IF YOU WONDERED WHERE I’VE BEEN: I’ve been in a dry place and it had nothing to do with Burning Man. It’s good to be back.

ABOUT THAT IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY: Democrats devoted the six+ hours of the hearing to mocking, insulting, and demagoguing allegations by Republicans of Biden family influence-peddling, based on $24 million paid by at least 23 foreign entities.

WHY WASHINGTON IS ‘AWASH IN CORRUPTION:’ Professor Jonathan Turley told yesterday’s first House Impeachment Inquiry hearing that the nation’s capital “is awash in corruption,” referring to the millions of dollars paid by nearly two dozen foreign entities to the Biden family’s influence-peddling enterprise specifically and more generally to the access selling that is such a familiar feature of the governing political culture. The indictment of Sen. Robert “Gold Bar” Menendez (D-N.J.) also comes to mind.

But the bigger point is made by Issue & Insights in the context of former First Lady Michelle Obama being paid “an obscenely large amount for a speech in Germany on diversity.” Obama received $741,000 for a 60-minute oration, or $12,350 per minute. And let’s not forget the continuing worldwide grifting of Bill and Hillary Clinton with their foundation.

That bigger point is this: “These are all variations on a theme. Call it bribery, or extortion, or abuse of power, or whatever you want. This is how Democrats get rich these days. They expand the size and power of the federal government, then sell access and favors to the highest bidders.”

Call it Grifter Government. But don’t call it government of, by and for the people.

THEY NEED MORE TIME, CAPTAIN: Members of Congress, that is, who are responsible for deciding how to spend trillions of tax dollars without having to plunge the nation so deep into debt that the country goes down the drain.

One suggestion from a guy who knows a thing or three about how Washington is supposed to function, as well as the realities behind Leviathan’s deep dysfunctions, is to stretch the budget cycle from one to two years.

REMEMBER ‘BAGHDAD BOB?’ Saddam Hussein’s ridiculous mouthpiece had nothing on President Joe Biden’s White House spokesman, Karine Jean-Pierre, according to Issues & Insights. You know your game is up when even The New York Times ain’t buyin’ your ‘the border is secure’ fantasies.

WASHINGTON MONUMENT STRATEGY: If the federal government shuts down, don’t be surprised to hear Democrats and Mainstream Media types crying about the sky falling.

THIS ISN’T AMERICA: Hans Bader at Liberty Unyielding looks at the deepening rot of American academia, as exemplified by a UCLA civil right official who claims only white people can be racist, racism benefits only white people, and, sadly, much more of the same.

NO SURPRISE HERE: Less than a third of Americans surveyed support President Joe Biden’s $6 billion ransom payment to the world’s biggest sponsor of international terrorism, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

BIDEN’S BRIAR PATCH: Some of us are old enough to remember ole Brer Rabbit begging the fox to “please, please don’t throw me in the Briar Patch.” What Brer Rabbit actually wanted was precisely to be in the Briar Patch as that’s where he grew up. Issues and Insights wonders if the Biden White House is mis-playing the same game.

Why else incessant warnings from the White House and its Mainstream Media Echo Chamber that disaster will befall the Republican Party if the House GOP pursues its impeachment inquiry? But if that claim is actually true, then the Biden backers ought to be encouraging, rather than discouraging, the impeachment effort.

But they are instead discouraging the inquiry. What does that tell us?

DON’T TRUST THE SCIENCE JOURNALS: Mainstream media trust is in the trash can because readers figured out they were too often being fed politically correct narratives at the expense of getting the full story.

Now along comes climate scientist Patrick T. Brown explaining why a similar malady afflicts Nature, Science and other influential academic journals concerning what can and cannot be published by researchers working on global warming/climate “change.”

PROMINENT SON OF NATIONAL POLITICAL FIGURE: Michael Howard — now known as Lord Howard of Lympne — led Britain’s Conservative Party, unsuccessfully it turned out, at the beginning of the Tony Blair era.

His son, Nick, talks this morning on HillFaith of his journey to faith, a journey made doubly interesting by the fact he is scion of one of Britain’s most prominent Jewish families.

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY? Somebody tells you “truth is all relative. You go with your truth and I’ll go with mine.” What if you think truth is not relative and you want to explain why J. Warner Wallace offers three strong reasons on HillFaith this morning why it matters a great deal what people mean when they say “truth.” And check out the note at the bottom of the post on “Rock Wednesday.” All prayers appreciated!

ARE HILL REPUBLICANS PAYING ATTENTION TO TUBERVILLE? They should be because the Alabama GOP lawmaker is conducting a running seminar in how to force The Swamp to come to the table and negotiate healthy compromises that make real progress rather than mere window dressing. It’s my latest PJ Media column and I suspect that, were he to read it, Jimmy Madison would say “of course.”

BILL MANDATES MONITORING BELT AND ROAD: Sen. James Lankford today introduced legislation requiring every U.S. overseas embassy to designate an official to monitor local activities linked to China’s predatory lending program known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). One might wonder why the State Department has to be told by Congress to keep an eye on one of the major tools employed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to expand Beijing’s world-wide totalitarian influence. But at least the Oklahoma Republican is doing something about it.

