EXPECT MORE WILDFIRES: This guy predicted the present infernos.

CALIFORNIA’S ABSURDLY DETAILED CHURCH REGULATIONS ARE BUREAUCRATIC STRANGULATION BY REGULATION: Pastor John MacArthur lays out for all to see the absurdities California’s petty bureaucrats are using imposing.

MEET THE DARK MONEY KING AND QUEEN: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have long vociferously and regularly condemned Republican dark money in politics. That’s what they say but look what the Washington Free Beacon’s Joe Schoftstall found out about what Schumer and Pelosi do with dark money.

A READING LIST FOR AMERICANS ON THE CRISIS IN CIVIL RIGHTS: Here’s an invaluable resource — a continuously updated compilation of authoritative and highly accessible works by conservative and libertarian thinkers on race, police and the welfare state, courtesy of the Independent Institute.

“To advance the public dialogue, Independent Institute Senior Fellow Dr. Williamson M. Evers has created one of the most exhaustive annotated reading lists ever assembled on the issues of civil rights, police reform, race relations, and the welfare state.

“Suitable for use by students and educators seeking material for curricula in the social sciences, criminology, and ethnic studies, the list relies heavily on exemplary but lesser-known scholarship that draws on America’s heritage of individual rights, equality under the law, free markets, and freedom of opportunity. In addition, this resource is designed to be special value for civic and business leaders, policymakers, journalists, and the general public.”

HERE’S THE ROADMAP FOR THE POST-ELECTION CHAOS DEMOCRATS PLAN: Julie Kelly, writing at American Greatness, examines the Transition Integrity Project (TIP) done jointly by Democrats and Never-Trumpers. Check out this sample of what she found:

“’A rogue individual destroyed a large number of ballots believed to have supported Biden, leaving Trump a narrow electoral win,’ the group imagined. ‘The Governor of Michigan used this abnormality as justification to send a separate, pro-Biden set of electors to DC.’ Anyone who’s watched Gretchen Whitmer over the past six months knows she will happily defy the law and common decency for attention.”

And over at The Federalist, John Daniel Davidson provides an abundance of additional information on TIP, as well as a detailed look at related groups like the Fight Back Table and the parallels between the pre-election situation of 1860 with today. One piece of advice here: Secession didn’t work then and it won’t work now, either.

GIVING TRUMP THE PEACE PRIZE MIGHT RESTORE NOBEL’S CREDIBILITY: It’s no guarantee but Issues & Insights thinks doing so is the only hope for rescuing the once-revered award from the far-left fever swamp.

SHALL WE HAVE A KING? First posed by John Jay to George Washington, that now-eerily prescient question is repeated by R Street Governance Project Senior Fellow James Wallner in a thoughtful legbranch.org essay on separation of powers, the Covid pandemic and President Donald Trump’s recent directives.

“Jay summed up the straightforward solution to America’s problems to Washington: ‘Let Congress legislate, let others execute, let others judge.’ James Madison noted that the separation of powers was vital to securing freedom and liberty and that as long as the people’s elected representatives preserved it, ‘We have no danger to apprehend,’” Wallner writes.

“Notwithstanding its centrality to the success of the American regime, a recent altercation between President Trump and Sen. Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska, highlights the extent to which support for the Constitution’s separation-of-powers framework has begun to wane.”

Wallner makes a compelling case in siding with Sasse, who described as “unconstitutional slop” Trump’s directives to defer payroll taxes, continue enhanced benefits for those out of work, offer certain forms of assistance to renters and homeowners, and provide a breather to millions of people with student loans.

My own view is that Congress has itself mainly to blame here, having for decades steadily ceded to executive branch bureaucrats power and authority that erodes legislative authority and energy.

But even today, Congress still has what political theorists Willmoore Kendall and George Carey described as the “ultimate weapons in any showdown with either of the other two branches.” That would be the power to fund or defund anything done by presidents and bureaucrats. But using those weapons requires a certain unity and spirit, which, sadly, hasn’t been seen around Capitol Hill for a long, long time.

HOME SCHOOLING UP 400 PERCENT IN TEXAS: More evidence that the education unions are utterly discrediting public schools with their reaction to Covid.

THE TAX CUT FOR THE RICH DEMS LOVE: Wait, how did this get in The New York Times? This is a crime against the Revolution! The comrade-editor responsible should be shipped to Siberia (or is it San Francisco these days?) for letting this revisionist piece of subversive analysis be published.

NO, SWEDEN DOES NOT PROVE COVID LOCKDOWNS WORK: Critics, including some in Sweden, contend the decision to remain mostly open during the Covid pandemic has unnecessarily cost thousands of Nordic lives.

But hold on there, buckaroos, because three guys at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) say Sweden has lots of other factors that are more explanatory of its  losses, not the least of which is the one it shares with New York.

