Author: admin

In a bold move to transform Argentina into a global energy powerhouse, President Javier Milei introduced the “Argentine Nuclear Plan” on Friday, with the goal of harnessing nuclear energy as a core component of the nation’s future. The plan outlines the construction of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), compact nuclear units designed to provide power to commercial sectors and other large-scale operations.

“After years of stagnation, nuclear energy is making a powerful comeback, and we are determined to lead, not follow,” Milei declared confidently, emphasizing the country’s abundant natural resources, skilled workforce, and Patagonia’s cold climate, which he described as ideal for housing energy-intensive technologies like AI. “Nuclear energy is the only source that is sufficiently efficient, abundant and rapidly scalable to cope with the development of our civilization,” he added. 

President Javier Milei announces the Argentine Nuclear Plan, alongside the Chief of the Council of Advisors, Demian Reidel, and the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi.

Original in Spanish. Translated to English using AI. https://t.co/sELp0wtxNS pic.twitter.com/KCSHJbknqk

— Demian Reidel (@dreidel1) December 24, 2024

The project will have the backing of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi joining Milei and his key advisor, Demian Reidel, during the plan’s official launch. Reidel stressed that the increasing demand for energy, particularly from AI advancements, makes nuclear power crucial to Argentina’s energy strategy, jpost.com reports.

The first phase of the plan will focus on the construction of a Small Modular Reactor (SMR) at the Atucha Nuclear Power Plant. The reactor is expected to help meet rising energy demands and alleviate power shortages throughout Argentina.

Reidel emphasized the significant contribution of Argentine nuclear engineers to the initiative. “We will do so with 100% Argentine technology, developed by our nuclear engineers, who are recognized among the best in the world,” he stated, according to Rosario3. He added that the plan “will give us energy sovereignty, will allow us to export this technology to the world,” and assured that “blackouts will be just a bad memory,” according to La Nación.

In the second phase of the initiative, Argentina aims to capitalize on its untapped uranium reserves to meet domestic needs and establish itself as a leading exporter of nuclear fuel. The government envisions positioning Argentina as a global leader in the peaceful use of atomic energy, while also advancing its aspirations to become an international hub for AI innovation.

Currently, Argentina operates three nuclear power facilities—Atucha I, Atucha II, and Embalse—which together supply around 9% of the nation’s electricity consumption, according to government data from July 2023.

The announcement comes as Argentina has officially emerged from a severe recession, a milestone that marks a major success for Milei and his bold economic reforms. According to data from Argentina’s statistics agency, GDP grew 3.9% in the July-to-September quarter compared to the previous three months. This growth was driven by robust performances in agriculture, mining, and consumer spending, signaling a recovery in key sectors of the economy, the Financial Post reports.

On Monday, Milei eliminated a 30% “inclusive” surcharge tax on foreign currency debit and credit card purchases imposed by the previous socialist government. The now-repealed “Tax for an Inclusive and Solidary Argentina,” or “PAIS” for short, was a temporary surcharge introduced by former socialist President Alberto Fernández. He enacted it in December 2019 during the early days of his administration.

“I have more good news, and that is that the lowering of taxes will continue, as is our irrevocable commitment, to return the surplus in the form of relief to the taxpayer, because less taxes is more competitiveness,” the president said in a statement announcing the move. 

Authored by Richard Truesdell and Keith Lehmann via American Greatness,

Listen to any speech given by Democrats in 2024, and you’ll be bombarded by buzzwords, sloganeering, euphemisms, and phrases that provide a constant diversion from answering truthfully.

During this election cycle, the language is changing so fast that we need this updated glossary of terms to understand exactly what they’re talking about.

Affordable Housing: Housing that is government subsidized to below-market value, ruining the value of compatible unsubsidized housing in the nearby area. So what? Ownership is oppressive and harmful to those who don’t have it. From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs. Marxism is so cool!

Anything-phobic: A tactical label given to someone who is winning an argument with a leftist. Don’t like the idea of underage children getting “gender-affirming” surgeries? You’re “transphobic.” In favor of Israel defending itself from Hamas? You’re “Islamophobic.” Concerned about the illegal mass importation of third-world peasants into the country? You’re “xenophobic.” See also “racist” below.

Bipartisan: Republicans give the Democrats everything they want so the Republicans don’t get criticized for “creating gridlock” in Congress or “shutting down” the government. Any legislation passed as being “bipartisan” has likely been drafted by Democrats and has support from a group of establishment Republicans typically in favor of the Democrats’ agenda. This indicates the presence of a “uniparty” that supports big government—and your interests don’t matter.

Brat: See “joy” below.

