EPA Rolling Back US Authority to Regulate Greenhouse Gases

Ed Morrissey: Donald Trump campaigned on rolling back regulatory intrusions on American production, especially in energy and manufacturing. [EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin] will follow through on that promise by aiming to end the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding” that expanded the EPA’s reach on ‘climate change’-related activities. Zeldin promised to do that as soon as he got confirmed as EPA Administrator, and Axios reports that Zeldin will launch that effort very soon … Zeldin has to take his time and ensure that this process follows all of the Administrative Procedure Act rubrics. It won’t help matters to rush this effort and produce a sloppy record that gives district court judges a technicality to reverse this effort rather than address it on the merits. If successful, this will give Trump another step in recovering his constitutional executive authority and force legislative activity back to Congress rather than abdicating it to special interests and the plaintiff’s bar. And that is a reform that is very much overdue  (Hot Air). Marc Morano: Trump 2.0 is moving decisively to remedy what Trump 1.0 fell short on—PERMANENCE. The 2nd term Trump administration, led by EPA’s Lee Zeldin (the most consequential EPA chief in the agency’s history!), realizes this time around that issuing executive orders and changing the regulatory rules of the EPA are not enough. Instead, Trump’s second term is focusing on implementing permanence in climate and energy policy. By removing the CO2 Endangerment Finding (regulating CO2 as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act) from our lives, it removes the basis for all of the climate nonsense that we’ve had to endure for the last several decades. Everything from gas-powered appliance bans, gas-powered car bans, to restrictions on agricultural, meat, power plants, travel, ceiling fans, pizza ovens, energy mandates, subsidies, and thermostat controls” (Climate Depot). 

Harvard Willing to Pay $500 Million to Settle With Trump Administration

In the wake of Columbia’s settlement for $220 million, Harvard has indicated a willingness to settle as well: Harvard University has signaled a willingness to meet the Trump administration’s demand to spend as much as $500 million to end its dispute with the White House as talks between the two sides intensify, four people familiar with the negotiations said. According to one of the people, Harvard is reluctant to directly pay the federal government, but negotiators are still discussing the exact financial terms. The sum sought by the government, which recently accused Harvard of civil rights violations, is more than twice as much as the $200 million fine that Columbia University said it would pay when it settled antisemitism claims with the White House last week. Neither Harvard nor the government has publicly detailed potential terms for a settlement and what allegations the money would be intended to resolve (New York Times). Harvard Crimson: Harvard, for its part, has kept its cards close. It has not once publicly acknowledged the existence of any talks and has only nodded to their existence in private conversations with top-dollar donors. The University has blasted Trump’s demands as unconstitutional and intrusive in statements and lawsuits, and it has suggested the administration is using antisemitism claims as a pretext to punish Harvard. But University President Alan M. Garber ’76 has said that he agrees with the substance of some of the government’s critiques, including suggestions that the University must do more to confront antisemitism and that its campus is too liberal (Crimson).

UCLA Will Pay Over $6 Million to Settle Lawsuit Over Anti-Semitic Discrimination

Free Beacon reports: UCLA agreed to pay more than $6 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Jewish students who said the university allowed anti-Semitic discrimination during the spring 2024 anti-Israel encampments, which included a “Jew Exclusion Zone.” Just hours after the settlement was inked, the Justice Department announced that it found UCLA violated federal civil rights law by failing to “respond to complaints of severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment and abuse that Jewish and Israeli students faced on its campus from October 7, 2023, to the present….” In addition to the payments, UCLA will also enter a consent judgment that prohibits it from “knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students, faculty, and/or staff”—including discrimination based on one’s “religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel”—from university programs or spaces. The agreement will be in effect for 15 years (Free Beacon).

Kaiser Healthcare to Stop Performing Gender Mutilative Treatment on Minors; “This was never medicine. It was abuse”

Washington Times: Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest hospital networks, said it will “pause” gender-transition surgeries for those under 19, citing intense pressure from the Trump administration that has created “significant risks” for providers. The health-care giant based in Oakland, California, said Wednesday that the halt on surgeries for minors would take effect Aug. 29, but stressed that all other “gender-affirming care treatment remains available.” Such treatments would presumably include puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors, as well as gender-transition drugs and surgeries for those 19 and older. “As the legal and regulatory environment for gender-affirming care continues to evolve, we must carefully consider the significant risks being created for health systems, clinicians, and patients under the age of 19 seeking this care,” Kaiser Permanente said in a statement provided to The Washington Times. “After significant deliberation and consultation with internal and external experts including our physicians, we’ve made the difficult decision to pause surgical treatment for patients under the age of 19 in our hospitals and surgical centers,” the statement said (Washington Times). Dr. Simone Gold: These medical mutilation surgeries on children should never have happened in the first place. Every institution that pushed this barbarism on vulnerable minors must be held accountable. This was never medicine. It was abuse (Gold).

