THERE’S A SHOWDOWN COMING BETWEEN DEM PROGS AND MODS: AOC’s threat to primary Democrats with doubts about the Green New Deal isn’t sitting well with more than a few of her colleagues.

This one has all the markings of, as DUCKOFD3ATH might say, a real hair-pulling, blood-spitting, teeth-flying bar brawl.

WHY ARE YOU SO AFRAID OF SUBJECTIVE MORAL REASONING? Ravi Zacharias was asked that not long ago and, while he could have ended his response with his hilarious opening sentence, he went on and engaged the questioner in quite a useful and interesting discussion that speaks to many of the most important issues regularly considered on these venerable digital pages.

IS ‘UNPLANNED’ THE UN-CENSORABLE PRO-LIFE FLICK? Returns are in for the weekend following what had all the markings of a purposeful Twitter campaign to bury it and the numbers “Unplanned” did extraordinarily well, according to Faithwire.

What if despite their algorithms, the progressive digital monopolies can’t suppress the truth after all?

WHAT’S IN THE MUELLER REPORT? The Last Refuge undertakes an analysis based solely on the character and actions of the principal players in the anti-Trump campaign. By way of preface, Refuge notes:

“The most overlooked aspect is how the 2016 DOJ/FBI investigative unit that existed to investigate Trump before the election, is the same group of people who transferred into Mueller’s probe in 2017 to continue investigating Trump after the election.  It always seems odd to me that people don’t realize this very basic point.

“If what the investigators were doing in 2016 was unethical, corrupt and likely unlawful, it is not wise to think they suddenly became bastions of investigative moral integrity just because they transferred into the Mueller probe in 2017.  In fact, the reality is, those same people held/hold a motive to cover-up for their prior conduct; and, for the purposes of Robert Mueller, their corrupt motives were perfectly aligned.”

It’s essential reading and will make for a fascinating comparison when the Mueller Report becomes public. Go here. Yes, it’s long, but, hey, it’s the weekend.

HERE’S THE INSIDE STORY OF THE PLOT TO TAKE DOWN TRUMP: The Epoch Times’ Jeff Carlson has done great investigative journalism in documenting the roots of the Obama administration’s clandestine campaign against The Donald and to protect Hillary.

Did you know 22 top officials have been fired, resigned or demoted so far for their actions in the campaign and that’s even before Sen. Lindsay Graham’s Senate Judiciary Committee mounts a real investigation and before Attorney General Bill Barr does the same thing from inside the Department of Justice.

SHOULD HILL STAFF BE PAID MORE? Massachusetts Democrat Katherine Clark believes they should, especially if Congress wants to do better oversight of the executive branch and pull back powers it has given up in recent decades.

I worked on the Hill early in my career and the pay was low and hours were long then, too, so not much has changed since then. The irony is the same Congress that pays its own staff so poorly has made federal civil service pay and benefits much better than comparable jobs in the private sector.

WHY IS TRUMP’S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ‘PROTECTING OBAMA AND CLINTON?’ Judicial Watch chief Tom Fitton tells The Epoch Times about the latest illustration of how Department of Justice attorneys are pulling out all the stops to block the non-profit government watchdog’s efforts to dig out the truth about the Clinton email scandal and the Benghazi coverup.

“Everything is a fight,” Fitton said. “We even have to sue to get the time of day. It’s unbelievable.”

REP. MAX ROSE IS A DEMOCRAT WITH NO PATIENCE FOR AOC: David Marcus of The Federalist asks if Rose “can save the Democrats from Ocasio-Cortez” and offers some convincing evidence for a positive answer. Keep an eye on Rose, a former Marine who is only 32 years old and could become a genuine force in Congress.

BONUS POINTS FOR THE BEST SUGGESTED PHOTO CAPTION: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham warned House Democrats about over-playing their hand on Trump-Russia collusion. And check out the news photo of Nancy Pelosi and Jerrold Nadler, which just begs for a creative caption.