UNION POLITICAL SPENDING ‘ONLY’ $54 MILLION? Think again, friends, because a new analysis by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) uncovered substantial evidence that when all is said and done, Big Labor spent upwards of $25 billion during the 2022 campaign cycle. That $54 million figure is just for how much union-affiliated PACs reported spending.

GONNA BE A RAUCOUS SEPTEMBER ON THE HILL: The anger and frustration among the House Freedom Caucus members regarding the approaching budget showdown. They have the votes to force serious spending cuts but only if they stand fast regardless of the massive bombardment of hyper-critical reactions that will be unloaded on them.

SPEAKING OF THINGS TO PONDER: Over at American Thinker, Stephen B. Young explains why the template for Democratic Progressivism’s totalitarian censorship was first written, not by Marx or Lenin, but by that French guy, you know, J.J. Rousseau, the one who opened his most influential work with this observation: “Man is born free but everywhere is in chains.”

From that opaque observation sprung most of the modern world’s greatest ills, among which is included this one, as Ring notes: “To keep the social contract alive and well, Rousseau insists that ‘whoever refuses to obey its will shall be compelled to by the whole body.’  This provision turns his social contract into a ‘Big Lie.’ It is really a tyranny of an elect over all the rest.”

WHY IS U.S. DEATH RATE DUE TO ALL CAUSES WAY UP? While the advance precincts of the Progressive Elite are pushing for new Coronavirus vaccines and renewed mask mandates, Edward Ring points to a datapoint that ought to get all of us asking what the devil is going on in America.

WAIT, HOW COULD MOSES WRITE ABOUT HIS OWN DEATH? Well, contrary to the 19th Century German Higher Critics, that Moses wrote of his own passing is not a good reason to conclude the Good Book isn’t reliable.

It may sound like an obscure debate about ancient manuscripts of little importance in the modern era but, as I explain in the latest CONTRADICTIONS? installment on HillFaith this morning, the underlying issue is actually of supreme importance.

LIES, DAMN LIES AND STATISTICS: That’s the title of Joel Best’s classic book on how statistics can be used and abused to serve whatever point one might happen to seek to be making. Best wrote decades before President Joe Biden’s claim of having created 13.5 million new jobs. As Issues & Insights makes clear today, Best would almost certainly have used such a spurious claim as a prime illustration.

GOP SENATORS MOVE AGAINST BIDEN’S NEW COLLEGE LOAN BAILOUT: Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) introduced a Congressional Review Act resolution to disapprove of President Joe Biden’s latest run at relieving millions of present and former college students from having to repay their federally subsidized education loans.

Question: Why are only 17 of the 48 Senate Republicans co-sponsoring the Cassidy measure?

OOPS: Sen. Ralph Warnock (D-Ga.) just happened to not report $125,000 in deferred compensation he received from his former congregation, Atlanta’s Ebeneezer Baptist Church. The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) took notice and filed a complaint with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. Is that an oxymoron?

VANCE SAYS NO MORE MASK MANDATES; The Ohio Republican files bill to bar new public health mask mandates for commercial air carriers, commuter rail transit and public education. Curiously, the bill only goes through the end of 2024.

ORGANIZED RETAIL CRIME IMPACT: Here’s a measure of just how seriously the crisis of an open border is affecting the U.S. economy, as reported by Issues & Insights: “Dick’s Chief Financial Officer Navdeep Gupta said that the sports retailer lowered its profit outlook for the year in part because ‘the number of incidents and the organized retail crime impact came in significantly higher than we anticipated.’”

And it’s not just Dick’s Sporting Goods. Target, Nordstrom, Foot Locker and Dollar Tree are also reporting their bottom lines are being injured by the growth of Organized Retail Crime (OCR). That’s those seemingly random sudden assaults by large groups of masked thieves committing hit-and-run theft that leaves retail outlets in costly chaos. At what point does the infection become so entrenched that there are no civilized remedies?

And here’s another question: ORC costs retailers more than $100 billion last year, according to the National Retail Federation, but this is no new problem. As Issues & Insights points out: “The connection between illegal immigrants and organized retail crime isn’t exactly new. The FBI told Congress back in 2009 about immigrants’ role, informing lawmakers that ‘organized retail theft groups … utilize low-level boosters – those who actually steal the merchandise – and higher-level fencers, who frequently coordinate booster thefts. Often these boosters are illegal immigrants working off a debt or individuals suffering from some form of addiction. If these low-level boosters are removed from the criminal enterprise others will simply step in to take their place.’”

Knowing this trend was well-established and growing, why was the decision made by Biden to throw the border gates wide open?

CARS ARE RACISTS, MUST BE ABOLISHED: No, that’s not merely the declaration of some looney lefty lecturer at Harvard or Yale. It’s the declaration of “transportation nerd” Veronica Davis, one of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s latest appointees to the transportation equity advisory committee, according to the Washington Free Beacon. Davis is not a lone voice on this panel that Trump abolished by Buttigieg has revived. They are serious, and they are looking for ways to come take away all of our cars and all of our trucks. Oh and all of our freedoms, too.