Karl Rove is a serious Trump hater. I have Rove fatigue.

Rove argued in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that “voters made crystal clear” what they wanted from the new administration — lower prices and a better economy.

Trump promised to reduce inflation, but instead, he started a trade war, Rove stated.

Currently, they are going down.

He doesn’t realize Trump has been telling us this would happen with tariffs before he was elected.

Rove then said, “His policies will almost certainly continue to be a mixture of deliberately planned, well-executed ideas and those concocted on the fly,” the former deputy White House chief of staff under President George W. Bush stated. “The former includes his undoing of the Biden administration’s excessive regulatory rules and red tape. The latter: the Department of Government Efficiency and removing fluoride from drinking water.”

Basically, Rove doesn’t like anything Trump is doing.

Rove also criticized Trump’s extensive use of executive orders rather than legislation.

Congress hasn’t done anything. Trump has possibly only a year-and-half to fulfill his agenda. Rove wants it all to continue on as it has with debt increasing at existentially dangerous rates.

“And there’s something shocking about this White House to an old-school politico like me: It doesn’t spend much time drawing attention to the president’s successes. Rather than patiently explaining his actions and why they’re good for Americans, the president and his advisers move from one thing to another, seemingly at random,” he adds.

The former Bush advisor said, “There’s way too much retribution. Most of the president’s revenge attempts will end badly for him.”

It’s not revenge to demand justice for obviously criminal and unethical acts. It is not retribution, it’s accountability.

Fortunately, for us, Karl Rove is always wrong.

M. DOWLING, INDEPENDENT SENTINEL

For Christians, Easter is ultimately about the empty tomb and its promise of resurrection. But before the resurrection, there was the cross, which was widely views as a symbol of a terrifying system of imperial tyranny, a frequent instrument for executions during the Roman empire. Setting aside the miracles and the metaphysics, Easter offers an anti-tyrannical political message. The Easter narrative warns against the dangers of greed, complicity and despotic power. It condemns the collusion of sycophants and the callous brutality of the mob. The story of Jesus’ execution exposes an entire system of unjust imperial rule over a subjugated people.

One of the villains of Easter is Judas, a money-grubbing thief who betrayed Jesus to the authorities. Another villain is Herod Antipas, who was also responsible for beheading John the Baptist. But it was Pontius Pilate, the authoritarian Roman ruler of Judaea, who conducted the trial of Jesus and was legally responsible for his crucifixion. That trial involved a bizarre ritual in which the mob was asked who it wanted to save. The mob cried out for Jesus to be crucified, while calling for the release of Barabbas, an insurrectionist. All of this teaches a lesson about the need for a rules-based system of justice. Such a system would outlaw cruel punishments, such as scourging and crucifixion. It would prevent authoritarian rulers from consolidating the power to convict and punish. It would not defer to the stupid passions of the mob, nor would it depend upon the greed of paid informants. In general, it would avoid the excesses of swift imperial justice in favor of due process and the rule of law. Such a system would be similar to that which is found in our own beleaguered constitutional system. The American Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, speech and the press, along with the right to assemble and petition. It prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, requires due process of law and stipulates that those accused of crimes should be able to confront the witnesses against them. It also prohibits excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments.

This means that if a Jesus-like figure were to appear on the American scene, he would be free to preach and lead a movement, even if it infuriated religious and legal authorities. His followers would be free to protest, write and criticize the policies of the church and the state. And if this figure or his followers were accused of crimes, they would have basic rights that protect them against arbitrary detention. In our system, prisoners cannot be mocked or manhandled, or cruelly killed. None of this was true in ancient Roman Judaea. The Roman authorities ruled with an iron fist. Crucifixion was intended to send a message to rebels and rabble-rousers. And while some of the locals may have thought that they could play along with imperial power, the Romans eventually destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. They also rounded up and killed Peter and Paul, and other Christians. The American founders understood the dangers of imperial power run amok. In 1775, John Adams claimed that a republic was “a government of laws, and not of men.” He further said, “An empire is a despotism, and an emperor a despot, bound by no law or limitation, but his own will.” Soon enough, in 1776, the Americans broke with England, claiming that the king had become tyrannical and despotic. The arbitrary and authoritarian application of the power to punish was viewed as a sure sign of tyranny. Among the complaints against King George listed in the Declaration of Independence are depriving people of “the benefits of trial by jury,” and “transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses.” Unfortunately, our own government is now transporting people to foreign countries without due process. We are also threatening to occupy Greenland and annex Canada. Easter provides a cautionary tale for the present moment. It reminds us of the need for due process and the rule of law, and about the dangers of imperial excess. The Easter narrative also calls for sympathy for the victims of unjust power. If it seems that we are more Roman than Christian these days, it can help to recall that the hero of Easter is Jesus and not Pontius Pilate.

ANDREW FIALA/FRESNO BEE

by Taylor Delandro – 04/18/25 2:58 PM ET

A growing political divide is emerging among Americans under 30, as more young voters are shifting toward the Republican Party, according to a recent poll. If the trend continues, it could significantly reshape the future of U.S. politics.

While younger voters have traditionally leaned Democratic, Generation Z played a crucial role in reelecting President Trump last November.

A new Yale Youth Poll, affiliated with the Yale Institution for Social and Political Studies, found that voters aged 18 to 21 now favor Republicans by 11.7 points, challenging the common perception of Gen Z as “uniformly progressive.”

