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.

REVOLVER NEWS STAFF

For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks.

Waiting for a good time to quit your job?

The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time.

The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up the pins either.

Conditions are never perfect.

“Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you.

Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it “eventually,” just do it and correct course along the way.

— Tim Ferriss

Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the 266^th 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.

Please Support The Stream: Equipping Christians to Think Clearly About the Political, Economic, and Moral Issues of Our Day.

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.

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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.

Jim Mishler ✉

Jim Mishler, a seasoned reporter, anchor and news director, has decades of experience covering crime, politics and environmental issues.

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.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/04/breaking-biden-judge-bars-trump-admin-deporting-venezuelan/embed/#?secret=UMVbEPyw1A

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

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.

Video of Karoline Leavitt’s Remarks

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.

Michael Gryboski, Christian Post

Pope Francis’ death this morning marks the end of a modernising and seemingly benign pontificate for most of the world, but for those who have followed it with any closeness, a time of turmoil, disruption and deep division.

Elected on a mandate of reform, Francis set out to make the Church less self-referential and more mission oriented, closer to the faithful and the peripheries, and more relevant to the times. In many ways he achieved this: those who would never give the Catholic Church a second glance, perceiving that she would not accept them, felt accepted and welcomed.

He strove to embrace Muslims, people with disabilities, migrants, the poor and the homeless, opening facilities for the latter in Rome and creating a Vatican department for the poor headed by the papal almoner whom he elevated to the rank of cardinal. His mission, he said, was to transform the Catholic Church into a “field hospital,” tending to people where they are, not judging them but offering them the Lord’s mercy and love instead.

Francis sought to give women more leadership roles in the Church and was noticeably and controversially eager to embrace LGBTQ people, forcefully speaking out against laws criminalizing homosexuality, disturbing many Catholics — especially in Africa — by allowing non-liturgical blessings of same-sex couples, and permitting civil unions, even though previous popes had firmly opposed such changes.

“He’s my hero,” said the singer Elton John in 2014, the first of many other celebrities, politicians, and well known figures — most of whom support liberal positions at odds with the Church’s teaching — who would go on to express their admiration for the Argentine pontiff.

Francis had a clear ideological vision. The Church’s teaching, he wrote in his 2013 manifesto apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), must “radiate forcefully and attractively” but not be based — although it ultimately was — on “specific ideological options.”

He aimed to create a more listening Church, an “inverted pyramid” that takes the People of God as its starting point — in sum, a grand vision of decentralization ostensibly geared towards creating a more democratic, localized Church “permanently in a state of mission” and seemingly capable of dealing with the complexities of the faith and human relationships in the world today.

But critics warned that such an approach was more akin to a Protestant model that departed from the Church’s apostolic tradition, threatening to undermine Rome’s authority, and the hierarchy in general. Cardinals expressed alarm, notably after a synod on the family in 2014 was rigged to produce a radical and modernist ideological outcome.

More significantly, in his eagerness to embrace the progressive tenet of inclusivity and his own, broad concept of mercy, Francis often set aside canonical limits to papal power, especially when it came to defending some of his friends accused of clerical sex abuse. This also applied to areas of the liturgy (on Holy Thursday, he washed the feet of Muslims and women which had previously never been allowed.

He ruled autocratically, not unusual for a pope who has all legislative, executive and judicial powers, but Francis issued more papal decrees, not dissimilar to executive orders, than any pope in modern history.

Under his watch, bishops, priests, religious and laity who had been bearing good fruit in terms of reverence, spiritual life, fidelity to Catholic doctrine, and booming vocations were cancelled or ostracized. “The more spiritual and supernaturally orientated they were, the more persecution they seem to suffer,” a Portuguese priest told Newsmax on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisals. “Meanwhile, in other quarters, those who committed abuses against doctrine, moral teaching and the liturgy seemed to go unpunished and were allowed to thrive.”

Francis was criticized for departing from apostolic tradition, not infrequently contradicting, or at least weakening, the Church’s moral teaching and, on occasion, promoting indifferentism, the idea that all religions are valid paths to God – a belief long considered a heresy in the Church as it undermines the unique role of Christ and the Catholic Church in salvation.

