The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.
President Trump continues to walk back his original tariff assault, and markets are pleased. They rose again Wednesday after Mr. Trump said he won’t fire the Federal Reserve Chairman and is likely to retreat from his highest China tariffs. Is this Mr. Trump’s François Mitterrand moment?
Readers of a certain age will recall how the French Socialist President swept into power in 1981 promising a far left agenda of government control over the private economy. The market reaction was brutal. Within a year he had put socialism on pause and by 1983 he had abandoned most of it. He went on to serve two terms.
That historic U-turn comes to mind as we watch Mr. Trump execute a reversal by stages in his tariff agenda. First he carved out space for Mexico and Canada from his reciprocal tariffs. Then he put his reciprocal tariffs on everyone except China on a 90-day pause. Then the Customs bureau gave exceptions to Apple, Nvidia and big electronics companies. Now comes word that Mr. Trump may substantially cut his 145% tariff rate on China.
That’s a long way in three weeks from the declarations by White House aide Peter Navarro and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that there would be no tariff-rate changes. It’s hard to see this as anything other than a retreat amid the harsh reaction of financial markets, worries about recession and price increases, and a sharply negative reaction from the rest of the world—friend and foe.
The good news is that at least Mr. Trump is finally listening to reality. The CEOs of Walmart, Home Depot and Target paid a visit to the White House this week and told Mr. Trump prices would soon rise and store shelves might soon be empty as the tariff impact grows. This would be more than the “little disturbance” Mr. Trump warned about when he first unveiled his tariff barrage.
Financial markets have also had an impact, as they rise or fall based on the latest news about tariffs and Mr. Trump’s plans for Fed Chair Jerome Powell. There couldn’t have been a clearer market test in the last three weeks about the economic damage these columns warned about. The MAGA media echo chamber that praised Mr. Trump’s tariffs as strategic genius looks foolish.
Another harsh reality is that China called Mr. Trump’s bluff and seems to have won this round. When Mr. Trump imposed his tariffs in the first term, President Xi Jinping retaliated with some restraint and sent a delegation to negotiate a trade deal.
This time he retaliated in tit-for-tat fashion and pushed all of his anti-U.S. economic and diplomatic levers. He has cut off U.S. access to crucial rare-earth minerals, stopped the delivery of Boeing jets, looked elsewhere for food and natural-gas imports, and unleashed regulators against American companies.
Beijing has also warned countries not to do trade deals with the U.S. that exclude China—or else. With even U.S. allies facing Mr. Trump’s tariff assault, Beijing’s threat has resonated in a way that it never previously did. U.S. diplomatic sway is ebbing.
The question going forward is whether Mr. Trump is internalizing these economic and political lessons or merely pausing to fight his trade war another day. We doubt even Mr. Trump knows the answer, since so much of his decision-making is ad hoc. He’ll keep his universal 10% tariff in any case.
But if the President is looking for political advice, he could do worse than check out the polling cited nearby by Mark Penn and Andrew Stein. It shows that the public largely opposes his tariffs, whose damage poses the single biggest threat to his Presidency. Better to heed the polls and the verdict of Adam Smith, and take the Mitterrand path to political survival.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told an audience at the US Army War College that he got sage words of advice from President Donald Trump, who told him he’d have to be “Tough as (expletive).”
“Boy,” said Hegseth, “he was not kidding on that one.” The Hill reported that personal note from Hegseth as he went off prepared remarks for the event at the college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
The Defense Department posted most of his remarks at the Army’s strategic leadership program. Hegseth told the soldiers he’s been working on their behalf so they can protect the US. “Fighting for you has been the privilege of a lifetime – a deployment of a lifetime,” he said.
Hegseth told the Army’s future command officers that his first 100 days at the helm of the Defense Department have been mission-focused. “And from day one – and each 100 of those days – our overriding objectives have been clear: restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and reestablishing deterrence,” Hegseth told them.
Some of the media furor over Hegseth’s performance surrounding communications platforms was not mentioned in his remarks. But Hegseth did point out his organizational focus: “We are prioritizing what works and cutting what doesn’t.”
Since returning to office in January, President Trump has prioritized a tough-on-border-security agenda, focusing on deterrence, enforcement, and physical and administrative barriers to illegal immigration, resulting in a near-immediate impact on border encounter numbers. With President Trump’s 100th day in office quickly approaching, CIS reflects on the administration’s most significant achievements so far and what further actions might be expected in the coming months in other areas, such as reforms to legal immigration or asylum.
Perhaps the Trump administration’s greatest achievement is the impact its policies have had on migrant encounters at the border. As Todd Bensman, CIS’s senior national security fellow, explained, the border crisis that plagued the Biden administration ended nearly immediately after Trump took office because of a “combination of Trump’s restoration of lawful detentions, rapid expulsions, interior deportations, and an end to releases.” The remarkable part of the administration’s border strategy, however, is that these tools were already provided to the executive branch – in some cases mandated – by the laws Congress passed years ago. More specifically, the administration: reinstated the “Remain in Mexico” program (officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols or MPP) announced an end to the Biden administration’s unlawful parole programs (including CHNV and the CBP One Mobile app, discussed below) resumed and expedited construction on the border wall increased compliance with mandatory detention laws expanded the scope and application of expedited removal supported Border Patrol operations by increasing manpower and resources to high-traffic areas, and restricted asylum eligibility from aliens who crossed the border illegally, just to name a few policies. The administration’s actions and messaging have sent a clear signal that crossing the border illegally is not worth the gamble. Equally important, the administration debunked the myth that the federal government did not already have the tools it needed to reduce border crossings. While legislative changes are sorely needed in some areas – to close loopholes in the asylum system, for instance, and to reduce incentives for parents to send children with smugglers unaccompanied to the United States illegally – it appears that the most important ingredient to end the border crisis was political will. The numbers speak for themselves. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 106,321 total encounters in October 2024, or about 3,544 per day, at the Southwest border. By the time Trump took office in January 2025, the agency reported a significant decrease in monthly crossings to 61,448, about 2,048 per day. And in February, Trump’s first full month in office, the number fell to an almost incredible 11,709 encounters, about 418 per day, of which fewer that 300 a day were Border Patrol apprehensions (the rest were inadmissibles at ports of entry). While February marked “the lowest month in recorded history” for Border Patrol apprehensions, according to Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks, March’s numbers have maintained this trend. For March 2025, CBP reported just 11,017 total encounters at the Southwest border, a rate of about 378 per day, with Border Patrol apprehensions specifically averaging only about 232 a day. As Andrew Arthur, a CIS resident fellow in law and policy, noted, “You have to go back to FY 1968 to find a year in which there were fewer than 100,000 Southwest border apprehensions, and even then, it was close — 96,641. In other words, the Southwest border is more secure today than it has been since at least the Johnson administration.”
Passage of the Laken Riley Act The first bill signed by President Trump in his second term was the Laken Riley Act, named after a young nursing student in Georgia murdered by a Venezuelan who entered illegally and was released into the United States by the Biden administration. He was subsequently arrested at least twice, once in New York for endangering his five-year-old son, and again in Georgia for shoplifting. Under Biden administration policies, ICE failed to detain him either time. The new law expands mandated detention for criminal aliens to include those involved in “burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting, or assault of a law enforcement officer”. More importantly, the law grants states standing to sue the federal government to comply with the Immigration and Nationality Act’s detention mandates if the federal failure to comply harms the state or its residents, “including financial harm in excess of $100.” This will make it much more difficult for a future open-borders administration to get away with mass releases, via parole or any other means, of aliens whose detention is mandated by Congress.
