IS THIS THE ‘MOTHER OF ALL CHICKEN-AND-EGG’ PROBLEMS? Engineer Steve Laufman and Physician Howard Glicksman point to multiple such problems but this morning on HillFaith, they spotlight what Laufman calls “the mother of all” of them.

The new book from Laufman and Glicksman — “Your Designed Body” — is a rebuttal to Darwinian biologist Nathan Lents’ “Human Errors” which makes the case the human body is full of examples of lousy design — a panorama of glitches —  therefore it doesn’t point to a designer.

LUMMIS’ FOOLISH CAVE-IN WON’T WIN HER TOLERANCE FROM LEFT: The Washington Stand’s Suzanne Bowdey looks at the sad defense delivered during a Senate floor speech Tuesday evening just before the final vote on the Respect for Marriage Act.

CHINA’S BITE OF THE APPLE: Ever wonder why the Apple logo is missing a bite? Multiple possibilities have been tossed into the public forums over the years, but a recent discovery, according to Issues & Insights, just might explain it.

CAN THE U-HAUL REVOLUTION SAVE AMERICA? New data from the latest Trafalgar Group shows increasing momentum of Independent and GOP voters pulling up stakes and moving to more hospitable climes.

REMEMBER THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS? President Joe Biden clearly doesn’t, considering he wasted no time upon being sworn into the Oval Office in shutting down his predecessor’s historic diplomatic initiative. The Lid’s Jeff Dunetz explains why that initiative was historic:

“The peace deals that team Trump moderated took a totally different approach. Unlike previous administrations (both Democratic and Republican), the deals did not involve ‘land for peace,’ only ‘peace for peace.’

“The supposed peace experts of previous administrations had always bloviated that no Arab country would ever formalize ties with Israel before a Palestinian state was created, but the Trump team proved them wrong.”

Instead of pursuing what worked, Biden has returned to the old discredited formula. Not coincidentally, that formula includes U.S. energy dependence and the U.S. pouring millions of tax dollar down the fetid sinkhole that is the Palestinian Authority. We should hope whoever is Biden’s successor will have this Dunetz analysis at hand as a guide to how to restore hope in the Middle East.

ABRAMS’ NON-PROFIT BOUGHT ESTATE, THEN FIRED HALF OF ITS STAFF; Haven’t we heard this song before, the one about left-wing activist group using funds given for political activities to buy real estate instead?

SO MUCH WRONG WITH ‘RESPECT FOR MARRIAGE ACT:’ With Senate passage Tuesday of the purposely mis-named same-sex marriage bill supported by all 50 Democrats and 12 Republicans, the deeply Orwellian character of American political rhetoric has become so obvious as to be undeniable.

That’s according to Dr. Al Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and author of the incisive analyst behind “The Briefing.” Don’t let his title mislead you because Mohler’s razor-edged analysis exposes the utter lack of logic behind the bill and the deceptive reasoning of advocates like Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin. It’s lengthy at 25+ minutes, but well worth every second.

YES, THERE ARE ACTUALLY FLYING SNAKES: This came as a shock to me to discover, as I am sure it will be for some number of Instapunditeers. The Apologetics Press’ Kyle Butts explains in this video on HillFaith. I am puzzled how Natural Selection could account for these creatures.

SOME BOOKISH THOUGHTS FOR THANKSGIVING WEEKEND: If you are of a reflective cast of thought today, you might well appreciate my latest PJ Media column, which looks at common sense, philosophy, books and The Book. With a useful bonus reference for Instapunditeers who happen also to be aspiring race-car drivers.

PROGRESSIVE HOLD ON YOUNG WEAKENING? The Washington Stand’s Dan Hart reports on data Charlie Kirk cited from a new Morning Consult survey showing a double-digit drop in support for progressive candidates among the 18-34 year old segment of the electorate in the past five years. Happy Thanksgiving!

WILL THEY CHANGE THEIR VOTES? Survey done for the Heritage Foundation finds majorities of likely voters in five key red states oppose same-sex marriage bill their GOP senators backed.

DON’T LET WOKEISM RUIN THANKSGIVING: The Lid’s Jeff Dunetz takes a look at the many reasons why nobody should allow the Wokester KillJoys to take the joy out of Thanksgiving. He even reminds us about the New York Jets’ infamous “Butt Play” on a Thanksgiving past!