Together with his strong belief in what he called “synodality” — a democratization of the Church allowing Catholics, often untrained in theology and with progressive leanings, to have a significant say in the Church’s future — Francis introduced ambiguities and allowed doctrinal confusion to reign with significant consequences.

This became most evident in Germany. A four-year “synodal way” there (2019-2023) led to the German Catholic Church voting to support the blessing of same-sex couples, a push towards the ordination of women as priests, revisions of sexual morality, the abolition of priestly celibacy, and intercommunion with Protestants. The Pope and the Vatican opposed their reforms, but only tacitly, and so they have continued.

Synodality as a whole has remained suspect throughout Francis’ pontificate and has become viewed by many practicing Catholics as simply a vehicle for legitimizing heterodoxy. The Vatican’s former doctrinal chief, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, called the 2023-24 synod on synodality a “hostile takeover of the Church,” while a synod dedicated to the Amazon in 2019 caused uproar when an animist Indian statue, which Francis referred to as a Pachamama, was idolized in the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica.

Beyond the Church, Francis spearheaded efforts to engage in global politics. He tried to act as a papal peacemaker, organizing a prayer vigil early in his pontificate to avert the escalation of the conflict in Syria and working behind the scenes to restore US-Cuban diplomatic ties. In May 2023, he sent Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna as his peace envoy to Kiev, Moscow, and Jerusalem to try to resolve the conflicts there. The efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, and unguarded remarks by Francis upset both Ukraine and Israel. But he did much to contribute humanitarian aid to those caught up in the conflicts, sending his almoner, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, on missions to the war-torn regions.

Some of his strongest opposition came from signing a highly controversial secret agreement with Beijing on the appointment of bishops in 2018. Critics slammed the accord, influenced in its creation by the disgraced former Archbishop of Washington DC Theodore McCarrick, as an “incredible betrayal” and “absolutely incomprehensible” as Beijing further clamped down on religious freedom and would propose episcopal candidates for the Pope to approve. The Vatican said patience was needed for it to bear fruit and highlighted limited successes, but as it waited, it held back from publicly criticizing China’s human rights abuses, or coming to the defence of two prominent Catholics persecuted by the CCP: Jimmy Lai and Cardinal Joseph Zen. Wall Street Journal columnist Bill McGurn called the approach a “disaster” and “demoralizing.”

Francis travelled extensively, visiting over 60 countries. He became the first pontiff to ever set foot in the Arab peninsula (the United Arab Emirates) and Iraq, and was unafraid to travel to dangerous places, visiting Egypt at a time of heightened Islamist terrorism, and the Central African Republic during a civil war. He visited communist Cuba twice, the second time making history by being the first pope to meet the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church since the Great Schism of 1054. For reasons unknown, he never returned to his native Argentina as pope.

Francis’ relationship with the United States was cool at best. Although he made a largely successful visit to the country in 2015, he held a common Latin American grudge against its more prosperous, neoliberal northern neighbour. He had a particular dislike of American conservativism, despite its vigorous defense of Christianity, and expressed a preference early on in his pontificate for more “moderate” (i.e. progressive) bishops in the US. He said in 2019 it was “an honor that Americans attack me.”

The Pope received President Donald Trump at the Vatican in 2017 but his preferred candidate at that election was the socialist populist Bernie Sanders whom Francis invited, against the wishes of Obama-administration diplomats, to speak at the Vatican during the 2016 Presidential campaign. Four years later, his preference for Joe Biden was clear and the two had a close alliance, despite Catholic Biden’s public stance on abortion, same-sex marriage and other issues opposed to the Church’s teaching.

Critics said Francis’ closeness to Democrat-run globalism weakened the Church’s position on critical moral issues such as abortion, gender ideology and a host of other concerns, and that it epitomized his friendship with worldly powers and values in general. His supporters, such as fellow Argentine Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, would frequently say they had no other choice but to cooperate with them if they were to have any say in the public square at a time when religion was being steadily “privatized.”

