wrongly Asserts Electoral College Isn’t in Constitution
The head of the national Democratic Party incorrectly said the Electoral College is not “a creation of the Constitution.”

All your masculinity belongs to us.
Jonathan McIntosh is a self-proclaimed male feminist. He was Anita Sarkeesian’s partner in her feminist frequency project until he mysteriously departed. As Robert McCain notes, male feminists do seem to have a somewhat uncomfortable history of turning out to be sexual predators.

Does the ACT Test have a slight Leftist, internationalist flavor?
Working with one of my kids on ACT Test practice exams, I noticed that the essays in those exams seem to be oriented away from traditional Americanism.

How Churches Die
There’s a saying attributed variously to Robert Conquest or John O’Sullivan that “any institution that is not explicitly right-wing will become left-wing over time.” A good case in point is the Episcopal Church, which was once known as “the Republican Party at prayer,” but which has for the last several decades fallen in line behind every politically correct enthusiasm of the left.

Never Talk to @NicoleStamp (and Other Advice for Men Confused by Feminism)
Nicole Stamp is a Canadian queer feminist who has been marching in gay pride parades since she was a teenager. She is currently appearing in the lesbian TV series Carmilla. To put it as bluntly as possible, if you are male, the smart thing to do is to avoid Nicole Stamp completely (as if you needed another reason to stay away from Canada).

Against Helicopter Parenting: A Story
Lenore Skenazy (of Free Range Kids) and Jonathan Haidt (Of Heterodox Academy and also previously appearing on this blog) have the Cover Article on an upcoming edition of Reason Magazine.