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In recent days, the tech magnate has made headlines by distancing himself from the climate apocalypse fan club. Many analysts have praised the supposed return to sanity of the man who forever changed computing in the last century; however, there’s a catch. Bill Gates hasn’t suddenly become sensible — he’s simply realized that Greta Thunberg’s apocalyptic style, the same one he has embraced since publishing his book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster in 2021, is undermining his own multi-billion-dollar tech investments. Gates’s shift in public stance can’t be fully understood without paying attention to a fact that went largely unnoticed last March. At that time, Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) — the climate organization founded by Gates — carried out a major downsizing plan across all its operations, including its entire EU division, the staff working on U.S. public policy, and a large portion of its workforce dedicated to international partnerships with environmental NGOs. Once again, the key is to follow the money: This restructuring was a direct consequence of Donald Trump’s arrival at the White House and his effort to shut off the flow of government funds to environmental policies from which numerous companies, including BEV, had benefited directly or indirectly. This organization had built much of its success on climate-apocalyptic pressure campaigns aimed at convincing governments to increase funding for emissions-reduction projects and clean energy promotion. With the loss of U.S. government support, the organization found itself without a future — unless it pivoted to private investment, which is precisely what it’s doing now. But once the enormous structure built around the public sector loses that foundation, it becomes an absurd expense. By 2022, BEV had made over 100 investments in startups dedicated exclusively to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. At that time, the first internal disagreements arose during a company summit. While many of its leaders insisted on the “time is running out” message to save the planet, Eric Toone, a member of the investment committee, proposed “accepting reality” — acknowledging that the projected reductions are impossible in the short term — and opened the door to a possible reorientation of BEV’s investments. Thanks to Trump’s decisive push to redirect government funds, it appears BEV has ultimately sided with Toone: Gates now wants to distance himself from the apocalyptic hysteria of environmental NGOs and redirect the narrative toward the need to adapt to climate change. In other words, it’s now more profitable for him to emphasize innovation and new clean technologies than to keep urging governments and citizens to curb consumption. This new approach favors a long-term investment market — and, of course, directly benefits his new tech holdings. Gates no longer aims to make money by preventing temperature rise, but rather by encouraging private investment in adaptation initiatives, ensuring that everything continues to operate normally when it happens. Currently, the Microsoft founder is involved through TerraPower in the development of next-generation nuclear reactors, such as liquid sodium reactors, and is also engaged in energy transition projects that include infrastructure improvements, data centers, and other innovations. Through BEV, he has begun investing heavily in clean steel companies like Boston Metal, electrolysis firms like Electric Hydrogen, and battery recycling ventures such as Redwood Materials. Gates is also putting money into companies that extract raw materials critical to clean technologies, such as KoBold Metals, which seeks minerals — copper, nickel, and lithium — essential for the development of electric vehicles and batteries. One of Trump’s greatest achievements, therefore, has been dismantling the network of businesses and public-fund exploitation that governments, institutions, NGOs, foundations, and private interests had built around the climate apocalypse. With the government funding tap turned off, all Gates has done is move to another arena where there’s still money to be made — namely, private innovation. It’s not that he no longer believes in urgent public policies and strict, immediate regulations; rather, he has simply shifted his business elsewhere — toward investing in private adaptation solutions. The move is clever because, once public money is removed from the equation, Gates has realized that his role as a climate-change prophet attracts only activists, not investors. So he has shamelessly shed that role, abandoning his mask as a climate priest advocating policies that impoverish the Western middle class, and has donned the robes of a prudent investor — someone focused on making money and generating profits for others. In his blog, where he explained his new stance, he claims to have reached this conclusion after realizing that limiting temperature rise through restrictions is nearly impossible within a reasonable timeframe. However, the truth is that if Joe Biden’s environmental policies had remained dominant, it’s highly unlikely he would have reached that conclusion. It’s also fair to note that it’s not only Trump who has disrupted the network of interests and businesses surrounding the climate doomsayers; across the West, right-wing political movements are gaining ground in that direction, accelerating a significant shift in public opinion. This is happening as the consequences of green public policies begin to hit — and hit hard — the household budgets not of the wealthy, but of the middle and working classes. Thus, Bill Gates has swiftly gone from warning that we had less than 30 years to avoid an “irreversible disaster” and that “there is no plan B,” to admitting that, in reality, with climate change most of the world will continue living exactly the same — and that it won’t cause any cataclysm, especially if the public and private sectors in the West redirect their environmental strategies toward technological adaptation to rising temperatures and safeguarding citizens’ well-being. With this change of heart, billionaire Bill Gates has come to fulfill the old adage: the house always wins. Translated from Spanish by Joel Dalmau.  READ MORE: Has the Left Moved on From Climate Change? Bill Gates and the Redemption Racket

