MORE GOOD READS FOR THE GOOD BOOK: Latest survey of the American Bible Society and the Barna Group finds millions more Americans are reading the Christian scriptures during the Pandemic than before.

Will be interesting what happens to the trend in the next year as the Pandemic restrictions go away, especially as the overall trend has been somewhat upward since a low point in 2011 of less than a majority of Americans saying they read the Bible in the past year more than a few times.

THE SAINTLY CONSPIRACY BEGAN BEFORE 2020: Scott Walters, the Capital Research Center’s chief, pulls the curtain back on the rest of the story Mollie Ball kept out of her now-famous Time Magazine story about the Left’s shadow campaign that put Biden in the White House:

“So the ‘shadow campaign Ball claims popped up in 2020 actually predates Trump by decades. The mainstream media hasn’t reported on this sophisticated, highly coordinated effort by the Left to find ever stronger tools to turn out Democratic voters. But don’t blame the media for not knowing about it; most Republicans didn’t either.”

SAYS IT ALL: From The Daily Gouge, a thrice-weekly roundup of news, analyses and the Lighter Side from the desk of a former Navy F-14 pilot.

BIDEN ENERGY BACKERS CLEANING UP: Washington Free Beacon’s Collin Anderson and Matthew Foldi connected some green dots and found a bunch of energy folks who are doing quite well for themselves, courtesy of Joe Biden and friends:

“Shortly after becoming president, Biden virtually toured Proterra’s South Carolina plant before hosting company CEO Jack Allen at his State Department’s Leaders Summit on Climate. The move sparked a barrage of ethics concerns from federal lawmakers given that Biden’s energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, holds up to $5 million in Proterra stock. Biden’s infrastructure package includes a $45 billion government investment in ‘clean, zero-emissions buses’ such as those produced by the company.

“Other Clean Energy for Biden leaders also stand to profit from the administration’s promotion of Proterra. At least three members of the group’s finance council work as partners at venture capital firms that list Proterra on their portfolios: Energy Impact Partners‘ Shayle Kann, Ajax Strategies‘ Veery Maxwell, and G2VP‘s Brook Porter. Popple left Proterra to join G2VP in February, according to LinkedIn.”

Trust me, there is much more to come along this same line in the days ahead.

NO TRANSPARENCY IN CALIFORNIA: State Controller Helen Yee’s office issued $320 billion worth of checks but is unable to track a single one of them. That’s what her lawyers told Open the Books anyway. I’ve covered transparency-in-government issues for more than two decades and this may be the most incredible illustration ever of the lengths to which officials will go to avoid accountabillity.

WAPO’S HAWLEY HIT PIECE DRIPS DISGUST FOR MIDDLE AMERICANS: John Daniel Davidson in The Federalist looks at that Washington Post “profile” of Sen. Josh Hawley by “national political investigative reporter” Michael Kranish. You may recognize the name from two of his previous books, “Trump Revealed” and “The Real Romney.”

Davidson, who has forgotten more about real journalism than Kranish appears ever to have known, concludes the Post writer’s attack isn’t merely about the Missouri Republican, it’s really all about us.

You know, Middle American Bigots with our White Privilege, spewing on and on about Jeeezus, committing insurrection at the Capitol on January 6 and generally dragging our knuckles on the ground. Next, Kranish will “profile” that glorious apostle of tolerance and free thought, Josef Stalin.

LET’S CLEAR THIS UP: Is exercising your constitutionally guaranteed right to religious practice equivalent to imposing your religious beliefs on others? Sharon Stonestreet of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview thinks not and she offers three solid reasons why.

HOW MARK ZUCKERBERG PUT JOE BIDEN IN THE WHITE HOUSE: Writing in The American Conservative, Capital Research Center’s Hayden Ludwig reports the results of his in-depth examination of the $400 million in activities of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) during the 2020 presidential campaign and found a distinct pattern:

“Our conclusion is that across the board, the CTCL’s grants favored the biggest, most vote-rich Democratic counties, which helped turn out the most left-leaning voters in U.S. history—and secure Joe Biden as the country’s 46th president. Far from ‘nonpartisan,’ CTCL’s oceans of money made it easier for fraudsters to cheat and the Democrats to win in 2020.”

Ludwig may well be pointing to the most significant unwritten story of the 2020 election. And you can bet Zuckerberg will be looking for repeat performances in 2022 and 2024. After all, when your estimated net worth is $118 billion, $400 million every two years is barely pocket change.

WILL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM SURVIVE: Ken Starr thinks it will because America has such a robust legal bulwark and cultural tradition of protection, but Casey Chalk, writing in The Federalist, is not so sure. A bit lengthy, but well worth the reading time.

WHAT CHINA’S WUHAN LAB AND LONG MARCH 5B ROCKET HAVE IN COMMON: “Negligent” and “irresponsible” come immediately to mind, according to National Review’s Jim Geraghty.

FACTS YOU LIKELY DON’T KNOW ABOUT JERUSALEM: It is holy to three faiths, but as Jeff Dunetz points out on The Lid, there is much more about the city that most people don’t know. For instance, Jerusalem has been conquered and reconquered but did you know this about one of those conquests?

“It is noteworthy that an earlier capture of Jerusalem by the Greek-Egyptian King Ptolemy, son of Lagus, provided an opportunity for the obscure Agatharchides of Cnidus (second century BCE) to remark about the fact that the people of Jerusalem, who inhabited the most strongly fortified of cities, lost their city because they would not defend it on the Sabbath,” Dunetz writes.

