GOT YOUR VETO PEN READY, GOV. YOUNGKIN? Liberty Unyielding’s Hans Bader concedes that the chances of it ever arriving on the new Virginia governor’s desk are likely remote. Even so, there is a bipartisan proposal in the state legislature to allow a ‘second look” by judges in the Commonwealth and possible early release convicted violent offenders serving long sentences.

“The Virginia bill would let inmates who have committed even the most violent crimes such as murder seek release after ten years in prison if they committed the crime before age 25, or after 15 years in prison if they committed their crime after turning 25. By contrast, Washington, DC’s law only allows people who committed their crimes at under age 25 to seek release, after they have served 15 years in prison,” Bader writes.

“In short, the Virginia bill would allow most criminals serving life sentences to seek release; the DC law lets only a minority of criminals serving life sentences seek release. Even so, DC’s law made 583 violent criminals (including many murderers and rapists) eligible for an earlier release. And its backers want to expand the law to cover crimes committed at all ages,” he adds.

You know, it’s like the sponsors of such proposals are mad at law-abiding Americans and want to see us suffer.

MOST SAY RELIGION UNDER ATTACK IN THE U.S.: The results aren’t surprising to anybody who has been paying attention in recent decades, but the latest Issues & Insights/TIPP Survey digs deep into the details.

Majorities of evangelicals, Catholics and Protestants agree the faith faces growing official and cultural hostility, but only minorities of the Orthodox and Jewish  as well as those of “Another Religion” or “No Religion”  share that view.

Similarly, majorities of those interviewed living in the Midwest and South see the hostility but only minorities of those living in the Northeast and West. Only one age group — 18-24 — has less than a majority.

DOJ CHARGES OATH KEEPERS WITH ‘SEDITIOUS CONSPIRACY:’ Interestingly, the DOJ announcement describes the charges with reference to the statute’s inclusion of efforts to oppose or delay execution of a law, not its reference “to conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them …” But watch, the MSM and the Schumer/Pelosi crowd will frame it rhetorically as if the defendants are being charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government.

SINEMA PUTS FILIBUSTER REFORM OUT OF ITS MISERY: The Arizona Democrat delivers a heartfelt explanation of her vote. She’s wrong on so much else, but not on this one.

WHICH WAY, KEVIN MCCARTHY? Like handing a starving man half a Whopper is one way of describing House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s four-point platform for 2022. But Rachel Bovard’s analysis of the California Republican is much more bracing, including this (emphasis added):

“If you’re sensing shades of elections ranging from 1984 to 2012, you’re not alone. Minus the aberration that was Trump, the Republican Party has been promising the exact same set of goals for my entire lifetime, regardless of what is actually happening in the country. One suspects that a nuclear winter could befall the entire North American continent and Republicans would struggle mightily through the fallout to declare they have the solution to the problem: the reauthorization of the Keystone Pipeline.

“It’s not that these policies are wrong or even misplaced. They’re simply mis-prioritized. Yes, more enforcement at the border, making life better for small businesses, securing American energy independence, and enforcing parental choice are good and absolutely necessary policy goals. But they also represent the absolute baseline expectations that voters should have from an even marginally competent Republican party.”

OLD GUARD GOP’S INSANE STRATEGY ON VOTING RIGHTS REFORM: Democrats claim democracy will die if elections aren’t federalized to keep those racist Republicans from making a repeat of 2020 impossible. Old Guard Republicans, according to Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist, are totally out to lunch on the issue.

“The Washington Post this month reported that at least 69 percent of Republicans are seriously concerned about the 2020 election. Perhaps the worst thing a party could do if it cared about serious political power would be to signal that the issue means so little to them. This pathetic cowardice and incompetent weakness are exactly what Republican voters are sick to death of,” Hemingway writes.

This is yet another illustration of why the GOP Establishment so richly deserves its label as the “stupid party.”

ABOUT THAT BRAIN CELL THAT ‘LEARNED TO PLAY PONG:’ It’s an amazing development, to be sure, but there’s a lot more to the story than is being reported.

GUY IN A CANADIAN LAB CREATES A DNA ANTENNA: Wow, what will they think of next after using DNA to build a tiny antenna that tracks the movements of proteins. Next comes a new and improved! version of God’s nanotechnology Bacterial Flagellum?

CHUCK SCHUMER, MEET CHUCK SCHUMER: Today, the filibuster is killing democracy, so it must be abolished. Once upon a time not that long ago (2005, to be exact), the filibuster had to be protected to save democracy. Well, Mr. Senate Majority Leader, which Chuck Schumer are we to heed?

ONE THING YOU DON’T WANT IN AMERICA: That would be, according to James Madison, Alexis de Tocqueville and more than a few other really wise folks, a tyranny of the majority. Jeff Dunetz at The Lid tells us such a tyranny is the key issue underlying this week’s debate in the U.S. Senate on whether to abolish the filibuster.

UVA PROF PRAISES ‘AUTHORITARIAN ENVIRONMENTALISM:’ Believe the Leftists when they say they will enslave you because they will.

GOTTA WATCH RAND PAUL FILET FAUCI, AGAIN: Dr. Faux Chi’s studied outrage just doesn’t stand up well at all to Sen. Rand Paul’s thoroughly documented cross-examination.

WHY ARE THESE RIGHT FIGURES BACKING DRIVE TO ABOLISH ELECTORAL COLLEGE? If you think only Left-wingers man the continuing effort to abolish the Electoral College so the popular vote in a few Blue States like New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey can dominate presidential elections, think again.