I know better, so I’m not going to say that the Democrat Party has reached Peak Petulance this week in the aftermath of their collapse and the loss of the government shutdown they’ve been blaming on the Republicans. I wouldn’t be unjustified in saying it, mind you, because what the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released Wednesday in a breathless communique claiming they had Jeffrey Epstein dirt on Donald Trump is about as weak a sauce as one could imagine in a political setting. But I’m not going to say it. Because I know that there is no bottom with these people. It’s sure to get worse. They’re sure to become much more petulant, far more hysterical, and certainly more vindictive as their own credibility continues to wane. Remember, dear conservative reader of The American Spectator, that while you might have a healthy contempt for the bums representing you on Capitol Hill and in the White House and you may be weary of the constant underperformance and subtle betrayals to which you’ve been subjected over the years, these are nothing compared to the false promises and naked contempt that Democrat politicians have inflicted on their voters. And if you doubt me on this, simply take a drive through the nearest big blue city and view the misery their politicians have dropped on their voters through decades of corruption, oppression, and neglect. Then have a look at the posh digs those politicians have secured for themselves through insider trading, sweetheart deals, and other species of graft. Viewed in that light, the TV appearances and posturing speeches on the floor of the House and Senate and in other fora make for a quite profound revulsion. And you didn’t even vote for these cretins. Imagine the rotten feeling having pulled the lever for them would give you. So when the Dems spent six weeks telling their voters it was a Republican shutdown, because the GOP wouldn’t bend to their demand for subsidies to “address the skyrocketing cost of health care” — AND WHY IS THE COST OF HEALTHCARE SKYROCKETING? — only to summarily collapse at the idea they might be blamed for a bottleneck in air travel and their downscale voters coming up short at the supermarket for lack of lucre loaded into their EBT cards, you knew they’d need to change the subject from those voters noticing they’d been scammed. Out with the old scam. In with the new scam! ?BREAKING: Oversight Dems have received new emails from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate that raise serious questions about Donald Trump and his knowledge of Epstein’s horrific crimes. Read them for yourself. It’s time to end this cover-up and RELEASE THE FILES. pic.twitter.com/A5XgOHj2Jq — Oversight Dems (@OversightDems) November 12, 2025 Greg Price noted the deficit of “there” there… Democrats intentionally redacted the name of the “victim” in the Epstein emails they released. The unreacted version shows that it was Virginia Guiffre. Guiffre had testified multiple times that President Trump did nothing and that she never even saw him at Epstein’s house. https://t.co/0KhX8ujPoJ pic.twitter.com/IaJkckvc1p — Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 12, 2025 That seems problematic, does it not? Virginia Giuffre doesn’t have anything more to contribute to the discussion, seeing as though she said multiple times before her death that President Trump didn’t do anything untoward in her presence. And she appears to be the star witness in these disclosures, the one Epstein claims was with Trump for “hours.” Maybe Giuffre was lying and Trump did misbehave toward her. Except if that was true and she bore him a grudge, why wouldn’t she have unloaded on him when the opportunity to destroy him politically was so ripe? She surely would have been greatly rewarded for doing so. And she surely would have let Epstein know about Trump’s bad behavior. After all, that was Virginia Giuffre’s job when in Epstein’s employ, no? She was the honey in the honey trap. Not to mention the fact that Epstein’s houses were dotted with surveillance cameras so that he could get the goods on his “clients” and offer them the customary Faustian bargain in which he specialized. And yet Epstein gripes in these messages the Democrats released, under the title of “BOMBSHELL,” that Trump is “the dog that didn’t bark.” Maybe they just don’t understand what that expression means. The most reasonable interpretation of it is that the dog is supposed to bark and it’s very strange and frustrating that he remains silent. And also, that a dog that doesn’t bark is a dangerous thing. Epstein saying it about Trump exonerates Trump. It doesn’t damn him. If he had the goods on Trump, he probably wouldn’t have expired in that prison cell in New York. But now that the Dems have released this, which one assumes is the worst they have — if they had more, you’d have expected it to come out when it could have stopped him from getting elected last year — it’s probably time for a much fuller release of the Epstein files. Or maybe a more selective release. To match what just popped, that is. After all, Jeffrey Epstein was clearly a Democrat — he was a Democrat campaign donor, you know — and his friends were mostly Democrats. Maybe we should find out more about those guys. And then, when the Epstein files suddenly aren’t all that interesting a topic for the Dems and their flying monkeys in the legacy propaganda press anymore, we can start addressing some of the problems they’ve created. Like, for example, the skyrocketing cost of healthcare that their Obamacare time-bomb scam has inflicted on the American people. READ MORE: Trump and the GOP Won the Shutdown. Let’s Make Sure Trophies Are Taken. Dear President Trump, Please Make Carbon Capture Go Away Could Dick Durbin Just Hurry Up and Go Away?

