Jonathan Gregory| April 30, 2025 WASHINGTON, D.C. — Corey Booker, a Senator from New Jersey, known for his passionate speeches and suspiciously large collection of frequent flyer miles, is facing backlash this week after reports surfaced that he used campaign funds to bankroll a series of “cultural exchange” trips to Thailand. The senator, who insisted he was “researching international diplomacy through nightlife,” allegedly expensed flights, luxury hotel stays, and something described on receipts only as “VIP enlightenment experiences.” Campaign finance watchdogs were quick to raise eyebrows when over $120,000 in expenditures were labeled “constituent outreach (Bangkok division).” Leaked financial documents included itemized charges from establishments with names like “Temple of Boom” and “The Silk Swing,” alongside a $3,800 bill for “interpretive companionship.” One receipt even featured a handwritten thank you note signed by someone only identified as “Cherry Bomb.” Adding to the controversy, photos and video footage surfaced showing Booker in a silk robe, aviator sunglasses, and what appeared to be body glitter, dancing on a rooftop bar with a flaming cocktail in each hand. When confronted by reporters, the senator responded, “Look, I believe in embracing all cultures… sometimes literally.” He added that these excursions were vital to understanding “human rights, identity, and the importance of tipping generously.” Ethics committees are now reviewing whether campaign money can be used for “soul-searching abroad.” Booker, undeterred, purchased a one-way ticket to Thailand marked on his calender as, “spiritual retreat, Bangkok.” The level of depravity displayed by the D-Party is historic.

Jonathan Gregory

If we don’t insist on the total assimilation and Americanization of our immigrants, we’ll cease to be America and become something else..

If you want to know what mass immigration without assimilation produces in a country, look no further than Scotland. Immigrants from Pakistan now constitute an ethno-religious voting bloc in that country with their very own politicians advocating for nakedly sectarian interests.

Recently, a video clip from 2022 resurfaced on social media of Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar standing in front of the flag of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan claiming that “change is coming” and forthrightly calling for ethnic and Muslim sectarianism in Scottish politics. Sarwar doesn’t mince words: He wants his people to take control of every level of government in Scotland.

“We will only truly get real power, not if we just have more Pakistanis sitting in council chambers and parliaments, but actually having more Pakistanis and South Asians sitting in the corridors of power making the decisions,” said Sarwar.

He went on to declare that the days where “our South Asian community are viewed as a vote bank or a curry bank are well and truly gone. The days where South Asian communities get to lead political parties and get to lead countries is now upon us. The days when South Asian communities get to decide not just at which school our children go to but what they are taught in those schools, is also coming.”

There’s a lot to unpack in his statement. No mention of the Scottish people, or Britain, or any shared national interests or a common good. It was simply an assertion of raw power for his ethnic and religious group over and against all others. It was a call to take over institutions.

Notice, too, the identitarian language. When Sarwar says that the time has come for “South Asian communities” (a euphemism for Pakistani Muslim immigrants) to “lead countries,” he doesn’t mean lead countries in South Asia. He means the time has come for Pakistani Muslims to lead the countries they have culturally and politically colonized through mass immigration — in this case, Scotland and England.

This is sobering stuff, and the main takeaway is that multiculturalism has produced a particularly toxic form of ethno-religious factionalism in Britain that will eventually tear the country apart. Sarwar and his people intend to take over Scotland, and if they can, all of Britain. They are being forthright about it. The vision they have for Britain is shaped primarily by the Islamic religion and Pakistani culture. It is incompatible with and essentially hostile towards British civilization, and Sarwar knows it.

What’s happening in Scotland and England should serve as a cautionary tale for America. Despite what the left claims, multiculturalism doesn’t produce “strength through diversity,” or a common civic culture of shared interests, or any other such platitudes. It produces what we see in Britain and much of Europe: an aggressive species of identity politics which, under conditions of mass immigration from non-western societies, ends up importing entire communities whose customs and way of life are inimical to that of the host country.

For example, when someone like Sarwar talks about the “South Asian community” getting to decide what’s taught in Scottish schools, what he means is that Muslim immigrants from Pakistan will soon get to decide the curriculum — not just for their children but for all schoolchildren in Scotland.

