News of the Week for October 13th, 2024
- Election 2024
- Abortion
- Gun Rights
- Hide the Decline
- Obamacare
- War & Terror
- National News
- Economy & Taxes
- International News
- Opinion
Election 2024
Donald Trump’s transition chief says appointees must prove ‘loyalty’
Billionaire investor Howard Lutnick dismisses Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 as ‘radioactive’
In the heart of Appalachia, a distant cousin of JD Vance leads an opposing ‘authentic hillbilly’ movement
Five generations of Vances gathered in West Virginia last month for a reunion, singing hymns and swapping stories in a quiet park hugged by towering green mountains waiting to burst into autumnal shades of orange.
Millions of Christians not planning to vote this November, could shape election: Study
The Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University study found that approximately 104 million people under the “people of faith” umbrella are not expected to vote this election, including 41 million Christians and 32 million of whom regularly go to church.
Steve Bannon Has Called His “Army” to Do Battle—No Matter Who Wins in November
Bannon, a self-declared general of global populists, wants to break the world order. And he’s tapped into something much bigger than Trumpism.
NY Equal Rights Amendment Ballot Initiative “sets up … racial retribution and favoritism under the guise of ‘dismantling discrimination'”
Our Op-ed in The NY Post: “If adopted, Prop One would embed racial retribution in the form of reverse racism, critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion principles into the state Constitution, without most voters realizing its far-reaching effects.”
It’s not absurd to keep asking GOP leaders who won the 2020 election
If Mike Johnson and JD Vance want to move on to other topics, they can just tell the truth.
Shibboleths of Stupid
The word “shibboleth” comes from this passage in the Bible. It is a word that those in the tribe can say and others cannot.
Trump has long blasted China’s trade practices. His ‘God Bless the USA’ Bibles were printed there
Thousands of copies of Donald Trump’s “God Bless the USA” Bible were printed in a country that the former president has repeatedly accused of stealing American jobs and engaging in unfair trade practices — China.
The Riddle of the Sphinx
Republicans are memory-holing the 2020 election.
Trump’s small-dollar donor fundraising is beset by confusion and fatigue
Donald Trump’s contributions from small-dollar donors have plummeted since his last White House campaign, presenting the former president with a financial challenge as he tries to keep pace with the Democrats’ fundraising machine.
Millionaire ‘apostle’ summoning women to DC for Christian nationalist rally
Jenny Donnelly, leader of anti-trans Don’t Mess With Our Kids, to host pre-election gatherings in Washington
Abortion
Dobbs Decision
KFF poll: Abortion is now the top election issue for young women, among shifts that favor Harris
Abortion has emerged as the most important issue in the November election for women under 30, according to a survey by KFF — a notable change since late spring, before Vice President Kamala Harris entered the presidential race.
House Republicans attempt to avoid 2022 letdown with new tactic on abortion: ‘We’re both pro-choice’
Republicans in the nation’s toughest House districts are making a major pivot on abortion with a surprising result — they’re starting to sound like Democrats.
Gun Rights
Supreme Court appears likely to uphold regulation of ghost guns
The justices seemed skeptical of arguments the Biden administration exceeded its authority in imposing restrictions on the largely untraceable firearms.
Kamala Harris Has Tried to Ban the Handgun She Claims She Owns in Both the Cities She’s Lived In
Harris didn’t say which type of Glock, and she wasn’t asked to elaborate. But, from her previous statements, we know that it’s a Glock handgun, and from her previous actions, we therefore know that it’s exactly the sort of firearm that, at two points in her career, she’s tried to prevent her fellow citizens from owning.
Unexpected Trouble in the ‘Ghost Gun’ Case
Three of the conservative justices might side with the ATF in a case that shouldn’t be close.
Hide the Decline
Environment &“Green Energy”
New Study: Systematic Error In 1880-2020 Global Temperature Measurements Inflates Warming By 42%
The globe may have only warmed by 0.41 to 0.83°C in the last 140 years.
Will Colorado Allow Elephants to Sue?
Animal-rights activists never quit. The Nonhuman Rights Project, having lost cases seeking writs of habeas corpus for chimpanzees and an elephant named “Happy” in New York, has now brought a case in Colorado. It was properly tossed out of court at the trial-court level.
Obamacare
Government in Healthcare
At Least 14,000 U.S. Minors Have Received Gender-Transition Treatment or Surgeries In 5 Years, With Docs Billing $120 Million
The findings of a comprehensive analysis of insurance-claims data by the advocacy nonprofit Do No Harm.