Kim Davis’s request that the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Obergefell v. Hodges was, to put it mildly, a long shot. There was, it seems, perhaps a little bit of hope among those of us who subscribe to that antiquated view of marriage that sees sexual difference as rather critical to the nature of the institution that the long shot would prove successful. But even the most hopeful among us have to admit that the court’s decision on Monday to pass on the case without comment was probably for the best. After all, Davis’s case was hardly the ideal poster child for the job. For one, her case hardly addressed the key issue at play in the Obergefell decision. Davis made national headlines by landing in jail for six days in 2015 after refusing to issue a marriage license to David Ermold and David Moore. In the court case that ensued, she argued that the state had infringed on her First Amendment rights by forcing her to issue marriage licenses to couples her faith told her could not possibly be married. (READ MORE by Aubrey Harris: We’re Winning the Marriage Fight in Spite of Ourselves) That, of course, was an issue that Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia foresaw in their dissenting opinion back in 2015. Of all the issues, legal and social, that Obergefell raised, the First Amendment one was relatively fixable. Mere months after Davis complained that affixing her name to marriage licenses issued to gay couples violated her religious beliefs, Kentucky removed county clerks’ names from all marriage licenses. Problem solved. By the time she appealed the case to the Supreme Court, there were just two issues really at play: Davis (understandably) wanted out of paying more than $300,000 in damages and legal fees, and she wanted the court to reconsider Obergefell. While one could reasonably argue that the damages cited are a bit excessive, granting a win to Davis simply doesn’t require overturning legal precedent. Besides, from a constitutional perspective, the issue with Obergefell isn’t necessarily that it infringes on the First Amendment rights of Americans who find gay marriage objectionable for religious or social reasons; rather, it’s that the whole case rests on a rather dubious constitutional argument based on the Fourteenth Amendment. Obergefell, for those of you who haven’t read or thought about the case for the last decade or so, was decided based on the constitutional argument of substantive due process. When the Supreme Court looked at the issue in 2015, the five justices who signed their names on Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion agreed that Americans have a constitutional right to “personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices that define personal identity.” States have no ability to restrict that right without “due process.” (READ MORE: SCOTUS: Preserve Gay Marriage but Protect Religious Rights) The upshot? If homosexuality is critical to your “personal identity,” the U.S. Constitution recognizes your right to both practice it and call it “marriage.” Essentially, the court imagined a “right” no one would have claimed existed until about two decades ago, and then engaged in a little judicial activism to enshrine it in the American pantheon of natural rights. The same argument, by the way, applied in Roe v. Wade, which imagined a “right” to abortion. When that case was overturned, Justice Thomas correctly noted that it would be worth revisiting other cases decided on the same judicial argument — Obergefell very definitely included. Suspect constitutional argumentation aside, the whole Davis case illustrates something else about the current American moment. Americans, it seems, are increasingly willing to question the society liberals have been busily building for the last several decades. Those of us who thought gay marriage was a done deal (and that was most of us, although we protested as a matter of morals) have been taken aback by recent polling illustrating that gay marriage — while still broadly supported (69 percent) — has taken a hit in recent years, particularly among Republicans (whose support for it has declined from 55 percent in 2022 to 46 percent in 2024). Admittedly, conservatives can’t exactly take credit for the shift in public opinion — most of them, after all, have been busy combating far more egregious cultural issues (transing the kids, drag-queen story hours, and the rise of abortion-by-mail come to mind). The fault quite probably lies with liberals who tried to take liberalism too far. Maybe it’s a bit optimistic to say, but it seems like we might very well be on the verge of seriously having a discussion about the whole gay marriage issue — something we were deprived of when Obergefell was forced down the throats of every American. From a cultural perspective, that’s a huge win. READ MORE by Aubrey Harris: What Nick Fuentes Gets Wrong About Women

