VIRGINIA IS NOW A ‘PRO-CRIME’ STATE? Hans Bader says that will be the case if liberal early-release legislation becomes law.

‘WE’RE NOT CLOSING DOWN THIS CHURCH:’ Things are escalating as California officials ratchet up their enforcement efforts against evangelical congregations defying Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest Covid-related restrictions on indoor gatherings.

Interesting, isn’t it, that it’s the traditional, politically conservative churches in the most leftist-dominated state forming the front line in defense of constitutional liberty? Didn’t there used to be a California GOP with brass ones?

It’s not just California and it’s not just Covid.

LOOK WHO OWNS A PIECE OF A CHINESE FIRM SANCTIONED FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES: Despite it being buried in several layers of corporate registry obfuscation, Washington Free Beacon investigative reporter Alana Goodman uncovered Hunter Biden’s 10 percent stake in Bohai Harvest RST.

“Bohai Harvest RST Shanghai Equity, an investment firm that Hunter Biden owns a stake in, initially invested in Megvii, a sanctioned Chinese tech company that specializes in facial recognition software, in 2017, according to the company’s website. The firm holds a nearly 2 percent stake in Megvii through two holding companies, according to a prospectus filed by Megvii as part of its application for a listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange last year,” Goodman reports.

“Last year, the U.S. Department of Commerce added Megvii to its list of sanctioned entities that were ‘implicated in human-rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups.'”

Some investments are more equal than others.

FOUR LITTLE-NOTICED TRENDS THAT POINT TO TRUMP WIN: Sharyl Attkinsson at Just the News digs into the data and finds four solid reasons to think Trump could be headed to a bigger win in 2020 than he gained in 2016. And if you want to really freak out your lefty friends, show’em what Fivethirtyeight says about Minnesota going red. LINK FIXED!

UPDATE: Speaking of Minnesota, did you hear about the six Democratic mayors in that state who endorse Trump for re-election?

CAN TAX-EXEMPTION BE JERKED FOR FUNDING ANARCHY? How do Antifa and the multiple related left-wing domestic terrorist outfits fund their operations in multiple cities across the country? A significant part of their funding comes from huge foundations like the Ford Foundation, according to The Federalist’s Sloan Rachmuth.

Question: Why isn’t the IRS jerking the exempt status of Ford and any other foundation that funds domestic terrorism?

CHECK OUT THE TOP, BOTTOM 10 OF CAPITOL HILL PAY: Democrats love government, so why is it Republicans, who allegedly don’t, appear to pay their staffs more? The GOPers also are prominent at the bottom of the scale, and seniority seems to be significant as well. But then there are rookies like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) among the most generous, so the data warrants more analysis. This is a start.

PRICE OF DOING REAL JOURNALISM: Elizabeth Prata is a Christian blogger who earlier in her career spent a lot of years doing investigative journalism in a city dominated by Democrats. So she long ago became accustomed to negative push-back.

But, as she explains this morning, something happened on a new scale over the weekend:

“I copied and pasted a screen shot of the Center for Disease Control data on deaths from covid alone, without comorbidities. I restated the facts in the page and linked to the source. This is good journalism. There was no interpretation, no hyperbole, no opinion. Just the facts.”

Initially, lots of people said thanks and retweeted the link.

“Then after about an hour or so, the naysayers got a-hold of the tweet and the onslaught began. I’ve been used to push-back, but the things that were tweeted or emailed to me represented an entirely different level of vile. I will not repeat them, just trust me when I say the indecent replies were on a cruelty level akin to the tenth circle of hell,” she reports.

One need not agree with Elizabeth’s spiritual understanding of the underlying how and why of the pushback in order to be mindful that there remains a remnant of real journalists in this country who are ready and able to publish the truth.

IT’S THE RIGHT’S FAULT THE LEFT HAS SPENT DECADES CULTIVATING RACIAL HATRED: Nothing angers me more than hearing Lefty Loons claiming the Right is responsible for America’s growing racial divide, the riots and police brutality.

Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Mike Gonzalez was a foreign affairs reporter for 15 years before joining the conservative think tank, so he has seen up close what racial division almost always produces: conflict, more hatred, destruction of civil society.

That makes Gonzalez the perfect guy to review “Let Them Eat Tweets,” a new diatribe from a couple of academics that is a solid example of Left-wing blame-shifting. He reminds us that JFK started affirmative action in federal contracting, but it was LBJ who turned race-based hiring into a battering ram against equal justice.

“’Affirmative action’ came to mean the opposite: making hiring, contracting, and housing decisions with regard to race, sex, and national origin. These immutable characteristics thus became the alchemy of something new: officially designated minorities. To justify the benefits and the balkanization, activists instilled the members of such minorities with a sense of victimhood.”