War & Terror
New Zealand loses first naval ship to sea since WW2
The Royal New Zealand Navy has lost its first ship to the sea since World War Two, after one of its vessels ran aground off the coast of Samoa.
Report: Houthis Receive Weapons From Russian Arms Dealer We Traded for Brittney Griner
“But when Houthi emissaries went to Moscow in August to negotiate the purchase of $10 million worth of automatic weapons, they encountered a familiar face: the mustachioed Bout…”
Taiwan on the Brink: Day One
Coffee might not be at the top of anyone’s hierarchy of needs after close to 24 consecutive hours of travel from one side of the planet Earth to its antipode, but it’s hardly an afterthought.
N. Korean soldiers ‘highly likely’ killed in Ukraine: Seoul
North Korean soldiers are likely fighting in Ukraine alongside Russian troops, with some believed already killed and more expected to be deployed, Seoul’s defence minister said Tuesday.
Ukrainian drone strikes another arms depot inside Russia, officials say
A Ukrainian drone struck an important arms depot inside Russia, the Ukraine military said Wednesday, three weeks after another drone blasted a major Russian armory and three days after a drone smashed into a key oil terminal in Russia-occupied Crimea.
Navy Says 26 Ships Affected by Faulty Welds at Newport News Shipyard in Virginia
More than two dozen Navy ships — including three that are currently in service — received faulty welds at the Huntington Ingalls Industries shipyard in Newport News, Virginia, the service’s top civilian leader told lawmakers last week.
Taiwan on the Brink: Taking Trump Neither Seriously nor Literally
A mammoth bust of Chiang Kai-sheck lords over the lobby of Taiwan’s foreign ministry. He stands a silent sentinel overlooking the flags representing all of the 12 nations that formally recognize Taiwanese sovereignty over their island. On the surface, that modest collection of friendly states — many of which are tiny island states themselves — is a testament to China’s efforts to isolate its neighbor. But the country’s many commercial and military partnerships with great Western powers betray the relative inefficacy of China’s bullying.
Salt Typhoon: An Update on a Potentially Catastrophic Hack of Government Systems by Chinese Cyber Spies
Last weekend, I posted on the Wall Street Journal’s reporting of a potentially catastrophic security breach: the penetration by Chinese intelligence of the systems developed by broadband providers to support the government’s electronic-surveillance operations. (Such operations are commonly referred to as “wiretapping,” but they now involve far more than monitoring of traditional telephone communications.) Congress has mobilized to investigate the breach.
Mystery of Russia’s secret weapon downed in Ukraine
When two white vapour trails cross the sky near the front line in eastern Ukraine, it tends to mean one thing. Russian jets are about to attack. But what happened near the city of Kostyantynivka was unprecedented. The lower trail split in two and a new object quickly accelerated towards the other vapour trail until they crossed and a bright orange flash lit up the sky.
National
The American Library Association is Queering the Catalog
The American Library Association (ALA) is a fully captured institution headed by a Queer Marxist organizer named Emily Drabinski. That means it is time to do what we should have done a long time ago: break away from the American Library Association. The state of Montana has already done this at the state level, and other states should follow. Some already are. Local municipalities and districts, including school districts, should do so as well, as soon as possible. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay makes it more clear why. He takes you through an academic paper by Drabinski titled “Queering the Catalog” from 2013, showing you exactly how Drabinski intends to use her American Library Association to make libraries sites of Queer Marxist grooming. Join him and start pushing everywhere for a breakup from the American Library Association.
Jack Phillips Wins the ‘Cake-Baking’ Case . . . but Not on the Merits
Jack Phillips owns Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colo. Phillips sells generic cakes, but he also customizes them. When he was asked to design a cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding, Phillips refused because he believed that doing so would violate his Christian faith.
Scientists long urged NASA to search for signs of life near Jupiter. Now it’s happening
After a decade of advocacy from scientists, the mission is expected launch as early as Friday, and will investigate Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, which is suspected of harboring a vast ocean capable of supporting life.
Let’s Open the Black Box of Selective College Admissions
The time to shine a light on university decisionmaking is right now.
Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Abusive speech, criminal rioting, and Bellamy salutes.
California Passes Law to Protect Consumer ‘Brain Data’
With this new legislation, California becomes the second U.S. state to officially recognize the importance of mental privacy in state law, doing so by amending the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018.
This AI Pioneer Thinks AI Is Dumber Than a Cat
Yann LeCun, an NYU professor and senior researcher at Meta Platforms, says warnings about the technology’s existential peril are ‘complete B.S.’