Ending Biden’s Unauthorized Parole Programs On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14165, directing DHS to end the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) parole program. Ending CHNV was an important first step to bringing DHS’s policies in line with federal law and allowing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to regain focus on the immigration system set forth by Congress, which it is directed by Congress to administer. The CHNV program allowed over 530,000 inadmissible nationals of these countries to enter under a historically – and likely unlawfully – expansive and abusive interpretation of the parole statute and obtain work authorization for up to two years. Aliens with work authorization obtain Social Security numbers and can apply for drivers licenses. Although the prior administration referred to CHNV Parole (and other parole programs it created since 2021) as a “lawful pathway” for migrants to enter the United States, none of its beneficiaries were admissible to the United States by definition or obtained a lawful immigration status or visa by virtue of the grant of parole (i.e., authorized entry). DHS paused the program in the summer of 2024 after an internal audit revealed high levels of fraud. The audit found that just 3,200 U.S.-based sponsors pledged support for over 100,000 applicants. The Biden administration restarted the program in August 2024. On April 14, 2025, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction staying the termination of CHNV, temporarily stopping DHS from revoking parole from the program’s beneficiaries. USCIS indicated, however, that it would not be processing new requests for CHNV parole while the case is considered on the merits. The Trump administration also terminated the use of the CBP One app, which had enabled intending illegal migrants to schedule their arrivals at U.S. ports of entry to apply for parole into the country. Approximately 30,000 appointments were canceled following this decision. The administration justified the move by emphasizing that the app facilitated illegal immigration to the United States and undermined the lawful immigration system. DHS quickly repurposed the CBP One app to facilitate voluntary departures for removable aliens already in the United States. Under the new system, unlawfully present aliens or those aliens whose parole has been revoked can use CBP One – now called CBP Home – to request and arrange their return to their home countries without undergoing formal deportation proceedings. DHS officials stated that the change was designed to streamline the voluntary departure process, reduce the burden on immigration courts, and prioritize enforcement resources for removable aliens who present security or flight risks.Ending Biden’s Unauthorized Parole Programs On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14165, directing DHS to end the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV) parole program. Ending CHNV was an important first step to bringing DHS’s policies in line with federal law and allowing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to regain focus on the immigration system set forth by Congress, which it is directed by Congress to administer. The CHNV program allowed over 530,000 inadmissible nationals of these countries to enter under a historically – and likely unlawfully – expansive and abusive interpretation of the parole statute and obtain work authorization for up to two years. Aliens with work authorization obtain Social Security numbers and can apply for drivers licenses. Although the prior administration referred to CHNV Parole (and other parole programs it created since 2021) as a “lawful pathway” for migrants to enter the United States, none of its beneficiaries were admissible to the United States by definition or obtained a lawful immigration status or visa by virtue of the grant of parole (i.e., authorized entry). DHS paused the program in the summer of 2024 after an internal audit revealed high levels of fraud. The audit found that just 3,200 U.S.-based sponsors pledged support for over 100,000 applicants. The Biden administration restarted the program in August 2024. On April 14, 2025, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction staying the termination of CHNV, temporarily stopping DHS from revoking parole from the program’s beneficiaries. USCIS indicated, however, that it would not be processing new requests for CHNV parole while the case is considered on the merits. The Trump administration also terminated the use of the CBP One app, which had enabled intending illegal migrants to schedule their arrivals at U.S. ports of entry to apply for parole into the country. Approximately 30,000 appointments were canceled following this decision. The administration justified the move by emphasizing that the app facilitated illegal immigration to the United States and undermined the lawful immigration system. DHS quickly repurposed the CBP One app to facilitate voluntary departures for removable aliens already in the United States. Under the new system, unlawfully present aliens or those aliens whose parole has been revoked can use CBP One – now called CBP Home – to request and arrange their return to their home countries without undergoing formal deportation proceedings. DHS officials stated that the change was designed to streamline the voluntary departure process, reduce the burden on immigration courts, and prioritize enforcement resources for removable aliens who present security or flight risks.
Rolling Back Temporary Protected Status Designations For the first time since the first Trump administration, the Secretary of Homeland Security took steps to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for countries whose conditions either no longer qualify for the status or whose designations are no longer in the “national interest,” as is required by statute, or both. Since January, DHS Secretary Noem has issued orders to wind down or terminate TPS for Venezuela and Haiti, and the Trump administration has more recently indicated that it plans to take similar actions to terminate TPS for Afghanistan and Cameroon. TPS, like its name suggests, was created as a temporary form of relief for aliens in the United States when an ongoing armed conflict, natural disaster, or “extraordinary and temporary conditions” make it unable for them to return safely to their home country. Multiple administrations, however, have abused the program by allowing designations to continue even after conditions in such countries no longer meet the statutory criteria. TPS provides aliens with protection from deportation and work authorization eligibility, which then provides covered aliens the ability to obtain Social Security numbers and drivers licenses. TPS designations may only be granted for up to 18 months but can be extended or terminated following a Secretary of Homeland Security’s determination on whether conditions continue to exist that warrant a TPS designation. While any national of a designated country can apply for TPS, the program only benefits aliens who are in the United States illegally or are soon to fall out of a lawful immigration status. Secretary Noem’s actions mark an important shift in policy because the Biden administration, in just four years, increased the TPS population to historic numbers (exceeding 1.2 million aliens, by conservative estimates) by designating five new countries for TPS and extending or “redesignating” every other existing TPS designation. A “redesignation” allows DHS to change the cutoff date for TPS to allow aliens who arrived in the United States illegally after the country’s last designation to become eligible for the relief from removal – directly in violation of congressional intent. Congress limited eligibility to prevent the program from turning into its own pull factor for illegal immigration into the country. At the time Biden took office, only about 400,000 aliens had TPS. Open-borders groups have already begun challenging Noem’s TPS designation terminations in federal court. The first Trump administration tried to end TPS for El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan, but was blocked by a Ninth Circuit district court judge. As a result, nationals from these countries were able to maintain their TPS during litigation and into the Biden administration.
