READY FOR $11 PER GALLON GAS? Hans Bader at Liberty Unyielding says best to be prepared because it’s a real possibility.

ANOTHER NEW WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY COMING SOON? – Allies of the incumbent are angry that the guy who appears to be her soon-to-be-successor was given a “supporting role” during a White House briefing this past week. She’s Black, he’s White, allegations of white supremacy to follow.

NO MORE US FUNDS FOR WUHAN LAB: It got little media coverage but the House Appropriations Committee approved a provision barring any U.S. funds from being used to support China’s Wuhan lab.

There is a key lesson here for the Republicans if they regain congressional majorities in November: If you don’t support a federal activity, any federal activity, STOP FUNDING IT. And remember, when Biden, the Dems and the Media begin screaming, under the Constitution, you have all the leverage because you control the budget.

Approve a budget minus the stuff you oppose, then challenge Biden to sign it or shut down the government. The onus on any subsequent shutdown is then on the Democrat in the White House, not Republican majority in Congress.

And one more thing: Stop thinking of the annual federal budget as an executive branch management blueprint. That kind of budget thinking is a product of the Wilsonian progressive era. The Constitution’s budget is a tool for legislative direction of the executive branch’s administration and enforcement of the law.

BIDEN WHITE HOUSE STAFF STILL BLOATED AMID EXODUS: Leave it to Open the Books to provide the much-needed context to a Biden White House released report to Congress detailing the names, titles and salaries of the largest staff ever to call 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as its main office.

From the summary:

• During President Joe Biden’s first two-years, he spent $100.7 million on the largest White House payroll in American history, based on headcount.
• No White House ever employed 500 staffers. The Biden White House employed 560 (FY2021) and 474 this year (2022). In 2022, the headcount dropped by 86 employees.
• Biden employs 100 more staffers than Trump (374) (FY2018) and five more than Obama (469) (FY2010) at the same point in their respective presidencies.
• There was 39.3-percent turnover in White House staff, year over year. 220 employees from last year are no longer on payroll. This mirrored the exact same turnover percentage as the worst year of the Trump administration (2018).

SWEETHEART DEALS AT BEN & JERRY’S FOUNDATION: Alana Goodman went digging into the financial records and discovered a substantial cash flow from the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation into Social Ventures, Inc.

The latter is the creation of Jeff Furman, who served as the foundation’s president and before that as it’s treasurer while the cash was flowing. Can you spell C-O-N-F-L-I-C-T-O-F-I-N-T-E-R-E-S-T?

TAX DOLLARS TO PROMOTE ATHEISM OVERSEAS: Hard to believe, but the U.S. State Department is handing out grants of as much as $500,000 to organizations promoting atheism overseas. Can you imagine if these grants were instead to promote Christianity?

THOSE PEOPLE IN THE GREEN HATS: Capital Research Center’s Robert Stilson, writing in Legal Insurrection, explains that they are members of the National Lawyers Guild on hand at the anti-Dobbs demonstrations to provide legal aid to the protestors, both on the scene and subsequently in the court system. The guild has a long history of providing legal cover for the most extreme elements of America’s radical Left.

WHAT TRUMP MIGHT HAVE DONE TO THE DEEP STATE: Jeffrey Tucker reminds that, while it’s long forgotten now, former President Donald Trump signed an executive order — 13957 on Oct. 21, 2020 — late in his tenure that would have taken a significant step toward bringing the permanent bureaucracy under control.

Biden, of course, reversed the order shortly after being sworn-in as Trump’s successor. Having had a small part in bringing about the Reagan Revolution’s partially successful reforms of the federal personnel system, I agree Trump’s EO could have made a huge difference. Coulda-woulda-shoulda.

I suspect a President DeSantis would resurrect something quite similar, but nothing short of a remarkably powerful, durable and united political will in both the White House and the Congress will be able to bring it to fruition.

THE FACTS ABOUT DOBBS: Issues & Insights lays it out in such straightforward, easy-to-grasp terms that even a crazed far-Left graduate of Harvard Law can understand what Dobbs actually held and why. Well, maybe not that effectively, but even so, along the way, this revealing point is made:

“Contrast the left’s vicious behavior today with the reaction of pro-lifers when the Roe decision came down in 1973. They didn’t torch buildings or call for killing Supreme Court justices. Instead, they immediately put together a “Human Life Amendment” in an attempt to counteract the court’s decision.

