FAMILIES BLOG — According to new statistics, autism rates in California have exploded since the introduction of the mandatory vaccine bill last year. Following the introduction of the controversial SB277 bill, signed by Governor Jerry Brown, autism rates have risen a staggering 17%. Althealthworks.com reports: The state of California passed its controversial mandatory vaccination law (SB 277), which removed personal and religious reasons from the list of being exempt from vaccinations, with the goal of increasing vaccination rates.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — President Trump signed a bipartisan spending bill Friday morning, saying it will provide stable funding for the military and help the economy. "Our Military will now be stronger than ever before," Mr. Trumptweeted. "We love and need our Military and gave them everything -- and more. First time this has happened in a long time."... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — The White House counsel said Friday night that President Trump cannot declassify a House Democratic memo on FBI surveillance abuses in the Russia probe because it "contains numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages." White House counsel Don McGahn told House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes that although the president is "inclined" to release the memo, the Justice Department believes disclosing certain portions of it "would create especially significant concerns for the national security and law enforcement interests."... (more)

ANDREW C. MCCARTHY — In a word, the Grassley-Graham memo is shocking. Yet, the press barely notices. Rest assured: If a Republican administration had used unverifiable hearsay from a patently suspect agent of the Republican presidential candidate to gull the FISA court into granting a warrant to spy on an associate of the Democratic nominee's campaign, it would be covered as the greatest political scandal in a half-century.... (more)

BYRON YORK — One of the most remarkable takeaways from the new documents released in the Trump-Russia investigation is the degree to which FBI officials were determined to believe dossier author Christopher Steele -- even after it became clear he had lied to them. In their drive to win a warrant to wiretap sometime Trump volunteer Carter Page -- along with Paul Manafort, one of only two Trump figures known to be wiretapped in the investigation -- the bureau rested most of its case on Steele's information, and the officials who filed the warrant application seemed resolved to believe Steele even after his credibility came into question.... (more)

BOB UNRUH — The Obamacare individual mandate was dropped precipitously when the tax-reform package was signed into law just before Christmas. Now a second much-reviled Obamacare provision, its "death panel," has been repealed in this week's two-year spending plan adopted by Congress in the wee hours of Friday morning and signed by President Trump.... (more)

BOB UNRUH — A state commission in Colorado that punished Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips for refusing to use his artistry to promote same-sex marriage could be eliminated. Future funding for the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, where one member even likened Christians to Nazis, failed in a vote in the state's Joint Budget Committee.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — The government careened Friday morning into its second partial shutdown in less than three weeks -- though this one appeared likely to be short-lived. Sen. Rand Paul forced the government to go beyond the midnight deadline when current funding expired, staging a protest against the potentially $2.1 trillion budget bill required to keep the cash spigot flowing.... (more)

GREG COROMBOS — Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., is slamming Republican congressional leaders for caving to spending demands by Democrats in a two-year budget bill that he anticipates will spark trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see while Republicans unilaterally surrender their greatest weapon for passing meaningful entitlement, welfare, or health care reforms.... (more)

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON — The Watergate scandal of 1972--74 was uncovered largely because of outraged Democratic politicians and a bulldog media. They both claimed that they had saved American democracy from the Nixon administration's attempt to warp the CIA and FBI to cover up an otherwise minor, though illegal, political break-in.... (more)

THE GATEWAY PUNDIT — On Tuesday, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released a "much-less redacted," version of the Senate Judiciary Committee's criminal referral of dossier author Christopher Steele. Comey is in hot water. The unredacted memo reveals the FBI misled the FISA court about Christopher Steele's contacts with media outlets.... (more)

SHOWBIZ 411 — Don't believe the mixed or bad reviews coming in early for Clint Eastwood's "15:17 to Paris." I saw it tonight, and like A.O. Scott in the New York Times, I found it fascinating and much more complicated than a snarky dismissal.... (more)

DAILY WIRE — A group of DREAMers, young illegal immigrants fighting to stay in the country following the Trump Administration's refusal to extend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order, say they'll leave the country if a deal isn't reached . . . err . . . to keep them in the country.... (more)

