The Top 5 Plus (May 9)

1) “5 Insights from Ben Sasse as He Faces His Last Days on Earth” (Kathy Athearn, Washington Stand)

From the article -- Fifty-four-year-old former Nebraska senator, husband, and father of three, Ben Sasse, was tragically diagnosed only six months ago with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and told he had three to four months to live. While the clinical trial that his doctors put him on has given him more time on earth than doctors predicted, the cancer has sadly continued to spread to his liver, lymph nodes, lung, and vascular system.

Each day that he lives is a miracle. Knowing this has caused Sasse to focus on what is truly important, and he has graciously shared his wisdom in several interviews recently. The following are five insights that we would all be wise to listen to and reflect upon.

2) “It’s Time to Abolish Public Schools: Public schools survive what no business could: monopoly protection, union entrenchment, and taxpayer bailouts -- proof that education works best when government gets out of the way.” (Larry Sand, American Greatness)

From the article -- In the 1830s, education reformer Horace Mann viewed public schools as a “crucible of democracy.” He sought to have the state take over schools and raise taxes to fund them. Mann even predicted that if public schooling were widely adopted and given enough time to take effect, “nine-tenths of the crimes in the penal code would become obsolete,” and “the long catalog of human ills would be abridged.”

Clearly, Mann was dead wrong. Almost 200 years later, our nation, with its massive education bureaucracy, is more divided than ever, crime rates are high, and we have more “human ills” than we can handle. And taxpayers fork over about a trillion dollars a year in the process.

While Mann’s utopian goals obviously didn’t come to fruition, they did create a link in people’s minds between the “institution of public schooling and the ideals of public education” that, sadly, still exists today.

But the status quo is simply unacceptable.

Related articles: “Would You Leave Your Child There? One School District’s Answer Should Alarm Every Parent in America” (Julio Rivera, American Greatness)...”Declining Birthrates, Immigration Drive Enrollment Crisis in US Public Schools (AG News Staff)...“May Day Madness with the Chicago Teachers Union: Before students can engage in civic action, they must first learn to read and write.” (Aidan Grogan, City Journal)

3) “The Democratic Party Is Dead, Long Live the Jacobins! -- Today’s Democratic Party has abandoned its traditional working-class, patriotic roots and embraced a radical Jacobin ideology built on division, coercion, and political extremism.” (Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness)

From the article -- For the past century, the agendas of the Democratic Party were predictable. They professed concern for working Americans and supported blue-collar unions. Unemployment insurance, a 40-hour work week, disability insurance, and Social Security were their trademarks—often rapidly achieved by growing government bureaucracies and continually raising taxes. Still, many Democrats were socially conservative.

By the 1970s, Democrats still deplored antisemitism. Party officials had rejected their own segregationists to champion civil rights. Presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy all supported strong defense and military deterrence.

All that is now passé.

Related article: “Why So Many Political Pyromaniacs, Assassins, and Other Scary Types?: How moral certainty turns crimes into causes and culprits into symbols.” (Daniel J. Flynn, American Spectator)

4) “Islam’s Turbocharged Takeover of Europe” (Nils A. Haug, Gatestone Institute)

From the article -- Meanwhile, Iran and its jihadist proxies appear innocent of the Western "infidel" concepts of just wars, international laws, human rights or the Geneva conventions. They are mainly directed, it seems, by medieval Sharia law.

"Leadership in times of crisis," it has been said, "is not measured by the absence of risk, but by the willingness to accept it." In avoiding risk, the cowardly leaders of Western Europe – those sell-outs to an increasingly antagonistic extremist Muslim electorate upon whom they are increasingly dependent for political office -- are a disgrace to their nations. They are also a great disappointment to those who believe in the preservation of history's finest civilization – one with freedom, democracy, human rights, and an embedded Judeo-Christian moral foundation.

These leaders seemingly reject any obligation to oppose attempts to destroy their nations' traditional way of life. In the tradition of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who in 1938 imagined that he had a peace deal with Hitler, they have taken on a greater risk: that of appeasement.

European nations, it appears, have succumbed to Islamization. Their rapidly changing demographics reveal it; their failure to adequately protect their small Jewish communities against vociferous hate reveal it; their compromise on basic individual freedoms in their own countries reveal it, and their refusals to support the US, their erstwhile protector, reveal it.