Scott Galloway is nothing if not a brand. With the zeal of a televangelist and the charm of a keynote crusader, he markets himself as a savior for the stranded male — the messiah of masculine malaise. His new book, Notes on Being a Man, is the latest sermon in his gospel of self-improvement: half pep talk, half penitence, all performance. Galloway presents himself as the philosopher-papa you never had, armed with data, dad jokes, and the moral certainty of a man who’s monetized misery. The premise is simple, and that’s precisely the problem. Galloway divides manhood into three tidy commandments fit for a PowerPoint slide show: protect, provide, and procreate. It’s masculinity made modular — like IKEA furniture for the soul. To protect, he says, is to be decent, disciplined, and dependable — the kind of man who breaks up bar fights, not starts them. It’s presented with the weight of revelation, as though men needed a reminder not to punch strangers. Galloway frames it like philosophy, but it’s really common sense dressed in consultant-speak — a pop-psych platitude parading as perennial truth. Where it turns stranger is his belief that protection means looking out for anyone “less powerful” or “lower” on the social ladder. It’s noble idea on paper, until you remember that social ladders don’t measure sanity. The man “beneath” you at work might be the one throwing the first jab. Pity can’t be the basis of protection, and power dynamics don’t map neatly onto decency. Sometimes the so-called oppressed are simply dangerous, and pretending otherwise is as delusional as it is dangerous. He means well, but there’s something faintly comic about a man worth north of a hundred million dollars lecturing others on self-sacrifice while sending out signals from a soundproof studio. Then comes “provide.” This is Galloway’s sermon on supply and demand. Men must take economic responsibility, he says, because work gives life meaning. True enough — but in Galloway’s hands, it sounds suspiciously like LinkedIn spirituality. The modern man, he implies, finds redemption through revenue streams. Provision becomes less about love and loyalty, and more about productivity metrics and self-respect via salary. It’s courage expressed in compound interest. Finally, “procreate.” Here Galloway leans into evolutionary purpose: Men must ensure the species survives. Nothing wrong with that — until it starts sounding like a quarterly fertility report. Parenthood, in Galloway’s world, is project management with Pampers. Kids are “investments” designed to outperform their fathers. It’s the language of love replaced with the ledger of legacy. He wants you to raise stronger, smarter, faster offspring — it’s reproduction as ROI. Taken together, his trinity of masculinity feels less biblical than bureaucratic. The structure is so neat it squeaks, the tone so tidy it could pass for onboarding material. But life doesn’t run on templates. The men Galloway claims to rescue aren’t gasping for another framework; they’re already crushed beneath them. And yet, Galloway can’t seem to grasp that. There’s a bigger point that must be made here. Galloway’s model is a rebranded, simplified echo of Jordan Peterson’s early work. The Canadian psychologist treats masculinity as a philosophical and moral quest; Galloway treats it as a management problem. Peterson asks men to wrestle with meaning, chaos, and responsibility. Galloway asks them to manage their time, balance their budgets, and update their emotional software. What Peterson offered, and occasionally still offers, is depth — messy, mythic, and sometimes maddening. What Galloway offers is surface-level — sleek, digestible, and algorithmically safe. He has taken Peterson’s call to personal transformation and run it through an MBA program, flattening archetypes into advice. It’s masculinity devoid of metaphysics and packaged for mass consumption: clean, catchy, and completely consequence-free. The resemblance is no coincidence. Galloway has found the lucrative void left by Peterson’s decline: the men still searching for structure, but unwilling to wade through Jungian metaphors and biblical exegesis. He offers them the same fatherly firmness without the mysticism. In that sense, he’s not just Peterson’s successor, but his salesman — turning existential struggle into a subscription model. Still, Notes on Being a Man isn’t without wit. Galloway’s prose, brisk and brash, often lands like a punchline wrapped in pathos. He’s funny, self-aware, and occasionally disarming. His call for discipline and dignity isn’t wrong — it’s simply been declawed. There’s no danger in his vision, no depth to unsettle or transform. It’s masculinity with the edges sanded down, ready for a conference keynote or a corporate retreat. There’s a darker comedy at play here: the idea that manhood, once lived and tested in the arena of life, now needs a management consultant. Galloway, of course, is that consultant. He speaks to a generation of men who feel both obsolete and overanalyzed, promising them an exit strategy from the abyss. But what he’s really selling is reassurance — that if you tick the right boxes and buy the right books, you might still matter. Notes on Being a Man may comfort some, amuse others, and bore a few — but it reveals just how domesticated modern manhood has become. There was a time when men sought meaning from those who demanded something of them — Hemingway urging them to live bravely, Solzhenitsyn reminding them that truth carries a cost, Joseph Campbell showing that heroism and sacrifice are two sides of the same sword. Those voices insisted that pain and purpose were inseparable. Galloway nods toward that idea, then sells the knock-off version. It’s dollar-store wisdom at a $26 markup, shrink-wrapped self-help for men who mistake purchase for progress. READ MORE by John Mac Ghlionn: How the BBC Tried to Burn Trump — and Barbecued Itself Instead Twenty Million Dead: The Generation Abortion Stole from America How Nancy Pelosi Betrayed the People She Pretended to Protect

