News of the Week for Dec. 31^st, 2019

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

 

Gun Rights

 

Ahead of Confiscation, Northam Prepares To Start Jailing Gun Owners
Those who don’t comply with the unconstitutional laws may face the National Guard, a threatening possibility one gun-grabbing politician has already made clear.

Virginia Weighs Deploying National Guard to Enforce New Anti-Gun Laws. Things Could Get Ugly.
When Michael Bloomberg flooded Virginia state legislative contests with his anti-gun groups’ cash he got a quid pro quo from victorious Democrats: a near ban of AR-15s and a promise of more anti-gun laws. Now, to make room for all the felons who are predicted to be arrested by cops and the Virginia National Guard, whom the governor has been urged to deploy, Democrats are demanding more money for prison space and law enforcement.

 

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Police ‘waste’ £1.5MILLION on electric cars that they admit are useless for chasing criminals because they ‘can’t go fast enough or far enough without a battery change’
Reports found cars do not meet demands of urgent response or pursuit driving

Sweden: In ten years’ time, the government, the Centre Party and the Liberals want to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.
Today, the government set up an inquiry to look at how to introduce a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030.

San Francisco cafes banishing paper cups to reduce waste
A new cafe culture is brewing in the San Francisco area, where a growing number of coffee houses are banishing paper to-go cups and replacing them with everything from glass jars to rental mugs and BYO cup policies.

Greta Thunberg’s Mother Claims Her Daughter Can “See” CO2
According to her Mother, teen climate activist Greta Thunberg has a “sixth sense” – in this case the ability to actually see carbon dioxide (CO2) molecules floating around in the atmosphere.

Private homeownership interferes with fight against climate change, professor argues
“Expansionist, individualist, and exclusionary patterns of housing”

 

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

(Potentially) Exciting HSA News
Keep in mind that this has been proposed, it is far from law.

 

War & Terror

 

Chinese researcher accused of trying to smuggle vials of “biological material” out of US hidden in a sock
An affidavit from an FBI agent says Zheng Zaosong was detained at Boston Airport after vials containing a “brown liquid” were found in his checked baggage

China Closes The Jet Engine Gap For Its Fighters
Ongoing difficulty in producing a high-quality indigenous jet engine remains a major issue for the PLAAF, for now

Rare Earth Elements – Securing our supply
And it is past time to secure our supply. US Rare Earth Element Processors to Help Break China Stranglehold.

USS McCain: Navy Saved Money with Touch-Screen Controls, Sailors Paid with Their Lives
There’s a scathing report from ProPublica detailing how Navy cost-cutting helped end the lives of ten sailors on the USS John S. McCain in a fatal 2017 collision with a Liberian-flagged tanker. A Navy official told CNN shortly after the deadly incident that “it was unclear why the crew couldn’t use the ship’s backup steering systems to maintain control.” But it might just be the result of the Navy’s money-saving decision to rely on touchscreen controls to pilot the ship, instead of traditional methods.

Turkey Is Blackmailing The US Over Russian Alliance
Turkish President/dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan has kept the United States and the rest of his supposed NATO allies on a teeter-totter for the past year or more. But his most recent moves have exposed the harsh reality that the west is failing to deal with heading into 2020. Turkey is no longer interested in being a solid ally of the United States, NATO and the west. Erdogan’s true allegiance is to Russia and Vladimir Putin.

Mexican Police Chief Arrested in Connection With Murders of Nine American Mormons
Mexican authorities have arrested a police chief who has been linked to the murders of nine American Mormons near the U.S.-Mexico border in November.

 

National

 

Law prof: Justice Anthony Kennedy advanced “white nationalist” agenda on Supreme Court
One law professor recently advanced a stunning claim in a university law journal: Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court justice known for his socially liberal swing votes, was in fact an agent of “white nationalism.”

Florida vegan couple charged with murder after 18-month-old son dies of malnutrition: cops
A Florida couple who told police they fed their children a vegan diet of only raw fruit and vegetables was charged with murder Wednesday months after their 18-month old son allegedly starved to death in their home.

New UF grad course “dismantles Traditional/Western” museum practices.
A new grad course set to start in spring will teach University of Florida students how to address museum curation through the lens of social justice.

Chart of the day: For every 100 girls/women…
The table above is based on some of the items in the list “For every 100 girls….” that I featured last April on CD here. The list was originally created by Tom Mortenson in 2011 and I updated the list earlier this year. Special thanks to Gale Pooley for helping create the table.