Expanding Enforcement of the Registration Law On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order (EO) 14159, which includes provisions requiring aliens, including those in the country illegally, to comply with a decades-old law and register their presence in the United States with the federal government. Specifically, the EO directed DHS (along with the Department of State and Department of Justice) to (1) announce and publicize information about the legal obligation of all previously unregistered aliens in the United States to comply with the requirements 8 U.S.C. 1301-1306; (2) ensure that all previously unregistered aliens in the United States comply with 8 U.S.C. 1301-1306; and (3) ensure that failure to comply with the legal obligations of 8 U.S.C. 1301-1306 is treated as a civil and criminal enforcement priority. Under these laws, “every alien … in the United States” is required “to apply for the registration and to be fingerprinted before the expiration of thirty days following the alien’s entry or prior to the expiration of thirty days following the attainment of his fourteenth birthday….” All registered aliens must also “at all times” carry proof of registration and present it upon demand. Moreover, “any alien who fails to comply with [the possession requirement] shall be guilty of a misdemeanor,” and shall be fined, imprisoned, or both. And they must notify DHS in writing of each change of address. DHS is implementing this order by creating a new website and form to allow aliens who are not in compliance to register with the government. Because most aliens who arrive to the United States legally are already complying with these laws, the policy should be understood as expanding enforcement of this law to those living in the United States illegally. The policy states that failure to comply may result in fines up to $5,000 or imprisonment for up to six months. Despite much of the political commentary surrounding this order, enforcement of the registration laws is not without modern precedent. Former President George W. Bush expanded enforcement of the registration requirements following the attacks on September 11, 2001, by introducing the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS). NSEERS required male aliens, ages 16-45, from designated countries to register with immigration authorities, submit fingerprints and photographs, report changes of addresses, and only depart the country through designated ports of entry. As a result of this program, 80,000 people complied with the registration law and 13,000 were placed in deportation proceedings, and an estimated 15,000 aliens from Pakistan, one of the designated countries, left on their own – i.e., self-deported. The program was suspended in 2011, but not formally dismantled until late 2016 by the Obama administration. The Obama administration replaced NSEERS with the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US Visit) program. This tool, however, was only used at ports of entry, and therefore did not impact many aliens who entered and were residing in the United States illegally. Enforcement of the registration law has been challenged by several open-borders groups, including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and United Farm Workers of America. On April 10, 2025, however, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden ruled that the Trump administration could proceed with the online registry. He stated that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing and had not demonstrated concrete harm. The judge emphasized that most aliens are already expected to register under existing laws.
Reducing the Immigration Court Backlog for the First Time in Years Another achievement that should not be overlooked is the Trump administration’s success in reducing the immigration court backlog. Earlier this month, the Washington Times reported that the number of removal cases pending before the immigration courts has dropped by 115,000 since Trump took office for the second time. The Times reported that the number of new cases filed by DHS with the courts averaged more than 100,000 per month during the last nine months of 2024 “as illegal immigrants streamed into the U.S.” But as Andrew Arthur explained, “In February and March, respectively, DHS added fewer than 30,000 new cases to the immigration courts’ dockets, while immigration judges completed more than 60,000 cases in each of those months.” Arthur added that, “The decline in the backlog means aliens in immigration courts will have their cases heard more quickly, which in turn means those who merit relief and protection will receive it more quickly — and that aliens with non-meritorious and fraudulent claims will be ordered removed more expeditiously, too.” While most recently added cases are still scheduled with the courts years into the future, the quick reduction of cases on the courts’ dockets after just three months of stronger enforcement policies promises that the immigration system may function as Congress intended sooner than expected.
Utilizing the Alien Enemies Act In 1798, our new nation prepared for a feared French invasion by enacting the Alien Enemies Act, which remains the law of the land. The AEA grants the president the power to summarily detain and remove any or all noncitizen nationals of an enemy nation (age 14 or older). The federal government has utilized the AEA during the War of 1812 and the First and Second World Wars. The Supreme Court concluded following WWII that “full responsibility for the just exercise of this great power may validly be left where the Congress has constitutionally placed it — on the President”. However, the president must meet the AEA’s statutory prerequisites — there being a declared war or “invasion or predatory incursion … against [U.S.] territory” by the foreign nation or government. Thus, the AEA cannot be used as a generalized tool for mass deportation. However, CIS senior legal fellow George Fishman has contended that a powerful argument can be made that in some circumstances transnational criminal organizations’ nefarious acts can be considered those of a foreign government, based on Moisés Naím’s analysis of the rise of “mafia states” – nations whose “governments have … taken over the[] illegal operations” of organized crime, “blurring the conceptual line between states and nonstate actors”. In such instances, a president could utilize the AEA against members of these criminal groups, or, more broadly, any nationals of the enemy nation. President Trump is making a similar argument in the context of the vicious criminal cartel (and designated foreign terrorist organization) Tren de Aragua and the government of Venezuela, contending that TdA “is closely aligned with” and “has infiltrated” the Maduro regime, which has “ceded ever-greater control over [Venezuela’s] territories” to TdA, resulting in “a hybrid criminal state”. TdA is “conducting irregular warfare” against the U.S., “both directly and at the direction … of the Maduro regime”. Consequently, President Trump proclaimed that “all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of TdA … and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the [U.S.] are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.” Ultimately, the Supreme Court will need to bless this novel use of the AEA. The Supreme Court recently reiterated its 1948 ruling that aliens subject to removal under the AEA are entitled to judicial review regarding “questions of [its] interpretation and constitutionality” and whether they are indeed alien enemies. Thus, they “must receive notice … that they are subject to removal”, “as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief … before such removal occurs”. And even more recently, the Court directed DHS “not to remove any member of [a] putative class of detainees [in custody in the Northern District of Texas who were, are, or will be subject to President Trump’s TdA proclamation] from the [U.S.] until further order of this Court.” Andrew Arthur believes that the Court is now “waiting for a [lower] court … to rule on whether the Trump administration has the power to remove alleged TdA members under the ‘invasion or predatory incursion’ clause of the AEA.”
Utilizing the Alien Enemies Act In 1798, our new nation prepared for a feared French invasion by enacting the Alien Enemies Act, which remains the law of the land. The AEA grants the president the power to summarily detain and remove any or all noncitizen nationals of an enemy nation (age 14 or older). The federal government has utilized the AEA during the War of 1812 and the First and Second World Wars. The Supreme Court concluded following WWII that “full responsibility for the just exercise of this great power may validly be left where the Congress has constitutionally placed it — on the President”. However, the president must meet the AEA’s statutory prerequisites — there being a declared war or “invasion or predatory incursion … against [U.S.] territory” by the foreign nation or government. Thus, the AEA cannot be used as a generalized tool for mass deportation. However, CIS senior legal fellow George Fishman has contended that a powerful argument can be made that in some circumstances transnational criminal organizations’ nefarious acts can be considered those of a foreign government, based on Moisés Naím’s analysis of the rise of “mafia states” – nations whose “governments have … taken over the[] illegal operations” of organized crime, “blurring the conceptual line between states and nonstate actors”. In such instances, a president could utilize the AEA against members of these criminal groups, or, more broadly, any nationals of the enemy nation. President Trump is making a similar argument in the context of the vicious criminal cartel (and designated foreign terrorist organization) Tren de Aragua and the government of Venezuela, contending that TdA “is closely aligned with” and “has infiltrated” the Maduro regime, which has “ceded ever-greater control over [Venezuela’s] territories” to TdA, resulting in “a hybrid criminal state”. TdA is “conducting irregular warfare” against the U.S., “both directly and at the direction … of the Maduro regime”. Consequently, President Trump proclaimed that “all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of TdA … and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the [U.S.] are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.” Ultimately, the Supreme Court will need to bless this novel use of the AEA. The Supreme Court recently reiterated its 1948 ruling that aliens subject to removal under