New Rules: Supporters of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the  2020 election and even some who tried to stop Kevin McCarthy from being elected Speaker have been appointed to the House’s most powerful committees. It’s clear that McCarthy surrendered to the Republican conspiracy theorists and idiots in his quest to become Speaker.

  Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania all have been appointed to the Oversight and Accountability Committee, the primary investigative body of the House. 

  Although it’s not uncommon for the most fervent idealogues of either party to be seated on Oversight, this is a little different. Gosar has described the mob that stormed the Capitol as “peaceful patriots.”Boebert tweeted about where Speaker Nancy Pelosi could be found during the riot. 

  Greene has been pushing for an investigation of how January 6^th defendants have been treated and she tweeted: “Joe Biden, be prepared. We are going to uncover every corrupt business dealing, every foreign entanglement, every abuse of power, and every check cut for The Big Guy.” She went on, “And it’s not just the Biden Crime Family, the GOP majority will investigate every bit of government being used to abuse the American people.”

  The Judiciary committee, chaired by Jim Jordan of Ohio, will include

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, a 2020 election denier and leader of the anti-McCarthy fight, also  Chip Roy of Texas; Victoria Spartz of Indiana; Dan Bishop of North Carolina. Notably the committee includes freshman Andy Biggs, the Arizona congressman who advised Trump on  his challenges to the 2020 presidential election. 

Deep Debt: The federal government today is expected to hit the legal limit of how much money it can borrow to pay its debts. The Treasury Department will have to resort to accounting maneuvers to avoid default while Republicans and Democrats in Congress fight it out over the national debt.

  The Republicans have traditionally held the debt ceiling hostage for cuts in the budget. Speaker McCarthy said, “Why wouldn’t we sit down now, set a budget, set a path to get us to a balanced budget and lets start paying this debt off.”

  But refusing to raise the debt limit is really a refusal to pay bills already incurred. It’s like not paying your credit card bill. The federal government always spends more than in brings in with taxes, so it borrows money to pay the rest of the bills.

  In previous standoffs over this issue, the federal government has come dangerously close to having no money in the bank. Also, those “accounting maneuvers” cost the government more money in the long run.

Google That: Prosecutors in Massachusetts yesterday revealed 21 Google searches they say were made by 47 year old Brian Walshe, who’s accused of murdering his missing wife, Ana. Here are 10 of them.

January 1:

• 4:55 a.m. – How long before a body starts to smell.
• 4:58 a.m. – How to stop a body from decomposing.
• 9:59 a.m. – Can identification be made on partial remains.
• 11:34 a.m. – Dismemberment and the best ways to dispose of a body.
• 11:44 a.m. – How to clean blood from wooden floor.
• 1:08 p.m. – What happens when you put body parts in ammonia.
• 1:21 p.m. – Is it better to put crime scene clothes away or wash them.

January 2: 

• 12:45 p.m. – Hacksaw best tool to dismember.
• 1:10 p.m. – Can you be charged with murder without a body.

January 3:

• 1:13 p.m. – What is the rate of decomposition of a body found in a plastic bag compared to on a surface in the woods.

Woke Education: Showing or looking at images of the Prophet Muhammed is forbidden in strict Muslim culture, and evidently also in American academia.

  Hamline University, a small school in St. Paul, Minnesota, recently fired an adjunct professor of art history after she showed a medieval painting of Muhammed and a Muslim student complained. Aram Wedatalla, 23, the student, was weeping when she said in a press conference, “It hurts and it just breaks my heart to stand here and tell people and beg people to understand me, to feel what I feel.”

  The thing is that the teacher, Erika Lopez Prater, told students in the online course syllabus that they would be shown images of Jesus, the Buddha, and the Prophet Muhammad. She invited them to express any concerns. On the day she showed the image of Muhammed she offered students the opportunity to turn away … no one did, and no one complained.

  But Wedatalla complained to the administration and they fired Lopez Prater, issuing a statement calling her actions clearly Islamophobic. The university’s president even co-signed a statement saying that respect for the Muslim students in the online class “should have superseded academic freedom.”

 Lopez Prater sued, claiming the university had damaged her reputation and her ability to make a living.

  Now, Hamline is backing off … a little. The University has issued statements regretting the use of the word “Islamophobic” and saying, “It was never our intent to suggest that academic freedom is of lower concern or value than our students — care does not ‘supersede’ academic freedom, the two coexist.”

  Lopez Prater is still fired.

The Spin Rack: Tech Giant Microsoft announced that it plans to lay off 10,000 employees. — New Zealand’s liberal Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has resigned after six years in office saying the job has been a privilege but, “You cannot and should not do it unless you have a full tank plus a bit in reserve for those unexpected challenges.”

Below the Fold: In the near daily revelations about Long Island Rep. George Santos, a navy veteran who was living in a tent at the time says Santos pocketed $3,000 raised on GoFundMe to perform life-saving surgery on the man’s service dog, Sapphire., which later died.   

-30-