PrairiePundit

 Washington Examiner: D emocratic lawyer Marc Elias violated the old maxim about never taking on those who buy ink by the barrel and ended up in a losing battle with the  New York Times  over the weekend. Elias, who  helped fund  the discredited Trump dossier and has battled against Republican-backed election reforms, was incensed over an article about “dark money” being funneled to left-wing activists, including him. He told his 617,000 Twitter followers that the Supreme Court should “revisit” a landmark press freedoms ruling. “If the media is not going to be pro-democracy, then it probably is time for the courts to revisit New York Times v Sullivan (as conservative lawyers suggest),” Elias tweeted on Saturday. “The case was premised on a role in democracy that the main stream press seems increasingly disinterested in playing.” Elias, known for his funding of British ex-spy  Christopher Steele ’s discredited dossier while he was the top lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, d

 National Review: Former Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan’s administration drafted legislation in June 2020 that would have transferred the police department’s East Precinct building to a Black Lives Matter organization, the Seattle Times reported on Sunday. The legislation was drafted by the Department of Finance and Administrative Services around the same time that protesters calling to defund the police converged on the East Precinct in the wake of riots over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. On June 8, 2020, FAS director Calvin Goings emailed three memos and a draft resolution to transfer the East Precinct building to the non-profit Black Lives Matter Seattle–King County. That same day, Seattle police officers boarded up the windows of the East Precinct building and evacuated the premises. Following the evacuation, activists set up an “autonomous zone” in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, which was cleared by police on July 1 following a series of shootings in the area. Then

  Epoch Time: Biden to Meet Leader of Qatar; Talks to Cover Boosting Gas Supplies to Europe Amid Russia–Ukraine Tensions It is another example of Biden's strategic blunder by taking action against US and Canadian oil and gas production which made Europe more vulnerable to Russian energy supplies.  It also wound up increasing the cost of oil and gas which helped to fund the new Russian aggression.  It was one of Biden's early half-assed decisions that hurt the US and its allies. 

  Washington Examiner: Republicans demand release of report on agents Biden accused of whipping migrants ...   “The widespread narrative of whipping based on a demonstratable lie — especially by members of this administration — demands that the public record be finalized by publicly disclosing the 'investigative work' conducted by Customs and Border Protections’ (CBP) Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR),” Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Brian Babin of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Mary Miller of Illinois, Michael Cloud of Texas, and Darrell Issa of California wrote in the letter. The lawmakers said they were spurred into action following a  recent  Washington Examiner  report  in which DHS officials anonymously said they thought the Biden administration was not releasing the report because it would make President Joe Biden and Mayorkas look “terrible” for condemning agents for using horsewhips against illegal immigrants when that was not the case.

 PJ Media: Anti-parasite drug Ivermectin shows an “antiviral effect” against omicron and other COVID variants according to research released Monday by Japanese pharmaceutical giant Kowa. According to  Reuters , the firm has been working with Tokyo’s Kitasato University. While Reuters described the study as “non-clinical,” last June the  American Journal of Therapeutics  published a meta-analysis of 15 different clinical studies. That  AJT  analysis concluded: Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease. The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally. The next month, podcast star Joe Rogan took Ivermectin to treat himself for COVID with well-known positive results — something NBC News at the time called a “ widely discredited drug .” That same  AJT

 Roger Kimball: ... Biden talks about infrastructure. We’re the ones that have to drive over the crumbling bridges. We read the news. We know about Biden’s plummeting poll numbers . We know that inflation is out of control . We know that the stock market is skittish if not verging on panic. We look on, amazed, as the president of the United States all but invites Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine. Memo to the president: When it comes to armies violating the borders of sovereign nations a “ minor incursion ” is analogous to being “a little bit pregnant.” “The White House quickly tried to walk back the remark,” but then is there a remark that Biden has made in his tenure as president that the White House has not “quickly tried to walk back”? Sometimes, it seems, they simply ignore the reports. For example, the report that Biden warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Kyiv would be “sacked” by Russian troops. Question for the class: Does Joe Biden know what it means to “sack”