Climate Change: An all-inclusive label given to the Earth’s climate, which has been changing for 3.4 billion years. The theory of human-caused climate change has yet to be proven in any scientific manner, but humans are nonetheless expected to abandon their quality of life on the odd chance that our existence is killing the planet. We can’t have that, so let’s throw soup on the Mona Lisa and glue ourselves to the highway during rush hour to show how serious we are.

“Common Sense” Gun Control: Gun confiscation. There is nothing “sensible” about violating a citizen’s Second Amendment rights. It is like confiscating a person’s car because someone else used their car in the commission of a crime. This is a ploy by the government to disarm citizens as a way to exert maximum control over their lives. Don’t think it can’t happen here.

Corporate Greed: An accusation leveled at any company that turns a profit for the benefit of its shareholders. The same accusation is made toward any company raising prices due to inflation caused by destructive government economic policies. This is yet another sign that the government will not assume any accountability for its incompetence or malice.

Deincarceration: Setting convicted criminals free with the intention of closing prisons. In the eyes of the left, no human being, even the most violent and depraved, should be imprisoned and separated from the public. The chaos, destruction, and loss of life are a feature, not a bug.

Disinformation: See “misinformation” below.

Diversity: Dividing people by their immutable qualities, such as race and gender, to create conflict within a society or system for the benefit of those in power. You see, “diversity” is our strength. Just ask those who are in charge.

Equity: Equal outcome of life’s experiences, no matter how much effort or ambition is applied. A chain is as strong as its weakest link; thus a society is as strong as the most incompetent, lazy, psychopathic weirdo among us.

Existential Threat to Democracy: A person or movement that will interrupt the looting of the U.S. Treasury, the kickbacks from U.S. foreign aid to Ukraine, and massive corruption at the federal level in which elected and unelected bureaucrats emerge from “public service” fabulously wealthy for doing virtually nothing of value. See “‘our’ democracy” below.

Fair Share: The amount of taxes that “rich” people and corporations must pay as determined by the politician demanding it. The actual amount varies depending on how much influence that person or company has with the politician.

Food Desert: The lack of access to groceries due to the consistent looting of goods by neighborhood residents, with the store owner threatened with jail if he intervenes and the police instructed to stand down. Eventually, the grocery store closes due to lost profitability and the inability to obtain business insurance. Or maybe it’s just corporate greed? Yeah, that sounds better (see “corporate greed” above).

Gaslighting: The practice of leftists and progressives deluding themselves that fantasy is reality as practiced by Democrats and their handmaidens in the mainstream media. In 2024 this was especially true as practiced by CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. To “gaslight” is to manipulate viewers and readers into questioning their perception of reality.

Harm Reduction: Providing clean drug paraphernalia for junkies and a safe area for them to shoot up or smoke up, making drug addiction almost consequence-free. That is, until the junkie ODs and winds up dead in a ditch somewhere. See, there is a cure for addiction after all.

Hate Speech: Any speech the left disagrees with.

Inclusion: The exclusion of heterosexual, white males from employment, opportunities for advancement, and participation in American society.

Investment: Spending excessive taxpayer monies on already bloated programs without any expectation of being held accountable for failure. A lot of “investments” have been made in the last four years, right?

Joy: Also “brat.” Nobody has a f*cking clue what this means.

Justice: Payback for all grievances, real or imagined. Social justice, climate justice, racial justice, and even distributive justice. Revenge for thinking or being different. This takes the place of “criminal justice,” as criminals are now considered a key voting bloc among Democrats. Why else would they want to give incarcerated felons voting rights?

Justice reform: Refusal to enforce laws that deter crime, creating societal chaos to urge citizens to give up their freedoms and allow others to control their lives in exchange for security (see “Security” below).

Malinformation: See “misinformation” below.

Marginalized communities: People who compete for benefits within the government spoils structure but don’t want to work for it, expecting social workers to guide them through the system, creating dependency. This dependency keeps them “marginalized,” and the welfare-industrial complex chugs on into perpetuity.

Minimum wage: Sometimes referred to as “living wage,” this is the mandated wage paid to entry-level workers that is above and beyond the market value those workers actually deliver, which eliminates the number of available entry-level jobs and reduces the hours (and salaries) of those who ultimately will need multiple jobs to offset their losses. At any rate, the real minimum wage is ZERO once you’ve lost your job, all good intentions notwithstanding.

Misinformation: Any statement or narrative that exposes the truth about an event or intention. Also known as “disinformation” and “malinformation.”

MSDNC: Another name for the far-left cable news outlet, MSNBC. Led by its best-known propagandist, Rachel “RussiaGate” Maddow, and supported by a cast of Democrat operatives, including Jen Psaki, Joy Reid, Mika Brzezinski, Stephanie Ruhle, Chris Hayes, Alex Wagner, and Lawrence O’Donnell, along with long-standing RINO (Republicans In Name Only) neocons like Nicole Wallace and Joe Scarborough, who gaslighted themselves. In the aftermath of the 2024 election, MSDNC proceeded to lose approximately 50 percent of its audience. DNC in MSDNC refers to the Democrat National Committee.