Still, the complicity caused damage. The Pope’s position on the Covid-19 vaccines, insisting that to be vaxed was an “act of love” while having the Vatican stage a conference with Big Pharma CEOs, was just one example of problematic complicity. The Vatican drew especially close to the UN, including its Sustainable Development Goals that advocate contraception and reproductive rights, code for abortion. Under Pope Francis, the Vatican had a close alliance with population control advocates such as the SDGs chief architect Jeffrey Sachs, who became a frequent visitor and trusted adviser.

“All this and more demonstrates a line of obsequiousness to the current system of social control,” said Professor Stefano Fontana director of the Cardinal Van Thuan International Observatory on the Social Doctrine of the Church. The policies that the Church supported, he added, “either by proposing them itself or by remaining silent about their negative aspects, have caused great damage.”

A large part of that complicity and silence owed itself to Church dependence on government funding — something that grew under Francis and a reality that was exposed when the Trump administration effectively shuttered USAID. Some of the strongest reactions to that decision came from the Vatican and US bishops, including Francis’ open letter criticising the Trump administration’s policy on illegal migration. Catholic charities received millions of dollars from USAID, and probably many other similar agencies around the word, affecting the Church’s moral voice as the funding naturally came with explicit or implicit conditions.

Francis was mysteriously partial to those whose views were diametrically opposed to the Church, and freely received in private audience such figures as the philanthropist Alex Soros, former US President Bill Clinton, and pro-abortion Catholic politicians Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden. He praised the abortionist and Italian politician Emma Bonino, honouring her with a private visit armed with flowers and chocolates. He had had little time for right-wing politicians, and never granted interviews to conservative media or orthodox Catholic media outlets.

Within the Vatican, he mostly consulted a small coterie of close advisers, creating a parallel governing structure and resulting in changes that took many cardinals by surprise, perhaps the most significant being when he arbitrarily amended the catechism to fully reject the death penalty.

Much of Francis’ pontificate could be read through his appointments. He promoted some worthy candidates such as Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, a popular and able Franciscan, whom he appointed the Patriarch of Jerusalem. But at other times he ignored protocol and personally hand-picked bishops, who more often than not tended to be Churchmen of dubious moral character.

Regarding structural reforms of the Roman Curia, the Pope merged several dicasteries into “super-dicasteries,” demoting the once supreme doctrinal office and promoting evangelization instead. He overhauled Vatican communications, and successfully reformed some aspects of Vatican finances even as scandals continued to mount under his watch. One led to the trial and unprecedented conviction of one of his closest collaborators, Cardinal Angelo Becciu. A Sardinian diplomat, Becciu has always maintained his innocence and insisted Francis knew about all his actions.

In many ways Francis was his own worst enemy in this regard. He allowed himself to be hampered by an “old guard” who were unwilling to change their management of finances for fear of exposing them, and by his own autocratic management style that critics say fostered a climate of fear, especially of retribution, and demoralization. His formal structural overhaul of the Roman Curia, while praised for emphasizing evangelization, was criticized for centralizing authority through the Secretariat of State while relegating doctrinal authority to national bishops’ conferences, a move viewed by some as leading to doctrinal inconsistencies.

Francis showed relatively little interest in liturgical issues, but he continued what he and his aides said was an “irreversible” path of reform that they claimed was consistent with the Second Vatican Council. However, his decision to suppress the traditional Latin Mass in 2021 courted significant controversy, even from those who did not adhere to Tradition. Welcomed by supporters who, like Francis, saw many traditional Catholics as dissenters from his pontificate, the Pope’s decree Traditionis Custodes shocked adherents of the old Mass in its severity. Many bishops initially ignored its instructions.

So how will history likely judge him? Under Francis’ leadership, the Catholic Church drew closer to worldly powers and non-believers, but arguably further away from the practicing faithful, especially in the West. Numbers of Catholics worldwide rose, but Church attendance and vocations were down, and most people during his pontificate continued to look elsewhere for salvation.

The pontificate bore fruit, but perhaps not the fruit wished for by Francis as he unwittingly revealed much inner corruption almost by default. With a progressive pope like Francis, many cardinals, bishops, and priests who dissented from Church teaching viewed him as one their own, and so felt emboldened to reveal themselves.