 NY Post Editorial: Think energy costs are high now? Just wait: President Joe Biden is doubling down on his War on Energy, and that’s sure to keep prices zooming up, up and . . . up. Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency is writing new rules that will raise costs for fossil-fuel-based power plants. And, as Kenneth R. Timmerman noted in The Post last week, Team Biden has also moved to kill the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Pipeline, which would’ve brought Israeli and Cypriot natural gas to gas-starved Europe, helping ease shortages there. The prez is also reviving Obama-era loan guarantees for “clean energy” producers, starting with $1 billion in backing for a Nebraska company that will make “clean” hydrogen. That guarantee could cost taxpayers; think Solyndra, the solar-panel company Team Obama aided to the tune of $500 million before it went belly-up — only with the stakes now twice as high. Favoring such companies also puts traditional energy producers at a competitive disadvantage. M

  Conservative Tree House: CTH continues to be cautious with measured expectations around this story, because a thoroughly corrupt and politically compromised DOJ has possessed all of this information for almost a year. { GO DEEP } There will be a response.  Likely a massive, coordinated and weaponized response from the totality of the most politically corrupt DC system in our nation’s history, every branch, and their aligned ideologues outside government. First, the preview { Direct Rumble Link }: . No one wants to join  Michael Hastings , and yet that is the scale and scope of the risk inherent within this story.  The good news is that more Americans are awake to the issues now than ever existed.  We have Donald J. Trump to thank for that. Catherine Engelbrecht is a genuine national hero, and her organization True The Vote (TTV) will be known in history long after these decades are passed.  Long-term readers of CTH also know we fully support Englebrecht and her team, we always have.

  Washington Times: DHS cancels deportation request for hit-and-run killer ... U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also told Texas that it was canceling deportation requests — known as “detainers” — on other illegal immigrants, including some who pleaded guilty to felony charges of evading arrest or had convictions for drunken driving, drug possession or domestic assault injuring a family member. In each case, ICE told Texas in emails that the detainers were canceled as “priority lifts.” They were no longer important targets under Mr. Mayorkas’ rules. “Here we have a law enforcement agency handing ICE a criminal alien on a silver platter and ICE saying no thank you, and then the law enforcement agency saying really? And ICE saying no, we really don’t want to take this person,” said Jessica Vaughan , policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies. Cases were revealed in documents filed in federal court in Texas, where Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Louisiana

 ABC News: Majority of Americans want Biden to consider 'all possible nominees' for Supreme Court vacancy: POLL   An ABC News/Ipsos poll says a plurality of the U.S. views the court as partisan. Biden apparently made the campaign promise to get black support in the South Carolina primary.  The promise appears to be backfiring on him and the Democrats at this point. 

  Monica Showalter: Biden officials surprised and 'exasperated' to find that Border Patrol agents aren't applauding them A huge majority of the country is opposed to Biden's border policies and the Border Patrol is having to deal with the fiasco on a daily basis. 

  Breitbart: NYT: Democrats’ ‘Dark Money’ Outspent Republicans’ by 66% in 2020 ...   “Dark money” is money spent by groups outside campaigns and political parties that do not have to disclose their donors — either because they are organized as “social welfare” organizations under section 501(c)4 of the federal tax code, or as 501(c)3 charities receiving contributions from donor-advised funds that allow many donors to remain anonymous. ... One of the things Democrats did was use it to fund "Republican" anti-Trump groups. 

 DailyWire: Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, slammed President Joe Biden during an interview on Sunday morning for his weakness in dealing with Russian aggression in Eastern Europe. Barrasso’s remarks come as U.S. officials believe that Russia may launch an invasion into Ukraine at any time as they have amassed approximately 100,000 soldiers near the Ukrainian border. “We need to sanction Russia before an invasion, not afterwards,” Barrasso told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo. “And here’s the reason, let’s put this into perspective, Vladimir Putin is like the big bad wolf. He is huffing and he is puffing, and he has the capacity, basically to blow Ukraine down. He’s accountable to no one. And he views our President Joe Biden as weak and ineffective. We need to put in sanctions now so Putin will see just what pain he will suffer if he does invade, and they have to hit him militarily, as well as economically. From a military standpoint, we need

  Blaze: Washington Post political cartoon labels trucker convoy as 'fascism,' which ignites fierce firestorm: 'Devoid of wit or truth. Shameful and pathetic.' Liberals are trying the change the meaning of fascism to "people they disagree with."  In the real world, there is nothing fascist about a convoy of truckers demonstrating for freedom.