Related articles dealing with the War with Ira, Radical Islam, Europe’s surrender to Islam, Anti-Semitism --- “Hamas is Humiliating Trump's ‘Board of Peace’” (Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute)...“Political Islam sees Europe as a territory to be claimed” (Konstantinos Bogdanos, Brussels Signal)...“An empire that cannot speak its name” (Ralph Schoellhammer, Brussels Signal)...“Antisemitism, Islam and the future of the GOP: The red-green alliance of Marxists and Islamists is fueling hatred for Jews and Israel among young people, while giving Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly a new audience.” (Jonathan S. Tobin, JNS)...“Why are liberals and Democrats embracing anti-Israel extremists?: Mainstream support for Senate candidates like Graham Platner and Abdul El-Sayed reflects both panic about Trump and the acceptance of antisemitism.” (Jonathan S. Tobin, JNS)...“How Intense Political Polarization Is Fanning The Flames Of Antisemitism (John Rodrigues, Harbinger’s Daily)

5) “When the Machine Decides: The Growing Threat of AI Agency” (Robert Maginnis, Washington Stand)

From the article -- Over the weekend of April 25-26, PocketOS founder Jer Crane confronted what every business owner fears — nothing. His company’s production database has vanished. Three months of customer reservations, payment records, and vehicle assignments gone in nine seconds, because an AI software assistant encountered a login error and decided on its own to fix the problem. The AI found a digital access key — essentially a master password — hidden in an unrelated file, connected to Railway, the cloud-hosting service where PocketOS stored its data, and issued a deletion command that wiped the database and every backup simultaneously, with no human being asked to approve a single step.

Most readers will not recognize PocketOS. The principle at stake touches every one of them.

What Crane experienced sits at the frontier of autonomous AI — software that no longer waits for human approval at each step but acts independently to complete tasks, make decisions, and execute commands in the real world. These systems already write news stories, conduct financial trades, screen job applicants, and assist military planners. Humans are increasingly supervisors of processes they cannot fully audit and, as Crane discovered, cannot always stop before the damage is done.

Related article: “It’s No Longer Just A Tool, AI Is Where The Self-Worship Epidemic Is Heading” (Greg Laurie, Harbinger’s Daily)

Other Excellent Reads from the Week

* “How Women Have Led to the Erasure of Women: Modern sexual and family norms have blurred the meaning of womanhood, weakening motherhood and accelerating a cultural shift that treats biology as optional.” (Jennifer Galardi, American Greatness) (Also see “Stop Telling Women They’ll Only Enjoy Motherhood When They Aren’t Watching Their Kids” (Abby Johnson, Federalist))

* “Price Gouging, Now Personalized Thanks to Surveillance Pricing and Collusion: Corporate greed isn’t just bad ethics -- it’s the fastest way to make socialism sound reasonable.” (Buck Throckmorton, American Spectator)

* “Is America an Idea? Not According to the Founding Fathers” (S.A. McCarthy, Washington Stand)

* “Neil Gorsuch Is Wrong, America Isn’t A ‘Creedal Nation’” (John Daniel Davidson, Federalist)

* “Bureaucrats Improperly Paid Out $186 Billion In Taxpayer Money In 2025: Will the public sector ever come to grips with the scale of the problem?” (Christopher Jacobs, Federalist)

If a Good Book Is a Good Friend..."

If a good book is a good friend -- and it is -- then why on God’s green earth would you not want to enrich your life by hanging out with good friends? I’m delighted to say this has been a priority in my life since I was little kid. Well, yes; there was a tragic period in my terribly misspent teen years where I departed from that lifestyle. But first with Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and then with Fyodor Dosteovsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, I see now how the Lord was using good books to draw me away from my intellectual and moral slide -- and towards the supernatural light and liberty He offered me through Calvary’s atoning sacrifice.  I began to read again. I began to think again. And I began to dream, aspire, and appreciate again. 

I thank the Lord for His rescue of my soul and my mind...and for continuing to bring the good gifts of good books my way. I thought of this the other morning when I mentioned to someone having had such delightful times the past couple of months in hanging out with old friends. “Really,” he asked. “What friends are you talking about?” I smiled and told him: C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Dickens, Rafael Sabatini, and the writers of the Old Testament books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I and 2 Samuel. Very good friends, indeed.

Charles William Eliot once observed, “Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” He was spot on. And I pray I will effectively live out that conviction until I’m allowed entry into the libraries of the New Jerusalem!

The Top 5 Plus (May 2)

1) “Political Violence Is Cool Now: Why do so many elites support violent extremism?” (James B. Meigs, Free Expression WSJ)

From the article -- All the cool kids think killing people is OK now. Or at least understandable, as long as the killer has, like, a really good reason. Few of the people who talk this way want to pull the trigger themselves, thank God. But it gives them a kind of edgy thrill to talk about how violence in the service of a good cause might be necessary, even ennobling.

Some years ago, writer Rob Henderson coined the term “luxury belief” to describe fashionable opinions held by people who are insulated from the consequences of their views: for example, professors in safe college towns who advocate defunding the police. In a Free Expression article earlier this week Mr. Henderson noted that “glorifying ‘microlooting’ is a luxury belief because the people praising it aren’t the ones who pay for it.”

The people pursuing luxury beliefs are engaged in a kind of status competition. Who can épater la bourgeoisie with the boldest, most transgressive political statements? After Oct. 7, 2023, we saw this kind of status-jockeying on college campuses, where elite students vied to become the most fervent supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah. Keffiyeh scarves became de rigueur. Celebrating political murder is the next step on this progression. For most, it’s only talk. But there will always be a few who seek what they see as the ultimate status: actually carrying out a political attack.

