HOW LONG TILL IT’S ILLEGAL TO BE A CHRISTIAN IN THE U.S.: If that strikes you as a nonsense question, you haven’t been paying attention. Check out my latest PJM column and, if you are an outspoken believer, make note for future reference of the civil liberties defenders mentioned.

AUSSIE ‘FOOTIE,’ BIG SCREEN ‘BROS’ AND THE ‘YUCK FACTOR:’ Al Mohler Jr. is president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) in Louisville. In his “Briefing” podcast today, he explains in detail the linkages among an Australian football executive’s firing, the total cinema flop of “Bros,” the first “gay rom-com’ from a major film producer, and the reality of the “Yuck Factor” in how many Americans view LGBQT issues.

It’s a bit lengthy at 27 minutes, but Mohler is an extraordinarily articulate, well-informed and careful thinker who is extremely attuned to the tone and temper of American public discourse. His comments on the Yuck Factor are especially relevant.

TRUTH ABOUT PRO-CHOICE MOVEMENT’S ROOTS: An Amicus Brief filed in the Oklahoma State Supreme Court by Liberty Counsel lays out in brutal detail the facts about the roots of the abortion movement in the racial genocide program of the Progressives’ eugenics movement. You want to talk about systemic racism? Exhibit A is the map of Planned Parenthood clinic locations.

PROPOSED FREEDOM CAUCUS RULES WOULD OPEN UP HOUSE: Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) explains how new rules could restore the “Peoples’ House” to the people’s representatives.

THE ROTTEN ‘FRUIT’ OF REGRESSIVE PROGRESSIVISM: Writing on Townhall.com, Victor Davis Hanson captures the current state of affairs as American civilization plunges into the Abyss. What is so utterly frustrating about it is that it doesn’t have to be, and yet here we are … and there we will be if things don’t change dramatically and soon.

TEMPER OF THE TIMES: This from Just the News this morning says a great deal about the times in which we live:

“The White House said Friday that Biden personally called Aviation Survival Technician Second Class Zach Loesch to thank him for his ‘heroic work’ saving lives during the deadly hurricane.

“Loesch told Breitbart News on Saturday that he will be kicked out of the Coast Guard within the next two months after his religious accommodation request and appeal to the COVID vaccine mandate was denied.”

LONG STORY SHORT: Is antibiotic resistance good evidence for macroevolution? Maybe, maybe not, according to this animated Discovery Science video on HillFaith.

ENEMIES OF HUMAN FREEDOM, CREATIVITY: See, for example, the University of Michigan Health system, which I explain in my latest PJ Media column, fired Physician Assistant Valerie Kloosterman for refusing to use gender identity-based pronouns or prescribe certain gender dysphoria treatments. First Liberty Institute has given the system a deadline for making things right. Given the givens, I’d say the system would be well-advised to make the deadline.

ITALIAN ELECTION HERALDS END OF EUROPEAN UNION: It started with Hungary’s Viktor Orban in 2010, picked up with Brexit in 2016 and now is sending Leftists on both sides of the Big Pond into a frenzy as Giorgia Meloni and a national conservative coalition are swept into power by Italian voters.

“Why is this sudden turn to the right happening? Simple. The EU and its member political elites have utterly failed their citizens. Europe is now suffering from absurd ‘net-zero’ green policies that will lead to people literally freezing to death this winter, while their economies and beloved euro currency crash. In Germany, energy prices have shot up by 1,000 percent, leaving people with awful choices — the same ones the rest of Europe and Russia will have to make,” explains Issues & Insights.

Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch. Well, the Leftist Loons ruining America deserve it even more but perhaps events in Europe will have a sobering effect here? … Nah!!!

‘GEOPOLITICAL GASLIGHTING:’ That’s what the Founders gave us with the Constitution, at least according to a panel of academics at a recent Princeton University confab “celebrating” the miracle of 1787, according to Princeton sophomore Alexandra Orbuch, writing for the Washington Free Beacon.

WILL ROBOTS REPLACE US? Remember the Will Smith flick, “I, Robot” that depicted a scary future made possible by Artificial Intelligence(AI)? Folks still worry that such scenarios are by no means mere fictional possibilities.

But, as the latest edition of “Science Uprising” on HillFaith makes clear, there are some very smart guys who think such worries are unnecessary.  What about you, do you think we will someday wake up to a robotic Nurse Ratched tyranny?

TIM RYAN, MEET TIM RYAN: There is the Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who when he was running for president in 2019, criticized as not going far enough Sen. Bernie Sanders’ plan to outlaw fossil-fueled, internal combustion vehicles like those owned and driven by the vast majority of Americans.

