HOW THE LINCOLN PROJECT PULLED IT OFF: They raised $91 million in a remarkably short period during the 2020 presidential campaign, but then the internal squabbles and scandals blew it all up. Capital Research Center’s (CRC) Ken Braun looks at how it was done and the five-part “Showtime” documentary on the same.

IT’S ACCOUNTABILITY TIME, JOE: House Republicans are planning a multi-front assault on the Biden family’s heretofore-ignored ability to make multi-millions on public service, with emphasis on China ties that may well endanger national security.

BIG LESSON IN THREE SMALL WORDS: I don’t normally link to HillFaith posts that are scriptural exegesis intended for folks who are, like many here on Instapundit, already Christians.

But everybody can get down from time to time, especially about things in this country these days, as well as difficulties we face in our personal lives. This post today speaks to that reality. So here goes …

DISCREPANCIES OR DIFFERENCES IN DETAIL? That’s something of an obscure-sounding question, but it’s relevant to much of what skeptics offer in their efforts to  discredit the Gospels, especially regarding claims about the Resurrection.

Eric Lyons of the Apologetics Press addresses this approach on HillFaith today regarding the varying reports of which women were first on the scene at the tomb on Easter morning. The fact Matthew and Mark report some names, while Luke and John include some others is not a disqualifying element, he argues.

For car guys, Lyons makes a point using a brief scene in a garage with an old Jaguar and what looks to me like a Jensen-Healey. What do you think? I’ve never actually seen one up close, but I’ve long thought the Jensen-Healey was an under-appreciated moment in the history of Brit sports cars.

AFGHANS STUCK IN GUATEMALA NOT HAPPY WITH BIDEN: They fled their homes when the U.S. hastily abandoned Afghanistan and ended up in Central America with nothing but the clothes they were wearing.

One of them tells the Daily Caller News Foundation that he has a message for President Joe Biden: “We also have a lot of messages for him. First of all, Afghanistan was a country that moving to a good side. It was changing, moving for us from last 20 year, we were also in the war.

“Our future was bright. Our education system was at a good side, everything was going well, but suddenly they made a decision, but everything finished. Our future, our education system, everything.”

One wonders if Biden remembers, much less cares.

TRANSGENDERISM A LOSING ISSUE FOR LEFT: New Trafalgar Group survey of likely voters finds nearly 80 percent of Americans — including 53 percent of Democrats — think it should be illegal to administer puberty blocking drugs to minors. Don’t hold your breath waiting to hear this reported by ABC/NBC/CBS/PBS/CNN/MSNBC/NYT/WP/USAT/ETC/ETC.

SURELY THIS IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL: I mean, how could it be otherwise when Dr. Clifford Chen, whose most famous patient is Pennsylvania Democratic Senatorial Candidate John Fetterman, releases a letter that claims the latter’s health has “significantly improved” just a couple of weeks before election day.

DEMS QUIET ABOUT BIDEN’S LATEST SPR WITHDRAWAL: No surprise that Republicans on Capitol Hill are blasting away at President Joe Biden’s latest withdrawal of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). What is surprising is how few Democrats are cheering the move.

RECALLING AMERICA’S ‘HUMAN ZOOS:’ Ota Benga was the first human being to be displayed at the Bronx Zoo’s Monkey House in 1906. Yes, a human being exhibited in the Monkey House as the “missing link.” It’s upsetting to any patriotic American, but it is one of those hidden corners of our history.

CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS (CBC) SHOWS ITS TRUE PARTISAN COLORS: Republican Jennifer-Ruth Green is Black and she is running for Congress in Indiana’s 1st congressional district.

If she wins her race against incumbent Democrat Rep. Frank Mrvan, she would be expected under normal circumstances to join the CBC. The race is rated a toss-up at the moment, so there is a realistic possibility of Green winning, according to the Daily Caller’s Senior Congressional Correspondent, Henry Rogers.

But she won’t be joining the CBC if she wins because the group endorsed Mrvan and contributed to his re-election campaign. Mrvan is a White Democrat. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), the dynamic Black GOPer who is viewed as an emerging star, was also blocked from joining the CBC. Time to change the name to something more honest, like Congressional Black Democrats Caucus.

OKAY, NOW WHAT ON DURHAM PROBE? Just the News founder and editor John Solomon looks at the wreckage of the Danchenko trial and sees a path forward. Its success will depend, however, upon some folks who don’t exactly inspire confidence in the area of political backbone.

ABOUT THAT PARKLAND SHOOTER SENTENCE: If a criminal like Nikolas Cruz, who killed 14 at Parkland High School in 2018, doesn’t get the death penalty, nobody will and that’s a disaster for civilization, according to today’s edition of The Briefing with Al Mohler.

SASSE JUMPING FROM SENATE POT TO FLORIDA FIRE: Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) will almost certainly become president of the University of Florida after he leaves the U.S. Senate, but, as Campus Reform’s Logan Dubil reports, lefty students aren’t going to let him do so quietly.

LEGAL CHALLENGE MOUNTED TO ZUCK BUCKS: This has the odor of a rotten scandal developing for Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Capital Research Center’s (CRC) Hayden Ludwig reports that two complaints have been filed with the IRS that focus on three non-profits to which Zuckerberg and his wife gave millions for the express purpose of turning out the vote in 2020.

All three groups claim to be non-partisan, of course, as well they must in order to retain their tax exempt status. But the first of the complaints points out that the actions of the exempt trio indicate they went about their activities in a hyper-partisan manner. The second complaint alleges that the Zuckerbergs claimed improper tax deductions in connection with their contributions to the trio.