Newcomer: One of the over 15 million people from all over the world that have illegally descended on our nation over the past four years. Each “newcomer” immediately receives prepaid credit cards, cell phones, EBT cards, transportation, and hotel vouchers that are not available to U.S. citizens (“see Undocumented Migrant” below). The “newcomer” is to be welcomed, fast-tracked to citizenship, registered to vote, and fully supported by your tax dollars without any exception or limit.

Non-binary: A person who can’t decide if they’re straight or gay. Spoiler: If you’re a guy and you like guys, or if you’re a gal and you like gals, gay it is. You’re welcome.

Opportunity Economy: A campaign platitude that has no meaning and cannot be explained by anyone claiming this as a policy platform. Also known as a “dream economy,” in which economic recovery under Democrats exists only in a dream.

“Our” Democracy: “Our” government spoils system that we control, allowing us to reign over the population by choosing economic winners and losers, buying votes through wealth transfers, paying people to be dependent on us so we can control them, and having the ability to punish our political enemies, which, as it so happens, is about half of the country. Let’s get one thing straight: It is not “your” democracy we are saving.

Palestinian People: Mostly Jordanians who were kicked out of Jordan for attempting to overthrow the country continuously since the 1940s. The “Palestinian people” exist only as a suicide squad against Israel. One must realize that a vast majority of “Palestinians” are actually incorrigible barbarians still living under 7th-century religious and social doctrines that even the surrounding Arab nations cannot control and thus refuse to take into their countries.

Path to Citizenship: Blanket amnesty.

Privilege: Something for White people to “check.” We keep “checking,” but we can’t find it.

Progressive: A weasel word for a communist-curious, poorly educated radical with no impulse control and only a slight relationship with reality. When in power, the progressive wants to preserve the status quo. Out of power, the progressive tries to overthrow the opposition by any means necessary. The label has nothing to do with “progress,” but word games are fun, and they hate themselves anyway, so let them run with that label.

Public servant: A noble, dedicated government figure who tirelessly works on behalf of the people. A person who also, under any circumstance, cannot be terminated in most cases, who will walk off the job in a New York minute if the union says so, has every single federal and local holiday off with pay and has a government pension that will continue to pay out a nearly full annual salary with benefits upon retirement for the rest of the “public servant’s” life. It’s a career path for those who otherwise would be unemployable.

Racist: A label slapped on any action or statement that a leftist cannot handle or answer honestly. It’s a coping mechanism for the left, rendering the genuine meaning of “racist” useless.

Reproductive freedom: The position that a woman should have complete and total freedom to kill her unborn child, even in the delivery room. It’s her body and her choice, you sexist pig.

Security: A prohibition of self-defense where citizens defending themselves or others will be punished while non-citizens and the “marginalized” will be set free and rewarded with taxpayer benefits. All in the name of “social justice” (see “justice” above).

Transgender: Formally known as “gender dysphoria,” which elevates a person to near the top of the victim pyramid, and everyone must play along with the person’s break from reality and call that person by their preferred pronoun, or you will lose your job and everything you own. Our pronouns are Screw/You.

Underrepresented: An ethnic group that, in the opinion of politicians, doesn’t have enough power over other people.

Undocumented immigrant: A brave, admirable new member of society offering cultural enrichment, doing the jobs Americans won’t do, and living in the U.S. as a net-positive influence on our society. Documents should not matter, because no human being should be considered “illegal.” We’re pleased to have you, just not living in our neighborhood.

Word Salad: A stunningly absurd response to a straight-up inquiry, consisting of conjoined sentences and non-sequiturs containing zero substance. Words are repeated to indicate seriousness, yet it only reinforces the notion that the speaker has no idea what they are talking about. If it were a cuisine, it would be a popular item at the Democrat Diner.

Workers’ Rights: A label given to the activity of a union’s coercion of workers to organize, pay union dues, and vote the way the union bosses want them to vote. The only “workers’ rights” the union cares about are the ability to strike at the direction of the union and to authorize massive pay packages for the union leadership. The workers are otherwise expendable.

Conflicts, climate-related disasters and economic pressures have continued to drive ever more people from their homes in search of security and a better life.

While the vast majority of migrants moving to Europe follow legal routes, many resort to crossing international borders without authorization each year. This often includes dangerous (and in many cases deadly) passages.

As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, 2024 has seen major shifts in the patterns of irregular border detections since 2023. This data was collected between January and November of 2024 by Frontex, the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders. The organization highlights that detections are different from the number of persons, as the same person may cross an external border several times. Currently there is no EU system in place capable of tracing each person’s movements following an illegal border-crossing.

