INSIDE CHINA’S MILITARY BALLOON PROGRAM: This is essential reading for those seeking to understand what the devil is going on in near-space. The Epoch Times’ Eva Wu has the deep details.

THEY CHECKED IT OUT, AS BIDEN CHALLENGED: Issue and Insights listened to Biden’s State of the Union (SOTU) and heard this from President Joe Biden: “My administration has cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion — the largest deficit reduction in American history. … Nearly 25 percent of the entire national debt that took over 200 years to accumulate was added by just one administration alone — the last one. They’re the facts. Check it out. Check it out.”

Issues & Insights did just as Biden encouraged. Here’s what they concluded:

“Well, we checked it out. And it is perhaps the most flagrant of all Biden’s lies. The evidence shows that Biden is, in fact, the most fiscally reckless president in history … Here’s what the numbers show:

“In January 2021, the CBO projected the federal red ink that year would be $2.3 trillion. The actual deficit was $2.8 trillion. For those math-challenged journalists who keep parroting Biden’s lie about cutting the deficit, that’s an increase of $517 billion.

“He added $320 billion to the deficit in 2022, and will add $447 billion this year, CBO data show. And, if Biden’s policies are left in place through 2031, deficits will be $5.45 trillion higher than they would have been had Trump’s policies remained in effect.”

There is more to know here, but as I&I bottomed-lined it: “No matter what the Gaslighter-in-Chief says, these are the facts, folks.”

”

TWO PRO-LIFE PRESIDENTS: You likely already know that our 40th president was pro-life, but how about our 35th?

GOING AROUND, COMING AROUND: Alliance for Global Justice, a radical left activist group, is beginning to learn the hard way about the consequences of aiding Palestinian terrorism, The Washington Free Beacon’s Andrew Kerr reports:

“The Alliance for Global Justice said in a statement that Salsa Labs, which handles its credit card contributions, locked the “anti-capitalist” group and its network of 140 left-wing initiatives out of its online fundraising platform. The Alliance claims the freeze-out is the result of a January Washington Examiner report that the group was illegally fundraising for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terror organization.”

This isn’t the first time for the group, as Discover Card cut it off for similar reasons in 2021. On both occasions, the justification for the action that severely limits the group’s fund-raising capabilities was its ties to and assistance of terrorist activities. Dark money can take you lots of places, including perhaps jail.

EDMUND BURKE, POPULIST CONSERVATISM’S UNRECOGNIZED HERALD? Now available is Georgetown University Professor of Political Theory Joshua Mitchell’s updated edition of his “American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time.”

Awakening was first issued in 2020 and is now updated to reflect events subsequent to its original publication, including the George Floyd crisis, the ensuring riots, the Biden election and the Biden rollback of Trump’s tenure.

In his review of the updated edition of the Mitchell work, American Conservative’s Colin Dueck, in addition to superbly explicating the book, points to an aspect of Edmund Burke’s writing that deserves much wider consideration. Dueck pulls all of it together in his three concluding graphs:

“For any conservatives who still feel the need to defer to today’s politically correct revolution, I urge them to reread Burke’s Reflections along with his 1796 Letters on a Regicide Peace. Burke is angry, and justifiably so. He is angry at the sheer fanaticism, intolerance, and destruction wreaked by contemporary revolutionaries. He is angry at ‘men of letters,’ who provide excuses for it. He is angry at so-called political ‘moderates’—his own words—who weakly accommodate this destruction and allow it to continue. He correctly identifies French Jacobin militants as that country’s newfangled elite. As he puts it in the Letters:

‘When private men form themselves into associations for the purpose of destroying the preexisting laws and institutions of their country…massacring by judgments, or otherwise, those who make any struggle for their old legal government, and their legal, hereditary, or acquired possessions – I call this Jacobinism by establishment.’

“To be sure, Burke offers thoughtful, prudent warnings against radical social or political displacement. That is exactly why he refuses to take the revolutionaries’ continued success as a given. He understands that either the revolution will fail, or traditional Western liberties will falter. And he will do everything he can, big or small, to prevent the latter. Reconsider him first-hand. Ask yourself how he would tackle today’s woke fanatics. His recommended strategy is rollback, not appeasement. In short, Burke is a counterrevolutionary of an unusually fearless kind.”

The question Dueck does not address, but which cannot be avoided, is this: Is rollback still possible in the America of 2023?

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): The answer to that question is “yes.”

SBA WON’T GO AFTER UPAID PPP LOANS: Hey, if we loaned you $100,000 to help get you through the Coronavirus Pandemic and you haven’t yet paid it back, don’t worry about it, we aren’t coming after you. Luke Rosiak of the Daily Wire has the details. It’s all about “equity.”