Related articles: “From One Assassination Attempt to the Next: Mainstreaming Violence Against a President” (Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness)...“The Young, Violent Political Left” (Michael Barone, Jewish World Review)...“Coddling Leftist Assassins” (Thom Nickels, Front Page Mag)...“Stoking Violence: The Assassination Culture In America Is Not A Problem Coming From ‘Both Sides Of The Aisle’ (Erick Stakelbeck, Harbinger’s Daily)...“Leftist Political Violence is an Existential Threat to the Republic (Josh Hammer, Front Page Mag)...“Party of Assassins: (The latest Trump assassin wasn’t a radical. He was a Democrat.” (Daniel Greenfield, Front Page Mag)

2) “The Pro-Life Movement Has An IVF Problem” (Nathanael Blake, Federalist)

From the article -- IVF is on the rise, and that’s a problem for the pro-life movement. The problem is that pro-lifers know that human life begins at conception, but the IVF industry intentionally destroys human embryos in vast quantities — yet IVF is very popular, including among those who describe themselves as pro-life. Even as the American birthrate plummets, more babies are being born through IVF, with the most recent release of data showing the number of IVF babies surpassing 100,00 in a single year.

This has established a pervasive dissonance. Many Christian churches proclaim from the pulpit that human embryos are fully human, but nonetheless seem untroubled when members, and even leaders, use IVF according to the industry-standard embryo-destroying protocols. They just prefer not to talk about the contradiction.

Thus, many people, not having thought about the issue much, do not realize that there is a conflict between the pro-life commitment to treating human embryos as human persons and what the IVF industry does. For instance, when President Trump unveiled his pro-IVF fertility policy, reporter Emily Jashinsky asked what his message was to those with “religious objections to IVF.” He replied, “I think this is very pro-life. … You can’t get more pro-life than this.” The apparent reasoning is simple: IVF helps people have babies and pro-lifers love babies. But the pro-life position is about protecting human life, not just helping people to have babies when they want them.

And protecting human life from conception is incompatible with how IVF is usually practiced. This is why IVF advocates are against recognizing human embryos as human persons. For example, Resolve (the National Infertility and Family Building Association) highlights the group’s opposition to laws that recognize that human life begins at conception.

3) “DOJ Report Reveals Biden Admin’s Expansive Religious Liberty Violations and Hostility to American Christians” (S.A. McCarthy, Washington Stand)

From the article -- “Our Nation’s origin and system of government bear the imprint of a Christian worldview and ethic, even as its laws protect religious pluralism. Christian beliefs, in conjunction with contemporary political thought and economic realities, influenced colonial settlers in their decision to overthrow tyranny and pursue independence,” the report’s introduction states. “After the Revolutionary War, Christians then informed the structure and contents of the United States Constitution, its amendments, and contemporaneous state constitutions.”

“But, when Christian beliefs about morality and human nature conflicted with the Biden Administration’s views, religious rights often suffered,” the report’s introduction continues. “The Biden Administration generally tolerated religious beliefs that were privately held but zealously pursued actions to limit Christians’ ability to act in accordance with their faith. This affected matters of deep personal importance to nearly every American: life, family, marriage, and self-identity,” it continues. “The Biden Administration’s policies regularly clashed with a Christian worldview and burdened traditional religious practices. These conflicts frequently arose over abortion, gender ideology, and sexual orientation. Ultimately, the Biden Administration penalized Christians who lived in accordance with their beliefs.”

The report details 14 “key findings” regarding the Biden administration’s abuse of power and violation of religious liberties, ranging from a two-tiered justice system and aggressive prosecution of pro-life activists to the coercive violation of conscience rights and the rabid promotion of LGBT ideology. The taskforce also identifies several “remedies” that the Trump administration has enacted to ensure that the federal government is not weaponized against American Christians.

Related articles: “New Report Thaws the Chill of Bias against Christians” (Tony Perkins, Washington Stand)...“Task Force Publishes Report on Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias and Restoring Religious Liberty” (Office of Public Affairs, Department of Justice)...“Pardons Aren’t Enough. The FACE Act Must Go” (Andrew Bath, Federalist)

4) “The New Religion of AI: Who Gets to Define What It Means to Be Human?” (Robert Maginnis, Washington Stand)

From the article -- On January 20, 2026, historian Yuval Noah Harari stood before the World Economic Forum at Davos and issued a direct challenge to Christians worldwide. “If religion is built from words, then AI will take over religion,” he said, then named Christianity by name: “This is particularly true of religions based on books, like Islam, Christianity, or Judaism.” And he left this question in the air: “What happens to the religion of a book when the greatest expert on the holy book is an AI?”

The clip accumulated 1.2 million views within days. The room at Davos did not object.

Harari’s 2026 remarks are the current edge of a worldview shift building for years — visible in the public statements of the most powerful technologists of our time, spanning five distinct domains of the human person.

