Negotiators are working on a futile pandemic treaty

benfell

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.


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. [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. [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. [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. [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. [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. [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. [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. [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. [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. [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. [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. [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↩

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