  Fox News: Houston official blames anti-police rhetoric, weak DAs for rash of violence against cops   Thursday marked the second time in a week that officers in the Houston area were shot. It started with the BLM and Antifa riots around the country.  Both groups could be designated as domestic terrorists. See, also: Reining in rogue progressive district attorneys and judges

 Washington Examiner: Nearly 2,000 children recruited by Houthi rebels dead Historically using children fighters is a sign of a losing effort.  Certainly, the Houthi deserve to lose.  The children are also being sexually abused.

 Newsmax: Former President Donald Trump returned to Texas on Saturday, vowing the largest Republican-led state in the U.S. "will never, ever turn blue." "Our country is angry and our country wants to be respected again," Trump told his latest Save America rally in Conroe, Texas. "Hello, Texas, it's great to be back in this great, wonderful beautiful state with thousands of proud American patriots who believe in family and freedom, God and country. "And by the way, oil and guns – unlike the Democrats." Trump hailed the largest political rally crowd in the history of Texas, throwing out hats reading "Save America" in the same red of the hats that read "Make America Great Again," the MAGA campaign slogan he has billed since he ran in 2016. "Our MAGA movement is by far the greatest political movement in the history of our country, and I say it all the time, and they never even – the fake news – they never even questioned it be

 Washington Examiner: T he former head of the  Food and Drug Administration  said Sunday that he predicts there will be a "backstop" to prevent a new strain of the  omicron  variant of  COVID-19  from becoming a problem. "A fully boosted person may be more protected against this new variant than they were against the original strain of omicron," said  Scott Gottlieb  on  CBS's   Face the Nation  with host Margaret Brennan. "So far, based on what we've seen out of  Denmark  and the U.K., which are collecting very good data on this, it doesn't appear to be a more virulent strain." Gottlieb said that if you've previously been infected by the omicron variant of the coronavirus, then "you should be protected" from this strain. "So the mutations in this new version are not in the receptor-binding domain on the spike protein. That's the portion of the spike protein that we develop our best antibodies against that neutralize the 

 Epoch Times: Mexican cartels are making billions of dollars from drug trafficking, human smuggling, and exploiting the U.S. border, said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 1.3 million illegal immigrants crossing into Texas from Mexico in 2021. Hundreds of thousands more weren’t captured. Seizures of the deadly synthetic opioid, fentanyl, have sharply increased, as have overdose deaths in the United States. “We have 100,000 Americans die from opioid poisonings. They’re not really overdoses—they’re poisonings,” Roy told NTD’s Capitol Report on Jan. 28. “China is moving it through Mexico, cartels are making money, China is getting empowered, America’s getting hammered—all because this administration refuses to do its job of securing the border.” The chemicals to make fentanyl are produced in China and shipped to Mexico, where counterfeit pills are manufactured, heroin is spiked, and other products are laced before being sent across the southern border. U

 Grace Curley: The year left-wing ideas came home to roost   Progressive policies are tearing apart our cities, as crime rates spike and public safety suffers ... As dumb as the “Defund the Police!” slogan sounded back in May 2020, try promoting it now when the murder rate in this country is nearing a 25-year high. In February 2021, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced $120 million in cuts to her city’s police and sheriff’s department. Ten months later, she stood in front of a podium and declared that she was requesting more money from the city board of supervisors for the police. “And it comes to an end when are we more aggressive with law enforcement and less tolerant of all the bulls–t that has destroyed our city,” she said. While she did not admit that her own irresponsible policies had enabled said “bulls—t” to surge, her sudden about-face was admission enough. The painful results of the Squad’s dreams coming true are hard for some politicians to ignore and rationalize. Th

 Washington Examiner: A   Kansas  woman who allegedly joined  ISIS  and led a battalion was arrested in  Syria  and is being accused of providing material aid to a  terrorist  organization. Officials from the  FBI  took 42-year-old Allison Fluke-Ekren into custody, stating that she had been involved with planning and recruiting for an attack, leading a women's battalion, and providing material support to ISIS operatives. Fluke-Ekren is being charged with providing and conspiring to offer material resources or support to a known terrorist organization. ... She apparently told witnesses who wanted to park a car bomb in a US parking garage and explode it.  She was also accused of recruiting terrorists to shoot up US college campuses. 