Related articles: “China is Infiltrating the Anti-AI Movement”  (Daniel Greenfield, Front Page Mag)...“Artificial Intelligence Misquotes The Bible Up To 60% Of The Time” (Ken Ham, Harbinger’s Daily)

5) “Why Is Progressivism Incompatible With the Declaration of Independence? Clarence Thomas Explains (Tyler O’Neil, Daily Signal)

From the article -- With his characteristic brilliance, Thomas cut through the Orwellian masquerade of Progressivism to reveal what it truly is—a fundamentally backward movement. By rejecting the solid footing of the declaration, Progressivism opened America to central planning and administrative rule.

While the declaration bases governmental authority on the consent of the governed and God creating human beings with inalienable rights, under Progressivism, “liberty no longer preceded the government as a gift from God but was to be enjoyed at the grace of the government.”

Thomas noted that President Woodrow “Wilson and the progressives candidly admitted that they took it from Otto von Bismarck’s Germany, whose state-centric society they admired. Progressives like Wilson argued that America need to leave behind the principles of the founding and catch up with the more advanced and sophisticated system of relatively unimpeded state power.”

Yet Thomas also quoted President Calvin Coolidge, who delivered a powerful address on the 150th anniversary of the declaration. “If all men are created equal, that is final,” Coolidge said. “If they are endowed with unalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress, can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which they can proceed historically is not forward but backward.”

Other Excellent Articles from the Week

* “Communism’s Comeback – and America’s Amnesia: A generation that forgot history is flirting with repeating it.” (Jeffrey Ludwig, Front Page Mag)

* “Biden Admin Used ‘Benghazi’ to Hide $90M to Planned Parenthood. Senator Wants DOJ to Probe.” (Fred Lucas, Daily Signal)

* “Teachers’ Unions Contribute a Combined $1 Billion Toward Left-Leaning Political Activism” (Kamden Muller, National Review)

* “Rep. Chris Smith welcomes Supreme Court’s decision in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport and protection of pregnancy care centers” (National RTL)

* “The Story Of Everything Hits At Just The Right Time To Boost America’s Faith Resurgence” (David Goodwin, Federalist)

The Top 5 Plus (April 25)

1) “The SPLC Was Paying the Ku Klux Klan, DOJ Indictment Claims” (Tyler O'Neil, Washington Stand)

From the article -- The Southern Poverty Law Center has raised money for decades claiming to dismantle white supremacy, but it funneled millions of dollars to white nationalist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, according to a federal indictment handed down Tuesday. The SPLC claims it was funding informants inside the extremist groups.

While the SPLC “purports to fight white supremacy and racial hatred,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a press conference that “the SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose.”

Blanche highlighted one example from the indictment, where the SPLC paid a member of the leadership group that planned the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. “The Southern Poverty Law Center themselves advertise to raise money to dismantle violent extremist groups … however, the SPLC used the money they raised from their donor network to actually pay the leadership of these very groups,” FBI Director Kash Patel explained at the press conference.

The indictment charges the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, aiming to “obtain money via donations through materially false representations and omissions about what the donated funds would be used for.” It charges the SPLC with four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank by creating accounts for fictitious entities to funnel the money. Finally, it charges the SPLC with one count of conspiracy to commit concealment of money laundering.

Related articles: “SPLC Accused of Secretly Funding White Supremacist, Extremist Groups in DOJ Indictment” (Debra Heine, American Greatness)...“DOJ Charges Far-Left SPLC with Fraud, Money Laundering, ‘Manufacturing Racism to Justify Its Existence’” (Elizabeth Weibel, Breitbart)...“‘Fine People’ Hoax Uncovered in SPLC Fraud Scam” (Sasha Stone, Substack)...“A look back at the SPLC” (Scott Johnson , Power Line)...“DOJ: The SPLC Was ‘Paying Sources to Stoke Racial Hatred’” (John Sexton, Hot Air)

2) “A Catholic’s letter to an Israeli soldier: An appeal to the I.D.F. soldier who smashed a statue of Christ in southern Lebanon.” (Stephen Daisley)

From the article -- You have handed Israel’s enemies a piece of propaganda the likes of which they could never have dreamed. You have created for the Jew-haters a masterpiece of deicide, an antisemitic artwork for the ages. You have conspired to offend and disgust Israel’s millions of Christian Zionist admirers, in the United States and elsewhere, and for at least some of them this will mark a breaking point.

You have severely damaged your country’s reputation and, in alienating her friends, especially in America, you could be responsible for developments that reduce U.S. backing for Israel and therefore weaken her security. You have hurt Israel more than Peace Now, Breaking the Silence, and B’Tselem put together. I hope it was worth it, bro.

I guess I ended up adding to all the condemnation, after all. I didn’t mean to. I’m writing this, though I know you’ll never read it, because I am a supporter of Israel and I am also a Catholic. Not a terribly common combination. If you want to verify my Zionism, which is political and not religious, just check my back catalogue. I must have written hundreds of articles defending, consoling, and extolling Israel over the years. If you want to verify the Catholic part: I forgive you.

