News of the Week for January 12th<\/sup>, 2025<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n New Mexico Supreme Court Strikes Down Local Abortion Restrictions<\/a> Montana AG asks Supreme Court to uphold law requiring parental consent for a minor’s abortion<\/a> <\/p>\n John Cornyn Introduces Bill Allowing Concealed Carry Permits To Work In All 50 States<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n “There Is, Technically, No Snail Darter,” But the Snail Darter Still Delayed the Tellico Dam<\/a> Rhode Island College English course to teach students about ‘eco-Marxism’<\/a> Biden moves to bar oil, gas and geothermal development in a Nevada mountain range for 20 years<\/a> Will ‘Nature’ Sue to Prevent Mining of Huge Lithium Deposit<\/a> Gov. Pete Wilson: California had a plan to store storm water, but Democrats blew it<\/a> Pay Up, Mr. Mann<\/a> Massive Recovery in Antarctica Sea Ice Unreported by Net Zero-Obsessed Mainstream Media<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Supreme Court to weigh reinstating Obamacare care requirements struck down by lower court<\/a> <\/p>\n New Report: TikTok Brainwashed America’s Youth<\/a> U.S. uncovers hacking campaign targeting Guam’s critical infrastructure \u2014 suspected Chinese Volt Typhoon hacks could disrupt the defense of Taiwan<\/a> Iran Pulls Most Forces From Syria, in Blow to Tehran’s Regional Ambitions<\/a> Is Russia Pulling Its Subs from the Mediterranean?<\/a> NATO sends a fleet to guard Baltic Sea cables<\/a> The elite special forces eliminating Putin’s troops before they realise what’s happened<\/a> China Suddenly Building Fleet Of Special Barges Suitable For Taiwan Landings<\/a> The ‘Havana Syndrome’ Coverup Exposed<\/a> US announces $25m reward for arrest of Venezuela’s Maduro<\/a> NATO allies worry the US can’t defend Europe and counter China, but there’s a way<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n New Jersey Teachers No Longer Required to Pass Basic Literacy Test<\/a> “Humanpods” Equipped With Suite of AI Personas to Be Unveiled at CES 2025<\/a> UNC spring course catalog features ‘Queer LatinX Environmentalisms’<\/a> Higher-Ed Reform’s Coming of Age<\/a> As Donald Trump prepares to pardon people convicted for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, it’s worth looking at what leading Republicans said in the immediate aftermath of that day’s violence.<\/a> Outcry as Arizona tattoo shop inks girl, 9, who wanted picture of Trump on her neck<\/a> FIRE to defend veteran pollster J. Ann Selzer in Trump lawsuit over outlier election poll<\/a> Challenge to California Policy Limiting Teachers’ Disclosure to Parents of Student’s Changed Gender Identity \u2026<\/a> Daystar televangelists leave Christian TV network amid child sex abuse scandal<\/a> Colleges limit AP credits to maximize tuition revenue: study<\/a> Mayor Out of the Country as Los Angeles Burns, Residents Plead for Help<\/a> The Conspiracy Theory That Trump Can Evade the 22nd Amendment<\/a> DOJ Relents on Mar-a-Lago, but Will Publish a Final Special Counsel Report on January 6<\/a> MAGA Influencers Paid to Promote WIND ENERGY in Texas<\/a> House cat in Washington County died after contracting bird flu from raw frozen pet food<\/a> Vermont State University hosts \u2018Building Anti-Racist White Educators\u2019 workshop to deal with so-called ‘unconscious biases’<\/a> St. Lawrence University ‘Great (S)expectations’ course to consider ‘alternatives to marriage’ like ‘polyamory’<\/a> Art Deco style is popular again, a century after its heyday<\/a> Harvard offering course on ‘Sexual Life of Colonialism,’ will cover ‘queer desires’ and ‘transgender rights’<\/a> Trump sentenced without penalty in New York hush money case<\/a> Free speech group calls on Cal State system to revise ‘unconstitutionally vague’ new harassment policy<\/a> TikTok’s Bad Day at the Supreme Court<\/a> How Policy Decisions Exacerbated the Devastating Los Angeles Wildfires<\/a> Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions<\/a> Left Behind<\/a> VLC Media Player will soon allow for real-time AI translated subtitles<\/a> The Great Los Angeles Fire Turns Eastward, Putting UCLA Campus in Crosshairs<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n What the ATF Does\u2014and What It Doesn’t Do<\/a> The ATF Is a Tax Collector<\/a> Governor Reeves declares full income tax elimination top goal for 2025 legislative session<\/a> Mar-a-Lago meetings to include an offer on SALT cap<\/a> Chick-fil-A’s Lemon-Squeezing Robots Are Saving 10,000 Hours of Work<\/a> Fed officials are worried about the inflation impacts from Trump’s policies, minutes show<\/a> Markets Aren’t Good Because They’re Efficient. They’re Efficient Because They’re Good<\/a> Unions Still Hate Trump<\/a> Urgent warning to Americans as key economic indicator hits highest level since 2008 financial crisis<\/a> Prospect Medical Holdings files for bankruptcy after