You will find more infographics at Statista

According to Frontex, overall detected irregular border crossings into the European Union were down by 40 percent in the first 11 months of this year. This was mostly driven by the drop in detections of people making crossings in the Western Balkans (-79 percent) and the Central Mediterranean (-59 percent).

Despite this decline, the latter route still had the second highest number of detections of the six key routes at 62,034.

But several borders have also seen increases. For example, Frontex recorded a total of 41,756 detections of people making crossings along the West African route, which is up 19 percent since 2022. This puts the total at the highest level since Frontex began collecting data in 2009 and is likely due to a deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in the region. According to the source, criminal networks are intensifying their operations along this route, sending an increasing number of people by boat to the Canary Islands.

Along the Eastern Mediterranean passage there has also been an increase of 18 percent in the first 11 months of the year. According to the International Organization for Migration, 2,233 people have been recorded as either dead or missing in the Mediterranean Sea this year alone, with the Central Mediterranean having claimed the lives of 1,658, the Western Mediterranean 409 lives, the Eastern Mediterranean 164 and Western Africa/Atlantic route to the Canary Islands.

Meanwhile, the Eastern land border saw the highest increase of all borders, as it was up 200 percent from the year before, bringing the figure to 16,530. The overwhelming majority of these were Ukrainian men of military age (13,847 Ukrainian detections). Trailing some way behind were groups of nationals from Ethiopia (426), Somalia (415), Eritrea (405) and Syria (365).

Nationals from Syria, Mali, Bangladesh, Ukraine and Afghanistan made up the five biggest groups of people stopped at these six borders to the EU, in addition to the circular route in Albania and Greece, between January and September, 2024. Data shows that Syrians were also the biggest group in 2023, accounting for 27.8 percent of total irregular detections. In the full 12 months, 107,080 Syrian irregular border crossings were reported – triple the 35,198 detections in the first 11 months of this year. In 2023, the second biggest group of nationals were Guineans (5.6 percent) and the third Senegalese (5.2 percent)

Authored by Anders Corr via The Epoch Times,

Given the coming technological revolutions in warfare, it is important that the United States and our allies get out in front early, keep the lead, and degrade the adversary’s capabilities.

China’s “loyal wingman” fighter drones get a lot of attention these days. The wingman is a force multiplier, meant to fly in numbers alongside its crewed jet fighters or to lead a fleet of smaller drones. If deployed in a swarm, the wingmen and smaller drones could quickly overwhelm a fleet of manned fighter jets and air defenses. They are jet-powered but far less expensive than a regular fighter jet to fly, in part because they do not require a trained pilot. Some simulated dogfights between human pilots and artificial intelligence (AI) pilots who learn on the fly have resulted in AI wins as far back as 2020.

The latest iteration of the Chinese wingman drone—called the Feihong FH-97A—appears to be a vast improvement over the earlier versions unveiled in 2022 and 2023. The FH-97A is reportedly faster than its U.S. counterpart, the XQ-58A Valkyrie. The range of the FH-97A is about 620 miles. The current range is more than enough to reach anywhere in Taiwan, plus sea lanes on the eastern side of the island that would be critical for provisioning Taiwan in case of a war or naval blockade. From Chinese possessions, the FH-97A can range all of South Korea, the East China Sea, parts of Japan and the Philippines, and all of the South China Sea through island hopping on China’s airfields and artificial islands.

Moreover, the FH-97A could, in the future, be used to attack any part of the United States or Europe, given that it can catapult launch from aircraft carriers and because the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has plans to give it aerial refueling capabilities. The drones will add to the power of the PLA Air Force’s other recent innovations (and thefts from the United States), including stealth fighter jets and stealth bombers. The drones can be used for air- and land-attack missions, electronic warfare, reconnaissance, and bomber escort.

While the United States has long had better-trained fighter pilots and more advanced planes, giving it air superiority over China, those tables could be turning. Without the need for pilots but rather the utilization of AI programs that have demonstrated superiority, China’s age of high technology and mass industrial production could far outproduce the United States and shift air superiority decisively to the PLA.

This would have immediate and dire consequences for countries already under military pressure from Beijing, namely Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, and India.

One promising defense against Chinese drones is laser-based weapons; for example, the HELIOS system deployed on a U.S. naval destroyer in 2022 and the DragonFire system tested by the United Kingdom in January.

The DragonFire laser can destroy targets with pinpoint accuracy in its line of sight with shots that would cut through the drone’s mechanics or explode its warheads. Each shot costs less than £10 ($12.61) to fire for 10 seconds, suggesting they could be used to cheaply slice into an enemy system with repeated passes. Compare that to the cost of a missile interceptor at a million dollars or more, which can be a waste of money against some of the cheapest Iranian military drones, for example, that cost at most $2,000 each. The British system is planned for deployment on the country’s naval ships by 2027, with the British army also considering a deployment. Scientists in China are also developing laser weapons, including for use from space.