Urban Violent Crime Surged 40 Percent Beginning in 2019
The further removed we are from the presidential debate, the clearer it is that ABC’s David Muir’s “fact-checking” of former President Trump’s remarks on surging crime was outrageous.
Epistemic Injustice
Epistemic injustice refers to those forms of unfair treatment that relate to issues of knowledge, understanding, and participation in communicative practices. These issues include a wide range of topics concerning wrongful treatment and unjust structures in meaning-making and knowledge producing practices, such as the following: exclusion and silencing; invisibility and inaudibility (or distorted presence or representation); having one’s meanings or contributions systematically distorted, misheard, or misrepresented; having diminished status or standing in communicative practices; unfair differentials in authority and/or epistemic agency; being unfairly distrusted; receiving no or minimal uptake; being coopted or instrumentalized; being marginalized as a result of dysfunctional dynamics; etc.
Economy & Taxes
J.D. Vance Actually Does Understand How Costs Get Passed Along the Supply Chain
Vance says higher energy prices make building houses more costly. What, then, do tariffs on steel and lumber do?
China’s Economic ‘Garbage Time’
If you listen to the Chinese government, you’d think China is a rising superpower set to dominate the rest of the 21st century. If you listen to the Chinese people, they’re talking about China entering the “garbage time of history” — and they have a better argument than the government.
The Problem of Rising Interest Payments on the Debt
Josh Rauh of the Hoover Institution has a great piece on the threat we face because of rising interest payments on the debt. After making the case that the measure that matters for assessing this threat is the share of revenue consumed by interest payments
Tariffs Hurt the People They’re Supposed to Help, Again
“Truck chassis” is the name for the trailers that trucks use to carry shipping containers. The world’s largest producer of them is CIMC, a Chinese company. During the pandemic-era surge in demand for goods, the U.S. could have used more truck chassis, but the federal government imposed punitive tariffs on them to prevent their importation from China.
Trump Probably Can Unilaterally Impose Sweeping Tariffs
That’s the conclusion of a new Cato Institute report by Clark Packard and Scott Lincicome. Being libertarians, they are not happy about this fact, but the relevant laws and regulations as currently written give the president very broad authority to impose tariffs.
What Buc-ee’s Can Teach Us About the Port Strike
Job-ism is bad, actually.
International
Taiwan on the Brink: Who’s Afraid of the CHIPS Act?
The glitzy capital city of Taipei disappeared into the haze of a grey and wet Tuesday morning as we sped uneventfully into Taiwan’s interior, far from the tourists and foreign dignitaries who descend in their masses on Taipei. A bleak industrial landscape punctuated by the occasional residential high-rise rose from the jungle along the way, the tropical flora being all that saved these structures from an unflattering comparison to the Khrushchevka aesthetic they appeared to mimic. The emergence of the sleek, contemporary complex that compose the Hsinchu Science Park couldn’t have struck a more desirable contrast with their surroundings.
Ecuador goes dark in a power crisis that punishes economy
Daily blackouts stretch for 10 hours at a time, and they could get worse in the coming months as a dry spell further tests the country’s reliance on hydropower. Traffic lights are often out, internet service gets interrupted, and building managers ask residents to refrain from washing and drying clothes while backup generators are working.
Planned Parenthood normalises prostitution to under-10s
An International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) resource for kids under ten has labelled prostitution a normal setting for sex.
Opinion
New Accreditors Are the Future
North Carolina should consider leading the way by creating a state-based accrediting agency.
How the Pendulum Really Swings
We all hear about the pendulum swinging in politics. We’re also all aware that the pendulum is currently pushed very far Left, leading people to suspect it will swing back hard soon; indeed, maybe too hard. It’s important to understand how Work Marxists and other Leftists throughout history have made intentional and productive use of the pendulum swinging. It is their style to arrange affairs so that when the pendulum swings back, it has also moved position so that instead of striking them, it strikes another one of their targets. In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay breaks down this strategic use of “the principle of polarity” so we can strategize more successfully and avoid predictable traps.
Colleges Can’t Curate “Belonging”
Despite institutional efforts, university students must take charge of their own satisfaction.
Serious, Capable Republican Politicians Exist
On the menu today: As stretches of the southern states dig out from the muck of a devastating hurricane and Florida endures another, the disparate reaction of two Republican members of Congress from the South illustrates the vivid divide between those who want to be a part of the solution and those who are comfortable being a part of the problem. Americans, you don’t have to accept having a nutjob represent you in the U.S. House of Representatives. These people can be defeated in primaries, and you can get a serious upgrade. You don’t have to live like this!