Here’s a taste of what Ludwig and his colleagues at CRC found when they dug into the patterns and practices of the Zuck Buck’s recipients:

“In reality, these ‘Zuck bucks’ promoted insecure drop boxes to collect the unprecedented flood of mail-in ballots created by last-minute election law changes—mostly engineered by Democratic elections officials — in key states across the country, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Very little of the money went to personal protective equipment.

“Wisconsin, in fact, was ground zero for the first influx of Zuck bucks to the state’s five cities, which in summer 2020 produced a joint Safe Voting Plan that hinged upon early voting and vote by mail with funds from a private organization, CTCL. Zuck bucks even paid for a mobile voting van — a ‘polling booth on wheels’ — in Racine.

“On a per-capita basis, CTCL’s Zuck bucks overwhelmingly favored Democratic vote–rich cities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit over counties that broke for Donald Trump. In Pennsylvania, CTCL grants in Trump counties averaged $0.60 per capita compared with $2.85 in counties Joe Biden won. In Georgia, it was worse: $1.41 per capita in Trump counties versus $5.33 in Biden counties.”

This could get really interesting, so keep an eye on it.

REMEMBER’S JONI MITCHELL’S ‘AMAZING GRACE?’ That a pop star of the 60s and 70s like Joni Mitchell would think to record John Newton’s classic hymn is a testimony to its enduring power and popularity. Whatever you thought of her politics (she was a radical lefty from Canada if I recall correctly), the woman had a unique voice and boy could she sing.

Newton’s work has immense significance for me personally, which you may or may not find of interest, and it  is a cultural indicator of some significance as well that more than 11,000 comments have been left on the Mitchell version’s YouTube entry.

WARNING: Spiritual!

WAIT, I THOUGHT TRUMP WAS PUTIN’S BIGGEST U.S. FAN: But now it’s Politico that names the Russian thug as the climate hero of the year. Why? Because his invasion of Ukraine “forced Europe to finally break its fossil fuel addiction.” No, I am not making this up and neither is the Washington Free Beacon’s Andrew Stiles.

THIS IS WHAT’S WRONG WITH MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Remember Michael Cohen, Trump’s alleged “fixer” and favorite of CNN and MSNBC viewers everywhere? In my latest PJ Media column, I explain how an Insider (formerly Business Insider) story on Cohen perfectly captures a huge part of what is wrong with American journalism.

EVER HEARD OF DUSTIN MOSKOVITZ? Odds are good you haven’t but now you have, thanks to Instapundit and Capital Research Center’s Parker Thayer. And you should know about this guy, who ranks right up there with George Soros in helping fund the destruction of individual liberty and republican government.

BIDEN TO GIG WORKERS – DROP DEAD: Crime, especially in the big cities but also increasingly in their suburbs, is skyrocketing. But the Biden administration is preparing robbery on a massive scale, according to Issues & Insights. You know Biden, he’s from the government and he’s here to help us:

“In essence, the White House wants to outlaw gig work in America. No, it’s not saying so outright. The Biden Labor Department obscures that harsh reality with words meant to deceive. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh says the department’s proposal is needed to safeguard ‘​​our nation’s most vulnerable workers,’ and ensure they are not deprived ‘of their federal labor protections.’

“Left out is the part that, should the proposal become policy, millions of Americans will be stripped of their jobs and income. Under its rule, the Labor Department would be free to ‘determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act.’ And it will determine in every case that the worker in question must be a hired employee, no longer free to continue his or her job as an independent contractor.”

The key word there is “independent.” That idea threatens the bureaucrats, the mainstream media, and the power-hungry politicians. Just remember what they mean by “covering” something. With a pillow. Like Dave says.

IS CHRISTIANITY STILL RELEVANT? J. Warner Wallace of “Cold-Case Christianity” renown thinks the answer to that question is absolutely on the positive side.

PUBLIC EDUCATION SECRECY EVEN IN DEEP-RED OKLAHOMA: Ray Carter of the Oklahoma Council on Public Affairs’ Center for Independent Journalism reports that the state’s superintendent of public schools, Joy Hofmeister, has refused for more than a year to provide documents detailing how she developed her proposed COVID19 restrictions during the Pandemic.

The Oklahoma Board of Education actually rejected Hofmeister’s plan as unnecessarily restrictive, but there remains a significant public interest in knowing how she developed her proposal, with whom did she consult and what did she view as credible evidence for her approach.

One of the problems here is the absence in the Oklahoma public records act of a provision requiring officials to respond concretely within a reasonable period of time, or face litigation and the prospect of a judge ordering release of requested documents. Somebody in the Oklahoma State Legislature should take note of this and get a remedy proposed ASAP.

JESUS’ SURPRISING APPROVAL RATING AMONG TEENS: Huge international survey by the Barna Group finds nearly half of teens in 26 countries think Jesus offers hope, a quarter claim personal relationship with Him. Given the “givens,” as Rumsfeld often put it, I would have expected Jesus to be “upside down” in such a survey.

PENTAGON’S WOKE REVOLUTIONARY: Biden’s Department of Defense (DOD) is now appointing political commissars — Think Ivan Putin in “Hunt for Red October” — and one of them, Kelisa Wing, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer for DOD’s Education Activities Office, is in trouble for advocating revolution. You can guess what sort of revolution Wing has in mind.

‘I REGRET IT EVERY DAY:’ New survey of women who have experienced chemically induced abortions reveals the procedure’s emotional and spiritual aftermath is often devastating. And chemical inducement is now the approach to killing unborn babies favored by the Biden administration and the abortion lobby.

FBI DOUBLE-STANDARD FAVORS EXECS ON SEXUAL MISCONDUCT: The parade of FBI whistle blowers to Capitol Hill continues as Sen. Charles Grassley issues statement regarding data showing FBI top-level supervisors and executives are disciplined less severely than agents in the field regarding sexual misconduct.