News of the Week for July 8^th, 2018

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

 

Gun Rights

 

The Ten Dumbest Things I Heard About Guns At The United Nations
For the past two weeks, I’ve been attending the Third U.N. Conference to Review Progress Made in the Implementation of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects – mercifully abbreviated as RevCon 3 for the PoA.

More People Use a Gun in Self-Defense Each Year Than Die in Car Accidents
How is it that so many kids raised on “Harry Potter”, “The Hunger Games”, “Star Wars”, and all the Marvel action figure movies manage to miss a critical point of the stories? The lesson being: If you want to prevail over evil villains, you must have the proper tools to fight back.

 

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Quiet Sun: More than 3 months without a sunspot
“The Belgian department of solar physics research (SIDC) says we are about to touch 100; that is, a hundred days in which we do not see spots on our sun,” says Italian meteorologist Dr Carlo Testa.

Seattle becomes first major U.S. city to ban straws
In one fell sip, Seattle on Sunday became the first major U.S. city to ban drinking straws, an environmentally friendly move that leaders hope will spark a nationwide conversation about small, everyday changes that people can make to protect the planet.

Seattle bans plastic straws, utensils, becoming first major US city to do so
Seattle has officially become the first major U.S. city to ban restaurants from giving plastic straws and utensils to customers in an effort to help the environment.

Course combines feminist concerns with environmental activism
Portland State University is offering a course this fall on “Ecofeminist Spirituality,” which combines “feminist biblical interpretation” with the idea that “the oppression of women and the exploitation of the earth are related.”

 

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Indian Leader Rushes to Insure 500 Million Indians Before Election
Modi’s government says it needs help from the private sector to expand access to coverage.

From the ACA Bargain Bin
This is a great point: imagine how much more efficient and effective health care financing and delivery could be if instead of throwing all this cash at a few, selected carriers offering “one size fits all” (or none) policies, folks could choose the plan they want (if any), including Direct Primary Care and other options like true catastrophic pans.

 

War & Terror

 

Police arrest man who threatened to “chop up” Rand Paul’s family with an ax
This morning, Sen. Rand Paul thanked Capitol Hill police for arresting a man who threatened to chop up his family with an ax

The Sino-Mexican Influence in America’s Backyard
After receiving approval this past week, the Bank of China will become the second Chinese-owned financial institution with a presence in Mexico after the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) began operations in June 2016. The Bank of China — Mexico and ICBC (Mexico) both state their strategic purpose as providing comprehensive financial services to support Chinese (largely state owned) enterprises operating in Mexico, which are expanding at a rate that should cause alarm within the national security community.

Report: Trump Considered Invading Venezuela in 2017
We all know that President Trump considers plenty of unusual ideas, but sources are now reporting that he floated one trial balloon that could have carried some hefty consequences with it.

 

National

 

How Potential SCOTUS Pick Brett Kavanaugh Wrote A Roadmap For Saving Obamacare
Which is worse: An unelected judge opining on how a mandate to purchase a product could meet constitutional muster, or giving Congress instructions on how to ensure it will? Kavanaugh did both.

Tech’s “Dirty Secret”: The App Developers Sifting Through Your Gmail
Software developers scan hundreds of millions of emails of users who sign up for email-based services

’20 pounds of human waste’ dropped on San Francisco street corner
A foul odor permeated from a massive bag of human excrement sludge left on a street corner in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district Saturday.

Quinnipiac: If Democrats retake the House this fall, they’ll have women to thank
Just passing along the poll all of the data nerds on Twitter were oohing and ahhing over this afternoon. This is *some* gender gap. You could fly a 747 through this chasm with room to spare on either side for a puddlejumper or two.