the AEA are entitled to judicial review regarding “questions of [its] interpretation and constitutionality” and whether they are indeed alien enemies. Thus, they “must receive notice … that they are subject to removal”, “as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief … before such removal occurs”. And even more recently, the Court directed DHS “not to remove any member of [a] putative class of detainees [in custody in the Northern District of Texas who were, are, or will be subject to President Trump’s TdA proclamation] from the [U.S.] until further order of this Court.” Andrew Arthur believes that the Court is now “waiting for a [lower] court … to rule on whether the Trump administration has the power to remove alleged TdA members under the ‘invasion or predatory incursion’ clause of the AEA.” * * * More on the Way? Despite the administration’s clear successes, there is still a lot of work to be done. First, the Trump administration should repeal and replace the public charge regulation that the Biden administration finalized in 2022. This rule allows aliens who are subject to the public charge ground of inadmissibility to nevertheless receive costly forms of welfare without immigration consequences – so long as the government determines that an alien is not “primarily dependent” on such welfare, a standard that does not exist in the public charge law. Moreover, this Biden-era policy prohibits immigration officers from looking at any non-cash benefit an alien receives at taxpayer expense or any public benefits received by their dependents when assessing whether the public charge ground of inadmissibility applies. Second, the Trump administration will also have an opportunity to make long-lasting reforms to the government’s asylum policies. If not through legislation, DHS and DOJ could revive regulatory proposals from President Trump’s first term that sought to clarify what types of fear claims are viable and ensure that agency resources are primarily devoted to claims with a high likelihood of success in the immigration courts. Possible reforms could include streamlining the credible fear process, defining what constitutes a “particular social group” for purposes of asylum eligibility, and clarifying what types of actions constitute “persecution on account of a protected ground.” Moreover, the Trump administration is likely to continue to leverage international partnerships to distribute the humanitarian burden to countries other than the United States and Mexico. Expanding what are known as “asylum cooperative” and “safe third country” agreements could save taxpayer resources, deter illegal immigration, discourage the submission of fraudulent or frivolous claims, and reduce “forum shopping” for asylum. Third, the public should also expect this Trump administration to act on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) issue, but the administration has thus far been holding its cards close to its chest with regards to how it plans to manage the partially-enjoined program. While President Trump indicated multiple occasions on the campaign trail that he would consider legalizing the DACA population as a part of a deal to restructure the immigration system as a whole, litigation challenging the program has bounced around the federal court system and could make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court this year for a final disposition. Finally, the Trump administration will likely take actions to reform guestworker programs. These programs, which are sold to the public as means to fill legitimate gaps in the domestic labor market, often instead result in the suppression of wages and the replacement of U.S. workers from local jobs. Regulatory reforms, such as increasing the wage levels that employers are required to pay foreign workers and prohibiting known outsourcing companies from accessing capped guestworker visas, would benefit both U.S. workers and foreign workers alike. Most ripe for reform or elimination is the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, a large guestworker program not authorized by Congress, which actually subsidizes the employment of recently graduated foreign students through exemption from payroll taxes.
Fears of a “Christian nationalist” plot are obscuring the need for real reform.
It is a low bar to clear, but college accreditation has never been so hotly commented on as at present. Many in the higher-ed world fear for its future. Two recent columns in the Chronicle of Higher Education are typical.
In one, Robert Shireman, a Democratic appointee to the committee that advises the secretary of education on the recognition of accrediting agencies, warns of an “accreditation war” driven by “Christian nationalism.” Republican “Christian nationalists,” Shireman believes, “don’t want their own, separate, accrediting agency; they want to force the rest of higher education to accept their radical beliefs.” The implicit premise here is that higher education’s status quo is value-neutral and purely rational and that conservative would-be reformers—not, say, Shireman and his colleagues at the progressive Century Foundation—are the extremist radical
In the second, Gardner-Webb University associate provost Greg Pillar and accreditation consultant Laurie Shanderson imagine the consequences of President Trump’s campaign promise to “fire the radical Left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs.” They fear that new accrediting agencies created by Republican-controlled states and recognized by the Trump administration would not garner the respect of “employers and graduate programs,” thus “disadvantaging students in affected states.” In such a “politicized,” “bifurcated accreditation system, … institutions aligned with traditional accreditors [would] maintain credibility while those accredited are met with skepticism.
Pervading these articles are two presuppositions; one is half right, the other largely mistaken. First, both view a politically weaponized accreditation system with dread and cast the possible regulation of accrediting agencies by the Trump administration as lawless. For instance, Shireman writes that “President Trump is punitive toward those who do not pledge their loyalty to him” and anticipates recognition only of agencies “willing to carry out his wishes,” with loss of funding to any “college that … challenges him or his ideas.”
As examples of “conservative policymakers” arguing that accreditors currently “reinforce progressive ideologies, stifle innovation, and impose excessive oversight,” Pillar and Shanderson link to several right-leaning articles, including my recent column for the Martin Center on accreditation-reform hopes for the second Trump administration. In that article, I suggest that, while “anti-DEI bills aim at various laudable ends,” such as “non-discriminatory employment practices,” such actions could, under future Democratic presidents, “produce a regulatory regime more objectionable than the current status quo.” In other words, I share these authors’ concerns about the prospect of a political “accreditation war.”
My trepidation, however, is prudential rather than a question of legal right. Presidential administrations may not unilaterally dictate rules to independent accrediting agencies. The secretary of education’s standards for agencies recognized as “gatekeepers” of Title IV aid (i.e., Pell grants, direct loans, and federal work-study) are set by statute, which only Congress can amend. Moreover, the standards are expressly a minimal list that does not preclude agencies from adding such further standards as they desire. But the same statute prohibits the secretary from recognizing any agency that knowingly accredits an institution facing or under serious disciplinary action by its state government.
Needless to say, receipt of Title IV funds also requires adherence to all relevant federal laws. Thus, every accreditor expressly requires, in the words of the Higher Learning Commission’s (HLC’s) “Assumed Practices,” that each institution “remains in compliance at all times with all applicable laws.” The Trump administration’s recent “Dear Colleague” letter calls “race-based decision-making, no matter the form … impermissible” under “Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964” and the 14th amendment as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023). The president views race-conscious administrative policies as per se violations of existing federal law.
Thus, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon may well direct recognized agencies to affirm that institutional recipients of federal funds adhere to the race-neutral letter of civil-rights law. Any such order will be challenged in court, but, if the administration prevails, institutions may face a choice between federal subsidies and the race-conscious policies that taxpayers disfavor.
The second fundamental supposition of the two Chronicle articles is that accreditation is an invaluable mark of quality in which the public does and should place confidence. As evidence, Pillar and Shanderson open by linking to an Inside Higher Ed claim that 161 institutions lost Title IV access during the 2023-24 academic year, “almost all related to challenges with their accreditation.”
Institutions seldom become insolvent because low academic quality leads to a loss of accreditation.But this narrative almost surely inverts the typical causal sequence. Institutions seldom become insolvent because low academic quality (or political pressure) leads to a loss of accreditation and, consequently, Title IV funds. More often, existing fiscal and administrative deficiencies disqualify schools as Title IV recipients and lead to disciplinary action by their accreditor.
Disciplinary action by accreditors is rare. When it occurs, fiscal difficulty and administrative failures are the likeliest reasons.Data on this question are incomplete but suggestive. In the largest published study, researchers at the Postsecondary Commission (PSC) analyzed nearly 32,000 accreditor actions recorded in the U.S. Department of Education’s Database of Accredited Postsecondary Institutions and Programs. Looking at all actions broadly defined as “disciplinary” (i.e., those contrary to the institution’s desired outcome), PSC found that in “only 2.7%” of those instances did “an accreditor discipline or sanction a college for inadequate student outcomes or low-quality academic programming.” The vast majority of formal accreditor activity was either “supportive of colleges or focused on non-academic matters (governance, finances, general compliance, etc.).”