 PJ Media: ... Make no mistake about it; Joe Biden isn’t angry about the high cost of insulin. Why not? Because he is responsible for it. On his first day in office, Biden froze a Trump drug policy that had been  finalized in December 2020 , and which would have significantly lowered prescription drug prices, including those of insulin and epinephrine. The freeze was part of a blanket policy of the new Biden administration to reverse and scrutinize anything that Trump had done. Many media fact-checkers ran cover for Biden,  arguing that Trump’s insulin order had only been frozen, not scrapped.  “Biden did freeze an executive order signed by Trump that was aimed at lowering the cost of insulin and injectable epinephrine that was not yet in effect,”  Newsweek  noted. But,  the Biden administration officially rescinded the policy in October,  claiming that implementation of the policy would have imposed “ excessive administrative costs and burdens.” Yeah, right. So, no, Biden isn’t angry

  Washington Examiner: ... The cause of Biden’s border crisis is obvious to any honest person:  On his first day in office, Biden ended the “Remain in Mexico” program that former President Donald Trump had created to close a loophole that migrants were exploiting in our asylum process . With this loophole reopened, migrants began exploiting it again. According to a  New Yorker  profile published this week, this never occurred to the staff Biden appointed to implement his immigration policies. Andrea Flores, who first worked as a policy assistant to DHS Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas when he was the head of Citizenship and Immigration Services under President Barack Obama, was put in charge of undoing Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols. Flores was tasked with finding those migrants that had been returned to Mexico under MPP and then processing them into the United States. “They started in San Diego, then planned to move on to El Paso, Brownsville

 Robin Burk: Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that a shortage of fertilizer is causing farms in the developing world to fail , threatening food shortages and hunger. Ironically, the lead photo is of mounds of phosphate fertilizer in a Russian warehouse. Modern synthetic fertilizers are typically made using natural gas or from phosphorous-bearing ores. The former provides the nitrogen that is critical to re-use of fields in commercial agriculture. They constitute more than half of all synthetic fertilizer production. So what happens when oil and natural gas extraction are crippled in industrialized nations? One likely outcome is that the fertilizer manufacturing industry is also crippled, leaving both large commercial growers and smaller farms around the world starved of a key substance they need to grow food for hungry populations. According to Wikipedia (yes, I know), that’s to be welcomed. After all, [S]tarting in the 19th century, after innovations in plant nutrition , a

  Fox News: Chicago schools training says sex 'not rooted in biology,' tells teachers to hide gender pronouns from parents   Chicago teachers warned they could face disciplinary measures if they don't use preferred pronouns for students The pronoun police misinformation campaign to indoctrinate students in false and misleading gender terms.

 Trending Politics: LOL: With Chris Wallace Gone, “Fox News Sunday” Sees Most Viewers in a Year ... According to Nielsen Media Research, the Jan. 23 episode of the show hosted by “Fox News at Night” anchor Shannon Bream saw a rating increase of 27 percent in the 25-54 demo and a 21 percent rise in total viewers over Wallace’s last show on Dec. 12, 2021. ... In fact, the network’s January 23rd broadcast drew in 1,404,000 viewers, tens of thousands more than Wallace was able to draw in on the January 23rd broadcast last year. ... It does not look like Fox or its viewers are going to miss Wallace.  His anti-Trump bias apparently hurt him.

 NY Post: Black Lives Matter transferred millions to a Canadian charity run by the wife of its co-founder to purchase a sprawling mansion that had once served as the headquarters of the Communist Party, public records show. M4BJ, a Toronto-based non-profit set up by Janaya Khan and other Canadian activists, snagged the 10,000 square foot historic property for the equivalent of $6.3 million in cash in July 2021, according to Toronto property records viewed by The Post. Khan is the wife of Patrisse Khan-Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Global Foundation Network and a self-avowed Marxist. She resigned from the group last year, a month after The Post revealed that she had spent $3.2 million on homes in Georgia and Los Angeles. Khan-Cullors vigorously denied that BLM donations were used to buy the homes. ... “Unfortunately, this appears to be an epic abuse of public trust in which an entire movement’s resources are being squandered on the whims and financial mismanagement of one

 Life News: Gloria Steinem: Saving Babies From Abortion is “Patriarchy,” Pro-Life People are Like Hitler Hitler oversaw the killing of people of all ages young and old. Steinem's analogy is just wrong. 