And why am I pointing this out? Because Sunday, May 9 is an important day in modern history:

“Sunday night, May 9th, 2021 begins the day-long Israeli holiday called Yom Yerushalayim, which celebrates the reunification of the holy city during the six-day war in 1967, It’s a day that should be celebrated by Muslims, Christians, and Jews as the city is holy to those faiths. And unlike before 1967, when the city was occupied by Jordan, under Israeli rule holy sites are open to all faiths.”

SUPERB COVID ORIGINS READING LIST: Compiled by U.S. Right to Know, this list of credible analyses, news reports  and studies on the origins of the Covid-19 virus is continually updated. The evidence is becoming undeniable that the open-air meat market near the Wuhan lab had little or nothing to do with the spread of the disease from China to the entire world.

WHO COULD HAVE IMAGINED THIS WOULD HAPPEN: Taliban attacks in Afghanistan are on the rise, Just the News’ Susan Katz Keating reports. Note her inclusion of the key difference between the withdrawal strategies of Trump and Biden. Susan and I worked together years ago at the Washington Times. Cloning her could save American journalism from its current death spiral into propaganda.

THREE REASONS TO THINK TWICE ON GENE-EDITING: Wouldn’t it be great if cancer could be eliminated forever with gene-editing? Yes, but there may be other much less pleasant results we haven’t conceived, argues the Colson Center’s Brook McIntire, who offers three reasons to slow down, take a deep breath and think about what we’re doing and where we could be heading with this promising new technology,

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ANIFA/BLMERS CONFRONTED BY A PISTOL: Check out the video on Gateway Pundit on an incident in a Louisville  restaurant where protestors were aggressively disrupting the meal. One of the protestors is clearly armed with what looks like a Glock. Then one of the patrons pulls out his own firearm.

REMEMBER JOHN KASICH SPEAKING TO THE 2020 DNC: Issues & Insights says it’s time to compare what three prominent Never-Trumpers promised would be Joe Biden’s presidency with what it’s actually been in the first 100 days.

Let’s review: The former Ohio Republican governor told America how moderate and sensible Joe Biden would be as president. Former New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman assured America that Joe would work with everybody. And Jeff Flake, the former Arizona senator whose last name tells the story, well, he was enraptured with those “better angels” Joe would allegedly summon.

The I&I guys would like to know when we can expect apologies from these clowns. Don’t hold your breath, friends.

WILL YOU BET AGAINST PASCAL’S WAGER: Ok, this one on HillFaith today is especially for all you smart guys (and you know who you are!). Is Jesus Alive’s Erik Manning takes on Rationality Rules, Cosmic Skeptic and Genetically Modified Skeptic concerning the French mathematician’s famous wager.

And yes, it includes links to the three smart guys.

DO THESE DOTS CONNECT? Let’s see, Tristan Justice, writing for The Federalist, notes a recent Twitter piece on that Maricopa County (AZ) recount that plays into “the narrative that a thorough review of the results presents a dangerous threat to election integrity, and henceforth American democracy.”

Then, in another piece for The Federalist, we have Justice pointing out that Twitter stock fell abruptly late last week, a fact that absolutely delighted former President Donald Trump, who was banned from the social media outlet earlier this year in a blatant example of Big Tech’s censorial might.

All of which reminds me of a recent column of mine on PJ Media about the worst thing that could happen to Big Tech. Also reminds me of a certain phrase for which former First Lady Nancy Reagan became famous: “Just Say No.”

WHO DEFINES PATRIOTISM? Good question. Issues & Insights notes today that “George Washington warned us to ‘guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism,’ and Theodore Roosevelt said ‘patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official.’”

If you’re thinking somebody might want to explain that to Joe Biden — who just told Americans it’s our “patriotic duty” to wear masks outside, just point them to this I&I editorial for the facts.

MORE LAWYERS, JUST WHAT DOD NEEDS: Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Jed Babbin is puzzled by two supporters of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-NY) bill that would remove the decision whether to prosecute military sexual assault and related cases from the authority of commanders.

The two Babbin zeroes in on in the Spectator are Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). If Gillibrand’s bill becomes law, it would be a giant step in furthering destroying the ability of the world’s most powerful military to do what it’s meant to do, win the victory against all foes.

FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY IS RACIST: That is according to Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), member of The Squad and self-appointed arbiter of human relations everywhere, based on the mistaken arrest of a man due to a false facial recognition ID:

Facial recognition technology is racist. https://t.co/HbxrPdHE8J

— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) May 3, 2021

14 OBAMA/BIDEN/KERRY LIES OF THE IRAN DEAL: Jeff Dunetz brings it all together on The Lid in a comprehensive analysis of the many ways revival of the deal former President Donald Trump cancelled represents and existential threat to the U.S., Israel and the Gulf States.

DISPATCHES FROM THE LUNATIC ASYLUM: This is America? HUD protecting perverts lurking in women’s shelters, boosting sex traffickers in Illinois, and teaching California students Azetc pagan worship, human sacrifice and cannibalism.

CAN ATHEISM AND FREE WILL CO-EXIST: Free will and individual responsibility are at the heart of freedom, but best-selling atheists like Sam Harris claim free will is an illusion. And Jerry Coyne argues that people are nothing more than “meat robots.” Kyle Butt argues that you choosing to read this post and watch the linked video demonstrates why Harris and Coyne are wrong.

WHY DOES BIDEN MASK AFTER BEING VACCINATED: Good question and one highlighted by the fact during last week’s climate summit, Joe Biden was the only world leader wearing a mask during the video session. Issues & Insights thinks this tells us something important about when Biden will declare victory against Covid.