The State of Alaska filed a lawsuit against the federal government, alleging a violation of a congressional directive mandating the development of oil and gas resources in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s (ANWR) Coastal Plain.

Known as the Section 1002 Area, the 1.5 million-acre stretch of Alaska’s northern coast was designated by Congress in 1980 for potential energy development.

In 2017, Congress explicitly directed federal agencies to open the area for oil and gas leasing.

But a December, 2024 decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management significantly curtailed this directive.

Nylon is one of the oldest and most commonly used thermoplastics but there still seems to be a lot of confusion about properly drying nylon and in general about how nylon is affected by moisture. //

You could use a nylon 12 which does not absorb as much moisture but Nylon 12 is really expensive.

The first form calculates the pressure or friction loss along a given length of pipeline with a specified inside diameter. The second form calculates the minimum pipe size to limit pressure loss to a specified value.

Additional friction pressure losses occur due to fittings. These losses in-effect add extra additional length to the total pipeline. Use this calculator to estimate how much additional length needs to be added to the overall pipe length below in order to estimate these additional losses. Learn more about the units used on this page.

the soon-to-be-former President Biden claimed that had he stayed in the race, he would have won the 2024 presidential election. That, folks, is denial that's measurable on the Richter scale. //

Steprock
21 minutes ago
I agree, Ward. But do you know how we know for a FACT that he would have lost?

Because he did lose! He was weighed and measured by his own party and thrown out. That was the race to the starting line and he didn't make it.

He lost before it started just like Harris lost to Tulsi. It's not wishful thinking; it's denying what actually happened.

He dropped out. He lost. That's the contest. That's the conclusion. No need to deal in hypotheticals.

Kindle
Your Notes and Highlights

Close to a couple of decades ago (ouch), when I was an active sports blogger, I wrote a list of online rules for myself, which I dubbed the four tenets of the blogging evangel. This was back when blogs and bloggers reigned supreme. Social media has long usurped their place, emphasizing quick quips and clips designed to gather maximum clicks. However, the basic principles remain relevant.

1. The ability to broadcast an opinion neither elevates nor validates said opinion.
2. Blog from and for the heart, not the bank account.
3. Answer your email every time all of the time.
4. Never become what you profess to oppose. Never.
   Indulge me while I break these down a bit.

That sounds a bit arcane, and it likely is; the president, as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, should take the word of the Constitution first and foremost. But, yes, everything is (tiresomely at times) subject to legal interpretation. What's interesting here is that Durbin is asking the DOJ to rescind opinions that he evidently agreed with while Joe Biden was president.

Did you hear that scraping sound? That's the sound of goalposts being moved. //

anon-gkyt
25 minutes ago
Hey, Durbin. What part of Commander-in-Chief don’t you get?? As for use of the military domestically, General Winfield Scott, the senior army commander, stated in 1861 a self-evident fact. The military is to deal with threats foreign and domestic. Ever heard of Lincoln using the US military domestically? If that was not “domestic”, the invasion of the Confederacy was simply an act of aggression by the US government.

Though the reactions from various fact-checking groups were pretty predictable, it was the one from CNN media hall monitor Brian Stelter that was perhaps most revealing of all:

Big picture: Mark Zuckerberg just announced sweeping changes to the social internet, all in line with the desires of President Trump and Trump voters.

Out with the fact-checkers that conservatives deride. In with more permissive rules for posting conservative opinions.

I mean, how absolutely horrifying, right? The free flow of conservative opinions on social media as opposed to the lopsided political biases from "fact checkers' we've seen for years on these platforms and which almost universally impact conservatives the hardest is apparently too bitter a pill for the pro-censorship Stelter to swallow: //

Chuck Ross @ChuckRossDC
·
CNN is currently in court in Florida in a defamation case, had to settle with Nicholas Sandmann for defaming him, was the leading purveyor of the Russia collusion hoax, and hired the reporter who peddled the lie that the Hunter Biden laptop was disinfo. https://x.com/brianstelter/status/1876666450208825470
Brian Stelter @brianstelter
Meta's framing – in its PR blog post – is "More Speech and Fewer Mistakes." An alternate title could be "More Lies and More Confusion." https://cnn.com/2025/01/07/media/mark-zuckerberg-meta-fact-checking-analysis/index.html
11:56 AM · Jan 7, 2025

Bonchie
@bonchieredstate
·
Follow
The “experts” were left “head-scratching”after Trump suggested to clean up brush and build more infrastructure to store water.