Once they have that power, does anyone seriously think they will refrain from imposing an Islamist agenda, not just in schools but in society at large? Of course they won’t. Sarwar’s own father, Mohammed Sarwar, the first Muslim MP elected in the United Kingdom, gave up his UK citizenship in 2013 to go back to Pakistan and become governor of Punjab. He later called for Islamic blasphemy laws to be promulgated through the United Nations and the European Union.

Despite his stint in the British Parliament, the senior Sarwar never really assimilated to the West. In that, he was typical of his immigrant “community” in Britain: He was never really British. He was always first and foremost a Pakistani Muslim, and hence had no problem using the West’s liberalism to call for the imposition of Islamic dhimmitude and the destruction of liberal society in the West. Multiculturalism allows for this sort of thing, after all, under the misguided notion that diversity and tolerance of imported cultures must be limitless.

But tolerating this kind of foreign sectarianism is national suicide, as anyone can easily observe in Scotland and England, which are now on a probably irreversible trajectory toward civil war. We in America should pay attention because the same thing is happening here, albeit on a smaller scale. Parts of Michigan, for example, now have such concentrations of unassimilated Muslim immigrants that scenes like this have become a commonplace — mass demonstrations of Muslim identity that are fundamentally alien to our American way of life. We saw plenty of that in the pro-Hamas demonstrations that arose immediately after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, and we will keep seeing it as these unassimilated immigrant communities grow and ethno-religious sectarianism becomes a normal part of political life in America.

Democrats, for their part, have embraced this sort of sectarianism. Some, like Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, do so openly. Omar very clearly puts her Somali ethnicity first and sees her job in Congress as representing the interests of Somali and its people, whether in Minnesota or East Africa.

Or consider Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, who issued a statement Monday in response to a simple executive order from the Trump White House that all truck drivers must speak English. This, said Castro, was a “targeted attack on the Spanish-speaking community,” and would “lead to more racial profiling and prevent hard-working Americans from participating in our economy and transportation industry.”

Embedded in this way of speaking is the idea that any requirement that “hard-working Americas” speak English is somehow an “attack” on them, as if even having a national official language in America is itself racist or bigoted.

We have to reject this with all our strength and insist on what the Scots and English have not insisted on: a national identity that immigrants are obliged to adopt if they want to become part of our country. If we fail to do that, we’ll wake up and find ourselves in the position of Scotland, where the leader of a major political party feels free to push ethno-religious sectarianism while the liberal mainstream nods along, oblivious to their own impending destruction.

John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist

Marcus Raskin was co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies and was associated with the Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960s

Marcus Raskin was born April 30, 1934 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the second son of Russian Jewish immigrants. At age 16, he left home to study piano at New York’s Juilliard School. In 1954 Raskin graduated from the University of Chicago with a BA in liberal arts, and three years later he earned a JD from the University of Chicago Law School. In 1958 he moved to Washington, D.C. to serve as legislative counsel to a group of Democratic congressmen.

In 1961 Raskin became an assistant (on national security affairs and disarmament) to McGeorge Bundy, national security advisor to President Kennedy. But Raskin’s relationship with Bundy, who supported the escalation of U.S. military engagement in Indochina, was fraught with tension that led eventually to Raskin’s reassignment to the Bureau of the Budget.

Raskin and political activist/rabbi Arthur Waskow co-authored a 1961 paper, later expanded into a book, advocating America’s unilateral disarmament. In 1962 Raskin served as group secretary for a publishing project known as The Liberal Papers, which advocated such measures as United Nations membership for Communist China, East Germany, North Korea, and North Vietnam; America’s unilateral cessation of nuclear testing; the dismantling of NATO; the withdrawal of all American forces from Berlin; and allowing the USSR to access the American DEW early-warning defense system, which had been set up to detect incoming Soviet bombers.

Also in the early Sixties, Raskin was a board-of-directors member with Ramparts magazine, described by the House Committee on Internal Security (HCIS) as a “pro-Hanoi, pro-Castro” publication. Meanwhile, he derided American capitalism as a system in which “the rich, the quick, the clever, the unseen, set out paths which the wretched and mystified must travel.” Having felt powerless to change this system from within the halls of government, Raskin decided to pursue the creation of an independent non-governmental organization to critique official policy and undermine capitalism. Thus did he and his friend Richard Barnet co-found the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in 1963.

In 1965 Raskin and IPS associate fellow Bernard Fall edited The Vietnam Reader, which became a textbook for anti-war teach-ins across the United States. Two years later, Raskin and then-IPS fellow Arthur Waskow co-authored “A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority,” a document that helped launch the draft-resistance movement.

