THREE QUESTIONS CNN’S JIM ACOSTA WON’T DARE ASK ROBERT MUELLER: This trio of seemingly obvious questions should have been asked and answered a long time ago and if they had been the Mueller probe likely would not still be active.

But to be honest, I’m not holding my breath waiting for Acosta to start acting like a real journalist for a change. If I seem a tad angry about this, I am because people like Acosta have taken a profession I treasure and honor and turned it into a tool for ideological grandstanding.

WHAT’S THIS? A LIBERAL FEMINIST LAWYER FOR KAVANAUGH? It’s true, Attorney Lisa Blatt has argued 35 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court while working for the Solicitor General’s office. Her remarkably kind words for and about Kavanaugh demonstrate that there are still some sane minds on the Left. Elizabeth Economou has some surprising details in LifeZette.

BILL HOBBS GETS WHY DONALD TRUMP GETS HIS CRITICS: Most presidents possess an abundance of political skills that largely account for their success in gaining the Oval Office, but one in particular that most distinguishes them. For JFK, it was his ability to project energy and courage. For Reagan, it was his vision of America as “the shining city on the hill.”

For Donald Trump, it’s an amazing talent for recognizing and then pouncing on … go here and trust me, it’s worth the read.

HERE’S WHY BUREAUCRATS SEE A LETHAL THREAT IN THE ‘PLATFORM ECONOMY:’ The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has a great new video out explaining why the Platform Economy — Uber, AirBnB, Amazon, etc. — is such a gift to the cause of individual liberty. And why politicians and bureaucrats are determined to regulate it out of existence.

IF YOU’RE A CONSERVATIVE TWEETER, YOU MAY BE ON TWITTER’S ‘BAD ACTORS’ LIST: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devon Nunes is making waves with his Sunday oh-by-the-way about bringing legal action against Twitter for censoring him and three other conservative Republican members of the House. (Gaetz, Jordan and Meadows).

Twitter has been trying to finesse the censorship issue for months but it appears to this observer that the effort is failing because of the opacity of the company’s explanations for what it’s doing to deal with “bad actors,”  combat “uncivil discourse” and police “echo chambers.” Based on my analysis here, I’m not optimistic that Twitter will be a more friendly place for the First Amendment in six months, and frankly, it could be a good bit more hostile.

THE DIRECT LINE FROM OBAMA, HOLDER, RICE, LERNER & CLINTON TO FBI SCANDALS: Each of four huge scandals from the Obama era — Fast & Furious, Benghazi, IRS Targeting and Hillarymail — had distinguishing characteristics, all of which came together in the FBI’s combined Clinton email/Russia Collusion debasement. It’s amazing how clear the present becomes when viewed through the lenses of the recent past.

Here’s a taste:

“Just as Obama, Rice, Powers and Clinton lied about Benghazi, so did Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (appointed by Trump), former FBI Director James Comey (appointed by Obama), and former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe (promoted by Comey) — when they signed the FISA applications and thereby certified the credibility of the material included in the documents.”

Check it out here.

EVER HEAR OF A “SELF-LICKING ICE-CREAM CONE?” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton knows exactly what it is and he told LifeZette today.

IF THIS IS THE BEST THAT MUELLER CAN COME UP WITH … Department of Justice officials purposely or otherwise may have revealed a key part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s expected collusion case against President Donald Trump. For some odd reason, I am reminded of Cap’n Dan way up on that shrimp boat’s mast venting his fury against God in “Forrest Gump.”

10 FACTS THAT PROVE TRUMP’S HELSINKI CRITICS ARE IN AN ALTERNATIVE REALITY: Actually the post is about 10 facts that demonstrate how President Donald Trump has restored muscle to U.S. policies and defenses against Russia. One might also title the post “10 Facts That Prove Much of the MSM is Off Its Rocker.” Or how about this? “10 Facts To Make Putin Think Twice About Messing With Trump.” Take your pick.

KENTUCKY REP. BLASTS ‘PAY-TO-PLAY’ CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES: Ask Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) about Congress and the first thing he’s likely to talk about is his anger about how a representative’s committee assignments are determined by how much money he or she can raise for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

LifeZette’s Connor Wolf got that and more from Massie in a great interview about how to drain the swamp. Connor is doing a series of such interviews with Members of Congress. Go here, here and here for previous installments.