Among Republicans, Vice President Vance emerged as the most popular figure, with a net favorability rating of +65 overall and +54 among Republican voters under 30, according to the poll. More than 53 percent of Republicans — 50 percent under 30 — said they would support Vance in the 2028 GOP primary.

On the Democratic side, former Vice President Harris led with 27.5 percent of the party’s voters saying they would support her “if the 2028 primary were held today.” She also held a strong +60 favorability rating.

However, attracting voters won’t be plain sailing for Republicans. A recent CNN poll found that 56 percent of respondents disapprove of the way Trump has handled the economy since returning to office, while 44 percent say they approve, and 1 percent say they don’t have an opinion on the matter.

“Politicians often promise things to young voters and reach out to young voters, but they can’t do that if they don’t have an understanding of what young voters believe and where young voters are,” said Jack Dozier, deputy director for the Yale Youth Poll. “That’s why polls like this are really important because they provide insight — albeit imperfect insight, but insight nonetheless — into what young voters believe.” 

The Yale Youth Spring 2025 poll surveyed 4,100 voters from April 1 to April 3, including an oversample of 2,204 voters aged 18 to 29. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 1.9 percentage points.

It covered a broad range of issues, from foreign policy to gender identity, with three themes standing out: views on protest rights, universities’ roles in politics, and taxing wealthy university endowments.Tags 2028

Nexstar Media

White House senior counterterrorism official Sebastian Gorka told Newsmax on Good Friday that faith in God is a cornerstone of American values and acceptance of “objective truth.”

Gorka told the “The Chris Salcedo Show,” “We celebrate in just a few days the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And if you deny his existence, if you deny the existence of God, you deny the existence of objective truth.

“And that’s where we arrive at a point where you can believe anything. You can believe that men can be women. You can believe that open borders are good for the country.”

White House senior counterterrorism official Sebastian Gorka told Newsmax on Good Friday that faith in God is a cornerstone of American values and acceptance of “objective truth.”

Gorka said many detrimental aspects of life in America would change when more people accept and believe in the teachings of Christ. The opposite of that, he said, means more trouble.

“And you can be on the side of illegal aliens who beat their wives and their girlfriends, who are members of MS-13, and who have twice been declared by a U.S. court to be illegal aliens and are actually members of a foreign terrorist organization and go and sit down and have margaritas with them. So all of these things are connected.”

Gorka told host Chris Salcedo that many people in America still have not grasped the connection between faith, safety, and security.

“If you deny God, evil doesn’t exist, does it, Chris? And you can sit down and sip margaritas with somebody who’s got the tattoos for MS-13 on his knuckles.”

Gorka said his work in the Trump administration is focused on removing politics from counterterrorism policies, “smiting” jihadists around the globe, and helping to remove dangerous criminal alien terrorists from U.S. soil.

Jim Mishler ✉

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

Many volumes have been published telling of the events leading up to the Revolutionary War, as well as the fighting on the first day, April 19, 1775—some more fictitious than true. However, using primary accounts, extant arms, archaeological finds and by studying the battle damage left behind, today we have a much better understanding of what happened, along with the types of firearms that were being used by the men who fought on that pivotal day.

On the night of April 18, 1775, about 750 British regulars began a march from Boston, Mass., to Concord, a town about 18 miles to the west, to destroy warlike stores being hidden there. They had been purchased by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’ Committee of Safety and Supplies to form and supply a provincial army once the inevitable war broke out. Colonel James Barrett of Concord oversaw the supplies, and the lists of these stores still survive. From artillery, cannon shot, tents, musket balls, powder, cartridges and provisions to medical kits, wooden bowls, spoons and 15,000 canteens, it is very evident why the British felt they should go to Concord and destroy this materiel.

The British regulars were ferried from Boston Common to Phipps Farm, a piece of land on the Cambridge side of the Charles River, owned by loyalist Richard Lechmere. Once assembled, they begin their march to Concord. In a letter to an unknown friend, Lechmere wrote, “At about 11 oClock at night 700 grenadiers and light Infantry were carried in Boats to my farm, and order’d to march to Concord in order to Destroy some magazines of stores that the Rebels had Lodg’d there, but according to Custom by some means or other they obtained such early intelligence of the design.”

A little earlier that night, at about 7 or 8 p.m., a British patrol had been spotted on the Concord Road in Cambridge and word got out that the regulars were on the move. Elbridge Gerry, a member of the Committee of Safety and Supplies, had stayed the night at the Black Horse Tavern in the Cambridge village of Menotomy on April 18th after a meeting of the committee. He wrote a note to John Hancock, who was staying just up the road in Lexington with Reverend Jonas Clarke, that he had seen the British patrol heading west. Reverend Clarke mentioned the information reaching Lexington:

“On the evening of the eighteenth of April, 1775 we received two messages; the first verbal, the other by express, in writing, from the committee of safety, who were then sitting in the westerly part of Cambridge, directed to the Honorable John Hancock, Esq; (who, with the Honorable Samuel Adams, Esq; was then providentially with us) informing, that eight or nine officers of the king’s troops were seen, just before night, passing the road towards Lexington, in a musing, contemplative posture; and it was suspected they were out upon some evil design.”

After receiving the written message, Hancock wrote back to Gerry at 9 p.m.: “I am much oblig’d for your Notice, it is said the officers are gone Concord Road, & I will send word thither I am full with you we ought to be serious, & I hope your decisions will be effectual.” A few hours later, Paul Revere and William Dawes, along with many other riders unknown to history, would sound the alarm throughout the countryside. Local militia and minute companies quickly awoke to take up their arms, form and march toward the town of Concord.

