DOJ DROPS PROBE OF SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION: Did you hear the Department of Justice (DOJ) has dropped its Biden administration-initiated investigation of allegations by Russell Moore and other prominent “Woke evangelicals” of widespread abuse within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)?

Probably not, but the fact is, as reported by guest author Jon Whitehead on the Rod Martin Report, no charges were filed after a lengthy investigation that cost the SBC as much as $20 million just in legal fees. The investigation was yet another illustration of the Left’s costly, time-consuming and often-libelous Lawfare.

“Russell Moore, in his infamous ‘leaked’ letters, peddled a narrative of systemic corruption and cover-up within the SBC Executive Committee (EC). This was demagoguery of the worst sort. It was a tale steeped in half-truths and self-righteousness, meant to whip messengers into a frenzy,” Whitehead explains.

If you aren’t familiar with Moore, he’s a former congressional aide to Democrat-turned Republican Rep. Gene Taylor of Mississippi. After leaving the Hill, he occupied prominent preaching and teaching positions across the SBC, then became the long-time leader of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC).

Moore was a vocal Trump critic in 2016 and thereafter, but what really caused his downfall was his steadily escalating Woke-driven criticism of Southern Baptists and other evangelicals, beginning during the Obama administration.

Most recently, Moore became Editor-in-Chief of Christianity Today, a move that highlighted that once-respected magazine’s sad abandonment of its conservative evangelical roots in a direction that will almost certainly end up in the same Progressive neighborhood as Sojourners magazine.

Whitehead is also clear that exposing Moore’s attack on the SBC as groundless does not mean SBC congregations need not be always alert to and just in responding to abuse allegations:

“Don’t be fooled. This doesn’t mean sin is absent from every corner of the SBC. Local churches must remain vigilant; God hates sexual abuse. We should support SBC churches who report sexual abuse to authorities and care for victims of such crimes. I have laid out the path for real reform on the issue here: ‘The Path Forward on Abuse Reform in the SBC: Baptist Accountability.’”

DON’T MISS SURBER’S WEEKLY HIGHLIGHTS: Here’s just one that instantly caught my eye, but be sure and read the rest of them:

“ITEM 3: Newsweek reported, ‘The 8-month pregnant wife of pro-Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil has pled for her husband’s release in time for the birth of their baby, following his arrest and detention by federal immigration officers over the weekend.’

“So send her back to Gaza with him. The family that Hamas together stays together—until the pager beeps.”

Oh, and the NASCAR take-off on the infamous New York Times headline cracks me up. But then I only raced on road courses, never did the roundy-round stuff.

WHY ARE LIBERAL WOMEN SO MISERABLE? Social psychologist Dr. Luke Conway, writing on the Rod Martin Report, surveys the data and concludes two factors — traditional marriage and religious faith and practice — are keys to understanding the answer.

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS BEING MASSACRED: It’s happening in Syria, Nigeria, Rwanda and multiple other places around the world. So do Christians living safely here in the U.S. have any obligations to persecuted fellow believers?

Family Research Council’s (FRC) Tony Perkins and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler Jr. say yes and explain in an excellent analysis by The Washington Stand’s Joshua Arnold.

IS BIPARTISANSHIP MAKING A COMEBACK? There are encouraging signs here and there on Capitol Hill. Check out my latest Substack column and share your thoughts in the comments.

PROMOTED WITH IMPORTANT UPDATE ADDED

BYE-BYE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, RELIGION IN UK: A Scots lawmaker concedes that Vice President J.D. Vance was right when he suggested people praying in their private residences could be illegal. Christian Post reports it and the International Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is fighting it.

TIME FOR A FAMILY IMPACT ANALYSIS: America’s steadily declining birthrate is a costly demographic fact, but it doesn’t have to be, according to multiple experts interviewed by the Washington Stand’s Ben Johnson, who cites “Eight Policies to Help Young People Marry and Have Babies.”

One of those interviewed by Johnson is AEI Resident Scholar Timothy Carney. Instapundit readers may recall that Carney has been a Washington Examiner columnist and opinion editor in past years. Being the guy who hired Carney at WEX, I highly commend his work.