10 MOST POPULOUS CITIES SPLIT BETWEEN RED, BLUE. CAN YOU GUESS WHICH COST MOST? Here are the 10, as calculated by Truth in Accounting: Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Jose, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Phoenix.

If you live in deep-blue Chicago, your overall tax burden (including public entities like mass transit authorities and pubic schools that big cities typically don’t include in their balance sheets but which taxpayers are still responsible) is $126.360. If you live in bright red Phoenix, your overall tax burden is $11,850. Now, (assuming you aren’t rich) is the quality of life better in the blue cities or the red cities?

THAT TRUMP BABY BALLOON ISN’T FLYING — YET — IN NEW JERSEY: Remember that Baby Trump balloon protesters flew in London to express their dissatisfaction with the U.S. president? Lefties here in the states are using the balloon figure to raise funds to fly three of the Trump babies near a New Jersey golf course bearing the chief executive’s moniker. But LifeZette’s Michele Blood reports there are some pre-flight checks that haven’t been completed, so the protest babies may not get off the ground for a while.

VOTERS’ MEMO TO HILLARY — DON’T RUN AGAIN: Nothing so sad as the performer who is way past their prime but just refuses to get off the stage.

ARE THESE THE 5 BEST NATURAL ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD: Ok, believers and skeptics, go for it on HillFaith! (But be nice to each other, please). And if you have one or more better arguments, please provide links. Ditto if you think you know five for the negative proposition.

WHY DID TRUMP TOSS THAT SERVER WRENCH INTO MUELLER’S INDICTMENT MACHINE? Journalists, Never-Trumpers and Obama partisans are going absolutely ape-you-know-what over President Donald Trump’s Helsinki questions about what happened to the Democratic National Committee’s server and those 33,000 destroyed Hillary Clinton emails. It is Trump Derangement Syndrome at its most virulent since election night 2016.

But Trump is posing the very questions his critics don’t dare ask because they fear the answers will finally and definitively explain who actually colluded with Russian interests in 2016. I won’t say the name but how much you want to bet it’s spelled C-L-I-N-T-O-N?

TIM TEBOW CONFOUNDS HIS CRITICS, AGAIN: The guy only won the Heisman Trophy as a college sophomore, then led the Florida Gators to the national collegiate championship, then led the Denver Broncos to the playoffs, but, because he insisted on thanking God for his success in a public way, his critics have derided, mocked and insulted him ever since.

Now, he appears to be headed to becoming a major league baseball player, too, which would put him in the rarified atmosphere occupied by Deion Sanders, Jim Thorpe and Bo Jackson, among a very small company. LifeZette’s Tom Joyce has more.

By the way, if Tebow makes it to the Bigs, it will be as a New York Met. Too bad he’s not in the Washington Nationals’ organization because then he would be joining Daniel Murphy, another guy with conspicuous talent and faith who also happens to be a former Met.

DOES FAITH OR SCIENCE BEST EXPLAIN MORALITY? Knowing there are many regular Instapundit readers who will be instantly (quick pun!) attracted to this question (on both sides, too!), it occurs to yours truly that this post on my “other” blog, HillFaith, may be just the thing for a Sunday. Would that all public policy debates these days were as civil, entertaining and educational as this one.

HOW MUELLER WILL LINK 12 INDICTED RUSSIANS TO TRUMP AND CALL IT “COLLUSION:” It’s a meaningless indictment intended to manipulate public opinion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. But Friday’s announcement by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein also offered a key piece of the puzzle that explains where Mueller ultimately is going.

PETER STRZOK’S BIGGEST PROBLEM IS PETER STRZOK’S TEXT MESSAGES:  To the maxim “that which can’t continue, won’t,” it’s time add the Peter Strzok Principle: Denying the Obvious Doesn’t Make It Go Away. 

UH OH! IS THIS BAD NEWS FOR PETER STRZOK? Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page is being much more cooperative with House Republican inquisitors on Friday than her one-time bureau lover was on Thursday.