Then, according to The Washington Free Beacon’s Joseph Simonson, there is the current Ohio Democratic senatorial candidate Tim Ryan: “Ryan’s first Senate campaign ad features him riding around with his son in a 2020 GMC Yukon, which gets roughly 14 to 15 miles per gallon around town. When leaving a campaign stop in Zanesville, Ohio, last month, Ryan boarded a 15-mile-per-gallon Chevrolet Tahoe.”

Ryan’s favorite vehicle, according to a campaign aide quoted by Simonson, is a GMC Sierra full-size pickup. That’s the petrol-burning GMC vehicle that gets around 23 mpg, not GMC’s $110,000 Hummer EV. But wait, Ryan’s GOP opponent, author J.D. Vance, rides around in a 7-Series Bimmer, so it’s all OK, right … right?

NO ELECTORAL DAMAGE FOR TRUMP FROM FBI MAR-A-LAGO RAID: If the Biden regime figured its FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate would hurt his 2024 electoral prospects, they appear to have figured wrong, according to the latest Issues & Insights/TIPP Survey.

That fingernail-on-a-blackboard scratching screech you hear is the gnashing of teeth in the Biden White House, Department of Justice, FBI Building and Mainstream Media newsrooms across the country.

TRAMPLING ON 1ST AMENDMENT HURTS NATIONAL SECURITY: The connection between upholding the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious expression and practice and protecting national security likely isn’t the first most people would think of if asked. But The Washington Stand’s Ben Johnson lays it out in detail today:

“Even as the military faces its greatest enlistment crisis in decades, tens of thousands of Christian service-members face expulsion for refusing to take the COVID-19 shot. The largest branch of the services, the U.S. Army, announced it met only 52% of its recruitment goal this fiscal year, which ends Friday,” Johnson reports today.

“’The Department anticipates we will collectively miss our recruiting mission despite accessing more than 170,000 remarkable young men and women,’” the deputy assistant secretary of defense for military personnel policy, Stephanie Miller, testified before a Senate subcommittee last Wednesday. That leaves the Army with 466,400 soldiers on active duty — 10,000 soldiers shy of its reduced goal, a gap that will creep to 21,000 by next September.”

And that’s just for the ground-pounders. The Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard face similar problems. But wait a minute, didn’t President Joe Biden declare the Pandemic over just last week?

MORE ON FETTERMAN’S CAMPAIGN PARTNERS: Brand New Congress is not a conservative advocacy group campaigning convince voters to toss the Democrat bums out and replace them with GOPers. To the contrary, this Brand New Congress wants to defund the police and it wants Pennsylvania voters to send far-Leftie John Fetterman to the U.S. Senate.

But wait! There’s more!! As Liberty Unyielding’s Hans Bader lays it out, Fetterman is a committed, long-time supporter of Philadelphia’s equally looney District Attorney Larry Krasner. Gascon in LA gets a lot of headlines, but Krasner may be the worst example of a Soros-funded prosecutor whose tenure is marked by out-of-control violent crime.

FATHERS COUNT: The Lid’s Jeff Dunetz shares about the crucial importance of childhood walks with his father on the long road back to his faith as an Observant Jew. Whatever your religious perspective, or lack thereof, Jeff’s analysis reminds that a Dad’s most important influences are not infrequently subtle and may not be recognized or appreciated for a long time.

MORE EVIDENCE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE FBI ASYLUM: Just the News’ John Solomon reports that an FBI Agent has told the federal whistleblower office in Washington, D.C. that the bureau’s leadership is falsifying evidence against J6 defendants, inflating Domestic Extremist Violence (DEV) data and grossly misusing SWAT teams to make misdemeanor arrests.

“Special Agent Stephen M. Friend, who works for the FBI in Florida and serves as a SWAT team member, told the main federal whistleblower office in Washington he had an ‘exemplary’ work record since he joined the bureau in 2014 and even won awards but was suspended in recent days after he began raising concerns about the FBI’s and DOJ’s conduct in the Jan. 6 investigation

“‘I believed the investigations were inconsistent with FBI procedure and resulted in the violation of citizens’ Sixth and Eighth Amendment rights,’ Friend wrote. ‘I added that many of my colleagues expressed similar concerns to me but had not vocalized their objections to FBI Executive Management,” Solomon quotes Friend.

One wonders if a new FBI Director might not be among the growing list of whistleblowers from within the bureau who are coming forward to Republicans Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio.

(BUMPED, BY GLENN).