Associated with the Radical Education Project of the Students for a Democratic Society, Raskin in 1968 was indicted—along with William Sloane Coffin, Michael Ferber, Mitchell Goodman, and Benjamin Spock—for conspiracy to aid resistance to the military draft. Raskin was ultimately acquitted of these charges.

In 1968 Raskin chaired the Committee for the Formation of a New Party, which created a socialist-oriented political entity advocating the “dismantling of an obsolete, dangerous [American] military establishment that is over-extended and over-reaching.” In the late 60s as well, Raskin became a member of the so-called Committee to Defend the Conspiracy, which was established to aid the defendants who had participated in the violent antiwar disruptions during the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago.

In February 1969 Raskin (along with Barnet) was among the speakers at the national mobilization of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, an organization whose purpose was to deliver medical supplies and equipment to areas of Indochina that had been struck by U.S. military fire. The following year, Raskin told the group Federal Employees for Peace that “government agencies such as the FBI, Secret Service, intelligence services of other government agencies, and the military should be done away with in that order.”

In the spring of 1972, Raskin went to Paris as part of an American delegation that met with North Vietnamese Communist leaders and representatives of the Khmer National United Front of Cambodia. The delegation was sponsored by the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice, which the HCIS characterized as being under the “generally predominant influence” of the Communist Party USA.

In the mid-1970s, Raskin served as an advisory-board member of the Organizing Committee for a Fifth Estate, producer of the anti-CIA publication Counterspy. Also in the Seventies, he was a sponsor of the Political Rights Defense Fund, a front group for the Socialist Workers Party.

In a 1979 New York Times op-ed piece, Raskin and Michigan congressman John Conyers asserted that “government’s responsibility is to revitalize the nation’s economy through creative forms of public ownership.”

In 1982 Raskin served as a board-of-directors member of SANE, a.k.a. the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (now known as Peace Action). Fellow board members included such notables as Tom Harkin, Ramsey Clark, and Edith Tiger. Raskin also helped organize the Progressive Alliance, a coalition of 16 labor unions and some 100 public-interest groups that laid out a progressive political agenda.

In April 1982, Raskin was the principal spokesman for an IPS-sponsored delegation (which included also Robert Borosage) that traveled to Moscow to meet with high-level Soviet officials who were involved with disseminating disinformation and propaganda for U.S. consumption.

During the 1984 presidential primaries, Raskin and Richard Barnet advised Democratic candidates George McGovern and Alan Cranston.

In 2007 Raskin published The Four Freedoms Under Siege, a book that speculates about a transformed America where corporations are controlled by government.

On January 7, 2015 in Washington, Raskin was a guest speaker at an event honoring Rep. John Conyers for his “50 Years of Service” in the U.S. Congress.

The author of more than 20 books, Raskin served variously as a professor at George Washington University’s School of Public Policy, an advisor to the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and an editorial-board member of The Nation (along with such notables as Deepak Bhargava, Barbara Ehrenreich, Richard Falk, Eric Foner, Tom Hayden, and Victor Navasky).

Further, Raskin was a board-of-trustees member with IPS, and he directed the Institute’s “Paths for the 21st Century” project, designed to develop “new models of equality and alternatives for the 21st century on questions of peace, economic and social justice, cultural rights, democratic reconstruction, and racial and gender equality.”

Raskin is the father of Maryland activist and political figure Jamie Raskin.

Raskin died on December 26, 2017.

Further Reading: “Marcus Raskin, Think Tank Founder Who Helped Shape Liberal Ideas, Dies at 83” (Washington Post, 12-26-2017); “Institute for Policy Studies” (The Heritage Foundation, 4-19-1977); “The Institute for Policy Studies: Architects of American Decline” (Capital Research Center, 2-4-2011); “Our History” (IPS-dc.org); “Marcus Raskin” (Keywiki.org); “Marcus Raskin” (IPS-dc.org).

Discover the Network

If the next pope is from sub-Saharan Africa, he would be the first in Catholic Church history. Catholic Africans think it is a long shot, though some are cautiously optimistic that Pope Francis’ successor could be a Black cardinal from their continent.

The answer will come soon, as the cardinals eligible to elect the new pope open their conclave next Wednesday at the Sistine Chapel.

