CRUZ, 33 OTHER GOP SENATORS FILE BRIEF CONDEMNING DC’S ANTI-CHURCH EDICT: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and more than half of the rest of the GOP Senate caucus submitted a blistering amicus brief to the Supreme Court supporting Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC) and condemning Mayor Muriel Bowser’s unconstitutional edict against church gatherings with more than 100 attendees.

QUESTION: Why didn’t the remaining 19 Senate Republicans and all 47 of the Senate Democrats and Independents also sign the brief? Do they have a problem with church congregations larger than 100 attendees? Would they support an edict limiting Antifa riots in D.C. to no more than 100 rioters?

SHOULD MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, AIDES HAVE MANDATORY COVID TESTING? Don’t miss the poll, no mail-in ballots accepted because this is honest voting. A mere 123 aides and contractors have tested positive or are presumed to be positive. But who knows how accurate that number is?

RADICAL LEFT’S TIDES CENTER GOT $170MILLION IN FEDERAL GRANTS: This story today is yet another illustration of why The Washington Free Beacon’s Joe Schoffstall is a must-follow journalist.

THE LEFT’S BIGGEST CONSPIRACY YET: Thanks to the Capital Research Center (CRC), there is now a Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax Archive. Here’s how CRC describes it:

“While the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory was exposed as a hoax, a different sort of collusion was real. Sometimes wittingly, but often just witlessly, hundreds of figures in the media, politics, federal law enforcement, and federal intelligence promoted and amplified the conspiracy theories created by the Steele dossier and other sources.

“Today, we began posting the ‘bios’ of more than 200 figures involved in the hoax—enough characters for a Russian novel. The first batch is ‘Obama/Comey-Era Officials’ with last names beginning A–C. The rest of the 200+ will follow in the coming days and weeks. This is intended to be an archive of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, which we will continue to update and expand as circumstances dictate.”

Thank you, CRC. Russiagate is the hoax that will not be erased.

NOW THIS WAS ONE FUN INTERVIEW: Bill Walton is best known for his extraordinary business acumen in building Allied Capital and other successful ventures, but the guy is also a natural-born media host and interviewer. He and I sat down recently to talk about the least well-known Washington power center, congressional aides, Christian apologetics and much more.

NOTE FOR COMMENTERS: This Bill Walton is not the one of NBA fame. This Bill Walton is a lifetime member of the NRA, among numerous other positive and productive endeavors.

TRUMP’S COVID SPARKS LIBERALS’ SECULAR APOCALYPTICS: The chief executive got Covid in retribution for his committing the unforgivable sin, according to the Left. They won’t call it that, but that’s what it amounts to.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SIDES WITH HISTORIC CAPITOL HILL BAPTIST CHURCH AGAINST D.C. GOVERNMENT: DOJ officials sided with Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC) against the uber-restrictive District of Columbia government’s anti-Covid regulation that bars the congregation from meeting indoors or outdoors.

With more than 850 members, CHBC was founded in 1878 and has been attended by a lengthy list of U.S. representatives, senators and congressional staffers over the decades. Senior Pastor Mark Dever is among the nation’s best-known evangelical leaders. The church is represented in its suit by the Plano, Texas-based First Liberty Institute.

In it’s Statement of Interest, DOJ said CHBC is likely to prevail in federal court because “the church has demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of its claim under the Free Exercise Clause and Free Speech Clause of the United States Constitution’s First Amendment, respectively, and under RFRA.”

ANOTHER WHOPPER FROM JIVIN’ BIDEN: Issues & Insights zeroes in on that fib the former Veep told about the economy President Donald Trump inherited from his predecessor.

HOW MANY LIVING AMERICANS ARE FORMER POWS? As of 2018, according to the Government Attic, there were _____.

ARE FAMILY DECLINE, RADICAL POLITICAL ACTIVISM LINKED? Institute for Family Studies’ Nichola Zill zeroes in on a new study that found married folks significantly more likely to vote than unmarried adults, as well as another that suggests having children is a greater motivator of community involvement, including casting ballots on election day. Never-married adults are more likely to engage in protests or other similar activities.

Zill concludes: “These results bolster concerns that current trends toward delayed family formation and non-formation may well be having negative effects on the healthy functioning of many communities and of American democracy in general.”

REPARATIONS? LET’S TALK COVID LOCKDOWN REPARATIONS: Ethan Yang of the American Institute for Economic Research means business.

MSM EXECS, EDITORS SEVEN MOST-FEARED WORDS: “I still have more work to do.” – Nicholas Sandmann. Federal court gives this courageous young man the go-ahead on litigation against the New York Times, ABC, CBS and Rolling Stone.

I HAD TO BE FIRED TWICE BEFORE I GOT THE MESSAGE: Seems like a good time to share this inasmuch as I’ve lost count of how many Instapunditeers have sent encouraging notes about HillFaith in recent months. Plus, I’ve met made some great new friends in the skeptics gallery as well.

All of this is very much appreciated, since, as critically important as we all think politics and public policy issues surely are, culture is upstream from politics and the ultimate questions are upstream from culture. And a little civility for and from everybody goes a long ways toward solutions we can all live with.