NOW COMES THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION: Remember Stefan Halper, the Nixon/Ford/Reagan White House aide who became a Cambridge professor? Margot Cleveland of The Federalist presents an excellent analysis of the evidence that the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane was not the first Trump-Russia collusion investigation. BTW, Margot, the answer to your concluding question almost certainly is: John O. Brennan.

REMEMBER WHEN THE WASHINGTON POST WAS A REAL NEWSPAPER? Elizabeth Harrington’s analysis in the Washington Free Beacon dissects how the present-day Post created a Trump violation of the law out of a suit filed against his predecessor.

IF ONE BAR BRAWL A WEEK IS GOOD, WOULDN’T TWO BE EVEN BETTER? My link here yesterday to HillFaith’s video of Oxford mathematician John Lennox prompted a delightful comment from reader DUCKOFD3ATH about such posts invariably prompting “bar brawls” over “intellectually challenging” materials.

Well, Lennox is back this morning and addressing that perennial question of “who created God” by way of answering Richard Dawkins. The way I figure it, one bar brawl a week about God is fine but an occasional second one could double our fun. Just watch out for those mean left jabs!

HERE’S GRAPHIC PROOF OF MSM ANTI-TRUMP BIAS: This is a great example of how smart, honest journalists can use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) not only as a resource for holding government accountable but also each other.

The Washington Free Beacon’s Brent Scher used the government’s online FOIA database to count FOIA requests submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, CNN, The Hill and Politico during President Barack Obama’s second term in the Oval Office and through Trump’s tenure there.

What Scher found is stark: “Reporters at the Washington Post sent just a single FOIA request to the EPA during Obama’s entire second term, and have sent 43 FOIA requests to the agency since Trump took office.”

The New York Times? Reporters there “have made 100 FOIA requests since Trump took office just over two years ago, a 669 percent increase of the number of FOIA requests it made during the four years of Obama’s second term.”

Similar trends were seen at the other four outlets Scher checked. That thump you just heard was the sound of the mike I just dropped. If I had a mike, that is.

WHAT’S AN OXFORD MATHEMATICIAN GOT TO SAY ABOUT FAITH? To meet John Lennox on the street would be a pleasant enough experience, as he is a down-to-earth Irishman with an easy laugh and a gentle manner. He’s the proverbial guy you’d love to have as a neighbor.

He’s also a professor of mathematics at Oxford, an admirer of the great physicist Stephen Hawking, whom he critiqued in an important book, a regular debate opponent of another famous Oxford don, Richard Dawkins, and an articulate apologist for intelligent design and evangelical Christianity.

So why does he claim science and faith are complementary at a time when the former claims to have done away with the latter? He explains it all here on HillFaith in an excerpt from a recent interview on British radio.

UPDATE: Every editor needs an editor and I am no exception. Thanks to all for pointing out my complementary/complimentary stumble.

PELOSI’S HOUSE TO MODERNIZE BUT FORGET MORE TRANSPARENCY: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said voters in November 2018 demanded a Congress that is more “ethical, transparent, unifying, and responsive.” So she created the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.

The committee heard from 30 witnesses — all members of Congress — at its recent first hearing but hardly anybody said anything about making the legislative branch more transparent. I know, you aren’t surprised, either, but you won’t believe some of the stuff these guys did suggest.

DOES BETO NOT KNOW HE’S BLEEDING? Remember some weeks back when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s daughter said mom cuts off your head without you even knowing you’re bleeding.

The Daily Caller’s Kerry Picket — who is easily one of the best reporters covering Congress, by the way —reminds us of a 2016 incident that may explain why Pelosi can’t remember anything O’Rourke accomplished in Congress.

NO, PELOSI’S IMPEACHMENT REMARK DOESN’T TAKE THE ISSUE OFF THE TABLE: Much of the reporting and commentary on the Speaker of the House’s comment to the Washington Post that she opposes impeachment of President Donald Trump seems to assume that Nancy Pelosi is trying to protect her Democrats from themselves.

