NEW CULTURAL REVOLUTION IN CHINA: Writing in The Federalist, Helen Raleigh tells us Zhao Wei was a prominent television figure, director and businesswoman in China, but you won’t find any trace of her these days. She’s been erased, at least digitally.

“Within a day or two of Wei’s disappearance, a blog applauding the government’s actions went viral in China. It predicates ‘the red has returned’ and ‘a profound transformation or revolution’ is underway in China. The blog was written by Li Guangman and posted on WeChat, another Twitter-like Chinese social media platform.

“Since Li is not well-known in China, few would have paid any attention to him in normal circumstances. Even in China, a fervent far-left Maoist like Li is in the minority. Yet something curious happened: All major state media, such as People’s Daily and other social media platforms, re-posted Li’s blog with the same headline: ‘Everyone Can Sense That a Profound Change is Underway!’ Welcome to Xi’s China’s Cultural Revolution 2.0.”

ALL ROADS LEAD TO HEAVEN? Well, all but one of them share a particular  characteristic that sets them opposite of the exception, according to cold-case detective J. Warner Wallace, who knows a thing or three about persons of interest. Thus falls another misconception about that itinerant preacher from Nazareth (Galilee, not Pennsylvania). The latter’s most famous guy is Mario Andretti of Indy and F1 fame.

AMERICA SAYS CUT FEDERAL SPENDING: That sounds like a headline from the Reagan era, but in fact it’s what Issues & Insights found in its latest TIPP Survey on the state of the nation and the economy. As usual, what common-sense Americans want and what the Washington Establishment is focused on are polar opposites.

Observes I&I:

“The data conveys a strong message to Washington. Now is not the time to engage in social engineering. Washington is simply out of touch to even contemplate, let alone pass, such massive spending bills [ Biden’s $3.5 trillion spending explosion].

“Businesses and families in the country are hurting and afraid of inflation, and they believe that big government spending is unwise. Be warned: politicians who ignore will pay dearly for their actions in the midterm elections next year.”

MANCHIN TO SWITCH PARTIES? Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) sounds like a man who is preparing to become a Republican:

“Overall, the amount we spend now must be balanced with what we need and can afford — not designed to reengineer the social and economic fabric of this nation or vengefully tax for the sake of wishful spending.”

West Virginia is turning solidly red and Manchin knows it as well as anybody.

DEMS TO PUT $100 BILLION TAX BURDEN ON THE POOR: Patrick Hauf, reporting for the Washington Free Beacon, points to a provision of His Fraudulency’s $3.5 trillion “Build Back Better” spending plan and notes it includes a huge hike in the cigarette tax.

Vaping would also be taxed for the first time if the provision becomes law. Why is this a tax burden on the poor? Because they smoke at three times the rate of the rest of the population. One wonders if this proposal will light up lower income voters to vote for Republicans who promise to repeal Biden’s tobacco tax.

DOES HOCHUL TALK TO GOD ON HER CELL? The Lid’s Jeff Dunetz wonders exactly how the New York governor communicates with the Almighty.

FAR MORE ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACKS: Joseph Simonson of the Washington Free Beacon takes a look at the data and concludes that if you are Jewish, you are far more likely to be the victim of a hate crime in America than if you are Asian, Muslim or a transgender.

“While the media and politicians have focused on an increase of domestic hate crime attacks against Asians — a trend that has also been the centerpiece of Chinese Communist Party propaganda operations — the FBI recorded just 274 total incidents in 2020. Americans who identify as Asian make up roughly 7 percent of the U.S. population. Jews, who make up just 1.75 percent of the population, are more than twice as likely to experience hate crimes as Asian Americans,” Simonson notes.

GETTING BACK FROM MARS MIGHT BE EASIER THAN FIRST THOUGHT: It’s a long way to and from Mars, so having enough fuel to return to Earth might well seem problematic.

But maybe not, according to University of Cincinnati College of Engineering and Applied Science assistant professor Jingjie Wu. He’s got this reactor that converts C02 to methane, which can be used as rocket fuel.

WE HAVEN’T HEARD THE END OF THE ARIZONA AUDIT: Arizona’s state senate got the report Friday, according to The Epoch Times, of the audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 presidential voting and the MSM instantly reported that it gave His Fraudulency an even bigger lead than was certified early on election night. End of story, right?