At least three African cardinals are among those currently cited as “papabile,” the term used by Vatican observers to describe possible contenders to lead the Catholic Church.

They are Cardinals Robert Sarah of Guinea, Peter Turkson of Ghana and Fridolin Ambongo of Congo.

If any of them is selected, he would be the first African pope in more than 1,500 years and the first ever from sub-Saharan Africa. That historical record makes many in Africa eager for change — but not overly hopeful.

Before the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI, there was much media attention around Francis Arinze, a highly respected cardinal born in Nigeria, raising questions even then about whether the world was ready for a Black pope from Africa.

Two decades later, Catholicism continues to decline in Europe while it grows in the developing world. The number of Catholics is growing faster in Africa than anywhere else.

At least 20% of global Catholic community is in Africa, which “is characterized by a highly dynamic spread of the Catholic Church,” according to a recent Vatican report.

Some say having a pope from Africa, or Asia — which is also seeing strong Catholic growth — would signal a powerful message of inclusion. But as Francis’ papacy showed, inclusive efforts can alienate many others and even breed dissent.

The three possible papal candidates from Africa — Sarah, Ambongo, and Turkson — are seen as holding orthodox views on some of the hot-button issues that the Catholic Church is grappling with, reflecting wider social conservatism on the continent of 1.3 billion people. Catholic orthodoxy in Africa was at odds with Pope Francis’ pastoral vision of mercy and understanding for all marginalized groups, including LGBTQ+ Catholics.

The real-life situation was reflected in the fictional Oscar-nominated film “Conclave,” in which one of the four contenders vying for the papacy was a socially conservative cardinal from Nigeria.

Congo has the highest number of baptized Catholics in Africa.

Ambongo — the archbishop of Congolese capital, Kinshasa, since 2018 — last year signed a statement by the conference of African bishops rejecting a Vatican declaration to allow priests to offer spontaneous, non-liturgical blessings to same-sex couples seeking God’s grace.

That statement, seen as a rebuke of Francis, asserted that same-sex unions were “contrary to the will of God.” It cited biblical teaching condemning homosexuality and asserted that same-sex relations are “contradictory to cultural norms” in Africa.

But it is Sarah, the Guinean cardinal who is the Vatican’s former liturgy chief, who posed a more public challenge to Francis.

A favorite of traditionalists, Sarah prefers silent prayer and is an adherent of the old Latin Mass. He is a staunch defender of longstanding doctrinal faith.

After Francis in 2021 reimposed restrictions on celebrating the Latin Mass that Benedict had relaxed, Sarah responded with tweets quoting Benedict’s original 2007 law to relax the restrictions. His posts were accompanied by a photo of Benedict wearing the red cape that Francis had eschewed the night of his election.

A year earlier, Sarah had orchestrated a media firestorm by persuading Benedict to co-author a book reaffirming priestly celibacy at a time when Francis was considering ordaining married men to address a clergy shortage in the Amazon. As the scandal grew, Benedict removed himself as a co-author.

Sarah, 79, officially retired in 2021 but remains eligible to attend the conclave. Since the death of Francis on April 21, he has emerged as a favorite of European traditionalists who want to see a reversal of Francis’ progressive policies.

But in Africa, where Francis was widely loved for his engagement with the continent’s crises, many Catholics simply want a pope who will be a faithful leader for everyone.

“For us, it does not matter whether he is African, white, or Black. What matters is having a good, holy pope who can unite Catholics across the world,” said Luka Lawrence Ndenge, an emergency officer with the Catholic charity Caritas in the remote town of Wau in South Sudan.

The father of two said he believes an African can rise to the papacy, especially as “we already have African cardinals who are fully capable.”

Bishop Tesfaselassie Medhin, primate of Adigrat in the Ethiopian region of Tigray, said he hopes the next pope will be as compassionate as Francis, who repeatedly called attention to war in Tigray in 2021 and 2022.

But the prospect of having a Black African pope is exciting, he said.

“For me, having a passionate, dedicated and competent African leading the Catholic Church is very important to me as an African and to see it in my lifetime is my absolute wish,” he said.

Emily Mwaka doesn’t like speculating about the next pope, especially on the color of his skin. So when the head of the Catholic laity in Kampala, Uganda, recently came upon a small group of Christians discussing a newspaper article about possible papal contenders — including some from Africa — she asked them to stop it.