Antifa Member: “Antifascism Sure As Hell Has A PR Problem”
Playboy magazine published a story about Antifa last week. The story is mostly flattering to the group and spends much of its length arguing that Antifa is about a lot more than political violence. But if so, why does the group continue to endorse violence?

Impossible burgers are made of what?
The impossible whopper is being advertised by Burger King as a plant based alternative to the whopper. When food manufacturers started talking about making artificial meat, I, too, thought it would be impossible to make a hamburger cheaply enough to make it competitive. You see, I assumed that they would have to buy the individual amino acids (the building blocks for protein) and chemically string them together in the proper order, then remove the reagents (chemicals needed to cause the chain reactions) and then add something to give it the right textures.

US Public School Teacher Threatens Muslim Girl for Taking Off Hijab
A teacher in a U.S. public school threatened to “out” her student, a young Muslim girl, who chose to take off her hijab. The teacher noticed the girl had removed her hijab and asked her about it after class. She then told the girl she would tell the girl’s parents.

Are $372 limos, $110 steaks typical travel expenses at California State University? It’s time to find out.
When well-documented allegations of serious misconduct emerge, leaders of well-run government institutions realize that the public wants to know what’s being done about it – and know wrongdoers will be held accountable. That’s how it should work. That doesn’t seem to be grasped by California State University Chancellor Timothy P. White in response to a tawdry scandal at CSU San Marcos.

Gay men are increasingly voting for anti-LGBTQ right-wingers, says gay cultural historian
“Give [gay men] the chance and they will vote for xenophobia, for racism, and for misogyny,” he says.

Murkowski: I’m “Disturbed” By McConnell’s Coordination With The White House On Impeachment
And then there were … fifty-two? CBS News reports that Senate moderate Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) might have signaled that she will peel away from the GOP caucus when it comes to a rules fight over an impeachment trial. Their report focuses on a comment Murkowski made in a KTUU interview that she was “disturbed” by Mitch McConnell’s pledge to coordinate strategy with the White House – but CBS also left out a few other issues that disturb Murkowski

Bloomberg Used Prison Labor To Make Campaign Calls
In one of the more surprising – and puzzling – stories of the 2020 Democratic primary race, we learned this week that New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg has been busy creating jobs long before he gets the chance to do so as president. As a bonus, the jobs were exclusively for women, making his efforts even more relevant in the current political landscape. Unfortunately for him, the press figured out that the jobs he was creating were for female prisoners in an Oklahoma lockup. Oops.

Lecturer uses word “negro” from black-authored source material, university apologizes to students
Officials at the University of York in the UK apologized to students after an English lecturer read aloud the word “negro” from black-authored source material.

Tweeting trees and clowns with horns: How far did universities go to combat the climate change monster this year?
2019 was a year filled with various climate change protests, demonstrations, and innitiatives.

VA School District To Allow Student Absences From Classes To Protest
Happy New Year, kids! Fairfax County Public Schools in Northern Virginia will enact a new policy on January 27, 2020, which allows school students to skip school to protest.

Colleges are dropping testing, curriculum standards in order to create “diversity”
Colleges across the country are altering admissions requirements and curriculum in order to improve “diversity” ratios on campus.

At least 2 people killed, 1 in critical condition after shooting at White Settlement church
Officials with MedStar confirmed the shooter was among the dead.

Trump could mandate free access to federally funded research papers
Publishers warn the change could “jeopardize the IP of American organizations.”

UN Begins Process of Handing Internet Control to Ruthless Dictators
We’ve known this has been coming for a couple of years. Dissatisfied with control of the internet largely in the hands of western democracies — especially the United States — the dictators and religious fanatics of the world have begun the process to seize control of the internet where, I’m sure, you won’t be able to insult Islam, call Vladimir Putin a thug, or criticize the Chinese communists.

One in Four, and Counting
An undoubted success of the strange-bedfellow Trump-McConnell alliance is the confirmation of judges at an extraordinary clip

Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions
A dirty cell, no no-smoking policy, and a classic case of Orwellian doublethink.

Virginia Election Fallout: Democrats Want To Undermine Local Zoning, Urbanize the Suburbs
“Under current zoning, new low-income housing is relegated to underinvested neighborhoods, concentrating poverty more. Ending exclusionary zoning has to be part of broader housing reform”

Joe Biden Says He’s Open To A Republican Running Mate
2020 Democratic presidential frontrunner and former Vice President Joe Biden said Monday he is open to selecting a Republican running mate to join him on the ticket if nominated this summer

2020 Census Estimates: Population Growth Slows as Americans Move South
The Census Bureau has released its estimates for the 2020 count, showing the nation’s slowest population growth in a century as for the first time in decades — the number of births minus the number of deaths was less than one million. Overall, the U.S. population has grown at 0.48 percent since 2010.