Laser weapons could eventually negate the power of intercontinental ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles and force surface and air combatants underwater, where lasers are ineffective.

Subsurface combatants could become relatively useless against land targets except perhaps those closest to the coast. In the case of Ukraine, for example, the widespread adoption of laser weapons could create a stalemate for years to come.

The United States is now the world’s strongest superpower, considered economically and militarily. Many have come before, and none lasted forever. One mistake that results in the loss of the technological lead to China or Russia, for example, could be the end of the United States as we know it. Now is our chance to avoid that disaster.

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Authored by Adam Sabes via Campus Reform,

41% of college-aged voters consider the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thomas as “acceptable,” according to a new poll…

Emerson Polling conducted the survey of 1,000 registered voters between Dec. 11-13, according to Axios.

A whopping 41% of voters aged 18 to 29 years old either consider the killing of Thomas as “acceptable” or “somewhat acceptable.”

Support for the killing drops significantly in older generations, as 23% of voters aged 30 to 39 support the killing and 13% of those aged 40 to 49.

Just 8% of voters aged 50 to 59 support the killing.

One professor at the University of Pennsylvania apologized after praising Luigi Mangione, who allegedly killed Thompson.

In several posts, University of Pennsylvania Professor Julia Alekseyeva called Mangione “[t]he icon we all need and deserve” and took pride in the fact that he graduated from the same institution.

In her apology, Alekseyeva wrote:

“Late last night I posted a TikTok, as well as several stories on my Instagram. These were completely insensitive and inappropriate, and I retract them wholly. I do not condone violence and I am genuinely regretful of any harm the posts have caused.”

Overall, 68% of voters surveyed consider the actions of Thompson’s killer unacceptable.

Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,

Donald Trump’s popular vote victory has eroded some of the demographic gains Democrats have been working on for years, giving Republicans hope they can break the historic trend of the president’s party losing seats in the first midterm election after winning the White House.

Two years from now some 14 Democratic House members will be defending districts Trump won, compared to just three Republicans in districts carried by Vice President Kamala Harris.

It’s a significantly better outlook than the GOP faced after Trump’s 2016 victory, which he eked out on the basis of an Electoral College win in the key swing states. That year, two dozen Republicans were elected in districts Hillary Clinton won, roughly the same number of Democrat-occupied seats that Trump carried. In 2018, Democrats gained seats in the Clinton districts and even carved into some of the districts that Trump won, wresting back control of the majority until 2022, when Republicans re-took control.

One reason House majorities have grown slimmer in recent years is the increasingly sophisticated redistricting fights waged by both parties. Over the last decade, Democrats and Republicans have engaged in a protracted battle over the redrawing of congressional districts involving millions of dollars in litigation, thousands of hours of closed-door negotiations, and multiple Supreme Court showdowns.  

Partly because of their efforts, Democrats limited the House majority to five seats this year – 220 to Democrats’ 215. But because of Trump’s popular vote victory, winning back the majority in 2026 will require Democrats to carve a path through Trump territory.

“In places where the Democrats were really banking on this whole ‘demographics as destiny’ thing to carry them through  the decade, President Trump just detonated that,” said Adam Kincaid, president and executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust.

Overall, Trump carried nearly the same number of congressional districts across the nation – 231 – that he did in 2016 before the most recent redrawing of the congressional maps took place. In 2016, Kincaid says Trump won many of those districts by a plurality because third-party candidate Evan McMullen, a former CIA officer who ran as an independent, siphoned off votes in nearly two dozen districts. Now, Trump’s two-party vote share is 50.8% – meaning he should have carried only 221 congressional districts if the results were directly proportional to the percentage of the vote he won.

Kincaid argues the surplus of 10 House districts is a sign of his group’s redistricting success.

Democrats counter that Republicans’ razor-thin majority demonstrates their own success in taking their fights for more advantageous maps to the courts, especially across the South, where Republicans control many state legislatures and have spent decades drawing the maps in their favor.

In 2016, voters favored House Republicans over Democrats by only a 1.1% advantage, 49.1% to 48%, but Republicans held a far larger House majority, 241 to 194. This year, House Republicans won 50.5% of the vote to Democrats’ 47.9% but will hold only a five-seat majority next year.

“The popular vote and seat-count margin in Congress this past election and in 2022 is evidence that the [Democratic] redistricting strategy is working,” Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, told RealClearPolitics. “What you’re seeing is a map that actually reflects where the voters are, and that’s a far cry from where we were a decade ago.”

Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the liberal-leaning Brennan Center has long argued that GOP-gerrymandered maps have for years given Republicans such an unfair edge that Democrats typically need to win the national aggregate popular vote in congressional races by 2-3% to control the House.