Even if the next pontiff is “green,” she said, he “will be for all of us.

NewsmaxWorld

Will we ever see justice for the top tier of traitors in America? Yes, Hillary Clinton. But also the Biden, Obama, Soros, Fauci and Pelosi crime families? For abusing the highest level of power entrusted to them by setting our Constitution on fire? Or will they continue to live out their seemingly endless lives as wealthy, connected criminals with ZERO accountability for everything they have done?

Another one: Michelle Obama. She says she “lays awake” at night worrying about Trump deportations of violent, savage gang members in the country illegally.

Michelle: We understand. The life of a charlatan is stressful. Your contradictions catch up with you. Being advanced and applauded not for any real intelligence or actual achievements, but for your race, isn’t a recipe for self-respect or inner serenity. Of course you’re full of resentment. Eventually good people do fight back, and you could be a target. If you’re finding your life of crime, deception and tyranny too stressful to handle, Michelle, then you should have made better choices.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday on “Hannity” that 17 trading partners have come forward to negotiate deals with the Trump administration.

Just a day after President Donald Trump’s official 100 days in office, the Republican-led Senate voted Wednesday to justify his sweeping global tariffs, which he originally revealed on April 2. During a discussion with Fox host Sean Hannity, the host asked Bessent about the “state” of the deals, questioning where the U.S. currently stands and if official deals will be signed “in the near future.”

• Gold Company CEO: “Gold Will Easily Surpass $4,000 an Ounce”

“Yeah, Sean, what I believe, and you can see it, the president had this incredible first 100 days. Just look at the success of the border. Now we closed the first 100 days with this deal where President Trump is one of the first presidents to create assets rather than debt for the American people,” Bessent said.

“Now we’re moving on to the trade deals. President Trump has created the maximum optionality, maximum pressure for our trading partners. By showing the high level of tariffs from April 2 that are possible, they’ve all come to the table to negotiate,” Bessent added. “So we’ve got 18 important trading partners. We put China to the side. Seventeen have not escalated. We are in negotiations with them. There’s a process in place.”

Trump announced sweeping reciprocal tariffs against a list of countries, setting a baseline of 10% for the tariffs, but adjusting some according to what others had imposed on the United States. However, by April 9, the president announced a 90-day pause on the tariffs for all countries besides China, which had responded with retaliatory tariffs against the U.S.

As Bessent began explaining how Trump had responded to handling the tariffs, Hannity interrupted to clarify that “all 17” trading partners had come to the table.

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Trump announced sweeping reciprocal tariffs against a list of countries, setting a baseline of 10% for the tariffs, but adjusting some according to what others had imposed on the United States. However, by April 9, the president announced a 90-day pause on the tariffs for all countries besides China, which had responded with retaliatory tariffs against the U.S.

As Bessent began explaining how Trump had responded to handling the tariffs, Hannity interrupted to clarify that “all 17” trading partners had come to the table.

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“All 17 have approached us. We are batching them in groups at a time,” Bessent said. “But we’ve had 100 approach us, and we are working with the top 17 to try to move them along as quickly as possible. Knowing that their levels could ratchet back up to the April 2 tariff level has made everyone come to the table with some, what I would say, are very good proposals.”

Since the pause on the tariffs, Trump administration officials have hinted at potential deals with foreign countries, but they have released limited information on the details. During a press briefing on Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the U.S. had received “18 proposals on paper” from foreign countries to negotiate tariffs.

The president also signaled on April 22 that the 145% tariff against China would “come down substantially,” but he said it would not be eliminated entirely.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Fox News/”Hannity”)

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Hailey Gomez, Daily Caller News Foundation

When It Comes to Gravy Trains, Nothing ‘Do Nothing’ About This Congress

While most conservatives, and even many Republicans, are pleased with the almost round-the-clock executive order machine of the Trump White House, many are also wondering why there isn’t the same level of activity, or any activity at all for that matter, coming from Congress?!

Sadly, but not surprisingly, our catatonic Congress makes work-from-home federal employees look like beehives of activity by comparison.

The Washington Times has some of the details and the news is not good.

Right now, both houses are “working” on a budget reconciliation bill that is being sold to Trump voters as the Big Bang in government reform and cutting spending.

And this isn’t Trumpian hype.

This is possible!

A budget reconciliation bill only needs a simple majority in both houses to pass and the Republicans have enough members to do so.

