PELOSI’S HOLLYWOOD EXIT ON J6: Just the News has new security video footage from January 6 showing then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi being escorted out of the Capitol by a security detail, plus her daughter carrying a video camera to capture the whole process.

Former Capitol Hill Police Chief Steven Sound tells JTN having the younger Pelosi along to film the evacuation put an unnecessary strain on the security detail. JTN also wonders if perhaps the purpose of the filming was for a planned Pelosi political propaganda documentary and potential money-making thereof.

Expect more J6 revelations in coming days from JTN, The Epoch Times’ Joe Hanneman and American Greatness’ Julie Kelly, as all three have been viewing thousands of hours of the J6 security video footage and they are unearthing significant news in the process.

FBI’S MYTHICAL WHISTLE BLOWER PROTECTION EXPOSED: If you are an FBI employee thinking about blowing the whistle on corruption within the bureau, you better read this by Kerry Pickett of The Washington Times. And God bless you if you do still decide to blow the whistle.

U.S. GRANTS PUT RUSSIAN CATS ON TREADMILLS: Your tax dollars are also paying Chinese labs to modify the genetics of rats. And that’s just the beginning of what Sen. Joni Ernst, working with an usual team of congressional auditors and non-profit investigators, is exposing about the hundreds of billions of tax dollars that show nobody in Washington really knows how much our government is spending.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR: IRS officials handed a lefty non-profit $15 million to conduct an “independent review” and tell federal agency it should be the nation’s tax preparer, auditor and collector.

FORMER BORDER PATROL CHIEF SAYS CARTELS CONTROL BORDER: Contrary to common sense and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, the U.S. border is not secure, it is in fact under the direct control of the Mexican drug cartels.

And they have operatives in many U.S. cities, often with strong ties to gangs like MS13, according to former U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, testifying this morning before subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.

‘FAITH VOTERS’ WANT CANDIDATES WHO SUPPORT 1ST AMENDMENT: That’s probably not a surprise to most Instapunditeers, but don’t expect to hear about it in the Mainstream Media. That’s why the new Trafalgar Group survey is on HillFaith this morning.

And just for the record, my mind is not made up on the advisability of convening a new constitutional convention. I would be very interested in what you think about that prospect.

FAITH AND SCIENCE ARE ENEMIES, RIGHT? That’s what generations of college students have been taught, but, as J. Warner Wallace of Cold-Case Christianity explains today on HillFaith, there’s a bunch of facts that got left out.

TWO WINS AFFIRM FAITH-BASED ADOPTION: A Syracuse, New York, adoption agency wins a second court challenge in a month, thus turning away, for now anyway, state bureaucrats determined to enforce the Woke agenda. I explain why in my latest PJMedia column it’s only a temporary respite.

DEMS DISRUPT BUT CAN’T STOP FBI WHISTLEBLOWERS: They tried every parliamentary objection, inquiry and motion they could think of but Democrats were unable to prevent three FBI whistleblowers from telling Congress about beaucoup badness in the once-storied crime-fighting bureau.

THE BRIBERY SCANDAL ? BIDEN CAN’T/WON’T ANSWER: Logic tells us that which is A cannot simultaneously be Non-A. That means Biden’s claim he never talks to Hunter about his business and his claim Hunter made no profits on doing business with China cannot both be true. Unless Joe was getting financial reports?

DOZEN TRICKS PRESSTITUTES MISSED: The Lid’s Wes Walker compiles the list of Biden scandals the mainstream media absolutely refuses to cover in anything approaching the seriousness and accuracy they merit.

FYI: Jeff Dunetz, the smart guy behind The Lid, is having quite a battle with an as-yet unspecified malady that, among other things results in his falling, not infrequently with injury. Prayers for Jeff appreciated.  

IS THIS WHY TRANSGENDERISM SEEMS TO BE RAMPANT IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS? Lots of folks are wondering why transgenderism has exploded into national media, political and cultural conversation. My latest PJMedia column looks at multiple “persons of interest.”

UPDATE: My apologies for the bad link. Not sure how it happened but it’s fixed now.

BUT THEY DIDN’T INFLATE COVID CASE NUMBERS: Top 20 non-profit hospitals got $23 billion in COVID-19 aid from the feds even as the medical groups’ profits, revenues and net assets ballooned, according to new analysis by Open The Books.

NOTHING HERE TO SEE, REALLY? It seems starkly obvious that House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) is just beginning to peel back layers of evidence of what looks like a Biden Bribery Bonanza. Here’s my look at just two of the foreign connections, Romania and China.

ABOUT THOSE ‘SECOND CHANCE’ LAWS: Hans Bader at Liberty Unyielding looks at the data on the results of one of the soft-on-crime crowds favorites, second chance laws. It’s not a pretty picture but it is one every American needs to know about.

THE HEADLINE SAYS IT ALL: The headline on today’s edition of Issues & Insights (I&I), that is. It reads: “Joe Biden is Guilty of Child Abuse – At Scale – And Nobody Cares.” That’s a profoundly disturbing headline but I&I has the facts:

“Congress last week heard from a whistleblower who told lawmakers that not only has the Biden administration lost contact with these [85,000] unaccompanied border-crossing children, it hasn’t been properly vetting the sponsors with whom the federal government places them after they get here.

“Tara Lee Rodas told lawmakers at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing that she’d volunteered to help the Biden administration deal with the flood of illegals, but then saw first-hand what she described as a ‘sophisticated network’ of child migrant smuggling.

“’Some sponsors are criminals and traffickers and members of transnational criminal organizations,’ she told lawmakers. ‘Some sponsors view children as commodities and assets to be used for earning income – this is why we are witnessing an explosion of labor trafficking.’”

