Politics

By Emmy Griffin, Patriot Post – What a difference a year makes. Last year, Easter Sunday fell on March 31, so naturally, President Joe Biden, a “very devout” Catholic, made a big deal out of the Resurrection Transgender Day of Visibility, which happened to coincide with the most holy of Christian days… In stark contrast, President Donald Trump appropriately started this year’s Easter celebration on April 13, Palm Sunday. He didn’t have to contend with the “disputing holiday” — nor would he if presented with that choice because this president doesn’t kowtow to the gender ideologues.

By John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist – The truth is, there is no amount of due process that will ever satisfy pro-illegal immigration Democrats and their allies in the corporate press. They think Garcia and millions like him should be allowed to remain indefinitely in this country, no matter their criminal history or immigration status. They will protest every deportation along the same hysterical lines they are now protesting Garcia’s, and if the Trump administration isn’t prepared to ignore them we will never see an end to mass illegal immigration.

By Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness – Harvard risks $2.2B in federal funds as it defies anti-discrimination mandates, drawing comparisons to Hillsdale’s stand-alone model of rejecting government strings… The task force wants to persuade Harvard to ensure Jewish students on its campus are no longer harassed, or else lose its federal funding… Harvard retorts that it won’t be bullied by Washington… Among its other requirements, the Trump administration also warned Harvard to cease using race as a criterion in its admissions, hiring, and promotion, contrary to law… And it also directed the campus to ban the use of masks that, in the post-COVID era of protests, have emboldened violent demonstrators with anonymity.

By Charles A. Kohlhaas, MRC TV – I surmise these criticisms are from people who have never negotiated anything. Trump’s reputation is that of a master negotiator. He is demonstrating how he is just that on the world stage. Trump is negotiating multiple issues on a worldwide scale. He is like a man playing a dozen chess games simultaneously… Trump is giving a Master Class on negotiating. He is demonstrating he has the necessary mental agility to respond quickly and effectively to responses and actions of other parties and changing circumstances. In addition, he has the nimble mentality to maintain several different negotiations concurrently – chaotic as that may be.

The Catholic Herald – It has been confirmed that US Vice-President JD Vance and his family will travel to Italy at the end of Holy Week and spend Easter there, according to a news release from the Office of the Vice President…The US vice-president, who is arguably the US’s best known and most influential/controversial Catholic convert, will meet with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during his time in Rome, according to the news release… There is no mention of whether Vance will meet with Pope Francis, who is still recovering …..

By Auguste Meyrat, The Stream – In defending President Donald Trump’s tariffs, much has been said about the American economy slowly imploding from importing and consuming far more than it exports and produces, resulting in a global trade deficit amounting to trillions of dollars every year. Common sense would suggest this is not sustainable, and that a course correction is necessary before the country is fully spent and incapable of financially supporting itself, let alone the rest of the world… But what about countries that depend on exporting most of their goods? Both sides tend to agree that they have been profiting greatly from the current arrangement.

By Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell, The Daily Signal – The mother of Rachel Morin, the Maryland mom of five brutally raped and murdered by an illegal alien in August of 2023, on Wednesday joined a White House briefing to urge the media to share her daughter’s story… “Tell the truth,” Patty Morin said. “Tell like how violent it really is.”… Morin shared the gruesome details of her daughter’s death on a walking trail near her Maryland home. On Tuesday, Victor Martinez-Hernandez was convicted of first-degree murder, first-degree rape, third-degree sexual offense, and kidnapping in Morin’s case. The jury found Martinez-Hernandez guilty on all four counts.

By Jerry Cox, LifeNews – On Tuesday the Arkansas Legislature passed a good law to help teach public school students about unborn children… Similar legislation reportedly has passed in North Dakota, Tennessee, Idaho, and Kansas… S.B. 450 by Sen. Breanne Davis (R — Russellville) and Rep. Kendra Moore (R — Lincoln) lets public school students see a recording of a high-definition ultrasound video as part of human fetal growth and development education courses.

By Andrea M. Picciotti-Bayer, National Catholic Register – On Easter Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a case brought by a group of parents from Montgomery County, Maryland, who object to the indoctrination of their pre-K-through-eighth-grade children. The courageous defense of their children’s formation in Mahmoud v. Taylor can advance both religious freedom and parental rights under the law in our public schools… In the fall of 2022, the Montgomery County Board of Education decided to weave a collection of LGBTQ+-inclusive storybooks throughout the literature curriculum for their youngest learners.

By Michael Swartz, Patriot Post – The new presence of Stryker combat vehicles, which will be deployed along the Roosevelt Reservation, is already having a striking effect. “Ever since the Stryker came into play, we see more turn-backs than anything,” stated Sgt. 1st Class Carlos Zamora. Added Post reporter Dan Lamothe, “Such hardware typically is reserved for missions overseas. Under Trump, it is being used to track the movement of people and narcotics bound for the United States, monitor cartel activity, and send an unambiguous message that the status quo has changed.”

By Joachim Osther, The Stream – For the most part, normality seems to mean a détente from years of Leftist antagonistic fervor… Fair enough. We deserve some relief as forced workplace DEI reeducation training is halted, the censorious thrust of the Big Brother-infused Social Media apparatus abates, and the spigot allowing tens of millions of our hard-earned dollars to be funneled through USAID to socialistic NGOs is shut off… But consider that relief is inherently a temporary concept — a short respite during a long race. …..

By George Caldwell, The Daily Signal – The most contentious Senate contest of 2026 is shaping up to be between two Republicans… Since Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton declared his run to unseat Sen. John Cornyn, who has represented the Lone Star State since 2002, the two candidates have hammered each other with attack ads that question each other’s character and MAGA bona fides… Paxton started out his campaign accusing Cornyn, 73, of not being a genuine supporter of President Donald Trump.

By Rachel Bovard, First Things – Congressional proxy voting is a terrible idea. It is patently unconstitutional. It is as slippery a slope toward corruption and abuse of power as can be imagined. And even if a proxy scheme worked as honestly as promised, it would still make Congress less representative and Washington’s special interests more entrenched. So House Republicans were absolutely right earlier this month to oppose Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s (R-FL) proposal to allow members with infant children to vote by proxy.

By Tessa Gervasini, CNA – U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Missouri, announced that he is introducing new legislation to make Easter a federal holiday so families are able to spend “the holiest day in Christianity” together… In a thread of posts on X, Schmitt explained why the day should be federally recognized, starting with the fact that “81% of Americans celebrate Easter.”… “But,” he continued, “our current holiday schedule makes it way too difficult for families to celebrate together.” …

By Thomas Gallatin, Patriot Post – Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was recently interviewed by CBS News. It was his first TV interview since becoming HHS chief… The wide-ranging interview focused primarily on Kennedy’s touted Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda. For Kennedy, a key feature of MAHA is addressing the quality of the foods Americans eat. As he contends, the “FDA needs to start regulating food again and saying, you know, not just when food is adulterated, when there’s bacteria in it, let’s look at the chemicals in it.”

By  Jordan Boyd, The Federalist – The Biden administration funneled $18 million in U.S. tax dollars — approximately $4 million of which Republican Sen. Joni Ernst’s staff found buried or absent from the federal government’s funding database — to causes in Communist China… The majority of the payments were funneled through the U.S. Departments of State and HHS to various Chinese entities and China-based projects for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility trainings (including some at the U.S. consulate), “art billboards,” a bicycle parking cover, pro-LGBT events, various climate change initiatives, and rat research and reported on USAspending.gov. …

By Jacob Adams, LifeNews – Idaho has won a major pro-life victory in state court… Judge Jason Scott of Idaho’s 4th Judicial District Court on Friday held that there was no expansive right to an abortion under the state’s constitution while acknowledging the state’s two exemptions to the general ban on the procedure… The ruling follows a separate win last month for the state, when President Donald Trump’s Justice Department dropped a Biden-era lawsuit that was attempting to interpret federal law to prevail over Idaho’s Defense of Life Act.

By Jules Gomes, The Stream – Communist regime targets foreigners, evangelical house churches, and dissident Catholics… China’s repression of Christians has surged to record levels as the regime intensifies its crackdown on evangelical house churches, dissident Catholics, and even foreigners in China, according to reports from local churches, international agencies, and the Chinese government… Those being severely punished are Protestants who refuse to join the state-controlled Three Self Church or Catholics who remain faithful to the underground Catholic Church instead of joining the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) church governed by the Vatican-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) concordat.

By George Caldwell, The Daily Signal – Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is staking his political future on one daunting task—delivering a budget reconciliation bill that will satisfy both houses of Congress… In order to pass “one big, beautiful bill” to fulfill President Donald Trump’s campaign promises, Johnson, R-La., will have to make good on his own commitments to the most fiscally conservative members of the House of Representatives… Last Thursday, the House of Representatives passed the Senate’s budget plan by the narrowest of margins, 216-214.

By Josh Hammer, The Daily Signal – On Wednesday, President Donald Trump abruptly announced a 90-day pause on most of his planned country-specific “reciprocal” tariffs—with the notable exception of China. In so strikingly singling out China as the focus of America’s economic and geopolitical ire, Trump was not merely clarifying that the United States views China and its regnant Communist Party as our leading 21st-century threat—he was also taking yet another notable step toward fulfilling his own lifelong goal of fundamentally resetting the terms of the U.S.-China bilateral relationship.

By Craig DeLuz, The Daily Signal – In the ongoing debate about the role of government in addressing societal issues, a crucial misconception often surfaces on one side: The desire to help others equates to a mandate for state intervention… Advocates for increased government action frequently ignore the vital distinction between voluntary assistance and coercive mandates. The belief that government can—or should—serve as the ultimate arbiter of compassion neglects the fundamental principle that true generosity arises from individual choice rather than compulsion. …

By M.D. Kittle, The Federalist – Less than a week after a horrifying survey found more than half of self-identified leftists believe killing President Donald Trump would be justifiable, a Pennsylvania man has been charged with threatening to murder the president and other U.S. officials… Shawn Monper, 32, of Butler — the same Pennsylvania community where Trump came within a fraction of an inch of being assassinated last July — faces federal charges of making threats to assault and murder Trump, DOGE advisor and Tesla founder Elon Musk, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, and others, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

By Eric Scheiner, MRC TV – Democrats are fighting against the move that would require proof of citizenship to register for federal elections. Some leftists claim that it would make it harder for women to vote… Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) said.. “Bless my colleagues’ hearts on the other side of the isle, using married woman as a ‘gotcha’ for voting. I’ve never had to bring my birth certificate to prove that I was a registered voter. I have an ID that has a different name than my birth certificate. And also, since we’re using women as bait here, maybe in the next round of debates, they can explain to us exactly what a woman is.”

By Craig Bannister, CNS News – While the blatantly biased reporting by NPR and PBS is reason enough to cut off their taxpayer funding, there’s an even more important reason to do, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) says…. “My question is this: what in God’s name, what on God’s Green Earth are we doing with…$36 trillion of debt, which is just accumulated deficit, why are we giving certain TV stations and certain radio stations in America – but, not others – $500 million a year?… “Why? …

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – The U.S. House of Representatives passed a budget resolution Thursday that paves the way for defunding Planned Parenthood and other abortion companies through the budget reconciliation process… The move is celebrated by pro-life advocates as a significant step toward ending taxpayer support for the abortion industry… The resolution, which mirrors a similar measure passed by the Senate on April 5 …

By John Yep, Catholics for Catholics – This is an excerpt of an interview conducted by John Yep of Catholics for Catholics with Michael Hichborn of the Lepanto Institute regarding the statement issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) announcing they were withdrawing from receiving federal grants to process illegal aliens. ….

By Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness – The real trade war wasn’t Trump’s—it was decades of lopsided deals, deficits, and double standards America tolerated while others profited… 1.Trump’s So-Called “Trade War.”… Many call the American effort to obtain either tariff parity or a reduction in the roughly $1 trillion trade deficit and fifty years of consecutive trade deficits “a trade war.” But then what do they call the policies of the past half-century by Europe, Asia, China, and others to ensure asymmetrical tariffs, pseudo-health and security trade restrictions, and large surpluses?

By Terence Jeffrey, The Daily Signal – “And all of America is paying attention to what you are saying,” Schumer claimed to Booker—according to the Congressional Record… “All of America needs to know there are so many problems because of the disastrous actions of this administration in terms of how they are helping only the billionaires and hurting average families.”… In just the first two months of this year, the United States ran a $52.9 billion trade deficit with China. That was the largest trade deficit the United States ran with any nation… Schumer and Booker are not helping American families by opposing Trump’s efforts to counter China.

By Frank Perley, The Stream – Elon Musk has made more than his share of headlines – and enemies – in helping President Donald Trump scale back the governmental behemoth that threatens to bankrupt the United States. Cutting costs as the leader of the president’s new Department of Government Efficiency, though, isn’t the top concern for the world’s foremost entrepreneur. What keeps him awake at night, he admits, is humanity’s birth dearth.

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – Responding to the Trump administration’s drastic curb on refugee-resettlement programs, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has announced its decision “not to renew the cooperative agreements with the federal government related to children’s services and refugee support.”… Excuse me? Did I miss something? The federal government has withdrawn funding, and so the USCCB has decided not to run the programs that Uncle Sam had subsidized? In effect, then, the USCCB’s message to the White House is a variation on an old theme: “You can’t fire me; I quit.”

By Joshua Mercer, Catholic Vote – I just got off the phone with Brian… Today’s hearing was a moment of immense pride for American Catholics to see a faithful member of our Church, a devoted husband and father of nine, testify to the shared goals of our great nation and our Church: a deep and authentic human flourishing… During the hearing, Brian noted a few of the common interests the Holy See shares with the United States – resolving the many wars around the world, protecting human life, ending human trafficking, giving relief to persecuted Christians around the globe, and promoting religious freedom for all.

By Victor Davis Hanson, The Daily Signal – Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I was looking at the news this week and I thought of an experiment. What if you really wanted to destroy the United States? What if you’d had ill intention for America? What would you do? What agenda would you pursue?…. And then I started thinking of civilizations. What was the stuff of civilizations that made them work? And it’s basic: their borders, their finances, their unity, their fuel, their food. So, if you really wanted to, in civilizational terms, destroy the United States, the first thing I would do if I were an enemy of the United States is I would destroy the borders.

By Jason Jones, Crisis Magazine – But after all these years, I’ve come to a sad conclusion: the bleeding-heart Christian social justice Left and the bold, assertive Christian Right are both willing to vigorously defend the vulnerable only when it doesn’t threaten their first-world privileges. Each side champions the vulnerable, but their fervor comes in waves, and it always stops short when the demands of justice come close to the feet of their most cherished idols.

By Chuck Donovan, LifeNews – The federal government, and up to 18 state governments, are inching their way toward Medicaid defunding of affiliates of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, for many decades the nation’s premier funder and supplier of abortion… The battle has shifted back and forth over that time thanks to changes in the party holding the White House and statehouses. But it has been drawn out for another key reason, and that is the early and wily decision by Planned Parenthood’s leadership and allied groups to promote passage of multiple public funding streams that aid their programs.

By NewsMax, (Thomson/Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court handed Donald Trump a victory on Monday by letting him use a 1798 law that historically has been employed only in wartime to swiftly deport alleged Venezuelan gang members as part of the Republican president’s hardline approach to immigration… The court granted the administration’s request to lift Washington-based U.S. Judge James Boasberg’s March 15 order that had temporarily blocked the summary deportations under Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act while litigation in the case continues.

By Rachel Bovard, The Federalist – Even Big Tech’s toughest conservative critics must admit Mark Zuckerberg and Meta have had a good few months… In the wake of President Donald Trump’s reelection last November, the $1 trillion company finally scrapped its worst woke initiatives, from Facebook’s infamous “fact-checking” regime to its internal DEI programming. Its sites are apparently no longer throttling political content. And Zuckerberg has even rebranded himself — going “all-in on a MAGA-dominated Washington,” buying a $23 million home two miles from the White House ….

By Peter Wolfgang, Catholic Culture – On Wednesday, March 19th over 2,500 Connecticut pro-lifers gathered at the state Capitol in Hartford to call for an end to abortion in our state. My organization, Family Institute of Connecticut, was one of the co-hosts and I was one of the speakers. As far as mainstream media goes, this year’s Connecticut March for Life was covered by News Channel 8, the Hartford Courant, and pretty much no one else… On Saturday April 5th the “Hands Off” rallies—protesting President Trump and Elon Musk—were held at multiple locations across the country. Pretty much every local mainstream media outlet covered the ones here in Connecticut.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – The legislation, SB25-183, cleared the House with a party-line vote and has sparked fierce debate over the use of public funds for killing children before birth… The bill, which previously passed the state Senate, mandates that Colorado’s Medicaid program, administered through the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, cover abortions with tax dollars for all eligible recipients. It also extends funding to out-of-state individuals seeking abortions in Colorado, a provision critics argue turns the state into an “abortion tourism” destination.