As the conservative American Cardinal Raymond Burke, known for his respectful criticisms of the Pope, once put it: Francis “brought out into the open all the terrible corruption, sexual, financial, doctrinal.” He “opened up a lot of people’s eyes to realise how lethal and how harmful” was the “rebellion” that took place after the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, Cardinal Burke added. He also noted how, by suppressing the traditional liturgy that had been celebrated in the Church for centuries, it made Catholics appreciate it more. “Adherence to tradition is growing stronger every day,” he observed.

The Canadian Catholic writer Hilary White called this pontificate the “Great Clarification,” a period when a “polite middle way” of compromise with the modern world — a feature of all the pontificates Francis, Benedict XVI and John Paul II — began to die. It was a middle way, or status quo, White wrote, that “has no place in the crystalline world of absolute truth in which God dwells and which the Church is supposed to model here on earth.” It has never worked, White said, as the Church is supposed to be a beacon of truth in a world of lies and deception. Francis, unintentionally, through the harm caused by such a close collaboration with the modern world and its values, helped shine a light on this basic truth.

Francis also exposed a false understanding of the papacy that had grown up in the Church, especially since Pope John Paul II, but which dated back to Pope Pius IX in the 19th century. The English philosopher John Rist called it “creeping infallibility” leading to a kind of “papal absolutism” or “hyperpapalism,” and culminating in the kind of autocratic papacy that Francis embodied.

Francis may, therefore, be best remembered as the chief human protagonist of an apokalupsis — Greek for uncover or reveal. He provided the Church with the opportunity to address problems that would probably not have arisen under a less disruptive pontificate. That won’t of course excuse the mayhem, disunity, and anger he generated among faithful Catholics, but without the errors and malfeasance that occurred under his watch, the problems might never have come to light.

And for all the criticisms levelled against him, he will also leave a positive mark, showing the world, albeit often illicitly, a central aspect of the Catholic Church which is that the hand of God’s mercy extends to everyone, especially those who most need it, if they would only turn to Christ for help and forgiveness.

All this naturally has repercussions for the next conclave. Given the turmoil and divisions of Francis’ pontificate, the chances of the cardinals voting for a moderate, bridge-building, conservative candidate remain relatively high. This would align with the old Roman saying that a “fat pope follows a thin one,” meaning that the cardinals tend to choose a pope quite different to his predecessor.

They will also probably be looking for someone to make a serious effort to confront the internal Church problems that have existed for many years and which, through the Lord’s permissive will, Francis’ tumultuous pontificate brought to light.

EDWARD PENTIN

In a recent piece in The Atlantic, Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow with the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies, urged the United States to confront Turkey. According to Gerecht, Turkey has emerged, under the presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, “as perhaps the greatest danger to Israel in the Middle East, escalating the threat of a conflict he won’t be able to avoid.” Gerecht charges Erdogan with setting the stage for a clash with Israel as a key tactic in his power projection strategy abroad.

To reduce the risk of “yet another regional war,” Gerecht urges President Donald Trump to take a tougher line on Turkey, admonishing him that calling Erdogan a “friend,” as Trump did, “won’t cut it.”

Gerecht is a neoconservative hawk. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and now advocates for U.S. strikes on Iran. His piece targeting Turkey doesn’t advocate war with that country, but it nonetheless exemplifies the persistent flaws of the neoconservative worldview: an exaggerated perception of threat, a conflation of American and Israeli interests, and a failure to prioritize among global challenges in ways that emphasize the U.S. national interest.

As for threat perception, Gerecht’s portrayal of Turkey as a menace to the West is hyperbolic. There is no doubt that Erdogan is an authoritarian leader bent on dismantling Turkey’s democracy. He had his most formidable political challenger, Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu from the opposition People’s Republican Party, arrested and disqualified from running for election. Worse, Erdogan’s foreign policy is assertive, particularly in Syria, where Ankara supported Sunni Islamists with roots in Al Qaeda as they toppled the country’s secular president Bashar al-Assad. In the South Caucasus, Erdogan backed Azerbaijani dictator Ilham Aliyev’s war against Armenia, which resulted in ethnic cleansing of more than 100,000 Christian Armenians from the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Yet none of that directly threatens U.S. interests. While undermining Turkish democracy is deplorable, it is up to the Turkish people, not Washington, to resist the drift into autocracy. Throughout history, Turkey’s vibrant society has amply demonstrated its democratic resilience, and it is doing so again by protesting Erdogan’s power grab. As for Syria, however distasteful the new Turkish-backed rulers in Damascus may be, they are focused on consolidating their domestic rule, not waging a global jihad against America.

