YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Washington Free Beacon Sleuth-Extraordinaire Joe Schoffstall took a look at the Tides Center’s latest (2019) tax filing and discovered that the liberal activist group incubator received $16 million in federal grants.

If you aren’t familiar with the Tides Center, it’s a branch of the Tides Foundation, the California-based originator of Dark Money – that is, providing a tax-exempt place for liberal donors to give money anonymously to activist groups they would not otherwise want to be identified with publicly.

It’s all but impossible to name a significant Left-wing activist group of the past two, even three, decades that doesn’t in some way benefit from the Tides umbrella. These days, the most prominent such group would probably be the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. It’s not for nothing that Schoffstall describes Tides as the “Dark Money Behemoth.”

WHEN YOUR KID SAYS CAPITALISM IS GREED: Colson Center’s Brook McIntire offers three handy facts about free enterprise that will make the average college econ prof instantly turn apoplectic. Wouldn’t you love to be there to see it!

HOW MANY WAYS DOES SCHUMER BACK ANTI-SEMITES? Pretty much all of them according to The Lid’s Jeff Dunetz, who compiles a comprehensive list of examples of the Senate Minority Leader jumping in bed with the worst Anti-Semites. And the guy has a real shot at being the next Senate Majority Leader???

ANOTHER COVID PREDICTION TRUMP GOT RIGHT: He said it was possible to develop a deliverable vaccine by Christmas and he was right. Issues & Insights (I&I) points to something else Trump predicted earlier this year about the Covid crisis for which he was derided, namely, a rousing economic recovery in the second half of the year.

The third quarter saw a 33 percent increase in GDP. Now it appears the fourth quarter will show an increase in the range of 11 percent. What a testament to the strength and fortitude of the American free enterprise system (or what’s left of it)! But there is a problem looming on the horizon, according to I&I:

“Unfortunately, Biden has no intention of leaving well enough alone. Having run on the most leftist agenda in American history, Biden intends to undo all the good things Trump has achieved and impose policies that will turn any hope of a roaring ‘20s repeat into a rerun of the ’30s Great Depression.”

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? So it all comes down to two Georgia Senate races.

LEFT’S NON-PROFIT FUNDING LEAD KEEPS GROWING: Michael Watson and Shane Devine of the Capital Research Center (CRC) update through the 2018 campaign the center’s ongoing study comparing charitable funding resources for the Left and Right and finds the former’s advantage continues to expand.

“In the 2017–2018 cycle, the 301 groups supported by the selected conservative grant-makers received a total of a little over $2.2 billion, a roughly 1.67 percent increase over 2014 levels,” according to Watson and Devine.

“The 907 left-of-center groups selected by liberal grant-makers received over $8.1 billion, about a 9.65 percent increase. In raw dollar amounts, liberal 501(c)(3) revenue outmatched conservative revenue by 3.7 to 1 — a significant increase over the 3.4 to 1 ratio for 2014.”

Question: Why do the enemies of capitalism keep getting richer? Alternative question: Why aren’t the biggest beneficiaries of capitalism investing more of their profits in the defense of the economic system that makes those profits possible?

COVID VACCINE ONE STEP AWAY FROM ABORTED BABIES: AstraZeneca denies that its Covid vaccine was developed using aborted baby tissue, but acknowledges it did involve the use of “immortalized cells” grown in culture from aborted baby tissue. Is that one step sufficiently separate from directly using a dead baby’s body parts to alleviate the obvious moral concerns?

BRUTAL, FACTUAL HONESTY ABOUT HOMELESSNESS: Discovery Institute Research Fellow Christopher Rufo takes a little more than 12 minutes in a compelling vidumentary to dissect why the homelessness problem keeps getting worse even as officials spend increasing billions of tax dollars on illusory solutions, then points to the actual causes and how to make measurable progress. Genuine compassion begins with facing reality.

OH, THE HUMANITY! America’s most prominent Native-American in the U.S. Senate has been snubbed by His Fraudulency for a cabinet post. Will Warren don warpaint?

WHY IS THE MSM SUPPRESSING FACTS ABOUT HCQ AND COVID? C. Boyden Gray rips apart the Mainstream Media’s coverup of the full facts about the effectiveness of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in treating Covid.

“The current accepted press narrative on hydroxychloroquine is that no evidence exists showing it is effective for treating COVID-19, and that it can, in fact, be harmful. Any person who suggests otherwise is accused of being ‘anti-science’ and a promoter of ‘conspiracy theories’ and ‘disinformation.’

“First, there is strong evidence that hydroxychloroquine is helpful in treating COVID-19 when administered early in the disease — notably, from studies by the Mount Sinai Health System in New York and the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, which both showed that the drug cut the mortality rate for COVID-19 patients nearly in half. Large multi-hospital collaborations in Belgium and the Netherlands and numerous smaller studies have also demonstrated benefits,” Gray writes for American Greatness.