By MassResistance, The Stream – Public school enrollment across the country is going down. By the thousands, families are saying they’ve had enough. They are either paying to send their children to private schools or they are taking on the burdens of homeschooling… It’s not hard to see why. By virtually every measure, public education in America is worse than ever before. High percentages of children in every grade are reading below their expected grade-point level. They can’t solve complex (or even easy) math problems. Their knowledge of civics, American government, and history is abysmal. They can’t write coherent paragraphs.

By Eric Killelea, Chron, (Complicit Clergy) – Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso has warned that one in five Catholics in America are at risk of themselves or family members being deported under President Trump’s mass deportation plans… The 71-year-old bishop overseeing congregations along the border in West Texas has been among the most outspoken Catholic leaders to criticize the Trump administration’s deportation plans that allow for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to arrest people in churches.

By Peter Smith, Associated Press, (Complicit Clergy) – The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced Monday that it is ending a half-century of partnerships with the federal government to serve refugees and migrant children, saying the “heartbreaking” decision follows the Trump administration’s abrupt halt to funding… The break will inevitably result in fewer services than what Catholic agencies were able to offer in the past to people in need, the bishops said.

By Tim Young, The Daily Signal – President Donald Trump’s win in November was so sweeping of a mandate that Republicans won control of both the House and Senate… Control of Congress is critical to moving Trump’s vast America First agenda forward—and because of the slim majority held by Republicans in the House of Representatives, one would hope they’re working together in lockstep on behalf of the American people. …

By M.D. Kittle, The Federalist – The more troubling trend is the rising violent rhetoric isn’t just coming from the ‘fringe’ left, it’s being ‘normalized’ by the left… The unhinged left, fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome and seething hatred for Elon Musk, is trending more violent, according to a new study that finds political violence targeting President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser is “becoming increasingly normalized.”

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D., Children’s Health Defense – According to a special investigation by journalist Sharyl Attkisson, the government has misled the public for decades about the science linking thimerosal to autism and other neurodevelopment disorders. It also continues to claim thimerosal has been removed from all childhood vaccines — even though some vaccines, including those given to children, still contain the ingredient… The U.S. government has long told the public that thimerosal, a mercury-based vaccine preservative ingredient, poses no harm to children, but that out of an abundance of caution, the ingredient hasn’t been used in childhood vaccines since at least 2001. …

By Elise DeGeeter, LifeNews – The Trump administration has restored millions in Title X funding to Oklahoma and Tennessee, two states previously cut off under the Biden administration for refusing to provide abortion referrals… In 2023, Biden’s Health and Human Services (HHS) revoked funding after labeling the states’ pro-life services “out of compliance” with federal rules, as CatholicVote previously reported.

By John Zmirak, The Stream – Our country, like many in Europe, is in the throes of a low-level running civil war between elites and the people. As I’ve explained here before, the “managerial” class James Burnham identified as the real winners of World War II is intent on seizing total control over politics, the economy, and culture from the old leaders of Western society — individual business owners, voting citizens, churches, and other civic groups. Managers don’t produce things or invent things the way Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and other old-fashioned businessmen have. Managers control things, and people, by using bureaucratic levers and legal boobytraps. If they can’t win elections, they cancel them (see Romania), arrest their opponents (see France), or steal them (see the U.S. in 2020).

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the City of San Antonio on Friday, because the city illegally used taxpayer money to fund abortion travel, in violation of state law and the Texas Constitution… The lawsuit, filed in Travis County District Court, points out that San Antonio appropriated $100,000 in taxpayer funds to support abortion travel that results in killing babies, including airfare, gas reimbursements, hotel stays, and other costs. Paxton argues this allocation undermines Texas’ strict abortion laws, which ban nearly all abortions except in cases where a pregnant woman’s life or major bodily function is at risk.

By Fred Lucas, The Daily Signal – About 5 million ineligible names were removed from voter registration rolls across the United States since 2019, Judicial Watch announced—with almost 1 million of those coming from New York City… The conservative-leaning government watchdog group has taken legal action against state and local governments for voter list maintenance under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which includes a requirement that election officials clear voter lists of the names of dead people, as well as the names of people that moved to another jurisdiction.

By Shawn Fleetwood, The Federalist – Another week has come and gone in the nation’s capital, which means congressional Republicans are either doing nothing productive, wasting taxpayer money, or losing major policy fights. In the case of this week (and many others), it’s all of the above… On Americans’ dime, the GOP-run House was all but forced to abruptly end work on its legislative agenda on Tuesday for the remainder of the week amid efforts led in part by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., to allow representatives who are new parents to vote by proxy. In other words, Luna pushed to amend House rules to permit these members to vote on key legislation without having to physically show up to work.

By Jules Gomes, The Stream – A U.K. court earlier today convicted a pro-life clinical scientist of violating a “buffer zone” outside an abortion facility in a trial that has triggered threats of trade reprisals from the Trump administration over “freedom of expression” in Britain… Dr. Livia Tossici-Bolt, a devout Catholic, was found guilty on two counts of breaching a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) or “buffer zone” outside the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) abortion facility in Bournemouth in March 2023… The 64-year grandmother from Italy, who lives in Britain, was holding a sign that read: “Here to talk, if you want.”

By Fr. Donald Kloster, LifeSiteNews – There has been huge pushback after the few times I have addressed the important topic of immigration from the pulpit. I recall giving a sermon on illegal immigration in early 2019 at a parish in the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut. After one of the Masses, a Novus Ordo in Spanish, a woman screamed at me in the vestibule as I was seeing off parishioners. Her insults were flying in Spanish and I was providentially keeping my composure.

By John Zmirak, The Stream – Many of us are torn on the subject of the wide-ranging tariffs President Donald Trump has imposed by executive order on nations around the world, which took effect Wednesday. One thing we shouldn’t be, however, is blindsided… Protecting American industry from often-predatory foreign competition has been on Trump’s mind for decades, and he has never been shy about saying so. You can go back to the late 1980s when Oprah Winfrey would welcome Trump on her show to hear him talking about it.

By Sean Davis, The Federalist – America has become addicted to cheap foreign baubles and easy money (i.e., fake fiat currency) at the expense of its long-term economic health. We allowed ourselves to be transformed from a cast iron economy that made things into a largely paper economy that depends on the good graces of foreign nations for its survival. This is a recipe for civilizational suicide… We don’t make our own weapons, food, machines, vehicles, plastics, medicines, or computers. The whole Covid insanity, with its shutdowns and shortages and supply-chain chaos, was a blaring alarm warning us that the economy we thought was so strong was shockingly fragile.

By Sara Carter, Complicit Clergy – In the months following President Donald Trump’s return to office in January, illegal border crossings and human trafficking incidents have significantly decreased. The renewed focus on border security has led to a sharp drop in unlawful crossings, with U.S. Border Patrol agents reporting just over 8,300 apprehensions in February—fewer than 300 per day… Alma Tucker, the founder of International Network of Hearts, a nonprofit organization in San Diego that aids victims of human trafficking—especially in Mexico’s Baja California region—has seen a noticeable decline in the number of children requiring shelter since Trump resumed office.

By Matt Kittle, The Federalist – Far-left Dane County Judge Susan Crawford defeated conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel by 10 percentage points (55% to 45%)… And for conservatives across the country, the price of losing the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history is immense. The left will control the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the foreseeable future. That means a long line of Wisconsin’s conservative reforms are now in peril, and the leftist court — as advertised — is very likely to preside over redrawn congressional maps to give Democrats a much better chance of taking back the House next year and hamstringing President Trump’s agenda.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – The Planned Parenthood of Michigan abortion business announced Wednesday it will close four centers and cut 10% of its staff. That’s great news for women and unborn babies… The closures, affecting abortion clinics in Marquette, Petoskey, Jackson, and one of two Ann Arbor locations, mark a significant reduction in the pro-abortion organization’s footprint in the state even though Michigan approved abortions up to birth.

By Michael Katz, NewsMax – It was “Liberation Day” at the White House on Wednesday as President Donald Trump announced a sweeping round of tariffs in a speech in the Rose Garden… Trump’s speech aired live on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 free online streaming platform… Here are some details revealed in a White House fact sheet: Using his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, Trump will impose a baseline 10% tariff on all countries beginning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday. ….

By Tyler Arnold, Catholic News Agency – The United States Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments for a lawsuit that will determine whether South Carolina and other states can deny Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood for non-abortive medical services… All three justices appointed by Democrats appeared to empathize with Planned Parenthood in the case, but the six Republican-appointed justices were more nuanced with their questions for the lawyers representing both parties.

By Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell, The Daily Signal – There is only one way to reclaim Western civilization, Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday night: exhibiting the courage to speak the truth… “We’re not going to rebuild prosperity and opportunity,” Vance said. “We’re not going to rebuild the kind of society where we teach children the important virtues and skills to thrive, as opposed to trying to tear our kids down, which is what I think our education system does all too often. We’re not going to rebuild a foreign policy that’s rooted in our shared interest, rather than in liberal values that were invented 20 or 30 years ago ….

By Tyler Arnold, Catholic News Agency – U.S. Vice President JD Vance intends to visit Rome during Easter weekend, although the planned trip has not yet been finalized, according to Bloomberg News… (Vance) plans to arrive in Rome on Good Friday, April 18, and depart from the city on Easter Sunday, April 20… According to the article, diplomats for the United States sought to coordinate a meeting between Vance and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, but no meeting had been scheduled by the time of publication.

By Brianna Lyman, The Federalist – A new report released on Tuesday shows the FBI imposed a “gag” order in relation to the Hunter Biden laptop to conceal the truth about its authenticity from voters ahead of the 2020 election… Internal FBI chat messages obtained by investigative journalists Catherine Herridge and Michael Shellenberger show that “senior bureau officials actively [shut] down discussion of the laptop’s credibility days before the 2020 presidential election.” According to the report, an FBI official told House investigators that an FBI employee “inadvertently” confirmed the laptop’s authenticity during a conference call on the same day ….

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – The United States is a historical anomaly: a nation that has always been (at least until recently) strongly Christian, but never Catholic. Unlike European nations it could not bank on the inherited authority of foundational Catholic beliefs. The American Founding was, in fact, based on a deep suspicion of authority: the authority of the Crown and of the established church… More specifically, and positively, the American republic was based on the belief that “all men are created equal.” The belief, stated in the Declaration of Independence and memorably confirmed in the Gettysburg address, has been upheld with as much vigor as any religious principle.

By M.D. Kittle, The Federalist – While Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election is in the national spotlight, there’s an important election integrity issue on Tuesday’s ballot as well. In fact, election law watchdogs will tell you that the Supreme Court race and a referendum on enshrining the Badger State’s voter ID law into the Wisconsin constitution go hand-in-hand… “They really are bound together in this election,” Annette Olson,  chief executive officer of the Madison-based MacIver Institute, told The Federalist Monday in a phone interview.

By Tony Perkins, LifeNews – A House DOGE subcommittee put a magnifying glass to NPR and PBS, funded in part with federal tax dollars through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The most recent budget shows that the two left-leaning media outlets rake in just shy of $550 million a year from taxpayers… Yet, the starkest example of waste, fraud, and abuse may be found in the abortion industry — particularly at Planned Parenthood, which surpasses NPR and PBS in the scope of public funding and controversy.

By David G. Bonagura, Jr.. Catholic World Report – Vice President JD Vance is currently the rock star of the conservative Catholic world. His youth, style, upbringing, conversion, young family, and proximity to President Donald Trump have collided to make him the runaway favorite in a CPAC poll ranking the potential 2028 GOP presidential candidates… When Vance was announced as a special speaker at the March for Life on January 24, 2025, he instantly overshadowed the previously announced keynote, Governor Ron DeSantis, a fellow Catholic and one of the most successful pro-life politicians our nation has known.

By Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness – When Donald Trump entered office, he faced a number of choices that had confronted the last three Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. They all had the choice to either shrink government and reduce deficits or slow government growth while cutting taxes… They had the choice of using American power to restore deterrence by invading belligerents (e.g., Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan) or targeting enemies without deploying ground troops to change governments.

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland, Bishop Emeritus, Substack – The Catholic Church upholds the sacred dignity of every human life, made in the image of God. The Catechism teaches us that “actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2313). This applies to all parties engaged in warfare, whether nations, militant groups, or coalitions. While a nation has the right to defend itself and protect its people, such actions must remain within the bounds of justice, proportionality, and moral law.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – A Colorado Democrat is facing massive criticism for promoting killing babies in abortions because “birth is too expensive.”… Colorado Democrats are pushing a controversial legislative agenda that would expand abortion, including taxpayer-funded abortions for low-income women and unrestricted abortions up to birth, arguing that killing babies would save the state money in the long run…

By Susan Ciancio, The Stream – As its use to kill preborn babies has skyrocketed, the dispensing of the abortion pill has become a hot-button topic over the last few years. Recent statistics state that it accounted for “63% of all abortions in the formal health care system” in 2023. But that does not include the states that don’t keep abortion statistics or the people who order it online from dubious sources ….

By John Zmirak, The Stream – Let’s storm Heaven with prayer for our president and his team. I really can’t fathom what it’s like to be on the front lines of the spiritual warfare currently raging in Washington, D.C. I had a tiny taste of it kneeling on hot New York City sidewalks outside abortion clinics when I was young: that alien presence, which I’ve only felt at such desolate places and on the occasions I’ve met really rabid antisemites.

By Sarah Neely, LifeNews – On March 25, President Trump was asked this bombshell question: “If Planned Parenthood is defunded, would you look into the harvesting of baby organs that they’ve done throughout the years, and maybe go after some criminal prosecution on that?”.. In 2015, the Center for Medical Progress, co-founded by Troy Newman and funded by Operation Rescue, released the first shocking undercover videos detailing Planned Parenthood’s participation ….

By Thomas Gallatin, Patriot Post – Disney’s latest film is a colossal disaster by nearly every measure, as the company has lost the ability to tell good stories… Back in 1937, Walt Disney, seeking to save his fledgling animation company, effectively went all in on a groundbreaking idea and cinematic masterpiece that launched Disney into worldwide fame. That film was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs… Disney spent what was at the time a massive sum — $1.5 million. He employed more than 700 artists who produced over two million paintings for the film. …

By Douglas Andrews, Patriot Post – After decades of disastrous Democrat governance, it appears that Californians are waking up… It’s been said more than once that where California goes, so goes the nation — not only culturally but politically and especially economically. After all, were California a country, it would rank fifth among the world’s economies, behind the rest of the U.S., China, Germany, and Japan. …

By Edward Ring, American Greatness – The climate crisis narrative ignores real issues like poor infrastructure and overpopulation, pushing costly policies that hurt economies while failing to improve resilience… According to the United Nations, “Climate change is a global emergency that goes beyond national borders.” From the World Economic Forum, “Urgent global action must be taken to reduce emissions and safeguard human health from the multi-pronged negative impacts of climate change globally.”

By Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell, The Daily Signal – President Donald Trump issued an executive order Tuesday that calls on federal government resources to help states ensure fair and honest elections… “Free, fair, and honest elections, unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion, are fundamental to maintaining our constitutional Republic,” the order states. “The right of American citizens to have their votes properly counted and tabulated, without illegal dilution, is vital to determining the rightful winner of an election.”

By Tyler O’Neil, The Daily Signal – Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, filed a new bill Monday aiming to restrain the district court judges that have been issuing restraining orders blocking President Donald Trump’s agenda… “America’s government cannot function if the legitimate orders of our commander-in-chief can be overridden at the whim of a single district court judge,” Lee said in a statement on the bill’s introduction.

By Nicole Weatherholtz, NewsMax – The Trump administration is reportedly pausing millions in federal funding for Planned Parenthood, essentially defunding the abortion giant, while it reviews whether any of the money was spent on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives… Planned Parenthood and its affiliates were set to receive approximately $120 million this year, with the money earmarked for pregnancy testing, evaluation, and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases and infertility counseling, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reported on the move Tuesday.

By Shawn Fleetwood, The Federalist – ‘They know our voice is so powerful and influential that they can’t accomplish their goals unless they shut us down. They will not succeed.’… Americans’ constitutionally protected right to free speech “has been under worse attack in the last decade than at any other point in our nation’s history,” Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway told lawmakers during a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Tuesday. …

By Madalaine Elhabbal, Cadtholic News Agency, (Complicit Clergy) – During his remarks, Cardinal McElroy sharply criticized the administration’s foreign aid suspension as ‘unconscionable through any prism of Catholic thought.’… Washington, D.C.’s newly minted archbishop, Cardinal Robert McElroy, made his first public appearance since his installment at a conference on immigration policy Monday, offering a “spiritual and moral” reflection on the “American situation at this moment.”