ABOUT THOSE EMPTY SHELVES: Folks at Issues & Insight are wondering if maybe none of this is accidental or incidental. Are the empty shelves, the spiraling prices, growing prospect of unheated homes this winter and so on and so on purposeful? Good question.

THE HUMAN COST OF GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP: Mention government censorship and the first thing that comes to mind for most of us will likely be the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. Protecting the First Amendment is a top priority concern of HillFaith.

The creation of art, religious and otherwise, is a form of speech, too, and that means when the government decides what art can be created and what can’t be, then freedom of speech is dying. Too often these days, the human cost of injury to freedom of speech includes having to endure threats of harm from those who disagree with your art.

Lorie Smith of 303 Creative, a graphic arts firm near Denver, knows all about that kind of fear. She will soon be in the Supreme Court seeking affirmation of her right to express her religious belief through her art — and to not be compelled to use her artistic talents to express beliefs she does not share.

This is a Supreme Court case that should be of interest to all of us who are concerned about individual liberty. Smith is being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which has previously won multiple landmark cases in this arena.

There will be a rally in support of Lorie Smith and every American’s artistic freedom on December 5 on the steps of the Supreme Court in the nation’s Capital. The rally begins at 8 am and will continue through noon.

Instapunditeers who live in or near the Washington, D.C. region are invited to join in the rally. I’ll be there and it would be great to meet many of you in person. In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving!

MCCARTHY CONFIDENT ON SPEAKERSHIP BUT MIGHT NEED DEM VOTES: It’s a far-fetched possibility, but Congress is awash with quiet talk about how House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy may put together the votes to become Speaker of the House.

WARNOCK GOT A $16 MILLION EARMARK FOR BUDDY: As if more proof was needed that earmarks provide Members of Congress a handy tool for shoveling federal tax dollars to family members, friends, contributors and business associates, the Washington Free Beacon’s Alana Goodman nails the Reverend Sen. Ralph Warnock (D-Ga.).

“The funding was intended to construct a trail connecting a residential and commercial complex known as ‘Pittsburgh Yards’ with other portions of Atlanta’s BeltLine. The developer of Pittsburgh Yards is Columbia Ventures, part of the Columbia group of companies that co-owns and operates a low-income housing complex with Warnock’s church,” Goodman reports.

Warnock was assisted in securing the earmark by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.). Warnock and Ossoff were elected in controversial run-offs in 2020. Warnock now faces another run-off, this time against Republican challenger and former Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker. Walker has made an issue of multiple evictions from the low-income housing facility.

“Columbia Residential, which manages the apartments, has filed eviction proceedings since the start of the pandemic against over a dozen residents, including one tenant who owed just $28.55 in late rent, the Free Beacon first reported.

“The apartment building has also been hit with multiple city code violations over rodent and bug infestations, overflowing trash rooms, and mold issues, according to records obtained by the Free Beacon.”

BIDEN AGREES U.S. TO PAY ‘CLIMATE REPARATIONS:’ I couldn’t believe the headline when I first read it either, but Hans Bader at Liberty Unyielding has the facts of what could turn out to be the most damaging of Biden’s countless damaging decisions. Here’s why:

“Third-world litigants will point to this agreement to say they they are entitled to compensation for billions or trillions more under ‘customary international law.’ They will use this concession to try to sue American businesses or the U.S. for vastly more money than Biden has agreed to pay, based on the idea that the U.S. has now admitted it and its citizens are at fault. International tribunals and ‘human rights’ bodies sometimes issue rulings based on ‘customary international law,’ vague principles based on the international ‘consensus’ of enlightened people across the globe,” according to Bader.

And China? No such reparations agreement.

WHAT IF THE PROBLEM IS ‘OTHERISM,’ NOT RACISM? Critical Race Theorists insist that race and ethnicity are everything. But there is a growing body of academic evidence that points to something far more basic and deeply ingrained in the human psyche. It’s all explained today on HillFaith, with help from Cold-Case Christianity’s J. Warner Wallace.

VIETNAM VET PAID HIS RENT, STILL FACES EVICTION BY WARNOCK’S CHURCH: Washington Free Beacon Andrew Kerr continues to pound the Reverend Sen. Ralph Warnock with the facts about how his church is treating residents of the low-income apartment it owns.