THE MEDICAID SCAM EVEN BIDEN BLASTED: It’s worth at least $600 billion and presidents of both parties, and Joe Biden back when he was the Veep, have called it a scam and sought to kill it.

But now that House Republicans appear determined to do something about it, House Democrats, notably the cane-wielding Al Green, are defending the scam. And, as is so often the case these days, the sharp-eyed observers at Issues & Insights have the facts.

IF ‘SANCTUARY CITIES’ ARE ILLEGAL, WILL DOJ PROSECUTE? That’s one of multiple interesting questions raised by Republicans during that fiery House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing featuring four Sanctuary City mayors. I had the questionable pleasure of covering this proceeding for The Epoch Times.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Az.) was quite specific about the federal laws he claims sanctuary city procedures violate. Democrats on the panel pushed their highly debatable claim that illegal aliens commit fewer crimes than citizens, and wailed at length about the growing list of terrible sins being inflicted on America by Hitler, er, excuse me, Orange Man Bad.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if everybody in Congress would simply drop the rhetoric and just plain focus on demonstrable facts????

SCIENCE OR RELIGION? It’s Friday and that means it’s “What Would You Say?” day on HillFaith, which this week features a look at Intelligent Design (ID) and if it should be considered mere religion or a legit field of scientific inquiry.

This is one of those issues that, at least in my humble opinion, too many minds on both sides are already made up and nothing in the way of new evidence or strong logic will change their views. A little tolerance on both sides would be a good thing.

IT’S ACTUALLY WORSE THAN DOGE: Rachel Greszler and Brian Blase of the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) dug into the Medicaid data, put that data into the historical policy context over the past decade and concluded the improper payments are actually double the official estimates. Check out my latest Substack column.

WHY THE ALAMO ENABLED LIBERTY’S SURVIVAL: This may come as a shock to more than a few Instapunditeers, but Rod Martin makes a strong case for the proposition that the Texas Revolution kept the cause of liberty alive in the New World.

IF THEY CAN’T EVEN AGREE ON WHAT IS A SANCTUARY CITY: Then there may well be little hope that House Democrats and Republicans will ever be able to concur on comprehensive immigration reforms. Wednesday’s sanctuary cities congressional hearing offered little reason for optimism.

REMEMBER THE BORG? Just in case anybody forgot about the Borg, Democrats in Congress opted to use President Donald Trump’s Tuesday address to a joint session of Congress to remind the world what mindless vacuity looks like on national television, according to Issues & Insights.

“We have never seen a spectacle like we saw last night. Democratic women wearing pink (pink?) as a sign of protest. Various members holding up little placards as though they were at an auction bidding on who would come away the biggest loser.

“Others carried canes to, what, signify that the party is old and decrepit? The Democrats’ show-runner for the night deserves to be DOGED by his or her own party,” the I&I crew observes.

Apparently, the Democratic strategists behind Tuesday evening’s demonstration of mindlessness forgot that resistance to the Borg is anything but futile.

WHO’S BEHIND THE LAWFARE ASSAULT ON DOGE: Nobody on the Right in the nation’s capital does a better job of tracking who’s who on the Left than the Capital Research Center (CRC).

Exhibit 1 is senior investigator Ken Braun’s multi-part series tracking who is behind the blizzard of lawsuits seeking to stop DOGE and pretty much everything else President Donald Trump is seeking to accomplish.

HOW BIDEN-HARRIS IGNORED CONGRESS: Next time you hear a Democrat decrying the destruction of democracy by the Trump administration, remind them of how the Biden-Harris administration repeatedly and systematically ignored, delayed, diverted and outright refused constitutionally mandated congressional oversight by the people’s branch of the government.

The Heritage Foundation’s Dr. Robert Moffit lays it out in undeniable detail. This particular post is the fifth in an eight-part series on Restoring Public Trust in Public Health, published by The Daily Signal.

SPEAKING OF ROD MARTIN: Given his Silicon Valley background, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, but he’s the first social media influencer I’ve seen to point out this hugely significant implication of Elon Musk’s retrievable Starship:

“There’s no need for rockets to go to space. Now that rockets can land, they can just as easily take off from one place and land at another. Airplanes do this. ICBMs do too, albeit one-way.