By Daniel Perez, El Paso Matters, (Complicit Clergy) – The speakers, led by El Paso Catholic Bishop Mark Seitz, said this was the time to step up and speak out to elected leaders at the local, state and national levels against deportation in this moment of trial for the United States of America… In the church, Seitz told the standing room-only crowd that the Trump administration was leading a war on the poor, and that an attack on immigrants is an attack on the family of God. He added that this was not a time for neighbors to be cowed or intimidated.

By Scott McKay, The American Spectator – It’s been rumored for quite some time, and on Monday it popped all over X: Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to announce very soon that pharmaceutical advertising on television will be a thing of the past… There are many facets to this. You’ll hear from some quarters that it’s a First Amendment issue, that pharmaceutical companies should have the right to advertise just like any other legal business can. That’s one argument. Another argument is that only the U.S.A. and New Zealand allow drug ads on the tube, or at least prescription drug ads.

By Jordan Boyd, The Federalist – An unnamed woman is suing an Illinois abortionist for malpractice after she allegedly suffered from severe and potentially life-threatening complications from a late-term abortion at his hands in 2023… In a legal complaint filed on March 21, “Jane Doe” claims Keith Reisinger-Kindle of Equity Clinic in Champaign, Illinois performed a two-day dilation and evacuation abortion that, unbeknownst to the woman on the table, perforated her uterus, failed to remove all of the dead baby’s body parts from her body, and left her with “irreversible suffering and emotional damages.”

By Ken Blackwell, Patriot Post – App stores must secure parental approval and age verification before a minor under 16 years old can download an app of any kind… When I was growing up in Ohio in the 1960s, there was no such thing as a private teenage world. My friends and I all knew each other’s parents, and we were held accountable for our speech and our behavior by a network of moms and dads who knew one another. While local communities were knit more closely together back then, things are very different in America today. …

By Bradley Devlin, The Daily Signal – The Left couldn’t defeat President Donald Trump at the ballot box. Now, their only hope seems to be defeating him at the courthouse.
More than 130 cases have been filed against the Trump administration since Trump’s return to office just two months ago. With the help of activist federal judges, the Left’s large-scale lawfare operation has caused some setbacks for the administration, which helps explain why its ire has been focused on these lower court judges’ use of temporary restraining orders.

By Sofía Mejías-Pascoe, I News, (Complicit Clergy) – Under Cardinal McElroy, Catholic Charities of San Diego received about $70 million in federal grant funding over two fiscal years to provide services for migrants in San Diego County and another $5.8 million for migrants in Imperial County… The Trump administration is reviewing San Diego County and organizations awarded federal grants to shelter migrants, suggesting they may have violated human smuggling laws and requesting information on all migrants served through the grant.

By Douglas Andrews, Patriot Post – Buried on page 45 of Jimmy Carter’s White House Diary is this ominous little entry: Met with the leaders of the NEA [National Education Association]. They are quite interested in having a separate education department formed. If we can work out some independent agency just for education where the teachers don’t dominate it, then I would favor the idea… Oh, we’ll just bet the NEA was interested in a separate education department. Until then, the vital task of indoctrinating our children had been relegated to merely coequal status within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

By Alan Nathan, The American Spectator – Every president has the unassailable (albeit sometimes perilous) constitutional option to use the functionality and mechanics of his branch’s “separated powers” to leverage his “check” against what he believes to be an unconstitutional encroachment upon those powers by any component of the judiciary… Furthermore, he can do so even as the dispute makes its way through the appellate process… This is especially relevant to time-sensitive issues ….

By Jason Jones & John Zmirak, The Stream – You don’t have to have a sneaking crush on thuggish Russian President Vladimir Putin or mistake him as a guardian of “Christian values” to realize that the war in Ukraine has many fathers beside him. Western elites and their handmaidens in the Deep State have been playing Chicken Kyiv with Russia since the early 1990s. Among their actions: Pointlessly expanding the obsolete suicide pact called NATO right up to Russia’s borders — a perfect parallel to the Soviets putting nuclear missiles in Castro’s Cuba in 1962, which almost led President John F. Kennedy to initiate World War III. …

By Craig Bannister, MRC TV – As an example, Sen. Kennedy cited the radical left’s belief that a person’s gender is subjective, not determined by biology… “No honest person whose IQ is above his age” believes “biological sex doesn’t exist – but, they do, Sen Kennedy said. “That’s what I mean when I say they’re deeply weird,” the Republican explained… It’s at that point that Sen. Kennedy revealed his party’s “secret plan” to combat the Democrats’ agenda ….

By John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist – At this point it’s not too much to say that the federal judiciary has plunged us into a constitutional crisis. The fusillade of injunctions and temporary restraining orders issued by district court judges in recent weeks against the Trump administration — on everything from foreign aid to immigration enforcement to Defense Department enlistment policy to climate change grants for Citibank — boggles the mind… More nationwide injunctions and restraining orders have been issued against Trump in the past month that were issued against the Biden administration in four years.

By Rachel Quackenbush, LifeNews – The FBI, now under the leadership of director Kash Patel, has provided Congress with critical documents related to allegations that federal law enforcement was weaponized for political purposes during the Biden administration… The records were delivered following a subpoena issued by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, who has been investigating what he describes as “the weaponization of federal law enforcement against the American people,” according to a March 18 report from Just the News.

By John Mize, Jeffrey Barrows, First Things – What do you call a billion-dollar corporation that annually swallows millions in government funding but fails to deliver comprehensive medical care to women? Planned Parenthood… Planned Parenthood collects $699.3 million taxpayer dollars per year—approximately $2 million taxpayer dollars per day—and claims to provide comprehensive healthcare and pregnancy services. Yet 97.1 percent of those “services” provided are elective abortions; only 1.6 percent are prenatal support.

By David Warren, The Catholic Thing – We have “experience” now, I read in the media… Perhaps the main thing we have “learned” is that lockdowns, business closures, mask mandates, travel restrictions, quarantines, social distancing, contact tracing, &c, were either useless against the Batflu, or made it worse – the medical versions of “the process is the punishment.”… I wrote “learned” sarcastically. In fact, the worthlessness of each of these proposed remedies was fully known and demonstrated in all previous “pandemics.” The public health “experts” were in a position to warn us against each of these old wives’ tales, but falsely promoted them in the name of “science.”

By Breccan F. Thies, The Federalist – President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday afternoon directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to start dismantling the Department of Education… The signing, held in a packed East Room full of students, teachers, parents, education advocates, and governors from across the country, was a celebratory event for many who have wanted to see an end to federal bureaucrats’ dictating of education regulations and spending, without regard for the individual needs of states and localities. McMahon was also in attendance.

By Douglas Andrews, Patriot Post – The American people are disenchanted with the status quo. They don’t like Big Government. And the Democrats are, as always, The Party of Big Government. Consider the self-destructive meltdown that Schumer had on “The View”: “You know what their attitude is?” he railed, “‘I made my money all by myself. How dare your government take my money from me. I don’t wanna pay taxes.’ Or, ‘I built my company with my bare hands. How dare your government tell me how I should treat my customers, my, um, the land and water that I own, uh, or my employees.’”

By Jeffrey Bruno, National Catholic Register –
It seemed especially fitting that the announcement came today, on the feast of St. Joseph… When the news broke this morning, as reported in the Gothamist, that Planned Parenthood of Greater New York would close its flagship Manhattan facility at 26 Bleecker Street, citing financial pressures and mounting maintenance costs, I almost fell out of my chair… This was no ordinary closure to me or to the countless others who’ve stood on those sidewalks in prayer. This was a moment of Divine intervention — a testament to the power of grace.

By Jacob Adams, The Daily Signal – Craig Iffland, an expert on the November 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, says the files released Tuesday evening show the CIA went to extraordinary lengths to hide embarrassing details about its operations in the 1960s… It is Iffland’s expert opinion that “[m]ost of the major documents long sought by researchers can be found in this release, including the identities of a CIA-directed infiltration team of anti-Castro Cuban exiles tasked with the assassination of Fidel Castro; a list of CIA assets operating in New Orleans in the summer of 1963 who may have interacted with [Lee Harvey] Oswald during his stay there; …..

By Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell, The Daily Signal – While some religious people have outspokenly opposed Trump’s deportations of illegal immigrants, William Wolfe, Ex. Dir. of the Center for Baptist Leaders said mass deportations are a Christian issue…. We actually believe it is directly related to the preservation of America as we know it”

By Michael Giere, The Stream – After the 2016 elections, many of us asserted that the election was only marginally about the candidates — it was more akin to a peasant revolt that caught the ruling class, elites, and professional politicians flat-footed. It was driven by the accumulating evidence that the federal government was working more actively against its citizens than for them, and cared very little about what average Americans want, need, or believe… Americans voted with their gut instincts that the two Washington political parties had merged into one — united by graft. They were corrupt, intellectually and financially, to their core. Worse, they no longer cared that the voters knew it. A brazen callousness and arrogance had hardened like cement.

By: Shawn Fleetwood, The Federalist – Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has found himself in the hot seat of America’s political discourse — and for good reason… Not content with simply allowing rogue lower court judges’ judicial jihad against the executive branch to continue unabated, the chief justice has now taken it upon himself to criticize President Donald Trump for calling for District Court Judge James Boasberg to be impeached. An Obama appointee, Boasberg unilaterally attempted to halt the administration’s deportation of Tren de Aragua gang members to El Salvador this past weekend.

By Cody Copeland, Fort Worth Star Telegram – The award comes on top of the $1 billion in immigration funding already received from taxpayers… The federal government has until March 18 to pay Catholic Charities Fort Worth millions in grant funds that have been withheld since January… A federal judge on March 14 ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to release $47 million that became entangled in the Trump administration’s restructuring of federal programs.

By Jordan Boyd, The Federalist – Corporate media aren’t sorry that they played a key role in covering up Covid corruption. They are sorry that they were caught in a web of lies that further threaten Americans’ trust in media… There is no doubt that the chaos and tyranny that went down in 2020 “changed our lives.” People were denied the ability to grieve their dead, told not to celebrate holidays with family and friends, masked to give birth without the support of a spouse, ripped out of classrooms to stare at a screen, and segregated from society based on their jab status.

By Catholic World News – The USCCB has issued an action alert asking the faithful to urge their members of Congress to “protect and support Dreamers, especially DACA beneficiaries and those who are part of mixed-status families.”… “Dreamers,” named after the DREAM Act, are immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children. DACA refers to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, President Barack Obama’s 2012 executive action deferring deportation of “Dreamers” and permitting them to work in the nation legally without providing a path to citizenship. …

By Wade Miller, Center for Renewing America – From 2013 to 2022, CRS was the No. 1 NGO recipient of federal funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), receiving $4.6 billion over the course of those years.21 In FY 2024, CRS received nearly $700 million from the U.S. government, including grants from USAID, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Health and Human Services. 22 According to the latest publicly available tax filings, CRS receives over 50 percent of its budget from government sources. …

By Vicki Yamasaki, Corpus Christi for Unity and Peace – The U.S. Catholic Church stands at a crossroads, marked by an aging flock, a growing immigrant presence, and a devastating erosion of faith and morals. The Pew Religious Landscape Study (RLS) for Catholics from 2007, 2014, and 2023-24 offers a sobering glimpse into this crisis for traditional Catholics rooted in the Magisterium’s truths: for every 100 Catholics entering, 800 Catholics leave, prayer is declining, belief in God is plummeting, and a super majority supports issues deemed morally evil by the Church—demographically propped up by immigrants yet spiritually adrift. …

By Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness – On matters of trade, immigration, and foreign policy, we are witnessing a counter-revolutionary effort to erase the madness of the Biden revolutionary years. Then unnamed and largely unknown radicals, under the veneer of a waxen effigy president, hijacked the country and imposed upon it the most radical and nihilist agenda in the past century… The current correctives are not easy or pretty. But the alternative to the prior status quo was not the status quo at all, but a Jacobin nihilism that had led only to insolvency, civil strife, the destruction of the southern border, at least two theater-wide wars abroad, and the end of the U.S. as we once knew it.

By Nate Jackson, Patriot Post – Joe Biden created the border crisis. Donald Trump is fixing it. But a Barack Obama-appointed judge just threw a wrench in the gears… This dysfunction is exemplified in the border crisis. In some respects, we didn’t need new laws to enforce the ones on the books. We just needed a new president. In other respects, it would simplify the legal process for dealing with the crisis if Congress would create particular legislation aimed at fixing it. Absent that, we have a president looking for laws to justify necessary actions and judges slapping that down for whatever reason can be contrived.

By John Zmirak, The Stream – Now what does a Ukraine flag waved by an American or a European signify?… The same thing a “Black Lives Matter” banner did in 2020, when a posh suburbanite in a safely gated neighborhood hoisted it over his topiary. It’s now a fashionable accessary, a virtue signal and status symbol, and in fact a post-Christian religious fetish… Ukraine’s history is one of missed opportunities and tragic consequences — a rich land trapped between hungry neighbors, with no natural defenses: just wide-open lands that foreign armies could roll over and conquer. Is Ukraine a venerable nation that never got a fair chance at independence?… Vladimir Putin doesn’t think so ….

By Beth Brelje, The Federalist – Miraculously, another case aiming to choke off President Donald Trump’s executive authority has landed in the lap of U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg… The activist judge in the Washington, D.C., federal court worked overtime this weekend overreaching his power in a failed attempt to stop Trump from deporting alleged members of Tren de Aragua, which is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization… Over the weekend, the Department of Homeland Security deported 238 alleged members of De Aragua.

By Logan Washburn, The Federalist – The Department of Justice was persecuting Donald Trump with sham trials just last year. But today, now-President Trump spoke at the DOJ, calling out the “communist” federal persecution of conservatives… “They tried to turn America into a corrupt communist and Third World country, but in the end, the thugs failed and the truth won. Freedom won, justice won, democracy won, and above all, the American people won,” Trump said. “There could be no more heinous betrayal of American values than to use the law to terrorize the innocent and reward the wicked.”

By Ben Johnson,  The Daily Signal – As U.S. public school scores plunge yet again, a new study shows homeschool students are more likely to report positive mental health outcomes, to be married and have children, to volunteer in their communities, and to believe in God… The report’s findings come as President Donald Trump contemplates returning most of the federal government’s role in education back to the states and eventually abolishing the U.S. Department of Education… Compared to the other groups, long-term homeschoolers—those who spent at least eight years being educated at home—reported the lowest levels of depression and anxiety, were the least likely to say they “feel helpless dealing with life’s problems” …..

By Margot Cleveland, X, (Complicit Clergy) – Here ‘s an overall summary from Grok regarding the major developments involving this lawsuit (win comments in red added by us): Below is a summary of the major developments by date in the federal case United States Conference of Catholic Bishops v. United States Department of State et al., case number 1:25-cv-00465, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (D.D.C.). This summary is based on available docket information from sources like CourtListener, Justia, and posts on X, reflecting events up to the current date of March 14, 2025.

By Uriel J. García, Texas Tribune, (Complicit Clergy) – The Trump administration has asked local governments and nonprofit organizations that received federal grants to identify immigrants they have housed, suggesting in a letter that they may have violated human smuggling laws… The Department of Homeland Security has “significant concerns” that organizations and governments receiving Federal Emergency Management Agency grants “may be guilty of encouraging or inducing an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States” violating immigration laws. …

By Mark Hemingway, The Federalist – Regardless, it’s pretty clear that after decades of failing liberal institutions and identity politics that actively discriminated against whole classes of people, kids are not wrong to intuit they are, uh, surrounded by a cultural and political order that they don’t like and can’t be justified. Maybe they can’t always articulate their perceived problems as well as they should — and to the extent they’re not as articulate as they should be, you can chalk up the state of public education as another massive L for progressives who overwhelmingly control our schools

By John Zmirak, The Stream – Now Trump is dusting off his six-shooter, defying (Judge) Boasberg’s illegal order. Again via Gateway Pundit: Despite Boasberg’s radical ruling, the Trump administration refused to comply with the unconstitutional order… Sec. of State Marco Rubio confirmed that hundreds of TDA gang members were successfully deported last night before the judge could interfere… “We have sent 2 dangerous top MS-13 leaders plus 21 of its most wanted back to face justice in El Salvador,” said Rubio.

By Michael Reagan, Patriot Post – We’ve all seen the outrageous stats for the Department of Education… Until Donald Trump’s White House hit man Elon Musk sicced his DOGE on it, the Education Dept. had an annual budget of between $238 and $268 billion and employed about 4,100 bureaucrats… This week, the department my father tried to kill in its infancy 45 years ago laid off about 2,000 Education Department employees. What will happen to all the billions the doomed department spends each year still must be figured out by DOGE.