  Monica Showalter: Pittsburgh bridge's 2016 infrastructure funding reportedly diverted to bike lanes and green energy programs ... Instead of repairing the bridge with what likely would have been the Obama-era shovel-ready 2009 infrastructure funds for "roads and bridges," known as the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act," the cash went to bike lanes and green boondoggles, and too bad about the actual structure that was decaying and deteriorating. Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg loves those bike lanes. Bridges that stay up? That is for someone else to take care of. And of course, no one did. For local leftwing politicians and federal cash shovelers, it was too attractive to build bike lanes and dedicated lanes, the better for Democrats to show off to all their little lefty friends. ... Big Green must be fed regardless of the consequences to real infrastructure. 

  Breitbart: Report: Afghans ‘Sell Children and Kidneys’ to Survive Taliban Rule I* blame Biden's incompetent bug-out that left the country vulnerable to sexist weirdos in the Taliban. 

 DailyWire: Harmeet K. Dhillon, founder of the Dhillon Law Group Inc., blasted Democrats’ claims of race-based voter suppression while pointing out the real threat to U.S. election integrity: the federalization of election law. Dhillon and her law firm are representing The Daily Wire in its legal challenge against the Biden administration’s order mandating that large employers either vaccinate or mask and COVID-19 test all their employees. The Supreme Court stayed the order on January 13 in a major blow to the government. Roughly two weeks later, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration withdrew the rule to reassess its implementation. Dhillon is set to appear on “The Ben Shapiro: Sunday Special” episode airing Sunday, January 30. During the episode, Dhillon and host Ben Shapiro cover topics from the Supreme Court’s recent decision to stay President Joe Biden’s vaccine order for large employers and conservatives’ reluctance to engage in “lawfare” with Democrats. When the co

  Fox News: Youngkin’s CRT tip line in Virginia triggering Dems, teachers: ‘It’s scaring people to death’   Democrats claim Youngkin and the state GOP haven't adequately defined 'inherently divisive concepts' -- but Republicans claim otherwise ... Meanwhile, proposed legislation backed by Youngkin’s administration states that "inherently divisive concepts" include teaching that one race is "inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously," and that "meritocracy or traits, such as a hard work ethic, are racist or sexist or were created by a particular race to oppress another race," the Times-Dispatch reported. ... That seems pretty clear to me and exposes the racist nature of CRT that some Democrats want to impose on students.  CRT is inherently racist and should have no place in the education system. 

 Washington Examiner: A  group of House Republicans is calling for the Department of Justice to investigate what they argue are racist clinical guidelines for the use of monoclonal antibody treatments to prioritize nonwhite people. They said the Food and Drug Administration’s  authorization  for the monoclonal antibody treatments allows healthcare providers to consider the patient’s race when deciding whether to administer sotrovimab, the most effective monoclonal antibody treatment against the omicron variant. “Absent evidence showing that race, independent of other factors, directly leads to different levels of COVID-19 severity for patients, this guidance appears to be nothing more than the FDA injecting the malignant scourge of Critical Race Theory into public health policy,” they  wrote  in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland. ... The Biden administration's mishandling of the monoclonal antibodies appears political in respects beyond just being racist.  The treatment

  Washington Examiner: Real wages now lower than before pandemic, thanks to inflation It has been especially hard on those on pensions and fixed income.  Everyone has to buy groceries and most also have to buy gas.  Those are two of the non discretionary items his hardest by inflation,

 Red States: ... If you listen to Democrats, they want people to think that Americans are on their side on the issue, and they think — somehow — they can  do Manchin in  with his constituents. But the bottom line is the truth of how Joe Manchin was greeted back in West Virginia. What it says is where most of America is at — and that’s not with the progressives to do away with the rules and impose huge, obnoxious spending packages. Now, it’s hard to hear exactly what Manchin is saying, but the point is how he’s cheered at the end. As our friends at Hot Air note,  72 percent of West Virginians support Manchin blocking the Build Back Better bill. It’s a red state, and Republicans control both the House and the Senate, so they’re definitely supportive of what Manchin has done. He might be the only Democrat who could win that office in that state. So, Democrats have the choice between Manchin or a Republican because that’s the reality. ... Not only do Democrats have no leverage with West Vi