He and others often point to 2012, when House Democrats won 1.4 million more votes than Republicans, but the GOP held a 33-seat majority.

That gap has narrowed greatly in the ensuing years.

“There’s a lot of really good work that happened by candidates in competitive districts, and there are some places where those competitive districts went to Republicans, but that’s the whole point,” Jenkins said. “These districts are now fair and responsive. If it remains that way through the decade, that’s a good thing.”

With a more even playing field, the Democrats’ chances of taking advantage of the famed “midterm curse” in 2026 will depend in large part on whether Trump’s popularity recedes over the next two years, a variable impossible to predict. While the national politics play out, Democrats and Republicans will continue focusing on what they can control – continuing their redistricting court battles as far as they can take them.

This cycle, NDRC efforts are likely to result in Democrats gaining two seats in Alabama and Louisiana as a result of lawsuits forcing the state to abide by the Voting Rights Act, to draw maps reflecting the percentage of black voters. Federal judges ordered lawmakers in those states to give African Americans more opportunities to elect House candidates representing their views.

Meanwhile, the legal battle over the congressional map in Georgia didn’t change the partisan breakdown of the state’s House delegation. In North Carolina, the Republican-controlled state legislature crafted congressional district lines that gave their party a huge advantage, flipping three seats previously held by Democrats. In New York, the Democratic majority in the state legislature, ridiculed for the comically extreme gerrymandered original congressional map, adjusted to a more modest position.

Here are some of the most recent redistricting disputes, outcomes, and pending developments.

Louisiana

This year, the Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on the lower court ruling forcing the Republican-controlled state legislature to approve a second black-majority district.

After the November election, the state now has two black members of its six-member delegation – Rep. Cleo Fields representing the newly drawn 6th District, and Rep. Troy Carter, who easily won reelection with 60% of the vote.

New York

Even though the predicted Republican “red wave” never materialized in 2022, Republicans managed to flip four House seats in New York that year, which helped them secure the majority. But a ruling by the state’s highest court threatened to jeopardize those gains by making it easier for Democrats to net as many as six Republican-held seats.

Democratic state lawmakers, however, decided not to overreach and to make only modest adjustments to the district lines. The New York legislature’s final map made modest changes, reducing the number of Republicans in freshman GOP Rep. Brandon William’s district while solidifying Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi’s Long Island seat, which the party flipped in a February special election to succeed Rep. George Santos, who was expelled from the chamber.

Both parties have said they will operate with the new map, a decision that cements New York as a top battleground for House control for years to come.

North Carolina

Republicans hold a supermajority in North Carolina’s state legislature and used that power to redraw districts lines in their favor. The state’s congressional map was redrawn three times before the 2022 midterm elections, resulting in a 7-7 partisan split of the House delegation.

Republicans who had gained more sway over the redistricting process in the 2022 midterm elections, including flipping the state supreme court, weren’t satisfied and redrew the map once again before 2024.

In the end, Republicans flipped three House seats to Republicans after the Democratic incumbents decided against running for reelection in the GOP-skewed new districts.

Democratic Rep. Roy Cooper lacks veto power over redistricting legislation, so Democratic Party lawyers filed lawsuits on behalf of black and Hispanic voters alleging the new map “intentionally discriminates” against minority voters.

The cases are pending before a three-judge panel.

Alabama

The U.S. Supreme Court has already weighed in on the latest Alabama-approved map, which created a second congressional district with a substantial black population. Before the court action, the state, which is 27% African American, had only one black-majority district out of seven.

In the high court’s 5-4 decision upholding the map, conservative justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh agreed with three liberal justices to uphold the lower-court ruling enforcing a key provision of the Voting Rights Act – making it illegal to draw maps aimed at diluting the influence of black voters.

The ruling, which could impact the similar pending case in Louisiana, resulted in the election of two black House members from Alabama serving together for the first time in history. Shomari Figures will represent the newly drawn 2nd Congressional District, which includes Mobile County and much of the so-called rural “Black Belt” (named for its rich soil, not its people). Figures, a Mobile native who worked in the Biden administration, won by nine percentage points last month. He will join longtime incumbent Rep. Terri Sewell of the state’s sprawling 7th Congressional District centered in her hometown of Selma. She willingly ceded some of the Black Belt to help make the delegation more diverse – and more Democratic.

The Supreme Court’s ruling blocked the state from implementing its map but was not a final resolution of the case. State officials last fall said they would operate under the high court’s ruling but planned to continue litigating the case. The case is set to go to trial in February.

Georgia

Georgia Republicans fought Democratic efforts to add an additional House seat they would likely control. The GOP-drawn map complied with an order issued by U.S. District Judge Steve Jones to establish an additional black majority district.