By Bronson Winslow, The American Spectator – While neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party is specifically Christian, the Democratic Party alone is demonic. The Republican Party is far more responsive to Christian concerns, if for no other reason than Evangelical Christians and theologically conservative Catholics make up a much larger part of that party’s base than they do the Democratic Party… The Democratic Party is not just non-Christian but demonic because its two greatest idols are the grave evils of LGBTQ immorality (especially the multi-threat of transgenderism) and abortion.

By John Zmirak, The Stream – John Zmirak – So as an advocate for at risk children who might be subject to exploitation, do you think it would be in the best interests of those children for the U.S. Catholic bishops, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and its associated NGOs, such as Catholic Charities, to be subject to a RICO investigation by Trump’s Justice Department?…. Elizabeth Yore – I do think so. After 60 years of witnessing massive clergy abuse of children, vulnerable adults, boys, girls, seminarians, and the massive cover up by the bishops, they have no, credibility whatsoever. Nothing really has changed over the last 60 years, in my opinion.

By John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist – A major survey on the religious landscape of America was just released by Pew Research Center, and what it reveals about the decline of Christianity should alarm every American, whether or not one is Christian… Why should the de-Christianization of America worry us? Because, as I’ve argued before, if America loses the Christian faith from which our system of government is derived, we will lose everything that makes America what it is. All of the rights and freedoms we enjoy, the rule of law, the checks and balances on government power, all of that will disappear.

By John Lavenburg, The Catholic Herald – Following a proclamation from Oregon Governor Tina Kotek that March 10 would henceforth be “Abortion Provider Appreciation Day”, Archbishop Alexander Sample of Oregon lamented the move as a moment “when you realise just how far culture can drift from reality”… “The idea that those who make a living (by) ending innocent, unborn life should be publicly honoured, thanked, applauded – this isn’t just moral confusion, it’s something deeper,” said Archbishop Sample in a March 13 pastoral teaching on the sanctity of life… “A kind of spiritual blindness so thick that what should be self-evident – the sheer wonder and worth of a human life – is obscured entirely”

By McKenna Snow, LifeNews – In response to the satanic worship ritual scheduled to take place outside the Kansas State Capitol March 28, Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City is praying for the organizers’ conversion, stating, “Satan is powerless against Jesus Christ.”… Archbishop Naumann has spoken out against the planned sacrilege, emphasizing that it harms the human soul.

By Independent Catholic News, (Complicit Clergy) – On the Memorial of St Oscar Romero, Monday, 24 March at 6pm, in San Jacinto Plaza in downtown El Paso, Texas, the Hope Border Institute, Bishop Mark J Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso and local community leaders and organizations will hold a March & Vigil in Solidarity with Migrants.
The March and Vigil will take place against the background of the closure of the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers, harsh rhetoric against those who have immigrated to the United States, and threats of mass deportation.

By Justine Brooke Murray, MRC TV – Selling the body parts of murdered babies for scientific experiments sounds like something out of a horror movie… or a joint run by Dr. Joseph Mengele… But in 2025, it’s a taxpayer funded practice!… Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) has just re-introduced a bill to finally end it for good. If passed, the Protecting Life and Integrity in Research Act (S.987) will ban the federal government from “conducting, funding, approving, or otherwise supporting any research involving human fetal tissue that is obtained pursuant to an induced abortion, and to prohibit the solicitation or knowing acquisition, receipt, or acceptance of a donation of such tissue.”

By Stephen Dinan, Washington Times, (Complicit Clergy) – In February 2022, I, Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX), wrote a letter to Catholic Charities USA, one of the leading NGOs involved in settling illegal aliens, raising concern that the Biden administration was “deputizing NGOs to harbor, transport, and encourage unauthorized aliens to resettle throughout the United States.”… All of these activities are illegal. The letter requested a full accounting of Catholic Charities’s activities in this matter and disclosure of how much money the NGO had received from federal, state, and local governments to carry out its role in resettling illegal aliens. Needless to say, no meaningful response to these questions was ever received.

By Dave Andrusko, LifeNews – The Democratic Party’s brand is in rough shape in the congressional battlegrounds… Nearly two months into the second Donald Trump administration, a majority of voters in battleground House districts still believe Democrats in Congress are “more focused on helping other people than people like me,” according to an internal poll conducted by the Democratic group Navigator Research. Among independents, just 27 percent believe Democrats are focused on helping them, compared with 55 percent who said they’re focused on others.

By Kate Quiñones, CNA – President Donald Trump’s nominee for director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said in his confirmation hearing last week that he was “absolutely committed” to finding alternatives to vaccines developed using aborted fetal cell lines… When asked whether he would prohibit the use of aborted fetal tissue in NIH-funded research, Stanford University medical school professor and health economist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said he would follow the lead of President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the issue. …

By Robert Moffit, The Daily Signal – In its final, comprehensive report, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic concluded that with regard to the COVID-19 vaccines, the federal government’s reporting on adverse events has been neither transparent nor sufficient to protect the American people… As reports of adverse events mounted, federal officials were slow to respond. In fact, the safety problem worsened in 2021 when President Joe Biden attempted to impose his vaccine mandate: a policy that disregarded the reality of the natural immunity of previously infected people ….

By Kevin Posobiec, Warroom, (Complicit Clergy), March 12, 2025 – WATCH: Dr. Janet Smith and Rachel Mastorgiacomo React To McElroy’s Installation

By Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops – Regardless of your immigration status, you have certain rights. Know your rights when you are encountering any law enforcement official or government official. 1) You have the right to remain silent. It is your right to refuse to speak to any law enforcement official: federal, state or local. 2) If you are not a U.S. citizen and an immigration agent requests your immigration papers, you must show them if you have them with you. Carry all immigration documentation with you at all times. 3) You have the right to ask for and review a warrant before law enforcement enters your home. An immigration-related warrant of removal does not give law enforcement the right to enter your home. …

By Victor Davis Hanson, The Daily Signal – Last time I talked about our North American problems with Canada. Now I want to turn the emphasis to Mexico… President Donald Trump has threatened all sorts of trade sanctions on Mexico, a 25% tariff. But why is he doing this? And I think the answer is there’s four things that Mexico knows it has been doing to us with impunity, especially under Joe Biden, that are not sustainable. …

By Elle Purnell, Elections Editor, The Federalist – When Donald Trump first sailed into the Oval Office, his detractors shrieked that his blunt rhetoric was dividing the country. His supporters pointed out that Trump wasn’t so much creating division as he was revealing divisions that had been growing in America for a long time… The reaction to the novel Wuhan coronavirus did the country a similar service, by revealing a new fault line: two sets of rules, which were applied differently to Americans depending on their membership in certain political cliques.

By John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist – Last week President Trump said farmers in South Africa who are facing confiscation of their lands without compensation under a new land expropriation law could be offered an expedited pathway to U.S. citizenship… What was important about Trump’s response, though, is that by offering Afrikaner farmers an expedited pathway to U.S. citizenship, the president acknowledged that America isn’t just an idea but a nation… Prioritizing certain foreigners over others is a repudiation of the popular but fatuous notion that any person from any culture or part of the world can become an American simply by going through a neutral administrative process. In other words, it matters where you come from, what you believe, and how you live.

By Craig Bannister, MRC TV – In recent days, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has reported a wide-ranging list of dubious federal government expenditures of taxpayers’ hard-earned money that have now been cancelled. Here are just a few of the most egregious contracts cancelled… Americans no longer have to pay for lucrative contracts outsourcing plant-watering and something called an “enterprise mail management program”: “The VA cancelled a $56,000 contract to water ~8 plants for 5 years. This is ~$1400/plant/year. The contract has been canceled and DOGE will water the plants free of charge.”

CatholicVote – A Catholic man left Sunday Mass for the first time in his life after a priest in Georgetown, a wealthy neighborhood in Washington, DC, used his homily to make a political comparison between President Donald Trump and Satan… The controversy unfolded as the priest reflected on the Gospel reading for the first Sunday of Lent, which recounts Christ’s 40-day fast and temptation by the devil (Luke 4:1-13). According to Declan Ganley, an entrepreneur and Catholic commentator, the priest connected the biblical passage to a recent exchange between Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House.

By Anthony Stine, Return To Tradition – The Bishops New Unbelievable Excuse For Demanding Your Tax Dollars

By Jason Scott Jones, The Stream – I’ll never forget one moment in your first campaign. It was during the fifth candidates’ debate for the GOP nomination, on December 15, 2015. You stepped up in front of the Emperor and all the little courtiers fawning over his new clothes, and said simply, “He’s naked!”… To be more specific, you punctured the huge Hindenburg pumped up with lies that the Republican Party used to call its “foreign policy.” For 13 years, since the run-up to the Iraq War, Americans had been gaslit with faked intelligence and wild conspiracy theories to urge us into regime-change wars and “color” revolutions to overturn foreign governments.

By Craig Bannister, MRC TV – “CANCELLED: $600,000 grant to study ‘menstrual cycles in transgender men,’” U.S. Agriculture (USDA) Sec. Brooke Rollins announced Friday… “The insanity is ending and the restoration of America is underway,” Sec. Rollins declared in her post, asking Americans to keep sending tips pointing out wasteful government spending… The now-cancelled $600,000 USDA grant had been given to the Southern University Agricultural and Mechanical College to conduct the menstrual research on male-identifying biological females through April of 2027.

By Margot Cleveland, The Federalist – Since President Donald Trump reclaimed the executive branch in January, more than 50 lawsuits have been filed to halt his America-first efforts. These lawsuits present a variety of legal issues, from the constitutionality of Trump’s executive orders addressing birthright citizenship and transgender prisoners, to agencies’ ability to cancel federal grants, to the president’s power to fire executive branch officials… The vast number of cases, coupled with the diversity of legal issues and the near-daily developments, make it challenging for Americans to track—much less understand—the current lawfare.

By LifeSite News, by Staff, (Complicit Clergy) – Dear Vice President Vance, We are impressed and grateful that you called upon the U.S. bishops to be transparent about how they have spent government funds to settle refugees and immigrants. Your remarks at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast were what we all needed to hear and give us great hope. We couldn’t be prouder that you are the vice president and so strong in your faith and that you understand loving the Church means working to ensure that it is all that Jesus wants it to be… There are few things worse than pedophilia. Unfortunately, as you very well know, it is widespread in our culture, in Hollywood, among government officials, and worst of all in the Church.

Catholic Vote – In a joint statement, the three patriarchs of the largest Christian communities in Syria strongly condemned the violence that has ravaged the country’s coastal region, demanding restraint, particularly from government militias… intense clashes erupted on March 6 between the General Security Forces of the new government – comprised of factions affiliated with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Sunni Muslims – and remnants of Bashar al-Assad’s former regime. …

By Margaret Flavin, Gateway Pundit – In a Ramadan message to Muslims, authored by Prefect George Jacob Cardinal Koovakad and Secretary Msgr. Indunil Kodithuwakku Janakaratne Kankanamalage, the Vatican highlighted that the two religious seasons coinciding  is “a unique opportunity to walk, side by side.”… “This year, we wish to reflect with you not only on what we can do together to live better lives, but above all on what we want to become together, as Christians and Muslims, in a world in search of hope. Do we want to be simple co-workers for a better world, or genuine brothers and sisters, bearing common witness to God’s friendship with all humanity?”

By David Catron, The American Spectator – The fundraising platform (ActBlue) is suspected of identity theft, credit card fraud, and various other financial crimes… ActBlue will not survive the light that the House committee and nineteen state attorneys general are determined to shine on it.

A federal court this week upheld New York’s vaccine mandate, requiring Amish children to be vaccinated despite religious objections… The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled March 3 in Miller v. McDonald that the repeal of religious exemptions for vaccines does not violate the First Amendment, The People’s Voice reported… New York eliminated religious exemptions for vaccines in 2019 following a measles outbreak. Under the law, children must be vaccinated to attend a school — whether public, private, or religious — unless they qualify for a medical exemption.

By Brian Mark Weber, The Patriot  Post – During his first term, President Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which reduced tax rates across the board — not just for the wealthy — and allowed Americans to keep more of their hard-earned money… In his address to a joint session of Congress this week, the president asked Congress to extend the TCJA, which is about to expire at the end of this year. “The next phase of our plan to deliver the greatest economy in history,” he said, “is for this Congress to pass tax cuts for everybody.”

By Josh Hammer, The American Spectator – Democratic elected officials are also deeply split. California Gov. Gavin Newsom made headlines this week by repudiating certain facets of wokeism during an interview with Charlie Kirk, but congressional Democrats attending Trump’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday evening took the opposite approach, beyond refusing to applaud: Rep. Al Green (D-Tex.) obnoxiously heckled the president and was kicked out of the House chamber within the speech’s first few minutes — deservedly so. In general, their conduct was positively buffoonish.

By Justine Brooke Murray, MRC TV – Even Oxford University admits that sexually mutilating people who already suffer enough psychological issues worsens their mental health. Their Academic Journal of Sexual Medicine recently published a study hoping to propagate the narrative that gender deluded individuals “face heightened psychological distress, including depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation” because their delusions are not “affirmed”…. Not because they’re deluded to begin with.

By Deroy Murdock, The Federalist – FDR’s signature program includes Americans born under George Washington… Social Security is as big as government programs get. Naturally, even a glance at it with DOGE’s magnifying glass found plenty that seemed — charitably — not quite right… “According to the Social Security database, these are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE,” Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk stated via X on February 16. “Maybe Twilight is real, and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security.”

By Sarah Cervera, ABC News – Since President Donald Trump took office in January, Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley Executive Director Sister Norma Pimentel said the non-profit’s respite center has seen a drop in migrants… “Since the new administration took office… people are just not being allowed into the United States,” Pimentel said… According to Pimentel, the number of migrants being dropped off at the respite center after they’ve been processed by Border Patrol is nearly zero.

By Tim Busch, National Catholic Register – Donald Trump’s administration is the most faith-filled I’ve ever seen… Please, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not denigrating the faith of any of his predecessors, many of whom were famous for their Christianity. I think, for instance, of Jimmy Carter calling himself a “born-again Christian” and George W. Bush pursuing “compassionate conservatism” out of his Christian convictions. Nor am I saying that Donald Trump is a model of Christian charity. While the assassination attempt against his life last year seemed to make him more aware of God, I have no way of gauging the nature or depth of his faith.

By Matt Lamb, LifeSiteNews – The National Institutes of Health will not use abortion fetal tissue in research, according to President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the agency… Dr. Jay Bhattacharya made the comments on Wednesday during his hearing in front of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in response to a question from Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri… “In public health, we need to make sure the products of science are ethically acceptable to everybody,” Bhattacharya said during the hearing.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – President Donald Trump’s nominee for the FDA confirmed today in a Senate hearing that the abortion drug has been used to coerce women into having abortions… During questioning from pro-life Senator Josh Hawley, Dr. Marty Makary commented on Joe Biden’s reckless move to remove in-person requirements to dispense and receive the dangerous abortion drug mifepristone, which has killed millions of babies, dozens of women and injured countless thousands.

By John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist – The Supreme Court’s shocking decision on Wednesday to allow a D.C. district court judge to order the Trump administration to disburse $2 billion in federal grant money is a major blow to the separation of powers undergirding our constitutional system of government… But the thing about separation of powers is that they stand or fall together. All three branches of our government — legislative, executive, and judicial — have to respect the Constitution’s clear separation of powers. If one of them doesn’t, there’s no reason that the others should.

By Michael Hichborn and Steven Mosher, National Catholic Register – For the past six decades, the agency has been operated on the morally bankrupt principle that the best way to eliminate poverty is to eliminate the children of the poor… The National Catholic Register recently published an editorial, “Separate the Wheat From the Chaff in US Foreign Aid,” attempting to balance support for President Donald Trump’s cuts to “rank ideological colonialism” while promoting USAID’s “humanitarian” work, particularly through Catholic Relief Services (CRS)… Unfortunately, the article overlooks USAID’s inherent ideological colonization… Even more disqualifying is this: Since its inception, the aid provided by USAID has been tied to population control.

By Jordan Boyd, The Federalist – In his dissent, which was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Neil Gorsuch, Alito deemed the case worthy of being thrown out or at least stayed due to lack of jurisdiction. Instead, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the Democrat-nominated justices in affirming the DC District Court’s overreach and activism… “As a result, the Government must apparently pay the $2 billion posthaste — not because the law requires it, but simply because a District Judge so ordered. …

By Craig Bannister, CNS News – “As we solemnly contemplate Jesus Christ’s suffering and death on the cross this Lent, let us prepare our souls for the coming glory of the Easter miracle,” President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania urged in an Ash Wednesday message commemorating the start of the Lenten season… “Today, followers of Christ wear crosses of ash on their foreheads—a sacred reminder of our mortality and our enduring need for Christ’s infinite mercy and redeeming love,” the First Couple explain, noting how the Lenten practice of prayer, fasting and alms-giving is designed to deepen faith as Easter approaches.

