News of the Week (October 12th, 2025)

 

News of the Week for October 12th, 2025


 

Abortion

Court Cases & Legislation

 

Trump’s abortion pill approval shatters his and Vance’s pro-life facade
Trump administration officials say their hands were tied over the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to greenlight a generic version of the abortion drug mifepristone.

Gun Rights

 

FPC Statement on Reese v. ATF Judgment
Rather than uphold the Constitution and binding Supreme Court precedent, the Court regurgitated the Trump Administration’s self-serving demand to wipe away the Fifth Circuit’s ruling against the government’s unconstitutional ban and continue denying millions of peaceable adults their right to keep and bear arms.

Second Amendment Roundup: Antonyuk’s and Koons’ Historical Feet of Clay
The 2d and 3d Circuits mistook a widely-criticized, private publication for a Founding-era “law.”

Wisconsin bill to ban concealed carry on campus sparks debate over gun-free zones
Wisconsin’s newly introduced bill aims to ban concealed carry on state university campuses, expanding existing gun-free school zone protections to higher education institutions. Proponents, including Sen. Kelda Roys, argue the bill enhances student safety by reducing fear of gun violence, while opponents, like John Lott, contend it could make campuses more attractive targets for mass shooters. The bill is currently under review by the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.

Second Amendment Roundup: Rug Pulled Out from under Antonyuk
Without a Founding-era analogue, late 19th century restrictions don’t count.

FPC Statement on California Governor Gavin Newsom Signing AB 1127
Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) issued the following statement in response to California Governor Gavin Newsom signing AB 1127—the so-called “Glock ban”—which criminalizes the sales of widely owned, constitutionally protected handguns

Newsom Signs Law Banning Sale of Most Glocks in California, Targeting ‘Convertible Pistols’
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a sweeping firearm control bill into law Friday that effectively bans the sale of most Glock pistols in the state starting July 1, 2026. The legislation, AB 1127, prohibits licensed dealers from selling any semiautomatic pistol that uses a cruciform trigger bar and is deemed “readily convertible” into a machine gun using a device such as a Glock switch.

FPC Statement on Trump Administration’s Latest Attack on the Second Amendment
Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) issued the following statement in response to the Solicitor General’s opposition, filed on behalf of the Trump Administration, in Rush v. United States, a challenge to the National Firearms Act’s (NFA) short-barreled rifle restrictions

 

Hide the Decline

Environment &“Green Energy”

 

Why Raymond Randolph Was Right
Congressional Republicans have turned their sights in recent months on a liberal nonprofit called the Environmental Law Institute (ELI). In particular, Ted Cruz in the Senate and Jim Jordan, Darrell Issa, and Wesley Hunt in the House have been interested in an ELI program called the Climate Judiciary Project (CJP). Senator Cruz held a hearing in the early summer that shed some light on the CJP’s activities, while Chairmen Jordan and Issa are conducting an investigation of it.

Climate pollution from inhalers has the impact of half a million cars per year, study finds
The people who are most vulnerable to the hard-to-breathe air that comes with climate change may inadvertently be adding to the problem, new research finds.

 

Socialized Medicine

Government in Healthcare

 

Three Cheers for the American Pharmaceutical Industry
With the ascendancy of MAHA, the pharmaceutical industry has come under attack from the right as well as the left. That is unfortunate. Has any institution done as much for human well-being over the last 150 years as the international pharmaceutical industry? I doubt it.

War & Terror

 

Europe is facing its ‘Pearl Harbor moment’
Putin’s tactics and Nato’s inaction are pushing us ever closer to World War 3, ex-minister warns

Man arrested outside cathedral found to have explosives
Court documents show that a New Jersey man arrested Oct. 5 outside of St. Matthew’s Cathedral just hours before the start of the annual Red Mass had a “fully functional” arsenal of explosives that he threatened to detonate.