A little earlier that night, at about 7 or 8 p.m., a British patrol had been spotted on the Concord Road in Cambridge and word got out that the regulars were on the move. Elbridge Gerry, a member of the Committee of Safety and Supplies, had stayed the night at the Black Horse Tavern in the Cambridge village of Menotomy on April 18th after a meeting of the committee. He wrote a note to John Hancock, who was staying just up the road in Lexington with Reverend Jonas Clarke, that he had seen the British patrol heading west. Reverend Clarke mentioned the information reaching Lexington:

.On the evening of the eighteenth of April, 1775 we received two messages; the first verbal, the other by express, in writing, from the committee of safety, who were then sitting in the westerly part of Cambridge, directed to the Honorable John Hancock, Esq; (who, with the Honorable Samuel Adams, Esq; was then providentially with us) informing, that eight or nine officers of the king’s troops were seen, just before night, passing the road towards Lexington, in a musing, contemplative posture; and it was suspected they were out upon some evil design.”

After receiving the written message, Hancock wrote back to Gerry at 9 p.m.: “I am much oblig’d for your Notice, it is said the officers are gone Concord Road, & I will send word thither I am full with you we ought to be serious, & I hope your decisions will be effectual.” A few hours later, Paul Revere and William Dawes, along with many other riders unknown to history, would sound the alarm throughout the countryside. Local militia and minute companies quickly awoke to take up their arms, form and march toward the town of Concord.

At dawn on April 19th, the British column marched through Lexington on its way to Concord. Captain John Parker, commander of the Lexington militia, stood with his company on the green awaiting their arrival. Just days later, in his deposition of the events, John Robbins, a member of Parker’s company, wrote about what happened next:

“Being drawn up sometime before sunrise, on the green or common, and I being in the front rank, there suddenly appeared a number of the King’s troops, about a thousand, as I thought, at the distance of about sixty or seventy yards from us, huzzaing, and on a quick pace towards us, with three officers in their front on horse back, and on full gallop towards us, the foremost of which cried, throw down your arms, ye villains, ye rebels, upon which said company dispersing, the foremost of the three officers ordered their men saying fire, by God, fire, at which moment we received a very heavy and close fire from them, at which instant, being wounded, I fell, and several of our men were shot dead.”

Robbins was badly wounded, shot in the back of the neck with a .69-cal. ball that traveled through his neck, shattering his lower jaw and exiting his mouth. Nine others were wounded and eight killed. After the smoke had cleared, the column reformed, cheered and marched off to Concord.

As the British left Lexington, there was a straggler who was captured by Joshua Simonds, one of Capt. Parker’s men. His story was passed down and states that the British prisoner, “… was an Irishman, fully six feet in height, and manifested but little interest in the morning excursion. To my inquiry as to his delay, I found he had been overcome with liquor, lingered behind, and lost his companions. I took him to a place of safe keeping, away from the possible line of march of the army when they should return. He was thus the first prisoner captured on that day.”

Simonds’ story continues: “His musket, a good specimen of the king’s arms, I also took, appropriated to my own use, and at the close of that day turned it over to Captain Parker as public property. I was not able to ascertain the remainder of the man’s experience, but the gun is of interest to all.”

In 1860, the captured British musket was donated by Parker’s grandson, Theodore Parker, to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The gun is a British Pattern 1756 Long Land musket and is marked on the barrel to the 43rd Regiment of Foot. Given that it is a Long Land, and that the captured man was “fully six feet in height,” it was more than likely captured from a grenadier of the 43rd. A petition in the Massachusetts State Archives written by British prisoners held in Concord lists a Duncan McDonald. He was the only 43rd grenadier captured on April 19th and may have been the soldier who “had been overcome with liquor” and surrendered his musket to Simonds.

Concord had received the alarm prior to the arrival of the regulars and began removing or hiding as much of the warlike materiel as they could in a short amount of time, as well as assembling the minute and militia companies. Thaddeus Blood, a member of Capt. Nathan Barrett’s militia company, remembered, “On the 19th of April 1775, about 2 o’clock in the morning I was called out of bed by John Barritt a Sergt of the Malitia Comy to which I belonged. (I was 20 years of age the 28th of May next following). I joined the company under Capt. Nathan Barrett (afterward Col.) at the old court house about 3 ’oclock and was orderd to go into the court house to draw amunition, after the company had all their amun we were paraded near the meeting house.”

According to Blood, the Concord men were soon joined by others from Lincoln, and it was decided that they should march toward Lexington: “We were then formed, the minute on the right, & Capt. Barrett’s on the left, & marched in order to the end of Meriam’s hill then so called. & saw the British troops a coming down Brook’s hill. The sun was arising & shined on their arms & they made a noble apperance in their red coats & glising arms—we retreated in order, over the top of the hill to the liberty pole erected on the heighth opposite the meeting house & made a halt, the main body of the British marched up in the road. & a detachment followed us over the hill & halted in half gun shot of us, at the pole we then marched over the Burying ground to the road, and then over the Bridge to Flint’s Hill, or punckataisett, so called at that time, & were follow by two companies of the British over the Bridge.”

After their arrival in Concord, the regulars searched the town and destroyed some of the warlike stores, although much of the materiel had been hidden or moved prior to their arrival. Some gun carriages and wheels were burned on the common, the trunnions were knocked off three 24-lb. cannons, musket balls were tossed into the Milldam, and flour, salt fish and other supplies were destroyed.

