Democrat Senators threaten restructuring Supreme Court as the court considers a gun rights case.

Kristen Gillibrand is one of the senators who filed a brief. CNBC/Getty.

Democrat Senators are threatening to restructure the Supreme Court in reaction to a potential ruling on a New York City gun rights case. CNBC. The senators, who include presidential candidate Kristen Gillibrand, Sheldon Whitehouse, Mazie Hirono, Richard Blumethal and minority whip Dick Durbin, all Democrats, filed a friend of the court brief. The case involves a withdrawn law in New York City that prevented gun owners from transporting firearms. In the brief, the senators attacked the NRA and other conservative intrest groups and said that the Supreme Court was beholden to their interests. 

My Comment:

It's hard to see this as anything other than an assault on the very idea of tolerance itself. The Democrats lost in 2016 and lost badly and it cost them two Supreme Court Justices. Those justices will rule against them again and again. Instead of accepting the fact that elections have consequences, they are doing whatever they can to overturn the results of the 2016 election and utterly destroy the people that oppose them. 

The Democrats realize that they will almost certainly lose the Supreme Court case from New York. That case was pretty obviously unconstitutional and would almost certainly be overturned. That's why New York City changed the law, they are desperate to prevent the case from causing a precedent that would damage further unconstitutional gun laws. It's an extremely cynical thing to do, but not quite as cynical as trying to stuff the court just because you lost an election. 

I don't think the Democrats realize how dangerous this court stuffing scheme would be. Republicans and gun owners would have no choice to see this as a direct assault on them and an effort to ensure they never had a voice again. Stuffing the Supreme Court or otherwise neutralizing the members of the court that actually respect the Constitution would be seen as an act of war. 

And that's not a metaphor. Once it's clear that there is zero respect for the rule of law there is no reason not to fight over it. If the Democrats are going to stuff the court and use a new Democrat majority to ban guns then the country is dead and we may as well burn it to the ground and start over. It's the kind of thing that could cause a lot of violence.  

The good news is that it's extremely unlikely to happen. Kristen Gillibrand is a complete joke as a candidate and a huge hypocrite. She used to love the NRA before she decided to betray her base to appeal to the big cities. She's also had two terrible debate performance, less likability than Hillary Clinton and is widely considered a failure as a presidential candidate. 

The Democrats winning in 2020 is unlikely as well. The guy that has the best chance of doing so, Joe Biden, is against any court stuffing plan and even he has very little chance of winning. Biden probably doesn't have a chance against President Trump in the first place. 

Speaking of President Trump, he's been pretty awful for gun rights lately. His bumpstock ban was terrible and he's been pushing awful red flag laws and expanded background checks that will do nothing to stop mass shootings and are ripe for abuse by the Democrats if they ever gain power again. 

That being said, compared to the Democrats, he's way better on gun rights. He isn't going after an assault weapon ban, which would almost certainly cause a civil war, and isn't trying to do blatantly horrible things like stuffing the Supreme Court. Though he hasn't been great on gun rights the gun rights community doesn't have any choice. It's either Trump or annihilation. 

Two Ebola drugs have shown a 90% success rate in treating the disease.

A small child receives an Ebola vaccine. BBC/Reuters.

A clinical trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo has shown two drugs have a 90% effectiveness rate in curing the Ebola virus disease. BBC. Four drugs were tested and two of them, REGN-EB3 and mAb114, were found effective. The other two drugs, ZMapp and Remdesivir, will be dropped as they were not found to be effective. The drugs use antibodies developed from survivors of Ebola. Both drugs were more effective in early cases of the infection and lost effectiveness as the disease advanced. The drugs will be immediately used to treat people who are infected with the virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

My Comment:

Good news from the battle against Ebola. In addition to a vaccine that can prevent infection, we now have two drugs that can save lives. Considering before the West African outbreak Ebola was almost a death sentence, this is a huge development. Changing the outcome from a 90% death rate to a 10% death rate is a major turnaround. 

In theory the new drugs and the vaccine should be able to stop any new outbreaks. The treatments can keep people alive and the vaccine can keep new infections from happening. It's also a boon for the doctors as they have less to fear in case they get exposed. 

However, this new development might not help the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. That outbreak has continued to spread even after the development of a vaccine that prevents the virus. I don't think that a new treatment plan will help that much either. 

Why? Because treatment isn't the problem in Congo. It's the instability and the general distrust of doctors that is causing the problem. A treatment and a vaccine is all well and good but it's pointless if nobody can get to the outbreak areas due to roving Islamist militias and attacks on doctors. 

Still, even with the instability this new treatment option will likely make it a lot more difficult for the disease to spread outside of the Democratic Republic of Congo. And if it does somehow do so, more advanced and stable countries will be much more prepared to deal with the Ebola virus. Hopefully it will slow and eventually turn back the progress of the disease in Congo and eventually stop the current outbreak.

7 dead in Russian nuclear missile test.