Personally, that is, for desecrating the holiest symbol in my faith. I’m afraid I can’t forgive you on anyone else’s behalf, but while seeing the image of you smashing a statue of my lord and saviour with a sledgehammer appalled and angered me, I forgive you.

I don’t hate you, I don’t think you’re a bad person; I think you did a cruel, obnoxious, sacrilegious thing, possibly because you thought it would be funny. I don’t think you intended to wound the world’s billion Christians, and even if you did, this wounded Christian wishes you only the best in return.

3) “Who Owns American History?” (John Fonte, American Mind)

From the article -- The President’s House, with an overwhelming emphasis on slavery, opened in December 2010. It was immediately attacked by cultural critic Edward Rothstein, then with the New York Times. Rothstein rejected the argument of the site’s adherents that the new interpretation was based on history previously not examined. In a rebuttal, the Times writer argued it was far more beholden to identity politics advocacy than nuanced historical analysis: “It is not really a reinterpretation of history; it overturns the idea of history, making it subservient to the claims of contemporary identity politics.”

He continued: After $10.5 million and more than eight years; after tugs of war between the city and the National Park Service and black community organizations; after the establishment of a contentious oversight committee and street demonstrations, overturned concepts and racial debates, it bears all the scars of its creation, lacking both intellectual coherence and emotional power.

Most importantly, Rothstein contended in a follow-up piece that the new ideological interpretation ignored what was significant for American history in the President’s House: the fact that the Washington and Adams administrations were influential in creating a new nation, a constitutional republic. Rothstein writes, “In the upstairs world of Washington and Adams, so blatantly ignored in the Philadelphia site, was the beginning of a national experiment: the faltering and difficult task of shaping a new society in which equality and liberty would indeed be governing principles, ultimately weakening the institution of slavery.”

4) “We Must Resist The Left’s War On Religious Freedom” (Mike Pompeo, Harbinger’s Daily)

From the article -- The collusion between the Justice Department – an arm of the Executive branch tasked with the fair and impartial administration of justice to all Americans – with pro-abortion activists against their ideological foes flies in the face of the DOJ’s mission, and the animating spirit of our Constitution. This doesn’t just compromise the rights of pro-life Americans – it opens the door for future abuses by government officials of all political and ideological stripes.

As a person of faith and as an American, I am grateful to the current Administration for doing the necessary to defend the First Amendment liberties of pro-life Americans. We cannot have a country in which the government treats our constitutional rights as conditional, or as favors to be granted to preferred political constituencies rather than God-given liberties.

But the fight doesn’t stop here. While we can hope that the legal remedies being pursued by the Trump DOJ will chill future efforts to engage in this type of behavior, there can be little doubt that pro-abortion activists will continue to use their power within the increasingly radical far-Left base to push for these tactics to continue. I give thanks every day for organizations like the ACLJ, which are truly doing the Lord’s work to ensure that these anti-constitutional, anti-faith zealots do not prevail.

5) “A Justice in Full: Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has served on the US Supreme Court for 20 years, but has never gotten the attention (or credit) he deserves.” (Mark Pulliam, Law & Liberty)

From the article -- In addition to the extensive interviews, Hemingway consulted with legal scholars, pored over the Court’s decisions, and reviewed the essays presented at a symposium on Justice Alito’s jurisprudence held in March 2022, which were published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.

What emerges is the portrait of an earnest, even-tempered, hard-working, highly intelligent, resolute, modest, self-effacing champion of the Constitution. Acquaintances use the same adjectives to describe Alito: quiet, calm, brilliant, polite, unassuming, courageous. Hemingway puts Alito’s 20 years of service as a justice in the context of the Court’s evolution from a hotbed of judicial activism under Chief Justice Earl Warren to its current alignment—a historic 6-to-3 conservative majority—and explains how Alito has played a key role in that shift.

Hemingway also digresses surefootedly into profiles of and anecdotes about the leading figures in political and legal circles during the Reagan-to-Trump epoch. As I said about Hemingway’s co-authored book on the Kavanaugh confirmation process, Justice on Trial, due to her extensive interviews, “the reader feels like a fly on the wall, behind the scenes, as the events dramatically unfold.” Alito delivers the same insider scoop.

Other Outstanding Articles from this Week:

* “Living In A Culture That Silences Biblical Truth” (Skip Heitzig, Harbinger’s Daily)

* “We’re No Better Today Than Pagan Nations… And The Numbers At Planned Parenthood Prove It” (Ken Ham, Harbinger’s Daily)

* “’Study’ Claiming Mail-Order Abortions Are ‘Almost Exclusively’ Legal Is Fake News” (Jamie Bryan Hall, Federalist)

* “Hawley Hunts Down the Secrets of America’s Shady Abortion Drug Maker” (Suzanne Bowdey, Washington Stand)

* “Hey, Tucker: Christianity and Islam Have a Long and Very Bitter History” (Josh Hammer, Jewish World Review)

“The Earth Is the Lord’s” -- Arbor Day vs Earth Day

In 1872, right here in the state of Nebraska, a journalist turned politician began a campaign that he hoped would help stabilize and beautify the rather sparse landscape of his state.  The man was a Nebraska City resident who believed that such a campaign would be a good idea in other places too.  And it was.

