KRISTINA BAUM IS RUNNING THE RACE OF HER LIFE: And all the while dealing with hostile journalists covering Congress. This young lady is tough, humble and full of faith.

HERE’S HOW CORY AND MARK BECAME SUCH BOSOM BUDDIES: Kyle Sammin of The Federalist remembers when the Facebook boss pledged $100 million to fix Newark’s public schools. And that’s just the beginning.

ALL RUSSIA-HOAX ROADS LEAD BACK TO HILLARY: Maybe instead of the Steele Dossier, it should be called Sydney’s Dossier?

WARNER’S TOUGH CHINA STANCE EXPOSES BIDEN WEAKNESS: Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) is the ranking minority members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, so he has received countless classified briefings over the years concerning China. In a speech at the Brookings Institution, he acknowledged that those briefings changed his mind about the Asian giant.

The China Warner now sees isn’t the same China former Vice President Joe Biden talked about earlier this month during a campaign stop in Iowa, the China Biden says isn’t a competitor for the U.S. Warner didn’t mention Biden by name at Brookings, but then he didn’t have to. Seems clear to a lot of people that Joe screwed up.

IT’S TIME TO PROSECUTE SOME RUSSIA HOAXERS: Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton views Durham appointment as a positive, but tells The Epoch Times: “How much more investigating is needed here? We just need decision-making on prosecutions.”

KEEP A TIGHT HOLD ON YOUR RIGHT TO WORK: It takes a close reading to see how they do it, but 140 congressional Democrats have found a way to nullify Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Mark Mix of the National Right to Work Committee and Mike Watson of the Capital Research Center explain the small type.

CHECK OUT ‘ARCHITECTS OF WOKE’ AND ITS EXPOSE OF SLAVOJ ZIZEK: This is episode two of the Capital Research Center’s (CRC) fine Dangerous Documentaries series.

Zizek is a Marxist rock star, at least on campus and in the MSM. Scott Walter, CRC’s president, is the executive producer and the result makes clear there is a very dark side to the rock star.

IS THERE NO CEILING ON KRUGMAN’S LUNACY? Apparently not, judging by his latest tweet blasting President Donald Trump for giving Tiger Woods the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

HARVARD KEYNOTER FAVORED JAIL FOR CHRISTIANS, JEWS: Yes, you read that right. This HillFaith post on the event is addressed primarily to the most influential and overlooked group in Washington, D.C., the 20,000 aides working for senators, representatives and congressional committees, because sooner or later they will all have to make a decision about whether to join the Intolerance Brigades.

But the information about the speaker, the survey data and the issue analysis ought to be of interest to everybody who cares about the First Amendment. And yes, you can call me a First Amendment Fanatic if you like. We all should be.

THIS IS ONE OF THE WORST EXAMPLES OF NEWSROOM FASCISM: I’ve never met now-former Baltimore TV local news anchor Mary Bubala, but I am outraged as an American and a journalist over her firing for a question that clearly wasn’t remotely related to the fact the city’s two most recent (corrupt) mayors were both Black and women.

Note in particular that Loyola University of Maryland Professor Karsonya Wise Whitehead claimed to know Bubala was asking a racist question because she knows Bubala’s heart. Either this kind of totalitarian rationalization ends or liberty isn’t long for anybody in this country except those with approved opinions.

HAVE YOU HEARD OF ‘MEDICAL KIDNAPPINGS’ BY SWAT TEAMS: I hate to admit it but I had not before reading Michael Volpe’s superb expose today for The Daily Caller. Essentially, it’s the use by the state of its police power to take a child from his or her parents because they won’t allow a medical treatment the state judges to be required, even if there is doubt about the accuracy of diagnosis.

The problem is especially apparent in Arizona, according to experts and activists quoted by Volpe, but a federal law pushed by former Vice-President Walter Mondale is the root, via generous federal funding it provides that amounts to an incentive for the raids. For the record, I am NOT an anti-vaxxer and neither is Volpe.

WHY DO LIBERALS GET SO MUCH EXACTLY BACKWARDS? Retired American Baptist minister Oliver Thomas writes in USAToday that the Christian church will become extinct if it doesn’t immediately reject the traditional view that scripture is inspired by God, and then admit that the Bible is wrong on sex, especially homosexuality.

But Glenn Stanton looks at the data in The Federalist and observes: “Yes, many churches are hemorrhaging members, and have been since the early 1970s. But anyone who studies these things carefully will tell you this is happening almost exclusively in the more politically and theologically liberal mainline churches. These are the same churches that are doing exactly what Thomas calls for: rejecting the credibility and authority of Scripture.”

And here’s the kicker, according to Stanton: “Research conducted jointly at Columbia University and the University of California at Los Angeles by scholars who are not shy about supporting gay politics found that gay- and lesbian-identified people are 2.5 times more likely to attend churches that took a more conservative view on Christianity (including homosexuality) than the so-called “welcoming and affirming” congregations that celebrate it.”

Go here for the rest of Stanton’s comprehensive refutation of the conventional liberal wisdom about same-sex relationships and conservative Christians.

Reagan was so right: “Our liberal friends know so many things that just aren’t so.”

WHAT MUELLER’S BIGGEST OMISSION MEANS: It’s not news that Special Counsel Robert Mueller included nothing about the Steele Dossier’s Russian sources or its indirect funding by Hillary Clinton. But there remains much to be grasped fully regarding the significance of Mueller’s omission, according to Margot Cleveland in The Federalist.