They were perplexed by the most obvious solution imaginable.

Amazing.
9:11 AM · Jan 8, 2025. //

Trump’s suggestions have prompted head-scratching from experts who say his prescriptions — more raking, less water released into the ocean for environmental purposes — suggest he does not understand the science of wildfires. Critics also point out that most of California’s wildlands are federally managed. //

The 2024 budget also included increased funding for forest management and wildfire prevention. The state also has the largest aerial firefighting force in the world. Further, it should be noted that much of the land that burns in California and then spreads to populated areas is federally owned and maintained.

Unfortunately, President Joe Biden's Forestry Service canceled all of its controlled burns last Fall out of worry the agency (and by virtue, the White House) would be blamed if anything went wrong. Yes, the federal government valued protecting itself from scrutiny over the lives and livelihoods of California residents. I'd say that's surprising, but it's not surprising at all.

One of the larger issues that does fall on the shoulders of California's leadership is water management. While rainy winters have helped mostly fill the existing reservoirs over the last several years, the lack of capacity has still led to valuable water flowing into the ocean. California has not built a new reservoir since 1979 despite suffering numerous droughts and wildfires over the years. That isn't lost on voters in the state, who passed Proposition 4 in November, which allocated significant funds to increase capacity that is sorely lacking. Whether that will be followed through on is anyone's guess. //

Trump attempted to change federal government policy to increase water diversions into existing reservoirs as a measure to fight wildfires. He was sued by the State of California and a series of environmental groups. They won an injunction in 2020, stopping his plans to provide more desperately needed water.

So then we have Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. These two have actively campaigned, promoted, and paved the way for legislation that makes/keeps abortion a legal procedure. But if you're a faithful and practicing Catholic, you don't believe this is morally correct. In fact, you believe it is morally wrong. There are groups like Catholics for Choice who think abortions are ok, but they're really just support groups for people who feel guilty and need others in the pen with them to make them feel less guilty. These people are nominal Catholics who reject one of the core teachings of the Church, and so they should just go join another outfit more aligned with their views. //

What disturbs me, though, is that we have two people who wave their Catholicism in our faces, and yet they still support the act of abortion. This makes them nominal Catholics who use their faith to further their own political careers...in my opinion. And this is bad. //

Biden and Pelosi, though, are a lot worse than these people because they use their positions as legislators to further what their Church calls a moral evil, all the while claiming and touting their Catholicism. How do they square that circle? Well, they simply tell us that while they don't personally believe in abortion, as lawmakers, they cannot force their religious views on their constituents who want abortion to be legal. How virtuous of them. And they promote abortions to make the voters happy so that they won't get kicked out of power by them. This is also known as "Selling Your Soul." You surrender your values on morality to serve another diametrically opposed to your own. //

There's no room to thread the needle here for a practicing Catholic. And what we have in Biden and Pelosi are two individuals who have been, unfortunately, temporally successful in doing just that. And now, each with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, I wonder what goes through their minds. Pelosi is probably thinking that she'll change God's mind by hook, crook, or bribery. And Biden? Well, he's going to visit the pope shortly. Maybe he'll be looking for absolution from Francis.

A Florida grand jury investigation ordered by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis reveals a "pattern of deceptive and obfuscatory behavior" by pharmaceutical companies and federal agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of Florida's 22nd Statewide Grand Jury and their forward-looking recommendations highlight concerns about vaccine safety data, the effectiveness of lockdown measures, and captured regulatory oversight. //

The grand jury's report delivered a stark assessment of pandemic policies, stating:

"This wasn't an 'information' problem, it was a 'judgment' problem."