By Breccan F. Thies, The Federalist – Democrats jeered at the victims of their own policies and only cheered when it meant more death by prolonging a war… Democrats went into President Donald Trump’s speech to the joint session of Congress promising theatrics. But, amid Trump’s speech detailing major reforms and honoring Americans victimized by far-left policies, the American people saw Democrats devolve into the ice-cold soullessness one has come to expect from a party — and group of people — grasping for relevance.

By Emmy Griffin, Patriot Post – The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) recently announced that it was changing its policy wording so that it aligned with President Donald Trump’s executive order titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” This EO explicitly protects women by banning males from participating in their sports.

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – That Trump has promised to broaden access to IVF should be no surprise; he made that promise during his campaign. What is a surprise is that some prominent pro-lifers have urged us not to complain. On balance Trump has been good for the pro-life movement, they argue; we should not weaken him by criticism… As I wrote several years ago, during the early days of the first Trump presidency, the logic of that argument is fatally flawed. …

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – President Donald Trump has ordered the defunding of the UNFPA, a United Nations population control agency which promotes abortions worldwide… This is a continuation of his pro-life policy from his previous administration. In 2017, Trump signed an executive order defunding the UN population group because it pushes abortions on other countries and has worked with China for decades to implement its forced abortion population control policies.

By Jordan Boyd, The Federalist -(The democrats) contempt, Trump said, would continue even if he achieved impossible feats like finding a “cure to the most devastating disease, a disease that would wipe out entire nations or announce the answers to the greatest economy in history, or the stoppage of crime to the lowest levels ever recorded.”… “And these people sitting right here will not clap, will not stand, and certainly will not cheer for these astronomical achievements. They won’t do it no matter what,” Trump said…. he issued a call to action, inviting the very people protesting his presence in the White House and their chambers to “just this one night … join us in celebrating so many incredible wins for America.”

By Victor Davis Hanson, The Stream – In 2016, the world was set on its ear when Donald Trump took the White House. We’ve seen what happened before and after that four-year period — and now that he’s back, White House press briefings have become the hottest thing on television. … But if you’d like a deeper understanding of the Deep State and what Trump is actually up against, check out this hour-long lecture from Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson as he details exactly what the Left has been up to for decades, why he’s using some of the tactics you’ve seen from him so far, and why our return to normalcy is something that needs to be covered in continuous prayer.

By Nick Gilbertson, Breitbart – President Donald Trump on Monday confirmed that 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico will take effect on Tuesday… While taking questions at a press conference announcing a $100 billion investment that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is making in the United States, Trump reiterated that the tariffs on America’s neighbors would be implemented on Tuesday… “But very importantly, tomorrow, tariffs: 25 percent on Canada and 25 percent on Mexico,” he said.

By Susan Berry, Ph.D., LifeNews – Connecticut Democrats are attempting to “fight back” against President Donald Trump’s landslide national election and a White House agenda that has already included multiple pro-life initiatives… One of two bills passed by the state legislature last week through an emergency certification process awarded $800,000 in Connecticut taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood of Southern New England for the purpose of stockpiling abortion-inducing drugs.

By Uriel García, Texas Tribune – After collecting over $1 billion in federal funding for immigration related services, Catholic Charities of Fort Worth demanding more… Catholic Charities Fort Worth, a nonprofit organization that serves as Texas’ refugee resettlement office, has sued the Trump administration, claiming the federal government has withheld more than $36 million in grants, leading its partners to lay off workers and close some offices.

By Rachel Sheffield, Daily Signal – Vance also touted President Donald Trump as being “the most pro-family, most pro-life American president of our lifetimes.”… The most pro-life and pro-child institution that exists is marriage. Healthy marriage is the bedrock of healthy families and children. Declining marriage rates drive down birth rates. Married women are far less likely to have an abortion. And children raised by their married parents have on average the best outcomes on a host of factors: physical and emotional health, educational achievement, and poverty risk.

By Jordan Boyd, The Federalist – New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation at the beginning of February that shields prescribers of dangerous abortion pills to pregnant women from accountability. A new letter sent on behalf of “thousands” of doctors, however, warns Hochul that her attempt to force Empire State pharmacies to replace the name of healthcare professionals who prescribe drugs like mifepristone and misoprostol with the name or address of their practice puts women at risk and should be rescinded.

By Maureen Mullarkey, Studio Matters, (Complicit Clergy) – America’s Catholics are facing a crisis of authority… The social and economic realities of mass migration contradict the Vatican’s facile theologizing on open borders. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), in accord with Pope Francis’ globalist conceits, opposes President Donald Trump’s resolve to curtail illegal migration. Catholics are caught between fidelity to ecclesial leadership and obedience to the just laws of our own country… Francis’ hostility to Trump is no secret. …

By Brittany M. Hughes, MRC TV – If you listen very, very closely, you can hear the sound of the world’s smallest violin being played just for leftists… Of course, you’ll have to struggle to hear it over the din of the LGBTQ mafia screaming and the media having an emotional meltdown over the fact that India’s first and only clinic for “transgender” people has closed thanks to USAID being shut down. According to Yahoo News, the facility was the only one in the country that offered “free general health consultations, HIV screening and treatment, mental health support, and gender-affirming services,” all paid for by U.S. foreign aid.

By Terence Jeffrey, Daily Signal – The number of human beings living in freezers in the United States now outnumbers the population of Dallas, Texas… “Estimates place the number of frozen embryos at greater than 1.5 million,” reported the March 2022 edition of Fertility and Sterility, a journal published by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine… According to the latest Census Bureau estimate, Dallas had a population of 1,302,868 in 2023… How did all these human beings—conceived in the United States of America—end up locked in freezers?

By David Catron, The American Spectator – If you want to understand why last Friday’s Oval Office press conference between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky went off the rails, ignore most of what you are seeing in the corporate media. Anyone watching a video of the entire event, instead of the deceptively edited clips featured on most “news” sites, will see that neither the President nor the Vice President “ambushed” Zelensky. The first 39 minutes of the meeting were unremarkable, with President Trump attempting to be cordial despite the Ukrainian president’s Marvel Comics costume and pugnacious comportment.

By Daniel B. Gallagher, Crisis Magazine – For all his towering theological acumen, Joseph Ratzinger was a very practical man. When asked by a Bavarian journalist in 1991 whether it was the Holy Spirit who chooses the pope, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger gave a down-to-earth answer: I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus, the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – During a speech to the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast today, Vice President JD Vance says President Donald Trump has reversed Joe Biden’s pro-abortion agenda… “Now we know, of course, the last administration liked to throw people in jail for silently praying outside of abortion clinics. We know that they like to harass pro-life fathers of seven – very often Catholic fathers – for participating in the pro-life movement,” Vance said about Biden’s persecution of pro-life Americans… “And we know that the last administration wanted to protect taxpayer funded abortion right up until the moment of birth,” Vance added.

PBS NewsHour – President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance got into a heated exchange with visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Friday over U.S. support for Ukraine in its ongoing fight against Russian forces… After the tense meeting, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he has “determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations.”… “He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office,” Trump said. “He can come back when he is ready for peace.”

By Michael A. Milton, The American Spectator – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy broke one of the cardinal rules of diplomacy today: Never introduce a surprise in a high-stakes meeting. This principle is sacrosanct among leaders, particularly when navigating complex international relationships. Yet, Zelenskyy employed a risky gambit, attempting to leverage media influence to strengthen his negotiating position with the nation that has already provided his country with $183 billion in aid… At the outset of a press conference intended to pave the way for a formal agreement, Zelenskyy seized upon a reporter’s question to deliver an unexpected lecture to the United States on the history of the war. The spectacle was nothing short of negotiation by media. …

By Carina Benton, OnePeterFive – President Trump once said in reference to the arithmetic-defying 2020 election results that “if you are a bank robber, or you’re a jewelry store robber, and you go into Tiffany’s and you steal their diamonds and get caught, you have to give the diamonds back.”… So it’s not surprising that after the exposure of the USAID as a publicly-funded money laundering operation, and last week’s revelations by the DOGE about some 4.7 trillion dollars in untraceable Treasury payments, taxpayers are starting to apply the same Trump logic to their own losses: when do they get their diamonds back? …

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture – The appropriate hope for both (State and Church), I think, is that we might begin a period rooted far more firmly in the essences of what both State and Church are supposed to be. By this I mean it is time for the State to attempt to maximize the common good within its own borders, without either smothering its citizens under bureaucratic control or continuously undercutting them by looking for cheap profits throughout the world. And it is time for the Church to maximize opportunities for the spiritual good of her members without…well, without either smothering her “citizens” under bureaucratic control… or continuously diluting their faith by looking for cheap profits throughout the world …

By Daniel Payne, CNA – The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday night temporarily paused an order from a lower court directing the White House to pay out roughly $2 billion in foreign aid grants to nonprofit organizations… The Department of Justice had filed an appeal with the ​​U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Tuesday night after U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ordered the administration to make payments to grantees by 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday… The Trump administration had frozen the funding as part of an extensive series of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump

By R. R. Reno, First Things – Representatives of the U.S. and Russian governments are meeting in Saudi Arabia. Their goal is to determine whether an agreement can be reached to end the war in Ukraine. I’m grateful that this effort is being made… Two years ago, I expressed skepticism of the American and European governments’ claim that, with enough support, Ukraine could defeat the invading Russian army and reclaim all its territory (“Peace in Ukraine,” April 2023). I observed that, if my suspicions were true, then just war theory counseled negotiations to bring an end to hostilities.

By Eric Killelea, Cron, (Complicit Clergy) – Since the mid-1970s, the Catholic Charities of the Texas Panhandle has played a critical role in helping federal authorities manage refugees who are legally authorized to settle in the Amarillo region… But this week, Catholic Charities announced that it laid off 26 staff members due to “loss of funding” and put its Refugee Resettlement Program on an “indefinite pause on the services,” becoming the latest faith-based organization to report layoffs after a Trump administration order suspended federal funding for resettlement agencies last month.

By  Mary Margaret Olohan, DailyWire – Vice President JD Vance will address the 20th annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast on Friday in Washington, D.C., The Daily Wire has learned… Vance, a Catholic convert who speaks openly about his faith, will deliver remarks at the D.C. Convention Center. The vice president has attended the event as a guest in the past as a United States senator, but this will mark the first time he attends as vice president… “I am honored to be able to address the 20th annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast and represent the Trump administration’s support for people of faith across the United States,” Vance told The Daily Wire.

By Rep. Paul Gosar, The Daily Signal – Three years have now passed since war broke out between Russia and Ukraine… The toll this needless conflict has taken is unbearable and needless. From the onset, I have opposed every single penny of American taxpayer dollars to fund the proxy war… Let me be clear: I feel no animus toward the Ukrainian people, nor any special affinity for Vladmir Putin. In fact, I would like to see both populations thrive

By Sister Renée Mirkes, Catholic World Report – Dear Vice-President Vance: Your statement—“I realize that there is a part of me—the best part of me—that takes its cue from Catholicism”—is music to my ears… In fact, it cued me to introduce you to the women’s health science of NaProTechnology—exemplary reproductive medicine that—unlike IVF—is moral to its core.

By Gary Bauer, The Stream – In just the first month of his second term, he has already taken several steps to promote a culture of life in America… Immediately after taking office, Trump ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to shut down a government website promoting abortion… In January, Vance spoke to the crowd at the annual March for Life in person. He not only made the case for the sanctity of life — he urged young people to get married and have children. His proud promotion of the family is a message America needs to hear more often.

By Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness – At some point, some president was going to have to stop the unsustainable spending and borrowing… To have any country left, some president would eventually have had to restore a nonexistent border and stop the influx of 3 million illegal aliens a year… Some commander-in-chief finally would have to try to stop the theater wars abroad… But any president who dared to do any of that would be damned for curbing the madness that his predecessors fueled. … And so none did—until now.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – On Tuesday night, the House passed a budget framework bill that would allow for defunding the Planned Parenthood abortion business… The Republican-majority House of Representatives approved a budget framework aligned with President Donald Trump’s fiscal agenda. The resolution, which passed by a narrow margin, aims to implement significant tax reductions and spending cuts over the next decade.

By Deroy Murdock, American Spectator – Anyone with even one eye open is aware of President Donald J. Trump’s high-profile wins in his first month in office. Year-on-year illegal border crossings are down 94 percent. DOGE has identified at least $65 billion in often mind-blowing federal extravagance, incompetence, and graft. DEI is banished from the federal government and is comatose in the private sector. Male athletes are banned from competing against females in federally funded schools. Russia and Ukraine seem to be on a collision course — with Trump’s peace table. ….

By Jordan Boyd, The Federalist – The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spent millions of American taxpayer dollars propping up pet projects like dog collar manufacturing and pickle making in Ukraine and then spent months stonewalling members of Congress about that spending, according to findings obtained by The Federalist… Sen. Joni Ernst’s staff uncovered the secret slush funds when, after months of enduring the agency’s excuses to justify its resistance to oversight, they were finally permitted access to “very limited data.”

By Emily Mangiaracina, LifeSiteNews – A journalist has highlighted a book in which the prominent globalist and economist Jeffrey Sachs advocates religious groups’ support of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including migrant assistance… Investigative journalist Walter Curt recently made the bold claim that Sachs, a population control advocate, “was the mastermind behind the invasion of the Southern Border,” and that he “crafted the idea of using Catholic Charities to support migrants.”… Curt alleged that Sachs’ book “Ethics in Action,” which includes a foreword by Pope Francis, “lays out a plan to use Catholic Charities and taxpayer funds to fuel the crisis.”

By Vicki Yamasaki,  Corpus Christi for Unity and Peace – CUP’s investigation will unveil a systemic issue stemming from inadequate financial oversight, raising the question of who truly governs the Catholic Church in America: the bishops or the government. At the pinnacle is the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), which has amassed billions of dollars from the government, making these funds a significant portion of their revenue. The USCCB then distributes millions of government funds to Catholic Charities and other Catholic NGOs, thereby wielding substantial influence over these organizations. But who is ultimately in the driver’s seat? The government. As Aristotle aptly put it, “The man who has the purse strings rules the house.”

By Rob Bluey, The Daily Signal – White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Tuesday that more reporters would have more access to President Donald Trump, who is already one of the most accessible world leaders in recent history… Yet in the bizarro world of Washington, D.C., the elitist White House press corps reacted with scorn, calling the move a threat to the free press… It’s not. But the legacy media’s once-might monopoly is crumbling like a house of cards—and there’s nothing they can do to salvage their role as gatekeepers of news and information.

By Brian Lonergan, Chronicles Magazine – Among all the moves Trump has taken to combat illegal immigration, however, one executive order signed last week stands out and could be the game changer the country so desperately needs… President Trump’s  order to end federal… A report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last year targeted federal expenditures on illegal aliens during the four years of the Biden administration. The CBO claimed that that the federal government spent $177 billion in benefits for adult illegal aliens and their children who were admitted under Biden. Add that to another $101 billion of other federal spending on illegals, and CBO’s figure comes to $277 billion.

By Maureen Mullarkey, The Federalist – The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in accord with Pope Francis, opposes Trump’s resolve to curtail illegal migration… America’s Catholics are facing a crisis of authority… The social and economic realities of mass migration contradict the Vatican’s facile theologizing on open borders. The USCCB, in accord with Pope Francis’ globalist conceits, opposes President Donald Trump’s resolve to curtail illegal migration. Catholics are caught between fidelity to ecclesial leadership and obedience to the just laws of our own country.

By Complicit Clergy Staff – After publishing our original analysis of federal immigration funding of Catholic NGOs on January 24, we were alerted to a number of NGOs we missed in our original analysis… Under the Biden administration, Catholic NGOs were awarded nearly $3.2 BILLION in immigration funding. That’s more than QUADRUPLE the level of funding under Trump’s first administration and more than DOUBLE the amount awarded under the Obama administration over the course of EIGHT YEARS!

By Mark Lambert, LifeSiteNews – Last month, the USCCB issued guidelines for immigration reform, encouraging lawmakers to safeguard communities in a “targeted, proportional, and humane” manner. In analyzing the U.S. bishops’ guidelines, it’s essential to distinguish between binding Church doctrine and prudential judgments. The Catholic Church upholds the dignity of every human person and acknowledges the right of nations to secure their borders and enforce immigration policies. These teachings are complementary, not contradictory. Misrepresenting them as opposing views indicates a misunderstanding or intentional distortion of Church teaching. 

By J.T. Young, The American Spectator – Recently another poll revealed America’s most known political fact: Liberals are miserable. The samplings change but the conclusions don’t. Yet as confirmed as leftist misery is, its cause is missed: cognitive dissonance… The latest polling by the Institute for Family Studies found that only 12 percent of young liberal women were completely satisfied with life. Contrastingly, young conservative women were three times more likely to be completely satisfied. Further, IFS observed: “And consistent with previous research, the effect of ideology on young women’s happiness held up to controls for age, education, race, and income.”