Moreover, Ankara remains an important partner for Washington. It has NATO’s second-largest military, hosts a joint U.S.-Turkish airbase in Incirlik, and controls the strategic Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits in the Black Sea. While Erdogan’s failure to enforce sanctions against Russia drew criticisms from Western supporters of Ukraine, Trump likely sees Erdogan’s channels of communication with Russian President Vladimir Putin as a valuable asset in the efforts to end the Ukraine war. Like it or not, Turkey’s strategic advantages and diplomatic standing mean it is poised to play a relevant role in resolving the conflict.

Rather than demonizing Turkey, as Gerecht is doing, a realist approach would involve pragmatic diplomacy that keeps Ankara tethered to the West while seeking to limit, where possible, Erdogan’s worst excesses at home and abroad. This approach is likely to work better anyway. Overheated rhetoric would inflame tensions without delivering anything of value to Washington except a sense of moral self-righteousness.

Gerecht’s piece also reveals a troubling tendency to prioritize Israel’s security over America’s. Gerecht frets over Ankara’s criticisms of Israel and its support for Hamas and Syrian Islamists. Yet despite Gerecht’s framing, these actions by Turkey are not direct challenges to the U.S. Indeed, they may not even be direct challenges to Israel.

Erdogan’s inflammatory rhetoric against the Jewish state is mostly performative: During Israel’s assault on Gaza following the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack by Hamas, Turkey never stopped oil shipments to Israel from Azerbaijan, even though they pass through the Turkish territory. Ankara’s actions in Syria are similarly less hostile to Israeli interests than they may seem. The primary motivation there was not to threaten Israel, but to eliminate the perceived threat to Turkey posed by the radical leftist Kurdish guerrillas allied with the terrorist Kurdish Workers’ Party.

Gerecht is worried that the Turkish-backed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) now ruling in Damascus could, in time, become a Sunni version of Hezbollah, an anti-Israel militant group in Lebanon. However, both Ankara and the new Syrian leaders went out of their way to emphasize that they are not seeking a war with Israel. To the extent that this reluctance may change and give way to a more assertive stance, Israel mostly has itself to blame. Under the guise of creating “buffer zones,” Israel engaged in systematic destruction of Syria’s military capabilities and occupation of Syrian territory, actions that have continued after the collapse of the Assad regime and the rise to power of HTS. These moves incentivize Turkey to do more, not less, to boost the military capabilities of the new Syrian government, making Israel’s worries a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Aggressive Israeli moves in Syria undermine not only Turkey’s interests, but also America’s. Trump has consistently voiced his desire for the U.S. to leave Syria, but chaos in the country could complicate that objective. During Trump’s first term, his own officials sabotaged an ordered troop withdrawal. Now, he is trying again to bring U.S. forces back from Syria, but hawks inside and outside the administration will look for any reason to keep them there, including a supposed need to safeguard Israel’s security. Israel, meanwhile, has formidable military capabilities, both conventional and nuclear. It is perfectly capable of defending itself. The job of the U.S. government is to protect Americans, not to police Israel’s neighbors, especially when doing so entails turning troops into sitting ducks in conflict zones.

Gerecht and his ilk, in addition to vilifying Turkey, are also advocating U.S. military strikes against Iran. Such proposed strikes are advertised as “limited,” but they likely would drag America into another Forever War in the Middle East. Iran, of course, is another of Israel’s foes that poses little threat to the American homeland. A U.S. war with Iran would stretch resources thin and risk strategic over-commitment at a time when Washington should focus on China, a peer competitor. Turkey’s objectionable policies and Iran’s regional ambitions are, for the U.S., secondary concerns that distract from paramount strategic imperatives. A sensible U.S. policy in the Middle East would engage both Turkey and Iran diplomatically—something Trump has shown a willingness to do. It would also decouple U.S. interests from Israel’s and focus on the true strategic interests of the American nation. The U.S. is not the world’s policeman, nor Israel’s bodyguard, and now is a good time to shed neoconservative fantasies that suggest otherwise.