“What SpaceX is building is more than just a rocket. Starship is a strategic weapon, not as a one-off but as a fleet. A fully reusable heavy-lift system capable of hauling 200 tons per launch per rocket is not just an engineering marvel: it’s a military revolution.

“Why? Because a fleet of Starships could land an entire armored division anywhere on Earth in under an hour and keep it supplied in the field.  Just as the speed of tanks revolutionized warfare between the World Wars, this development changes everything. Forget C-17s and cargo ships: you might as well use horses and wagons.

“A fleet of Starships is not just an incremental improvement in logistics: it’s a fundamental shift in the nature of warfare. The ability to almost instantaneously create and reinforce a whole combat theater anywhere on Earth will give the United States overwhelming power, unlike anything heretofore seen outside of science fiction.”

Read on here.

HAS RUSSIA LOST THE UKRAINE WAR? Substacker Rod Martin provides a forum for George Friedman to make a detailed case for the idea that Putin is indeed the loser and the consequences for him could be lethal back in the Motherland.

SCOTLAND COUNTY, NC: Is a microcosm of the unprecedented impact of Donald Trump post-2020 on the American political structure, according to this perceptive (though far from unflawed) WSJ analysis. Bottom line: How long does it take for Trump’s economic policies to produce down-home impacts.

STIFFENING AMERICA’S SPINE: There is a fundamental connection between the Constitution’s 10th Amendment and the status of individual liberty in America. And the failure of American public education, as described today on Substack by EKO, is a key to understanding why individual liberty is in such peril.

MARTIAL ARTS CHAMP PUT THE PISTOL IN HIS MOUTH: But the firing pin failed and that’s when the U.S. Martial Arts Hall of Fame coach’s life took a radical turn. His name is Jamie Vaughn and his testimony is on HillFaith today.

Dismiss it if you will, but there is an undeniable change in the man’s life. I don’t normally link here on Instapundit these testimonies that appear every Monday on HillFaith, but this one is such a remarkable story that I’m making an exception.

CHRISTIANITY’S DECLINE HAS STOPPED: That’s the message from a massive new survey by Pew. Silicon Valley pioneer investor and Southern Baptist social media influencer Rod Martin digs deep into the Pew data and finds all kind of encouraging indicators of returning health.

MORE TO THAT NSA CULT THAN SEX: The Washington Stand’s Ben Johnson digs into the back story and finds the pro-DEI/pro-Marxist roots of a bunch of now-former Intelligence Community paycheck recipients.

MORE LIGHT ON BIDEN’S BORDER LIES: You probably don’t remember this statement from early in Joe Biden’s Oval Office tenure, but the trouble-makers at Issue & Insights (I&I) certainly do:

“At his first press conference in March 2021 – after claiming that nothing had changed at the border (despite repealing every Trump executive order securing the border on day one) – he said the surge of illegals then underway ‘happens every single solitary year. There is a significant increase in the number of people coming to the border in the winter months of January, February, March. It happens every year … happens all the time.’”

It was transparently a lie then and was followed by many more for the next nearly four years. Donald Trump is back in the Oval Office in great part because of Biden’s constant lying about the border and much else. This graph courtesy of I&I makes crystal clear that border invasions like that of the Biden era do not happen “all the time:”

America will be paying the price of Biden’s border lies for years to come, I&I observes.

BILLIONS FOR TERRORISTS, INSULTS FOR MUSK: The contrast between GOP and Democrat members of the House DOGE Subcommittee could not have been more abrupt during yesterday’s hearing on how foreign aid has undermined legitimate U.S. overseas interest.

From the opening statements by Chairman Rep. Marjorie Tayler Greene (R-Ga.) and Ranking Member Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM), the pattern was set: A Republican would describe a grant that resulted in U.S. tax dollars going to Hamas or Hezbollah or another of the Islamic terrorist outfits, and a Democrat would follow with variations on “What About Evil Musk?” First it was TDS, now there is MDS.