The only variable holding up passage is, you guessed it, individual Republicans.

Here’s one example:

Biden’s hilariously misnamed and fraudulent Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was a multi-billion-dollar gift to the left:

• It provides thousands of patronage jobs for left-wingers.
• It funds anti-fossil fuel organizations and the employees.
• It imposes economy and power generation roadblocks on the nation’s power grid.
• It gives billions to wealthy “green energy” subsidy farmers.
• It helps Chinese firms that build solar panels and windmills, and it does so by increasing deficit spending.
• It also gives jobs to people who won’t vote GOP.
• It funds organizations that work against Republican policies.
• It makes the power grid as susceptible to the weather as a summer picnic.
• And . . . it helps China!

Repealing this travesty should be automatic even for our spineless members of congress.

Only there’s one side effect from the bill we left out.

The subsidy farming companies that have latched on to the green energy scam take some of the tax dollars they’ve bled from Uncle Sam and contribute to politicians whose vote they want to rent.

That makes the IRA the worst of all worlds.

The Trump White House has admirably promised, “Inflation Reduction Act credits will be repealed to the fullest extent possible.”

That extent will be essentially zero if four RINOs in the U.S. Senate get their way.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, John Curtis, R-Utah, Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., signed a letter that reads, “A wholesale repeal, or the termination of certain individual credits, would create uncertainty, jeopardizing capital allocation, long-term project planning, and job creation in the energy sector and across our broader economy.”

Translation?

If taxpayers don’t continue subsidizing these economically insane, money losing projects that only help leftist voters, our donors will lose money and won’t contribute to our next campaign.

Maybe if Trump installed a windmill in each of their backyards, it might change their minds. Unfortunately, so far, the president has only declared war on members of congress who vote with him 90% of the time.

The disloyal RINOs have gotten off scot-free.

We aren’t optimistic regarding the prospects for a budget bill that cuts spending and shrinks the size of the bloated federal government. Too many of our “combover conservatives” have become addicted to spending and subsidies and they show no inclination to ever enter political rehab.

Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Mr. Reagan is an in-demand speaker with Premiere Speaker’s Bureau. Read Michael Reagan’s Reports — More Here.

Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of “Conservative Christian’s Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now With Added Humor!)” Read Michael Shannon’s Reports — More Here.

U.S. stock index futures jumped Thursday as shares of Microsoft and Meta Platforms surged after strong quarterly results from both the Magnificent Seven heavyweights pointed to a still-strong outlook for the technology sector.

Microsoft forecast stronger-than-expected quarterly growth for its cloud-computing business Azure after beating Wall Street estimates for the latest quarter. Meta Platforms posted better than expected revenue on the back of strong advertising performance.

Meta rose 6.2%, while Microsoft jumped 8.85% in premarket trade. Both companies reported after market close on Wednesday.

The strong results from the two megacaps helped calm jitters over an increasingly uncertain outlook for businesses and the economy, due to sweeping and often erratic shifts in U.S. tariff policy and an escalating trade war with China.

Data on Wednesday showed the U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter for the first time in three years, while several companies have cut or even withdrawn financial forecasts amid a highly uncertain environment.

Despite that, estimates for S&P 500 earnings growth in the first quarter now stand at 11.5%, as per LSEG data on Wednesday, up from the 7.8% growth forecast at the start of April.

At 6:53 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 346 points, or 0.85%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 67.50 points, or 1.21%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 341.25 points, or 1.74%.

Other technology megacaps jumped, with Nvidia up 4.3% and Alphabet gaining 1.1%.

After Microsoft and Meta’s strong reports, Amazon.com and Apple are scheduled to report after the close on Thursday.

Amazon shares rose 4%, but Apple shares slipped 1.3% after a federal judge ruled the iPhone maker had violated a U.S. court order to reform its App Store.

Corporate results continue at full throttle, with Eli Lilly , McDonald’s and Mastercard among those due before the bell.

The day’s economic data docket is also heavy with weekly jobless claims, manufacturing PMIs and construction spending.

Despite choppy intraday trading, the S&P 500 has managed to close higher for the past seven sessions, a winning streak last seen in late November. The benchmark index and the Dow notched monthly losses in April, while the Nasdaq rose slightly.

Mobile chip designer Qualcomm was one of the latest firms to forecast a hit to revenue from the trade war. Its shares fell 5.2%.