“They launched a massive – and always peaceful – March for Life each year on the anniversary of the Roe ruling. They worked tirelessly with state legislators to pass laws restricting abortion where they could. For nearly 50 years, they advocated for constitutional conservatives to be appointed to the Supreme Court, those who would admit that Roe was an outrageous example of legislating from the bench.

“Yes, they sometimes got arrested, for praying in front of an abortion clinic. When some crazed person targeted an abortion provider, the pro-life movement immediately denounced such acts.”

The Left’s reaction today to hearing the truth about Roe and abortion is the very opposite. The intensity of that reaction — the furious gnashing of pro-abort teeth —  reminds of the deadly fury directed against Stephen, the first Christian martyr, for speaking the truth to the Sanhedrin.

CALM BEFORE THE STORM? Washington Free Beacon reports little in the way of actual protesting at the homes of Supreme Court Justices Kavanaugh and Thomas. But an odd lot of Grannies “storming” the Kavanaugh spread isn’t necessarily a sign the worst is over, given those reports linked earlier this morning by Glenn.

WHO IS RAY EPPS? You may know him as the big guy seen on video the evening of January 5 encouraging pro-Trumpers to invade the Capitol the next day. He’s vigorously denied being a law enforcement operative or informant, but the Epoch Times’ Joseph Hanneman has an exclusive today reporting new evidence that cast doubt on Epps’ denials.

HOW LONG BEFORE CANCEL CULTURE CENSORS TARGET ‘SCIENCE’ JOURNAL: The journal Science is one of the most respected, peer-reviewed scientific publications in the world, but that probably won’t spare the editors there from abuse for publishing a new study that sheds positive light on the “fine-tuning” of the universe.

BAGLEY NOT HEADED TO BRAZIL: That’s as in Elizabeth Bagley, President Joe Biden’s nominee to be the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil. Adam Kredo has the inside story on why Bagley’s nomination failed to get out of committee in the Senate.

PELOSI READIES THIRD TRUMP IMPEACHMENT: This Issues & Insights take was funny until I realized it really is easily conceivable, given the givens about the Speaker of the House. The guy in the Oval Office isn’t the only fading Octogenarian in power.

CAN YOU MAKE A WORM WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT IT? Philosopher of Biology Paul Nelson looks at the C Elegans, a common soil worm, and points out some amazing facts about its creation. Like that it has approximately 100 million base-pairs of DNA? Try mapping the decision chain for that.

‘THE MAGICIAN’S TWIN:’ This extremely well-done short documentary on HillFaith from the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture looks at C.S. Lewis — he of “Mere Christianity,” “The Screwtape Letters,” “The Problem of Pain” and other great works of apologetics, fiction and literary criticism — and why he had such a difficult time coming to terms philosophically with Intelligent Design (ID).

Ultimately, Lewis did get there, but this documentary explicates his journey with great clarity and thus provides a useful primer for those today who may be having similar struggles. Maybe you end up with Lewis, maybe not, but this video will, hopefully, make the trip easier and more rewarding.

Based on the comments, pro and con, here to my several previous ID-related posts, and the private messages I’ve gotten in connection with the same, I think there are likely about equal numbers on the two sides of the decideds, but a rather large crowd of folks who don’t yet know how they come down on the ID issue. This should be helpful, regardless which way you ultimately go, if any.

A WOKE NAVY IS A SINKING NAVY: Jedediah Bila points out a Navy training video that will either make you puke your personal pronouns, or slam your Broke fist on the desk in an outburst of sheer micro-aggression. (“broke” is what you are if you aren’t “woke”)

Be forewarned that the former is quite possibly more likely than the latter among most Instapunditeers, so expect a little cleanup to be needed. With apologies to Glenn, who I now see previously posted the same item, but from a different source.

LONG TRAIN OF DISASTERS: Can you guess to which institution the following words refer to? ” … failed to achieve a more-inclusive government, to reduce urban poverty and inequality, and to dismantle racism.” And no, it’s not simply Big Government. It’s Big Government and Big Philanthropy.

