December 22, 2025

CHANGE: Fairfax County Public Schools Forfeits Case Challenging Its Transgender Policies.

Fairfax County’s public school district’s leaders capitulated in court after a student challenged their pro-transgender policies in court, offering hope that the era of so-called “transgender rights” at the expense of everything else is coming to a close.

Last month, Fairfax County Public Schools, represented by Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, extended a Rule 68 Offer of Judgment to a former student, identified as “Jane Doe,” over its bathrooms and pronouns policies. Virginia’s largest public school district granted the plaintiff $50 and attorney’s fees associated with the case.

Jane Doe, represented by America First Legal, filed the lawsuit asserting that the district violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments, Title IX, and the Virginia Constitution by prioritizing “gender identity” over biological sex and religious conscience. The plaintiff had encountered a boy in the girls’ bathroom while at school, which school policy permits. The district’s code of conduct stipulates bathroom and locker room use is based on “gender identity” rather than biological sex. It also mandates preferred pronoun usage.

In response to the district’s decision not to fight the case, Jane Doe’s mother told IW Features, “My sincere thanks goes to my daughter’s legal team at America First Legal, who were the only adults during this whole ordeal to listen to my pleas for help to keep my daughter safe while she was at school.”

It’s nice to see a little sanity prevail during the Crazy Years.

Posted at 9:36 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Nicki Minaj Has a MAGA Moment, Dem False Narratives Hardest Hit. “Now let’s contrast Bret Stephens’ effete snobbery and lack of mental wellness with the thoughtful words of the best selling female rapper of all time. Nicki Minaj appeared with Erika Kirk at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest this past weekend. I think she surprised a lot of people.”

Posted at 9:05 am by Stephen Green

CONSEQUENCES:

Posted at 8:49 am by Stephen Green

CHUTZPAH: North Korea Urges Curbing Japan’s Nuclear Ambitions.

North Korea said Japan’s ambition for possession of ‍nuclear weapons should ‍be “thoroughly curbed,” state media KCNA reported on Sunday.

Japan ⁠is showing the intention to possess nuclear weapons explicitly by saying ​it needs to review the three non-nuclear principles, KCNA said citing ‍a commentary of North Korea’s foreign-policy official.

Japan ⁠began making such comments actively as soon as the United States approved a request from South ⁠Korea for ​building a nuclear ⁠submarine, the media said.

Telling Beijing we’d greenlight Japanese nukes might have caused Beijing to lean hard enough on Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program. But that was 20-plus years ago — and an opportunity squandered.

Posted at 8:34 am by Stephen Green

PLAINTIFFS’ LAWYERS IN NEED OF FERRARIS AND GULFSTREAMS TAKE NOTE of this emailed advice from GWU law professor John Banzhaf:

Yes, White Men Should Sue, Especially in D.C.

It Has a Unique Statute and a Target-Rich Environment

WASHINGTON. D.C. (December 22, 2025) – Both the head of the EEOC and Vice President JD Vance have just made public pleas strongly urging white men to sue if they believe they may have been illegally discriminated against because of their race and sex.

But although both suggested proceeding “under federal civil rights laws,” white men should also consider filing a complaint under D.C.’s Human Rights Act which provides powerful legal advantages in a target-rich environment, suggests public interest law professor John Banzhaf, who has won over 100 cases of illegal discrimination against women, Blacks, and Jews under the unique statute.

The D.C. statute make it easier to prove that discrimination has occurred because it has an “effect or consequence” provision (§ 2–1402.68) which provides that “Any practice which has the effect or consequence of violating any of the provisions of this chapter shall be deemed to be an unlawful discriminatory practice.” [emphasis added]

With this powerful tool at their disposal, it isn’t necessary for any white man who wasn’t hired or promoted to show why or how the discriminatory effect or consequence occurred, nor whether it was deliberate or even known to the employer.

All such a white man has to do, under this provision, is to show that the white men were hired, or are currently employed, at a rate lower than would be expected. The burden then shifts to the employer to defend the practice with a legally valid defense.

The statute also makes it very difficult to defend any practice once it has been shown that it had, intended or not, a discriminatory effect or consequence.

To defend any practice which had a discriminatory effect or consequence, the employer has the extremely difficult burden of showing that it would be impossible to remain in business without such discrimination. The argument that the practice saved lots of money, and/or was favored by customers, other employees, and anyone else is not a valid legal defense.

Thus § 2–1401.03 expressly provides that any practice which has a discriminatory effect or consequence can be justified only by proving business necessity.

Under this chapter, a “business necessity” exception is applicable only in each individual case where it can be proved by a respondent that, without such exception, such business cannot be conducted.” [emphasis added]

The activist law professor has frequently been able to short circuit proffered defenses offered under the statute simply by finding only one similar business – e.g. a dry cleaner, hair cutter, bar, etc. – which conducted business without resorting to such discrimination.

The same section of the statute also makes it clear that most common arguments offered in support of discrimination are invalid, and cannot be offered in its defense.