At Least 49 Christians Slaughtered in Congo

Victims of Islamist militants from the Allied Democratic Forces, a group with ties to the Islamic State. Open Doors: The incident took place in Komanda, a small town in Ituri provice, in the early hours of Sunday morning (27 July), with people both inside and outside the Catholic church targeted. Nearby shops, businesses and homes were attacked and looted. Security forces received news at around 2am, but when they arrived, the militants had already left the area. There are conflicting reports over the number of people killed, and it’s unclear exactly how many are Christians. The full picture will likely become clearer in the coming days, but the death toll is likely to rise. According to the BBC, nine children are amongst those killed. “More than 21 people were shot dead inside and outside [the church] and we have recorded at least three charred bodies and several houses burned. But the search is continuing,” reports Dieudonne Duranthabo, a civil society coordinator in Komanda, on 27 July. “The bodies of the victims are still at the scene of the tragedy, and volunteers are preparing how to bury them in a mass grave that we are preparing in a compound of the Catholic church,” continues Duranthabo (Open Doors). Fox News: Pope Leo XIV also condemned the attack. “May the blood of these martyrs become a seed of peace, reconciliation, fraternity, and love for the Congolese people.” A Vatican Cardinal added that the Pope “learned with dismay and deep sorrow of the attack.” The U.N.’s Stablization Mission in the DRC, MONUSCO, expressed “deep outrage at these heinous acts of violence, which constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law and infringements on human rights.” “The killings are strategic,” Illia Djadi, senior sub-Saharan researcher for Christian charity Open Doors, who support and speak up for Christians persecuted for their faith, stated. He added, “The ADF have a very clear aim: they want to turn a large part of DRC into an Islamic caliphate, like the horrific one instigated in Iraq and Syria in 2014 by Islamic State” (Fox News). Melanie Phillips: Since February, when 70 Christians were beheaded in a church, massacres have been happening in village after village. Around six million people have been killed over 30 years in eastern Congo and eight million forced out of their homes. In the west, the attempted extermination of Christians in Africa produces only stony silence. Western liberals are too busy trying to destroy Israel (Phillips).

Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt Sign Declaration Calling for Hamas to Disarm and Leave Gaza

Times of Israel: Arab countries, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, have signed onto a statement calling for Hamas to disarm and end its rule of Gaza, in a bid to end the devastating war in the Palestinian territory. Seventeen countries, plus the European Union and Arab League, are throwing their weight behind a seven-page text agreed at a United Nations conference on reviving the two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians. “In the context of ending the war in Gaza, Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority, with international engagement and support, in line with the objective of a sovereign and independent Palestinian State,” says the declaration (Times of Israel). The statement comes in the context of the UN Conference on a Two-State Solution. UN Watch: Today’s UN conference on a two-state solution is counterproductive to peace because it: • Encourages Palestinian intransigence • Rewards Hamas for October 7th atrocities • Defies international law (UN Watch).

Israel Considers Annexing Parts of Gaza

In light of the intransigence of Hamas. Israel Hayom: In a meeting of the Israeli Diplomatic-Security Cabinet, ministers discussed the possibility of annexing parts of the Gaza Strip if Hamas continues to oppose a deal in the coming days. Another option raised was a targeted military operation aimed at striking terrorist strongholds…. Another option raised was a targeted military operation in areas the Israel Defense Forces have yet to enter, aimed at dismantling remaining Hamas terrorist cells. Both options are being examined due to the deadlock in negotiations. Some ministers view annexation as a more effective strategy. However, Shas party leader Aryeh Deri, who participated in the meeting despite his party’s withdrawal from Israel’s governing coalition, argued, “We have no business in Gaza.” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, speaking at a conference marking 20 years since Israel’s withdrawal from the Strip, took a firmer stance, implying that re-establishing Israeli communities in Gaza has become a more realistic prospect. Smotrich had previously said that resettlement was not a goal of the war, but his latest remarks suggested a shift in outlook. Smotrich emphasized that the government’s desire to make Hamas pay for refusing to release the hostages should include seizing territory. He claimed this would harm Hamas more than any other form of pressure. Smotrich also said he remained in the government, despite opposing the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, because “good things are about to happen” (Israel Hayom).

