Penna Dexter
Most politicians — even those with strong religious faith — don‘t necessarily make that the first thing they want you to know about them. They want to appeal both to voters who will trust them more because of their faith and also to those who will trust them less or who want faith and the Bible left out of politics.
Politicians often publicly explain how their faith informs their position on a social issue, like abortion, or gay marriage, or religious liberty. But few clearly articulate how their faith informs their politics the way Mike Johnson the new House Speaker does.
Within days of his election, he did just that in an in-depth interview with The Daily Signal. Speaker Johnson said he doesn’t find his openness all that remarkable. He said, “It’s who I am. It’s how I think.”
Some media took issue with remarks Mr. Johnson made to Congress minutes after his election as Speaker. Especially his words claiming, “God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment and this time.” He explained this to The Daily Signal: “It’s a central promise of the Bible that God invented civil government.”
People used to know this. Speaker Johnson warned that we must pay attention to the fact that we are “a more secularized society.” Our founders were clear that, to maintain a constitutional republic, “there has to be a consensus on virtue and morality.”
Mr. Johnson recognizes a growing sense among Americans that “we are adrift…in uncharted waters.” He explained, “We live in an age of moral relativism, which has become postmodernism, which is gradually becoming nihilism, the idea that if there is no truth, then you can believe anything or everything, or nothing.”
Speaker Johnson is not going to push his faith on the country. He will live it. He’s known for treating colleagues “with dignity and respect.” On that foundation, he will forge consensus to enact wise policy.

Kerby Anderson
John Stossel recently did a video on the Covid deception. The reason for his latest documentary was the release of Senator Rand Paul’s book, Deception: The Great Covid Cover-Up.
He began the video by asking us to remember when the senator accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of funding China’s Wuhan virus lab. Fauci replied, “Senator Paul, you do not know what you’re talking about.”
Stossel says the media loved it. Vanity Fair smirked, “Fauci Once Again Forced to Basically Call Rand Paul a Sniveling Moron.” He then notes that the magazine changed its view and admitted, “In Major Shift, NIH Admits Funding Risky Virus Research in Wuhan … Paul might have been onto something.”
What about the idea that the virus came from a lab leak? At the time, this was portrayed as a conspiracy theory. Now you have the FBI, the Department of Energy, and many others accepting the idea that the laboratory was the source.
Rand Paul reminds us, “Three people in the Wuhan lab got sick with a virus of unknown origin in November of 2019.” Also, the Wuhan lab is 1,000 kilometers away from where bats live.
The funding for gain of function research went to EcoHealth Alliance, run by zoologist Peter Daszak. Before the pandemic, he bragged about combining coronaviruses in Wuhan. Once the pandemic broke out, he was less eager to talk about these experiments.
John Stossel observed, “The media is weirdly un-curious about this.” Rand Paul responded that, “We have a disease that killed maybe 16 million people, and they’re not curious as to how we got it?”
I know you may not have time to read the book, but it’s worth a few minutes of your time to watch the video of the Covid deception.

Kerby Anderson
“A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” That’s a phrase we often use that has been attributed to Everett Dirksen, though it is doubtful he ever said it. But let me suggest a variation of it. “A regulation here, and a regulation there, and soon you are talking about real money.”
Over the years, I have talked about the economic costs of more and more regulations. Recently, a consumer watchdog organization calculated the cost of this administration’s climate regulations. The estimated cost was over $9,000.
The Alliance for Consumers put together an infographic with the title: “Biden’s Dream House.” Price tags were attached to household appliances calculated using the administration’s energy standards and climate regulations. Those regulations will make appliances more expensive.
As I mentioned in a previous commentary, the Biden administration regulations would require that 90 percent of gas stoves would have to be redesigned. The consumer watchdog group estimated that would raise the upfront cost of stove products by as much as $3,250.
Rules targeting air-conditioning refrigerants would raise the cost of air-conditioning units by $1,100. New energy standards for water heaters would raise the price another $2,800. Gas furnace efficiency standards are supposed to reduce greenhouse emissions but will add an additional $494 to the cost.
This administration wants to regulate every aspect of our lives with little regard to the overall cost. Many government regulations are necessary, but they must be subjected to a cost-benefit analysis. I doubt you have an additional $9,000 laying around ready to spend on appliances that were made more expensive by these government regulations.