10 WAYS TRUMP CHANGED AMERICAN POLITICS FOR THE BETTER: Yes, Trump can’t keep from bulldozing opponents, telling off jerk journalists, and being utterly blunt when a little tact might be more prudent. But, as J.B. Shurk makes clear, the man has profoundly changed the political and here’s 10 ways he’s made it so much better than before.

EARMARKS ARE COMING BACK, FOLKS: Roll Call this morning makes clear that momentum is growing in the House of Representatives to bring back earmarks. And, while Democrats are leading the charge, some Republicans, including my long-ago high school classmate Tom Cole, are cheering them on.

THIS IS BEYOND ABSURD: Does no one, Republican or Democrat, at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have the guts to call a halt to such outrages?

VANDERBILT COURSE PENALIZES STUDENTS WHO DON’T SEE CONSTITUTION AS RACIST: It’s the largest course ever offered on the Nashville campus, but Campus Reform reports students are penalized who answered “no” to question asking if the Constitution is a tool of white supremacy.

WHERE’S THE PORK? Open The Books maps $2.3 Trillion – yes, that’s T-as-in-Trillion – in wasteful federal spending in just the years 2017-19.

WHAT??? HUMANIST GROUP SUPPORTS CHRISTIAN SPEECH: The American Humanist Association (AHA) has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in the case of Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski.

The case was originally filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) on behalf of former Georgia Gwinnett College student Chike Uzuegbunam, who was twice denied his right to share his Christian faith with other students on campus. This case could be among the first Judge Amy Coney Barrett hears as a Supreme Court justice.

This kind of legal cooperation on a constitutional issue between groups that come from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum used to be not at all uncommon, but has become all but unknown more recently.

Let’s hope for everybody’s sake we see more of this level of cooperation, initiated by both sides, because everybody has a stake in defending First Amendment liberties. And don’t miss the superb video produced by ADF. Our side needs much more such creative professionalism in presentation.

BROOKINGS FELLOW WANTS TRUMP’S DEBATE MIKE TURNED OFF: Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Elaine Kamarck suggests the moderator of the next Trump-Biden debate be allowed to turn off the mike whenever one of the two combatants speaks out of turn.

It’s hard not to think what Kamarck really wants is to turn off Trump’s mike. Note the difference in how she ascribes responsibility, first Trump, then Biden:

“For 90 minutes President Trump repeatedly interrupted former Vice President Joe Biden when it was his turn to speak.”

“Biden was also into the game, frequently talking over Trump. He had no other choice.”

And why did Biden have no other choice? It was Trumps’ fault, of course:

“To stand back would be to appear old, weak and confused — the ‘sleepy Joe’ that Trump wants him to be. And so, for a painfully long 90 minutes we were subjected to a debate that was incoherent.”

So, in the typical contemporary liberal/progressive/socialist/Marxist fashion, the solution is to empower somebody to silence somebody else.

NO WONDER BIDEN POO-POOED SWINE FLU: Issues & Insights points out this morning the reasons why former Veep Joe Biden didn’t want to go there when President Donald Trump brought up the H1N1 epidemic:

“According to the Centers for Disease Control’s latest numbers, out of the more than 200,000 people who died with COVID-19, only 92 were under age 18.

“But 1,282 children died from the H1N1 pandemic of 2009-2010, when Barack Obama was in the White House and Joe Biden was vice president.

“The number of children hospitalized from COVID has been around 8,000. The number hospitalized because of H1N1 – 86,813.

“The swine flu was particularly worrisome because, unlike COVID and the seasonal flu – this one targeted the young more than the elderly. In fact, fully 10% of the deaths from H1N1 were age 17 or younger, while just 13% were over age 65.”

DOJ WARNS SAN FRANCISCO: Limiting church attendance to one congregant at a time is “draconian” and a possible violation of the First Amendment. Geez, ya think???

WILL TRUMP BE OVERCONFIDENT TUESDAY NIGHT? Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff has watched a few presidential debates in his day and he notes that incumbents tend not to do well in the first contest of the quadrennial campaigns.

Mirengoff doesn’t suggest Trump will stumble for that reason but he does see some significant potential problems from a related factor, namely, OrangeManBad’s reliance on rhetoric, presence and (selected) facts to make his case.

Mirengoff, his Powerline colleagues John Hinderaker and Scott Johnson, and Glenn here at Instapundit are the three guys I have followed longer than anybody else in Blogdom, and I especially pay attention to Paul’s analysis before significant events like presidential debates.

WHY MUST THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE GRIND SO SLOWLY: Or maybe they really aren’t grinding, they just appear to be?

SEQUEL TO MEL GIBSON’S ‘PASSION OF THE CHRIST’ IN THE WORKS: Actor Jim Caveziel, who portrayed Jesus in the 2004 film, returns (no pun intended!) in “Resurrection,” buoyantly predicting that it will be “the most successful film ever made.” Perhaps Mel should have a little chat with his charge about raising expectations?