Bisexual “Gender-Fluid” 7th-Grader Leads Pride March in Maryland Capital
Recent news you might have missed: In steamy, rainy conditions Tuesday afternoon [June 19], a cluster of rainbows made its way through Annapolis. The city’s first official pride celebration – a walk from City Hall to the Loews Annapolis Hotel – started with a seventh-grader. Twelve-year-old Claire Drapeau has been out as bisexual since she was in fifth-grade at Crofton Middle School. This year after telling friends, family and classmates she also identifies as gender-fluid, Drapeau wanted to join in on a pride celebration. Instead of taking a trip to D.C. Pride as she planned, Drapeau told her mom she just wanted to walk around downtown Annapolis waving her rainbow flag and handing out stickers, which she saved up to buy herself.

Trump Rescinds Obama’s “Affirmative Action” Guidance
The Wall Street Journal and New York Times are both reporting that the Trump administration will be rescinding Obama-era guidance on the use of race and ethnicity in student admissions (higher education) and assignments (K–12).

The Center for American Progress Invents a Decision by Amy Coney Barrett
Having begun the process by spreading Infowars-level conspiracy theories regarding the resignation of Anthony Kennedy, the Center for American Progress has now moved on to brazenly lying about the judicial record of one of the frontrunners to replace him, Amy Coney Barrett.

Prof claims Hispanic students perpetuate “colorblind racism”
A Michigan State University sociology professor claims that the “abstract liberalism” of many Latino and Latina college students serves to reinforce “colorblind racism.”

Another little spacecraft that could: Dawn’s photos reveal distant secrets
The robot interplanetary space explorers of NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have turned the remarkable into the routine again. Now come new photos from the Dawn spacecraft that’s been flying around out there for 11 (!!) years.

Abortion Crazies Flood Susan Collins’ Office With Coat Hangers
“Sent mine. You sent yours?”

Trump Interviews 7 Supreme Court Candidates, Including Mike Lee
President Trump has interviewed seven potential candidates as he looks to quickly fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Land of the 86 Percent Free
Charles Cooke points out that a global panel of experts has ranked the United States among the bottom 10 nations worldwide for its treatment of women. International rankings depend heavily on the biases of the “experts,” of course, and they all love to dump on the U.S., though not always so flagrantly. Another example of this tendency is the annual “Freedom in the World” survey conducted by Freedom House (which was discussed in these pages earlier this year). In this survey, the U.S. is considered “Free,” but it lags most of its peers in that category with a so-so rating of 86 out of 100. Canada, by contrast, gets a 99, falling short only for its mildly deficient treatment of indigenous peoples. The Canucks receive perfect marks for free speech (which some might dispute), and the section on Canadian academic freedom reads, in its entirety, “Academic freedom is generally respected” (ditto).

Scarlett Johansson faces casting backlash, this time for playing a transgender man
Scarlett Johansson is again at the center of a casting controversy, this time for accepting a role to play a transgender man.

School District Refuses To Permit Parents To See LGBT Videos Students Were Forced To Watch
In a Pennsylvania school district, after roughly 2,800 students were forced to watch LGBT videos during LGBT “Unity Week” in April, parents and conservative activists asked the district to provide links to the videos so they could see what their children had watched.

“Teaching Handbook” preps profs to counter “benevolent sexism”
Western Washington University offers a “Teaching Handbook” that teaches professors how to foster “inclusive” classroom environments with strategies like “interrupting microaggressions.”

Potential Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh Has A Troubling Record On Religious Liberty
If Kavanaugh’s views were adopted by other courts, then other frivolous claims attacking religion in the public square would have a better chance of being heard in federal courts.

Facebook Flagged The Declaration Of Independence As Hate Speech
Facebook flagged a post from a local news outlet sharing a portion of the Declaration of Independence as hate speech.

Calif. Bill Would Limit What Pastors Can Say about Homosexuality
A California bill that that targets so-called “conversation therapy” for gays could have major consequences for religious liberty and even impact what pastors can say at conferences and in certain sermons, legal experts are warning.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has Resigned
Pruitt wrote: “However, the unrelenting attacks on me personally [and] my family, are unprecedented and have taken a sizable toll on all of us.”