Putin says Russian air defenses were to blame for Azerbaijani jet’s crash last year, killing 38
President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia’s air defense were to blame for downing an Azerbaijani jetliner in December that killed 38 people, his first public admission of responsibility for the crash in an effort to ease tensions between the neighbors.

US Air Force plane touches down at Piarco Airport
THE arrival on October 9, of a United States Air Force (USAF) C17 aircraft at Piarco International Airport, set many tongues wagging with social media posts claiming the US military was arriving en masse into Trinidad as part of the ongoing American military action in the Caribbean Sea against Venezuelan narco-terrorists.

India’s Top China Watcher Sounds the Alarm: ‘They’re Gearing Up for a Crisis’
I’ll share a lot more reporting about India in the coming days, but for today, we’ll start with what India’s top China expert told me about the ambitions and capabilities of Xi Jinping and the regime in Beijing. The short version: The clock is ticking. For the full version, read on.

US is sending about 200 troops to Israel to help support and monitor the Gaza ceasefire deal
The United States is sending about 200 troops to Israel to help support and monitor the ceasefire deal in Gaza as part of a team that includes partner nations, nongovernmental organizations and private-sector players, U.S. officials said Thursday.

Russia Blocks Thousands From Leaving as Digital Draft System Takes Full Effect
The move marks another step in Moscow’s effort to tighten control over potential conscripts ahead of the autumn call-up – the largest conscription since 2016.

Trump’s War Notice: The Issue of Equating Narcotics Trafficking with Terrorism
Prior to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s disclosure on Friday afternoon that American armed forces had killed four more people in a fourth missile strike on a boat cruising in international waters off the Venezuelan coast, upping to 21 the death toll since September 2, I noted in a Thursday night column that the Trump administration had issued a statutorily required notice to Congress that the our military is engaged in armed hostilities.

Pentagon to host Qatari F-15 jets and pilots at Idaho air base
The Pentagon will host a new Qatari air force facility at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, announced Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. The facility will be used to train Qatari pilots to fly F-15 fighter jets. This facility will accommodate Qatari F-15 fighter jets and pilots for joint training with U.S. forces, enhancing combat readiness and cooperation. Hegseth also praised Qatar’s role in the Gaza peace deal, noting, “You have been a core part of what has unfolded in Gaza, a historic moment.”

‘Heavy Clashes’ At Afghanistan-Pakistan Border: Taliban Forces
Afghanistan’s Taliban forces launched armed reprisals against Pakistani soldiers along the shared border on Saturday, accusing Islamabad of carrying out air strikes on its soil, senior officials from several provinces said Saturday.

Acting US Cyber Command, NSA chief won’t be nominated for the job, sources say
President Donald Trump has decided not to nominate Army Lt. Gen. William Hartman to be the next leader of U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, according to four people familiar with the matter.

 

National

 

House of South Carolina Judge Criticized by Trump Administration Burns Down
Police are investigating the cause of a fire that burned down the home of South Carolina Circuit Court judge Diane Goodstein, who had reportedly received death threats for weeks related to her work.

Ted Cruz lays groundwork for presidential run
Republican senator could position himself as small-government, traditional conservative to take on populist wing of the party

Another Eventful Term in the Making
The summer break did not feel like much of a break with all the emergency docket activity generated by liberal judges, but the new term of the Supreme Court has arrived. The cases on the docket present a number of important questions that include equal protection, free speech, federal versus state courts, the separation of powers, and voting.

Our Brains Evolved to Socialize—but Max Out at About 150 Friends
The size of our social networks is limited even in the age of social media

Ted Cruz Wants to Make It Easier to Sue the Government for Censorship
Senator says he hopes reaction to Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension might help his new bill find bipartisan support

GOP senators increasingly anxious about Trump’s aggressive use of National Guard
Republican senators are increasingly uneasy about President Trump’s standoff with Democratic governors over deploying National Guard troops from other states to Portland, Ore., and Chicago.