Vladimir Putin shows a video during the 2018 State of the Union address touting new nuclear missiles. New York Times/Getty.

Seven people have died in a nuclear missile test in Russia. New York Times. The incident happened in the White Sea where scientists were testing the reactor for the new SSC-X-9 "Skyfall" nuclear cruise missile. The missile is designed with a small nuclear reactor which greatly extends its range and allows it to evade conventional anti-ballistic missile technology. Russia has said that the incident was due to a fire but several sources found radiation spikes in the region. It is unclear how far along the SSC-X-9 is and this disaster will likely be a huge setback for the program. 

My Comment:

Yet another embarrassing military disaster for Russia. They have had a series of deadly accidents this year with their military systems. Their aircraft carrier was damaged and their drydocks destroyed due to fires and they also had a major fire at an ammo dump that caused some massive explosions. This is just the latest disaster and it brings into question Russian military and scientific competence. 

The Skyfall (great reporting name by the way) is an interesting concept to be sure. With a nuclear powered reactor it would essentially have unlimited range. It would also be able to evade anti-ballistic missile systems as it would hug the ground. There would be no known defense against such a missile which explains why the Russians are so interested in it. 

However, the United States considered the same technology in the 1960's with Project Pluto. That project was successful but the United States abandoned it because of cost and how provocative it was. 

I also wonder that if the weapon would even work if it would be a dirty weapon. And by that I mean would it be spraying radiation on it's path to it's target? I guess it wouldn't matter too much as if the Skyfall was ever launched it would be a nuclear war anyways but still, it's making a bad problem worse. 

America was able to make it work but so far Russia has not been able to. If America was able to get a test engine working the Russians should have been able to as well. However they have not been all that competent lately so it hasn't worked out for them. 

This disaster is potentially  horrible one. The people that died may have died from radiation poisoning. Death by radiation is one of the worst possible ways to go. My sincere hope is that the seven people that died in this disaster died quickly and with a minimum of suffering. It's going to be very difficult to clean up as well and may well be an environmental disaster. 

I do wonder if Russia will reconsider this program after this incident. It must have cost a fortune and it failed completely. Russia has a large conventional nuclear weapons program so it doesn't make too much sense to develop new weapons. There is a good chance that they won't want to throw good money after bad in the wake if this accident. 

Controversial film The Hunt canceled in wake of mass shootings.

The Hunt movie poster. Universal. 

Universal Pictures has canceled the release of The Hunt, a controversial film that showed liberal elites hunting and killing President Trump supporters. The Hill. The film caused mass outrage after the politically motivated mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton last weekend. The film referenced hunting "deplorables" a nickname originally used to denigrate President Trump supporters but reclaimed by that group. It is unclear if the movie promotes the idea of attacking President Trump supporters or if it's just satire but the writer and director, Damon Lindelof, is himself anti-Trump. 

My Comment:

I'm not sure what to think about this case. Without anything to go on other than a trailer or two and the media reports on it, it's hard to judge the film's merits and flaws.  I'm generally opposed to film censorship and this sure feels like censorship. But if all the negative things about the movie are true then it's hard to not take it personally. But are they true?

The above trailer doesn't seem like it was super anti-"deplorable". It seems pretty clear that the elite people hunting down normal Americans are supposed to be the villains. If anything it's making fun of the elites, which is a group of people who probably should be made fun of more often. If that's the case then I think this whole think is misguided.

On the other hand, the writer and director is fairly anti-Trump. And I fear even if the movie wasn't incredibly biased, I fear that it might end up like Falling Down. That movie was supposed to be painting the main character as a villain but everyone related to him instead. I don't like the idea of a liberal walking out of the theater after seeing this movie and thinking "wow what a great idea, too bad the elites lost in the end" assuming that's how the movie goes.  

Of course I don't know if I buy the argument that media violence leads to real violence. I think the vast majority of people know the difference between reality and a movie. And the few that don't are so crazy that they probably couldn't pull off a mass shooting in the first place. I can't seriously think that someone would see this movie, think it's real and then try to do the same thing. 

That being said, I do think that the movie would do more to fan the flames of the culture war than do anything else. Conservatives were rightly offended at the idea of people hunting them down just because they voted for President Trump. Even if the movie is less biased than suspected, it's still a premise that is going to piss people off. I mean if there was a movie where a bunch of rich white people hunted down a bunch of poor black people it would make people furious. Pulling the movie might calm some people down as one of the reasons why these mass shootings happened is because people feel that the elites don't care about us. Pulling it might give people some hope that they are actually being listened too. 

Still, I'm deeply uncomfortable with censorship of any kind. I'm fully prepared to vote with my wallet but I don't like it when any viewpoints, even disgusting ones, are purged. Even if the movie was a 2 hour anti-deplorable circle jerk that celebrated the deaths of people like me with no artistic merit whatsoever, I don't think it should be censored. Delaying it's release? Sure. But banning forever? Not something I support. 