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture – Vice President Vance offered an impressive profession of faith at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC on February 20th. At the same time, he is a key part of President Donald Trump’s push to increase access to in vitro fertilization. You would think that after sparring with Pope Francis over the concept of ordo amoris (properly ordered love), Vance could do a better job of sorting out his moral priorities… In vitro fertilization1 is a laboratory process of creating a human embryo by using male sperm to fertilize female ova completely independently of the marital act. The marital act is by both nature and grace ordered to procreation through the marital embrace of husband and wife.

By Eddie Scarry, The Federalist – Before writing an incredibly superficial piece on Eastern Europe’s geopolitical affairs from the frontlines of Pennsylvania Ave., New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker might have checked in with his colleague who was actually stationed in Russia and knows what he’s talking about… Baker joined the obnoxious media chorus this week in disputing virtually every single thing President Trump said recently with regard to the war in Ukraine, including Trump’s characterization of the conflict as something Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky could have avoided and Trump’s labeling of Zelensky as a dictator.

By Tyler Arnold, CNA – U.S. Vice President JD Vance advocated for government policies and cultural values that encourage Americans to “choose life” and “start families” during an interview on the main stage of the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Feb. 20 in National Harbor, Maryland… “[People need to] stop thinking about babies as inconveniences to be discarded,” Vance said in a Thursday morning interview with Mercedes Schlapp (CPAC)… “We’ve got to start thinking of them as blessings to cherish,” Vance said.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom

By Craig Bannister, MRC TV – The Biden Administration’s EPA stashed $20 billion in an off-government account to distribute to “green” organizations – including $2 billion award to a non-profit linked to ardent Biden supporter and failed Democrat Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, EPA Admin. Lee Zeldin announced Wednesday… “Stacey Abrams’ Power Forward Communities received $2 BILLION to be a pass through entity for Biden EPA’s $20 billion “gold bar” scheme. …

By Beth Brelje, The Federalist – With Kash Patel finally confirmed on Thursday as the new director of the FBI, the most self-aware members of the deep state are probably updating their résumés while waiting for Patel’s next moves. Omelets will be made; eggs will be broken… In a 51- 49 vote, the Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the top law enforcement agency in the land for 10 years. His confirmation came in the face of protests from Democrats who did their best to soil his reputation. …

By Joe McClane, Complicit Clergy – Mike McCormick, author of An Almost Insurmountable Evil, Details How Obama’s Deep State Defiled The Catholic Church through Theodore McCarrick and Joe Biden. Did McCarrick help overthrow Pope Benedict XVI and install Pope Francis? Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was mysteriously connected to the State Department and, potentially, even the Central Intelligence Agency. McCarrick also was a frequent visitor at the White House and spent a lot of time with Joe Biden. What is the connection between Biden and McCarrick? Mike McCormick goes into detail in this disturbing connection between the Deep State and the Deep Church.

By John Zmirak, The Stream – (Among a group of) conservative Christian leaders … I can’t help remembering one issue that seemed to unite them: the need to stand up to Russia and fund the war in Ukraine, and maybe (if need be) send our own troops over there… I challenged them: How many of you were on board with G.W. Bush and his Iraq War? Remember all those ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that threatened Manhattan? The claim that he was behind 9/11? What about those promises that our troops would be greeted with flowers, that the oil revenues would pay for the war, that we’d build a pro-American democracy over there? …

By Dan Hart, LifeNews – Washington, DC – In the wake of President Donald Trump’s executive order issued on Tuesday to expand access to in vitro fertilization (IVF), pro-life organizations and advocates are expressing concerns over the destruction of embryonic human life that the process involves, highlighting alternative fertility treatments that are more effective, and encouraging guardrails to be put in place regulating the IVF industry and ensuring that conscience protections are established.

By Jim Hᴏft, Gateway Pundit – A federal judge on Thursday delivered a major blow to the USCCB, denying their attempt to force the Trump administration into continuing taxpayer funding for their massive refugee resettlement operations… Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, rejected the bishops’ request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would have forced the administration to immediately restore funding… The lawsuit, filed by the non-profit organization USCCB in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenged the Trump administration’s decision to cut off federal grants that fuel the mass resettlement of migrants across America …

By Matthew Omolesky, American Spectator – Imagine waking up from a coma, or returning from your rest-cure after a nasty bout with Influenza B, and finding the entire media ecosystem caught up in an acrimonious debate over some obscure Christian doctrine like Preterism or Monophysitism. Surely you would think you were still in the grip of a somnolent hallucination or bizarre fever dream. Yet that is essentially our reality, as the flame war over Vice President JD Vance’s reference to the Augustinian doctrine of ordo amoris (“order of love” or “order of charity”) enters its third week with no sign of dying down. …

By Father David Nix, Padre Peregrino Hermitage – I have to admit I didn’t have it in my bingo cards that 2025 was going to be the big year when hundreds of thousands of mainstream Catholics wake up to the corruption that a few of us have known about for years in certain Catholic organizations.  I’m quite thrilled to see how many Catholics are now standing up against the imposters in Rome, the corruption of the USCCB and the criminal activity of Catholic Charities that some of us have been sounding the alarm about for years. …

By Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, Gateway Pundit – Like everything that comes out of Bergoglio’s mouth, these accusations against the Trump government are false and delusional. There is no “mass deportation” occurring. Rather, there is a precisely focused decision to put an end to the floods of unregulated immigrants that previous Administrations had planned, favored, and encouraged. In fact, deportation occurred in the opposite direction during the Clinton, Obama, and Biden Administrations, excluding a priori targeted international cooperation projects to help populations in need in their respective countries of origin, instead focusing every effort – even when it was against the law – to increase the ethnic substitution plan.  ….

By Adam Pack, Daily Signal – Four House Republicans are urging President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice to prosecute elected officials and left-wing activist groups allegedly subverting the administration’s deportation efforts… House Republicans’ urging the DOJ to pursue legal action against those violating federal law comes after multiple reports of left-wing organizations and elected officials colluding to help illegal migrants evade federal immigration authorities.

Ven. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, The Catholic Thing – The treatise on Patriotism in the writings of the greatest philosopher of all times, St. Thomas Aquinas, is to be found under the subject of “Piety.” This at first may strike as strange those who think of piety as pertaining only to love of God. But once it is remembered that love of neighbor is inseparable from love of God, it is seen that love of our fellow citizens is a form of piety… In these days when so many subversive activities are at work, a reminder of the necessity of loving our country is very much to the point. Consciously or unconsciously our citizens are grouping themselves around the only two possible ultimate answers to the questions vexing our country.

By William M Briggs, The Stream – In 2017 – the most recent data I could find — the U.S. Office of Personnel Management reported that there were 1,869,986 civilian employees working in the federal government… These unelected employees had, and continue to have, access to your data. Employees at the IRS, for instance, know how much money you’ve made, from whom you got paid, when, and how much in taxes you paid (or didn’t pay) in any given year.

By Stephen P. White, The Catholic Thing – In 2026, the United States will celebrate our semiquincentennial; 250 years is a long time in terms of one human life. But it is not so very long a lifespan for a people, a nation. I say nation, not government, because I take it that there is such a thing as an American nation, which predates our Constitution and the government it established… Not that it is easy to define a nation as something distinct from its government, particularly in the American case. An Englishman can list the many forms of government under which the English nation has existed. Same for a Frenchman or a Pole. In the latter case, the Polish nation managed to survive more than a century of partition during which no Poland appeared on a map and there was no Polish government.

By Ben Weingarten, The Federalist – Should the Senate confirm Kash Patel as FBI director, it will have clinched the second of perhaps the two most vital nominations President Donald Trump will make, alongside Tulsi Gabbard. These are the two individuals after Trump with the near-singular ability to prevent us from devolving into a total police state of the kind that has already targeted them… President Trump was elected in no small part as a rebuke to a national security apparatus and intelligence agencies that have been weaponized and politicized against dissenters from ruling-class orthodoxy.

The Catholic Herald – The UK’s pro-life movement is calling on Catholic bishops to speak out more publicly and effectively against a culture that sees women being pressurised by medical staff to have abortions… The move comes after two mothers ended their pregnancies following Nottingham Univ. Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH)… mistakenly informing them that their unborn babies had serious genetic conditions… “The Church must accept its own part in this terrible situation, in which clergy and lay faithful have failed to speak up – through fear, discomfort or ignorance” …

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – The Department of Health and Human Services today issued its updated definition of sex for all federal agencies and the public. The new guidance makes it clear that human life begins at conception… The guidance was issued to make it clear there are only two biological sexes, but the confirmation also makes it clear that that establishment of the sex of a human being – this the life of a human being – begins at conception… “The sex of a human, male or female, is determined genetically at conception (fertilization) and is observable before birth,” it reads.

By Jules Gomes, The Stream – Catholic bishops recently formed an unholy alliance with the abortion giant Planned Parenthood to thwart critical pro-life legislation in North Dakota insisting that classifying abortion as murder and recognizing unborn children as “persons” would criminalize women procuring abortions… While the abortion giant attacked the bill as “a harmful piece of legislation that would redefine human being and personhood to apply at the moment of conception,” the North Dakota Bishops’ Conference argued that “the U.S. Supreme Court has not held that unborn children are ‘persons’ under the 14th Amendment.”

By Samantha Koch, Patriot Post – To start the discussion, Musk offered an unexpected personal observation of the president. He has gotten to know Donald Trump through their work together, in their focused, mutual goal of exposing corruption and cutting wasteful government programs from federal agencies. “The president has been so unfairly attacked in the media,” Musk said. “It’s really outrageous. At this point, I’ve spent a lot of time with the president, and not once have I seen him do something that was mean or cruel or wrong. Not once.”

By Father David Nix, Padre Peregrino Hermitage Blog – In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) is defined by Yale Medicine as “a procedure that involves retrieving a woman’s eggs and a man’s sperm sample and combining the two in a laboratory dish.”  Most Catholics in the pro-life movement are against IVF because “IVF replaces the marital act with a laboratory act and that an affront to the dignity of a child who is conceived.”… While that is true, the main reason we should be against IVF is not a violation of the 6th Commandment, but rather a violation of the 5th Commandment:  IVF eradicates many embryos (new individuals) to yield only a few living children.

By Fr. Shenan J. Boquet, Human Life International – On January 22, Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, issued a pastoral letter called “The Christian Family, In Vitro Fertilization and Heroic Witness to True Love.” In his letter, Bishop Burbidge seeks to guide people of good will and the faithful to better understand the respect that is owed to the human person by addressing the inherent dangers and immorality of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church regarding marriage, procreation, and family life.

By Peter Smith, Associate Press – Catholic bishops sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over its abrupt halt to funding of refugee resettlement, calling the action unlawful and harmful to newly arrived refugees and to the nation’s largest private resettlement program… The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) says the administration, by withholding millions even for reimbursements of costs incurred before the sudden cut-off of funding, violates various laws as well as the constitutional provision giving the power of the purse to Congress, which already approved the funding.

By Star Parker, Patriot Post -The left is screaming that President Donald Trump is on some kind of ideological crusade… Some recent headlines: “Trump and Musk’s Purge Isn’t Cost Cutting — It’s a Coup”; “Doge is About Ideology and Mindless Budget Cutting”; “Elon Musk’s Indiscriminate Carnage”; “Dems Must Stand Up Against the Bully in the White House.”… It’s sort of like labeling a company CEO ideological because he is driven to keep his company profitable and competitive.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – President Donald Trump has signed an executive order expanding IVF despite significant concerns from pro-life Americans about the process… “The Order directs policy recommendations to protect IVF access and aggressively reduce out-of-pocket and health plan costs for such treatments,” Leavitt said in a post on X… The order also mandates the development of policy recommendations to protect access to IVF treatments. This initiative aligns with the administration’s broader efforts to enhance the availability and affordability of IVF for individuals seeking reproductive care.

By Joe Kovacs, World Net Daily – Delta Air Lines is coming under severe criticism for doubling down on its push for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, just days before Monday’s spectacular crash involving a Minneapolis-to-Toronto flight that flipped one of its planes upside down during landing… On Feb. 6, Peter Carter, chief external affairs officer at Delta, said: “We are steadfast in our commitments because we think that they are actually critical to our business.”.. “Sustainability is about being more efficient in our operations and really DE&I is about talent and that’s been our focus.”

By Ellie Gardey Holmes, The American Spectator – This move makes him a champion for insufferable woke celebrities who treat their children like toys… In his first term as president, Trump said he was proud to be “the most pro-life president” in American history… Now, he is actively seeking to increase the number of unborn babies who are killed — all with the funding of the U.S. government. On Tuesday, he signed an executive order to expand access to in vitro fertilization.

By Steven Richards, Just The News – According to data from USAspending.gov, Catholic Charities branches across the United States collected over $2 billion in federal grants over the last four years of the Biden administration, primarily through the Department of Health and Human Services which granted about $1.93 billion for programs. Other agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security and Housing and Urban Development also doled out significant—if smaller—sums, about $156 million and $138 million, respectively.

By Mike McCormick, Complicit Clergy – A little over 10 years ago, Vice President Joe Biden became the point man to solve the crisis of thousands upon thousands of parentless children illegally entering America along its Southern Border. Over the spring and summer of 2014, over 60,000 unaccompanied minors—some as young as four—came across the Mexican border. Most of them were boys, 13 to 17. There were girls too. It was the cartels who brought them. The crimes most of those children endured are unspeakable.

By James Malloy, The Stream – Two entrepreneurs with no political experience (of course, Trump now knows how things work in government after his first term) striving to cut waste and improve government efficiency is refreshing. Neither of them are in it for the money… it’s happening before our eyes, and as the Democrats are going haywire, some would say — making fools of themselves to stop responsible spending. They’re holding on to the “progressive” paradigm of printing and borrowing money around while they somehow become very wealthy on their relatively modest governmental salaries… Pray for success in this struggle for a balanced budget.

By Brittany M. Hughes, MRC TV – The current average price of gas in the state of California is $4.85, well about the national average of $3.16. The average weekly grocery bill is just shy of $300… But hey, if you happen to be a resident of the Golden State, struggling under the weight of your bills while paying the highest gas and income tax rates in the nation, just know your money is being well spent. Not on you, of course. But illegal aliens are making out like bandits… Feel better yet?

By Dave Andrusko, LifeNews – You’re Planned Parenthood, the premier purveyor of death, and you know many Red States are coming after your funding, not to mention Congress and the Trump administration which has already signaled your federal funding is on the chopping block. At moments like this, you expect the media heavyweights who have carried your water for 60 years to stand firm… And then, on Saturday, The New York Times, among your staunchest allies, runs a long, long story written by Katie Benner under the petrifying headline, “Botched Care and Tired Staff: Planned Parenthood in Crisis”.

By Carrie Sheffield, The Daily Signal – Months before he became health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shared his moving conversion story, expressing that belief in God helped break his longtime heroin addiction that began when he was a boy, the year after his father’s tragic murder… “We grow through pain,” Kennedy told podcast host Sage Steele. “Pain is ultimately the touchstone of spiritual growth, and addicts have a unique opportunity for redemption because they’ve been to hell.”

By Cristina Laila, Gateway Pundit – On Monday, Elon Musk’s DOGE revealed the federal government didn’t trace $4.7 trillion in payments… $4.7 trillion dollars in payments were left blank, making it nearly impossible to trace, DOGE said… “The Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) is an identification code linking a Treasury payment to a budget line item (standard financial process),” DOGE explained in a post on X.

By Damian Thompson, The Spectator – Pope Francis is a surprisingly partisan observer of American politics. For most of his life he was, like a typical Argentinean, viscerally but vaguely anti-American. By the time he became pope in 2013, he and the Democratic Party had embraced the ideology of the globalist left. And so they forged an alliance — one the Pope may soon regret, now that Republicans in the White House and on Capitol Hill are beginning to grasp the scale of the Vatican’s corruption.

By Judie Brown, The Federalist – In his first weeks as president, Donald J. Trump dove right in and took some significant pro-life actions. He started by signing the Mexico City Policy, which prevents federal money from funding out-of-country abortions. He pardoned jailed pro-lifers and released them from prison. He removed Biden’s pro-abortion government website. He penned an executive order declaring that life begins at conception. And he enforced the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funds from paying for domestic abortions… These actions all mark incredible strides in the effort to return our country to a nation that respects and cherishes all human beings, but they are only a start.