Universities Sued Over Racial Discrimination in Hiring
Cornell and George Mason have allegedly violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Mills poised to jump into Maine Senate race
Maine Gov. Janet Mills is preparing as soon as next week to announce her campaign for the U.S. Senate, multiple sources told Axios — potentially in the middle of a government shutdown with no end in sight.

Hunter Biden Pursued a Deal to Sell Land Around the U.S. Embassy in Romania
The proposed transaction, stemming from relationships that started while his father was vice president and involving a Chinese partner, underscores the extent of Mr. Biden’s questionable business dealings abroad.

Armed investigators visit man who sent postcard critical of CFO Ingoglia
Two armed men wearing bulletproof vests with the word “police” stenciled on them showed up Wednesday at the Largo home of Cathy O’Gara while she was getting her 11-year-old granddaughter ready for school.

Becky Harris to run for Clark County Commission
She’ll seek District F seat as a nonpartisan candidate

State rep’s bill would punish colleges financially if they don’t rename roads after Charlie Kirk
The threat that failure to comply would result in the withholding of state funding gives the bill real teeth

Bluesky civil war shows free speech is harder than it looks
Last week, a joke familiar from X circulated on rival platform Bluesky: “(bluesky user bursts into Waffle House) OH SO YOU HATE PANCAKES??” It was obviously a jab at the moral intensity that now seems to define the site, and indeed much of the rest of the social media landscape. On most platforms such a joke might go viral for a day then fade. On Bluesky, it metastasised into something resembling a crisis.

Comey Case Developments: (1) The Perp Walk That Wasn’t
As our James Lynch reports, former FBI Director James Comey was arraigned in Virginia federal court this morning, entering pleas of not guilty to the false statements and obstruction charges in the Trump Justice Department’s indictment. Arraignments are usually brief, uneventful affairs: The defendant enters a plea (usually not guilty), the judge sets a schedule for pretrial motions and trial, and if bail needs to be set or there is any issue relating to the defendant’s pretrial release, that is addressed.

Comey Case Developments: (2) January 5 Trial, Despite DOJ Request for More Time
By all appearances, prosecutors are not eager to try this case. There are good reasons for this

Comey Case Developments: (3) Insufficiency of the Indictment
As predicted, the indictment’s defects in serving its primary constitutional purpose of providing notice of what the defendant is alleged to have done is already a big issue.

Comey Case Developments: (4) Selective, Vindictive Prosecution Motion Is Coming
Finally, defense counsel Pat Fitzgerald also informed Judge Nachmanoff that Comey would be filing a motion to dismiss the indictment on the grounds of selective and vindictive prosecution. This is also a very tough claim for a defendant to prevail on — successful motions are exceedingly rare. But James Comey has a lot more to work with than most defendants.

Comey Case Developments: (5) Motion to Dismiss Based on Illegality of Interim U.S. Attorney’s Appointment
Comey, of course, has been indicted by the Trump Justice Department on false statement and obstruction charges. Among the matters discussed in the posts was the prospect that Comey and his lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, could get the charges dismissed pretrial on the grounds of selective prosecution or the inadequacy of the indictment.

She saw a car-sized object above a Texas farm and found a wayward hunk of NASA equipment
When Ann Walter looked outside her rural West Texas home, she didn’t know what to make of the bulky object slowly drifting across the sky. She was even more surprised to see what actually landed in her neighbor’s wheat field: a boxy piece of scientific equipment about the size of a sport-utility vehicle, attached to a massive parachute, adorned with NASA stickers. She called the local sheriff’s office and learned that NASA, indeed, was looking for a piece of equipment that had gone lost.

Republican Socialism: The Trump Administration Buys a Stake in Yet Another Company
The federal government can’t even pass a budget. What’s it doing buying a mine?

Man charged with terror offence over body bag Hallowe’en display
Figures wrapped in bin bags featured signs with titles of local officials

Comey Case Mea Culpa: Statute of Limitations Not Necessarily a Bar to New Indictment If Current One Is Dismissed
I need to correct a legal error I’ve made a few times (here, here, and here) and repeated on the podcast — something I’m surprised I never knew, since I was a prosecutor for a long time and had my share of brushes with statutes of limitations.