Americans can now breathe a sigh of relief as the U.S. Senate Democrats finally came to the table with a 60–40 vote to end the shutdown. (READ MORE: Trump and the GOP Won the Shutdown. Let’s Make Sure Trophies Are Taken.) The Spectacle Podcast hosts Melissa Mackenzie and Scott McKay analyze and break down how the shutdown has crumbled the Democrats and the opportunities for the Republican Party. Melissa and Scott also discuss what the end of the shutdown means for SNAP benefits and healthcare for Americans under the Affordable Care Act. Tune in to hear their discussion! Listen to The Spectacle with Melissa Mackenzie and Scott McKay on Spotify. Watch The Spectacle with Melissa Mackenzie and Scott McKay on Rumble.

On Tuesday, a landslide caused China’s newly built Hongqi Bridge “to fracture and collapse,” NBC reports, “sending large pieces of concrete far below in a cloud of dust.” There were no casualties but last year a “partial collapse” of a highway bridge in Shaanxi province killed at least 11 people. These failures revive safety concerns on the new span of the Bay Bridge connecting San Francisco and Oakland. The bridge was built with Chinese steel and Chinese labor, but there’s more about the project people should know. California boasts the Golden Gate Bridge, the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge over the Carquinez Strait, and the Coronado Bridge linking Coronado and San Diego. These structures were all built with American materials and labor — Alfred Zampa was an ironworker — and have stood the test of time. The new Bay Bridge span broke with that practice. California politicians turned down federal funding because it would have required American steel. The bridge decks and materials were constructed in China by the Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company, which at the time had no experience building bridges. The company’s 3,000 employees on the project included steel-cutters, welders, polishers, and engineers. The bridge came in 10 years late and $5 billion over budget — a lot more than the $250 million to retrofit the original span, damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. The new span was opened in 2013, and in 2014 Bay Area Democrat Mark DeSaulnier, chairman of the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, held hearings on the project. The Chinese steel, experts testified, was too brittle. Bolts and rods were cracked, and every one of the bridge’s 750 panels had to be repaired. In 2013, long metal rods began to snap. Metallurgical engineer Lisa Thomas attributed this to hydrogen embrittlement, a problem with the grade BD steel used on the project. Geologist Michael Morgan testified that safety problems were covered up and called for a criminal investigation. State audit agencies failed to take action, so Morgan took his story to Charles Piller of the Sacramento Bee, which ran a series on safety concerns with welds, rods, bolts, corrosion, and such. In early 2014, water leaks along the suspension structure left rust-colored signs of corrosion. When apprised of the safety issues, then-Gov. Jerry Brown famously said “I mean, look, shit happens.” Engineering professionals offered more serious analysis. University of California, Berkeley, structural engineering professor Abolhasaan Astaneh-Asi told reporters he declined to use the bridge and warned about faulty design. “If a single component fails, the whole thing comes down,” the professor explained. “Fracture critical bridges have been out of favor since the 1960s. And when you look at this new span, there are many things that can go wrong.” The Hongqi bridge collapse occurred in Sichuan, a seismically active region where in 2008, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake killed more than 69,000 people. By some accounts, nearly 90,000 people were counted dead or missing and 375,000 injured. The San Francisco area, home to more than 7.7 million people, is seismically active. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a major quake is due in the Bay Area by 2032. Californians will have to wait and see if what can happen does happen. Before DeSaulnier moved on to Congress, his hearing was broadcast live on the California Channel, the Golden State’s version of C-SPAN, launched in 1993. Under Attorney General Kamala Harris, no criminal investigation of the bridge took place. In 2019, under Gov. Gavin Newsom, the state shut down the California Channel. As Capitol Weekly wondered, “What’s the future of digital legislative transparency in California?” In April of 2020, Gov. Newsom announced spending of nearly $1 billion on masks with Build Your Dreams, a Chinese motor vehicle company which, at the time, did not manufacture protective gear. In California, what goes around tends to come around. Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. READ MORE: Newsom Rewards Reality Dysphoria Frank Meyer, Elsie Meyer and the Quest for School Choice California’s ‘Pillage’ People Lose Equity Theft Battle