The map accommodated that requirement but preserved the Republicans’ 9-5 advantage in the state’s House delegation by shifting the Atlanta-area district held by Rep. Lucy McBath, a black Democrat, farther into Republican territory.

Jones late in 2023 ruled that the newly drawn map, which preserved the GOP’s 9-5 advantage, “fully complied” with his ruling.

The judge was abiding by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which protects minority voters but doesn’t prevent Republicans from altering Democratic-held districts with white majorities or where no ethnic group is in the majority. Such was the case with McBath’s district, enabling the GOP-controlled legislature to dilute the district with more Republican voters. Despite the changes, McBath won the redrawn 6th District with 75% of the vote.

That’s not the end of the litigation. A separate federal case in Georgia argues the new map is unconstitutional. That case faces a stay pending an appeals court decision in the Voting Rights Act cases, which a three-judge panel is set to hear in late January.

Florida

In September 2023, a state judge ruled against a redrawn district in Northern Florida that Gov. Ron DeSantis had defended.

The case differs from Alabama’s Voting Rights Act lawsuit decided by the Supreme Court in that it is based on the Fair District provisions in the state constitution. The Republican-drawn map dismantled a seat held by Rep. Al Lawson, a black Democrat, that spanned several black communities across a northern swath of Florida.

Late last year, however, a state appeals court upheld the map DeSantis argued in favor of, determining that the plaintiffs “failed to present any evidence” that the prior version of the district contained a singular cohesive community that would have a right to protection under Florida law.

The state supreme court is expected to issue an opinion soon.

Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics’ national political correspondent.

Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) on Dec. 22 for allegedly misleading sportgoers into believing they were watching a competition between players of one gender.

“The NCAA is intentionally and knowingly jeopardizing the safety and wellbeing of women by deceptively changing women’s competitions into co-ed competitions,” Paxton said in a statement on Sunday. “When people watch a women’s volleyball game, for example, they expect to see women playing against other women—not biological males pretending to be something they are not. Radical ‘gender theory’ has no place in college sports.”

Paxton argued in the lawsuit that the NCAA’s practice of allowing biological men who identify as women to play in women’s sports violates the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which protects consumers from scams.

In response to The Epoch Times’ request for comment, an NCAA spokesperson said though the association doesn’t comment on pending litigation, it will “continue to promote Title IX, make unprecedented investments in women’s sports and ensure fair competition in all NCAA championships.”

“Most consumers know that a ‘woman’ means an adult human female,” Paxton said, a definition that has been commonly understood “throughout human history,” he noted.

By allowing men to compete in women’s college sports, the NCAA is robbing women of their earned positions and lying to consumers about the competitive nature of the sporting event, he said.

“When female athletes are forced to compete against men in women’s sports, they are deprived of titles, records, medals, scholarships, and opportunities to win; opportunities to participate in a fair and safe environment; and the ancillary benefits that sports participation provides,” he said in the lawsuit. “Consumers do not purchase goods and services associated with women’s sporting events to watch men steal medals and records from female programs.”

In March, former college swimmer Riley Gaines and other female college athletes filed a lawsuit against the NCAA for allowing men identifying as women to compete in women’s sports.

In October, 26 college regents in Georgia called on the NCAA to ban men identifying as transgender athletes from women’s college sports.

In its “Transgender Student-Athlete Participation Policy,” updated in May 2024, the NCAA said it aligned with the student-athlete Olympic Movement, which allows for “transgender student-athlete participation for each sport to be determined by the policy for the national governing body of that sport.”

If there’s no national governing body for the sport, NCAA policy guidelines default to the International Olympic Committee’s policy criteria and the 2010 NCAA policy, in addition to a requirement that such athletes “meet the sport standard for documented testosterone levels” before competing.

On Dec. 20, the Department of Education withdrew its 2023 proposed rule that would have prohibited schools from banning male athletes who identify as women from participating in women’s sports.

Citing the complexity of the public comments and legal battles, the department said it chose “not to regulate on this issue at this time.”

Aldgra Fredly and Caden Pearson contributed to this report.

This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, visualizes the average credit card debt held by households in each U.S. state and ranks the states where residents pay off the debt the fastest and slowest.

Data is sourced from Bankrate (2024) who also used average monthly household income to calculate how long it takes to pay off balances.

ℹ️ Assumptions made for this analysis: 5% of monthly household income is used for card payments. Also, no new debt is accrued in this time period.

How Long it Takes to Pay off Credit Card Balances in Each State

Households in Alaska and Washington D.C. are carrying more than $7,000 in credit card debt, the highest across the country. However, with average annual household incomes of $109,000 and $149,000, residents in both states can pay off their debt in about 14–20 months.

In fact, glancing through the numbers below reveals a pattern.