No Nobel Peace Prize for President Trump This Year
This morning, the Nobel committee announced the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize is Maria Corina Machado, “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

Comey Case Mea Culpa: Statute of Limitations Not Necessarily a Bar to New Indictment If Current One Is Dismissed
I need to correct a legal error I’ve made a few times (here, here, and here) and repeated on the podcast — something I’m surprised I never knew, since I was a prosecutor for a long time and had my share of brushes with statutes of limitations.

El Paso family claims Border Patrol killed their dog during search, CBP reviewing incident
U.S. Customs and Border Protection says they are reviewing a “use of force incident” in El Paso, after a family says a Border Patrol agent unjustifiably shot and killed their dog.

NC Rep. Cecil Brockman charged with statutory rape, indecent liberties with child
NC state representative Cecil Brockman was arrested and charged with taking indecent liberties with child and statutory rape. Brockman was expected in court on Thursday, but he had a medical emergency and was taken to a local hospital. By Kaitlin McKeown RALEIGH

Federal Magistrate Judge in D.C. Dubiously Rejects Trump DOJ Indictment
There is strange stuff going on in the District of Columbia courts. A magistrate judge has declined to accept the return of an indictment that the Justice Department obtained from a grand jury in a manner that may be unprecedented but appears (to me, at least) to be legal.

Hundreds of U.S. students quarantined amid measles outbreaks
At least 270 unvaccinated kids are staying home from school as measles continues to spread nationwide. “Expect more,” one expert said.

Short Circuit: An Inexhaustive Weekly Compendium of Rulings from the Federal Courts of Appeal
SWAT raids, cats’ paws, and Christian vegetarianism.

The Letitia James Case Appears More Complicated Than the Trump DOJ Indictment Suggests
On Friday, outlining what we know about the two-count bank fraud indictment the Trump Justice Department filed against New York Attorney General Letitia James, I offered three cautionary notes, discordant with claims by Trump partisans that the case against is a lock.

Texas AG Ken Paxton announces ‘undercover’ investigations into liberals
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, says his office is planning to launch undercover operations targeting liberals.

 

Economy & Taxes

 

Tariffs weigh on US manufacturing as activity contracts for 7th straight month
US factory activity shrank in September for a seventh consecutive month as factories grappled with the fallout from President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.

The price of gold reached $4,000 an ounce for the first time ever
Gold futures broke $4,000 per ounce on Tuesday. The precious metal has rallied this year as investors seek a safe have from geopolitical and economic uncertainty.

America’s Latest Farmer Crisis Is Government-Grown
Times are tough for America’s farmers. A wicked combination of high operating costs and low commodity prices has squeezed margins and pushed farm bankruptcies through the first half of 2025 to exceed those for all of 2024. Median farm incomes are in the red, and the only reason why overall earnings aren’t in the toilet is because Congress just doled $42 billion in “emergency” funds to U.S. agribusiness. Despite what Trump administration officials keep saying on TV, moreover, the future doesn’t look any brighter. It’s “a very dire situation,” said one big trade association honcho, while another just called it a full-blown “financial crisis.” They’re not alone.

Trump Will Use Tariff Revenue to Cover WIC Food Program
“The Trump White House will not allow impoverished mothers and their babies to go hungry because of the Democrats’ political games.”

Deloitte issues refund for error-ridden Australian government report that used AI
Big Four firm will repay final instalment after incorrect references and citations found in document

The Unofficial Jobs Numbers Are In and It’s Rough Out There
In a federal data blackout, Wall Street numbers and surveys are filling the void

Tariffs Are Way Up. Interest on Debt Tops $1 Trillion. And DOGE Didn’t Do Much.
As the books closed on U.S. government’s fiscal 2025, here’s what has changed about federal budget—and what hasn’t

America’s Soybean Farmers Are Panicking Over the Loss of Chinese Buyers
China hasn’t booked any U.S. soybean purchases in months; farmers warn of ‘bloodbath’

Trump’s tariffs may be bringing in a lot of revenue but they’ve also been a ‘tax on capital, so far,’ top economist says
President Trump’s tariffs, highly touted as a lever to boost American industry, are now emerging as a substantial tax on business—putting pressure on corporate profits, labor markets, and prices, according to Morgan Stanley’s chief economist. Michael Gapen draws a striking conclusion in his Monday research note, US Economics Weekly: “Tariffs have been a tax on capital, so far.”

