Top of the Fold

• 2021 biggest inflation year in four decades: The price of goods rose 7% in December, capping off a year that saw the highest spike in inflation in four decades. On average, prices at the gas pump are 49.6% higher than last year, and the cost of food is up 6.3%. Furthermore, anyone shopping for a used vehicle has faced a sobering inflation reality, as prices have jumped 37.3%. As Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors, observed: “Inflation at 7% is no joke. It’s the highest annual CPI number since 1982 and driven not by energy prices, but by just about everything else.” More troubling is that the current malaise doesn’t look to be ameliorated anytime soon.

• High gas prices, so … drill less? That appears to be the twisted logic behind Joe Biden’s decision to ban oil and natural gas drilling in 11 million acres in Alaska, even as Americans have seen their energy costs jump 57% over the last year. The decision reverses a Trump-era expansion of the country’s strategic oil reserves. Of course, the Biden administration’s excuse for such an economically damaging decision is to protect “threatened and endangered species.” Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy says that’s a dubious rationale. “This is another sign of the federal government turning its back on Alaska and hampering domestic energy production,” he argued. “The U.S. Department of Interior is putting the nation in a situation where we have to rely on foreign oil … at a time for growing prices and concern for American consumers.”

• Biden admin creating a vaccine enemies list: In a small and obscure federal agency, the Biden administration recently rolled out a new policy that will collect and store the “personal religious information” on all agency employees who make “religious accommodation requests for religious exception from federally mandated vaccine requirement.” It appears that the Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Columbia, a tiny agency that helps officers in the DC courts, will serve as both the test subject and the means through which to sneak in a new policy to eventually be applied across all federal agencies, threatening the religious liberty of federal employees. The “most transparent administration in history” is opting for the opaque when it comes to pushing an obviously objectionable new policy.

• Fauci caught in another lie? Project Veritas claims to have verified documents leaked months ago. The investigative organization recently released documents acquired from a secret Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) report that appear to show that Dr. Anthony Fauci lied under oath when he repeatedly claimed before Congress that the National Institutes of Health had not been involved with EcoHealth Alliance in gain-of-function research. “The report goes on to detail concern regarding the COVID-19 gain of function program, the concealment of documents, the suppression of potential curatives, like Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine, and the mRNA vaccines,” Project Veritas claims.

• Ashli Babbitt shooter cleared without an interview: The U.S. Capitol Police officer responsible for the only violence-related death during the January 6 Capitol riot, Michael Byrd, was cleared of any wrongdoing without even being interviewed by any investigators. This report appears to run contrary to Byrd’s claim made during his NBC News interview when he said: “There’s an investigative process [and] I was cleared by the [Department of Justice], and FBI, and [the DC] Metropolitan Police.” The reason for the lack of investigative interviews is because Byrd refused to answer any questions and investigators never pressed the issue. According to Babbitt family attorney Terry Roberts: “[Byrd] didn’t provide any statement to [criminal] investigators and they didn’t push him to make a statement. It’s astonishing how skimpy his investigative file is.” DC Metro Police Department records back up Roberts’s account. More evidence of a politically motivated whitewash?

More From Your Patriot Post Team

• Nate Jackson: Biden’s Big ‘Voting Rights’ Lie — No American citizen has lost their “voting rights.”

• Douglas Andrews: FBI Takes the Fifth on J6 Complicity — There’s been a glaring lack of transparency from the Biden Justice Department regarding the events of January 6.

• Emmy Griffin: Woke Administrators Seeking Woke Teachers — Hundreds of school districts across the country have declared they only want to hire “anti-racist” lackeys.

• John J. Bastiat: Air Force Under Fire for Lowering Standards — It seems that the USAF was more interested in a woman succeeding than earning.

• Michael Swartz: Is Joe Rogan a Man of the People? — His remarkable influence with 11 million listeners should speak volumes.

• Thomas Gallatin: Newsom’s Plan for Universal Healthcare Includes Illegals — The leftist California governor is pushing to create single-payer healthcare in the Golden State.

• Douglas Andrews: Pelosi Is Winning Big on Wall Street — Not even Warren Buffett has been trading stocks as profitably as the ethically challenged speaker of the House.

• Roger Helle: ‘The Sky Is Falling!’ — On the anniversary of J6, government officials compared the incompetent “takeover” to Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and the Civil War.

• In Brief: Cultural Marxism Is ‘Identifying’ as Transgenderism — This is something that ought to be cause for more Americans to wake up.

Government & Politics

• Education Department denies claim that Miguel Cardona solicited letter linking parents, domestic terrorism (Washington Times)

• “All on the same page”: White House tries to downplay Stacey Abrams’s no-show at Georgia speech (Daily Wire)

• Michelle Obama sets ambitious goal to register a million voters ahead of 2022 midterms (People)

• Swamp Doctor Anthony Fauci comes to COVID hearing with opposition research on Rand Paul (Daily Wire) | Hot mic: Fauci calls Roger Marshall a "moron" (Daily Wire) | Meanwhile, Fauci’s NIH division paid $205,000 for researchers to study transgender monkeys (Free Beacon)

• Absolutely: Democrat operatives say Hillary Clinton is “best option” for party to win 2024 election (Washington Examiner)

Security

• Roughly 18,000 Afghan refugees remain on U.S. bases months after Biden’s surrender and retreat (Washington Examiner)

• DHS can’t account for 50,000 migrants released in 2021 (Breitbart)

Health

• Dr. Fauci was warned about possible gain-of-function creation of COVID-19 in January 2020 (Daily Caller)

• Has Omicron “turned a corner”? U.S. infections decline for first time since Christmas (USA Today)

• Berkeley, California, will force students to wear KN95 masks, which the CDC chief says are “very hard to breathe in when you wear them properly” and “hard to tolerate when you wear them for long periods of time” (Daily Wire)

Odds & Ends

• Grocery shortages seen across country amid Omicron surge (Washington Examiner)

• Facebook moving to Texas? Parent company Meta signs massive lease in downtown Austin (Daily Wire)

• Senate GOP reelection arm hauls in a record $104M in 2021 (Fox News)

Closing Arguments

• Policy: Democrats’ voting rules takeover is a threat to democracy (Marco Rubio)

• Satire: Fauci releases new book: Everything I Don’t Like is Medical Misinformation (Genesius Times)

For more of today’s editors’ choice headlines, visit Headline Report.

The Patriot Post is a certified ad-free news service, unlike third-party commercial news sites linked on this page, which may also require a paid subscription.