It expressly provides: “a ‘business necessity’ exception cannot be justified by the facts of increased cost to business, business efficiency, the comparative characteristics of one group as opposed to another, the stereotyped characterization of one group as opposed to another, and the preferences of co-workers, employers, customers or any other person.” [emphasis added]

If the employer cannot meet this difficult if not virtually impossible burden of proving a valid legal defense of the practice, it can then be ordered to hire, reinstate, or upgrade the person complaining, as well as pay damages to compensate him for any losses, pay reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs, and even pay a civil penalty “in an amount not to exceed $10,000.”

Professor Banzhaf, who has been called a “King of Class Action Lawsuits,” recommends that white men proceed through a class action if the practice may have impacted more than one white man.

In such situations, when potentially faced with huge and potentially crippling damages and virtually no valid legal defense, defendants may have no choice but to settle, says Banzhaf, who has been called “a Driving Force Behind the Lawsuits That Have Cost Tobacco Companies Billions of Dollars,” and “The Law Professor Who Masterminded Litigation Against the Tobacco Industry.”

Finally, Banzhaf suggests that the District of Columbia is likely to be a target-rich environment because so many employers – e.g. universities, national associations, offices of major national organizations, etc. – publicly announced and implemented so-called DEI programs which the federal government has determined discriminated against white men in favoring other groups.

Indeed, Vance has described DEI as “a deliberate program of discrimination primarily against white men.”

For those who might try to argue that affirmative action plans – which might include DEI and other similar programs or practices – are lawful and therefore provide a valid legal defense to discrimination against white men, the statute is clear; under § 2–1402.53, affirmative action plans constitute an “unlawful discriminatory practice” unless and until they have been approved by the D.C. Office of Human Rights.

It’s raining soup. Go get a bucket. Lots of deep corporate pockets in all sorts of industries — and open admissions of discrimination — out there.

Posted at 8:32 am by Glenn Reynolds

JOEL KOTKIN: America’s great migration: The young and ambitious are fleeing the stagnant coastal states for the booming heartland.

Travel across America and the differences between regions can seem almost like those between nation states. The elite classes – and their chattering-class interlocutors – remain concentrated in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, places that retain much of the world’s ultra-rich. Yet the supremacy of these cities is being undermined by their growing failure to offer working- and middle-class citizens, particularly the young, the prospect of a better life.

Over the past decade, economic and demographic momentum has accelerated towards Texas, Arizona, the Carolinas and Florida – places once dismissed as economically and culturally backward. None of America’s major growth hubs is now located in the north-east or California. The rising cities of today include Dallas-Fort Worth, Raleigh, Houston, Austin, Phoenix, Nashville and Salt Lake City.

Just don’t bring the Blue politics with you.

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA:

That ought to disqualify Newsom for higher office, but of course, Dems don’t play that way.

Posted at 7:47 am by Stephen Green

HAPPY NEW YEAR: Trump touts low Christmas season gasoline prices, and analysts say they should hold into 2026.

According to AAA, the average gasoline price in the U.S. was at $2.88 per gallon on Friday. According to the live price on GasBuddy, which uses crowdsourcing data, American motorists were paying an average $2.87 per gallon on Friday morning.

These are the cheapest gasoline prices consumers have seen in December since 2020, AAA reported. GasBuddy predicts gasoline prices will hit around $2.79 per gallon on Christmas Day.

David Blackmon, author of the “Energy Absurdities” Substack and an analyst with more than 40 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, told Just the News that the low prices are a function of global crude oil prices, over which the president doesn’t have a lot of control. However, he said, the Trump administration’s friendlier regulatory environment is contributing to the boon for consumers.

The regulatory climate matters bigly, Mr. Blackmon: New study recommends loosening California oil regulations to avoid skyrocketing fuel prices.

Posted at 7:32 am by Stephen Green

THE FIRST THING WE DO, LET’S REPLACE ALL THE LAWYERS: AI Will Kill All the Lawyers.

‘Last week we did an experiment, a kind of simulation. We took a real, recent and important case – a complex civil court appeal which I wrote, and it took me a day and a half. We redacted all identifying details, for anonymity and confidentiality, and we fed the same case to Grok Heavy AI. And then we asked it to do what I did. After some prompting, the end result was…’ He shakes his head. ‘Spectacular. Actually staggering. It did it in 30 seconds, and it was much better than mine. And remember, I am very good at this.’

He sits back, wry yet resigned. ‘It was at the level of a truly great KC. The best possible legal document. And all done in seconds for pennies. How can any of us compete? We can’t.’

My experience has been that technological revolutions — even the real ones — don’t soak in as fast as enthusiasts predict. But Robert Reich’s advice to join the “symbolic analysts” is looking likely to be, well, as good as all Robert Reich’s other advice. See also, “learn to code.”

Related: AI won’t kill all the lawyers: Labor markets are complex systems and AI is mere technology. “AI is not Dick the Butcher. It isn’t trying to clear the path for tyranny. It’s a productivity shock. Productivity shocks don’t usually abolish a domain; they unwind rents and concentrate power.”

Posted at 7:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

NGOS SHOULD BE BANNED:

Posted at 7:00 am by Glenn Reynolds