Wrong. As usual, there is more, much, much more, to the story and the ball is now in the court of Arizona’s Attorney General, Mark Brnovich. He is not known as an enthusiast for the Biden administration and his promise to “take all necessary actions supported by the evidence” suggests Brnovich has a plan. This story is not over.

ABOUT THAT JONAH FISH STORY: HillFaith on one the atheists got right. (Yes, you read that right).

HOW PROGS ‘THINK’ ABOUT MANDATES: Babylon Bee nails it.

WHAT UNIVERSE DO THESE PEOPLE INHABIT? This report from The Hill only begins to illustrate how far Establishment Washington D.C. is out-of-touch with reality

ABOUT THAT PANDEMIC MURDER MYTH: Writing on Liberty Unyielding, Hans Bader takes apart the claim that rising murder rates in the U.S. are a product of the Covid Pandemic.

“Murder rates actually fell in most countries that lost many people to the coronavirus. Peru had the world’s highest coronavirus death rate per million inhabitants. Yet Peru’s homicide rate fell by more than 2% in 2020,” Bader writes.

BIDEN ‘WEAPONIZING’ THE IRS AGAINST MIDDLE AMERICA: Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas is aghast. Go to the Washington Post web site and search this: “Biden to hire 87,000 new IRS agents.” Go to the New York Times web site and search this: “Biden to hire 87,000 new IRS agents.” Zilch on both. Why do you suppose the Post and the Times are ignoring this story?

SOMEBODY ORCHESTRATED THIS: This, as in the growing crisis on our Southern border. Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Joshua Trevino has a lengthy but incredibly revealing and disturbing report from the border. It is quite likely much worse than you imagined.

(Bumped, by Glenn).

THE ANSWER IS NO: Jeffrey Rendall at CHQ asks “Do Democrats Truly Understand What Their Problem is with the Budget?” As Rendall observes: “There haven’t been any reports of book throwing or intra-caucus knife fights, but it’s getting down to crunch time and the liberals aren’t close to finalizing their grand slush fund in its full form.”

CREATIVITY IN THE HELP-WANTED SECTION: Help Wanted signs are in every storefront window these days and employers are seeking out creative new ways of getting the word to the right people about the right job.

Now along comes direct-mail czar Richard Viguerie channeling Steve Jobs and asking if you’re tired of selling sugar water. Well, are you?

CAN THE FTC BE BOUGHT? A group of Facebook shareholders think the answer to that question is yes and they have filed suit in Delaware. Their key claim is that members of the Facebook board of directors paid fines totaling $5 billion with the understanding the FTC would then spare Mark Zuckerberg from personal liability for the Cambridge Analytic data debacle. This could be litigation to watch.

NO WONDER OUR KIDS ARE SCREWED UP: Our schools and media keep telling them we’re all doomed, thanks to Climate Change, and they believe it.

‘SCIENCE UPRISING’ AND THE ELITES: Just as there is a gathering revolt against the political elites in this country, so there are a growing number of smart folks with lots of PhDs on their walls who have had it with being blackballed, denied tenure, kicked out of research granting because they dissent from the current secular materialist orthodoxy.

The Discovery Institute’s latest episode of the “Science Uprising” provides an introductory summary of Intelligent Design evidence, but more importantly, it also makes clear that this debate isn’t going away any time soon. If anything, like the Flat Earthers of the past, the secular materialists could be in for some surprises. And don’t miss those ‘Chicken and Egg’ dilemmas, either.

IRON DOME FLAP PUTS DEMS’ ANTI-SEMITISM ON FRONT BURNER: Jeff Dunetz at The Lid has the full story on how and why it happened — in a word, bigotry — and why there remains hope that $1 billion in Iron Dome funding for Israel will yet be approved by Congress.

REMEMBER ‘WRONG-WAY FELDMAN?’ No, probably not, but the guys at Issues & Insights do and they suggest “Wrong-Way Biden” is now the appropriate title for the guy in the White House who appears to also be lost in the clouds.

10 REASONS TO REJECT VACCINE PASSPORTS: Australian authorities have taken a much more authoritarian approach in several respects than the U.S. to dealing with the Covid pandemic and the availability of vaccines. So perhaps it shouldn’t surprise that an Aussie blogger, Kurt Mahlburg of Cross and Culture, offers a convincing case against vaccine passports that applies here in the states, too.

PLANTS AS RECHARGEABLE LIGHTS: What will they think of next? I can hear the neighbors complaining about not being able to sleep at night because of the bright plants.

ON LOSING A BELOVED PET: Twister, RIP, and what it all means.