I used the same database to replicate this study with narrower parameters. The dataset goes back only to 2012, and, unfortunately, most entries don’t specify a reason for the action taken. I filtered specifically for so-called “adverse actions,” such as an institution being placed on probation or losing its accredited status, and limited the field to institutional rather than program-specific accreditors. From the total set of 65,000 actions, this reduced the number to almost exactly 4,000. Of these, adverse actions related to either Title IV or other fiscal/administrative concerns occurred in 523 entries, while student-achievement or other academic-quality concerns numbered 508. The remaining 2,971 are unhelpfully labeled either “other” or “multiple reasons.” More precise data would support firmer conclusions, but there are suggestive patterns here that match accreditors’ own published reports.
With good reason, agencies don’t publish peer reviewers’ reports on accredited institutions. They do announce all formal actions taken, such as granting, renewing, or removing accredited status from institutions. Several also release data on how reviewers cite and use the accreditor’s criteria. In HLC’s parlance, for example, reviewers may find each criterion either “met,” “met with concerns” (requiring further reporting), or “not met” (requiring remediation and possibly resulting in disciplinary action). In the threemostrecent years for which data have been published, HLC reviewed 368 institutions and took disciplinary action in only nine instances. No institutions lost accredited status. Only 18 reviews found one or more criteria not met. Of the 18 applicable criteria, only eight were cited even once as not met. Those eight are sub-grouped into standards for ethical governance (cited twice), academic quality and student outcomes (cited five times), and financial resources and administration (cited eight times). Though this is a small sample size, the pattern of these data matches that suggested by my replication of PSC’s study of the larger federal dataset. Disciplinary action by accreditors is rare. When it occurs, fiscal difficulty and administrative failures are the likeliest reasons.
Why does this matter? The premise of Pillar and Shanderson’s argument is that accreditation serves as a mark of academic quality, legitimating institutions. Indeed, the regional agencies were created to do just that. But, since passage of the Higher Education Act in 1965, accreditors have been (if you will pardon the pun) progressively co-opted as fiduciaries of the federal state. Agencies are now required both to facilitate peer-review of member institutions’ academic and other operations and police those same members’ eligibility for federal funds. These functions are somewhat contradictory.
The premise of Pillar and Shanderson’s argument is that accreditation serves as a mark of academic quality, legitimating institutions.Accreditation personnel readily acknowledge the tension caused by vesting these roles in the same body, though few seem willing to imagine alternatives. As Shireman puts it, “Far from being a cartel, federal recognition of accreditors is more like the Wild West.” Excellent! More, please.
Betsy DeVos’s 2019 reforms permitting Title IV recipients to be accredited by agencies in any geographic region introduced some competition and flexibility into the system. But what could achieve a truly competitive marketplace more than separating accreditors’ original “quality-improvement” purposes from their federally mandated “quality-assurance” police functions? Federal law requires Title IV recipients to submit financial audits and related reports to the secretary of education, “the appropriate guaranty agency,” and their accreditor. President Trump has suggested the Small Business Bureau as a possible overseer of the federal student-loan portfolio. He may have the power to effect that without further legislation.
Congress itself must remove the requirement for Title IV recipients to report to accrediting agencies, and it should do so.Congress itself must remove the requirement for Title IV recipients to report to accrediting agencies, and it should do so. If it ever does, agencies will return to their original state of true independence. They might, if they choose, increase the rigor of their academic oversight. New accreditors would emerge, serving smaller groups of institutions that share closer mission alignment. The largest formerly regional accreditor currently serves nearly 600 members, which vary greatly in size and mission. How much do liberal-arts colleges with triple-digit student bodies really have in common with multi-campus, state-flagship research universities?
This is not a recipe for a hostile takeover of accreditation, through which “Christian nationalists” can “force [institutions] to accept their radical beliefs.” Precisely the opposite. Let accreditors accredit, find the appropriate audit-masters to audit, and let freedom reign.
Samuel Negus is director of program review and accreditation at Hillsdale College.
Well, the end of the war in Ukraine could be very near—and for the first time since this whole expensive nightmare started, there’s an actual adult in the room. And that’s because President Trump is back in the White House.
The truth is, Ukraine has always been one of the most corrupt countries in the world—and their leader is leading the pack.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his partners in comedy production owned a network of offshore companies related to their business based in the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, and Belize. Zelensky’s current chief aide, Serhiy Shefir, as well as the head of the country’s Security Service, were part of the offshore network.
Offshore companies were used by Shefir and another business partner to buy pricey London real estate. Around the time of his 2019 election, Zelensky handed his shares in a key offshore company over to Shefir, but the two appear to have made an arrangement for Zelensky’s family to continue receiving money from the offshore.
Now, leaked documents prove that Zelensky and his inner circle have had their own network of offshore companies. Two belonging to the president’s partners were used to buy expensive property in London.
The revelations come from documents in the Pandora Papers, millions of files from 14 offshore service providers leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shared with partners around the world including OCCRP.
The documents show that Zelensky and his partners in a television production company, Kvartal 95, set up a network of offshore firms dating back to at least 2012, the year the company began making regular content for TV stations owned by Ihor Kolomoisky, an oligarch dogged by allegations of multi-billion-dollar fraud. The offshores were also used by Zelensky associates to purchase and own three prime properties in the center of London.
The documents also show that just before he was elected, he gifted his stake in a key offshore company, the British Virgin Islands-registered Maltex Multicapital Corp., to his business partner — soon to be his top presidential aide. And in spite of giving up his shares, the documents show that an arrangement was soon made that would allow the offshore to keep paying dividends to a company that now belongs to his wife.
Somehow, Ukraine has become the playground for America’s uniparty elite. Coincidence? Probably not. The ties between The Swamp and Ukraine run deep—and very dark. While the American people were crushed under inflation, Biden’s wide-open borders, and soaring crime, the DC fancy class pumped hundreds of billions of our hard-earned tax dollars into yet another foreign war, with zero oversight and no clarity on where the money was actually going.
It was a never-ending gravy train.
Every time we turned around, Joe was pledging billions more to Ukraine. And make no mistake, Joe wasn’t handing out “loans”; he was gifting the money to Zelensky.
Peace was never on the table. Biden never once held a summit to stop the bloodshed. His only goal was to funnel weapons, cash, and blank checks into a US proxy war with Russia. He lit the match, walked away, and left the world teetering on the edge of World War III. And for all we know, a big chunk of that money might’ve gone right back into Dem pockets, campaign machines, or the private accounts of their crooked donors.
But everything changed when Trump pulled off the political comeback of the century. He made it clear the endless war was ending, and the days of using Ukraine as a global money laundering scheme were over. Trump stepped in, laid down the law, and let little Zelensky know the free ride was over. And now—suddenly—there’s real talk of peace.
Axios just reported major details of a proposed US-backed agreement to end the war, and while nothing’s official yet, it’s clear a deal could actually be on the table.
According to sources with direct knowledge of the proposal, the US would formally recognize Russian control over Crimea and unofficially accept their hold on the captured territories in Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. Ukraine would be blocked from joining NATO, but they could join the European Union. Sanctions on Russia that go all the way back to 2014 would be lifted, and economic ties between the US and Russia—especially in energy and industry—would gain strength. Ukraine would get security guarantees from European allies and other friendly nations, but not directly from the US. Russia would return small chunks of Kharkiv territory and allow Ukraine unrestricted access to the Dnipro River. The US would take over operations at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which would remain under Ukrainian territory but provide electricity to both countries. And Ukraine would receive some form of rebuilding assistance, though where the money will come from is still anyone’s guess.