FIVE KEY THINGS THE LEFT WILL NEVER GET ABOUT TRUMP’S DEPLORABLES: Former Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich also spent four terms in Congress, so his thoughts about why Trump’s supporters love him might come as a suprise to some.

IS CONGRESS ABOUT TO GET TOUGH (FINALLY!)? House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) sounded supremely confident last night on Fox News, declaring, according to LifeZette’s Kathryn Blackhurst, that former FBI lawyer Lisa Page “will be held in contempt” if she doesn’t show up today or Friday to answer questions from members of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Meadows’ assertion prompted a crucially important reminder from liberal Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz that a congressional finding of contempt would be forwarded to the Department of Justice for enforcement. But DOJ under President Donald Trump and his predecessor, Barack Obama, has all but refused to enforce congressional subpoenas related to high-profile oversight investigations (Think Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS Targeting, FBI Hillary Email and Russia Collusion).

So, Dershowitz notes, “But if the Justice Department doesn’t do it, Congress is an independent branch of government. It can hold somebody in contempt. It can literally order the person to go into the basement jail cell, and then that person would have to go to court to seek a writ of habeas corpus.” Yes, Congress could have jailed then-Attorney General Eric Holder, then-IRS executive Lois Lerner and now Lisa Page for refusing to cooperate.

In fact, as I have repeatedly reported since Fast and Furious, jailing non-cooperative individuals is part of the inherent contempt power of Congress. It’s one of five tough tools the Founders gave Congress in making it the first and most powerful branch of the federal government. And it’s long past time for those tools to be used, at least if Congress wants its subpoenas to be obeyed.

IMRAN AWAN CANNOT BE BOTH GUILTY AND INNOCENT: That’s the rot at the heart of the Awan case: The Department of Justice (DOJ) says it found no evidence the Pakistani former IT aide abused his access to the congressional computer networks or committed procurement fraud, while the House Sergeant-at-Arms and the House Chief Administrative Officer warned Congress that he was “an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives.” It’s basic logic — that which is A cannot also be Non-A.

The more interesting twist here, though, is the fact President Donald Trump a month ago specifically and directly warned DOJ not to let Awan off the hook, or his chief congressional patron, former Democratic National Committee Chairman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. There are no known Russian connections to the Awan case, so it could be the spark that moves the president to take action against DOJ.

THINK REPS LOVE AMERICA, DEMS HATE IT? POLL SAYS YOU’RE RIGHT: Mr. Gallup’s latest survey raises an interesting question for 2018 Midterm election voters — Should people who hate America be running America? LifeZette’s Michelle Blood has the details on a revealing poll.

THIS UPDATE IS UNBELIEVABLE: Rosiak reports federal prosecutors have given Awan a sweetheart deal, despite the conclusions of House investigators reported in the following:

IF LUKE ROSIAK DOESN’T GET A PULITZER FOR EXPOSING HOUSE IT SCANDAL: The Daily Caller News Foundation investigative reporter has been on top of this story since February 2017 and broken virtually every incredible advance on it since then. His latest scoop is this:

A secret memo marked “URGENT” detailed how the House Democratic Caucus’s server went “missing” soon after it became evidence in a cybersecurity probe. The secret memo also said more than “40 House offices may have been victims of IT security violations.”

In the memo, Congress’s top law enforcement official, Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving, along with Chief Administrative Officer Phil Kiko, wrote, “We have concluded that the employees [Democratic systems administrator Imran Awan and his family] are an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly threatening the integrity of our information systems and thereby members’ capacity to serve constituents.”

The memo, addressed to the Committee on House Administration (CHA) and dated Feb. 3, 2017, was recently reviewed and transcribed by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The letter bolsters TheDCNF’s previous reporting about the missing server and evidence of fraud on Capitol Hill.

Awan’s main congressional protector for years has been former Democratic National Committee Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz who may well have provided a textbook illustration of how a member of Congress can use the position to obstruct justice.

But other than the fact Rosiak is virtually the only journalist pursuing what looks increasingly like a scandal of gigantic proportions, perhaps the biggest mystery is this: Where is Speaker of the House Paul Ryan?

The security and integrity of Congress have clearly been compromised but Ryan runs the other way whenever the issue comes before him.