Michael Hartmann, writing in Philanthropy Daily and Director of Capital Research Center’s Capital-Giving program, is the author of those words as he is describing Prof. Claire Dunning’s forthcoming Nonprofit Neighborhoods: An Urban History of Inequality and the American State.

“Decision-making about government grant-making to nonprofits, Dunning basically believes, has not included a wide-enough group of those who contributed to the pool of funds out of which it was drawn.

“In fact, she thinks, government-nonprofit partnerships were and are so popular in large part because they furthered the interests of an elite, or sets of elites, that benefited — and in some cases outright profited — from the problems they’re supposed to have helped solve,” Hartmann writes.

Don’t expect to see Dunning’s book praised by the NYT. Guess we could say “government of, by and for the elites,” no?

MORE NIH ROT EXPOSED: The Inspector-General at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reports that 69 percent of the National Institutes for Health (NIH) grantees it surveyed fail to report links of researchers to foreign countries and companies.

Adam Andrjeweski, the guy behind Open the Books, who blew the lid off the secret NIH royalty payments, told the Epoch Times earlier today that more sunlight is essential to root such corruption out of The Swamp:

“The concern here is about foreign threats to the integrity and security of U.S. biomedical research. Without reporting compliance, there is no way of knowing the sheer scale of foreign corruption,” he said.

“Furthermore, it’s an open invitation for bad actors to hop on the $31 billion NIH grant-making gravy-train. Without good reporting and data, there’s no way to know just how much U.S.  intellectual property is at risk of being stolen.”

By the way, if you aren’t familiar with Open the Books, you should be if you care about recovering our constitutional republic because the group is doing tremendous work to promote transparency and accountability of government at all levels.

FACT-CHECKING BIDEN’S PRIDE SPEECH: The Washington Stand’s Joshua Arnold took a close look at a bunch of claims by President Job Biden in his speech last week commemorating Pride Month. Conclusion? The Chief Executive has a real problem telling the truth.

EVEN MOST DEMS NOW SAY IT’S BIDEN’S INFLATION: Latest results from the Issues & Insights/TIPP Poll may well prompt a wider exit from the Biden White House. Fully 53 percent of the Democrats responding to the poll, which has a 2.8 percent MOE, say Biden’s policies are the main cause of the inflation now ravaging the country.

$500M EXAMPLE OF THE SWAMP AT WORK: Work for Obama, help launch NGO, work for NGO and lobby former colleagues, work for Biden, help NGO get big bucks from U.S. taxpayers.

STUDY POINTS TO FATHERLESSNESS IN RISING CRIME: The study by three researchers at the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) identifies the absence of a father in a boy’s life as a key factor driving spiraling crime, failure in school, suicides and unemployment.

“The predicament of the American male is of particular importance here. The percentage of boys living apart from their biological father has almost doubled since 1960 — from about 17 percent to 32 percent today; now, an estimated 12 million boys are growing up in families without their biological father,” the IFS researchers write.

“Specifically, approximately 62.5 percent of boys under 18 are living in an intact-biological family, 1.7 percent are living in a step-family with their biological father and step- or adoptive mother, 4.2 percent are living with their single, biological father, and 31.5 percent are living in a home without their biological father.”

As one example of the negative impact of an absent father, the researchers found boys from an intact home with a father present are twice as likely to earn a college degree as boys without fathers present.

FEDS TOOK PANDEMIC PARTYING SERIOUSLY: Internal documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon’s Patrick Hauf report a survey that found a quarter of employees at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) didn’t check their email at all during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Not only that, but they didn’t even login to the government office suite that would enable them to work from home, as they were required to be doing.

DECLINING PUBLIC TRUST IN NON-PROFITS: Capital Research Center’s Michael Hartmann looks at new data showing a decline in confidence in the non-profit sector. Even among Democrats, significantly less than half, 44 percent, say they have confidence in non-profits, GOPers and the general public 10 points below that.

Among the frequently cited reasons for the declining trust is “inappropriate political agendas.” Since the non-profit sector — defined as tax-exempt foundations and corporate charitable giving units — is and long has been overwhelmingly liberal and Democrat, there’s a message here.