Rodas’ testimony was not the first public airing of these horrendous facts. Even the New York Times is reporting on the terrible situation that has developed at the U.S. border with Mexico since January 2021.

An estimated 85,000 children disappeared. How many of them were simply abandoned in the wilderness of Southwest Texas, left to starve, die of exhaustion or snakebite, killed and eaten by mountain lions?

WHERE’S CLARENCE, YALE? It was in 2018 that Texan Harlan Crow commissioned a portrait to be done of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for display at his alma mater, the Yale University law school.

Now it’s 2023 and the portrait, though completed, framed and delivered to the campus, is nowhere to be seen. And nobody at Yale Law School is responding to requests for an explanation, according to the Washington Free Beacon’s Eliana Johnson.

SORTING OUT THE ABORTION MYTHS AND FACTS: Getting past the pro-abortion myths to the facts about the lethal “reproductive healthcare” procedure can be daunting. But I’m up to the task, as evidenced by my latest PJ Media column.

WHY THE SILENCE ON BIDEN’S IMMIGRANT CHILD LABOR SCANDAL? The Daily Gouge points to Jim Geraghty’s analysis of the New York Times’ expose and explains the ensuing silence:

“This should have been, and should be, an epic year-defining scandal. Americans have intense disagreements about illegal immigration and what should be done in the situations of unaccompanied minors who cross the border. But no one with a lick of sense, an ounce of compassion, or an iota of respect for the law would contend that exploiting those poor kids in dangerous workplaces is the right answer.

“Any way you slice it, this outcome is just about the worst — much worse than a system that catches migrant teenagers and puts them on flights or other transportation, returning them to family members in their home countries. In fact, the Times found some evidence that the Biden administration punished lower-ranking government officials who noticed and attempted to call out the problem …

“… this is one of those stories that doesn’t provide any easy angle to blame Republicans. This widespread exploitation of teenagers is the result of the policies and decision-making of a Democratic administration. And I think news stories that don’t offer a ‘blame Republicans’ angle bore a lot of people who need the dopamine rush of knowing that all problems in this world can be traced back to Donald Trump, or Ron DeSantis, or Kevin McCarthy, or Mitch McConnell.”

The Daily Gouge has more to say on this issue and more, so keep scrolling.

GREENING OF PUERTO RICO: Why is Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm making so many tax-paid junkets to the Caribbean island territory of the U.S.? Inquiring minds – remember those? – want to know.

HAS AOC EVER READ THE FIRST AMENDMENT? Evidently not, given her recent comment to Jen Psaki on MSNBC in which AOC declared federal laws justify censorship of Fox News and other conservative media types.

ERNST ON BIDEN’S BOONDOGGLE EXPRESS: Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is ready to derail President Joe Biden’s billions in federal subsidies for California’s three huge rapid transit boondoggles.

REAGAN IS WHAT THE RIGHT NEEDS TODAY: Donald Devine, the former University of Maryland Political Science Professor who became a campaign adviser to Ronald Reagan in 1980 and then served as his appointed Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in 1981-1985, contends the Right desperately needs to rediscover the enduring principles and characteristically American optimism that made Reagan one of the greatest presidents ever.

Devine argues that, while things have certainly changed in key respects since the Reagan era, the Reagan prescription remains the most likely to command an enduring majority of the American electorate:

“Things certainly seem to have changed since Reagan. Republicans have become more defined by cultural matters than economic ones, although, in truth, limited government and a freer economy retain higher support.

“Still, the Trump presidency and Democratic Party wokeism clearly have changed the GOP into more of a working-class party. White voters without college degrees chose Republicans over Democrats in the 2022 elections by a 65 to 32 percent margin, and more Hispanics and Blacks have moved in the same direction, although less dramatically.

“On the other hand, Reagan actually won in 1980 by expanding the GOP base to Main St., European ethnics, and evangelical Democrats, and he added Hispanics in 1984. So, maybe things are not so different. Today’s problems have a similar ring too: stagflation, unsustainable spending, entitlements nearing bankruptcy, failed bureaucracy, racial and class division, a hostile world military threat, and the rest. Reagan increased the age for Social Security retirement, reduced federal employee retirement reimbursements from 44 to 20 percent of payroll, cutting entitlements, and reduced non-defense discretionary spending by 9.5 percent.”

FULL DISCLOSURE: I worked for Devine at OPM from November 1982 until his departure. I left the Reagan administration a few months later after deciding to try my hand as a journalist. That’s what I’ve happily done ever since, but those years working for Reagan with Devine remain the most treasured of my career. Whatever small part I had in it, we Reaganauts made a huge difference for America.

SCHOOL CHOICE IS A BIPARTISAN HIT: It should come as no surprise, given the accelerating degradation of the U.S. public education system, but school choice commands widespread public support, according to the latest Issues & Insights/TIPP Poll.

When told of the recent passage by Florida officials of a comprehensive school choice program, respondents in both parties nationwide expressed strong support: “Overall, 58 percent of all Americans back the Sunshine State’s new law, while just 25 percent oppose it and 17 percent are ‘unsure.’ And a whopping 82 percent of parents with children under 18 support the law. Only 12 percent oppose it.”

So the question becomes when are both parties at the national level going to tell the NEA and other Education Indoctrination Complex (EIC) unions to take a hike and pass a comprehensive school choice program for every American child?

YA THINK? When Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) asked Gen. James McConville if the Pentagon’s new transgender-inspired policy of allowing biological males to shower with females would help or hurt recruitment, the latter responded “probably not.”

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth disagreed, telling Gaetz “women are more worried about being sexually harassed in the Army than they are about the kinds of things that you’re bringing up,” according to The Washington Free Beacon’s Claire Sprang.