Concord minuteman Amos Barrett remembered, “Thair was in the town House a number of intrechen tools witch they carried out and Burnt them. At last they said it was better to Burn them in the house and sot fire to them in the house, but our people Begd of them not to Burn the house, and put it out. It wont long before it was set fire again but finaly it warnt Burnt. Their was about 100 Barrels of flower in Mr. Hubbards malt house, the Rold that out an nockd them to pieces and Rold some in the mill pond, whitch was saved after they was goon.”

At around 9 a.m., the provincials, numbering around 450, were stationed on a rise above the North Bridge. Smoke from the burning stores alarmed the men, and it was decided to march to the bridge and into town. One of the British light infantry companies was at the bridge, while two companies were on the west side of the bridge.

With the provincials marching toward them, Blood remembered, “They then retreated over the Bridge & retreating took up 3 plank, and formed part in the road & part on each side, our men the same time marching in very good order, along the road in double file. At that time an officer rode up & a gun was fired. I saw where the Ball threw up the water about the middle of the river, then a second & a third shot, & the cry of fire, fire was made from front to rear. The fire was almost simultaneous with the cry, & I think it was not more than 2 minutes if so much till the British run & the fire ceased.” Two provincials were killed, as were two British soldiers, with another mortally wounded. British light infantry then retreated back to Concord center.

Captain David Brown of Concord commanded one of Concord’s two minute companies during the North Bridge fight and lived just on the west side within view of the bridge. His musket survives, which is built from a variety of parts. It has a bore of .75 caliber, a locally made iron ramrod, some imported or re-used fittings, and it had a lug on the underside of the barrel near the muzzle to attach a bayonet.

A recent archaeological study conducted on the east side of the North Bridge found five fired provincial overshot in numerous different calibers, from a .41-cal. swan shot to a .70-cal. ball, which covers a variety of the ammunition types fired from arms used by the colonists that day.

For another two hours, the British searched for stores, then formed to march back. They were attacked a mile outside of town by provincial forces. Thus began the “running battle” as they attempted to get back to Boston. After the devastation in Lexington earlier in the morning, Capt. Parker had reformed his company to march off and meet the regulars upon their return. On a piece of ground on the Lexington/Lincoln line, his men waited. As the British column passed by, Parker’s men fired and retreated to hit them again further down the road. Archaeological digs conducted in that area have found the spot where the action took place. Musket balls fired by the regulars have been found, as was a row of fired balls from provincial fowling pieces, which were being used by many of the Lexington men for their militia service.

Another gun donated in 1860 by Theodore Parker to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was the fowling piece carried by his grandfather, Capt. John Parker. It is a no-frills gun with a .64-cal. bore and is of typical New England form with a dropped French-style butt. The barrel was shortened sometime in the 19th century before its donation to the Commonwealth.

At the Ebenezer Fiske house in Lexington, James Hayward of Acton stopped at a well to get a much-needed drink of water. He saw a British soldier who had been looting the house come out the front door, and they both fired at each other. The British soldier fell dead and Hayward was mortally wounded—he didn’t survive for long.

Rebekah Fiske, daughter-in-law of the owner of the house, wrote, “After the rattle of musketry had grown somewhat weaker from distance, and my heart became more relieved of its apprehensions, I resolved to return home. But what an altered scene began to present itself, as I approached the house—garden walls thrown down—my flowers trampled upon—earth and herbage covered with the marks of hurried footsteps. The house had been broken open, and on the doorstep—awful spectacle—there lay a British soldier dead, on his face, though yet warm, in his blood, which was still trickling from a bullet-hole though his vitals. His bosom and his pockets were stuffed with my effects, which he had been pillaging, having broken into the house through a window. On entering my front room, I was horror-struck. Three mangled soldiers lay groaning on the floor and weltering in their blood, which had gathered in large puddles about them.

“‘Beat out my brains, I beg of you,’ cried one of them, a young Briton, who was dreadfully pierced with bullets, through almost every part of his body, ‘and relieve me from this agony.’ You will die soon enough, said I, with a revengeful pique. A grim Irishman, shot through the jaws, lay beside him, who mingled his groans of desperation with curses on the villain who had so horridly wounded him. The third was a young American, employing his dying breath in prayer. A bullet had passed through his body, taking off in its course the lower part of his powder-horn. The name of this youthful patriot was J. Haywood [Hayward], of Acton. His father came and carried his body home; it now lies in Acton graveyard.”

As mentioned, Hayward was shot through his powder horn, with the ball leaving a round hole where it entered and blowing out the opposite side sending not only the .69-cal. ball, but also shards of horn and fragments of clothing, into his horrific wound. The horn was preserved by his family before being donated to the town of Acton.

As the British regulars made it back to Lexington center, they met about 1,000 reinforcements with two 6-lb. field pieces, which had been sent out of Boston to meet the retreating column. Reverend William Gordon stated in his history, “But a little on this side Lexington Meeting-House where they were met by the Brigade, with, cannon, under Lord Percy, the scene changed.” After the arrival of Lord Percy, the fighting became more intense and vicious, and, as mentioned by Reverend Gordon, homes were looted and put to the torch. Other houses became shooting positions for provincial minutemen and militiamen, as well as the place where many would meet their demise.