Dow drops 500 points as sell-off intensifies after Trump’s critical comments about China
Stocks moved decidedly lower in a rapid move on Friday after President Donald Trump made some critical comments about China regarding their controls on global rare earth metal resources, triggering worries trade relations may worsen again between the two countries.

Americans Are Falling Behind on Their Car Payments
Delinquency rates on subprime auto loans are at records

Five-alarm warning for housing market as key crash indicator spikes 17%
There has been a dramatic rise in foreclosure filings across the US in the last year — the latest piece of bad news for the housing market. In July through September there were a total of 101,513 US properties with foreclosure filings, according to the latest report from real estate data company ATTOM.

(Rare) Earth, Gold, and Green
The resumption of trade hostilities between China and the U.S. understandably sent the markets into a spin yesterday, not least because they exposed the all too obvious: Given the strength of its position in rare earths, something we began discussing on Capital Matters at least as early as 2021 (and it was hardly a secret then), China has, as George Costanza put it, “hand.”

UPS is telling customers that their packages coming to the US are marked for destruction
Some packages sent to the US from abroad are getting held up at UPS facilities for weeks. New rules on imports led several international carriers to suspend higher-value shipments to the US. Now, unexpected information and fees are required to complete some shipments.

Barron Trump tipped for top TikTok job
Barron Trump is being eyed for a top role at the streaming app TikTok. The US president’s son could be appointed to the board of the $14bn (£10.5bn) company, it was suggested, after his father sealed a deal to spin-off TikTok’s US business from its Chinese parent.

 

International

 

Britain’s once-mighty Conservative Party is battling to avoid extinction
Britain’s Conservatives used to boast they were the world’s most successful political party. Not anymore. The center-right party that governed the U.K. for more than 60 of the last 100 years before being ousted in 2024 is embracing Donald Trump -style policies, including mass deportations and government budget-slashing, as it battles to remain a contender for power.

Telegram’s Durov: We’re ‘running out of time to save the free internet’
Messaging app Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov warns that a “dark, dystopian world” is approaching, with governments worldwide rolling back privacy protections.

Nobel peace prize 2025: María Corina Machado wins for work promoting democratic rights in Venezuela – as it happened
Machado says peace prize is ‘an award to an entire movement’ – Nobel Committee says

China Detains Prominent Underground Pastor, Complicating Ties With U.S.
Ezra Jin has led one of China’s most vibrant church networks, spanning 40 cities; ‘They are afraid of my husband’s influence’

 

Opinion

 

Ending Affirmative Action Will Take More Than Supreme Court Decisions
The multi-billion-dollar, unconstitutional racket that is race-based government contracting, and how a Presbyterian family in California grows the fruit used in rituals for the ongoing Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

People in the Olden Days Did Not Get Married Extremely Young
Haley writes about “the danger in romanticizing young marriage, without also mentioning its rarity.” It’s also worth mentioning that young marriage is not the historical norm, either.

Buckley: Conservative or Libertarian?
Which did he find more important: faith or freedom?

Sensible opposition is a thankless task, but it’s the right thing to do and we’re doing it
The Conservative Party and Reform UK will fight the next election on more or less the same manifesto.

He Believes America Should Be a Theocracy. He Says His Influence Is Growing.
Doug Wilson’s political project to “stop making God angry.”