PROMOTED – RESEARCHERS GRAFT ABORTED BABY SCALP TISSUE ONTO RATS: This may come as a shock, but human skin and hair grafted onto a white rat will grow. Next question: Where does this go next … and where does it end, if at all?

HAWLEY HAS A KNACK FOR CLARITY: Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) succinctly explains why people who worry about voting fraud are not going to shut up any time soon.

SHE EXPECTS TO BE CALLED ‘DR’ FOR THAT? Hans Bader has examined Jill Biden’s dissertation and is not impressed.

NOW IT’S COVID CANCEL CHRISTIANS CULTURE: New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell will not abide the presence of Christian performing artist Lauren Daigle in the Dick Clark Productions’ New Years’ Eve show.

ANOTHER WIN FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: This one comes in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which delivers a “strict scrutiny” lecture to the District Court that upheld Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak’s clearly discriminatory capacity limits on church attendance.

The Supremes strike again, too.

OUR ‘BIGGEST PROBLEM’ ISN’T REALLY: Glenn Stanton says apocalyptic environmental worries have become so widespread among the young that the medical community has come up with a “climate anxiety scale” to measure it.

Fears of over-population are an integral part of such worries, but Stanton, director of global family formation studies at Focus on the Family, points to an emerging new field of data-driven analyses that suggest what we really should be worried about is having too few people:

“The greatest threat to humanity’s future is certainly not too many people consuming too many limited natural resources, but rather too few people giving birth to the new humans who will continue the creative work of making the world a better, more hospitable place through technological innovation,” he writes for the latest edition of Quillette.

It’s a bit of a long piece but well-worth the reading time because it makes a persuasive case for the proposition that the world as we know it, isn’t.

SHOULD WE CARE THE DURHAM PROBE IS EXPANDING? The Lid’s Jeff Dunetz is skeptical. Why? Well, for one thing, once his or her work is completed, a Special Counsel submits a confidential report to the Attorney General.

“What if Trump is no longer President after January and there is a Democratic Party appointed Attorney General? Under that scenario, if the Durham Report concludes that Russiagate was all a Democratic Party hoax (which it was), do you really think America will find out what is in the report,” Dunetz asks.

FIVE REASONS NOT TO THROW MORE MONEY AT COVID STIMULUS: The Heritage Foundation’s Rachel Grezler and Adam Michel line’em up like ducks.

JUSTICE ALITO’S CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR AMERICA: Look what’s happened on the religious freedom front since his November address to The Federalist Society. It’s the gift that really could keep on giving year-round.

NOTE TO THE DESPONDENT: Yes, the Supremes blew it on the Texas case. But, just as the seeds for the first American Revolution were planted from a hundred church pulpits during the Great Awakening (See this from Ellis Sandoz), maybe Alito has watered the seeds of a new rebellion.

NO, THE MAJORITY-MINORITY DEMOCRATIC DOMINANCE IS NOT INEVITABLE: Morris Fiorina, writing for The Federalist, points to CUNY Professor Richard Alba’s “The Great Demographic Illusion” as essential reading for anybody who talks, writes or thinks about U.S. elections.

RICHMOND UPS STORE SENT UNREQUESTED MAILIN BALLOTS: Hayden Ludwig of the Capital Research Center (CRC) has the details on that and much more about Mark Zuckerberg, the Center for Voter Information and much else concerning the Left’s voter manipulation.

NO, REVEREND, JESUS WAS NOT A PALESTINIAN: Georgia Democratic Senatorial Candidate Raphael Warnock thinks Jesus was a Palestinian two millennia before Palestinians became a Leftist thing.

GAVIN GETS SLAPPED DOWN BY CALIFORNIA JUDGE: The Golden State’s chief executive has issued anti-Covid regulations that are likely the most discriminatory against Christians in the nation.

But late Thursday, California Superior Court Judge Gregory Pulskamp waved the red flag, specifically citing the Supreme Court’s recent comeuppance to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s similarly bigoted regulations aimed at Jewish and Catholic gatherings in Brooklyn.

It takes time for Supreme Court precedents to be applied as widely as needed, but this decision suggests that Justice Alito’s efforts on behalf of the First Amendment and religious freedom are bearing fruit rather quickly.

CALIFORNIA BUREAUCRATS PUTTING SCREWS TO CHURCH: Discriminatory targeting of Christian churches by California bureaucrats continues apace, with Calvary Chapel of San Jose and Pastor Michael McClure being slapped with huge Covid-related fines

TEXAS SUIT IS NOT BUSH V GORE ALL OVER AGAIN: Margot Cleveland of The Federalist tees up six things you should know about the Lone Star State’s suit at the Supreme Court claiming multiple constitutional violations by Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan in the November 3 election.

WHY ‘HE’S THE REASON FOR THE SEASON,’ A REFRESHER: What Christmas is really all about. You know, in case the kids ask. Or a liberal acquaintance. Also useful for correcting your know-it-all brother-in-law. Perhaps you’ve even forgotten.