Senate Confirms Emil Bove to Serve on 9th Circuit

CBS: The Senate on Tuesday approved the nomination of Emil Bove, President Trump’s former defense lawyer, to serve on a U.S. appeals court, confirming the controversial nominee to a lifetime appointment on the federal bench. The upper chamber voted 50-49 to green-light Bove’s nomination to the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, which oversees cases from Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. “He has a strong legal background and has served his country honorably. I believe he will be diligent, capable and a fair jurist,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said of Bove on the Senate floor ahead of the vote. Bove emerged as Mr. Trump’s most controversial judicial pick so far, and former judges, prosecutors and other Justice Department employees had urged senators to reject his nomination. A Justice Department whistleblower alleged that Bove had suggested government lawyers should ignore court orders, prompting Democrats to unsuccessfully push for the Senate Judiciary Committee to delay a vote on his nomination. When the panel voted earlier this month to advance his nomination, all of the panel’s Democrats walked out of the meeting in protest…. Bove was one of the lawyers who represented the president in his criminal cases and he joined the Justice Department as principal associate deputy attorney general when Mr. Trump returned to the White House for a second term. Bove also served briefly as acting deputy attorney general in the opening weeks of the second Trump administration until the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche, also a former defense lawyer for the president, to the No. 2 spot (CBS).

It’s Trump’s World

The current president has shifted the narrative and introduced a new menu of policy proposals that work for the 21^st century. Even politicians that disagree with him—and likely have personal disdain for him—have had to concede to him. Take, for example, this week’s meeting with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and last week’s with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Both leaders conceded considerably more than would have been thought possible on Election Day last year—by observers and perhaps even by the leaders themselves. Travis Aaroe, writing for The Spectator: World politics has now reached an odd stage where the Trump agenda is fast becoming the consensus but in which people still find obscure reasons to oppose him…. Taken together, the real point of conflict in 2025 is that Trump is the only leader willing to act on the conclusions that most people have now reached. That administrative reform might mean firing people. That border control might mean some upsetting footage of arrests. That ‘YIMBY’ism to make building things such as data centers easier might mean trimming the powers of judges. More and more are drawn into his orbit, but his isolation continues (Spectator). Matt Continetti points out how—in a number of ways—the progressive model of governance laid the groundwork for its own demise: In recent weeks, Trump has gained major ground in his fight against progressive institutions. The bureaucracy, NGOs, public broadcasting, and Ivy League schools have all come under his thumb…. No institution emerged from the pandemic with its stature enhanced. Then, beginning in the spring of 2023, local, state, and federal officials indicted Donald Trump on a range of offenses, criminalizing politics and sharpening Republican perceptions of a two-tiered judicial system—one for progressives and another for their enemies. The explosion of antisemitism in higher education after October 7, 2023, discredited official authority further still…. Hence the irony: Progressives spent a century extending the federal government into all corners of American life—and using regulations and taxpayer funds to sustain an architecture of left-wing cultural dominance. All President Trump did was turn this system against itself. He’s using progressive means—regulations, appropriations, executive orders—for nationalist, populist ends…. The ultimate cause of the progressive implosion isn’t external force. It’s internal rot. These institutions didn’t need Donald Trump to undermine them. They did that on their own (Free Press).

Marriage Is Making a Comeback

The shift is modest, but notable nonetheless, especially given the centrality of the institution to human flourishing. Brad Wilcox of the University of Virginia:  reports of marriage’s demise are exaggerated. Rather quietly, the post-’60s family revolution appears to have ended. Divorce is down and the share of children in two-parent families is up. Marriage as a social institution is showing new strength—even among groups that drifted away from the institution in the 20th century, including Black and working-class Americans. And contrary to criticisms on the left and right, that’s good news not only for America’s kids, but also—on average, though not always—for married men and women today…. For children, less divorce and a small decline in childbearing outside wedlock mean more stability. After falling for more than 40 years beginning in the late 1960s, the share of children living in married families bottomed out at 64 percent in 2012 before rising to 66 percent in 2024, according to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. And the share of children raised in an intact married family for the duration of their childhood has climbed from a low point of 52 percent in 2014 to 54 percent in 2024…. But as a likely success story for those who do wed, and as an anchor for American family life, marriage looks like it’s coming back. Stable marriage is a norm again, and the way that most people rear the rising generation…. . Since 2012, divorce rates have been falling for working-class Americans and Black Americans, too—and the share of kids being raised in married families for these two groups has stabilized. (In fact, the proportion of Black children being raised in a married-parent family rose from 33 percent in 2012 to 39 percent in 2024) (Atlantic).