McAdams defeats Marquette in WI Supreme Court
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of professor John McAdams, arguing that Marquette University “breached its contract with Dr. McAdams when it suspended him for engaging in activity protected by…guarantee of academic freedom.”

Incredibly rude nearby star system is firing particles at Earth like a “cosmic ray gun”
Our Sun is obviously the most intense place in our Solar System, but it’s actually pretty chill when compared to many other systems. Eta Carinae, for example, is a binary star system that sits around 7,500 light years from Earth, and it’s so incredibly extreme that when it fires cosmic rays off into space they actually manage to reach us here on Earth.

Supreme Court Fallout: Calif. Teachers Sue Unions to Recoup Unconstitutional ‘Agency Fees’
Justice is coming for unions that forced non-members to pay “non-political” agency fees that went to prop up Democratic candidates. Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that forcing workers who disagree with a union to make these payments anyway violates the workers’ First Amendment rights.

Cook Report shifts GOP Rep. Dave Brat’s Virginia District to Toss-Up From Lean Republican
“The Quinnipiac poll found that by a margin of 53% to 39%, Virginians want Democrats controlling the House.”

 

Economy & Taxes

 

It’s on: US, China tariffs take effect in new trade war
Is it Smoot-Hawley II, or an economic liberation? Both the US and China imposed punitive tariffs on each other’s exports today in what Beijing calls “the biggest trade war in economic history.” After a good jobs report this morning, the battle for market access and intellectual-property protection threatens to darken the economy just ahead of the midterm elections

 

International

 

Mexican leftist Lopez Obrador wins presidency
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador decisively won Mexico’s presidency on Sunday, exit polls showed, setting the stage for the most left-wing government in decades at a time of tense relations with the Trump administration.

Europe Is Dying, New Book Warns, And The Consequences Could Be Dire For The West
Europe has shown itself unable or unwilling ‘to reproduce itself, fight for itself or even take its own side in an argument.’

Turkish Gay Pride marchers clash with riot police in Istanbul as hundreds run from tear gas terror after annual parade is banned by pious rulers for the fourth year in a row
LGBTI activists defied a ban to gather for a Pride March in Istanbul on Sunday

Leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador Wins Mexican Presidency in a Landslide
His leftist party also won the majority in Mexico’s congress.

Venezuela’s inflation hits more than 40,000% as everyone dumps its currency ‘like a hot potato’
Some economists say the economy will continue to spiral as long as Maduro holds power.

Angela Merkel on brink as interior minister Seehofer says he will resign over migrant deal
Germany’s interior minister dramatically announced plans to resign on Sunday night, after a heated showdown with chancellor Angela Merkel over migration.

Girls are banned from wearing skirts at 40 secondaries across England as schools opt for gender-neutral uniforms to cater for transgender pupils
Schools are requiring boys and girls to wear trousers in gender-neutral uniforms

Nicaragua’s bloodshed is worse than Venezuela’s. Where’s the international uproar?
Maybe it’s because many of us are glued to the television watching the World Cup, or focused on President Trump’s latest lies about asylum seekers, but the bloodshed in Nicaragua – where more than 220 people have been killed in recent protests – should get much more international attention.

Aum Shinrikyo: Japan executes cult leader Shoko Asahara
The leader of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult which carried out a deadly nerve gas attack on the Tokyo underground in 1995 has been executed.

Salvaging Brexit
Britain’s long-running crisis-cum-soap-opera over Brexit may be reaching its denouement today at Chequers, the prime minister’s country house, where the full cabinet is locked in a final debate on whether or not to accept Theresa May’s proposed terms for leaving the European Union. And “locked in” is the appropriate phrase. Ministers have had to surrender their cell phones on arrival; they have been told to expect the meeting to continue until 10.00 p.m.; and a Downing Street flack briefed the media that any minister who resigns will lose his official car straight away and have to walk three-quarters of a mile down the drive to pick up a taxi home.