They found that solid scientific research about handling pandemics existed before COVID-19 but was largely dismissed by public health officials and media outlets. //

On the issue of masking, the grand jury was unequivocal:

"We have never had sound evidence of their effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 transmission."

Instead of acknowledging this, federal agencies promoted what the report calls "flawed observational and laboratory studies." //

DeSantis wrote:

"The Grand Jury has made a number of recommendations that should be followed. The status quo cannot continue. The American people deserve transparency on how Big Pharma is using their federal tax dollars, and they deserve regulating entities that operate as watchdogs, not cheerleaders."

In their conclusion, the Grand Jury wrote:

"Somehow, because of panic, hubris, ineptitude or some unfortunate combination of the three, this widely rejected idea not only made its way back into scientific discourse in 2020, it became the law of the land in most of the United States between 2020 and 2022. It is clear to this Grand Jury that whatever benefits inured from these mandates, they were not worth the price." //

anon-78cb
an hour ago
Not only did the government become unpaid advertisers for the covid shots, they also made claims that would have been illegal for the drug companies themselves to make. The drug companies cannot make unproven claims in their advertising, but the government sure as hell did. Remember the PSAs claiming that the shots would prevent transmission? All lies. The drug companies couldn't go that far in their advertising, but they didn't need to because the government did it for them.

A recent post at the BBC, titled “Seven proven ways to help the planet in 2025,” claims that the planet is threatened by global climate change due to human activity, and lists seven changes people can make in their lives save the planet by curbing emissions. The suggestions include: giving up meat; stopping flying; buying fewer clothes; reducing the carbon footprint of keeping a pet, if you keep one at all; using alternative home heating technologies; supporting fossil fuel divestment; and reducing plastic use. While none of these suggestions are novel, they are also not going to accomplish what the BBC claims, both because human activity is not threatening the planet via carbon dioxide emissions, and because many of these suggestions actually do not reduce emissions or are targeting areas that won’t have any measurable impact even if emissions reductions were desirable. //

The BBC makes no effort to deal with the fact that every one of these suggestions is bad for our modern lifestyles; they are hazardous to our health, our comfort, and our longevity. //

After all, the elites know what’s best, the hoi polloi must sacrifice to save the planet.

End-to-end encryption for things that matter.
Keybase is secure messaging and file-sharing.

On the eve of President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Mark Levin warned, “We’re standing at the precipice and we’re looking into the abyss.”. //

Weeks after Biden took office, Sky News host Cory Bernardi told viewers the only thing worse than Biden’s mental condition is the extent to which the mainstream media covers it up. He said, “Never before has the leader of the Free World been so cognitively compromised. … It’s clear to me at the least that U.S. President Joe Biden is struggling with dementia and is clearly not up to the task he’s been sworn in to do.”. //

America’s return to normalcy arguably began the moment Trump secured victory. From a global perspective, adversaries quickly recognized that a strong, unpredictable, and bold leader—occasionally ruthless—would soon replace the feeble and ineffectual figure currently occupying the White House.

Things will be very different the second time around. Trump’s unfamiliarity with Washington’s inner workings left him unprepared for the injustices he faced during his first campaign and presidency. It’s fair to say he was naive, taking advice from those who sought his failure and placing trust in the wrong people.

Yet, despite relentless attempts by Democrats to destroy him—through impeachments, indictments, and slander—Trump remains standing, stronger and wiser. //

Trump emphasized, “The bottom line is to get the right people. If you put the right individuals and teams at the heads of these massive agencies, you’ll achieve tremendous success. And now, I know these people better than anyone.”. //

We have already begun our climb out of the abyss.