The deal also references the US-Ukraine minerals agreement, which likely explains another reason why the Biden regime stayed obsessed with this war in the first place.
VP Vance has already stated that the US has put its proposal forward, and if there’s no movement from either side, we’re done.
ELECTION WIZARD
REPORT: AXIOS, citing sources with direct knowledge of the proposal, reports that the U.S. peace plan for the war in Ukraine is as follows:
– Russia will get De Jure U.S. recognition of Russian control over Crimea and de facto recognition of Russian control over the captured territories in Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson Oblasts.
– Ukraine will not join NATO; however, it could join the European Union.
– All post-2014 sanctions on Russia will be lifted.
– The U.S. will enhance economic cooperation with Russia, particularly in the energy and industrial sectors.
– Ukraine will obtain a “robust security guarantee” with European countries and “like-minded” non-European countries. U.S. participation is not mentioned.
– Russia will return the small parts of Kharkiv Oblast that it holds in the Vovchansk, Lyptsi, Kupyansk, and Borova directions.
– Ukraine will gain unimpeded passage through the Dnipro River.
– Ukraine will receive compensation and assistance for rebuilding. The source of this funding is unknown.
– The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant will be considered as Ukrainian territory, but operated by the U.S. It will supply electricity to both Ukraine and Russia.
– The document also references the U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal.
Additionally, AXIOS reports JD Vance stated that the U.S. will withdraw from its mediation role if they do not receive a positive response. “We have presented a clear and fair proposal to both Russia and Ukraine,” he added.
Finally. The message is clear: Trump’s return brought the first real shot at peace—and the first serious blow to the globalist war machine in years.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the 266th successor of St. Peter and the head of 1.4 billion Catholics on March 13, 2013. His pontifical persona as Pope Francis, taken in honor of St. Francis of Assisi — the patron saint of ecology and animals — warmed the hearts of both Catholics and Protestant,s and even non-Christians.
But Francis’s honeymoon with faithful Catholics lasted just four months. While flying back from an apostolic visit to Brazil on July 29, 2013, a reporter asked him if there was a “gay lobby” in the Vatican.
Francis’s reply was shocking: “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?”
The newly crowned pope may have been referring to sexual orientation rather than sexual practice, but the five words followed by a question mark — “Who am I to judge?” — became the ominous trademark that would stamp his papacy.
No More Trust—Just Verification
From that point on, conservative Catholics began suspiciously scrutinizing every word that came from the pope’s mouth. Francis had shattered forever the hermeneutic of trust and obedience that had accompanied papal pronouncements over the centuries.
Conservatives accused Francis of subverting theological concepts and freighting them with leftist ideology and heterodox theology.
Jesuit priest and journalist Thomas Reese inadvertently confirmed this when he praised Francis’s first major declaration, titled The Joy of the Gospel: “Look at the title of his latest apostolic exhortation (Evangelii Gaudium, 2013),” he wrote. “It’s ‘the joy of the Gospel,’ not the ‘the truth of the Gospel.’”
Reese’s words were prophetic. Conservative Catholics and non-Catholic Christians pulled up the drawbridge — one couldn’t trust this pope as a custodian of “truth.”
Meanwhile, progressives cheered. The revolution had arrived. Francis was serenading them with the song, “All You Need Is Love.”
In the words of Guido Vignelli, Francis would usher in the revolution with “six talismanic words” — pastoral, mercy, listening, discernment, accompaniment, and integration. Vignelli warned that the words were a lexicon of smoke and mirrors designed to subvert Catholicism.
Francis’s regular public overtures to homosexuals and transgendered individuals confirmed this. It culminated in handwritten endorsements of his fellow Jesuit, Fr. James Martin, and
In early 2021, Francis publicly affirmed a civilly married homosexual couple who had three children through a lesbian surrogate — both acts forbidden by the Church. But within months, the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog ruled out blessings for same-sex couples, stating: “God does not and cannot bless sin.”
Priests backed by prelates defied the ban and conducted seasons of mass same-sex blessings in Germany. But Francis said and did nothing, reserving his regular tongue-lashings for “rigid” traditionalists.
And then, in December 2023, Francis’s handpicked new doctrinal watchdog, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, issued Fiducia supplicans — a declaration that permitted priests to informally offer blessings to same-sex couples. African bishops waxed apoplectic. Even the Church of England gasped: Francis had permitted gay blessings while they were still debating the issue.
Highly Ambiguous
At the Synod on the Family in 2014 and 2015, Francis pressed the accelerator on his “pastoral” tinkering with sexual ethics by seeking to admit “adulterers” (divorced and remarried Catholics) to Holy Communion – defying the teachings of Jesus and the Church.
The “rigged” synod resulted in an inconclusive final document, followed by Francis’s even more controversial apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), which subverted the Church’s policy on withholding Holy Communion from “adulterous” couples.
The furor following Amoris Laetitia alerted conservatives to Francis’s choice of weapon: ambiguity. The “reformer” pope would use clarity only when expressing his distaste for traditional Catholicism and Donald Trump.
An infamous footnote, number 351, which permitted those living in “irregular situations” to receive the “sacraments,” became “the most contentious footnote in the recent history of the Church,” wrote Phil Lawler in Lost Shepherd: How Pope Francis Is Misleading His Flock.
Francis refused to clarify what he meant by “irregular” (cohabitation? second marriage?) or “sacraments” (confession? Holy Communion?), telling journalists during an in-flight press conference that he could not recall it.
The pope, formerly known for his prolixity, never responded to four cardinals who wrote to him in September 2016 pleading for clarification. As a result, diocesan bishops announced radically different policies based on contradictory interpretations of Francis’s words.
The Doctrine of Climate Change
Meanwhile, Francis published his tree-hugging encyclical Laudato Si’ in 2015, calling for an “ecological conversion” and recruiting Jesus, Mary, and Francis of Assisi as eco-allies of Greta Thunberg. The encyclical was largely ghostwritten by atheist climate scientist Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber.
Environmentalism — a topic on which the pope spoke with exceptional clarity — would become a leitmotif of his pontificate and the only area of eschatology into which he would venture boldly: The world was on the precipice of destruction because of man-made climate change.
Flickr/John Englart/CC BY-SA 2.0
Over 30,000 people rallied and marched in Melbourne, Australia on September 21, 2014 as part of the global Peoplesclimate protest for action on climate change.
Schellnhuber was invited to address the Amazon Synod in October 2019. That tumultuous event would slap an unforgettable icon on Francis’s face — the figurine of the Andean mother earth deity Pachamama. Eco-liberals venerated Pachamama’s wooden images in the presence of Pope Francis until a firebrand Austrian Catholic drove to Rome and dumped them in the River Tiber.
The pope’s paean to Pachamama intensified as the Wuhan virus catastrophe was unleashed on the world. In pleas bordering on pantheism, Francis warned the pandemic was caused by grumpy Gaia having a hissy fit.
“Nature is throwing a tantrum so that we will take care of her,” he pontificated. “God always forgives. We sometimes forgive. Nature never forgives.”
Francis even imitated Marcion and cancelled the words of the “vengeful” Old Testament God: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (Genesis 9:6), going so far as tochange Canon 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018, declaring the death penalty “inadmissible.”
