UNIONS ARE DYING. GOOD RIDDANCE: The Lid columnist A.J. Kaufman looks at recent media reports of a new surge in union organizing efforts and concludes the data still shows unions may well be headed to the ash heap of history.

SMARTEST 2:20 ANYWHERE ON ESG: Texas Public Policy Foundation’s short, concise, fact-filled video on the scam that is ESG – Environmental, Social, Governance — ought to be required viewing in every school, corporate boardroom, college classroom and congressional confab:

OPENTHEBOOKS MAKES CALIFORNIA ITS 50TH ‘CHECKBOOK’ POSTING: OpenTheBooks.com, the Chicago-based nonprofit government watchdog that has posted on its web site trillions of dollars worth of federal, state and municipal spending, declared victory today in its decade-long battle to force California officials to make spending public for all taxpayers.

This is a big win for increased government transparency and accountability because California is the 50th state to have its spending “checkbook” posted on the Internet for all to see. OpenTheBooks.com President Adam Andrzejewski’s dream of putting “every dome online, in real time” is thus a huge step closer to a reality.

Somewhere in Heaven, Sen. Tom Coburn — the driving force behind creation of USASpending.gov, the website that first put federal spending on the web — is standing and cheering.

TRUE COST OF BIDEN’S STUDENT LOAN BAILOUT: Liberty Unyielding’s Hans Bader pegs the actual cost of Biden’s $300 billion college loan forgiveness initiative at more than $1 trillion. And that’s just the dollars.

MALONEY ACCUSES NADLER OF BEING TOOL OF SEXISTS, MISOGYNISTS: Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) has represented Upper East Side Manhattanites — the vast majority of whom are liberal Democrats — for three decades.

But when her constituents were combined with Upper West Side Manhattanites represented by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) — also overwhelmingly liberal Democrats —  Maloney got blown out by 30 points in a head-to-head Democratic primary matchup.

Why did Maloney lose? She pointed to “sexist systems and misogyny that continues today — as we know from my campaign,” The Blaze reports. Maloney didn’t clarify whether she was referring to the sexists and misogynists in her district or those in Nadler’s.

Maloney is currently chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, while Nadler is chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary. Who knew Nadler was a tool of sexists and misogynists?

WILL THE WPOST CORRECT ITS SEVEN HUGE ERRORS ON THE NRSC? I’m not holding my breath, but these really are big goofs that could have been avoided with even minimal effort on the part of the guy whose name appears on the byline. Or the desk editor who read it. Or somebody who was conscious on the copy desk.

BARNA GROUP FINDS ‘PRACTICING CHRISTIANS’ MOST GENEROUS: It’s by a fairly wide margin, too, but overall Americans generally view themselves as being generous and the actual numbers for their giving bear them out.

STOP REHIRING THOSE TAX DEADBEATS, IRS: That’s the message from Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who suggests that, before the IRS adds those 87K new agents, the federal tax collection agency should make sure all of its present employees have paid all of their fair share.

UPENN LAW STUDENTS SHOW WE’RE DOOMED: Well, that may yet be a bit overly pessimistic but it’s hard to read this from Legal Insurrection about the treatment accorded by them to the devotedly anti-woke Law Professor Amy Wax without thinking the worst.

WHAT’S GOING ON WITH ACTOR RUSSELL BRAND: Now he’s warning, according to the Daily Wire, about the dangers to liberty posed by Amazon’s newest, most convenient-ever way to pay. Like they say, if it’s too good to be true, odds are it isn’t. Especially, you know, when it’s the “nefarious nature of Big Tech” we’re discussing.

NO WATER, NO LIFE: That’s the bottom line concerning one of the most viscous liquids in the universe, but, according to biologist/M.D. Michael Denton on HillFaith this morning, there are many more miraculous characteristics of water that most folks don’t know.

U.S. IS NOT ‘OVER-POLICED:’ It’s a familiar refrain from liberals – the United States are over-policed compared to Europe. Well, Hans Bader of Liberty Unyielding took a look at the facts and guess what, libs? You’re wrong again.

THE MIRACLE OF THE HUMAN HEART: Did you know that with every contraction your heart pumps 100 billion red blood cells throughout the hundreds of miles of capillaries within your body? And if you live to be 80 years old, your heart will have contracted about 2 billion times?

And those two items are just a tiny sample of an amazing host of fascinating facts about the human heart, as described by Discovery Institute biologist and M.D., Michael Denton on HillFaith today. So put aside the evolution vs God debate for a moment, watch the 3:50 video and then ask yourself how it could be that we are each born with one of these?

THE BORDER IS SECURE. THE BORDER IS SECURE. THE …: Uh, no, the border is not secure and no matter how many times Biden and his minions say it is, the reality is, according to Issues & Insights and everybody else will even minimal common sense, the U.S. border with Mexico is effectively wide open.

WHAT IF THE BIG BANG NEVER BANGED? Those beautiful images of deepest space being sent to Earth by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are causing a quiet uproar in the scientific community. The reason is the images seem to suggest the Big Bang theory of the origins of the universe simply isn’t correct.

As the Cable Guy might say, I don’t care what you believe, that is big news. Eric Lerner of LPPFusion, a privately supported research group working to develop safe, reliable, affordable fusion energy, explains on the web site of the Institute for Art and Ideas (IAI) why more than a dozen characteristics predicted to be confirmed by JWST capabilities have instead now been shown to be of doubtful accuracy.