YOU THINK THESE GUYS COULD ACTUALLY PULL IT OFF? Overcoming a crack Roman Legion guard, stealing the body of Christ, hiding it where it would never be found, and selling the world on a resurrection fable, that is. That’s the essence of a common argument of skeptics, but this HillFaith analysis of the disciples might prompt a rethink.

ACCOUNTABILITY TIME IS COMING: Some of the 51 signers of that October 2020 “statement” by 51 intelligence agency veterans that the Hunter Biden laptop was “Russian disinformation” have been interviewed on the record by House Judiciary and Intelligence committee investigators.

Most of them, however, have blatantly ignored the “nice” requests from Chairman Jim Jordan of Judiciary and Mike Turner of Intel, both Ohio Republicans, such as the letter to 10 of them I reported for Epoch Times. Odds seem good the next requests won’t be nearly so nice.

MEDIA FREAKS, WE ALL FREAK: Michael Snyder at The Lid thinks the main reason the country is freaking out over the four recent shoot-downs in U.S. airspace — the Chinese spy balloon and three UFOs — is due mainly to the fact the Mainstream Media is doing so.

“But the truth is that hordes of highly sophisticated unidentified aircraft have been flying over U.S. territory for years,” writes Synder. “Let me give you some examples. In December 2019, large groups of “unidentified drones” were repeatedly spotted flying over northeastern Colorado and western Nebraska …”

There are more. You want to read this one.

A STUDY IN POLITICAL CONTRASTS: Yesterday’s initial hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government was full of examples, details, interpretations, denials, evasions and half-truths. Just another day in the nation’s capital, right?

Well, yes and no. There was one dominant underlying theme in much of the testimony from two different panels, as well as in the cross-examination of witnesses by Republican and Democratic members of the subcommittee. This theme, detailed here in my Epoch Times story on the hearing, will likely characterize most, if not all, of the House GOP’s investigations.

LOOKING BACK ON SOTUS: Somebody asked me earlier today my reaction to the Biden State of the Union (SOTU) address. In pondering the question, I was struck by this realization:

“I’ve been watching SOTUs since I was in high school in the 1960s. In every one of them delivered by a Democrat president, all I heard was long lists of promises, proposals for more government programs that have since failed and accusations that Republicans hate old people, hate young people, hate minorities, and only want to get rich at the expense of everybody else.

“In every one of them delivered by a Republican president, all I heard was promises to restrain the growth of government, lower taxes, restore American military strength and respect around the world, and reduce federal red tape. Reagan achieved all of those, and Trump some of them, but the others – Nixon, Bush I and Bush II – were pretty much all talk and little or even opposite actions.”

Did I miss anything?

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER AMORPHOUS ICE: With a chemical density of 1.06 grams per cubic centimeter, this newly discovered form of ice is extremely close to liquid water (1.00). Science Alert says this discovery may help explain some of water’s weird properties.

PROMISES, PROMISES, PROMISES: When it comes to Wall Street America delivering on promises to eradicate Anti-semitic bias in ratings, so far it’s pretty much all talk and too little action, according to Washington Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? No, this isn’t about the US Olympic hockey team defeating the Soviets for the Gold Medal. It’s about a doctor sitting on the side of my hospital bed and giving me the last news I expected to hear. Not to worry, it’s all good. In fact, I believe it’s a miracle.

UPDATE: Thanks to several readers who pointed out the USA Hockey Team defeated the Soviets in the semi-final, then took on Finland. (Hey, I’m a Formula Ford motorsports guy, hockey is a little down the list for me).

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A NATION BECOMES SICK: And no, not with a physical ailment like the Coronavirus, but rather a sickness in the body politic. Georgetown University Professor of Political Theory Joshua Mitchell says “we are losing the mediating institutions about which DeTocqueville wrote in Democracy in America.” He has much more to say, much of which is based on the ancient classics, and it will leave you astounded that he retains his chair at Georgetown. Maybe I should’t be calling attention to this?

INCOMING! Ever hear of the Congressional Integrity Project (CIP)? Probably not, since it’s a dark money hit group funded in part by the ever-mysterious Arabella Advisors, via its Sixteen Thirty Fund.

The purpose of CIP, according to the Washington Free Beacon’s Chuck Ross, is to dig up/create/invent anything and everything Democrats think might be needed to discredit leaders of the congressional Republican investigations into the Biden Crime Family, Biden administration disasters like the Border Crisis and the classified documents controversy.

So expect lots of mudslinging to commence soon against House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Speaker Rebellion Leader Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and many more.