There are many accounts that survive written by both sides relating to what happened that day, and one of the most detailed was penned by an unknown British officer who commanded a company of the 4th Regiment of Foot as a part of Lord Percy’s relief brigade. He wrote, “Such a scene of Confusion never was & I saw several men killed by our own people firing on them from eagerness you would see a Party of Soldiers firing at the front of a House & another on its rear whilst the main body were pelting away at the upper windows by which means many of our own people fell even after they were in the House, & all the World could not prevent it, one Soldier of ours got 11 Balls in him by that means, 4 of which have been cut out, & he is still alive.”

In the Cambridge village of Menotomy, some of the heaviest fighting of the day took place. One of those wounded was Nathan Putnam of Danvers. He was struck in his right shoulder by a British musket ball and lost his musket. Seen in newspapers soon after the battle was an advertisement looking for his gun, “Lost in the battle of Menotomy by Nathan Putnam of Captain Hutchinson’s Company who was then badly wounded a French firelock marked D No 6 with a marking iron on the breech Said Putnam carried it to a cross road near a mill Whoever has said gun in possession is desired to return it to Colonel Mansfield of Lynn or to the selectmen of Danvers and they shall be rewarded for their trouble.” His musket was more than likely an older Model 1728 French Infantry musket, many of which were captured during the Seven Years War and sold commercially in Boston.

Across the street from where Putnam was wounded is the Jason Russell house. It is owned today by the Arlington Historical Society and kept as a museum. There were at least 12 provincial soldiers killed in and around the house, and it is not known how many regulars died there. The unknown officer of the 4th Regiment of Foot mentioned above was there and stated, “In one of those Sallys I had a very narrow escape having a Granadier of the 5th, a soldier of ours, & a marine killed all around me, but we soon got into the house & I counted 11 Yankies dead in it & the orchard, one villain had 73 Balls in his Bag & 2 horns of Powder.” The fighting continued until the regulars made it to Charlestown and the relative safety of the Bunker/Breed’s Hill area, which a few months later would be the scene of more heavy fighting.

On the morning of April 20th, Reverend David McClure rode out to the scene of the battle. He wrote in his diary, “Determining to see what had been done on the rout of the enemy, I rode to Watertown & from thence came on the road to Lexington. I went almost to the meeting house, were the first American blood was wantonly spilt, but the rain necessitated me to return. Dreadful were the vestiges of war on the road. I saw several dead bodies, principally British, on & near the road. They were all naked, having been stripped, principally, by their own soldiers. They lay on their faces. Several were killed who stopped to plunder & were suddenly surprised by our people pressing upon their rear. The houses on the road of the march of the British, were all perforated with balls, & the windows broken. Horses, cattle & swine lay dead around. Such were the dreadful trophies of war, for about 20 miles!”

By the end of the day on April 19, there were approximately 5,000 militia and minutemen who had followed the British back to the relative safety of Boston. Some were too late to enter the fight, but were ready to lay siege on the town of Boston. Within a few days there would be more than 20,000 men, not just from Massachusetts, but also from the surrounding colonies. It would be almost a year before British forces would evacuate Boston and another seven before the bloody war would come to an end with the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

The accounts written by participants, as well as the surviving arms, battle damage and archaeological evidence, not only bring the events closer to us but are a tangible reminder of the men who gave their lives or risked everything to take up arms and participate in the birth of the United States of America.

JOEL BOHY, NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION

Autistic people contribute every day to our nation’s greatness.” —Senator Elizabeth Warren.

So, you wonder why Democrats are so anxious to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the USA. Is it to lead the national ticket in 2028? Who else have they got? Pete Buttigieg doesn’t have half of Kilmar’s charisma. AOC is just pretending to be Sandy-from-the-block — and everybody knows it. Who else best represents the party’s newest constituency: the undocumented (people unfairly deprived of documents by a cruel and careless bureaucracy)? Who best represents the Democratic Party’s number one policy goal: diversity fosterization! Kilmar, of course! Viva Kilmar!

It’s also pretty obvious by his recent actions, that Judge “Jeb” Boasberg is angling to be Kilmar’s running mate in ‘28. Perfect! He could fulfil the traditional role of vice-president by doing nothing for four years, which is exactly what people of non-color should do in the Democratic Party’s new national order. (Haven’t they already done enough?) Boasberg could set an example for the rest of America’s dwindling color-deficient population: quit hogging all the action, stop collecting all those dividends and annuities, step aside and give the other a chance at the American Dream!

Did you happen to notice how enterprising Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been since he boldly breached the border in 2011, fleeing persecution from the vicious gangs of his native El Salvador? Running a one-man jobs program, he crossed the country countless times indefatigably from Maryland to California in his mobile office — the legendary KAG SUV — seeking employment opportunities for young women of color otherwise condemned to clean hotel rooms and labor in senior care facilities filled with abusive people of non-color clinging pointlessly to life only to oppress their caretakers with never-ending demands for medication and extra portions of Jello.

Kilmar’s gritty organization, Mara Salvatrucha-13, has been among the Democratic Party’s most effective NGOs in a greater galaxy of justice-seeking ventures marshaled under the USAID umbrella — recently vandalized by Elon Musk’s DOGE band of pillaging oligarchs. MS-13, for short, was beloved among the undocumented for its fund-raising abilities, its networking expertise, and its relentless search for the missing documents the undocumented have been looking high-and-low for lo these many decades — rumored to be concealed in a vast underground complex in the Catoctin Mountains of Frederick County, MD. (More white peoples’ mischief!)