*Assuming no new debt is accrued. **Federal district.

Richer state households—Connecticut, California, Washington—have higher costs of living and are carrying higher credit card balances. But they also manage to pay them off quickly with their larger incomes.

On the other hand, households in poorer states have below-average debt but it take closer to two years for them to pay it off.

This highlights the unequal debt burden across America. While the people living on the coasts have higher costs, they’re compensated by their incomes. However the South’s lower costs are not as evenly compensated.

And of course, compound interest is not a game played in favor of the borrower. Carrying the debt for longer periods of time accrues additional interest. Bankrate’s analysis points out that when making only minimum payments, it would take more than 17 years to pay it off the national average debt: $6,140.

In case that seems like a ludicrous amount of time, here’s a good reminder that most credit card interest compounds daily and not monthly.

Cross reference this map with Credit Card Delinquency Rates by State to see the effects of debt burden.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President-elect Donald Trump said Sunday he would aim to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations and will launch an anti-drug advertising campaign inside the United States.

“I will immediately designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations,” Trump said in Arizona at a Turning Point conference, reiterating a campaign promise to make the declaration.

While in office in 2019, Trump had planned to make the designation and ultimately did not make the move after a request from then-Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said he wanted cooperation with the U.S. government on dealing with drug cartels.

Trump’s election platform has stated when he returns to the White House, he will direct the Department of Defense to use “special forces, cyber warfare, and other covert and overt actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations.”

Trump on Sunday also previewed a new advertising initiative designed to provide information about the effects of drug use.

“We’re going to advertise how bad drugs are for you,” Trump said in Arizona at a Turning Point conference, referring to the ad campaign. “They ruin your look, they ruin your face, they ruin your skin, they ruin your teeth.”

While he did not provide more details about the campaign, it appears to be the first time Trump has made reference to the plan.

In the 1970s and 1980s, anti-drug ad blitzes were launched across the United States, culminating in former first lady Nancy Reagan’s “just say no” campaign that was designed to prevent younger Americans from doing drugs. Public schools also featured the Drug Abuse Resistance Education, also known as D.A.R.E, that sought to provide information on illegal drugs and controlled substances, as well as prevent gang membership and violent behavior.

Over the past several years, hundreds of thousands of Americans have died of overdoses of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl, which is easy to do due to its potency—just 2 milligrams can be fatal. The drug, which is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, is often trafficked across the U.S.–Mexico border by drug cartels based in Mexico.

Trump’s 2024 campaign has heavily leaned into messaging around stopping the fentanyl epidemic as well as illegal immigration into the United States. Since winning the election last month, the president-elect has said he will also start operations for mass deportations and would declare a nationwide emergency over the matter.

The incoming Trump administration’s border czar, Tom Homan, a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other Trump officials have said that they will prioritize targeting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes or are deemed a threat to U.S. national security for deportation.

They have also pledged to deport anyone residing in the country illegally, although Trump has indicated he would consider allowing illegal immigrants who have been in the United States since childhood to remain under certain conditions.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates that 11 million illegal immigrants were living in the United States as of 2022, the latest statistics that are available. While campaigning in the 2024 contest, Trump talked about creating the “largest deportation effort in the history of our country” and called for using the National Guard and domestic police forces in the effort.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

Millions of U.S. companies might be busy over the holidays forking over their data to the Treasury Department, thanks to a last-minute ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

The Fifth Circuit on Monday overturned a lower court’s injunction against a constitutionally dubious law that requires the country’s estimated 32.6 million active companies to submit their private ownership information to a central database ran by the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN.

The ruling means that all companies formed prior to 2024 must file a report with Treasury by next Wednesday, Jan. 1. Companies formed this year are required to file within 90 days of their formation.

“Enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) has been reinstated along with its impending January 1, 2025 filing deadline,” the financial firm Brown Advisory said in a Tuesday press release. “These reports provide basic legal information about the company itself, the entity’s owners, and the individuals that create or register the entity.”

Forbes predicated there’s still a long legal battle ahead.

“Additionally, a potential new administration may take steps to limit the CTA administratively, adding another layer of uncertainty for businesses,” Forbes reported.

The cost of compliance with the law is estimated to be some $22.7 billion the first year and $5.6 billion per year thereafter.

The U.S. government and liberal activists have argued for decades that a central beneficial ownership registry is required to curtail money laundering. Critics have pointed out how the central registry would pose privacy risks and impose another layer of regulation on private businesses. Moreover, criminals wouldn’t voluntarily submit their personal information for such a registry.

There are six plaintiffs suing over the law, including two that don’t do business outside their respective states. Another plaintiff was the Libertarian Party of Mississippi, which is a non-profit political entity, but would have still had to register under the Corporate Transparency Act.

Roughly 5 million new companies are formed in the U.S. each year.