But don’t expect to hear anything in the Mainstream Media about who funds CIP because it’s a Democratic opposition research operation, and why would you question anything about it, so nothing to see here, just move along.

WHEN Q-A-L-Y SPELLS D-E-A-T-H: They’re called “Quality Adjusted Life Years” (QALYs) and they are the metric used by Medicare bureaucrats to decide whether to pay for certain potentially life-saving procedures needed by individuals who are mentally or physically disadvantaged or who suffer from chronic diseases.

Republicans, led by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, are moving to ban the use of QALYs anywhere in the federal government. An important hearing on the issue is convening tomorrow, details in my latest PJMedia column.

WANT TO SEE A LIBERAL JOURNO BECOME A PRETZEL? Leave it to Issues & Insights to provide a vivid description of why and how some Washington Post reporters turned themselves into snack food (figuratively speaking, of course) in their explanation of why five Black Memphis police officers beating to death a young black man is a manifestation of … can you guess? … White Supremacy.

WHAT’S A KUSTODIAN? It’s actually an obscure detail from history that can clarify whether Jesus’ Resurrection is a fairy tale or reasonable conclusion from the available evidence. Has to do with the military disciple of Roman Legion guard units.

It’s also the first of a series of HillFaith video ads launched today that will be appearing in media outlets frequented by congressional aides. Yes, that’s me in the short video and, as should quickly be obvious, I’m a gumshoe reporter, not a smooth-talking video pro. Contrary to McCluhan, at least in this case, the message is the message, not the medium.

IT’S GOOD TO BE QUEEN: Well, it’s good to be California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife anyway. Washington Free Beacon’s Susannah Luthi describes Mrs. Newsom’s very profitable Woke film business and how the Golden State’s public schools make it possible.

NIH COULDN’T KNOW WHAT KIND OF CORONAVIRUS RESEARCH IT WAS FUNDING: At least that’s the case with grants given to EcoHealth Alliance, according to the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector-General. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) says the solution is defunding. The Founders would approve.

SO YOU WERE SEATED NEXT TO A BORE: Cambridge Professor John Lennox, mathematician extraordinaire and Christian apologist, explains on HillFaith how he deals with such an awkward situation. He’s entertaining, but he’s also got a serious point.

AND THE BIDEN WEIRDNESS GETS WEIRDER: Add Carolina Biden, Hunter’s makeup-stealing cousin, to the parade of Biden family troubles. The Washington Free Beacon’s Andrew Kerr and Joseph Simonson has the scoop on “our family’s sick.”

THERE’S A BUSH-CHINA PROBLEM, TOO: Another Washington Free Beacon sleuth, Chuck Ross, reports federal money is going to the George H.W. Bush China Foundation, which has close ties with the China-United States Exchange Foundation.

Ross explains:

“According to federal spending records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, the State Department in September gave $180,076 to the George H.W. Bush China Foundation, which has partnered with the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, an organization that promotes the interests of Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party. The China-U.S. Exchange Foundation donated $5 million to the Bush China Foundation, a significant portion of its annual revenue, in 2019, Axios reported.

“The Bush China Foundation’s ties to the China-United States Exchange Foundation make it an odd choice for the government grants, which are meant to advance ‘U.S. foreign policy goals.’ The China-United States Exchange Foundation is a top organization in the Chinese government’s United Front system, which the Chinese Communist Party uses to influence foreigners in favor of Beijing’s policies.”

PENN BIDEN CENTER HOSTED PRO-CHINA EVENT: To the surprise of no one familiar with the Biden family business (Biden Influence for Sale, or “BIFS” for short),  it is reported by Alana Goodman of the Washington Free Beacon that the Penn Biden Center hosted events at which pro-China perspectives were prominently featured.

“The Penn Biden Center hosted a two-day ‘bootcamp’ for congressional staffers in June that encouraged closer ties with China on issues like green energy and academia, according to a source. One of the organizing groups has an advisory board member who served as spokesman for the controversial Chinese tech giant Baidu. The event was held as anonymous donors from China have poured millions into the University of Pennsylvania,” according to Goodman.

“There were no posted security officials at the Penn Biden Center during the June conference—just regular Penn staffers—and attendees were able to walk around the center unmonitored and make use of unused rooms for phone calls and other private work during the conference,” she reports.

With classified documents now being found at former Vice President Mike Pence’s home, the nation’s capital is edging closer to coming to grips with a fact that has long been known but rarely discussed in public: Millions of documents are classified that ought not be, among the inevitable consequences of this reality is that tracking all of them is near-impossible, and abuses of security protocols are inevitable and likely far more common than known.