Sisters and brothers, cats and kittens, hello, hello, hello. Welcome back, bonjour, and bienvenue. Look at you, you sweet-faced cherubs and knowledge-seeking brethren. Here we are again, returning for another week of the low down, the down low, and the plain old down and dirty. So put on your big girl Christmas shoes, and pop a pill, because this here is about to get real.
Everyone’s favorite tan queen and House Speaker, the lovely John A. Boehner, is going the way of the hardball gambit, just days before a deadline in the fiscal impasse, and promising to bring a bill to the House floor this week that would only raise tax rates on income over $1 million and leave in place across-the-board spending cuts to military and domestic programs. The fiscal cliff is one I’m ready to jump off of. (NY Times)
Corporate gun dealers in California are getting their undies in a bunch after State Senator Kevin de León, a Democrat, brought a bill forward that would require anyone looking to buy ammunition for any kind of weapon to undergo a background check and obtain a one-year permit costing $50. The legislation would also ban the sale of ammunition in California by mail, requiring that all transactions be done in person. (NY Times)
Speaking of bad behavior, no one has seen the NRA lately. How weird. (Mother Jones)
Will the U.S. ever change its gun laws? Deep sighs commence. (Al Jazeera)
The good news is, Obama is backing a ban on assault weapons. Jay Carney said the president was “actively supportive” of a Democratic senator’s plan to introduce a bill on the first day of the next Congress (BBC)
Six women working to vaccinate children against diseases like polio were killed in coordinated attacks in Karachi and Peshawar. It is not clear who was behind the shootings on Tuesday, but Taliban fighters have repeatedly denounced the anti-polio campaign as a “Western plot.”
So until the next time we reconvene for what seems to be the world coming off its rocker, remember kittens: treat each other well, because most folks don’t seem interested in doing so. See the news above. So until next week, be nice to one another – you won’t regret it.
4 replies on “Mid-Week News: 12/19/12”
There were fundamentalists who tried to stop polio vaccinations in northern Nigeria awhile back. I don’t think they resorted to violence, but I just don’t get the resistance. Polio could be eradicated just like smallpox was if people weren’t so anti-vaccines.
With the concern of polio reemergence, this is a world concern. Taliban is so messed up.
Yes, because stopping a Western plot is much more important than children’s lives. Look at your lives, look at your choices, Taliban.
The gun news is really interesting, articles here tend to be focusing on either: extensive gun control or explanations as to why we won’t/don’t understand US gun culture. The news of the polio workers is just heart-breaking, too. Thanks for the round up, Coco.