Thus, it came to pass that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Maryland Dad-of-the-Year, was cruelly snatched from an MS-13 board meeting last month and transported without benefit of due process to the Salvadorean hell-hole known as CECOT (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo). And so, his Senator, Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) traveled this week to Central America on his one-man rescue mission. The Senator claimed he was detained miles from the gate of CECOT, and yet we have this photograph of Mr. Van Hollen meeting with Kilmar (and an unidentified aide) over Margaritas and pupusas at a cantina in the nearby town of Tecoluca. Asked to comment on the photo, El Savador’s Presidente, Nayib Bukele, declared: “Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camp’ & ‘torture!’ Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody,” Mr. Bukele added.

Oh, so you say Señor Presidente! But not if “Jeb” Boasberg can help it. The dauntless super-judge has ordered Kilmar to be returned the USA pronto expressimo, or else he, the judge, is laying criminal contempt charges on the entire West Wing staff of Donald Trump’s White House. They will go to jail just like Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, two capos regime of Trump’s MAGA gang, did last year for the insolence of refusing to testify in Congress. Only, they will get life-without-parole! Lessons to be learned, ye miserable color-deficient, oppressors!

Alas, the DC federal district court is a bit short of enforcement officers, so Judge “Jeb” has enlisted the Harvard rowing crew to bring Kilmar back home. Kilmar will take the coxswain’s place in the racing shell as the crew rows up the Pacific Coast to their planned landing spot at Las Olas, CA, just south of San Diego. Joy will reign in Wokeville.

Having displayed such pluck at diplomacy, unnamed sources say Senator Van Hollen is under consideration for Secretary of State when Kilmar wins the 2028 election. Up until now, we’d been hoping for Senator Adam Schiff to fill that spot, but he has his hands full fighting the influence of the Soviet Union on the Trump cabinet. Looking forward, though, to the bold prosecutor, New York AG Letitia ‘Tish” James, moving into the top spot at DOJ, if her term for mortgage fraud ends before Jan-20, 2029. The Democratic Party — such bright prospects! Forward together, with Kilmar and company! Documents for all, at long last!

James Howard Kunstler, kunstler.com

In the annals of literary and philosophical provocation, few figures loom as large as Ayn Rand.  Born in 1905 in Russia, Rand witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution’s assault on individual liberty firsthand, an experience that forged her into a fierce advocate for capitalism and personal freedom.  Her philosophy, Objectivism, champions reason, self-interest, and the unrestrained pursuit of one’s own happiness as moral imperatives.  Nowhere is this worldview more vividly dramatized than in her 1957 magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged.  The novel imagines a world where society’s most productive minds — entrepreneurs, inventors, and industrialists — go on strike, refusing to prop up a collectivist system that punishes their ingenuity with regulations, taxes, and guilt.  Led by the enigmatic John Galt, these creators retreat to a hidden valley, leaving a crumbling civilization to face the consequences of its own parasitism.  Rand’s strike is a bold ideological statement: The world runs on the shoulders of its innovators, and when they shrug, everything falls apart.

Fast-forward to the 21st century, and a quieter, less theatrical strike seems to be unfolding in the United States.  Businesses, from manufacturing giants to tech startups, have been offshoring production at a staggering pace, fleeing to countries like China, Vietnam, and Mexico.  On the surface, this exodus appears driven by cold economic logic: lower labor costs, lighter regulations, and tax incentives abroad make the bottom line sing.  Yet beneath the spreadsheets lies a resonance with Rand’s vision — a metaphorical strike by creators fed up with a system that increasingly stifles them.  Though not an ideological crusade in the Randian sense, this offshoring wave reflects a broader frustration with an American landscape that has drifted from its capitalist roots, piling burdens on those who dare to build.  Tariffs, intended to lure these companies back, instead add insult to injury, failing to address the root causes of their departure.

Ayn Rand and the Strike of the Titans

Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is more than a novel — it’s a manifesto.  Its sprawling narrative pits the heroic likes of Dagny Taggart, a railroad tycoon, and Hank Rearden, a steel magnate, against a dystopian government that smothers their achievements with bureaucracy and redistribution.  The book’s climax sees these titans of industry vanish, one by one, as John Galt convinces them to stop feeding a world that despises their greatness.  “We are on strike against self-immolation,” Galt declares in his famous radio address, encapsulating Objectivism’s rejection of altruism as a moral shackle.  For Rand, the strike is a triumph of principle over pragmatism, a refusal to compromise with a society that demands creators sacrifice their vision for the sake of the mediocre.

Rand’s philosophy struck a chord in mid-20th-century America, where capitalism still wore its swagger proudly.  Today, her ideas feel both prescient and distant.  The U.S. remains capitalist in name, yet its entrepreneurs face a gauntlet of obstacles eerily reminiscent of her fictional dystopia: steep corporate taxes, labyrinthine regulations, minimum wage mandates, environmental compliance costs, union pressures, and patent warfare.  These aren’t abstract grievances; they’re the daily grind of doing business in a country that seems to have forgotten how to celebrate its builders.

The Offshoring Exodus: A Strike in Disguise

Enter the offshoring phenomenon.  Since the 1980s, American companies have shifted production overseas at an accelerating clip.  China, once a communist backwater, has emerged as the world’s factory floor, producing everything from iPhones to plastic brushes.  The numbers tell the story: U.S. manufacturing employment peaked at 19.5 million in 1979 and has since dwindled to around 13 million, while China’s industrial output soared.  Economists point to the obvious drivers — labor in China costs a fraction of U.S. wages, regulations are more lax, and tax breaks abound.  It’s a pragmatic choice, not a philosophical one.  A CEO doesn’t cite Rand when moving a factory to Shenzhen; he cites shareholder value.

