There is a new blog post entitled, “The hate crime murder of Ahmaud Arbery and the wider problem of social inequality.”
Pandemic
(Inter)national
Apparently, negotiators are working on a ‘pandemic’ treaty to improve international response to pandemics like COVID-19 in the future. But if indeed, “[w]hen threatened, governments don’t often think globally,” but rather, “[t]hey look out for themselves,” and, indeed, “[c]ountries have a habit of ignoring international agreements when it doesn’t suit them — the already-existing 2005 International Health Regulations that set out a new way of responding to outbreaks, albeit with little detail or enforcement, have been repeatedly ignored during the pandemic,” what confidence can we have that they’ll abide by a treaty if one is agreed?[1] Gotta tell ya, this ain’t makin’ a whole lot of sense.
Today, I spent a big part of my day talking to genomic and biotech companies as soon we will run out of reagents as airplanes are not flying to South Africa! It will be 'evil' if we can not answer the questions that the world needs about #Omicron due to the travel ban!
— Tulio de Oliveira (@Tuliodna) November 29, 2021
This is, and has been from the beginning, an absolute shitshow.
Adam Taylor, “As omicron variant alarm spreads, countries mull a radical ‘pandemic treaty,’” Washington Post, November 30, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2021/11/30/omicron-pandemic-treaty-who/
Pennsylvania Republicans
In the wake of Sean Parnell’s withdrawal in the U.S. Senate race,[2] we have Mehmet Oz, better known as Dr. Oz, who I guess really is a medical doctor, but who plays a quack on television. He’s a carpetbagger, but Republicans expect he’ll do well.[3] I would expect Donald Trump to endorse him.
I don’t know what to do about this state. I really don’t.
Trip Gabriel, “Dr. Oz Says He’s Running for Senate in Pennsylvania,” New York Times, November 30, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/us/politics/dr-oz-senate-run-pennsylvania.html
Gun nuttery
California’s large-capacity magazine ban, approved by voters in 2016, limits possession to magazines that hold 10 or fewer rounds of ammunition. A district judge and a divided three-judge 9th Circuit panel struck down the law, which Tuesday’s [November 30] ruling revived.[4]
Gun nuts have another case to take to[5] a clearly more sympathetic[6] and likely more activist U.S. Supreme Court.[7] The Court already appears set to strike down New York’s law limiting concealed weapons.[8]
The appeals court ruling in the California case[9] comes on the same day as yet another school shooting. Three students were killed and seven students and one teacher were injured at a Michigan high school,[10] but conservative justices on the Supreme Court seem to be viewing gun rights through a frame of self-defense.[11] If you view the Second Amendment in those terms, I’m just not seeing what the upper limit is here. Never mind about large-capacity magazines.[12] Can you indeed possess nuclear weapons and claim to do so in self-defense? If not, why not? How do you interpret the text of the Amendment to allow such a limit, when the U.S. military possesses those very weapons on, allegedly, those precise grounds?
Omar Abdel-Baqui and Ben Chapman, “Oxford High School Shooting in Michigan Leaves Three Dead, Eight Injured,” Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/michigan-high-school-shooting-leaves-three-dead-six-injured-11638304462
Maura Dolan, “U.S. appeals court upholds California’s ban on large-capacity firearms magazines,” Los Angeles Times, November 30, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-11-30/9th-circuit-upholds-key-california-gun-control-law
- [1]Adam Taylor, “As omicron variant alarm spreads, countries mull a radical ‘pandemic treaty,’” Washington Post, November 30, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2021/11/30/omicron-pandemic-treaty-who/↩
- [2]Amy B. Wang and Michael Scherer, “Sean Parnell ends Pennsylvania Senate campaign after wife granted sole legal custody of their children,” Washington Post, November 22, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/22/sean-parnell-children-custody/↩
- [3]Trip Gabriel, “Dr. Oz Says He’s Running for Senate in Pennsylvania,” New York Times, November 30, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/us/politics/dr-oz-senate-run-pennsylvania.html↩
- [4]Maura Dolan, “U.S. appeals court upholds California’s ban on large-capacity firearms magazines,” Los Angeles Times, November 30, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-11-30/9th-circuit-upholds-key-california-gun-control-law↩
- [5]Maura Dolan, “U.S. appeals court upholds California’s ban on large-capacity firearms magazines,” Los Angeles Times, November 30, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-11-30/9th-circuit-upholds-key-california-gun-control-law↩
- [6]Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow, “Majority of Supreme Court appears to think N.Y. gun law is too restrictive,” Washington Post, November 3, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/gun-rights-case-supreme-court/2021/11/03/6b9a75d8-3c13-11ec-a493-51b0252dea0c_story.html↩
- [7]Ruth Marcus, “The Rule of Six: A newly radicalized Supreme Court is poised to reshape the nation,” Washington Post, November 28, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/28/supreme-court-decisions-abortion-guns-religious-freedom-loom/↩
- [8]Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow, “Majority of Supreme Court appears to think N.Y. gun law is too restrictive,” Washington Post, November 3, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/gun-rights-case-supreme-court/2021/11/03/6b9a75d8-3c13-11ec-a493-51b0252dea0c_story.html↩
- [9]Maura Dolan, “U.S. appeals court upholds California’s ban on large-capacity firearms magazines,” Los Angeles Times, November 30, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-11-30/9th-circuit-upholds-key-california-gun-control-law↩
- [10]Omar Abdel-Baqui and Ben Chapman, “Oxford High School Shooting in Michigan Leaves Three Dead, Eight Injured,” Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/michigan-high-school-shooting-leaves-three-dead-six-injured-11638304462↩
- [11]Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow, “Majority of Supreme Court appears to think N.Y. gun law is too restrictive,” Washington Post, November 3, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/gun-rights-case-supreme-court/2021/11/03/6b9a75d8-3c13-11ec-a493-51b0252dea0c_story.html↩
- [12]Maura Dolan, “U.S. appeals court upholds California’s ban on large-capacity firearms magazines,” Los Angeles Times, November 30, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-11-30/9th-circuit-upholds-key-california-gun-control-law↩