“Even though Mueller was authorized, as he put it in the special counsel report, to investigate ‘the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,’ the report is silent of efforts to investigate Russia’s role in feeding Steele misinformation,” Cleveland writes.

But then she raises a deeply interesting possibility: “Or did Mueller investigate this question? It’s possible, maybe even likely, given this acknowledgement in the special counsel report: ‘From its inception, the Office recognized that its investigation could identify foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information relevant to the FBI’s broader national security mission.’”

One suspects that Mueller’s reputation — and those of a host of other worthies — will be irretrievably damaged before Attorney General William Barr and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham are finished.

WHAT THEY SAY WHEN THEY THINK NOBODY IS WATCHING: Training sessions for campaign workers and political activists are excellent advance indicators of where their leaders hope to take the rest of us. So a recent poll by the National Democratic Training Academy run by AFSCME and others deserves attention.

Among the multiple candidates included in the poll? Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton, Patrick Howley of Big League Politics reports. And a separate poll by the same group says “we’re polling Top Democrats from your area to determine possible support for a Hillary Clinton 2020 Presidential Ticket.”

I SAY, WE SAY, YOU SAY: A bunch of folks watching the Billboard Awards show had a lot to say about Lauren Daigle’s cross-over hit single, “You Say.” Maybe there’s hope for popular culture yet.

HERE’S THE REAL REASON STEPHEN MOORE WON’T BE ON THE FEDERAL RESERVE: Thomas McCardle, writing at Issues & Insights, explains: “The Federal Reserve is adept at using the complexity of money and banking to defend itself from attack and reform.

“It’s a quintessential example of elite Washington bureaucracy maintaining power by convincing the people that taking it away from the experts would mean the end of the world.” McCardle has much more to say and it’s worth reading it all here.

Full Disclosure: I know Stephen Moore. Stephen Moore is a friend of mine. I stick by my friends.

WHO IS THIS GUY AND WHAT IS THIS ‘HILLFAITH’ THING HE KEEPS TALKING ABOUT? Why would a conservative journo go out and start something like HillFaith? Glad you asked. Here’s why. And can you believe we actually had sideburns like that?

CBO ‘SCORED’ MEDICARE FOR ALL? NOT REALLY: Sen. Bernie Sanders asked the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to score his single-payer, Medicare-for-All proposal. Except he didn’t ask CBO to estimate how much it would cost taxpayers.

“Might that be because the senator does not want to know—or, more specifically, does not want the public to know—the dirty secrets behind his proposed health-care takeover,” asks Christopher Jacobs in The Federalist today. And Jacobs is just getting started with that query.

AND BENNETT MAKES 22 IDENTICAL DEMS RUNNING FOR PREZ: Thirteen of the 22 are either in Congress now or recently were, so the American Conservative Union (ACU) and Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) ratings are of great relevance.

And guess what? You need a powerful microscope to detect any differences on major issues among these people. They are all on the far left of the Democratic Party. The ACU and ADA data are mirror images of each other. And these people talk incessantly about “diversity?”

DEMS DEFENDED HOLDER, NOW THREATEN BARR WITH CONTEMPT, JAIL: Where were these guys when then-Attorney General Eric Holder refused to turn over subpoenaed documents in the Fast and Furious scandal and was held in contempt of Congress? The Democrats now threatening Attorney General William Barr and other Trump appointees with contempt and even jail time were defending Holder. Yes, this is my absolutely gob-smacked, completely dumb-founded, totally disbelieving face!

WHAT? LIBERAL THINK TANKER RIPS WARREN’S COLLEGE LOAN SCHEME: Something is going on when a top think tanker representing two anchors of the Washington liberal establishment takes apart a progressive favorite’s plan for no-fault college loans.

GLENN DEFEATS REAGAN! John Merline explains why that Morning Consult poll on Biden and Trump doesn’t mean much, contrary to Drudge.

FIVE WAYS MUELLER TEAM BROKE THE RULES: Ever heard of Rule 3.8? If you have, you are likely a lawyer or somebody who regularly works with lawyers. Rule 3.8 is the ABA’s directive to prosecutors that, among much else, they “refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused …”

Adam Mill, writing in today’s edition of The Federalist, cites Rule 3.8 in his analysis of “Five Times The Mueller Probe Broke Prosecutorial Rules That Ensure Justice.” The third of the five cited by Mill is, at least IYTSHO, especially egregious as it points to the intrinsically partisan nature of the Mueller enterprise.

ANOTHER ‘NON-PARTISAN’ LIBERAL DARK MONEY GROUP EXPOSED: The Washington Free Beacon’s Joe Schoffstall is a smart, young investigative journalist worth following closely. Today he shines light on the lefty Trump impeachment activity of the Six Thirty Fund. 

NO, AMERICA IS NOT BECOMING A NATION OF ‘NONES:’ You hear it repeatedly in the mainstream media that the rise of the “Nones” — folks who check that box when asked their religious affiliation — is turning America into a secularized heaven on earth.

Along comes now Glenn Stanton who takes a closer look at all that research from Pew and others and discovers that — surprise? — the mainstream media hasn’t been telling us the whole story. In fact, they mostly got it completely wrong. And I have some thoughts on that score as well.