J. Sterling Morton’s call for tree husbandry was answered by the National Agricultural Convention meeting in St. Louis that year and by numerous municipalities, newspaper editors, and thousands of citizens.  The result was that the very first Arbor Day, April 22, saw almost a million trees planted.

But though J. Sterling Morton was a tree planter extraordinaire, he was not a tree hugger.  His attitude towards the natural world was the traditional one; namely, that the earth was the Lord’s and man, acting as God’s servant, was to effectively oversee nature, to subdue it in a rational way, to beautify it, and properly benefit from it.

Morton was thus acting in accordance with the biblical mandate -- the program originally given to Adam in the garden of Eden -- a call to responsibly appreciate, nurture, and enjoy the created things with which God had adorned the earth.

And most of the people who answered the challenge of Arbor Day were operating in the same spirit.  They were planting trees because trees were good things.  They bore fruit that man could eat.  They helped with soil conservation and provided protection from wind.  And they were pretty.

These people understood that trees were pleasant and productive plants, but they were for man’s use.  They were good things, not fellow souls.

Indeed, J. Sterling Morton (a conservative Democrat who served as Secretary of Agriculture under Grover Cleveland and whose son became a prominent Republican who was Secretary of the Navy under Theodore Roosevelt) was a faithful Episcopalian.  His understanding of the monumental difference between man (created in the express image of God) and nature (created for the enjoyment and benefit of man) was part of the basic Christian worldview.

The kind of conservation ethic he represented was rational, healthy, far-seeing, and well-rooted in sound environmental ideas.  It was the same enlightened conservation ethic of farmers like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, of visionaries like Johnny Appleseed, and conservation champions like Teddy Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell, and other sportsmen who led the way in establishing our national parks and wildlife refuges. It was part of the longstanding tradition of taking care of the environment for man’s use -- not for nature’s sake.  It was the perspective of the farmer, the rancher, the hunter, and fisherman that we all be responsible and take care of the environment in order that man -- both in the now and in the future -- may be best served.   

Thus, Arbor Day was (and, by the way, still is) a responsible event, one that calls for individual volunteer efforts rather than government coercion.  In fact, the people associated with Arbor Day are decidedly apolitical.  “The only stand we take,” says an official with the Arbor Day Foundation, “is that it’s a great thing to plant trees.”  No demands for government intrusion.  No insistence on group think.  No call for Nanny State regulations and taxes. No worshipping Gaia or Mother Earth.

What a dramatic difference this is from the “holiday” that has tried to bully its way over and past Arbor Day, the extremely political, propagandist, and manipulative event that pirated the same day, April 22, and now tries to crowd out the very memory of Arbor Day. That event of course, is Earth Day. Or as the United Nations calls it -- International Mother Earth Day. To be sure, this newly-invented, politically-charged “holiday” is often dominated by socialist (even pantheistic) tenets and, therefore, absolutely ignores who the true heroes of American environmentalism are; namely, those hunters, fishermen, and other genuine conservationists mentioned earlier. 

And, of course, International Mother Earth Day also ignores the innumerable passages in Holy Scripture which deal with God as the Creator and Sovereign King of the earth...and those which testify to the glory of Almighty God that is revealed in His creation...and those which exhort men to carefully serve as responsible stewards of the natural order...and the eventual destruction of the earth which occurs not through man’s ecological failure, but rather by the holy judgment of God. 

The last item, by the way, occurs just before God creates a new heaven and, yes, a brand new earth. 

International Mother Earth Day vs Arbor Day? For the Bible-based Christian, the choice is an obvious and easy one.

The Top 5 Plus (April 18)

1) “The Larger Agenda Behind The Promotion Of Lawlessness In America” (Brandon Holthaus, Harbinger’s Daily)

From the article -- Author and investigative journalist Peter Schweizer has recently released a book titled Invisible Coup, which lays out a sobering thesis: immigration is being deliberately weaponized by foreign adversaries and ideological movements to destabilize the United States from within.

Schweizer documents how hostile foreign powers and transnational movements view mass migration not primarily as a humanitarian issue, but as a strategic tool. Migration brings not only people, but political networks, ideological loyalties, and organized movements that are often hostile to the nation receiving them. These networks operate inside our institutions, our universities, our streets, and our media ecosystem. I agree with Schweizer, and in my opinion, the goal is to demoralize and destabilize the West in order to usher in a new digital economy, a new digital identity system, and a new form of global governance. Binding it all together is a unifying ideology—the counterfeit, inverted religion of future Mystery Babylon—that provides the moral and spiritual glue for this system.