Meanwhile, shares of Robinhood rose 3.1% after higher volumes amid volatile markets lifted the trading platform’s profit above forecasts.

NewsmaxMoney

The world will not soon see a man like David Horowitz again..

One of the great Americans of our age, David Horowitz, died on Tuesday at the age of 86.

David Horowitz was one of the towering intellects and most perceptive thinkers of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first; he was also a man of unusual courage and remarkable vision. Though few people today realize it, David Horowitz was also one of the most influential people of our time, as he was one of the first leftists of any prominence to leave the leftist ranks and become a stalwart warrior for freedom.

Multitudes followed in his wake, often without realizing who it was who had blazed the trail for them. We are all in his debt not only for blazing that trial, but for the fact that after he established himself as a voice for freedom, sound values, and patriotism, David Horowitz spearheaded efforts to seize the intellectual and moral initiative from the left, and to articulate a vision for an America that really is the land of the free and the home of the brave.

After decades of the left’s cultural hegemony, David Horowitz played a massive role in establishing a large-scale movement of American patriots who refused to accept the claims of self-anointed “progressives” that their victory was inevitable, that they were on the right side of history, and that surrender was wiser than resistance. Today, that movement is broad-based, and one of its foremost exponents is in the Oval Office. Trump himself called Horowitz his “great friend.”

Stephen Miller, one of Donald Trump’s key advisers, was in his college days the president of the Duke chapter of David Horowitz’s Students for Academic Freedom; Miller’s uncompromising, unapologetic and deeply informed response to the left’s propaganda machine (that is, the establishment media) is redolent of Horowitz’s influence.

Even just a few years ago, Miller’s robustly pugnacious approach to the media propagandists would have been unthinkable. It was taken for granted that American conservatives let the left define the parameters of the public discourse and control the debate over any controverted issue. If the left denounced any voice for freedom on the right, which it did on a regular basis, establishment conservatives fell dutifully into line and denounced the target themselves.

These establishment conservatives were ignorant of or indifferent to the fact that Saul Alinsky, a man who had been a socialist activist like David Horowitz but who had never heeded the better angels of his nature and broken with the left, taught that radicals could defeat their foes by isolating a target, demonizing and destroying that target, and then proceeding onto the next target by first denouncing him for associating with the first target.

David Horowitz not only refused to play along with this game; he broke its power. At the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s flagship publication, Front Page Magazine, he did not let the left set the agenda; instead, he set his own. He didn’t shun figures who enunciated unpopular truths that the left wanted desperately to conceal; instead, he gave them a platform. He articulated an American conservatism that was not defensive, not reactive, not imitative of the left, but providing a vision for our nation’s future that is a genuine alternative to what the left has forced upon Americans for so long, and which preserves and strengthens what has made our nation great.

Nowadays, when patriots seek out pundits and political analysts who articulate what they themselves want for our country, and they encounter a strong and self-assured patriotic movement, this is to a great degree the fruit of the tireless labors of David Horowitz. When he and his longtime friend and colleague Peter Collier left Ramparts magazine, which was at the vanguard of the leftist movement in the late 1960s, and embraced the patriotism and love for freedom they had previously fought so energetically against, the American left lost two of its foremost thinkers; it has never recovered.

If free people prevail in this great struggle in which we are now engaged, and if an honest history of our turbulent age is someday written, David Horowitz will stand as one of those who shone forth most brightly when the darkness seemed all-pervasive and invincible.

It has been an immense honor for me personally to have known David for twenty years, and to have fought for freedom alongside him as part of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. At the Center, we are now determined to continue David’s fight for freedom and to keep on carrying the torch for freedom that he lit, until we prevail. May his memory be eternal.

Robert Spencer, frontpagemagazine.com

Ukraine is ready to sign an agreement that would give the U.S. access to its valuable rare minerals in the hopes of ensuring continued American support for Kyiv in its grinding war with Russia, senior Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.

Ukraine’s economy minister and deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, flew to Washington on Wednesday to help finalize the deal, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said during an appearance on Ukrainian television. Although the main part of the agreement had been settled, there were still hurdles to overcome, said a senior Ukrainian official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

For Ukraine, the agreement is seen as key to ensuring its access to future U.S. military aid.