Welcome to yet another edition of The Federalist’s annual notable books column. At the end of every year, we ask the staff at The Federalist, as well as some of our more esteemed contributors, to make some book recommendations based on whatever they read in the last year that was enjoyable or edifying. So without further ado …

To preserve the status quo as this Court awaits resolution by the Eleventh Circuit of the similar Emergency Motion, to prevent irreparable harm arising from the circumstances as described in the current record in this emergency posture, and to permit an orderly and deliberative sequence of events, it is ORDERED AND ADJUDGED as follows:

1. Pending resolution of the Emergency Motion filed in the Eleventh Circuit and/or any further direction from the Eleventh Circuit, Attorney General Garland, the Department of Justice, Special Counsel Smith, all of their officers, agents, and employees, and all persons acting inactive concert or participation with such individuals, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(d)(2), TEMPORARILY ENJOINED from (a) releasing, sharing, or transmitting the Final Report or any drafts of such Report outside the Department of Justice, or (b) otherwise releasing, distributing, conveying, or sharing with anyone outside the Department of Justice any information or conclusions in the Final Report or in drafts thereof. This Order remains in effect until three days after resolution by the Eleventh Circuit of the Emergency Motion, unless the Eleventh Circuit orders otherwise. //

USA_Proud anon-nn7q
13 hours ago
While it will take a while to change the leadership in the DOJ even after the top gets appointed, it will be very risky for Any DOJ Employee to leak that report. I believe that the Trump Administration would be very likely to collect a few proverbial 'scalps' on defiant DOJ Law deniers early in their Administration, and this would be an excellent test case. The report had material from Grand Jury testimony, that by law, is not releasable. It was collected by a person not eligible by Law to collect it. A Federal Judge ruled against its release. If it does get leaked by a Federal Employee, they not only will be liable for many Criminal charges, they also would be liable to civil charges by the US Citizens illegally disparaged by the leak of this information. That would be grounds for denying their Pension, or having it awarded to those so disparaged. While I would be upset that innocent citizens would be disparaged by its leak, there is some comfort that there would be both punitive and compensatory effects of this leak.

"Has no one ever told you about the law of Undulation?

Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal. …As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your [human] patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life—his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.". //

At some point, this age will also come to an end. It's unclear how or why, but what we fought so hard to escape will call itself by a different name, and it will have fresh new causes that take advantage of the people's needs and desires of the time. Those leading that movement will cause the people to turn away from the lessons they learned previously, as the new age will seemingly render them obsolete, and the pendulum will swing back.

We are currently moving toward a peak. We will reach it. Then we will descend.

You cannot stop this, but what you can do is make sure that when the descent starts, that it's not one that will plunge as deeply as this previous age did. The key is to destroy government control over society to the greatest extent possible, put laws in place that will severely restrict it going forward, localize politics as much as possible, and then continue to be prosperous until the age ends.

We will hit a new valley, but in our diligence, we won't have as deep of one as last time.

We have a great opportunity to do this now. We shouldn't waste it, because bad times are coming, but if we're prepared enough, and the framework is in place to help, those bad times could be less of an issue than before. While the law of undulation is absolute, like any universal law, it can be used to your advantage. //

frylock234
10 hours ago edited
The other key to preventing as deep a descent is to not overreach as badly as the left did. The harder and farther the pendulum pushes, the worse the inevitable swing back will be. That does not mean we cannot push back and make considerable progress, but we need to push slowly and relentlessly, by increments rather than radically and suddenly. Heat the frogs slowly over time so they are more inclined to stay in the pot. //

C. S. P. Schofield
10 hours ago
This is one of the reasons I hope to see a shift toward sanity in the Democrat party. The mess we are in now is a consequence of a long period when both parties were Big Government Prigressive, and we only started to come back with the election of Reagan. The absence of an opposition isn’t good for ANY movement. Our system is built around two parties keeping each-other’s extremes in check.

I don’t know what excesses the Populist movement now ascendant will lean towards, but there will be some. If the self-destruction of the Democrats goes on too long, we’re likely to find out.