owners took hundreds of millions in payouts<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Trudeau to resign as prime minister after Liberal leadership race<\/a> Major country re-introduces strict Covid rules as mystery new Chinese virus spreads<\/a> The United Kingdom’s Long-Delayed Reckoning on ‘Grooming Gangs’<\/a> The Song, and Rapper, Inspiring Mozambique\u2019s Youth Uprising<\/a> Americans Are Flocking to Spain Despite End of Golden Visas<\/a> Pakistan Airlines advert shows plane flying into Eiffel Tower<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n January 6 Is Over<\/a> Written by the Victors<\/a> More on Birthright Citizenship and Undocumented Immigrants<\/a> Against Guilty History<\/a> Quality over Quantity<\/a> The Protectionist Fallacy Makes Expansionist Wars More Attractive<\/a> Politics and rose gardens, &c.<\/a> Saving Face<\/a> The Case for ‘Boring’ Family Policy<\/a> The Crisis of Democratic Overconfidence<\/a> Elon Musk’s Ill-Informed Foray into Shutdown Politics<\/a> Trump and Hubris<\/a> Instant Analysis of the TikTok Oral Argument<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Newsboy.jpg\" "\\"News")
<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n\n
<\/a>Abortion<\/h1>\n
Dobbs Decision<\/h2>\n
\nThe New Mexico Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against several local ordinances in the state that aim to restrict distribution of the abortion pill.<\/p>\n
\nMontana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his appeal of a ruling handed down by his state’s highest court invalidating a 2013 law that requires minors seeking an abortion to obtain notarized written consent from a parent or guardian. <\/p>\n<\/a>Gun Rights<\/h1>\n
\nRepublican Texas Sen. John Cornyn introduced a bill Thursday to allow concealed carry license holders to carry their guns in any state.<\/p>\n<\/a>Hide the Decline<\/h1>\n
Environment &<\/a>“Green Energy”<\/h2>\n
\nA case study in how the Endangered Species Act encourages the politicization and distortion of science.<\/p>\n
\nEco-Marxism asserts that Marxist thought is the solution to the degradation of the environment by capitalism. The course is the latest example Campus Reform has found of “eco-Marxism” being taught on campus.<\/p>\n
\nPresident Joe Biden’s administration said last Monday it is taking steps to bar oil, gas and geothermal development for 20 years in northeastern Nevada’s Ruby Mountains.<\/p>\n
\nHere’s the good news. A massive deposit of lithium has been discovered on the border of Oregon and Nevada. <\/p>\n
\nGeorge Skelton\u2019s question of why the state and federal governments don’t store more stormwater before it escapes to the sea is not a new one.<\/p>\n
\nFor more than eight years, the climate scientist Michael Mann harassed National Review through litigation over a blog post \u2014 until, eventually, the First Amendment brought an end to his attack. This week, a court in our nation’s capital ordered Mann to pay us $530,820.21 worth of attorney’s fees and costs, and to do so within 30 days. It is time for him to get out his checkbook, and sign on the dotted line.<\/p>\n
\nRemember all that alarmist guff about Antarctica sea ice recording lower levels in winter a couple of years ago? Georgina Rannard of the BBC wrote a story headed ‘Antarctic sea ice at “mind-blowing” low alarms experts’, while Clive Cookson at the Financial Times gave us his suggestion that the area “faces a catastrophic cascade of extreme environmental events\u2026 that will affect the climate around the world”. The scare story caravan has moved on to pastures new these days, not unrelated to the fact that at the end of 2024 the extent of sea ice in Antarctica was roughly the same as the 1981 to 2010 average. According to the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC), “this provides a sharp illustration of the high variability of Antarctica sea ice extent”. It does indeed, and it also provides us with a classic case study of how a short-term natural variation, well understood by many scientists, is weaponised by activists in science, politics and journalism to induce mass climate psychosis with the aim of promoting the political Net Zero lunacy.<\/p>\n<\/a>Obamacare<\/h1>\n
Government in Healthcare<\/h2>\n
\nChallengers raised religious and procedural objections to some of the requirements.<\/p>\n<\/a>War & Terror<\/h1>\n
\nChina’s ‘indoctrination isn’t hypothetical. It’s real.’<\/p>\n
\nGuam’s infrastructure is essential to U.S. Navy operations in the Pacific.<\/p>\n
\nThousands of Iranian military personnel and militia allies fled after Assad’s fall, leaving behind weapons and equipment<\/p>\n
\nDepending what comes after it, the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime may not be an undiluted boon to peace and security in the Middle East \u2014 though no one anywhere will be shedding a tear for the Butcher of Damascus or his entourage. There’s no doubt, however, that the pulling up of Assad\u2019s decade-long welcome mat for the Russian military in Syria is in the U.S. interest.<\/p>\n