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California lawmakers increasingly complain about the past abuses of eminent domain — the government’s ability to take property by force provided it affords due process and pays just compensation, per the Takings Clause. Yet they refuse to rein in that power. In the last legislative session, lawmakers even made it easier for local governments to use eminent domain in new and questionable ways. It’s a head scratcher. I have railed against the misuse of eminent domain for years. But the Legislature has shrugged at the issue, rediscovering it recently only in the context of its racial justice agenda. Lawmakers aren’t wrong that takings sometimes have an ugly racial component, but their failure to see this as a broader property rights issue makes their recent efforts ineffective and hypocritical. I was encouraged in 2023 when the Legislature discovered the injustice of a 1925 taking by the city of Manhattan Beach. Upset by the existence of a beachfront resort that catered to African Americans, the city condemned the property based on officials’ claim that they needed to build a public park. They paid the owners a pittance. Nearly a century later, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 796, which gave the land back to the descendants, who then sold it to Los Angeles County. In the last session, Newsom vetoed a bill to provide restitution for other racially motivated uses of eminent domain. His veto message said the proposed new civil rights agency would lack “the crucial expertise and immense resources required to successfully implement this bill.” But no one embraced the obvious approach: Pass anti-eminent-domain protections for everybody. Eminent domain abuse has often targeted minorities. I reported on such instances in my 2004 book, Abuse of Power: How the Government Misuses Eminent Domain. Dodger Stadium is built on Chavez Ravine, the site of an egregious taking. Photographs of the removal of the mostly Latino residents are heartbreaking more than six decades later. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court in its Kelo decision greenlit New London, Connecticut’s taking of the Fort Trumbull neighborhood for a corporate headquarters. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s dissent is stirring: “The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.… [T]he government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more.” Justices, however, implored the states to reform their eminent domain laws. Many did, but California’s reform was superficial, and was backed by interest groups that advocate loose eminent domain laws. Instead of reining in those powers, Newsom and the Legislature have incrementally expanded them.  Newsom this year signed Assembly Bill 417, which is mostly an unobjectionable updating of codes relating to local infrastructure financing and investment authorities. But the underlying law grants them the power to “acquire real property by eminent domain, provided that authority is exercised within 12 years from the adoption of the plan.” The Legislature rejected efforts to specifically restrict eminent domain powers. Newsom also signed Assembly Bill 893, which makes it easier for California state universities to build campus housing. It’s a good idea to reduce building regulations to help them, but those universities have eminent domain powers and the bill doesn’t limit their use. And, again, the Legislature refuses to revise its post-Kelo eminent domain laws, as other states have done. Historically, eminent domain had been legally confined to projects such as highways, courthouses, and government-owned infrastructure. Governments sometimes overstep their bounds even for these legitimate projects. But most people — including our founders — recognized it as a necessary evil for genuine “public uses.” That’s especially true for freeways and railroads that require the acquisition of long ribbons of land. Beginning in the late 1940s, however, the nation embarked on an aggressive urban renewal push that involved tearing down urban slums and replacing them with modern housing projects. American Spectator readers surely are aware of the disaster that ensued. The names of since-demolished, crime-ridden dystopian housing blocks are still widely recognizable: Cabrini Green (Chicago), Pruitt-Igoe (St. Louis), and Jordan Downs (Watts). During the same era, California created redevelopment agencies, which are locally controlled state agencies that use tax-increment financing (TIF). They sometimes have different names in other states, but RDAs use eminent domain to acquire property, then grab the growth in property taxes following the completion of the project. Cities use the “increment” to pay the debt incurred to finance the projects. These agencies were designed to combat urban blight, but cities — even relatively new ones that lacked rundown neighborhoods — learned they could declare virtually anything blighted, then condemn