He would seal this innovation with his magisterium authority by squirreling it into his 2024 declaration Dignitas Infinita. Three months before his death, he would beseech his friend and ideological ally, President Joe Biden, to commute the sentences of 40 criminals on federal death row — including criminals convicted of savagely massacring Jews, children, and women.
Editing Jesus
Even Jesus’s words in the New Testament needed an update. In 2020, Francis, a former chemistry teacher from Buenos Aires, took his scalpel to the Lord’s Prayer, rewriting the sixth petition — “lead us not into temptation” — as “do not abandon us to temptation.”
Francis clearly wasn’t going to “preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,” as the Apostle Paul admonished all believers. With unimaginable hubris, the “custodian of tradition,” Francis, jettisoned Jesus and signed a covenant with Islam for the sake of “human fraternity.”
Hijacking St. Francis yet again, Pope Francis penned the longest papal encyclical ever — a “veritable bacchanalia of verbosity” — devoting 43,000 words to migration, markets, media, interfaith dialogue, populism, nationalism, the redistribution of wealth, and the death penalty.
Fratelli tutti even quoted the Koran in seeking to inspire “the vision of a fraternal society,” but never once mentioned “salvation” or the uniqueness of Jesus and His salvific work on the Cross in its eight chapters.
In preaching a Christless fraternity, critics complained that Francis was reviving the hippie deity of Woodstock, who was, in the words of H. Richard Niebuhr, “a God without wrath who brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”
Jettisoning Jesus was essential to Francis signing his Abu Dhabi covenant with Al-Azhar’s Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayyeb. Muslim converts to Christianity facing the death penalty for apostasy — a penalty al-Tayyeb endorses — denounced the dissimulations in the document.
Muslim persecution of Christians skyrocketed under Francis. When Turkey’s radical Muslim president occupied the world’s greatest Byzantine cathedral, turning it again into a mosque, the dhimmified Francis whispered a feeble, “I think of Hagia Sophia, and I am very saddened.”
Chinese Friends in High Places
Francis’s megaphone had already been deadened by his concordat with China, renewed in 2020 and 2024 despite an ever-swelling surge in the persecution of Christians and Uyghur Muslims by the CCP. On this, the pontiff lost even his liberal fans for acquiescing to communists.
Nevertheless, the world was treated to a high-decibel lecture on taking the experimental mRNA vaccine as the pope set an example by taking the abortion-tainted jab and sided with draconian lockdowns.
As monarch of Vatican City, Francis became one of the first world leaders to force a vaccine passport on citizens, enforcing institutionalized coercion and discrimination, by which he managed to violate the Nuremberg Code, the Italian constitution, and a Council of Europe resolution simultaneously. Sycophant swiftly turned the Catholic Church into a COVID cult.
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Francis, forever the arch-nemesis of proselytism, then became God’s salesman-in-chief for the COVID-19 vaccine, even producing a video for the Ad Council — an agency that promotes contraception, LGBTQ+ causes, and the Marxist-led Black Lives Matter movement.
“Being vaccinated with vaccines authorized by the competent authorities is an act of love,” he cooed in the promotional video. The medical tyranny triggered a revolt of conscientious objectors in the Swiss Guard, which was swiftly quashed by the Vatican.
Soon, the Pontifical Academy for Life would invite Rabbi Avraham Steinberg to preach his brand of vaccine extremism at the Vatican, even labeling intentionally unvaccinated people as “murderers.” The Vatican mint would issue a 20-euro silver coin celebrating the contested jab.
Bad Habits Long Established
Meanwhile, philosopher José Quarracino (the nephew of Cardinal Antonio Quarracino, who appointed Fr. Bergoglio as auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires) emerged like a bad dream from Francis’s past.
Quarracino described Bergoglio as “the buffoon of plutocrats” for creating the Council for Inclusive Capitalism with the Vatican. “Bergoglio’s leadership style is that of a despot who allows neither contradiction nor independent judgment. He has always surrounded himself with mediocre, submissive, and servile personalities,” the philosopher quipped. He added that Francis had always had a bent toward “flirt[ing]with the liberal and progressive world, always insofar as it was to his advantage.”
But the most dizzying papal adventure was round the corner. In October 2021, Francis launched a Synod on Synodality geared at “listening” to the whole church. The expensive experiment involved laypeople at the grassroots — and even Protestants, lapsed Catholics, and atheists.
Altogether, the synod lasted until 2024 and opened a Pandora’s box of ideological agendas, with dissident Catholics demanding women’s ordination and a revision of Catholic teaching on LGBT issues.
But, despite his increasingly failing health, Francis remained in an “Around the World in 80 Days” mode, visiting over 60 countries from Brazil to Bulgaria and from Slovenia to South Sudan while preaching “human fraternity” in lieu of the Christian gospel.
Papal Antisemitism
He became the first pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula, promoting dialogue with Islam. He would travel to Sweden to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, praising the “courageous” Martin Luther and affirming that Luther “got it right” on justification.
On a visit to Kazakhstan, Francis did not mention Jesus even once in his seven-minute address to an interfaith assembly, even though the event he was there to commemorate was the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
While the U.S. Supreme Court turned Roe v. Wade on its head in 2022, igniting the dream of an abortion-free world, Francis welcomed pro-abortion Catholics like President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a wink and a nudge while publicly bashing bishops who dared to bar them from Holy Communion.
Toward the end of his life, the pope who claimed to have the Argentinian Jewish Rabbi Abraham Skorka as his bosom pal and even cowrote the book On Heaven and Earth with him made a series of anti-Israel statements, leading to a catastrophic breakdown in Jewish-Catholic relations.
The final straw was Francis venerating the baby Jesus lying on a swaddling keffiyeh — the symbol of Palestinian resistance and Jew-hatred. In January 2025, Rome’s chief rabbi, Dr. Riccardo Di Segni, accused Pope Francis of neglecting persecuted Christians in Islamic countries while directing his “selective indignation” against Israel.
Di Segni warned that the pope’s “omissions, distractions, [and] low-profile, generic citations” against Muslims who persecute Christians “clashes with the systematic and almost daily attention and words of disapproval and condemnation towards Israel.”
A month earlier, Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, was forced to rebuke Francis for committing a “genocide blood libel against the Jewish state” and reminded the pontiff of the Vatican’s silence during the Nazi Holocaust.
Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.
The Anti-Defamation League reported that antisemitic crimes, including assaults and vandalism in America, reached a “horrifying” level in 2024.
The report said the “massive spike” continues to rise following the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre against Israel. The report pointed to the number of 2024 antisemitic crimes, “exceeding any other annual tally in the past 46 years.”
The ADL report showed 9,354 incidents of antisemitic assault, harassment, and vandalism in the U.S. in 2024. Broken down, that means more than 25 targeted anti-Jewish incidents in the U.S. per day, more than one an hour.
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said, “This horrifying level of antisemitism should never be accepted and yet, as our data shows, it has become a persistent and grim reality for American Jewish communities.”
“Jewish Americans,” said Greenblatt, “continue to be harassed, assaulted, and targeted for who they are on a daily basis and everywhere they go. But let’s be clear: We will remain proud of our Jewish culture, religion, and identities, and we will not be intimidated by bigots.”
In early February, the Trump administration Department of Justice initiated a task force against antisemitic crimes. One focus area has been directed at colleges and universities that did little to protect Jewish students and faculty from intimidation and assaults.