By Gayle McQueary, The Stream – On this Monday, we’d like to bring you some little-known facts in honor of President’s Day… But first, a question: Is it “President’s Day”? or “Presidents’ Day”? Or even “Presidents Day”? Enquiring minds want to know whether it belongs to one president, a group of them, or is just an admission that our nation has had multiple presidents, and therefore we should all get a day off… President’s Day Isn’t a Federal Holiday …

By Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness – Democrats seem stuck in a cycle of rage and resistance, recycling failed anti-Trump tactics while losing ground with voters and donors alike… What is the long-term Democratic Party’s strategy to return to power?… Americans may ask that only because so far, the Democrat agenda seems to entail polarizing and alienating as many voters as possible… They gleefully double down on their 2024 defeat. And they seem almost to grow ecstatic at ensuring that Donald Trump and his record poll at unprecedented highs.

By Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell, The Daily Signal – Pro-lifers convicted under the FACE Act and released from prison after President Donald Trump pardoned them on Jan. 24 tell The Daily Signal they are grateful to God and to Trump for returning them to their families… Trump pardoned 23 pro-lifers who were convicted for actions including praying outside abortion clinics and encouraging women in unplanned pregnancies to choose life… “They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people. They should not have been prosecuted,” the president said. …

By LifeSiteNews Staff – On this episode of Faith and Reason, John Henry-Westen, Father Charles Murr, and Frank Wright discuss Pope Francis’s letter to the U.S. bishops on the Trump administration’s immigration policies and the rebuttal of several American bishops, the Pontiff installing new anti-Trump bishops, the Pope’s continued health issues, a congresswoman refusing to call a “transgender” congressman by female pronouns leading to outrage from LGBT activists, Jordan Peterson sounding off on the Trudeau government’s pandering to globalists, and more.  

The Catholic Herald – The US vice president has publicly criticised the UK authorities’ use of so-called buffer zones legislation regarding abortion facilities and for overseeing a “backslide away from” freedom of conscience and religious liberties in the country… His comments were made today ay the Munich Security Conference in Germany during a speech that addressed concerns around maintaining religious liberty, conscientious rights and free speech, and which made reference to the arrest and prosecution of Adam Smith-Connor, who in October 2024 was convicted for simply praying in his head near an abortion facility in England.

By Tristan Justice and Gina Bontempo, The Federalist – The confirmation of America’s new Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., offers a generational opportunity to reinvigorate the nation’s health before the twin epidemics of obesity and chronic disease become endemic.. “If I’m given the chance to fix the chronic disease crisis and reform our food production, I promise that within two years we will watch the chronic disease burden lift dramatically,” Kennedy said in his Phoenix endorsement speech of then-Republican nominee Donald Trump. “We will make Americans healthy again.”

By Frank Wright, LifeSiteNews – As the Trump Administration moves forward on its promise to end the war in Ukraine, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has made a speech defining the “end of an era.”… Speaking ahead of the Munich Security Conference, Hegseth announced the end of the 75-year commitment of the U.S. to finance and supervise European national security… “I’m here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States from being the primary guarantor of security in Europe.” …

By John Carney, Breitbart – A Tale of Two Americas: D.C.’s Depression, America’s Revival… It’s the best of times and the worst of times… Donald Trump’s return to the White House is being experienced by many in Washington, DC, as a calamitous upheaval, even a “bloodbath” by some… That’s not how it looks across the country.

By Kevin D. Roberts, First Things – Some in the USCCB may disagree with my suggestion. That’s to be expected. Billions of federal dollars have provided a powerful incentive to ignore the Church’s nuanced teaching on immigration. Many Catholics today believe that refusing to receive federal funds to resettle and support more immigrants is an offense to their human dignity and a failure of our charity… It is not. The Church served the poor and the downtrodden for thousands of years before we were on the American taxpayer’s dime, and we can serve them even better for the next thousand years if we get off the federal government’s payroll. ….

By Elizabeth Troutman, The Daily Signal – President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday to defund schools with COVID-19 vaccination mandates… The directive comes one day after the confirmation of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has raised questions about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine… The executive order also applies to education service agencies, and state and local education agencies, Breitbart first reported. This action is in line with Trump’s campaign promise to “not allow schools to impose COVID mandates.”

By Moira Gleason, Daily Signal – Pro-life advocacy groups are saying they see Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a man who changed his mind. The newly confirmed secretary of health and human services has apparently shifted to align with President Donald Trump’s pro-life agenda during his Senate confirmation hearings after openly supporting abortion policies for most of his public life… “During the election, only one presidential candidate—RFK Jr.—said that he had changed his mind to be more pro-life after learning more” …

By Jennifer Roback Morse, National Catholic Register – USAID has been systematically exporting the sexual revolution to countries that do not want it… The recent freeze on U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) expenditures has brought attention to that agency’s unaccountability and waste. But the problems with USAID run deeper than merely wasting taxpayer dollars or being opaque about its activities… Despite funding some worthwhile recipients, USAID has been systematically exporting the sexual revolution to countries that do not want it. Contrary to popular opinion, the sexual revolution is not the result of spontaneous cultural movements or impersonal historical forces.

By John Yoo and Robert Delahunty, The Federalist – Under the Constitution, “the President is invested with certain important political powers, in the exercise of which he is to use his own discretion.” For his decisions, “he is accountable only to his country in his political character, and to his own conscience.” His choices cannot be questioned in court because “the subjects are political. They respect the nation, not individual rights, and being entrusted to the executive, the decision of the executive is conclusive.”… Who penned these outrageous words?… The right answer is John Marshall, the greatest chief justice in Supreme Court history. And he did not squirrel this view away in a private journal.

By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing – An ancient Greek legend tells of Alexander the Great confronting the Gordian Knot, which no one could untie. An oracle prophesied that whoever untied it would rule the East. Alexander drew his sword and cut it in half. In another version, the knot was tied around a chariot pole; Alexander slipped the pole out, and that did the trick. Either way, the lesson is: some things don’t yield to the usual approaches. They require a leap to unprecedented measures. …

By Jules Gomes, The Stream – Pope Francis is equating the unique salvific events of the Exodus and the incarnation to the “phenomenon of migration” in his most fierce attack thus far on the Trump administration’s deportation of illegal aliens… The pontiff, who toughened penalties for illegal entrants into the Vatican in December, released a strongly worded letter to the U.S. bishops on Tuesday, urging Catholics “not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering” to migrants.

By Emily Mangiaracina, LifeSiteNews – The federal government has awarded over $100 million in contracts to the news outlet Reuters, which claims to be ‘independent.’ One of those contracts falls under the label ‘large scale social deception.’… President Donald Trump highlighted this morning the finding that the Department of Defense (DOD) paid the leftist media outlet Reuters $9 million for a program labeled “large scale social deception,” and he has demanded that they return the money.

By John Zmirak, The Stream –

By Stephen Kokx, LifeSiteNews – President Donald Trump announced that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a “highly productive” phone call on Wednesday that has resulted in them agreeing to “start negotiations immediately” to end the conflict in Ukraine… “We want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the war,” Trump said on Truth Social. “We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s nations.” 

By Bob Unruh, LifeNews – A watchdog organization is demanding that the U.S. government, under the administration of President Donald Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency, defund a giant in the nation’s abortion industry… A report at Fox News explains the former administration, under Joe Biden, handed over $700 million in money collected from taxpayers to Planned Parenthood, during one reporting period. ….

By Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness – Here are some of the untruths told about Elon Musk and DOGE… “Musk has no right to cut USAID.”… Elon Musk and his team are not cutting any federal programs… They are auditors. They were given legal authority under a presidential executive order creating the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)… Its mandate is to identify waste, abuse, fraud, and irrelevance in the federal budget at a time when the U.S. is $37 trillion in debt… The agency will expire on July 4, 2026.

By Craig Bannister, CNS News – While Donald Trump has been rapidly issuing executive orders since his return to the White House last month, some federal judges have been zealously ruling to block or restrict his administration from implementing them… Whether it’s his effort to eliminate wasteful government spending, reduce the size of government, stop illegal immigration, or affirm the biological realities of gender, judges have taken it upon themselves to combat his actions.

By Jonathon Van Maren, First Things – The United States has been deeply divided on abortion for decades, but since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, those divides have deepened as differing legal regimes emerge across the nation. In some states, such as California and New York, destroying an unborn person in the womb is a fiercely defended “human right.” In others, such as Alabama and Mississippi, abortion is illegal with limited exceptions on the explicit grounds of unborn human rights.

By John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist – In some places (Francis) seems to contradict or misrepresent Catholic teaching, and in other places he uses vague language that could be interpreted multiple ways… Taken out of context from his previous statements on immigration, it would be easy to dismiss the letter as nothing more than sentimental but unobjectionable platitudes about human dignity and the need for Christians to care for the poor. But considered in context, it’s clear that Francis wants to signal that he’s against Trump and Vance on immigration.

By Matthew McDonald, National Catholic Register – U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy has been one of the higher-profile members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet in the early weeks of the new administration… Duffy, 53, was one of Trump’s least controversial picks. He got confirmed by the U.S. Senate with a unanimous vote by a Senate committee and a 77-22 vote from the full Senate.

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – In a letter ostensibly written to support the bishops of the US, Pope Francis has actually made life considerably more difficult for them. In his letter on the Trump administration’s immigration policies the Pontiff makes an argument that is poorly informed, easily rebutted, and likely to divide the American Catholic faithful. This is an argument that the American hierarchy cannot win. And, not coincidentally, the argument presented by the Pope differs notably from the most recent statements by more prudent American prelates.

By Scott McKay, Contributing Editor, The American Spectator – You’ve almost certainly noticed that a new narrative has begun emanating from the usual sources in the past few days. We’re now in a “crisis,” or a “constitutional crisis.”… You’re hearing this everywhere in the legacy corporate propaganda press, and it’s being reported as emanating from the “unelected” Elon Musk and his DOGE prodigies applying a Big Data screen to federal spending and illuminating the amazing levels of waste and fraud built into the governmental fisc.

By John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist – Lower federal court judges have no constitutional authority to govern by injunction and undermine the executive branch… What’s happening right now is that Democrats, having been thrown out of power by American voters in a landslide victory for Trump, have decided they’re going to deploy a widely-used tactic from Trump’s first term to thwart the president’s agenda: use the federal judiciary. Under the false pretext that the lower federal courts are part of a “coequal branch of government” with the executive, they’re aiming to shut down Trump’s reform efforts with a fusillade of preliminary injunctions.

By Douglas Andrews, Patriot Post – Democrat strategist Ruy Teixeira gets it, and he’s trying to sound the alarm. “Trump occupies the high ground in this fight,” he writes at The Free Press, “which is probably why he and Musk picked it. … USAID is a 10,000-employee bureaucracy — housed in a palatial building on prime downtown real estate — that spends $40 billion a year on other countries.”… As Teixeira adds: “Democrats are unconditionally defending an obscure government institution at a time when even well-known and previously trusted institutions are regarded with intense suspicion.”

By R. R. Reno, First Things – Pope Francis published his suicide note. It took the form of a letter to the American Catholic bishops. In so many words, the Holy Father urged his brother bishops to intervene in American politics and oppose the Trump administration’s efforts to enforce our country’s immigration laws. Along the way, Pope Francis also took a jab at Vice President JD Vance, correcting him (along with St. Thomas Aquinas). No, we are not to love our parents, spouses, and children more than others.

By Complicit Clergy, Staff – How many of these missing children were assisted by our Catholic bishops and their network of Catholic NGOs? Were any of these children victims of trafficking for child labor or sexual exploitation? U.S. taxpayers deserve to know answers to these questions and we hope that the Trump administration and the U.S. Congress will hold our bishops accountable for getting answers to these questions.

By Kenneth Craycraft, Our Sunday Vistitor – In a recent appearance on a TV news show, JD Vance articulated the “Christian concept that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then, after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.” The comment caused immediate, harsh reaction from many in the Catholic commentariat, condemning Vance’s observation. Some have cast doubt on his personal faith. One prominent British journalist even questioned the faith of the priest who received Vance into the Church.

By Fr. Peter Totleben, O.P., Catholic World Report – It’s not often that Catholic theology breaks into the news cycle, but this is just what happened when Vice President J. D. Vance gave an interview to FOX News defending the Trump administration’s actions regarding immigration and its “America First” stance on foreign policy. Vance appealed to the traditional theological concept of the “order of love” (ordo amoris)—the idea that our love of neighbor has a certain set of priorities—to justify prioritizing the needs of citizens over immigrants and domestic concerns over foreign ones.

Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture – Based on this comparison, for example, I have little sympathy for Cardinal McElroy’s characterization of Trump’s immigration policies as a “war of fear and terror”, or even for Pope Francis’ direct denunciation of Trump’s efforts. I don’t withhold my sympathy for these critics because I am in favor of mass deportation of poor immigrants desperately seeking a better life. Rather, I withhold it because I insist on knowing where these critics were when it was a question of President Biden’s far more evil abortion, sex and gender policies.

By Edward Pentin – Just a fortnight into the Trump presidency and the damage wrought by the Pope and the Vatican allying too closely with Democrat-run globalism on a variety of moral issues is becoming clear, the head of an Italian Church think tank has said… In a Jan. 29 commentary entitled “Trump and the Vatican: War in Progress,” Professor Stefano Fontana wrote that early policy decisions of the Trump administration have exposed the extent to which the Vatican’s close alignment with a progressive globalist agenda has caused “great damage” by weakening her voice on a number of serious moral issues.

By Ashlynn Lemos, LifeNews – “The message of Christianity is being distorted,” claimed Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, known for her sermon at the Trump Inauguration. In a culture where people seek to reshape the Gospel, we must return to the heart of Jesus — a heart that values, cherishes, and defends life from his or her very beginning… Her perspective has been gaining traction, suggesting that a Christian can uphold the “spectrum of Life” while supporting a woman’s “right to choose” abortion. As Reverend Budde put it, “I think you can be adherent to the spectrum of Life and still respect a woman’s right to choose her reproductive health, including when to have an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy.”

By Archbishop Joseph Naumann – It is inconceivable that our previous administration either did not know or care about the location or the circumstances of approximately 300,000 children and youth who entered the United States during the past four years. We do not know how many of them have become victims of human trafficking, gangs and drug dealers. This is a national disgrace. I salute President Trump and his administration for making it a priority to find these lost children and youth.

By James Lalino, Daily Signal – “When you say that name [Rodney Glasgow], it’s like the emotions of wanting to just cry. I get chills. That name and what he did to our community was just unimaginable,” said a parent of a current Kentucky Country Day School student, granted anonymity due to the risk of their children being expelled from the elite independent school that costs a maximum of $30,200 per year… Glasgow runs The Glasgow Group.. is a Maryland-based for-profit educational consultant company that specializes in diversity, equity, and inclusion training for teachers and school administrators.

By Catholic World News – Catholic Charities USA has released its 2024 annual report, which offers an overview of the organization’s work but offers no summary of its finances. …. Catholic Charities USA’s audited financial statements clearly do not take into account the revenues and expenses of the Catholic Charities offices of the nation’s 176 dioceses. Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, for example, had $101,010,202 in revenue in its 2024 fiscal year—$82,194,646 of it from government grants.

By Douglas Andrews, Patriot Post – Those crafty Communist Chinese haven’t fought a land war in nearly half a century, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t actively engaged in warfare… It’s just that the conventional kind is so unappealing to the ChiComs. As the great and ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu stressed, the real Art of War is to defeat one’s enemy without even fighting him. This is why, as author Peter Schweizer writes in Blood Money, every Chinese officer, soldier, and sailor has since 2006 been required to study Sun Tzu’s classic tract.

By Gayle McQueary, The Stream – In a move reminiscent of a political thriller, Senate Democrats have launched an online portal designed to collect complaints from federal employees about the Trump administration’s activities. The platform, unveiled with much fanfare, aims to encourage “transparency” and “accountability” within government agencies, especially in light of recent policy changes that some Democrats argue are an overreach or “misuse” of executive power.

By Steven Ertelt, Grace Porto, Joshua Mercer, LifeNews – A Catholic organization that funds pro-abortion groups has laid off 50% of its staff after losing USAID funds… Catholic Relief Services (CRS) was the top recipient of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Forbes reported Feb. 3… According to Forbes, CRS, a nonprofit, received $4.6 billion from 2013 to 2022… At the same time, CRS has been the subject of controversy in the past for supporting pro-abortion aid programs.

By R. R. Reno, First Things – Catholicism in the United States and Europe is heading toward trouble. The presenting issue is immigration. Vice President JD Vance criticized the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for their hostility to “commonsense immigration enforcement.” Cardinal Timothy Dolan issued a testy response, calling Vance’s remarks “scurrilous.”… The American bishops are trying to cleave to the Vatican line on this issue. Pope Francis is always critical of those who propose to tighten border enforcement and limit immigration.

By Jim Hoft, The Gateway Pundit – Elon Musk reported early Monday morning that FEMA sent $59 million just last week to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants… According to Musk, sending this money to these high-end hotels violated the law.  This directly interferes with President Trump’s executive order… And why is FEMA paying for illegal alien housing when they ignore Americans suffering and living in tents in places like North Carolina?… FEMA funds are meant for American disaster relief and not to fund Joe Biden’s invasion… Musk says a clawback demand will be made today to recoup the funds.

