CONFORMITY CAN GET US ALL KILLED: Stella Morabito, writing in The Federalist, offers this bracing suggestion:

“Sure, a certain level of conformity is normal for a society to function. But an unchecked conformity impulse in a technological society like ours acts more like slow-motion suicide than a survival mechanism. We think we’re saving ourselves by conforming, but in the long run the opposite is true.”

Helps explain the high level of American conformity with, for example, mask mandates that clearly aren’t effective at preventing the spread of COVID-19. May also say something about why Wokeism is so difficult to resist for so many people. And perhaps even why this kind of mindless savagery is becoming such a commonplace on American campuses.

RENAME IT ‘GEORGETOWN AGIT-PROP FACTORY:’ The lunatics are clearly in charge now at Georgetown University Law School.

WHY DID NIH DELETE COVID GENETIC SEQUENCING INFO? It might have helped determine the origin of the Pandemic that has killed 6 million people around the world, but when the Wuhan lab in China asked NIH to delete the info from its database, it was gone, according to documents Empower Oversight obtained via a FOIA suit.

SANITY FROM HOUSE GOPER ON SECTION 230: Less Government’s Seton Motley offers a roundup of evidence that Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is on the right track for corralling Big Tech censorship and monopoly on expression.

FRESH APPROACH TO FAMILIAR EVIDENCE: Liberty University Philosophy Professor Dr. Gary Habermas asks a simple question: Why was Paul-ne-Saul so angry with Christians in the months following Jesus’ crucifixion and claimed Resurrection that he was willing to go great distances to arrest, jail and condemn them?

What Habermas offers by way of answers amounts to a fresh approach to the mountains of familiar evidence about the Resurrection, the Gospels and the earliest church, as he explains this morning on HillFaith. And it presents new challenges for those who claim the Resurrection was a later invention years after the execution.

VIP ARCHEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY (MAYBE): Some biblical critics contend the Hebrews were not a literate society when they entered the Promised Land, therefore the Old Testament could not have been written until much later. But now a recent archeological discovery in Israel, according to Dr. Sean McDowell on HillFaith, potentially sheds immensely important new light on the issue.

UPDATE: Just read through the 60 comments now on this post and I have to say thank you (especially Tex Taylor) for the great discussion among so many of you, including the references to additional sources and the role of literacy versus oral tradition. I didn’t expect this post to get much comment, so this is an unexpected blessing.

KICK’EM WHEN THEY’RE DOWN (AND BLACK, CONSERVATIVE AND INTER-RACIALLY MARRIED): The Squad and the Mainstream Media are now targeting the Supreme Court’s lone Black Justice, Clarence Thomas, who was just released from the hospital earlier this week, and wife, Virginia Thomas, who, oh by the way, just happens to be White. Rather than “The Squad,” how about the “Raving Lunatic Lefty Caucus” (RLLC)?

GET RID OF THE CLASSICS? You might as well get rid of man’s ability to think logically, recognize genuine beauty and appreciate the enduring virtues. Other than that, says Jessica Hooten Wilson on this morning’s HillFaith, no big deal.

HOUSE GOP, HERITAGE FOUNDATION LINING UP 2023 PROBES: After how the Obama crowd laughed at House Republican subpoenas and other traditional enforcement tactics (such as holding then-AG Holder in contempt of Congress) for eight years, Right and independent voters are understandably skeptical when they hear familiar promises of aggressive oversight of Biden come 2023.

But getting a look at the preparations that have been underway for several months, hearing details of lessons learned from the Obama era failures, and examining declarations of willingness to get tough in ways that were unseen last time, taken together suggests that House GOP leadership should get a carefully measured benefit of the doubt.

If they fail again as before, it really won’t matter because, as Ronald Reagan so eloquently said so often, once constitutional liberty is lost, it is all but impossible to regain. Pray the current generation of House Republicans understand that fact. Some of us have been warning them for a long time.

FORMER NYTIMES SCIENCE WRITER EXPOSES THE CON: Nicholas Wade strikes again, this time exposing for the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal the reasons why so many science “reporters” are so credulous about the people they cover. Essentially, the explanation is that they view scientists as demi-gods:

“Why are science writers so little able to report objectively on the origin of the virus? Innocent of most journalists’ skepticism about human motives, science writers regard scientists, their authoritative sources, as too Olympian ever to be moved by trivial matters of self-interest.

“Their daily job is to relay claims of impressive new discoveries, such as advances toward curing cancer or making paralyzed rats walk. Most of these claims come to nothing—research is not an efficient process—but science writers and scientists alike benefit from creating a stream of pleasant illusions. The journalists get their stories, while media coverage helps researchers attract government grants.”

WILL BIDEN BACK CAR-LESS SUNDAYS? The International Energy Agency (IEA) is proposing it and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is pushing it, so how long before Joe tells us we can’t drive on Sunday?

DOES ANYBODY THINK JUDGE JACKSON REALLY DOESN’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT CRITICAL RACE THEORY: I didn’t think so, either, but then six months ago, I couldn’t even spell journalist and today I are one!

THEY JUST CAN’T GIVE IT UP: The power over the parents and kids trapped in the Chicago Public Schools system, that is. Yet more evidence that teachers unions, like federal employee unions, are among the worst ideas ever.