\nThe decision follows a spate of suspected sabotage incidents on underwater cables.<\/p>\n
\nA Ukrainian Special Operations Forces team defeated a Russian platoon in one of many daring missions carried out on enemy ground in Kursk. <\/p>\n
\nChina is building at least five new special purpose barges which appear tailor made for amphibious assault. The barges may provide the PRC (People’s Republic of China) with a unique way to offload large numbers of tanks directly onto Taiwanese roads.<\/p>\n
\nAn interagency fight appears to be brewing within the outgoing Biden administration over the origins of so-called “Havana Syndrome.”<\/p>\n
\nThe US has announced an increased $25m (\u00a320.4m) reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro on the day he was sworn in for a third six-year term in office.<\/p>\n
\nNATO allies worry that the growing threat China poses may distract the US from Europe. A seapower expert argues the forces needed in Europe are different than in the Asia-Pacific. A confrontation over Taiwan would be primarily a naval fight; Europe would be a land battle.<\/p>\n<\/a>National<\/h1>\n
\nUnder Act 1669, individuals seeking an instructional certificate in New Jersey no longer need to pass a basic skills test for reading, writing, and math.<\/p>\n
\nDesigned by startup Natura Umana, the earbuds offer different AI personas based on the users needs, whether it be a therapist or a fitness trainer.<\/p>\n
\nUNC Chapel Hill will offer a three-credit course called ‘Queer LatinX Environmentalisms.’ ‘This course examines queer LatinX literature from the late 1980s to the present as it intersects with ecological and environmentalist concerns,’ a descriptions reads.<\/p>\n
\nIn North Carolina and elsewhere, policymakers hoping to revive universities must clarify their goals.<\/p>\n
\nA thread<\/p>\n
\nAn Arizona tattoo artist has been slammed after inking a nine-year-old girl who asked for a portrait of Donald Trump on her neck.<\/p>\n
\nThe Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression announced today it will defend veteran Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer pro bono against a lawsuit from President-elect Donald Trump that threatens Americans’ First Amendment right to speak on core political issues.<\/p>\n
\ncan proceed (under the First Amendment and under parental constitutional rights law), the court says, though there’s no actual decision on whether the plaintiffs (parents and teachers) will prevail.<\/p>\n
\nLance Wallnau and Jack Graham are just some of the prominent Texas faith leaders exiting the network.<\/p>\n
\n‘[T]ens of thousands of Americans are attending schools that don’t give them full credit for their AP work,’ report states<\/p>\n
\nOn the menu today: Los Angeles County is burning, tens of thousands are evacuated, and we’re a long stretch away from the end of these devastating wildfires.<\/p>\n
\nThere’s a hot new panic sweeping the Left, especially the legal Left: that Donald Trump will find some way to stay in office after his term ends on January 20, 2029, notwithstanding the extremely clear and explicit language of the 22nd Amendment: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.” The 22nd Amendment was adopted and originally understood for precisely one purpose: to prevent anyone from repeating Franklin D. Roosevelt’s accomplishment of serving beyond the two terms that had been the presidential norm since George Washington. Republicans built their 1940 and 1944 presidential campaigns around FDR\u2019s breach of that norm, and after he died in office early in his fourth term in 1945, the very next Republican Congress passed it two months into its tenure, in March 1947. It was ratified in 1951.<\/p>\n
\nThe Biden-Harris Justice Department has explained that it intends to make public a portion of a final report special counsel Jack Smith has prepared for Attorney General Merrick Garland with respect to the January 6 (J6) investigation, but Garland will withhold publication of Smith\u2019s final report on his Mar-a-Lago (MAL) documents investigation. The concession on the latter is due to the case pending against two men who were indicted along with (now) President-elect Trump \u2014 although disclosure of Smith\u2019s MAL report will be made, with conditions, to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.<\/p>\n
\n“We are generally paid per signature.”<\/p>\n
\nA house cat in Washington County contracted bird flu and died after eating Northwest Naturals raw frozen pet food, according to the Oregon Department of Agriculture.<\/p>\n
\n‘White teachers, even those with experience and compassion, can unconsciously cause pain to students of color in their classrooms,’ the event description alleges.<\/p>\n