That Time Thomas Jefferson and Virginia Colonists Tried to Get King George to Stop the Slave Trade
So I’ve just finished my first book and am working on another. The first is about the Hubble Space Telescope, the one I’m researching now is about history. Specifically, I’m planning to look at the roots of a very consequential revolution in my home state of Texas, and a lingering mystery about one of its heroes.

Census Estimates Show California, New York Losing House Seats to Demographic Change
Census Bureau estimates released Monday reportedly showed the country’s slowest population growth rate in a century, as demographic shifts to the south bring impending changes to the House of Representatives.

 

Economy & Taxes

 

Happy Festivus: Rand Paul airs his government grievances, exposing $50 billion in waste
In 1997, a now-famous episode of the sitcom Seinfeld popularized the parody holiday “Festivus,” celebrated on Dec. 23. In part, the holiday became memorable for its annual “Airing of Grievances,” in which participants tell others all the ways in which they’ve been disappointed over the course of the past year.

Wayfair decision hammering catalog sellers into extinction
Not only has the Wayfair decision heavily impacted small e-commerce sites but it’s also threatening an entire industry, with catalog retailers possibly facing extinction thanks to compliance costs.

The World’s Poorest People Are Getting Richer Faster than Anyone Else
In 1820, 94% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. In 1990, 34.8%, and in 2015, just 9.6%.

A Third Of America’s Economy Is Concentrated In Just 31 Counties
While America’s economy has grown for over a decade, that growth is increasingly concentrated in 1% of the nation’s counties.

Has “Productivity Inequality” Grown Faster than Wage Inequality?
It is common to hear that workers; productivity no longer determines their wages. “Workers are delivering more, and they’re getting a lot less,” former vice president Biden recently argued. Income inequality supposedly demonstrates that the economy’s rewards are flowing, undeservedly, to those at the top.

 

International

 

No more religious exemptions: Montreal is taxing churches
Churches in Montreal are becoming concerned about hosting community groups after being hit with bills for municipal taxes.

Turkey could free enslaved Yazidis. Instead, it’s keeping them
Sinuni, an overwhelmingly Yazidi town just miles from the Syrian border, is a traumatized town. With the defeat of the Islamic State, it has largely rebuilt. Crowds gather in front of government offices to apply for compensation grants to help fund their rebuilding. Children walk alone to school, albeit overcrowding and a lack of teachers mean they must attend only one of three shifts, and so suffer an abbreviated day. A shiny new police station built by the United Nations Development Programme sits on a hill overlooking the city center and will soon begin operation.

US ambassador to Britain Robert ‘Woody’ Johnson says the UK will enter the ‘Roaring Twenties’ after Brexit is delivered
Ambassador Robert Johnson said Brexit was a ‘really amazing opportunity’

Solidarity: Hong Kong Protestors March for Oppressed Uighurs
The Hong Kong protests — now more than six months old — took on a new twist this weekend as demonstrators rallied in support of China’s Uighur population, currently the victims of mass arrests and forced “re-education” by Beijing. Already playing with fire by waving US flags, protestors may have leveled up the pressure by siding with victims of Communist oppression in Xingjiang.

Pakistani Academic Sentenced to Death for ‘Blasphemy’
Junaid Hafeez, a university lecturer, was arrested in March 2013 and accused of posting derogatory comments about the Prophet Muhammad on social media. On Saturday, a court sentenced him to death for the “crime” of blasphemy.

“Role play”? Swedish schoolkids made to kneel in gender-segregated MUSLIM prayer & told to listen to Koran in Arabic
A Swedish school decided to familiarize its fifth-graders with Islamic worshipping by having a teacher recite Koranic verse to them and having them pray facing Mecca, in a bizarre set-up the educators called “role play.”

30 Years Later, 3 Lessons From The Fall Of Romanian Communism
I’ve spent my adult life working to alleviate the damage of Marxism. We don’t want it here.

China will rewrite the Bible and the Quran to ‘reflect socialist values’ amid crackdown on Muslim Uighur minority
Beijing said all translated classic religious books should be ‘re-evaluated’

Australia Slams ICC Over Probe Against Israel
“Australia is concerned by the ICC prosecutor’s proposal to consider the situation in the Palestinian Territories, subject to a ruling by the court’s pre-trial chamber on the scope of the court’s territorial jurisdiction in the matter.”