DonnaM
9 hours ago
I'm thinking that a "deal deal" with Greenland and Denmark could be structured like an economic development corporation (EDC). These are nonprofits that work with geographic areas in cities cooperating with businesses to supply plans and services to develop that area. I'm a humble marketer and no expert, but I'd bet that the Trumps have worked with plenty of them. That way we get security and access to resources, kick out the Chinese (mandatory), help Denmark on their issues with Greenland, Greenlanders are part of the EDC representation, run their affairs, improve their economy, yet the Danes keep it as a territory or state. We don't take it on as a US colony or territory, but it's supervised, planned against specified goals. A win all around. //

anon-201n
9 hours ago
This idea of acquiring Greenland at first sounds crazy, but as noted Harry Truman wanted to buy it from Denmark in 1946, at a time when the USSR was beginning to flex its post-war muscles. Greenland has lots of natural resources but also. has a coastline that would open into a northwest passage. Both China (declaring itself an Arctic country!!!) and Russia are eying the Arctic Ocean for its trade routes and natural resources. Greenland has had an uneasy relationship with Denmark over the recent years and is subsidised by Denmark (but also restricted). Trump eyes Greenland as an ally and a trade source and is playing the art of the deal.

Damocles Gordon of Cartoon
9 hours ago
This from Wikipedia:
In 2016, the BBC published a report which stated that the administration of United States President Jimmy Carter (1977–1981) had extensive contact with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his entourage in the prelude to the Iranian Revolution of 1979.[1][2] The report was based on "newly declassified US diplomatic cables".[1][2] According to the report, as mentioned by The Guardian, Khomeini "went to great lengths to ensure the Americans would not jeopardise his plans to return to Iran - and even personally wrote to US officials" and assured them not to worry about their interests in Iran, particularly oil.[1][2] According to the report, in turn, Carter and his administration helped Khomeini and made sure that the Imperial Iranian army would not launch a military coup

There are a lot of people here in the USA that do not know that Carter Gave the Ayatollah Khomeini a crap ton of money (read: Millions) and allowed them to take over Iran. The thanks for using our tax money was a bunch of hostages held for over a year.
Look it up people! //

epaddon
9 hours ago
The context of giving away the Panama Canal stemmed from all the 1970s self-flagellation America went through in the wake of Vietnam. The idea of America a force of evil in the world, which gained ascendancy with opposition to the Vietnam War, combined with the rise of "revisionist" scholarship on the Cold War which blamed America, not Stalin for why the Cold War started, and all the trashing of America over getting rid of Marxist regimes in Guatemala and Chile is why Jimmy Carter felt that giving away the Canal would be a way of showing America making amends for all those things they never had to apologize for in the first place.

It didn't help that he not only got the backing RINO Senator Howard Baker, but also the backing of William F. Buckley. Indeed, there was a big "Firing Line" debate between Buckley and Reagan on the Canal and its telling that on Buckley's side was George Will, while Reagan's side had Pat Buchanan. George Will of course now stands exposed as Never-Trumper fake. //

Almost Sane
7 hours ago
Jimmy Carter was a virulent anti-Semite. He hated Israel and did his best to always side with their enemies, even after he was out of office. He was responsible for the ayatollah taking over Iran and responsible for our embassy being overrun and our diplomats taken hostage for over 440 days. Everybody praised him for his Habitat for Humanity project, but failed to read his antisemitic writings long after he was no longer president. //

anon-pabn
9 hours ago
This all may be Trump leveraging the canal to bring to light what China is trying to do with Taiwan. "Go after Taiwan and say goodbye to controlling the Panama Canal." Of course he would refuse to take military action off the board. He is playing 3 dimensional chess while the MSM is playing Candy Crush.

Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok
·
TRUMP: “If those hostages aren’t back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East. And it will not be good for Hamas. They should’ve given them back a long time ago. They should’ve never taken them. There should’ve never been an attack on Oct 7th.”

12:34 PM · Jan 7, 2025 //

Trump and his choice for Middle East envoy intimated that some headway was being made behind the scenes: //

SESummers
5 hours ago
From the river to the sea, Palestine will no longer be.

bubbavirus
6 hours ago
From the liver to the knees blam blam blam 💥