He also explains how Islamist movements have historically treated migration as a form of conquest, rooted in doctrinal concepts of Hijrah and expansion. Let me be blunt. Islam is a threat to Western society, Christians, and Jewish people.  Islam hides under the veil of a religion, but it functions as a political ideology that seeks to establish a caliphate and impose Sharia law. Islam functions as a political ideology because it possesses the defining characteristics of one. It includes its own civil law, its own system of justice, its own authority structure, its own loyalty demands, its own language, and its own comprehensive cultural framework governing every area of life, including the economy, social structure, and a two-tiered system of personal rights.

2) “Flying Over the Rainbow?” (Denny Hartford, Vital Signs Blog)

From the article -- Among the songs in our “When Swing Was King” performances that most strongly connects with our audiences is Judy Garland’s gorgeous rendition from 1939 of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”  It is, as you well know, a hauntingly beautiful song, one that underscores the human yearning for home, beauty, innocence and wonder...for escape from a world of drudgery, loneliness, and pain. “Birds fly over the rainbow; why then, oh why can’t I?”

Our audiences love the song. And so do we. But, of course, it is all too clear that when the strains of the song fade away, the listener is left only with the yearning, a sweet wishful longing that there might somewhere be a place of safety and bliss instead of this dark, troublesome, and increasingly decadent world we live in now...

3) “Seven Myths About the Iran War: Why so many, on both the left and the right, keep getting Trump wrong” (Michael Doran, Tablet)

From the article -- Yet while Trump has repeatedly defied the Beltway consensus on Iran and its allies over the past year and a half, none of the dire consequences that influential commentators predicted have come to pass. World War III hasn’t erupted. The global economy hasn’t collapsed. Instead, the Iranian leadership is dead or decapitated, its nuclear weapons program is buried beneath mountains of rubble, and most of its navy lies at the bottom of the sea. While the loss of 13 U.S. servicemen is a serious matter, it is hardly the thousands of dead and wounded that were routinely predicted as the consequence of any major U.S. action. Israel still exists. So do Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait, along with their oil reserves.

Trump has inflicted heavy punishment in return for relatively light consequences, but pundits insist that a masterful Iran is dictating events. Tehran’s “successful” war-fighting tactics supposedly forced Trump to accept a cease-fire. Onlookers were then baffled when the United States walked away from talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, and took steps to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, to the strategic detriment of China and the benefit of U.S. energy producers.

In part, the surprises keep coming because the cognoscenti refuse to credit Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a win.

Related articles: “As the West morally rots, we stand with Israel” (Petr Macinka, Israel Hayom)...“Iran secures UN role with backing from UK, France, Canada, Australia as US stands alone: UN Watch warns dictatorships will now hold a majority on the committee that controls NGO accreditation” (Efrat Lachter, Fox News...“The Board Of Peace: Could Israel Be Walking Into Another Kind Of Hostage Crisis?” (Chris Katulka, Harbinger's Daily)

4) “As Mail Order Abortions Flow Into Pro-Life States, The Promise Of Roe’s Reversal Remains Unfulfilled” (Tony Perkins, Harbinger’s Daily)

From the article -- During the period covered by the report, Planned Parenthood received more than $2.1 billion in total revenue, with about 40% of that coming from taxpayers. The report reflects a time before the “One Big Beautiful Bill” temporarily defunded them for one year. But as we warned when the Senate reduced that defunding from 10 years to one, it would be short-lived. That provision expires in July, unless Congress includes it in reconciliation 2.0, which begins in the Senate this coming week as lawmakers return from the Easter recess.

However, Congressional leaders have made clear that reconciliation 2.0 is focused on ending the prolonged shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, making sure the entire department is funded, including immigration enforcement. With the GOP’s historically slim 218-214 majority in the House, leadership must keep nearly the entire conference unified. That leaves little room for additional priorities, meaning the bill will likely be narrowly focused and not include the defunding of the abortion giant.

So where does that leave the roughly two-thirds of Republican voters who identify as pro-life? The faded, brittle confetti of pro-life victories from five years ago offers little consolation amid a growing string of setbacks. What began as a 10-year defunding effort was reduced to one and is now about to expire. And earlier this month, the Trump administration effectively stepped back from the fight to remove Title X funding from abortion chains.

Related articles: “Federal Judge Declines to Block Mail-Order Abortions for Now, but Says Louisiana’s Case Is ‘Likely to Succeed’” (Katherine Hamilton, Breitbart)...“Biden’s FDA 2023 Rule Deregulating Mifepristone Caused Mail Order Abortions to Skyrocket” (Randall K. O’Bannon, NRL News)... “How Biden's DOJ Went After Pro-Lifers” (Ben Shapiro, Jewish World Review)...“Pro-Life Advocate Wins First Amendment Victory After Being Arrested By Biden Administration” (Ashley Bateman, Federalist)...“DOJ Confirms Biden Admin. Unjustly Targeted Pro-Lifers - with Abortion Industry’s Help” (S.A. McCarthy, Washington Stand)...“Taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood increased to $832M in 2024-2025” (Tate Miller, Just the News)...“Biden DOJ’s FACE Act Weaponization Is Shocking but Not Surprising” (Joshua Arnold, Washington Stand)... 