Yet economics doesn’t exist in a vacuum — it’s shaped by ideology. The U.S. system, with its tangle of rules and redistributive policies, reflects a creeping collectivism that Rand would have decried.  Minimum wage is a state-imposed constraint distorting the natural market dynamics of labor supply and demand.  The Environmental Protection Agency’s edicts often prioritize ecological purity over industrial vitality.  Unions, while fighting for labor, can paralyze production with strikes and demands.  Politicians beg for campaign cash while drafting laws that choke the very businesses they court.  And competitors wield patents like weapons, turning innovation into litigation.  Frivolous court hearings drain companies’ resources into lawyers’ pockets.  DIE and similar requirements make it impossible to staff positions based on merit or to easily get rid of underperforming employees.  For entrepreneurs, this is a relentless message that their drive is suspect, their success a resource to be tapped.

Offshoring, then, becomes a de facto strike.  It’s not the ideological purity of John Galt’s retreat — companies aren’t abandoning production altogether — but it’s a withdrawal nonetheless.  They’re saying, in effect, “If you won’t let us thrive here, we’ll go where we can.”  China’s allure is as a government that rolls out the red carpet for industry, offering stability and incentives the U.S. no longer matches.  The irony is biting: A nominally communist state has outdone the self-proclaimed champion of capitalism at its own game.

Tariffs: An Insult, Not an Incentive

In response, the U.S. has turned to tariffs, most notably under President Trump.  The logic is simple: Tax imports to make domestic production competitive again, forcing businesses to “come home.”  But this misses the mark.  Tariffs raise costs for companies already stretched thin, punishing them for adapting to a hostile environment rather than fixing it.  If offshoring is a strike, tariffs are a scolding from the boss, demanding loyalty without offering better conditions.  Data show the limits: Although some firms have shifted from China to places like Vietnam, very few have returned to the U.S.  Manufacturing’s share of GDP continues its decades-long slide, suggesting that the “strikers” aren’t ready to clock back in.

Bringing the Creators Home

Rand’s strikers returned only when the world begged them, having learned its lesson.  Reality demands a less dramatic fix.  If the U.S. wants to onshore its businesses, it must create a climate where they want to stay — out of not coercion, but desire.  Lower taxes, streamlined regulations, and labor flexibility could tilt the scales.  Incentives like tax credits for domestic investment or R&D could sweeten the deal.  The EPA could balance environmental goals with industrial needs, not just wield a veto.  Politicians could stop treating businesses as ATMs and start seeing them as partners.  This is not an exhaustive list of commonsense measures, nor are these radical ideas; they’re echoes of the America that once drew the world’s dreamers.

The parallel with Atlas Shrugged isn’t perfect.  Rand’s strike was both a moral and an ideological stand; offshoring is a survival tactic.  Yet the result aligns: Creators, whether driven by principle or profit, are walking away.  Tariffs won’t guilt them back; they’ll just dig in elsewhere.  To end this strike, the U.S. must rediscover what made it a beacon for builders in the first place.  Until then, the Atlas of industry will keep shrugging, and the world will keep turning — somewhere else.

Allen Gindler, American Thinker

It is evident to all Americans who have been paying attention that the left is doubling down on stupid. 

They are throwing all the power they think they have behind an MS-13 gangbanger whom they have decided is some kind of a touchstone, their next George Floyd, their ticket to victory in the midterms, after which they plan to impeach Trump again. 

Oh, but now they have Kamelo Anthony, the kid who seems, on the available evidence, to have cold-bloodedly murdered a young man at a school track meet and is now wallowing in the riches bestowed upon him via Give-Send-Go, more than $500,000, enough to rent a new house, buy a Cadillac, a thug spokesman with a criminal record, and a security detail. 

The best thing that ever happened to this rapacious family is that their kid allegedly murdered another kid in cold blood.

How morally vacuous are they? 

They are already selling t-shirts with his face on them. 

He is being heralded as some perverse version of a hero. 

All the available facts indicate that he provoked the incident out of the blue, very likely on purpose, conveniently having a knife on hand as he lay in wait. 

A gang initiation? Who knows? Seems possible given his instant fame as the Rosa Parks or George Floyd of 2025. 

He is more like the O.J. Simpson of 2025.  If and when there is a trial, we can expect riots during which Soros-funded groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter will get their orders from headquarters and their generous salaries for showing up to protest.  

Violence will ensue. We can count on it. It is how the left rolls. Rent-a-riots are their thing. To destroy everything that was good about America is their thing.

Another hill our left is choosing to die on is transgenderism.  They love it, they promote it.  They think that supporting the right of men to play in women’s sports, flaunting their genitals in girls’ locker rooms, makes them oh, so special, oh, so virtuous. 

What it does is prove that they are moronic in the extreme.  Did none of them ever take Biology 101?

Yes, they did, but for them, wokery trumps science.  They do not seem to realize that they are mere tools of the globalist Marxists who so skillfully manipulate them. They think Trump supporters are a cult, but it is the leftist Democrats who are the cult, mind-numbed. Their program to bring a lowlife likely MS-13 gangster, a suspected human trafficker, and an accused wife-beater back to the U.S. is shockingly stupid. 