\n‘Why might one choose monogamy versus polyamory? What are the alternatives to marriage?’ the course asks.<\/p>\n
\nA century after it was formally introduced at the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, in Paris, Art Deco is enjoying a resurgence in decor, fashion and more. A new generation is appreciating the style’s unapologetically glamorous roots and translating it into something new.<\/p>\n
\nThe course will ‘cover many forms of sexuality, including interracial relationships between colonizer and colonized peoples.’<\/p>\n
\nPresident-elect Donald Trump was sentenced to “unconditional discharge” in his criminal hush money case.<\/p>\n
\nA free speech group has called on the California State University system to revise its new “Other Conduct of Concern” discrimination and harassment policy, calling it overbroad and unconstitutionally vague and arguing it would impermissibly chill expression.<\/p>\n
\nThe Supreme Court has been hearing arguments this morning on whether to uphold the federal law requiring the Chinese company ByteDance to either divest from TikTok or cease operating the platform in the United States. Based on how the arguments went, there may not be even a single vote to strike down the law or even pause it until Donald Trump can be sworn in.<\/p>\n
\nOn the menu today: As noted in Wednesday’s edition of this newsletter, the combination of intense Santa Ana winds and an ongoing drought ensured that Los Angeles County was destined to face an unprecedented wildfire risk. There is no policy, at the federal, state, or local level that can eliminate the threat of wildfires. But policy choices can mitigate or exacerbate those risks and the consequences of those fires, and unfortunately, the bad decisions of Southern California have piled up, year by year, decade by decade. Today’s newsletter takes a deep dive into those policy decisions.<\/p>\n
\nHemp reform, private conversations, and police memes.<\/p>\n
\nSenate Democrats move right on immigration.<\/p>\n
\nVLC Media Player developer VideoLAN announced an upcoming feature that will allow users to receive translated subtitles in real-time through AI.<\/p>\n
\nAs five separate blazes continue to burn, law enforcement says some LA area fires are due to arson.<\/p>\n<\/a>Economy & Taxes<\/h1>\n
\nThe “F” in ATF stands for “firearms,” and, in the matter of overseeing the sale of these, the ATF is a damned peculiar creature: It is a law enforcement agency dedicated to regulating transactions between federally screened, licensed sellers and a population of buyers from which serious criminals (felons, domestic abusers, those under indictment for such crimes) are excluded. It may not exactly shock you to learn that very few American criminals are carrying firearms legally purchased from a licensed retailer (murderers and armed robbers are not famously punctilious about lesser crimes) but just how small that share is may surprise you: It is less than 2 percent. <\/p>\n
\nFor about 200 years, the United States of America got along without the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. And, for much of that history, most Americans lived under a firearms-regulation regime that was relaxed or, in many places, effectively nonexistent. It is worth considering that there is a parallel between the Second Amendment and the First Amendment, with early firearms regulations often taking the same form as permissible restrictions on speech and other communication: time, place, and manner regulations. Americans had generally unrestricted rights to acquire firearms but might have been prohibited from carrying them in certain urban areas or restricted places (such as saloons) or while drunk, which was a real consideration in the hard-drinking 19th century. <\/p>\n
\nMississippi Governor Tate Reeves isn’t wasting any time advocating for the full elimination of the state’s income tax as lawmakers gavel in to begin the 2025 legislative session on Tuesday at noon.<\/p>\n
\nThe administration plans to offer to expand state and local tax relief and, in return, expects so-called SALT Republicans to fall in line behind the GOP policy agenda.<\/p>\n
\nThe company is outsourcing a tedious job that caused countless injured fingers to an automated factory<\/p>\n
\nFederal Reserve officials at their December meeting expressed concern about inflation and the impact that President-elect Donald Trump’s policies could have on efforts to reduce it.<\/p>\n
\nSamuel Gregg and Richard Reinsch have written an article for the most recent issue of National Affairs in which they argue for free markets against the recent bipartisan tendency to bash them. In it, they rely heavily on the thought of German economist Wilhelm R\u00f6pke, who stood up to the Nazis in his arguments for human dignity and liberty. After World War II, R\u00f6pke was instrumental in the market reforms that allowed West Germany to take off while East Germany suffered under decades of socialism.<\/p>\n