BIDEN DONOR’S ROI: Joe Kiani is one of President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign donors. He’s also founder and CEO of a medical devices company, and he just happens to be a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Can you guess the thrust of the next few sentences? Here’s a hint, courtesy of Washington Free Beacon’s Joseph Simonson and Matthew Foldi: Joe is very generous with other people’s money, specifically yours and mine.

NO, CAMELS DON’T STORE WATER IN THEIR HUMP(S): An unexpected zoology lesson on HillFaith this morning. Come on, admit it, you thought they did, too. Hey, it is Wednesday, so it’s Hump Day, right?

IT’S NOT JUST HUNTER’S LAPTOP AT ISSUE: Now that the New York Times got around to “verifying” it’s authenticity, according to Margot Cleveland in The Federalist, the controversy over the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop is mainly about the eight scandals indicated therein that directly involve the senior citizen occupying the Oval Office:

“Merely admitting the laptop is legitimate is not enough. Rather, by concurring in the authenticity of the laptop and the emails, the supposed standard-bearers of journalism have also implicitly acknowledged the validity of the scandals spawn by the porn-filled MacBook.

“And notwithstanding the salacious source of the documentary evidence of the scandals, the scandals are not about Hunter Biden: They are about now-President Biden,” Cleveland writes. Another Cleveland must-read.

A GRIPPING CONVERSATION AT THE WELL: If you have not availed yourself of the opportunity to watch “The Chosen” — the most successful-ever crowd-funded entertainment series — check out this scene on HillFaith this morning of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan Woman at Jacob’s Well.

Besides the superb acting — Olivia Lane’s gripping emotional projection is memorable — the dialogue between her and Jesus and the manner in which He directs it is well worth contemplation. And don’t miss Jonathan Roumie’s laconic humor at the end.

ALL THE QUESTIONS FOR JACKSON: That won’t be asked even though they should be asked but can’t be asked because Democrats will not permit them to be asked even though they asked them of previous GOP nominees. More essential reading from Issues & Insights.

WHAT ARE DEMS HIDING IN JACKSON CONFIRMATION? For reasons that remain unexplained, officials at the U.S. Sentencing Commission, where Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson formerly served as Vice-Chairman, are withholding key documents about her tenure.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, isn’t happy that his request for those docs has been denied. Grassley tried to enlist panel chairman, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), to help. No deal, which may have surprised Grassley since he and Durbin just last week during Sunshine Week co-sponsored a bill to require televised Supreme Court proceedings.

BETTER OFF TODAY THAN IN JANUARY 2021?: Uh, no, Americans say, by a 4-1 margin in the latest I&I/TIPP Poll. 

“Biden’s recent speeches have included references to the ‘best economic growth in the last four decades … We did it alone. Without one single solitary Republican vote. It was the Democrats — it was you — that brought us back,’” Biden told House Democrats during their recent Philadelphia retreat, Issues & Insights points out.

“If that’s the message, Americans don’t seem to be buying it. And a big reason for that is likely the sudden scary surge in inflation, which hits low- and middle-class Americans hardest of all,” Issues & Insights continues.

“While wage gains have averaged 5% or higher for four straight months, unfortunately, inflation during the same period has surged by an annual rate of over 7%, and looks likely to go even higher.”

IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THANK JESUS: That could easily be the message this morning on HillFaith from former NBC “Dateline” cold-case murder expert J. Warner Wallace. We’re not simply talking McGuffey’s Reader here, either.

It took centuries, and not without a lot of stumbling and bumbling along the way, but the fact education moved from an elitist privilege to our present expectation of common availability resulted from five characteristics of the faith movement He founded.

RICHARD DAWKINS WON’T LIKE IT: But I make a brief case on HillFaith this morning that the books of both Dawkins and Stephen Meyer, one of his chief sparring partners in the “New Atheists” versus “Intelligent Design” debate, are in themselves evidence of who is right and who is wrong.

POTEMKIN JOURNALISM: This graph from Andrew Stiles on conditions in the Courier Newsroom: “Several current and former employees complained that McGowan and other political operatives in leadership roles ‘have no news background’ and aren’t interested in doing actual journalism. On the contrary, these employees said ‘honest journalism’ was ‘actively discouraged’ in favor of “propaganda” that is ‘only concerned with the agenda of the progressive left’ and the overlapping interests of Courier’s billionaire backers, including George Soros and Apple widow Laurene Powell Jobs.

DEMS’ HILL OFFICES STILL CLOSED: Doesn’t really matter since members of the public are still unable to visit their representatives without a prior appointment, which they can’t make if the official’s office is closed.

Washington Free Beacon’s Joseph Simonson and Matthew Foldi remind that “the decision to work remotely is enabled by Democratic leadership, which put into place a proxy voting system that has allowed voters to vote without showing up to work. One Florida Democrat, Rep. Frederica Wilson, failed to register a single in-person vote in 2021. Her office remains closed.”

MODERATE HOUSE DEM TELLS PARTY LEADERS TO SHOVE IT: Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) sat down with Politico to discuss her decision not to seek re-election in 2022. Her description of what Pelosi and company did to her and the handful of other moderates is a devastating indictment.