5) “The Church versus Trump” (Scott Johnson, Power Line)

From the article -- So the Pope met with David Axelrod last week. David Axelrod. Obama’s campaign architect. A man who is not Catholic, has never met a pope before, and whose entire career has been engineering political narratives for the American left.

And then, by pure coincidence, the Pope immediately started lobbing shots at the Trump administration, and three US Cardinals popped up on 60 Minutes doing the same thing.

All organically, I’m sure.

I’m a practicing Catholic. I need you to understand that part. But in my opinion, Trump has all the right to lash out at him. Maybe you’ll disagree, but in the end, Trump talks like Trump. Water is wet. I’m talking about MY Church being run like a DNC satellite office but with a golden throne.

This is the same Vatican that watched governments padlock churches during COVID and said nothing. That let Biden take communion while funding abortion and said nothing. That fired Bishop Strickland for defending actual Church doctrine. That removed Bishop Fernández in Puerto Rico for defending religious exemptions THE CATECHISM ITSELF supports.

But somehow Trump is the threat to human dignity.

Related article: “U.S. and Catholic Church must maintain a united front against ‘the Antichrist of our time’” (Conrad Black, Brussels Signal)

Other Excellent Articles

* "A Modest Proposal On Tax Day" (I & I Editorial Board)

* “The Moment AI Stopped Being a Tool” (Robert Maginnis, Washington Stand)

* “Treasury Secretary Sounds The Alarm, Warns AI Tools Like ‘Mythos’ Pose Major Threat To Financial Cybersecurity” (Tom Gilbreath, Harbinger’s Daily) 

* “A Tale Of Two States: Why National Voter ID Is Critical To U.S. Elections” (M.D. Kittle, Federalist)

* “California Bill Would Censor Indy Journos Like Nick Shirley Who Expose Waste and Fraud” (Mark Tapscott, Washington Stand)

Flying Over the Rainbow?

Among the songs in our “When Swing Was King” performances that most strongly connects with our audiences is Judy Garland’s gorgeous rendition from 1939 of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”  It is, as you well know, a hauntingly beautiful song, one that underscores the human yearning for home, beauty, innocence and wonder...for escape from a world of drudgery, loneliness, and pain.

“Birds fly over the rainbow; why then, oh why can’t I?”

Our audiences love the song. And so do we.

But, of course, it is all too clear that when the strains of the song fade away, the listener is left only with the yearning, a sweet wishful longing that there might somewhere be a place of safety and bliss instead of this dark, troublesome, and increasingly decadent world we live in now. But “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is only of the many songs that reflect this desire, songs that resonate with our intrinsically human longing for beauty, love, purity, and peace. “There’s a Place for Us” and “Somewhere, My Love” are examples. So too are “Rainbow Connection,” “A Summer Place,” “Up, Up and Away,” “Moon River,” “Bali Hai,” “There’s a New World Coming,” “Age of Aquarius,” and on and on. Plus, that’s not even beginning a list of the stories, movies, poems, and fairy tales that take our imaginations into pretty, idyllic pastures where we “live happily ever after.” 

What’s behind all this? Randy Alcorn is spot on with the answer in his marvelous book, Heaven. “We are homesick for Eden. We’re nostalgic for what is implanted in our hearts. It’s built into us.”...“Desire is a signpost pointing to heaven…I’ve never been to heaven, yet I miss it. Eden is in my blood. And the best things of earth are souvenirs of Eden, appetizers of the New Earth.”

Donald Bloesch in his Theological Notebook (1989) agrees. “Man’s greatest affliction is not anxiety, or even guilt, but rather homesickness -- a nostalgia or ineradicable yearning to be at home with God.” I couldn't agree more with these remarks. Indeed, two of my favorite authors C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton also speak of his matter eloquently and often, as do Joni Eareckson Tada and David Jeremiah in their excellent books about heaven. There’s no doubting the undeniable fact that man is created in the image of God and is wired for paradise. Alas, we lost Eden through our sin but God, in His great mercy and to glorify His Name, has offered mankind something far better than even Adam’s garden. Through the promise of the gospel, the Lord offers us the wholeness, security, love, and bliss which will be ours forever in the New Jerusalem. Wow. And wow again.

So, while I certainly don’t suggest you stop loving songs like “Moon River” or “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” or “Moon River,” I do urge you to remind yourself often of the rock-solid reality that is our eternal inheritance, one that the apostle Peter describes as “imperishable and undefiled [which] will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.” 

“I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.’ And He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ And He said, ‘Write, for these words are faithful and true.’” (Revelation 21:1-5)

And, in celebration of that immeasurably wonderful home that awaits us (a home that our Lord Jesus is personally creating and customizing for us!), may I offer you a song full of confident, joyful expectations of that stronger, weightier, infinitely more beautiful home beyond. 

Check it out right here...