The Ugliness Inside of Katie Porter
The 2026 California gubernatorial race is afoot, as Golden State Democrats vie to replace Gavin Newsom. (Newsom is technically vacating the position after 2026, but departed in spirit long ago for a presidential campaign.) Back when conventional wisdom held — erroneously, I suspect — that the job was Kamala Harris’s for the taking, former Orange County congresswoman Katie Porter pipped the field by announcing her candidacy in March 2025.

Conservative Again
At their Annual Conference, the Conservatives showed that they are finally returning to their core values

The Nazi Experiment, Vol. 1: The Nazi Racial Worldview
As recently introduced on the New Discourses Podcast, the Nazis performed an experiment of sorts between the mid 1920s and 1945, when that experiment met its catastrophic end. Framing what they did as an experiment is a valuable perspective. They found themselves in a certain set of unpleasant societal conditions, and they turned to Nazism to solve their problems. It failed. Miserably and disastrously. That experiment is therefore a warning to the world: if you find yourselves in conditions that seem similar, do not go the way of the Nazis. In this New Discourses podcast series, host James Lindsay walks the listener through portions of Hitler’s Mein Kampf to explain clearly what the basis for the Nazi Experiment was, so that we might understand it. In this first episode, he reads from Chapter 1 of Volume 2 of that wretched book to explain the Nazi racial worldview (weltanshauung), which built the state we know and rightly hate on deliberate, knowing “racialism” (racism). Join him to understand and to see how close history is to rhyming again.

The A.I. Prompt That Could End the World
The A.I. pioneer Yoshua Bengio, a computer science professor at the Université de Montréal, is the most-cited researcher alive, in any discipline. When I spoke with him in 2024, Dr. Bengio told me that he had trouble sleeping while thinking of the future. Specifically, he was worried that an A.I. would engineer a lethal pathogen — some sort of super-coronavirus — to eliminate humanity. “I don’t think there’s anything close in terms of the scale of danger,” he said.

Trump Is Waging ‘Lawfare’—After Being Its Target Himself
The federal indictment against James Comey is a textbook example of politically motivated prosecution. Now where have we seen that before?

What to Make of the Trump DOJ’s Letitia James Indictment
It appears that DOJ standards have changed.

Everything Is Television
A theory of culture and attention

Two New Swing Seats? Unpacking Utah’s (Possible) New Map
In Utah, Republicans passed a new U.S. House map that could potentially be used next year, as the current map was ruled unconstitutional. Though the map Republicans passed retains four Trump-won districts, we would likely place two of those districts in competitive rating categories. The plaintiffs, who sued to have the original Utah map overturned, have submitted their own plans to a judge; both maps would almost certainly result in 3-1 GOP delegations. In Tennessee, the parties picked nominees for a TN-7 special election this week; we rate that contest as Likely Republican.

Real Communism Can Never Be Tried
We’ve all heard it before: “real Communism has never been tried!” Yeah, yeah. Well, here’s the thing. “Real Communism” can never be tried, so this old canard isn’t saying anything interesting at all. The reason is that “real Communism” is the utopian end state of Communism as an eschatological (end-times) religion. It never actually arrives. In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay breaks this simple fact down and reveals the same exact thing is also believed about “real Fascism.” You won’t want to miss it.

Maoism with American Characteristics
Intersectionality is a Woke standard, but what is it? Where does it come from? The history of the concept isn’t that hard to trace, and where it leads us is back to some of the worst regimes in history. Kim Crenshaw tends to be credited with Intersectionality, but she got it from the radicals in the Combahee River Collective. They put the idea together, in their turn, from the advocacy and activism of Herbert Marcuse. Marcuse was copying Mao, who was completing ideas laid down by Stalin for completing the perfect Soviet Union. In this provocative episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay reads and expands upon his recent essay, summarizing his remarks given at Northwestern University at the start of May 2023 explaining the Maoist nature of Woke intersectionality. He also delivers a powerful warning to the Woke youth who have taken up with the movement.

Is MAGA Christianity True Christianity?
We’re witnessing another schism in American Protestantism.

This entry was posted in News of the Week and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *