IF YOU CAN READ, THANK A BELIEVER: It’s a forgotten fact that universities, before the Left’s Long March into dominance of the classrooms and the academic bureaucracy, were very much the work of “Jesus Followers.” Four institutions that began in England in the 7th Century as Cathedral schools, for example, are still open today, the oldest continuously operating classrooms in the world.

In fact, according to J. Warner Wallace in his new book, “Person of Interest,” the concept of universal education and literacy is rooted in the idea that everybody should know how to read (and thus also write and think, hopefully, logically) in order to understand God’s Word.

Wallace lays out the long line of people, beginning in the ancient world with folks like Justin Martyr, Ignatius of Antioch and Augustine, then Benedict of Nursia, Cassiodorus and Charlemagne in the centuries following the fall of Rome, followed by Gutenberg, La Salle, Luther and Calvin and others in the Reformation and Enlightenment, and on into the modern era, with Thomas Gallaudet (for the deaf), Father Louis Braille (for the blind), and Freidrich Froebel (kindergarten).

It’s a fact from history that’s rarely mentioned these days. The true Philistines are those ripping out genuine learning, substituting mass-think ideology, and in the process bringing on a new Dark Age.

WHY ARE WE JUST NOW READING THIS? Alana Goodman at the Washington Free Beacon reports this morning that Terry McAuliffe took $350,000 donation from a foreign-owned company linked to an overseas money laundering probe.

IS BONHOEFFER’S ‘STUPIDITY’ KEY TO UNDERSTANDING TODAY? The German pastor/theologian’s analysis of the role of stupidity in the rise and rule of Hitler rings steadily more relevant as the rotten fruit of the Left’s stifling dominance of media, entertainment and academia becomes ever clearer.

THIS ‘NEWS STORY’ EPITOMIZES THE DEATH OF REAL JOURNALISM: Roll Call piece is a barely concealed appeal for censorship of non-leftist viewpoints: “Karen Kornbluh, who directs the Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, described how social media algorithms can quickly lure a user from innocuous political content to instructional videos for forming a militia.”

It’s all the fault of the algorithms, not the little dictators in the cubicles or the big ones in the executive suites. And the solution, as always, is to let government control the algorithms.

WISCONSIN SHERIFF SAYS ELECTION COMMISSION BROKE THE LAW: Just the News reports that Racine County, Wisconsin, Sheriff Christopher Schmaling said his investigation found credible evidence the state’s election commission “shattered” the law in 2020.

DON’T COUNT THOSE VIRGINIA CHICKENS JUST YET: Stella Morabito in The Federalist points to multiple reasons for skepticism about those “free and fair” election claims repeatedly being made by Virginia Democrats.

WE WERE MADE IN AN ALIEN RESEARCH LAB: But it was the lab of an alien in an extraordinarily advanced technological civilization quite beyond our present understanding of things, according to Harvard theoretical physicist Avi Loeb.

Being a mere journalist, I, ever-so- humbly, take Loeb’s conjectural analysis at face value and offer three suggested flaws therein, then point to an analysis he offered on another occasion as the proper, broader context for understanding his perspective.

Loeb is a genius-level guy and his reasoning and insights should intrigue anybody who cares about the cosmic origins issues. And he has a sense of humor, as seen in his observation that “when I tell students at Harvard University that half of them are below the median of their class, they get upset.”

LEFTY ARCHEOLOGISTS FIND THE ‘REAL’ CONSTITUTION: Leave it to Jeff Dunetz of The Lid to dig up this bombshell of a story about a group of whacked-out archeologists’ discovery of the Constitution of 1790.

They found it in a cave on the Potomac River. Scrawled on one of the walls was a wise saying written in something of an ancient, as-yet-untranslated language. See if you can figure it out: “Etslay Ogay Andonbray”

BIDEN HEADS TO CLIMATE SUMMIT AS CHINA EXPANDS FOSSIL FUEL IMPORTS: Don’t expect to read about it in the New York Times or Washington Post, but China is aggressively expanding its oil and natural gas exploration and production, particularly in the resource-rich South China Sea, according to a new report from the Institute for Energy Research (IER).

THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AND IT WILL BE AWESOME WHEN IT DOES: That corollary to Rod Dreher’s Law of Merited Impossibility is the suggestion of Nathaniel Blake, as he explains why the liberal elites are now pushing polygamy/polyamory as the next social/sexual milestone. That’s the one they assured us a decade ago would never come about. You could look it up.

THIS IS ABUSE OF POWER: Attorney General Merrick Garland appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee today and odds are one of the issues he will be queried about is why his department is not respecting an age-old congressional rule.

That rule is the minority party in Congress gets the same access to executive branch information as the majority party in congressional investigations. But, according to The Federalist, Garland’s Department of Justice and the FBI are ignoring that rule concerning information requests from the House Select Committee on the January 6 riot, as are other executive branch departments and agencies.

“On September 3, [Rep. Jim] Banks asked FBI Director Christopher Wray to give Republican lawmakers the same briefing offered to the Democrats on the progress of the agency’s own investigation. Partial findings of the FBI’s independent investigation were leaked to Reuters in August, which found ‘scant evidence’ the Capitol riot was ‘an organized plot to overturn the president election result.’ Wray has not responded to the request.

“’Pursuant to the rules of the House of Representatives, the minority party in Congress retains the rights to the same information that is provided to the majority party,’ Banks wrote in another letter to Wray on Sept. 16, which was also sent to several other federal agencies such as the Interior Department. ‘I ask that you provide me any information that is submitted to the Select Committee.’ His requests have been met with radio silence across the Biden administration.”

Based on his recent performance before the House Judiciary Committee, don’t be surprised if Garland is vague, evasive, less than candid, disingenuous, some combination of all four if the senators query him on this issue.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER: Former Clinton Global Initiative Co-Chair Steve Bachar has been indicted on felony theft and securities fraud counts. Known for pushing “socially responsible” investing, Bachar claims the charges are “outrageous, unfounded, and false.”

MAINSTREAM MEDIA SELLING ‘NEWS:’ Chuck Ross and Santi Ruiz of the Washington Free Beacon expose the bought news stories sold by Politico, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, and Wired to Huawei. Huawei is one of the major digital tools of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime in Beijing. The Pentagon considers Huawei a national security risk for the U.S.

“The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Reuters, and Politico have all published news-style pieces commissioned by the Chinese telecom giant to advance its interests, according to a Washington Free Beacon review. Since July, Reuters has published two sponsored articles touting Huawei’s investments in the United Kingdom.

“The Journal has published 14 sponsored articles since last year, while Wired has hosted virtual events sponsored by the tech giant. Politico ran pro-Huawei content last year. The articles disclose that Huawei sponsors the content, though the company’s ties to the Chinese government may not be apparent to readers.”

Those ties ought to be apparent to the news organizations, however, which reminds, again, of Lenin’s quip that capitalists will sell the rope used to hang them.

SO YOU THINK YOU WANT TO CHALLENGE THE MANDATE: Liberty Counsel (LC) is representing legions of civilian and military federal employees, as well as state and local government workers, and employees of airlines and other corporations, in challenging President Biden’s Covid vaccination mandate on religious and other constitutional grounds.

Thanks to Biden, millions of Americans face a December 8 deadline for making a decision on this issue. They face the prospect of losing their jobs if they don’t comply.  Mat Staver, LC’s co-founder and chairman, has an excellent video that explains in detail what is involved in such a challenge.

If you are considering defying the mandate, you would be well-advised to give Staver a serious listen. Even if you aren’t, you should be aware of the significant legal and other challenges that people who are must deal with and overcome.

Other public interest legal foundations are also providing help on the mandate, including Alliance Defending Freedom and the First Liberty Institute. It really is quite amazing that we Americans still retain so much individual liberty and have effective and affordable avenues for upholding our liberty.

THEY’RE THE RIGHT SORT OF DEFENDANTS: Remember back when the U.S. government was confining hundreds of captured terrorists at Gitmo and actually, you know, even prosecuting some of them? There were dozens of law firms offering those defendants pro bono legal services because otherwise they would be without a competent defense.

But more recently, there are hundreds of Trump supporters who were captured January 6 who have been confined for months since then at D.C., some of whom are being prosecuted and all of whom have been branded as “domestic terrorists” by influential government officials and media figures.

Many of these defendants need pro bono legal services, too. But curiously, as Allison Schuster of The Federalist writes, “not one of the legal firms that assisted Gitmo terrorists have helped any of those charged with ties to January 6.” Surely this must be coincidental, right? Right???

KERRY DIDN’T GET THE MESSAGE: About China being the Biden gang’s territory, that is. Alana Goodman at the Washington Free Beacon reports John Kerry has a $1 million stake in the Hillhouse China Value Fund, LLP. And what is that, you might be asking?

