It’s Thursday, December 4. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: The motivated reasoning of climate science. An immigration judge fired by Trump speaks out. Ryan Holiday on the book you should read instead of “The Catcher in the Rye.” Elliot Ackerman on how Pete Hegseth screwed up. And much more.

But first: How bad are things in Europe?

David Betz—a historian and professor at King’s College London—is an unlikely prophet of doom. Betz has spent the last 24 years writing “specialist articles and books” as a scholar of civil wars, and he has recently come to the alarming conclusion that Britain is destined for civil war. In fact, Betz thinks the early stages of such a conflict are already underway. “The tipping point has already been passed,” he tells Dominic Green, who writes about Betz—and the possibility of civil war in Britain—for The Free Press today.

It sounds like a fringe theory, but does Betz have a point? Read Dom’s report for more on the professor’s dystopian predictions—and why he thinks it’s not just Britain that faces a dark future.

From one alarming European story to another. Kara Kennedy examines the strange case of Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen. She’s no ordinary citizen—she’s spent the last 30 years in Finland’s parliament, and served for several years as the country’s interior minister. But that hasn’t saved her from Helsinki’s speech police.

A member of Finland’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, she criticized its 2019 decision to sponsor an LGBT Pride event. She did this by tweeting a passage from the Bible saying that gay sex is sinful and, as a result, has been on trial for the last six years as state prosecutors try again and again to convict her of a hate crime.

Now that it’s reached the Supreme Court of Finland, Kennedy says the heart of the matter “is a simple question with massive consequences: Can quoting the Bible be a crime?” Read her dispatch—a truly wild tale—to find out.

—Will Rahn

‘They Want to Dismantle the System’

Joe Nocera

Immigration courts were already struggling to clear a massive backlog of cases. Then the Trump administration started firing judges. Joe Nocera spoke to one of them, Olivia Cassin, who thinks the dismissals are “an across-the-board attack on the protectors of due process and the rule of law.” Read his piece on the high stakes of the administration’s latest immigration fight. Read full story

The Cost of Confused Climate Science

The Editors

Will climate change destroy the Great Barrier Reef? Many climate scientists and their acolytes believed that such an outcome was inevitable. But, as it turns out, many of the more cataclysmic predictions proffered by climate scientists in recent years haven’t come to pass, leading to major study retractions and admissions of sloppy work. So why do they keep getting it wrong? Read our latest editorial to find out. Read full story

Hegseth Unbound the Troops and Ran Into the Law

Elliot Ackerman

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised to “untie the hands of warfighters” and empower commanders to do what is “dark and difficult.” But is the controversy over the narco boat strikes a sign that his approach is just a recipe for war crimes? “The problem with Hegseth is that he isn’t railing against rules of engagement,” writes Elliot Ackerman, a Marine veteran. “He’s railing against the law of war.” Read full story

Could Massachusetts Become the First State to Undo Legal Weed?

Josh Code

On Wednesday, Massachusetts took a major step toward reversing the legalization of marijuana. And the commonwealth is not alone. Across the country, lawmakers are slowly turning against recreational cannabis. Josh Code spoke with the man spearheading the revolt against widespread weed legalization, and together they analyze why voters and policymakers are starting to sour on pot. Read full story