\nIn the wake of Donald Trump’s victory and his nomination of pro-union one-term House member Lori Chavez-DeRemer as secretary of labor, there has been some talk about how being more accommodating to unions could help Republicans, or that unions might be starting to move over to the Republican column. It’s certainly true that many union members are Republicans, and they have voted that way for decades. But it’s not true that unions as organizations are going to be friends of Republicans.<\/p>\n
\nUS corporate bankruptcies hit their highest level since the 2008 financial crisis – as Americans tighten their belts.<\/p>\n
\nA Los Angeles-based company that owns more than a dozen hospitals in four states filed for bankruptcy late Saturday night, the second major system acquired by private equity to collapse in less than a year.<\/p>\n<\/a>International<\/h1>\n
\nPM asked Governor General to prorogue Parliament until March 24<\/p>\n
\nMembers of the public are advised to avoid public places and to wear masks in public if they are showing symptoms of Human Metapneumovirus.<\/p>\n
\nOn the menu today: I must warn you, today’s newsletter makes for disturbing reading, but there’s no way to accurately describe the actions of the United Kingdom’s notorious “grooming gangs” without being disturbing. The perpetrators would likely prefer for you to look away, to find the whole thing so horrifying and difficult to read that you click away.<\/p>\n
\n“Povo no Poder,” or “People in Power,” by the rap star Azagaia, has become the unofficial anthem of the protests over a disputed election.<\/p>\n
\nSpain has drawn a flood of Americans in recent years, lured by its warm climate and more affordable lifestyle. The question now is whether the end of the country’s golden visa program will stem the tide.<\/p>\n
\nPakistan’s national airline has come under fire for a “tone deaf” advert that appears to show a plane flying into the Eiffel Tower.<\/p>\n<\/a>Opinion<\/h1>\n
\nThe political force of the 2020 election contest and the Capitol riot are spent.<\/p>\n
\nHow will Americans remember January 6?<\/p>\n
\nLegal scholars Amanda Frost and Paul Gowder have both published notable new articles on the subject.<\/p>\n
\nSettler-colonial should be a description, not an insult.<\/p>\n
\n“Does might make right? No. Neither does popularity. (And popularity can be a form of might.)” This is a statement from the opening item of my Impromptus today. The first several items are about politics. Then I go on with music, sports, language, and the rest. <\/p>\n
\nMany serious people across the American political spectrum either affirmatively support or do not oppose the peaceful acquisition of Greenland. No serious political observer endorses the blisteringly stupid notion that the United States should incorporate Greenland by force \u2014 to say nothing of the other obnoxiously frivolous threats Donald Trump issued from the podium on Tuesday against American allies like Canada and Denmark.<\/p>\n
\nOn Trump and Trumpism; human guardrails; a South American dictator; a musical ‘point of light’; and more<\/p>\n
\nTrump, Facebook, and free expression.<\/p>\n
\n“Family policy” doesn\u2019t have to mean a bunch of new government programs. Politicians often talk about it that way, with proposals for federally funded child care, federally funded paid leave, federally funded baby bonuses, and more. But if what families need from the government is a growing economy with stable prices, communities safe from crime and disorder, and the space to form and join civic and religious institutions, then a lot of the same old stuff conservatives have been talking about for years will be the best family policy available. That’s especially true when the welfare state is already too big and the government’s ability to fund new programs is already too small.<\/p>\n
\nThe boutique priorities of the few have crowded out elementary good governance \u2014 a problem pronounced in California but apparent wherever the ‘blue state model’ is practiced.<\/p>\n
\nThe neophytes should not be setting the agenda.<\/p>\n
\nUnderstanding politics is partly about understanding ideas and policies \u2014 their power, their persuasiveness, and their practical effects. It is also partly about understanding people \u2014 the personalities of leaders, the sentiment and pulse of voters, and the demographic trends that shape both. But there’s also an indefinable extent to which political events and careers tend to follow certain patterns and trajectories that often repeat themselves across time and place. If I can be forgiven for a little interlude of MacGuffinization of politics, that’s been on my mind as we enter the second Trump term.<\/p>\n
\nA few moments ago, the Supreme Court wrapped oral argument in the TikTok case. It stretched nearly three hours, but could have easily been finished in one.<\/p>\n