But veteran political strategists from both the Democratic and Republican sides are cautioning that the Chief Executive would be well-advised not to fire all those lawyers he’s got defending him just yet because Pelosi’s statement is subject to multiple levels of meaning.

EVERY DIME ONLINE. IN REAL TIME: That’s the motto of OpenTheBooks.com, the amazing web site that is putting trillions of dollars of spending at all levels of government online and accessible to everybody.

Adam Andrezejewski is the founder and top poo-bah there and he’s the subject today of The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” series of video interviews.

I’ve known Adam for more than a decade and as a journalist have turned to him countless times for data that made big stories on waste, fraud and abuse in government. The guy deserves a medal and I hope somebody in the Trump White House is listening.

OK, THERE THEY GO AGAIN! FACEBOOK BANS ZERO HEDGE: Tyler Durden lays it out. Who’s next? Town Hall? Powerline? Hot Air?  The Last Refuge? Or, God forbid, Instapundit? They better keep their petty tyrant hands off HillFaith, too!

HOUSE AG CHIEF KILLS TRUMP ORDER ENDING WORK EXEMPTION FOR ABLE-BODIED FOOD STAMP RECIPIENTS: “I’ll guarantee you it’s not going to happen,” U.S. Rep Collin Peterson said, according to watchdog.org’s Bethany Blankley, writing in the Washington Free Beacon this morning.

Trump had proposed to end a long-standing Department of Agriculture regulation that allowed states to exempt able-bodied Food Stamp recipients from work requirements for government assistance.

The observation from Peterson, who is among the few remaining House Democrats with some semblance of bipartisanship in his record, means the Trump initiative will go nowhere until after the 2020 elections, assuming the House changes hands again. Blankley has much more here.

HOUSE FREEDOM CAUCUS LAUNCHES PODCAST: Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), a former Talk Radio host and pastor of a Southern Baptist church, is the host and the first guest is HFC Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC). Will be interesting to watch this podcast as it grows, as part of the mostly unremarked resurgence of this form of digital programming.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING, I’M BACK MONDAY: One second, I’m shoveling snow on the driveway, the next I’m laying flat on my face and stomach, praying “Oh, Lord, please don’t let that knee be broken.” It was and now I’m in recovery mode.

DIPLOMACY IS NOT ‘DUCK DYNASTY’ STAR PHIL ROBERTSON’S STRONG SUIT: The A&E reality series maybe isn’t as popular as it once was, but that isn’t stopping patriarch Robertson from offering his blunt analysis of America’s direction.

“We see carnage in the nation’s rehab centers. We see murders. We see people shooting other people at schools and concerts and other places. We need to take a step back and really realize that we must help our country get back on the right track,” Robertson tells LifeZette’s Maureen Mackey in a Sunday interview about his new book, “The Theft of America’s Soul.”

“We need the Scriptures. We must go back to the Bible. We have to love our neighbors and forgive each other. We need patience, kindness, goodness. And we must instill this in our children so that they can instill it in their children,” Robertson said.

One need not be a Dynasty fan or regular church attender to agree that more patience, kindness, goodness, forgiveness and love among us would be a good thing. The trick is how to get us there and Robertson holds nothing back on that score, either. Read the whole thing.

POT OF GOLD AWAITS MUELLER AFTER RUSSIA COLLUSION PROBE: How much will the nation’s top law firms pay Robert Mueller if he opts to return to private law practice after completing his special counsel duties? Washingtontonian’s Marisha Kashino has some possibly eye-popping figures.

IT TOOK FIVE YEARS BUT WYOMING’S STATE CHECKBOOK IS NOW PUBLIC: OpenTheBooks.com now has the state government of Wyoming’s checkbook available to the public. It’s the latest victory in the non-profit transparency watchdog’s continuing battle to make “every dime, online, in real time” for every level of government.