COPLAND DISASSEMBLES AMERICA’S RULING CLASS: Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow James Copland’s new book, “The Unelected: How An Unaccountable Elite Is Governing America,” is getting and fully deserves outstanding reviews like this one by Law & Liberty’s Mark Pulliam.

My own view is that pretty much anything Copland pens about lawyers, class-action litigation, preservation of the Republic, contemporary politics and so forth is must-reading.

BLM RIOTING IS THE FRENCH REVOLUTION ATTACKING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION: That arresting thought comes from the Discovery Institute’s David Klinghoffer, who further notes that proponents of Intelligent Design experienced cancel culture first.

‘THERE IS NO PANDEMIC:’ This is the spirit of liberty speaking truth to power. Pastor John MacArthur, now facing the fourth blatantly unconstitutional assault by Los Angeles officials, points to the crucial facts about Covid restrictions on the First Amendment.

You don’t have to agree with him that such attacks are satanic in order to recognize this guy is standing up for everybody’s freedom to worship or not worship as we individually choose. MacArthur’s church is represented by Jenna Ellis of the Thomas More Society.

UPDATED AND PROMOTED: “L.A. County is clearly trying to evict Grace Church from use of their parking lot for no other reason than because Pastor John [MacArthur] stood firm and is challenging their power,” Ellis said in a statement following announcement of the planned cancellation of a parking lot lease the congregation has had with Los Angeles County for 45 years.

“This is the essence of tyranny,” Ellis said, Indeed. Graham Piro of the Washington Free Beacon has additional details.

Tyranny facilitated by youtube, which has taken down the MacArthur video, an act that is otherwise known as “censorship.”

SEATTLE CLOSES PARK TO PREVENT OUTDOOR WORSHIP SERVICE: This notice sounds innocuous enough, just a legitimate public health measure. The reality is officials closed the park because it was the planned site for a worship time organized by a group of local churches, assisted by Sean Feucht. Feucht’s ministry organization has organized 19 services in 19 cities during July and August.

“This is the height of hypocrisy for the City of Seattle to turn a blind eye to riots, looting, and AntiFa, while refusing to let Christians gather in a public park to sing and worship,” Feucht said in a statement in response to the closure notice. “First the government shuts down churches. Now it’s shutting down parks to stop us from worshipping.  Time to stand up church!”

BANNON SHOWS ‘THE OTHER’ DONOR INTENT PROBLEM: Shock waves are still radiating out from the indictment of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and three others for allegedly misusing funds contributed solely for the purpose of helping build the wall on the U.S./Mexico border. Michael Watson of the Capital Research Center (CRC) notes, a lot of liberals have a lot of explaining to do as well.

UPDATE: There is an alternative take on the Bannon case, as explained here by my friend Mark Fitzgibbons, for whom I have tremendous respect. There are important links to the sad case of former Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) that are well worth pondering, too.

END OF ‘STARS & STRIPES”? It is if the Pentagon gets its way.

THANK A (REAL) FARMER THIS LABOR DAY: America must be the only place in the world where you can be an “active manager” of a farm that you never physically see, and yet the government gives you millions of tax dollars. Something I retrieved from the Weekly Wastebasket of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

THESE WOMEN KNOW THEIR BARRELS: Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito tells the story of the first women’s professional sports association organized by and for women.

THINGS GOT HILARIOUS WHEN: A little Saturday morning humor to start your Labor Day holiday. (LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS IF YOU HAVE VOLUME PROBLEMS)

GIVE ME MY STASI AND YOU CAN DINE INDOORS: Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) lays down the law to all you plebes wanting to sit down and eat your Big Macs inside the McDonald’s.

YES, LET’S FOLLOW THE SCIENCE: Check out this useful, one-page capture of the key data about where we are on the Covid-19 situation. Wesbury COVID tracker — 6

WORKING WASHINGTON ISN’T WHAT IT PURPORTS TO BE: The Washington State group is organized as a 501(C)(4), but there’s more to the story. An analysis by Jonathan Harsh of the Capital Research Center (CRC) of WW’s leadership and funding makes clear this bunch is a front for radical SEIU activism.

PUBLIC CORRUPTION CASES DOWN AFTER CITIZENS UNITED: That wasn’t supposed to happen. There was going to be a flood of corruption flowing from the hated 2010 Supreme Court decision. Institute for Free Speech looked at the data and guess what they found. Prosecutions were down in six of Obama’s eight years in the Oval Office.

THEY’RE COMING FOR THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT: Trump was right, yet again. And the list goes on and on and …

THE LAST, FEEBLE SIGNS OF DEM LIFE: Their voices are so weak as to be all but indiscernible, but there are still a few pro-life Democrats willing to challenge Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.