BYRON YORK — There's been a lot of confusion about the decision by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley and crime subcommittee chairman Lindsey Graham to refer Christopher Steele, author of the Trump dossier, to the Justice Department for a possible criminal investigation.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — The Supreme Court announced Monday it would not hear cases challenging a Mississippi law that allows religious organizations to refuse to hire persons or provide services in situations that run afoul of their sincerely held religious beliefs. Gay-rights groups had challenged Mississippi's 2016 law, HB 1523, which was aimed at affirming rights of those who believe marriage is between a man and a woman, an individual's gender is determined at birth and sexual relations are reserved for married couples.... (more)

ART MOORE — The failure to repeal and replace Obamacare is regarded as perhaps the biggest legislative failure of President Trump's first year in office. Yet, Trump managed to eliminate the linchpin of Obama's signature law, the individual mandate, through the tax-reform bill passed in December.... (more)

GREG COROMBOS — The Trump administration is advancing plans to open up the vast majority of the Outer Continental Shelf to energy exploration and development, a move that a leading national security voice in Congress says will be another major boost to the economy and protect American interests by ending any dependence on rogue states that sit on a lot of oil.... (more)

TIMES OF ISRAEL — Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been arrested by authorities for allegedly inciting unrest against the government, the London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported Saturday, citing "reliable sources in Tehran."... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — Meteorologist Joe Bastardi had a decidedly unscientific term for the effort to link Thursday's frigid winter storm to human-caused climate change: "witchcraft." "This is flat out insanity and deception now," Mr. Bastardi said Thursday in a tweet. "To tell the public that events that have occurred countless times before with no climate change attribution, is now just that, is not science, [it's] witchcraft."... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — Two top House Republicans have introduced a resolution supporting the Iranian people and condemning the regime in Tehran after a week of street protests that have resulted in more than 20 deaths across the country. House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy and House Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce said Friday the House will vote Tuesday on the measure, which comes as the Trump White House is trying to increase international pressure on Tehran over its handling of the demonstrations.... (more)

BOB UNRUH — Wisconsin lawmakers, left aghast at a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed the government to limit a family's use of their private land, have adopted a new law that effectively overturns the court decision.... (more)

ANDREW C. MCCARTHY — The Justice Department is reviving investigations involving Hillary Clinton's emails and the degree to which the State Department during Mrs. Clinton's tenure as secretary was put in the service of the Clinton Foundation. Good. Indeed, it is long overdue.... (more)

REVIEW JOURNAL — Mandalay Bay hotel staff had more than 10 interactions with Stephen Paddock in the days leading up to his Oct. 1 massacre of 58 people on the Strip, including two on the day of the shooting, MGM Resorts International said Friday.... (more)

WASHINGTON EXAMINER — President Trump's team is engaged in a serious but discrete internal discussion about whether to renew the key sanctions waived under the terms of the Iran nuclear agreement, administration allies said following a meeting this week at the White House.... (more)

NEWSMAX — Voters believe President Donald Trump has moved to the right since taking office, according to the website FiveThirtyEight. Before entering the Oval Office, Trump took a combination of liberal and conservative positions, FiveThirtyEight said. It noted he was steadfastly against illegally immigration, but supported infrastructure spending. He was against gun control but supported LGBT rights.... (more)

ALICIA POWE — The Justice Department finally has decided to cooperate with the House Intelligence Committee, agreeing to provide records that could reveal whether the salacious Trump-Russia "dossier" was used to justify FBI surveillance of Trump campaign officials.... (more)

NEWSMAX — A research firm that compiled a dossier of sometimes salacious information about U.S. President Donald Trump's contacts with Russians failed to block a congressional bid to see its banking records. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington agreed on Thursday that information sought by the House Intelligence Committee is pertinent to its probe of Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election. The judge rejected Fusion GPS's argument that disclosure of the data could reveal secrets about the firm's clients and devastate its business.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — Former FBI Director James Comey's decision to leak memos of his interactions with President Trump could come back to haunt him in a challenge to his New York bar membership. Ty Clevenger, a lawyer who filed a grievance against Mr. Comey, said in a letter Friday to the New York lawyers' disciplinary committee that if the fired director ended up leaking classified information it should bolster the case against him.... (more)

BOB UNRUH — After several years of various courts forcing Christian pregnancy centers and counseling groups to promote abortion -- even though it violates their faith -- it appears the tide is turning.... (more)

BOB UNRUH — An expert on military readiness is warning that the Department of Justice's decision not to go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court in the dispute over transgenders in the ranks "allowed judges to run the military," which violated the U.S. Constitution.... (more)

WORLDNETDAILY — After issuing an executive order late Wednesday closing his commission to investigate voter fraud, President Donald Trump now stresses the need for more voter identification and has tasked the Department of Homeland Security with ensuring the integrity of elections.... (more)

WASHINGTON EXAMINER — I have no problem with President Trump's tweet on nuclear weapons. Of course, many others reacted with pathetic uproar. The perpetually enraged liberal think-tanker Neera Tanden led the way in attempting to persuade U.S. enemies that we are psychologically weak.... (more)

MICHAEL OBERNDORF — A whole lot of us Deplorables, who had the unmitigated temerity to vote for the interloper, Donald Trump, have served in capacities which required us to take an oath to uphold the Constitution and protect it not only from foreign enemies, but domestic ones as well. Over the 229 years that have elapsed since the Constitution was ratified in June of 1788, we have endured and overcome numerous attempts by foreign nations to defeat us militarily, and some economically. However, domestic threats have been rare. Other than the occasional traitor, we have had no serious, well organized threats internally, the Civil War being the obvious exception, until the communists. However, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the "mainstream" media declared the Cold War over and communism defeated, and thus, all the communists in the U.S.A., aka, Stalin's Useful Idiots, magically disappeared. Poof.... (more)

PETER LEMISKA — On December 25th, the New York Times published an editorial by liberal columnist Paul Krugman. It was entitled "America Is Not Yet Lost," and it was a message wrapped in hope, but filled with hate. Still fuming about the 2016 election and its aftermath, Krugman ranted that Donald Trump has proven himself unfit for office -- morally and intellectually, and that the Republican Party is composed of "cynical apparatchiks, willing to sell out every principle -- and every shred of dignity -- as long as donors get big tax cuts."... (more)

TWINCITIES.COM — Tina Smith raised her right hand and swore to uphold the U.S. Constitution this morning, replacing Minnesota U.S. Sen. Al Franken after a series of allegations that he engaged in sexual misconduct. The former Minnesota lieutenant governor took her oath at 11:04 a.m. Central time to be followed by a reenactment in the historic former Senate chamber. Smith becomes the 22nd female senator, a record number of women serving at the same time in the 100-member body.... (more)

HAARETZ.COM — In the summer of 2009, as the forces of the Iranian government brutally repressed mass demonstrations protesting a stolen election, the United States sent the people of Iran an unmistakable message. The man regarded as an international beacon of hope offered them no encouragement.... (more)

ANDREW C. MCCARTHY — The New York Times' Russian Reset continues. My weekend column argued that the Democrats and the media are scrambling to pull together a new origination account of the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. The original origination account has become a political liability because it centered on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser who featured prominently in the so-called Steele dossier.... (more)

LEO HOHMANN — Pictures and videos coming out of Iran are starting to look more like a full-on revolution than a protest movement, but American news agencies continue to be slow to react, describing the historic protests as mostly about the country's weak economy and chastising President Trump for cheering them on. That's woefully under-reporting the depth of what is really going on in Iran, say experts on the country's history and current political environment.... (more)