the property and hand it to a developer who was promising to build a project favored in city hall. Many suburban California cities used their takings power to create auto malls, hotels, and shopping centers that would fill their coffers via discretionary sales tax revenue. In 2012, Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature eliminated redevelopment agencies, mainly for financial reasons, as RDAs diverted funds from the state budget in the midst of a deficit. That reduced the incentive for municipalities to invoke eminent domain, but they still misuse it. For instance, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has been trying to use this takings power to acquire land for an affordable housing project. The Legislature’s goal should be to restrict eminent domain to genuine public uses per the Constitution, which will protect the rights of Californians from all ethnic backgrounds. The Institute for Justice’s latest report gives California a “D” grade for its eminent domain laws. Instead of simply revisiting century-old eminent domain abuses, California lawmakers ought to protect against future abuses. But that would require serious legislating rather than politically correct posturing. Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org. READ MORE: Post Prop. 50, California GOP Needs Reality Check California’s Debt Crisis Is Brewing Again

My hometown of Flint Hill, Virginia, has been blessed with forests that make it ideal for a rustic lifestyle, which my wife and I enjoy. On walks with my dogs, I marvel at the poplar, red maple, oak, and pine trees — all second growth in this area that was once cleared farmland. The wild forests are slowly returning, and with them the animals and ecosystems they once supported. But it can take hundreds of years to restore what was lost. Even so, Virginia’s recovering forests attract millions of outdoor enthusiasts each year who hike along the Appalachian Trail not far from my home. The nearby Shenandoah River is also a prime spot for fishing, canoeing, and kayaking. Nature is resilient — given time and a little support by us. When I directed the movie Gods and Generals, I chose to film it in Culpeper County, Virginia, for its beautiful scenery and authenticity to the Civil War period. While beauty can be captured on film, it is far better to be enjoyed in real life, as I learned as a director. I love this area, for its history and natural beauty. But both are currently under attack. A couple months ago, the Department of Agriculture announced its intent to repeal a policy known as the “Roadless Rule.” This policy protects over 300,000 acres of some of Virginia’s most pristine and ancient forests from roadbuilding, logging, and other forms of development on federal forests within the Commonwealth. I have been a vocal supporter of President Trump for more than a decade. However, this move by some bureaucrats within the USDA should be reconsidered. Our beautiful national forests need protection, not excavation. Repealing the Roadless Rule would be disastrous for Virginia — risking the heritage of our national forests, negatively impacting local economies that depend on outdoor tourism, and increasing pollution in our rivers. The Roadless Rule protects headwaters of crucial rivers like The James, which provides drinking water for 2.7 million Virginians and is essential for boating and fishing. Efforts to allow forests to be paved over by roads will lead to runoff and erosion, allowing sediment to fill and destroy our streams and rivers. One of USDA’s stated reasons for the repeal is to supposedly improve firefighting efficiency and prevent wildfires. However, studies have shown that roadless areas are safer from wildfires because they are inherently more backcountry — where there is less human activity. In western states that are more prone to wildfires, repealing the Roadless Rule will create new fire management requirements, which will add additional bureaucracy to state and local governments. If there is anything small towns do not need, it is more red tape when trying to maintain public safety and save lives. This issue came up in 2020 and I raised the alarm then for what would happen to our nation’s largest national forest — the Tongass in Alaska — if the Roadless Rule was repealed. Eight-hundred-year-old Sitka spruce trees, one of the world’s most productive commercial salmon runs, habitat for grizzlies, and the ultimate symbol of American freedom, the bald eagle, would have all been destroyed. I also pointed out that repeal made no economic sense, as subsidizing road building and development in the Tongass and other national forests costs the taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars. Once again, this issue has come back around, except now it would impact forests in 36 total states, including much closer to home for me. Once again, it would waste our money, destroy our heritage, pollute our rivers and drinking water, and cripple our thriving outdoor recreation economy. Small towns do not need added bureaucracy. Leave the Roadless Rule intact. Ron Maxwell is the award-winning director of the films Gettysburg and Gods and Generals.

China's bridge propaganda has fallen flat on its communist face.