NEWSMAX — The White House said Thursday that Russia's expelling of 60 American diplomats marked "a further deterioration in the United States-Russia relationship." "Russia's response was not unanticipated, and the United States will deal with it," the administration said in a statement from press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.... (more)

ROBERT BARNES — Paul Manafort's legal team brought a motion to dismiss on Tuesday, noting that Rosenstein could not appoint Mueller to any investigation outside the scope of the 2016 campaign since Sessions did not recuse himself for anything outside the campaign. I agree with this take on Mueller's authority. If we follow that argument that would mean Sessions himself has exclusive authority to appoint a special counsel for non-collusion charges, and Sessions has taken no such action. Sessions himself should make that clear to Mueller, rather than await court resolution.... (more)

BOB UNRUH — Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has yet to produce evidence of Trump campaign collusion with Russia, has turned over all of the evidence regarding Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to a federal judge, according to a report. Investigative journalist Sara Carter reported two of her sources said Mueller's office complied with a federal judge's order regarding the former national security adviser.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — The Justice Department's inspector general said Wednesday that he is investigating whether the FBI overstepped its bounds when it conducted secret surveillance of a Trump campaign figure in 2016 and 2017, and whether the FBI bungled its handling of the anti-Trump "Steele dossier." Republicans last week revealed that the dossier played a significant role in getting the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to approve wiretaps of Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign.... (more)

WASHINGTON EXAMINER — Republican congressional investigators say it's possible high-ranking officials in the U.S. government under the Obama administration and former Senate Democratic leadership coordinated together in the early days of the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.... (more)

BOB UNRUH — Dr. James Dobson, who for decades has been the radio voice for Christians on children, family, life and marriage, first with Focus on the Family and now with Family Talk radio, says it's an outrage that Congress has funded the abortionists at Planned Parenthood with another $500 million. "While there are multiple reasons for which conservatives should take issue with such a bill, Christians specifically should be outraged by the inclusion, once again, of half a billion dollars in taxpayer funding for the country's number one abortion provider, Planned Parenthood," he said.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — A lawsuit accusing the Saudi Arabian government of complicity in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and seeking billions of dollars in damages, can go forward, a judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan dismissed Saudi Arabia's motion to dismiss the case on the grounds of lack of proof of official complicity. But Judge Daniels said the plaintiffs -- victims' relatives and their families -- can "narrowly articulate a reasonable basis for this Court to assume jurisdiction under [the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act] over Plaintiffs' claims against Saudi Arabia."... (more)

FOX NEWS — A Current Affair: Maury Povich interviews Leslie Leland about how the grand jury in Ted Kennedy's Chappaquiddick case was suppressed.... (more)

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY — The revival of Roseanne premiered to massive ratings Tuesday night. The return delivered an incredible 18.2 million viewers along with an equally impressive 5.1 rating among adults 18-49. According to ABC, this is the highest-rated comedy telecast on any network in nearly four years (since a premiere episode of CBS' The Big Bang Theory from 2014).... (more)

NATIONAL REVIEW — An analysis of the crowd at the March for Our Lives showed that only 10 percent of the marchers were teenagers under 18. Despite media reports emphasizing the youth of the protesters, especially the Parkland student leaders, the average marcher was a 49-year-old, college-educated woman, reported Dana R. Fisher, a University of Maryland sociology professor who surveyed the crowd at the march.... (more)

LIBERTY HEADLINES — A satirical video that overdubs fiery rhetoric of Adolf Hitler (in German) over a speech given by student activist David Hogg at Saturday's "March for our Lives" in Washington has earned it a warning to would-be viewers on YouTube. The video channel, owned by Google, flagged the 56-second send-up of the gun control advocate – who shot to fame following his reporting and commentary at the Parkland, Fla. school shootings – as "inappropriate" or "offensive."... (more)

RICH LOWRY — All you needed to know about student activist David Hogg's speech at the "March for Our Lives" in Washington, D.C., over the weekend was that he affixed a price tag on the microphone to symbolize how much National Rifle Association money Senator Marco Rubio took for the lives of students in Florida.... (more)