Talk about not reading the room!  How dumb are these people?  People want to be safe from creeps like Kilmar Abrego Garcia. 

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders and AOC are out and about giving anti-oligarchy speeches when it is they who are the oligarchs.  

Bernie reportedly spent $225,000 on private jets to lecture kids who had spent $1,000 to attend the Coachella music event.  Many of them bought their tickets on a payment plan!  How pathetic is that?

So, Robin Williams, may he rest in peace, was on to something when he said that “what is right is what is left if you do everything else wrong.”  

That is why Trump won…three times. 

The left has been doing everything wrong for decades, ever since the racist Woodrow Wilson was president. 

Up until now, no Republican, except Ronald Reagan, has tried to disempower them, but a hundred and fifteen years of malevolence is very difficult to counter. 

President Trump is the first man to try since, which is why the demonic deep state has tried every underhanded way possible to take him out, to destroy him. 

The left, as currently constituted, is well and truly evil, but its adherents truly believe they are superior beings meant to control how the rest of us live or don’t live. 

Their kind is not new on this Earth; they are as old as humanity itself.  Evil exists; it always has.  Human existence will always be a struggle between what is good and what is wrong, what is evil. 

Watch MSNBC or CNN for five minutes and you will see what the left is all about – subterfuge, hypocrisy, and deceit. 

It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak. –Eric Hoffer 

The left is inherently weak, which is why the right will prevail.

Patricia McCarthy, American Thinker

Mike Huckabee, U.S. ambassador to Israel, promised the country on Good Friday that the commitment of the people of the United States and President Donald Trump to it is “unwavering.”

“On behalf of President Trump and the American people, I say to Israel: Our commitment to you is unwavering, and we pray for the immediate return of all the hostages. Israel will never be alone,” Huckabee said in a post Friday on X.

He added in his post that he had visited the Western Wall “in Israel’s eternal capital Jerusalem,” where he placed a handwritten prayer from Trump between its stones.

The Western Wall is located in east Jerusalem, a sector of the holy city that has been annexed and occupied by Israel. It is the last remnant of the Second Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 C.E. and is the holiest site where Jews are permitted to pray.

Huckabee is making his first official visit to Israel after becoming the U.S. ambassador. The Senate confirmed him on April 9, two days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited with Trump at the White House.

The ambassador, who has long backed Israel’s calls to annex the West Bank, officially presented his diplomatic credentials to Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Thursday.

Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and longtime supporter of Israel, said Friday that all efforts are being made to secure the release of hostages that continue to be held by Hamas.

According to reports, the terrorists have not yet returned 59 hostages, 24 of who are still believed to be alive.

Sandy Fitzgerald ✉

Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics. 

When I was a little girl, I hoped Jesus wouldn’t return for a while.

At least not until after I could drive. And graduate. And get married. And have babies. Life was too good to want anything cut short. I wanted salvation from hell — but not really from sin, and especially not from the world it so corrupted. 

I assume this is the case for anyone with untested, childlike faith. It’s only natural. The bad news that we’re all sinners who deserve death in hell, and the good news that Jesus died to pay the debt for all who repent and believe in Him, are simple enough truths for kids to grasp. Indeed, Jesus commanded his adult followers to let the little children come to Him.

But it isn’t just spiritual death that results from sin. It’s death, period. And until you come face to face with this kind of death and the other gruesome effects of sin, such as pain, decay, violence, and spiritual warfare, it’s hard to truly understand what you’ve been saved from and saved for.

That’s what’s on my mind this Good Friday. 

We’ve all seen things we aren’t supposed to. Children left suddenly without their parents. Parents burying their children. Car accidents. Medical accidents. Workplace accidents. Lost battles with cancer. The effects of suicide. Mass shootings and terrorism. Accidental overdose. Senseless violence. Miscarriage. These things startle us not just because they’re scary or evil or unexpected, but because we were never meant to experience them in the first place. They feel contrary to God’s design — because they are.

In the beginning, everything was “good” because a good God made it that way. Man was fashioned to live in harmony with God and woman and creature. There was no sickness, no death, and no pain, only beauty, life, and light. 

But sin quickly entered and, with it, death and decay. In Paul’s telling, “[J]ust as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”

As a child, life felt a lot more like Eden. As an adult, it can seem more like hell. But on Good Friday, we’re reminded that the holy Son of God experienced the effects of sin on this Earth too. Not only that, but He willingly took my sin — and, if you repent and believe in Him, your sin — upon Himself. Forsaken by His own Father, He bore God’s full wrath for sin on the cross. Here’s Paul again: “God made him [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The Apostle John breaks it down even more:

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

That’s why a day all about death can be “good”; it’s the only death that could reconcile man to God once and for all. But the best part about Good Friday is that it’s followed by Resurrection Sunday. Death didn’t get the final word in the life of Jesus, and it doesn’t get the final word for all who believe in Him for salvation.

So today, as you gaze upon the cross of Christ and ponder His shed blood, take heart that the death we were never designed to experience has been ultimately defeated. “It is finished.” We know how the story ends. The tomb will be empty soon.

Kylee Griswold is the managing editor of The Federalist and a contributor to IW Features. She previously worked as the copy editor for the Washington Examiner magazine and as an editor and producer at National Geographic. She holds a B.S. in communication arts/speech and an A.S. in criminal justice and writes on topics including feminism and gender issues, religion, and the media. Follow her on Twitter @kyleezempel.