I do think that no matter what the film was like it wasn't likely to be a good one. It's very derivative or other films like it, most notably The Purge. The trailer wasn't impressive at all and it just seems like a movie that is shocking for the sake of it. Much like The Interview, which was also pulled after controversy, it seems that the only thing this movie will be remembered for is the controversy. If the movie was released five years ago when the culture war wasn't so hot, I think it would have rightly been forgotten as yet another dumb exploitation flick.

The movie may get a release eventually. I don't think it will be in the theaters, but like The Interview, it will eventually end up on a streaming service. It may take awhile for the culture war to cool off but once it does I expect it to show up eventually. If it does I will probably watch and review it and revisit whether or not it has any value as a film and if it was right to pull it or not. 

I would say that the worst thing about this film is that people will inevitably confuse it with The Hunt, a 2012 Danish film staring Mads Mikkelsen. That movie, which was about a man falsely accused of sexual abuse of a child, was excellent and should have gotten more attention in America. I give that movie my highest recommendation.  

Jeffrey Epstein, awaiting trial for child trafficking and sexual assault, dies in jail from an apparent suicide

Jeffrey Epstein in 2008. New York Times/AP.

Billionare and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, awaiting trial for additional child trafficking charges and sexual assault of underage girls, was found dead in his jail cell from an apparent suicide. New York Times. Epstein had been found after an apparent suicide attempt last month and was moved to a suicide watch area, but was returned to solitary confinement after a week. It is unclear why this happened. Epstein's death comes a day after new files were released that accused Epstein of providing underage girls to people like Governor Bill Richardson, Prince Andrew and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. Epstein's death has caused widespread outrage and demands for an investigation into how it was allowed to happen. Attorney General William Barr has ordered the FBI and the inspector general to review the case. 

My Comment:

I could have covered this case this morning but I was in shock and there wasn't much to go on. Unfortunately waiting until this evening doesn't seem to have brought anymore clarity into how Epstein was allowed to die. Very little else seems to be known that we didn't know already.  The largest development was that Epstein wasn't on suicide watch. 

That is fairly unprecedented in itself. When a prisoner attempts suicide in jail that prisoner is usually kept on suicide watch until he either is tried and convicted or released. It's a liability issue and in a high profile case like this it's almost unbelievable that Epstein wasn't under a 24/7 suicide watch. 

Of course it seems everyone in the country thinks that Epstein was murdered. The suspects are obvious, with many of the world's rich and powerful elite were in danger if their links to Epstein were exposed. Bill and Hillary Clinton are the ones most mentioned but they are far from the only potential suspects. Even President Trump appears to think that Epstein was murdered as he has retweeted some people who have made that accusation. 

The timing alone is massively suspicious. Yesterday, new files were released from a defamation lawsuit that accused Epstein of providing an underage girl, Virginia Giuffre, to many very rich and powerful people. To die after that news is very suspicious to say the least. 

I would say that even if Epstein did kill himself there pretty much has to be a conspiracy theory going on here. His death was entirely preventable and I doubt that mere incompetence explains why he was allowed to die. Had he simply been placed in suicide watch he would not have died, so at the very least there needs to be a very close look at the people who made that descion. 

Do I think he was killed? Maybe. At the very least he was allowed to kill himself. I don't think that this was something he could have done himself unless he had help. I sincerely believe that someone outside of Jeffrey Epstein helped in his death, or caused it directly. Mere incompetence, while always a possibility, seems unlikely in this case. Taking a suicidal man out of suicide watch is basically admitting you want him to die. I don't think that's a mistake anyone can really make. 

The big fear now is that Epstein's crimes will be covered up. That's not completely without merit as if Epstein had decided to go state's witness, he could have taken down a lot of people. With him dead, at the very least, he's silenced. He will never testify who else was involved in his crimes and won't play a role in their arrests, trials and convictions. 

However, Epstein's death is going to result in more investigations at the very least. If there was a conspiracy to kill him or allow him to kill himself, I doubt they can get away with it. Given the high profile nature of this case I am guessing someone will talk. 

Further more, it's not like all the evidence against Epstein is gone. There are still troves of testimony, documents and pictures gathered up in this investigation that can be used to prosecute others. There are still plenty of living witnesses to testify and physical evidence to examine. 

Also, the 2nd most important person in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, in terms of crimes committed, socialite Ghislaine Maxwell still lives. She was involved in most of Epstein's schemes and can still be prosecuted or turned into a witness. As long as she lives, the truth can still come out. And if she does die we know that someone is cleaning house... 

I will also say that posting about Epstein on Twitter, Gab and Facebook was one of the rare cases of bipartisan unity I have seen recently. Everyone, regardless of their politics, agreed that the idea that Epstein was probably killed. Eventually peopled started to disagree with each other on who was responsible, with Joe Scarborough infamously blaming the Russians of all people, but it was nice while it lasted. 

I will continue to follow this story as it develops. I sincerely doubt that this is the last time we hear about Jeffrey Epstein. It may take months or even years but I do think that the truth will come out eventually. Sooner or later some form of justice will happen here...