 

Opinion

 

Who’s afraid of the 1st Amendment?
Justice Elena Kagan kicks off a firestorm about “weaponizing” Free Speech

Is Progressive Ideology Incompatible With The First Amendment?
Those who believe the state is better than the market at allocating resources will have the same attitude toward the marketplace of ideas.

The Left Celebrates July 4 By Denouncing The First Amendment
It is not news that the Left wants to shut us up. But now the leading publication of the mainstream Left is openly coming out against the First Amendment.

San Francisco is Becoming the Model Progressive City and it’s Sad
“half of San Francisco Bay Area voters plan to leave the region in the next few years

Canada’s Supreme Court Relegates Religious Beliefs to Second-Tier Status. America, Be Warned.
Canada’s Supreme Court recently ruled 7-2 against Trinity Western University, prioritizing sexual orientation over the free exercise of religion. This ruling should serve as a warning flag to U.S. citizens.

Eliminating Identity Politics From the Schools and the US Census
Indeed, we think that the administration should stop collecting data, including in the Census, on artificially created ethnic groups, such as “Hispanics” or “Asians,” which bring together under large umbrellas disparate cultures and races. That would really cut identity politics off life support.

Among the Many Things Colleges Neglect to Teach: Freedom
Examine the course offerings at most of our colleges and universities and you will see an abundance of them hectoring students about all the real and imagined evils of America. On the other hand, you will pretty much look in vain for any that are dedicated to the Founding and our framework for liberty.

Evan Rachel Wood Doesn’t Get Why the ‘White MEN’ in the Room Rejected Her Movie Pitch
Actress Evan Rachel Wood has a project idea. In Hollywood, this isn’t unusual. Actors often have ideas they pitch, usually with themselves involved in a creative way. Sometimes they’re accepted, sometimes they aren’t. Hollywood execs, it seems, aren’t interested in just accepting a pitch because a fairly well-known actor is behind it.

Asian Americans Are The Tipping Point For Rejecting Affirmative Action
Progressives refuse to address the disproportionate harm done to Asian students by affirmative action policies. But everyone else is waking up to it.

SJW Self-Destructs
Jessica Price was working for ArenaNet, a videogame company that produces Guild Wars. Like other videogame companies, ArenaNet has partnerships with some players who help promote their products online. One of ArenaNet’s partners is a Danish player who goes by the handle “Deroir,” who has a YouTube channel. So, Price posted a thread on Twitter about character development in role-playing games, to which Deroir responded with his own thoughts, and Price totally lost it.

The College Bubble Begins to Deflate
Not so long ago, the conventional wisdom in America was that just about everyone needed a college degree. Never mind that many students learned little of value and racked up big debts – unless you got a “college education,” your life would be nothing but drudgery.

How Socialism Can Ruin Your Life
In America, especially on the Left, socialism has begun to rehabilitate its well-deserved horrible reputation. In a poll last year, 37 percent of all Americans and 54 percent of liberals preferred socialism to capitalism. Another poll from last year had 44 percent of millennials saying they prefer to live in a socialist society while only 42 percent prefer to live in a capitalist society.

No, Ocasio-Cortez Won’t Be Another Obama — Unless Republicans Let It Happen
Conservative host John Cardillo and I launched into a friendly Twitter disagreement over the future of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – the milliennial socialist who ousted a 10-term New York Democrat — when he warned Republicans not to underestimate or dismiss her. “We made that mistake with Obama,” he said. I disagreed.

Waiter, There’s a Bloody Mary In My Chicken Dinner
A classic cocktail becomes performance art garnished with sliders, chickens, doughnuts; “How do I attack this?”

Transgenderism is Ideology NOT Science!
Steven Crowder sits down with Dr. Leonard Sax to discuss the real science behind transgenderism, the danger of blurring the gender lines, and the real harm of transgenderism in children.