Eldar Mamedov, American Conservative

Democrats are trying to prevent immigration enforcement via “an extraordinary amount of individualized adjudication” at a level that “no American citizen” receives, President Donald Trump’s top aide Stephen Miller said.

“This isn’t due process — this is called ‘infinity process’ to keep you here forever!”  Miller told Newsmax on April 21.

Democrats are trying to prevent immigration enforcement via “an extraordinary amount of individualized adjudication” at a level that “no American citizen” receives, President Donald Trump’s top aide Stephen Miller said.

“This isn’t due process — this is called ‘infinity process’ to keep you here forever!”  Miller told Newsmax on April 21.https://www.breitbart.com/t/assets/html/tweet-4.html#1914460505751871998

Miller’s “Infinity Process” comments echoed President Trump’s message:

How can Biden let Millions of Criminals into our Country, totally unchecked and unvetted, with no Legal authority to do so, yet I, in order to make up for this assault to our Nation, am expected to go through a lengthy Legal process, separately, for each and every Criminal Alien.

The Democrats’ strategy is a threat to the nation, he added: “As usual, TWO DIFFERENT STANDARDS, only leading to the Complete and Total Destruction of the U.S.A. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Miller’s “Infinity Process” term spotlights his effort to change the terms of national debate away from elite concerns and towards the concerns of ordinary people. For example, he recently suggested that ordinary Americans are entitled to reparations for civic harm caused by the elites’ preference for mass migration.

The “Infinity Process” strategy is spotlighted by the Democrats’ response to the court-ordered deportation of Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was ordered deported in 2019. Trump’s deputies are also showcasing the evidence that Abrego Garcia subsequently allegedly beat his wife, served as a street hustler in Maryland for the MS-13 gang, and helped smuggle more illegal migrants into the jobs and housing needed by Van Hollen’s constituents.

In response, Democrats are urging the Republicans to stop talking about the migrant’s criminal record.

“Don’t put everything out on social media,” about the deported migrant, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told ABC’s This Week on April 20. The issue should be decided by judges, he said, adding:

The Trump administration is trying to change the story [Democrats’ narrative]. They’re trying to detract attention. Here’s where they should put their facts: they should put it before the court. They should put up or shut up in court. … [under] Judge Xinis, who’s the district court judge in this case.

GOP legislators are broadcasting the administration’s “Infinity Process” criticism of the Democrats. The Salvadoran migrant has “been in front of 17 judges, some of them twice,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Meet the Press.

NEWSMAX

The Department of Education is poised to resume collections on defaulted federal student loans in May for the first time since 2020.

While the first Trump administration paused referring federal student loans to collections in March 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the extended lapse has prompted Trump administration officials to worry that the federal student loan portfolio is “headed toward a fiscal cliff if we don’t start repayment in collections,” according to a senior department official.

“The result has been that the federal government student loan portfolio has continued to grow, and we’ve got a record number of borrowers that are at risk of or in delinquency and default,” the senior department official told reporters Monday.

The official said that only 40% percent of borrowers are up to speed on their loan repayments, while the remaining 60% are behind.

Altogether, the official said that there are 4 million borrowers who are in the late-stage delinquency stage on payments, meaning that they are between 91 days and 180 days late on payments.

“The Trump administration, [the] current administration, believes that American taxpayers can no longer serve as collateral for student loans,” the senior department official said. “Student loan debt must be paid back.”

Likewise, the official said the agency would roll out a communications plan to let borrowers know their status and encourage them to enroll in auto-debit to drive down the number of delinquent borrowers.

The policy takes effect May 5, when the Education Department will partner with the Treasury Offset Program to start collecting overdue payments.

The official also said the Department of Education is preparing to join with lawmakers on efforts to reform higher education and the student loan repayment system in place.

Diana Stancy, FoxNews