“Last December, that private equity fund, Hillhouse China Value Fund L.P., purchased a 6 percent stake in LONGi Green Energy, a Chinese solar panel manufacturer, making it the company’s second largest shareholder,” Goodman reports.

“LONGi has come under fire from human rights groups and U.S. lawmakers for sourcing many of its raw materials from companies suspected of using forced labor in Xinjiang, a region in northwest China where the government has cracked down on the Uyghur population and other ethnic minorities.”

Somebody better let Kerry know about the territory thing; otherwise, there’s going to be blood in the street and, as all smart mobsters know, it’s not good for business when da boyz is killin’ each uddah.

SCHOOL BOARD LETTER RETRACTED: It happened Friday, so it got little coverage, but that National School Board Association letter on parents and “domestic terrorism” that prompted Attorney General Merrick Garland’s memo has been retracted, Washington Free Beacon reports.

GOD’S NOT DEAD: WE THE PEOPLE – Warning! Trailer contains scenes of parental domestic terrorism that may be upsetting to some (the Woke).

VAX RATE NOW LOWER UNDER BIDEN: His Fraudulency claims at every turn that his vaccine mandates are working, but, as Issues & Insights points out, the reality is the daily rate of Americans getting the jab is lower today than they were just before he announced them in September.

And A I&I points out, “vaccination rates are no guarantee that COVID rates will decline. The United Kingdom, to cite on example, is right now experiencing a surge in COVID cases, even though 73 percent of its population is either fully or partially vaccinated.

“In contrast, new COVID cases have been steadily falling in Mexico in recent weeks, where only 40 percent of the population is fully vaccinated and another 14 percent partially so.”

TRUMP, BIDEN IN VIRTUAL DEAD HEAT: What if the 2020 presidential election were re-run, matching Donald Trump and Joe Biden? Looks like a dead heat, with an ever-so-slight lead for the latter, according to the latest Issues & Insights/TIPP poll.

“The data come from the October I&I/TIPP Poll of 1,308 adults was conducted online from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2 by TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, I&I’s polling partner. The analysis for this story is based 955 Americans who voted in 2020 and revealed their 2020 vote.  The margin of error for the analysis is +/-3.3 percentage points.

“In it, we asked: ‘If the presidential election were held today, and the following were the candidates, for whom would you vote?’ Respondents were given the choices of ‘Donald Trump,’ ‘Joe Biden,’ ‘Other,’ or ‘Not sure.’ Overall, Biden still leads Trump by 45 percent to 44 percent, with 6 percent choosing ‘other’ and 5 percent saying ‘not sure.'”

One can only wonder how, after what’s happened since January 20, such a result could still be obtained.

MAYBE WHISTLING IN THE DARK: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is all bubbly and excited because, she told reporters this morning, “We had a very positive meeting this morning; I’m very optimistic. It’s exciting, because whatever it is, it’s going to be bigger than anything we’ve ever done for the American people.”

That last “for” should probably be “to.” Note: If you have a couple of wavering votes, one way to push them across is to announce the deal is all but done, so they will finally cave.

WHAT THEY’RE TEACHING OUR KIDS: If you doubt for one second the seriousness of the issues involved in who decides what children in public schools are taught, watch the uncensored version of the Virginia “textbook.” Barring a public rebellion, if it’s not already, this garbage will soon be in public schools across the country.

AMERICA’S TWO COUNTER-CULTURES: The Washington Free Beacon’s Matthew Continetti sees America riven by the conflict between two counter-cultures, one on the Left and one on the Right, with what once was called “the Silent Majority” trapped between the combatants.

GARLAND ADMITS HE MISSED OCT. 14 VIOLENCE: Attorney General Merrick Garland admitted to Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) that he was not aware of the violent assault mounted October 14 by Left-wing extremists against the Department of Interior headquarters building in Washington, D.C. The Florida congressman was amazed.

WORLD’S OLDEST CRAB FOUND IN AMBER: Meet Cretapsara, a 100 million-year old crab remarkably preserved in Amber, according to phys.org.  It appears to have been unearthed somewhere in the vicinity of Myitkyina, Burma, and was obtained by researchers in China.

Being a long-time resident of Maryland, which is all about crabs, this discovery instantly caught my eye. Fossils found in amber typically are land creatures, so finding a crab preserved in this manner is extraordinarily rare.