Russia sends dissident to remote Arctic military base
Russia has sent an opposition activist to serve at a top secret military base in the Arctic in a move with echoes of the Tsarist era.

Transgender woman accused of ‘hate speech’ after wearing t-shirt stating she is still biologically male
A transgender woman facing disciplinary action over a T-shirt stating that she is still biologically a man has been accused of “hate speech”.

Venezuelans Resort To Renting Funeral Caskets, Report Says
At one time, Maracaibo had a population of more than 2,000,000 people, and was considered one of the most prosperous cities in Venezuela, formerly the richest country in South America. But after years of socialist rule at the hands of dictator Nicholas Maduro, many residents can’t even afford to give their deceased family members a proper burial.

6-year-olds forced to write gay “love letters” to teach “accepting diversity”
A primary school in England makes children as young as six write “love letters” inserting themselves into a homosexual fairytale, according to a recent video from BBC Radio Manchester.

Anti-Macron Yellow Vests Protests Continue Unabated in France
Although it’s not exactly considered frontpage news by the leftist mainstream media, the so-called Yellow Vests continue to protest every single weekend against President Macron’s horrendous policies.

Taiwan president channels HK protests in appeal for votes: ‘Don’t believe the Communists’
Citing a letter from a young Hong Konger appealing for people “not to believe the Communists”, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said on Sunday the island’s democratic way of life was at risk from the danger China posed to Taiwan.

Europe 2019: Another Year of Failed Multiculturalism
Selection of my 2019 posts show how the promised multicultural utopia morphed into a European nightmare.

 

Opinion

 

The Revolution Came For J.K. Rowling
The 1960s liberals gave birth to this monster who now smites them. But extremism of any kind eventually overreaches and cocoons itself from greater society.

The Lies of The Two Popes
First Things has comprehensively demolished the new Netflix movie The Two Popes, starring Anthony Hopkins as a grumpy Pope Benedict and Jonathan Pryce as a radiant Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, today known as Pope Francis. Netflix is spending huge sums trying to win Oscar nominations for the picture, which was directed by the acclaimed Brazilian Fernando Meirelles.

Social justice controls people with the exact same tactics as cults
The social justice movement has long been mocked as a “cult” by its opponents—but there’s truth to the joke. In fact, the movement uses the same regimen of manipulation techniques that cults use to control their followers.

A Matter of Truth
On Ricky Gervais, J. K. Rowling, and speaking frankly

The Fight Over the 1619 Project Is Not About the Facts
A dispute between a small group of scholars and the authors of The New York Times Magazine’s issue on slavery represents a fundamental disagreement over the trajectory of American society.

The Fight Over the 1619 Project Is Not About the Facts
A dispute between a small group of scholars and the authors of The New York Times Magazine’s issue on slavery represents a fundamental disagreement over the trajectory of American society.

How An Unlimited Supply Of Borrowed Cash Is Destroying Higher Education
Both of us grew up poor. College was our way out of poverty. Now, we see too many young people locked into poverty by a college education.

Who’s Up For A Roaring ’20s?
The Roaring Twenties was the most fun, dynamic, and frivolous decade in American history. Let’s make a new one.

The Genealogy of Free Stuff: The Trump Card
On Friday the Wall Street Journal ran an extra-long and remarkable editorial about the agenda of Elizabeth Warren (“Elizabeth Warren Has a Plan, Oh My”), which is so far beyond extravagant that “socialism” seems an inadequate adjective. She makes Bernie Sanders look cautious by comparison.

Enough with the Sequels, How about Some New Ideas?
Hollywood is fresh out of ideas. At least, that’s the overwhelming sense I get whenever I scroll through the options playing at the movie theater these days. I saw the latest Star Wars film, The Rise of Skywalker, over the weekend, and I concur with much of what our Kyle Smith said in his review: “After eleven films, the only fuel left in the series’s tank is sheer nostalgia.”

How Americans Turned Away from Religion and Children
Over the weekend the Wall Street Journal published some findings from over 30 years of polling. Perhaps the most striking result was the decline in the numbers of Americans who say patriotism, religion, and having children are “very important” to them. The share of Americans who say that of patriotism has fallen about 10 points since 1998. The share of Americans who say religion is very important has fallen some 14 points. The share that says having children is very important has dropped from slightly under 60 percent to slightly above 40 percent. A conservative looking at such numbers can’t help feeling a little depressed.