As of April 1, 2025, over 100,000 individuals had been deported since January 20, 2025. But this is far slower than the rate necessary to deport the tens of millions of illegals in our country right now.
To deport the more than 20 million illegal aliens that Leavitt says entered the U.S. in the last four years, the Trump Administration would need to execute upwards of ten thousand deportations per day.
Leavitt was asked how many illegals are currently in our country and how many the administration actually estimates will be deported.
“We suspect it’s definitely in the millions and perhaps upwards of 20 million people that were allowed into the country illegally by the previous administration,” she told the reporter.
She continued, “The president’s team has made it clear that we need more funding from Congress to do more, we need more ICE agents out on the ground doing this very important work.”
She also slammed district court judges who are trying to stop the Trump Administration’s deportations, saying, “We also need rogue district court judges to stop acting as judicial activists, trying to block the administration from deporting illegal criminals from our nation’s interior.”
As The Gateway Pundit reported, another unelected Biden Judge in Denver, Colorado, granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking the removal of aliens from the district of Colorado. Judge Charlotte Sweeney said aliens facing deportation under the AEA must be given 21 days’ notice before removal.
Leavitt also addressed the potential national security concerns with Chinese nationals on student visas, noting that the Secretary of State reserves the right to revoke visas of students who are “acting in an adversarial way to our foreign policy interests.”
“If they are acting, again, adversarial to our foreign policy interests, their visa can be revoked, and they should be aware of that,” she said.
Reporter: Roughly how many illegal immigrants and aliens do we have in our country, and how many does the administration plan on deporting?
Leavitt: You’d have to ask the Department of Homeland Security for a specific number, but we suspect it’s definitely in the millions and perhaps upwards of 20 million people that were allowed into the country illegally by the previous administration. And the President and his team are focused on deporting as many as we possibly can, and they are moving as quickly as possible. The president’s team has made it clear that we need more funding from Congress to do more, we need more ICE agents out on the ground doing this very important work, and we also need rogue district court judges to stop acting as judicial activists, trying to block the administration from deporting illegal criminals from our nation’s interior. The American public elected the President to do this, and he’s following through with that promise.
Reporter: We have over a quarter million Chinese nationals in our country right now on student visas. Does the Administration believe there is any national security concern when it comes to those over a quarter million Chinese nationals in our country?
Leavitt: Well, as you know, when it comes to foreign visas, the Secretary of State has the right to revoke visas for those who we feel are acting in an adversarial way to our foreign policy interests here in the United States. He has that authority according to the Immigration and Nationality Act. So, I would defer you to the State Department for any individual case, but they are looking at individuals who are given the privilege of being on a visa in our country, and if they are acting, again, adversarial to our foreign policy interests, their visa can be revoked, and they should be aware of that.
Jordan Conradson, formerly TGP’s Arizona correspondent, is currently on assignment in Washington DC. Jordan has played a critical role in exposing fraud and corruption in Arizona’s elections and elected officials. His reporting on election crimes in Maricopa County led to the resignation of one election official, and he was later banned from the Maricopa County press room for his courage in pursuit of the truth. TGP and Jordan finally gained access after suing Maricopa County, America’s fourth largest county, and winning at the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Conradson looks forward to bringing his aggressive style of journalism to the Swamp.
The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing the extent to which parents can opt their children out of public school instruction in which LGBT-themed books are read as part of the curriculum.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday morning in the case of Mahmoud, Tamer, et al. v. Taylor, Thomas W., et al. The case centers on whether public school parents in Montgomery County, Maryland — the state’s largest school district — have a constitutional right under the First Amendment to exempt their children from lessons that feature LGBT ideology.
Eric Baxter of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty argued the case on behalf of a diverse coalition of Christian, Muslim and Jewish parents, saying in his opening arguments that “petitioners deserve complete preliminary relief” from the school district because it won’t allow them to opt their children out of such instruction.
“Exempting students for some religious reasons but not others cannot be squared with the First Amendment,” said Baxter. “In a system where thousands of students are daily opted in and out of the class for multiple reasons, there’s no basis for denying opt-outs for religious reasons.”
Justice Elena Kagan, one of the three liberal members of the court, expressed concern about “lines” with opt-outs, believing that if the plaintiffs were successful, there would be “opt-outs for everyone” no matter how trivial the parental issue.
Baxter replied that “schools everywhere in the country” are working under the assumption that sincere religious objections can be a reason for an opt-out.
He added that Montgomery County also operated under that rule and that “there were never these kinds of problems until they introduced a curriculum that was clearly indoctrinating students.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wondered if the Supreme Court should “wait until we have a record” that is more detailed about what was happening in the classrooms, while Baxter argued that the “record is undisputable.”
Jackson grilled Baxter on possible scenarios like students putting up pro-LGBT posters or a teacher having a photo of a same-sex partner on her classroom desk, asking if parents can opt out of seeing those things.
Baxter argued that such issues are not coming up in the courts and that any parents suing a school district on such issues would likely lose based on strict scrutiny.
The lawyer clarified that simply having the LGBT-themed books in the schools is “exposure,” but having the teacher openly endorse the messages of the books to a captive student audience is “coercion.”
Alan Evan Schoenfeld argued on behalf of the school district, stating in his opening comments that “every day in public elementary school classrooms across the country, children are taught ideas that conflict with their family’s religious beliefs.”
“Each of these things is deeply offensive to some people of faith, but learning about them is not a legally cognizable burden on free exercise,” Schoenfeld.
Schoenfeld claimed that a decision in favor of the plaintiffs “would conscript courts into playing the role of school board, a task for which this court has recognized they are ill-suited.”
Justice Samuel Alito, one of the court’s more conservative members, took issue with what he believed to be the school district’s rejection of sincerely held religious objections from parents. Alito asked Schoenfeld if he thought school officials could do whatever they wanted regarding curriculum.
“I don’t think it’s true that the public schools can do whatever they want,” he responded. “There are clear lines to be drawn; this court has drawn them.”
In October 2022, the Montgomery County Board of Education approved a group of LGBT-themed books for inclusion in schools’ English language arts curricula. After a large parents’ protest outside the school district office in Rockville in 2023, the parents sued the board, arguing that the school district violated their sincerely held beliefs.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, a Biden appointee, rejected the motion for a preliminary injunction in August 2023, concluding that the parents failed to show that the “use of the storybooks crosses the line from permissible influence to potentially impermissible indoctrination.”
In May 2024, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court ruling in a 2-1 decision, with Circuit Judge G. Steven Agee, a George W. Bush appointee, authoring the majority opinion.
“[T]here’s no evidence at present that the Board’s decision not to permit opt-outs compels the Parents or their children to change their religious beliefs or conduct, either at school or elsewhere,” wrote Agee.
Circuit Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum, Jr., a Trump appointee, dissented, writing that the parents had “shown the board’s decision to deny religious opt-outs burdened these parents’ right to exercise their religion and direct the religious upbringing of their children by putting them to the choice of either compromising their religious beliefs or foregoing a public education for their children.”
“The board’s refusal to grant the parents’ requests for religious opt-outs to instruction with the books the board required be used to promote diversity and inclusivity to the LGBTQ+ community forces the parents to make a choice — either adhere to their faith or receive a free public education for their children. They cannot do both,” Quattlebaum said.
In January, the Supreme Court issued a miscellaneous orders list agreeing without comment to an appeal in the case of Mahmoud, Tamer, et al. v. Taylor, Thomas W., et al.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 