Top General: Military Won’t Be a ‘Raping, Burning and Pillaging’ Gang After Trump’s War Crimes Pardons
Dems Seek to Ban Assault Weapons in WA ; Just 88 Companies Are Responsible for Ruining the Ocean ; and More Picks
Dems Seek to Ban Assault Weapons in WA ; Just 88 Companies Are Responsible for Ruining the Ocean ; and More Picks 12/13
Democrats Seek to Ban Assault Weapons in State of Washington (Reader Steve)
The author writes, “The Democrats on Thursday announced plans for legislation that would limit magazine capacities to 10 rounds and that would ban the sale of assault weapons, defined as semi-automatic weapons that have at least one military-style feature. Both measures contain exceptions for law enforcement, military personnel and recreational shooting ranges, and they would allow people to keep high-capacity magazines and assault weapons they already own.”
A Secret Report Exposes Healthcare for Jailed Immigrants (Chris)
From BuzzFeed News: “Immigrants held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement jails around the US received medical care so bad it resulted in two preventable surgeries, including an 8-year-old boy who had to have part of his forehead removed, and contributed to four deaths, according to an internal complaint from an agency whistleblower. The allegations appear in an explosive Department of Homeland Security memo, obtained by BuzzFeed News, containing reports of detainees being given incorrect medication, suffering from delays in treating withdrawal symptoms, and one who was allowed to become so mentally unstable he lacerated his own penis and required reparative surgery.”
How Rightwing Think Tanks Reshaped the UK’s Conservative Party (Chris)
The author writes, “Thinktanks – non-governmental organisations that research policies with the aim of shaping government – have long been influential in British politics … on both left and right, but the sheer number of connections between Johnson’s cabinet and ultra free market thinktanks [is] something new. … US thinktanks and their affiliates, which are largely funded by rightwing American billionaires and corporate donations, have teamed up with British politicians and London-based counterparts such as the IEA, the Legatum Institute and the Initiative for Free Trade, to help write detailed proposals for what the UK’s departure from the EU, and its future relationships with both the EU and the US, should look like, raising questions about foreign influence on British politics.”
Just 88 Companies Are Responsible for Ruining the Ocean (Mili)
The author writes, “Climate change is taking a toll on the ocean, and people are racing to save the seas. But a new study shows exactly who’s to blame for their crash. And no, it’s not consumers. It’s major fossil fuel producers: BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, takes a look at ocean acidification and attributes exactly how much Big Oil has contributed to it.”
US Lab Chimps Were Dumped on Liberia’s Monkey Island and Left to Starve. He Saved Them. (Russ)
From the Washington Post: “Chimps aren’t supposed to be stuck on their own island — especially one with no food — or mingle with much-weaker humans. But nothing about Liberia’s Monkey Island is normal. It’s a spectacle, an increasingly costly burden and the enduring legacy of American scientists who set out to cure hepatitis B in 1974.”