The latest revelation concerns Phillip White, a Vietnam veteran who served two combat tours and got behind on his rent. He showed Kerr receipts for his payment to catch up, which normally would result in notice to the court of withdrawal of plans to evict White. But no such notice has been filed, according to Kerr.

JUST WHEN YOU THINK …: Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) recently told America that the country would have suffered fewer COVID-19 cases if reparations had been paid for slavery. The Lid’s Joe Newby points out that Jackson-Lee didn’t just make it up, she was citing a study by Harvard Medical School.

DEMS PREPARE IRS TO CRUSH EVANGELICALS: Buried in the laughably titled “Respect for Marriage Act” now before the Senate are provisions authorizing the IRS to jerk tax-exemption from any church or non-profit social service agency that refuses to support the LGBQT agenda regarding marriage.

What will come in the months following enactment will be a swarm of gay couples demanding that evangelical pastors perform wedding ceremonies that many of them will refuse, as a matter of faith, to do. There will similarly be gay couples demanding that religious-based adoption agencies that only match orphans with intact heterosexual couples abandon their beliefs.

In other words, the full force of the federal government is being prepared for the assault on tax-exempt churches and church-related social service agencies that liberals have dreamed of for decades.

UPDATE: Sen. James Lankford explains in detail why Respect for Marriage Act threatens religious liberty:

THEY LET THEIR DANCING DO THEIR TALKING: This probably won’t surprise any of the super-smart Instapunditeers on here but it came as a fascinating piece of news for me to learn that honey bees use dancing to talk to one another, according to Apologetics Press’ Kyle Butts on HillFaith.

Most specifically, a “Waggle” dance is how a bee who finds a new food source tells the others in the hive where to find it. Butts contends such use of dance to talk is a skill that cannot be explained in an evolutionary context. Whatever you think on that question, I suspect we can all agree that, be it by God’s direction or natural selection, this is an amazing phenomena.

ADD DOJ ANTI-SEMITISM TO HILL’S 2023 PROBES: A key maxim repeated often among Reagan political appointees was “Personnel is Policy.” The truth of that maxim is being brought home again as the Department of Justice (DOJ) launches a new investigation into the death of Abu Akleh, an Al Jazeera reporter, during a clash between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian terrorists in May 2022.

Israeli authorities previously investigated the incident and concluded the reporter was killed by a stray bullet fired by one of the soldiers. But DOJ under Attorney General Merrick Garland clearly questions that conclusion. And that fact is stirring anger on the Hill as Republicans prepare to take over the House of Representatives January 3, 2023.

The Biden appointees at DOJ include, according to the Washington Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo, Kristen Clarke who “came under fire during her Senate confirmation hearing after the Free Beacon revealed she edited a law journal that featured an anti-Semitic black nationalist who peddles conspiracy theories about Jews.”

Kredo was told by multiple Hill sources that “the only way to root out this bias … is for Congress to launch an investigation into the DOJ’s anti-Israel agenda, which has been fueled by a cadre of anti-Semitic lawmakers in Congress known as ‘the Squad.’ These lawmakers, which include Reps. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), pressured the DOJ for months to investigate the Abu Akleh shooting.”

Lesson: You appoint anti-semites, you get anti-semitic policy decisions.

NO, GEORGIA ISN’T LIMITING EARLY VOTING TO HONOR LEE: Honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee is NOT why Georgia shortened early voting for the Warnock/Walker Senate runoff by one day, no matter what MSNBC’s Joy(less) Reid contends. The Lid’s Jeff Dunetz and Joe Newby explain.

VANCE SAYS DON’T BLAME TRUMP, BLAME …: How about “high consultant and ‘list-building fees'”? Writing in the American Conservative, the Ohio Senator-elect zeroes in on a major factor in the failure of the Red Wave to come ashore.

To illustrate, Vance points to the DeSantis and Kemp victories:

“At first blush, Ron DeSantis and Brian Kemp are similar figures: they both won close elections in 2018, and both cruised to reelection in 2022. They are both popular, effective governors from the South. But one won by over 20, and one by 8 (still an impressive margin).

“What explains this? Money. Look at the fundraising totals: Ron DeSantis outraised Charlie Crist about 7:1. Kemp was actually outraised, albeit barely, by Stacey Abrams. Money, of course, is not dispositive—Kemp won convincingly—but it has a major effect.”