Much of Lerner’s explanation is beyond my grasp, but enough of it makes sense that it strikes me as imminently worthy of thoughtful and sustained consideration. But there’s also an additional angle here that points to the Evolution vs Intelligent Design (ID) debate.

Lerner notes the reality that dissent from the Big Bang theory is absolutely verboten in most precincts of the scientific community, especially regarding publication in recognized research journals and in consideration of official funding applications:

“Readers may well be wondering at this point why they have not read of this collapse of the Big Bang hypothesis in major media outlets by now and why the authors of so many recent papers have not pointed to this collapse themselves.

“The answer lies in what I term the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes Effect’— if anyone questions the Big Bang, they are labeled stupid and unfit for their jobs. Unfortunately, funding for cosmology comes from a very few government sources controlled by a handful of committees that are dominated by Big Bang theorists. These theorists have spent their lives building the Big Bang theory. Those who openly question the theory simply don’t get funded.

“Until the past few years, if researchers could self-fund cosmology research as a sideline, as is the case with me, they still could publish ‘heretical’ papers, although those papers were often ignored by the cosmological establishment. As recently as 2018, the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), a leading journal, published one of my papers showing how the sizes of galaxies contradicted the expanding universe idea.

“But as the crisis in cosmology became obvious in 2019, the cosmological establishment has circled the wagons to protect this failed theory with censorship, because it now has no other defense. It has now become almost impossible to publish papers critical of the Big Bang in any astronomical journals …

“Such censorship is now, as always, inimical to the progress of science. Two dozen researchers in astrophysics, astronomy and space science have signed a letter of protest to the arXiv leadership. I have personally called on leading Big Bang theorists to openly debate the new evidence. For cosmology – as for any research area – to advance, this debate must happen openly in both scientific journals and the public media.”

Advocates of ID such as the Discovery Institute know all too well the process Lerner is describing.

WRITING COHERENTLY IS RACIST: One might well come away with that conclusion, according to Liberty Unyielding’s Hans Bader, who examined how competently colleges are teaching students to write these days. At the University of Maryland Baltimore’s Writing Center, he found this (and much more in the same rotten vein) in a course description:

“We know that writing is way more than words on the page or the arrangement of grammatical units,” the “About Us” description reads. “We approach our work with writers with an anti-racist lens.”

They aren’t kidding, as is clear from the essay questions applicants are required to answer, including “one entitled ‘Justice & Equity.’ “As you can see in our mission statement, we express commitment to interrogating racism and white supremacy and injustice broadly,’ the application reads. ‘How would you want your work as a consultant to contribute to and expand your personal, scholarly, and professional work related to justice and equity?’ Applicants are asked to respond in 250-400 words.”

NO CONFLICTS OF INTEREST HERE: Can you guess which Squad member was expanding her rental property inventory at the same time she was pushing for federal landlord subsidies?

NOTHING NEW IN MATERIALISTS’ BASHING INTELLIGENT DESIGN: It turns out those who insist material processes alone account for the universe have been ripping for more than two millennia those who suggest a designer behind design, according to Dr. John West of the Discovery Institute. In other words, the debate was hot and heavy long before the Scientific Revolution.

WHO DOESN’T BELIEVE BIDEN, HILL DEMS? Well, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for one, at least when it comes to promises those 87K new IRS agents will only be going after taxpayers making $400,000 or more annually, according to Robert Schmad of the Washington Free Beacon. Seems the CBO reported to Hill Republicans that the Inflation Reduction Act will generate at least $20 billion in new revenue from taxpayers in lower brackets.

THINKING ABOUT JOINING THE IRS? Babylon Bee helpfully provides the 17 job requirements you must satisfy in order to be considered. Instapunditeers should pay particular attention to #14.

RESEARCHERS SAY REGULAR BIBLE READING IS HEALTHY? Well, yes, according to HillFaith, that’s what the authors of the American Bible Society’s (ABS) 2022 State of the Bible Report say they found among Gen Zers, the youngest and typically least happy generation. The report is a product of a joint effort between University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center (NORC) analysts and those with the ABS.

NO, 87K NEW IRS AGENTS WON’T JUST AUDIT MILLIONAIRES: The Heritage Foundation’s Rachel Greszler digs into the data and the history and concludes that “even increasing recent audit rates 30-fold for taxpayers making over $400,000 — including 100 percent audit rates on taxpayers with incomes over $10 million — still would fall more than 20% short of raising the estimated $35.3 billion in new revenues in 2031.” 

Ergo – the auditors will focus on everybody making less than $400,000, especially those filing W-2 and 1099-based returns claiming multiple deductions. Those claims will be red flags for the auditors.

REVIEWING THE FBI’S RECENT BAD APPLES: Ken Braun of the Capital Research Center (CRC) lays out the disturbing details.

(Bumped, by Glenn).

REVIEWING THE FBI’S RECENT BAD APPLES: Ken Braun of the Capital Research Center (CRC) lays out the disturbing details.

HERE’S WHY DEMS ARE OBSESSED WITH DOUBLING THE IRS: Conservative think tanks, activist groups, social media sites, and blogs, as well as evangelical ministries and groups, are in for an all-out assault led by the soon-to-be-doubled-in-size-IRS. My latest PJ Media column is indeed a WARNING!