Truly, this is a strategic deal for the creation of an investment partner fund,” Shmyhal said. “This is truly an equal and good international deal on joint investment in the development and restoration of Ukraine between the governments of the United States and Ukraine.”

President Donald Trump indicated in February that he wanted access to Ukraine’s rare earth materials as a condition for continued U.S. support in the war, describing it as reimbursement for the billions of dollars in aid the U.S. has given to Kyiv. But talks stalled after a tense Oval Office meeting of U.S. and Ukrainian leaders, and reaching an agreement since then has proven difficult and strained relations between Washington and Kyiv.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday during a Cabinet meeting at the White House that the Trump administration was ready to sign off on a deal, but that there was still work to do.

“The Ukrainians decided last night to make some last-minute changes,” Bessent said when asked about reports that Ukraine was ready to agree to the pact. “We’re sure that they will reconsider that. And we are ready to sign this afternoon if they are.”

He didn’t elaborate as to the late changes he said Ukraine made.

The U.S. is seeking access to more than 20 raw materials deemed strategically critical to its interests, including some non-minerals such as oil and natural gas. Among them are Ukraine’s deposits of titanium, which is used for making aircraft wings and other aerospace manufacturing, and uranium, which is used for nuclear power, medical equipment and weapons. Ukraine also has lithium, graphite and manganese, which are used in electric vehicle batteries.

After Kyiv felt the initial U.S. draft of the deal disproportionately favored American interests, it introduced new provisions aimed at addressing those concerns.

According to Shmyhal, the latest version would establish an equal partnership between the two countries and last for 10 years. Financial contributions to a joint fund would be made in cash, and only new U.S. military aid would count toward the American share. Assistance provided before the agreement was signed would not be counted. Unlike an earlier draft, the deal would not conflict with Ukraine’s path toward European Union membership — a key provision for Kyiv.

The Ukrainian Cabinet was expected to approve the agreement’s text before it could be signed in Washington. The deal would then need to be ratified by the Ukrainian Parliament before it could take effect.

The negotiations come amid rocky progress in Washington’s push to stop the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin backs calls for a ceasefire before peace negotiations, “but before it’s done, it’s necessary to answer a few questions and sort out a few nuances,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Putin is also ready for direct talks with Ukraine without preconditions to seek a peace deal, he added.

“We realize that Washington wants to achieve quick progress, but we hope for understanding that the Ukrainian crisis settlement is far too complex to be done quickly,” Peskov said during his daily conference call with reporters.

Trump has expressed frustration over the slow pace of progress in negotiations aimed at stopping the war. Western European leaders have accused Putin of stalling while his forces seek to grab more Ukrainian land. Russia has captured nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory since Moscow’s forces launched a full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

The American president has chided his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for steps that he said were prolonging the killing, and he has rebuked Putin for complicating negotiations with “very bad timing” in launching deadly strikes on Kyiv.

Trump has long dismissed the war as a waste of lives and American taxpayer money — a complaint he repeated Wednesday during his Cabinet meeting. That could spell an end to crucial military help for Ukraine and heavier economic sanctions on Russia.

The U.S. State Department on Tuesday tried again to push both sides to move more quickly and warned that the U.S. could pull out of the negotiations if there’s no progress.

“We are now at a time where concrete proposals need to be delivered by the two parties on how to end this conflict,” department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce quoted U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio as telling her.

Russia has effectively rejected a U.S. proposal for an immediate and full 30-day ceasefire, making it conditional on a halt to Ukraine’s mobilization effort and Western arms supplies to Kyiv.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed Wednesday that Ukraine had accepted an unconditional truce only because it was being pushed back on the battlefield, where the bigger Russian forces have the upper hand.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian civilians have been killed or wounded in attacks every day this year, according to a U.N. report presented Tuesday in New York.

The U.N. Human Rights Office said in the report that in the first three months of this year, it had verified 2,641 civilian casualties in Ukraine. That was almost 900 more than during the same period last year.

Also, between April 1-24, civilian casualties in Ukraine were up 46% from the same weeks in 2024, it said.

The daily grind of the war shows no sign of letting up. A nighttime Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, wounded at least 45 civilians, Ukrainian officials said.

Also Wednesday, the Ukrainian Security Service claimed its drones struck the Murom Instrument Engineering Plant in Russia’s Vladimir region overnight, causing five explosions and a fire at the military facility. The claim could not be independently verified.

Newsmax/AP