And so here we are today. But the Right is wrong to assume demography is the problem, according to Gonzalez. Preservation of the culture of the melting pot is the solution — “Out of Many, One.” Sound familiar?

YOU SCRATCH OUR BACK, WE’LL SCRATCH YOURS: California officials awarded a $35 million contract for “voter outreach” to a firm with deep ties to former President Barack Obama and his number two, Joe Biden.

The firm’s managing director is Anita Dunn, Obama’s former White House communications director and an admirer of the genocidal Chinese tyrant, Mao Zedong, aka “Chairman Mao.”

ONCE I WAS, THOUGHTLESSLY, AMONG THE PRO-CHOICE CROWD: We can’t just kill 55 million unborn babies and walk away. Susan B. Anthony List Video cites RNC as Proof Life is Winning in America.(Updated and Bumped).

MORE MONEY FOR BIG LABOR: That’s what California’s assault on Uber, Lyft and the gig economy is all about, forcing independent contractors to unionize.

FIVE CHARTS DEMS ARE DESPERATE TO KEEP FROM YOU: Somebody ought to share these with the media’s “fact-checkers,” too.

IF REPUBLICANS HAD GONADS: They would greet Nancy Pelosi the next time she appears on the floor of the House of Representatives with the chant “Apologize! Apologize!” and then walk out in unison when she refuses.

They cannot simply give her a pass on her declaration that Trump and Republicans in Congress are “enemies of the state,” not after what happened to Steve Scalise and others on June 14, 2017, and with radical left-wingers rioting in the streets of America.

Words have specific meaning and consequences. Pelosi knows Democrats could control both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue come January 2021. Her declaration makes clear it is not only Trump Derangement Syndrome but obsessive hatred of all opposition. What is she laying the predicate for should her party regain control of both branches? Blood politics?

Asking for a friend.

DEM PARTY REGISTRATION LEDE SHRINKING: Dropping from 11 points to six in less than three months and as it became clear Joe Biden would be the nominee is no way to win a presidential election.

REMEMBER OBAMA’S DNC CLAIM ABOUT THE MEDIA ‘IS NOT THE ENEMY:’ Just for the record, this 2016 piece in the Washingtonian documented the many ways Obama and his minions at the Department of Justice treated the media as enemies.

HT: Steve Krakauer.

WE KNOW WHERE YOU ARE: Albion College requires students to use a location tracking app, ostensibly for contact tracing purposes. And that’s the only way the app will be used by administrators, right? Right?

PROSPECT OF A MUGGING CONCENTRATES THE MIND WONDERFULLY: Almost 2,000 women in Detroit get firearms/self-defense training. Journalist Stephen Gutowski, by the way, is a byline worth following.

NIH’S DR. FRANCIS COLLINS ON HIS JOURNEY FROM ATHEISM TO FAITH: Elite media’s narrative typically bars unbiased mention of highly accomplished scientists who are also men and women of faith.

So it’s not surprising that Collins — a renowned geneticist who understands a thing or three about DNA and its sequencing — is far better known as a scientist than as a Christian who views evolution as God’s creative process. But, as he makes clear in this video, the two are inseparable and he has launched the Biologos Foundation to advance public understanding of why that is so.

MAYBE THIS HELPS EXPLAIN CHINA FAVORING BIDEN: Things are not going well for the Confucius Institutes on American campuses, thanks to President Donald Trump.

NOT SURE WHAT TO MAKE OF THIS: Trump senior counselor Kellyanne Conway announces her departure from the White House

VIRTUAL DNC WAS A REAL RATINGS FLOP: If it was a pilot, nobody would be talking about a first-season contract.

NO, HEALTHCARE PRICE CONTROLS DON’T WORK: Ross Marchand of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) explains why in such simple and straightforward language that even Members of Congress and journalists can understand.

POLYAMORY, THE NEXT STEP DOWN THE SLIPPERY SLOPE: Glenn Stanton says don’t confuse it with polygamy or polyandry. What polyamory is — basically, a sexual free-for-all among two or more individuals  — is just fine with the New York Times.

Stanton thinks somebody at America’s former newspaper of record ought to do a little research on what the top scholars on children and family health almost unanimously say is the healthiest arrangement for kids and society. It ain’t polyamory.

REMEMBER HOW BATTY RELATIVES USED TO BE KEPT IN THE ATTIC? The Issues & Insights crew sees one Democratic innovation – keeping batty Biden in the basement.

RESEARCHERS FINDING LOTS OF REASONS ‘JUNK DNA’ ISN’T: Sooner or later, the mounting evidence for Intelligent Design will get its day in the court of public opinion.