ANDREW C. MCCARTHY — The Schiff memo, principally authored by Democratic staff on the House Intelligence Committee under the direction of ranking member Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), is the response to the Nunes memo, which was composed by the committee's Republican staff under the direction of Chairman Devin Nunes (R., Calif.).... (more)

BOSTON HERALD — At the ceremony yesterday to unveil portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama, the former president joked that artist Kehinde Wiley cheerfully ignored almost all of his suggestions. "He listened very thoughtfully to what I had to say before doing exactly what he always intended to do," Obama said. "I tried to negotiate less gray hair, but Kehinde's artistic integrity would not allow it. I tried to negotiate smaller ears and struck out on that as well."... (more)

ALAN KEYES — "Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.... (more)

NEWSMAX — Sen. Rand Paul lashed out Sunday at his own party, calling members "hypocritical" for passing tax cuts -- and then turning around and voting for spending increases. In an interview on CBS News' "Face The Nation," the Kentucky Republican said the support for both doesn't make fiscal sense.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — Rep. Jim Jordan says the swamp struck back with the passage of a massive budget deal that increases government spending by $300 billion. "I'm saying the swamp won and the American taxpayer lost," Mr. Jordan, co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus, said on "Fox News Sunday."... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — Few things produce bipartisanship more than spending other people's money. This week's deal to add $320 billion to the deficit over the next 20 months and set the stage for $1.8 trillion more in deficits over the next decade has won strong reviews from those who want to see Democrats and Republicans get along better.... (more)

WASHINGTON EXAMINER — President Trump's second budget will cut $3 trillion in spending over the next 10 years, White House officials indicated Sunday night, but won't be balanced. Instead of balancing the budget, the Trump administration will tout lowering the debt relative to the economy in its budget document, to be released Monday.... (more)

WASHINGTON EXAMINER — Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney defended the fact that his fiscal year 2019 budget request does not balance, and said Monday that Congress' rejection of his savings proposals has put a balanced budget out of reach. "It's not hypocritical," said Mulvaney, a self-professed deficit hawk who pushed hard for spending cuts as a member of Congress. "It's simply adjusting to the Washington, D.C., we live in."... (more)

WASHINGTON EXAMINER — Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, was adamant Sunday he would not accept an immigration bill dealing with both increased border security and a pathway for citizenship for so-called Dreamers, or immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — Washington's liberal establishment suddenly is running from the Democratic Party's Russia dossier, which for months was fodder for Democrats to hurl charges against President Trump and his campaign. A new liberal narrative has arisen since Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, launched a probe to find out who funded the salacious, unverified dossier and how the FBI used it against Trump people.... (more)

ART MOORE — A former Soviet-bloc spy chief who famously defected to the United States during the Cold War says the effort by the Democratic Party during the 2016 election to distribute a bogus anti-Trump "dossier" filled with Russian propaganda and use it to obtain a warrant to spy on the opposition campaign is reminiscent of disinformation operations he was asked to carry out for his boss, dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.... (more)

NEWSMAX — Prominent evangelist Franklin Graham said Sunday President Donald Trump may not be "the greatest" example of the Christian faith, but lauded him for doing his part "defending the faith and standing strong on that."... (more)

WORLDNETDAILY — The difference between the Obama and Trump administrations in acknowledging God in America has been stark. Obama, in eight Thanksgiving Day proclamations, referenced God a total of only five times, outside of quotes, while Trump's first proclamation alone cited God six times.... (more)

NATIONAL REVIEW — Playing themselves as train passengers in The 15:17 to Paris, Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler -- the three young Americans who on August 21, 2015, spontaneously subdued and walloped an Islamic terrorist, thus preventing mass murder on board the Thalys No. 9364 train -- humbly reenact that legendary heroism.... (more)

WASHINGTON EXAMINER — Sen. Ron Wyden, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, is calling on the Treasury Department to disclose banking and real estate records associated with President Trump's sale of a Palm Beach, Fla., mansion to a Russian billionaire.... (more)

NEW YORK POST — For law enforcement, Congress and even journalists, exposing misdeeds is like peeling an onion. Each layer you remove gets you closer to the truth. So it is with the scandalous behavior of the FBI during its probe into whether President Trump's campaign conspired with Russia in 2016. One layer at a time, we're learning how flawed and dirty that probe was.... (more)

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)