OF NOTE: In this week's episode of the Sphere Podcast, your correspondent interviews the excellent Lyman Stone of the Institute for Family Studies, who is, in our estimation, the world's foremost expert on everything related to fertility, birth rates, natalism, and natalist policy.

We cover a huge extent of ground, including, what the fertility crisis is, why it's such a potential catastrophe, what causes it, whether policy can reverse it (yes), and how that might be done. We had a lot of fun.

You can listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

And, of course, you should subscribe to the Sphere Podcast: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Now for your regularly scheduled programming…

Let's Talk TikTok Ban

First, let us describe where we are.

As you know, Congress passed a law, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, saying that TikTok's China-connected owners, ByteDance, must sell the company, or the service will be banned in the US, by a deadline set on January 19, 2025.

ByteDance have said repeatedly that they refuse to sell, which means the ban is set to go into effect.

Except that…

ByteDance have been suing. They lost a first challenge, but appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on January 10, 2025, and a ruling is expected imminently—given the deadline, the Supreme Court may issue its ruling at any time between now and January 18.

Also: President Biden may choose to extend the deadline. The President can extend the deadline by 90 days if he certifies that ByteDance is making substantial progress toward divesting TikTok's U.S. operations. Several lawmakers have called for him to do that. Given that ByteDance is not, by any standard, making any substantial progress toward divesting—indeed, as we noted, they have repeatedly said that they refuse to do so—this would be a pure "Schmittian" ruling. But: what has he got to lose?

The reason this matters is that President Trump has been vocal in his opposition to the bill, and to a divestment by ByteDance. He has also called for an extension of the deadline, claiming that once in office he could reach a "political resolution" that would assuage national security concerns while allowing TikTok to keep operating. The President has also cited free speech, his popularity on the app, and the app's popularity with young people, as reasons for his opposition to the ban.

So, what happens now?

It's going to come down to the wire, isn't it?

The Supreme Court may strike down the ban, though that is highly unlikely, as the drafters of the original bill invested a lot in making it Supreme Court-compliant. It may postpone it, as President Trump has called on the justices to do.

President Biden may possibly grant that magical 90 day extension, as several Democratic lawmakers have urged him to, in which case the extension would roll into the Trump Administration, at which point all bets would be off.

If the ban doesn't come into effect on January 19 for whatever reason, there would be many avenues open to President Trump to try to defeat the ban. Of course, he could lobby Congress to repeal the law. He could also instruct the Justice Department not to enforce the ban, or declare ByteDance has sufficiently divested TikTok.

President Trump may also seek to revive something called "Project Texas," which was ByteDance's attempt to address privacy and national security concerns related to user data. The project involved ByteDance set up a US-based subsidiary that would manage all its US on data centers located in the US and run by Oracle Corporation. As an article in Lawfare details, while TikTok says that it has spent $2 billion on Project Texas, and it says every US TikTok user interacts with the US-hosted version of the app, not everything in Project Texas has been implemented yet. Specifically, former Project Texas employees have said that ByteDance employees in China still access user data. But maybe Project Texas can be "done right."

In the end, the TikTok divestment bill was a good idea. America simply cannot allow so much user data to be accessed by Chinese state actors, and to have a CCP-linked company determine the algorithm that decides what content is consumed by so many Americans. Forcing a divestment rather than an outside ban correctly addressed First Amendment concerns.

Policy News You Need To Know

#ProxyVoting — Let's talk about H.Res. 23, a resolution permitting parental remote voting by proxy. The resolution is sponsored by Rep Pettersen, Democrat of Colorado, and is co-sponsored by 6 Republicans and 6 Democrats. The resolution would allow Members of Congress who are new parents (that is to say, "A Member who has given birth or whose spouse has given birth") to vote by proxy for twelve weeks following the birth of their child. Today, Rep Pettersen posted on X: "Today marks the first day I am unable to fly to DC for votes due to travel restrictions ahead of my due date. It shouldn't be this way. Congress must pass my bipartisan resolution to allow Members who are new parents to vote remotely." Let's get the funny stuff out of the way first: there are obvious health reasons why new mothers would have difficulties voting, but since we are unable to acknowledge human biology, the resolution doesn't mention motherhood. What's truly funny is that the resolution also allows members whose spouse has given birth to claim this, which is really just paternal leave. It does say "spouse" and "given birth". So if a Member's "partner" has given birth, do they not get to vote? What of a gay Member who has received a new baby via FedEx? This is a great cultural flashpoint because it opposes the culture of inclusivity to traditional culture. A quick research has shown that while the House used to allow proxy voting in committees, neither house of Congress has allowed proxy voting on the floor, and obviously in the 235 years since the US Constitution has come into force, members have been prevented from voting for health reasons. A small-c conservative response to the desire for inclusivity and work-life balance is that there is no human right to be a member of Congress: to do so involves sacrifices, and one knows what they are before one runs. Apart from the cultural issues, a more serious issue is the issue of precedent and slippery slopes. In many democracies around the world, parliamentary proxy voting turns many votes into jokes, where a few members are present while hundreds of votes are tallied. It has been traditionally understood that the Constitution's requirement for quorums in Congress implies the requirement for in-person voting.

#LGBT — In what Politico calls "an anti-trans push" and what sane people of all affiliations will call a return to sanity, House lawmakers are expected to vote today on the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which would amend Title IX to clarify that "sex" means "sex" and not "gender identity". Apart from this being a very good thing for all sorts of obvious reasons, this will also be a good barometer of where Democrats are in processing the lessons from their 2024 loss. Enough Democrats are expected to vote for it as to guarantee passage, but how many?

#AI — NYT: "The Biden administration issued sweeping rules on Monday governing how A.I. chips and models can be shared with foreign countries, in an attempt to set up a global framework that will guide how artificial intelligence spreads around the world in the years to come."

#MinimumWage — American Action Forum President Douglas Holz-Eakin has a good piece up on the minimum wage, noting that we are set for a new round of debate on the issue, as several states have minimum wage hikes set to go into effect in January. These arguments do tend to get a bit tired, which is why we were glad to see Holz-Eakin highlight new research on the issue. Key quote: "When facing a minimum wage, fewer firms made a hire, but those workers they did hire were paid a higher wage. However, the reduction in hiring was not large, even at the highest minimum wage imposed. In contrast, minimum wages substantially reduced hours-worked, across cells. Firms facing a higher minimum wage also hired more productive workers, which can explain, in part, the reduction in hours-worked: with more productive workers, projects were simply completed in less time." Of course all economic research that's not a controlled experiment should be taken with a grain of salt, but this is nuanced and interesting.

SEE ALSO: Exclusive: Douglas Holtz-Eakin, American Action Forum: “The Federal Debt Is One Large Boomer Taking. That’s All It Is.” →

#MinimumWage — Speaking of, the American Institute for Economic Research has an article on the specific case of New York, which is set to increase its minimum wage, which will probably cause businesses to leave the state.

#Fed — Cato has a big new report out on monetary policy, laying out the case for rules-based monetary policy.

#Ed — AEI's Rick Hess, whose work on education is always worth reading, interviews Betsy DeVos to get her advice for the next Secretary of Education. Self-recommending.

#AgTech — Important new post from AEI's Jim Pethokoukis: we're going to need to feed 9 billion people, and agricultural productivity has been declining. Can we feed the future?, he asks. Answer: "We have the technology — if we choose to use and improve it."

SEE ALSO: James Pethokoukis, AEI: “We’re Not Just Victims of Fate and Macroeconomic Circumstances” →

#MAHA — Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has called for cancer warnings on alcoholic drink labels. Isabelle Morales at ATR explains why that's bone-headed.