Hayden Ludwig of the Capital Research Center has a lengthy, detailed and documented analysis in The American Conservative that puts the spotlight on Saul Anuzis and others from the ranks of the Conservative side of American politics who are working with the Left on this campaign that is only a handful of states away from ensuring no Republican ever again is elected President.

‘The Chosen’ Producer Answers Critics: Dallas Jenkins responds to critics of the most successful-ever, audience-funded digital entertainment series, about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Seems there have been some questions about his faith, whether the series is adding to or taking away from Scripture, and if non-Christians are involved in the production.

MAYBE THE HIGH COURT SHOULD BE REDUCED: Democrats want to pack the Supreme Court, increasing its number to 13 justices. But listening to the questions from the liberal justices during Friday’s oral arguments on President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates may suggest there should be fewer, not more, justices.

DID THEY MISS THESE YESTERDAY? Eight times Leftists busted into government buildings and assaulted democracy, as compiled by Kylee Zempel of The Federalist.

TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME DEFINES JAN6 MEMORIALS: Hard to see how it could be more obvious.

THIS IS WHERE DEMS ARE TAKING JANUARY 6: This quote in The Hill today from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) captures it succinctly: “The point is that the constitutional purpose is clear, to keep people exactly like Donald Trump and other traitors to the union from holding public office.”

Raskin is referring to Section Three of the 14th Amendment, which was approved as a means of preventing former Confederates of any rank from holding elected office after the Civil War. The provision bans any individual who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies” of the Constitution.

There are presently only a dozen or so in Congress who agree with Raskin, according to The Hill, and a few as well in the academic world. But don’t think there won’t be more after today’s hyper-partisan January 6 “memorials.”

Since the constitutional penalty for treason is death, what the Raskins of the Democratic Party want is to return politics to the blood sport it was for centuries before 1789 in which losing meant a trip to the gallows, the chopping block or a firing squad.

THE BEST JANUARY 6 ANALYSIS YOU’LL FIND ANYWHERE TODAY: Joseph Hanneman is a veteran Wisconsin-based journalist, now working for The Epoch Times. His analysis of what really/may have/certainly didn’t happened a year ago today is copiously documented, rigorously detailed and penetrating, especially with regard to the credible evidence that the role of federal agents in the day’s events very much needs to be publicly, objectively and thoroughly investigated in order for the American people to know the full truth.

YES, JANUARY 6 IS A BIG DEAL: This was the day in history, just to pick one momentous example of the many cited by Issues & Insights, that George Washington married Mary Dandridge Custis in 1759. And January 6, 1540, was also the day Henry VIII married wife number four, Ann of Cleves.

Other notable January 6 milestones include, from the entertainment world, the debut in 1973 on ABC of “Schoolhouse Rock” and in 1975 on NBC of “Wheel of Fortune” with Vanna White and that other person, Slapjack, or whatever.

And yes, a year ago today, a large crowd of thoughtless fools waving signs and shouting slogans a few of whom may actually have believed, overcame a clearly unprepared, untrained U.S. Capitol Police force, penetrated the U.S. Capitol, forced a temporary suspension of Congress certifying the 2020 presidential election results, and did an estimated $1.5 million worth of damage in an historic building full of priceless paintings, statutes, architecture and memories.

By the evening, order was restored, Congress resumed its business and democracy survived. As a noted advocacy group endlessly said some years ago on behalf of a president facing impeachment, participants in today’s political theatricals should realize that it’s past time to “Move On.”

UPDATE: My goodness, I have stirred up a hornet’s nest here. Just to be clear, here’s why I linked to the I & I editorial – Today’s “memorials” will be non-stop lying by Schumer/Pelosi/Biden/MSM talking heads claiming that January 6, 2021, was an attempted coup staged to install a fascist junta run by a bunch of Far-Right Extremists bent on keeping Donald Trump in the Oval Office. If that’s what you think was the aim of the protestors at the Capitol that day, I can assure you that Schumer/Pelosi/Biden/MSM are eagerly cheering you on. Maybe you should think about that.

WHAT DID PELOSI DECIDE AND WHEN ON JAN6: That’s the question House Republicans are asking with increasing intensity these days as the Speaker refuses to cough up requested documents about her role in the days leading up to and including January 6.

DON’T WEEP FOR THE POLAR BEARS: Jeff Dunetz at The Lid kept seeing a World Wildlife Foundation saying the big white beasts of the North face a grim future because the Artic Iceshelf is melting. But that’s not what Jeff found when he investigated the claim.

BIDEN TO PUT MEN IN WOMEN’S JAILS: And so the insanity marches on, with His Fraudulency preparing an executive order that, according to The Federalist, which obtained a draft copy, will enable men who claim to feel like women to transfer to women’s jails.

WHEN THEY PRY MY COLD, DEAD HANDS: Off the steering wheel of my pickup, though the same will apply when they come after my 1911 R1 and my 1873 Springfield 45-70 U.S. Calvary Carbine. If you recall the Anti-Destination League, you know exactly what I mean.

READY TO ROLL THE DICE ON THE NEW YEAR? Speaking of it being 2022 and all, Justin Brierley of UnBelievable does some rolling of the dice and a little calculating of the odds and concludes the little white squares with the funny black dots point to the existence of you know Who!