THE GUARDIAN — Bermuda has become the first jurisdiction to legalise and then repeal same-sex marriage, in what critics have called an unprecedented rollback of civil rights by the British territory.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — Text messages between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, released Wednesday, raised serious questions about whether President Obama kept tabs on the bureau's 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton, despite his assurances otherwise. In a Sept. 2, 2016, message to Mr. Strzok, a senior FBI agent, Ms. Page, a bureau lawyer, said they were preparing reports on the Clinton investigation for FBI Director James B. Comey because "potus wants to know everything we are doing." "POTUS" is the common Washington acronym for President of the United States.... (more)

WORLDNETDAILY — Just when you thought the Democratic National Committee's funding of the dossier used to spy on Trump's campaign was scandalous, WikiLeaks has revealed another DNC connection to the FISA spying warrant.... (more)

FOX NEWS — Left-wing billionaire George Soros is pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into a campaign looking to sabotage British voters' 2016 decision to leave the European Union. The U.K. Daily Telegraph first reported late Wednesday that Soros has delivered £400,000 ($560,000) to the anti-Brexit "Best for Britain" campaign via his Open Society Foundations. He also hosted big-money donors at his London home as part of the group's goal to raise support to nix the implementation of the Brexit referendum.... (more)

NEWSMAX — A top White House aide is stepping down following allegations of domestic abuse by his two ex-wives. Staff secretary Rob Porter says in a statement the allegations are "outrageous" and "simply false." He says photos published were taken nearly 15 years ago and the "reality behind them is nowhere close to what is being described." Porter adds that he has been transparent and truthful, but will leave the White House after a transition period.... (more)

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE — The LDS Church declared Thursday that it has "zero tolerance" for abuse of any kind but couldn't speak directly to allegations by the ex-wives of a former White House official who reported they received no help from their Mormon clergy when they were being abused. Jennifer Willoughby and Colbie Holderness -- former wives of Rob Porter, who resigned as White House staff secretary this week -- said their LDS bishops either didn't believe them or didn't step in to help when they alleged Porter had physically abused them. Porter has denied the charges.... (more)

DAILY WIRE — The FBI's informant in the Uranium One scandal involving the Obama administration gave written testimony to three congressional committees this week in which he accused the Obama administration of making decisions that directly benefited the Russian government and their goals of gaining geopolitical advantages over the United States.... (more)

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON — Some things still do not add up about the so-called Steele dossier, FISA warrants, the Nunes memo, and the hysterical Democratic reaction to it.... (more)

CONRAD BLACK — Donald Trump's critics never imagined that more than a year into his presidency, his approval rating would be rising and just under 50 percent, the economy would be cranking up to a 4 percent growth rate, North Korea would have quieted down temporarily, U.S. oil production would be rising sharply and imports steadily declining, ISIS dispersed, over $6 trillion added to Dow-Jones Industrial stock values (despite Monday's slide), and the Clintons as well as Trump's official investigators facing far more serious legal questions than he is.... (more)

BYRON YORK — This time last week, there was growing tumult in Washington over the memo produced by House Intelligence Committee Republicans alleging "FISA abuse" in the Trump-Russia investigation. There were dire warnings that the release of the GOP memo would endanger national security, that doing so would be "extraordinarily reckless" without proper FBI and Justice Department review, and that the FBI had "grave concerns" about "material omissions of fact" that would "fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy."... (more)

BOB UNRUH — The New York Stock Exchange has been leaving mouths agape and investors pinching themselves ever since Donald Trump was elected president. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has surged on a virtually vertical line, from about 18,000 points to a peak of 26,616.71 on Jan. 26, before dropping a couple of thousand points and then regaining 500 on Tuesday.... (more)

PAUL BEDARD — Attorney General Jeff Sessions celebrated President Reagan's 107th birthday by demonstrating how President Trump has taken up Reagan's campaign to restore the rule of law. In a Tuesday evening speech at the Heritage Foundation to the Reagan Alumni Association, Sessions, who was a Reagan-appointed federal prosecutor, said, "Under President Trump, we are determined to advance President Reagan's work of restoring the rule of law."... (more)