DON’T FORGET HUBBLE: The incredible images of deep, deep space produced by the James Webb telescope have captured the imagination of the world, and for good reason. But its predecessor, the Hubble Telescope, did some rather amazing stuff, too, as seen this morning on HillFaith in the short video “Of Fingerprints and Galaxies.”

RETIREES ACCOUNT FOR HALF OF ALL CAMPAIGN DONATIONS: That’s the claim of Insider’s Madison Hall, based on FEC data compiled by opensecrets.org, who points out that:

“For years, retirees supplied about $1 in every $10 that federal-level political candidates raised from those contributing more than $200. But since the 2016 election cycle, they’ve represented an ever-greater share of politicians’ campaign haul. By the 2020 election cycle, retirees accounted for more than $1 in every $5, amounting to more than $378 million.”

HOW ABOUT PAUL THE APOSTLE? If I were asked to name the top 10 most influential people in the ancient world, Jesus Christ obviously would be on top of the list. Who would be second? Neither Julius Caesar, nor Alexander the Great, not Solomon, and not his father, King David, though these, plus Aristotle, Augustine, Plato and Thucydides, would definitely be somewhere on the list.

No, my choice for second on the list of the top 10 most influential people in the ancient world would be a guy I believe has long been rather profoundly underrated, Paul the Apostle. I explain why today on HillFaith. Who would be your choices?

THE DUKE TRUSTEE PUSHING GENDER INSANITY: Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker recently signed legislation that will effectively put legions of people arrested for violent crimes in his state back on the streets almost as soon as the handcuffs click.

Guess what else Pritzker is behind? If you have elementary school age kids, they may already have been influenced by this guy. The Carolina Journal’s David Larsen explains how in “The Billionaire Duke Trustee Behind The Remaking of Gender.”

EVER HEARD OF MADISON GRANT? Probably not, as he is one of the forgotten Progressive Republican leaders of the post-Civil War period in the U.S. who helped advance multiple causes, including Eugenics, “Nordic” racial purity and what is today known as “going Green” environmentalism.

Yes, environmentalism. Capital Research Center’s (CRC) Hayden Ludwig explains in an important review of a book you won’t find on the New York Times best-seller list:

“Grant, for instance, was one of the pioneers of the modern environmental movement. He loved nature and sought to use federal law to preserve America’s natural beauty and wildlife — the genesis of the national parks and many of the zoos we enjoy today. Grant practically saved the bison with help from his close friend Theodore Roosevelt. He also helped preserve Northern California’s endangered redwood trees. One tree, the ‘Madison Grant Tree,’ was even dedicated to this fierce conservationist. The tree was removed in 2021.

“But he also wanted to use government force to preserve ‘Nordic’ racial supremacy in America. Grant led the campaign to exterminate sickly infants, forcibly sterilize the ‘unfit,’ enact race-based immigration laws, and deport black Americans to Africa. As with many of his contemporaries, Grant was convinced that conservation and eugenics—the Darwinist pseudoscience of ‘beautifying’ the human race through selective breeding— ‘were two sides of the same coin.’ Saving the ‘master race’ from extinction was merely an extension of saving plants and animals.”

In other words, Madison Grant would be a far-left progressive Democrat in today’s political debates.

IF WE WANT TO STOP THE IRAN BOMB: Then we need to make it clear in word and deed to the Mullahs that America supports, vocally and practically, the growing protest movement in Iran that, the Washington Free Beacon’s Matthew Continetti argues, is the key to stopping both the Islamic Revolution and Iranian terrorism.

“The malignancy of the Iranian government spreads beyond the nation’s borders, for sure. But its primary victims are the Iranian people. They are the first to suffer the economic, social, cultural, and physical costs billed to the regime. Their discontent is the clearest register of the regime’s criminality and the most visible sign of its decay,” Continetti writes.

RUBIO TURNS TABLE ON JOURNOS: And I say it’s about time and in fact all politicians should feel free to challenge how journalists of all stripes are doing their work.

WAS JESUS THE FIRST CONSERVATIVE? That is not entirely a rhetorical question since, whether you are a Burkean traditionalist, a Reaganite fusionist, a Paleo-Con, a Trump Ultra MAGA or an agnostic libertarian, a case can be made that, historically speaking, the essential underlying concept for limited government and individual liberty begins with “rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.”

Even so, in my view, and I suspect that of anybody else who is passably familiar with Scripture, Jesus is infinitely more important than such temporal concerns even while providing the ultimate ordering context for all of them. I am regularly asked these days why I believe that, and the fact is, there are two rather basic reasons (not the only, but the most important). I explain them on HillFaith today.