NEWSMAX — The Kentucky House of Representatives passed legislation on Tuesday to ban a common abortion procedure from the 11th week of pregnancy, in what would be one of the strictest abortion limits in the United States. The bill, which was approved by the state Senate last week, will now go for approval to Governor Matt Bevin, a Republican who has described himself as, "100 percent pro-life."... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — Resistance to California's new sanctuary city laws grew this week as Orange County voted to join a federal lawsuit trying to block the laws, and the county's sheriff said he will post information on every inmate's release so the Homeland Security Department can see if there is anyone it wants to deport. The Who's in Jail database could provide a model for other law enforcement agencies chafing under SB54, the law that took effect this year prohibiting police or sheriffs from informing federal agencies when illegal immigrants are to be released.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — The federal government has only just begun the process of banning bump stocks for firearms, but Second Amendment groups are already lining up to challenge whatever the Justice Department produces. Americans have a right to the aftermarket gun accessory, the groups insist, and the Obama administration repeatedly said it didn't have the power to regulate bump stocks en masse without changes to federal law.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — A 22-year-old who acted in the movie "Marmaduke" and on the Disney Channel show "Shake It Up" has a new role -- in the White House press office. Caroline Sunshine is joining President Trump's team as a press assistant, CNN reported Tuesday evening. Ms. Sunshine has recent political experience, White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters told CNN in a statement.... (more)

ALAN KEYES — According to the headline, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks that "rich donors should 'starve' the GOP into becoming liberal." This statement may seem to be about controlling the so-called Republican Party. But, logically speaking, it means erasing the putative difference between the GOP and the Democratic Party. In the context of choices monopolized by one or the other of these parties, it means leaving grass-roots American voters who reject the God-hating, morally dissolute and politically tyrannical "liberal" (actually socialist and communist) agenda, with no choice that represents their good will.... (more)

BOB UNRUH — Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg, or one of his designees, has been invited to testify before Congress on the issue of customers' personal data, and there's word that Parliament in the United Kingdom would like to have some questions answered. The Federal Trade Commission Monday announced its own investigation into the company's data privacy practices, and a number of privacy groups have sued.... (more)

NEWSMAX — The Trump administration expelled 60 Russian diplomats on Monday and ordered Russia's consulate in Seattle to close, as the United States and European nations sought to jointly punish Moscow for its alleged role in poisoning an ex-spy in Britain.... (more)

BYRON YORK — Lately Democrats have accused Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee of prematurely shutting down the Trump-Russia investigation without interviewing many key witnesses. The committee "obtained either no or incomplete information about 81 percent of the known contacts between Trump officials and Russians, or groups and individuals with strong Russia ties like WikiLeaks," NBC reported Thursday.... (more)

NATIONAL REVIEW — The question was a reasonable one, but the answer was not. When the hosts of MSNBC's Morning Joe program asked why President Trump had congratulated Russian president Vladimir Putin on being reelected, former CIA director John Brennan pulled no punches. In answering the leading question that implied Trump may be afraid of Putin, Brennan said, "The Russians may have something on him personally." The Russians, he said, "have had long experience of Mr. Trump, and may have things they could expose."... (more)

I LOVE MY FREEDON.ORG — On Friday night, Fox News' Tucker Carlson ripped into the media's obsession with Parkland survivor David Hogg, who has been calling for our guns to be taken away. This deranged young man has also received unending support from the media, which has given him a bigger platform to speak on.... (more)

WORLDNETDAILY — Apparently not all of America's youngsters think guns should be banned. C.J. Pearson, a 15-year-old high-school sophomore, took to social media to make the case for the Second Amendment in a video that is going viral. "My generation is full of snowflakes who have been duped into believing that the 2nd amendment should be discarded so here's a quick history lesson," he tweeted in introducing his cogent comments #MarchForOurLives.... (more)

SF GATE — Switzerland hasn't had a mass shooting since 2001, when a man stormed the local parliament in Zug, killing 14 people and then himself. The country has about 2 million privately owned guns in a nation of 8.3 million people. In 2016, the country had 47 homicides with firearms. The country's overall murder rate is near zero.... (more)

NEWSMAX — "All you need to know why this was a bad bill is to look at the roll call," a long-time Republican lobbyist emailed me Saturday, referring to the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending law. Of course, he's right.... (more)