By Thomas Gallatin, Patriot Post – Donald Trump unleashed a revolution in Washington that it had never seen before… For decades, Republican politicians have campaigned to go to Washington and tackle its wasteful spending. Yet, term after term, nothing seemed to change. Government spending only grew, and the federal deficit ballooned with it… The sentiment was that Washington’s permanent bureaucratic state was simply too big and too entrenched to actually shrink. …

By Michael Hichborn, Raymond Arroyo, The World Over – Michael Hichborn of the Lepanto Institute appeared on both The World Over with Raymond Arroyo and A Catholic Take with Joe McCane with week to discuss the scandal surrounding USAID and the Catholic Church.

By Complicit Clergy by Staff – A review of Immigrant Legal Resource Center’s (ILRC) 2023 federal tax return reveals that Catholic organizations provided nearly 20% of all grants for this radical leftist organization… The ILRC isn’t exclusively concerned with naturalizing and mobilizing non-citizens. The organization also works to prevent the deportation of illegal aliens. It received $500,000 in 2021 from the Open Society Foundations to fund its efforts to “dismantle the infrastructure of criminalization, detention, and deportation of immigrants.”

By The Catholic Herald – The American bishops have applauded an executive order that seeks to prohibit biological men from competing in women’s sports… “We welcome the President’s EO that protects opportunities for women and girls to compete in sports safely and fairly,” Bsps. Robert Barron and David M. O’Connell… Bishops Barron and O’Connell are the chairmen of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committees on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth; and Catholic Education, respectively.

By John Zmirak, The Stream – …we can and should demand that the men who wield the secular sword aren’t sticking it in our backs or using it to abort babies and sexually mutilate children…. What DOGE has been busy exposing isn’t just wasteful taxpayer-funded programs in foreign countries. That’s the tippy-tippy top of the iceberg, which is vast and goes down deep into dark and poisonous waters. In fact, what we’re learning from the drip-drip-drip of Musk’s crack team’s revelations is this: USAID is a global slush fund for evil, full stop.

By Grace Porto, LifeNews – Catholic Relief Services (CRS) was the top recipient of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Forbes reported Feb. 3… According to Forbes, CRS, a nonprofit, received $4.6 billion from 2013 to 2022… Secretary of State Marco Rubio became the acting director of USAID Feb. 3, as CatholicVote previously reported. The decision came after the agency attempted to block the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing its financial records.

By Matthew Continetti, Patriot Post – How America’s oldest president became a Gen Z icon… Outrage over Musk’s whiz kids reveals another progressive double standard: Young activists are praised when they are on the Left and denounced when they join the Right… The Washington Post, moreover, is blind to the real story. Trump may be the oldest man elected president, but he leads a youth movement that will shape politics for decades to come.

By Nick Kangadis, MRC TV – Remember that _______ Episcopal “Bishop” who passive aggressively chastised President Donald Trump during his inaugural prayer service? Well…apparently American taxpayer money has been wasted on her “church’s federal contracting arm,” all so they could help “migrants” “resettle” into the U.S… And the sum of money is no chump change, either. A reported $53 million was given to the Episcopal Migration Ministry (EMM) in 2023 so they could “resettle 3,600 individuals.”

By Stephen Kokx, LifeSite News – From 2013 through the 2022 fiscal year, USAID awarded CRS a whopping $4.6 billion in total funding, more than any other organization on the planet… President Donald Trump’s attacks on the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has Catholic Relief Services (CRS) worried it may have to let half of its staff go, according to an internal email written by its CEO… “We anticipate that we will be a much smaller overall organization by the end of this fiscal year,” Sean Callahan reportedly said this week.

By Tessa Gervasini , Ken Oliver-Méndez, CNA – “Allowing violent gangs, individuals with serious criminal histories, dealers of lethal illegal drugs, human traffickers, and those who pose threats to our national security to enter our country and harm U.S. citizens is a serious dereliction of duty by our elected leaders,” Naumann said. “I commend President [Donald] Trump and those in his administration for addressing this serious, national threat.”… Naumann went on to fault the Biden administration for its handling of the unprecedented wave of unaccompanied minors it allowed to enter the country.

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – Any accurate measure of wealth includes debts as well as assets. By that ordinary standard the US government is poor: spending money it does not have, running a budget it cannot afford. And since the current debate over immigration is primarily a debate about the policies of the federal government, the argument that the US government is the “richest nation on earth” cannot stand.

By Samantha Stephenson, Crisis Magazine – As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. undergoes the rigors of his Senate confirmation hearing, the parallels are undeniable. Headlines abound to discredit RFK, an outsider lacking the medical expertise to weigh in on topics like vaccine safety. Despite having repeatedly iterated that he is not anti-vax, RFK’s opponents insist on characterizing him as such… Conspiracy theorists will say that this is propaganda designed to keep the powerful in power and suppress the truth about vaccines that are making our children sick. Pragmatists like Calley Means will insist that we follow the money; RFK’s call for further testing of the CDC vaccine schedule will almost certainly take its toll on Big Pharma’s bottom line.

By Virginia Allen, Daily Signal – The Trump administration is fighting sanctuary policies with a lawsuit against Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats. Illinois Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives are praising the action… “Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Johnson have failed to enforce the laws of our country allowing illegal immigrants to flood our communities,” Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., told The Daily Signal.

By Tyler Arnold, CNA – The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) banned biological men from competing in women’s sports on Thursday, Feb. 6, to comply with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump the previous day… A new NCAA policy that went into effect on Thursday afternoon states that biological men are no longer eligible to compete on women’s college athletic teams under any circumstance. The NCAA is the largest college athletic association and governs the athletic policies for the highest levels of college sports.

By Jules Gomes, The Stream – Now, as the Trump administration has begun deporting foreign criminals alongside “collaterals” (illegal aliens present during Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids), Catholic and Protestant progressives are canonizing the Good Samaritan as the patron saint of illegal immigration… Jesuit pro-LGBT crusader Fr. James Martin is firing a barrage of Samaritan shells on X, claiming that “our ultimate salvation depends, as it did for that man, upon those whom we often consider to be the ‘stranger.’”

By Scott McKay, American Spectator – Trump’s Gaza proposal may not be viable, but at least we’ve moved away from the constant reiteration of the unworkable “two-state” solution… This is a column about Gaza and Donald Trump’s out-of-the-box, shocking little spitball that maybe the U.S. would take the place over and rebuild it into something completely different than the hellhole it is presently… You’ve seen all kinds of reactions to that by now. One of the best of them, by James McGee, showed up here at the site yesterday. James is exactly right that it took an amazing amount of courage for Trump to offer up that proposal.

By Doug Mainwaring, LifeSiteNews – President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning men, including those who “identify” as female, from participating in women’s sports in order to “protect opportunities for women and girls to compete in safe and fair sports.”  … “The war on women’s sports is over,” declared the president to the delight of the crowd… The scene in the White House East Room on Wednesday, where the president was flanked by dozens of women and girl athletes who had been waiting for this moment ….

By James H. McGee, The American Spectator – Palestinian children surely deserve better than being raised in Hamas’ incubator of hatred… When President Donald Trump first floated the idea of moving the Palestinians away from Gaza, the entire notion was largely dismissed as “Trump being Trump.” In particular, the foreign policy “experts” brushed it aside as a silly idea, something they placed in the same category as “buying Greenland” or “taking back the Panama Canal.” But no more, not after yesterday afternoon’s formal public announcement, made as part of a joint public meeting with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

By Paul Kengor, Editor, The American Spectator – Prager University has teamed up with The American Spectator’s editor, Paul Kengor, for a special six-part video series on history’s worst dictators. The “Hall of Evil” series launched on Feb. 3 with the first installment on Bolshevik dictator Vladimir Lenin (click here). A new installment will be released each Monday morning through mid-March, with Lenin followed by Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Fidel Castro, and Pol Pot… Kengor talked about how the series came about and how impressed he was with the PragerU operation. “In 2018, I had done a video for PragerU on Karl Marx,” recalls Kengor. “I was blown away by the response. The video has 5 million views on the PragerU site and another 3.35 million on YouTube. Prager University has an enormous impact.”

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – New Attorney General Pam Bondi announced today after she was sworn in that she will launch a new investigation of lawfare against pro-life and conservative Americans… Bondi initiated significant changes today within the Department of Justice (DOJ) to address concerns over the politicization of justice. One of her first actions was to establish a “Weaponization Working Group” tasked with reviewing instances where legal proceedings may have been influenced by political biases.

By Cheryl Sullenger, LifeNews – (Pres. Trump ended) taxpayer funded disbursements through the corrupt USAID, a large promoter of abortion and depopulation programs in the U.S. and abroad… On January 24, 2025, President Trump reinstated the “Mexico City Policy,” which ended use of taxpayer money for organizations that promote, fund, or conduct abortions. Days later, Pres. Trump issued a temporary freeze on funds dispersed through USAID… Under Biden’s administration, USAID budgeted $607.5 million during the 2022 Fiscal Year alone for its bilateral family planning and reproductive health program. That money went to expanding and funding abortion programs and organizations. Third world countries in Africa were especially targeted for abortion expansion.

By Joachim Osther, The Stream – One of the many questions about collusion and corruption in the political machinery of Washington D.C. is about “the money.” How is that members of Congress become immensely wealthy to the tune of tens of millions of dollars on a salary of less than $200,000?… Give the massive corruption and scandal involved in the billions of dollars given to NGOs to facilitate illegal immigration, what are the instruments by which we are funding NGOs? Do members of Congress involved in this money funneling? What else are taxpayers funding under the guise of “humanitarian aid?”… Enter the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID.

By Monica Miller, Crisis Magazine – The twenty-three pardoned pro-lifers have now all returned to their family and friends filled with joy, gratitude; confident that at least while Trump is in office, pro-lifers who defend the unborn will not be hauled off to federal prison. But they all feel the injustice of abortion very keenly, oddly, perhaps now even more so. As they are all free, they know that the unborn, as a victim class, are not.  Will Goodman, after being imprisoned for five-hundred days, stated, … It is a travesty that our pre-born sisters and brothers continue to face the death penalty every day. …

By Moira Gleason, Daily Signal – Two conservative women’s groups urged the Senate to enact into law protections for women’s sports as President Donald Trump signed an executive order barring men from women’s sports Wednesday… “The war on women’s sports is over. Should have been done long ago,” Trump told a room packed with female athletes, government officials, and supporters… The order, titled “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports,” directs federal agencies to ensure entities that receive federal funding interpret federal Title IX law according to biological sex, not the sex someone chooses to “identify” as.

By Craig Bannister, MRC TV – A growing number of examples are surfacing of how the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), well out of the scope of its purpose, has been spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to advance ESG/DEI ideology… The examples are being brought to light as Democrats are fiercely fighting to protect USAID from the Trump Administration’s efforts to stop the federal government enormous waste of taxpayers’ money.

By Mark Judge, Chronicles – Fr. James Martin, the Jesuit priest who has spent his entire life advocating for left-wing causes, is all over social media preaching that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were refugees and therefore, good Christians should oppose President Trump’s efforts to stop illegal immigration into the United States… What Fr. Martin does not wrestle with is the concept of evil. Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old illegal immigrant from Venezuela, murdered a young woman named Laken Riley during a 20-minute struggle… I don’t expect Fr. Martin ever to acknowledge that Ibarra is evil, not to mention the drug dealers and girl traffickers who poured over our border in the Biden years, because Fr. Martin can’t even acknowledge that pedophilia is evil.

By Thomas Gallatin, Patriot Post – He plans to act via executive orders and pressure Congress to eliminate the needless department… The Department of Education never should have been created in the first place. The main reason it exists is because Jimmy Carter and the Democrats running Congress wanted to placate the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, by creating the department back in 1979. ….

By Jarrett Stepman, The Daily Signal – The Trump administration is putting a stick of dynamite under the deep state, and Democrats are apoplectic… On Tuesday, President Donald Trump put nearly all District of Columbia-based employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development on leave. According to Politico, this amounts to about 1,400 people in addition to 600 employees who were put on leave starting Sunday.

By The Stream – J.D. Vance outraged the insider networks of the D.C. Catholic subculture and got attacked by multiple bishops when he called out the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for profiting massively from federal contracts via non-profits like Catholic Charities in the name of resettling immigrants. More than 200,000 immigrant children went missing in 2024, a scandal about which the bishops are silent. As The Stream has documented, the U.S. bishops collected some $3 billion from U.S. taxpayers for immigration programs in just 15 years.

By Charles C. Camosy, First Things – Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear knows that the pro-life movements have received some very important victories courtesy of the Trump administration. The horror show that was “reproductiverights.gov” is no more. The Mexico City policy was reenacted, meaning U.S. tax dollars may not be legally used to support the violence of abortion in other countries. Trump also signed an executive order that supports the Hyde Amendment’s ban on federal funding of abortion in the U.S. He pardoned pro-life activists who were unjustly jailed for peacefully protesting abortion in various contexts. The thrust of the born-alive protections for babies who survive abortions were made official administrative policy.

By Stephen Kokx, LifeSiteNews – The foreign aid agency USAID has morphed into a slush fund for the Deep State to spread wokeism and to spark revolutions in countries that resist its tyrannical decrees. President Trump has had enough of this, and his administration is moving to dismantle the program… Under Joe Biden, USAID was run by World Economic Forum functionary Samantha Powers, who weaponized the agency to funnel boatloads of cash to Ukraine, among other futile projects.

By Daniel B. Gallagher, The Catholic Thing – Only against the background of this ordering of love can we understand what J.D. Vance meant in a recent interview when he invoked the ordo amoris: “There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world.”… If the Vice President had meant this to be a list of unrelated spheres of concern, he would be clearly wrong. But it’s clear he did not mean this.

By Anthony Esolen, Crisis Magazine – It is not my place to instruct any bishop about the religious life. But I can recommend things nearby. Get to know the faithful outside of both the chancery and various parish committees. Especially get to know the men, an untapped source of dynamism and of opinions based in practical experience; they have been too long neglected. Visit the schools. Forge bonds with homeschooling families. Go to churches in danger of closing, and bring no officials with you. Attend the Latin Mass. That should go without saying.

By Edward Pentin – Just a fortnight into the Trump presidency and the damage wrought by the Pope and the Vatican allying too closely with Democrat-run globalism on a variety of moral issues is becoming clear, the head of an Italian Church think tank has said… In a Jan. 29 commentary entitled “Trump and the Vatican: War in Progress,” Professor Stefano Fontana wrote that early policy decisions of the Trump administration have exposed the extent to which the Vatican’s close alignment with a progressive globalist agenda has caused “great damage” by weakening her voice on a number of serious moral issues.

By John Cassara, Crisis Magazine – The USCCB’s and the charities and organizations it supports promote facilitating illegal immigration as “acts of mercy.”… It is well-documented that illegal immigration is responsible for various forms of human suffering and degradation. Murder, gang violence, human trafficking, sex trafficking, narcotics trafficking, theft, terrorism, organized crime, torture, rape, assault, kidnapping, corruption, money laundering, various forms of fraud, and environmental crime all result from illegal immigration.

By Jonathan Liedl, National Catholic Register – The vice president’s appeal to the ‘ordo amoris,’ a theological principle developed by Augustine and Aquinas, has sparked a theological debate — and suggested that Catholic principles are about to play an unprecedented role in policy disputes… Is JD Vance adding Catechism-in-Chief to his myriad of other official duties? Lately, he’s been giving the new administration a “Theology on Tap” vibe, even if not everyone is drinking it up…

By Stephen Moore, Patriot Post – President Donald Trump should call for a national education emergency… Just how much longer will American parents, their kids, business leaders and the political class tolerate the dreadful performance of our public schools? It’s arguably the greatest threat to our nation’s economic health and our national security… The latest Nation’s Report Card test scores are dismal and heartbreaking. The crash that started with inexcusable COVID-19-era school closures has continued over a cliff in almost every state.

By Rob Hyde, The Catholic Herald – The Catholic Church in Germany is at a crossroads when it comes to migration… For years, it has rightly championed the dignity of migrants and refugees, calling for compassion and solidarity. But as Germany faces an escalating migration crisis, it risks losing credibility due to a recent spat over a hardline migration bill… “Many cities and communities can no longer adequately accommodate and care for these people. Successful integration is very difficult, sometimes hardly possible. The situation is tense and very difficult. Acceptance of the admission of further refugees is falling drastically. We have to significantly reduce the number of refugees.” (said Friedrich Merz, leader of the CDU)

By John Norberg, First Things – Americans have woken up to the fact that they are being told to act, think, and invest in a certain way. The undercurrent of American rebellion and independence just won’t stomach that, even less so now that the status quo has changed. Not to mention, ESG investing was a terrible idea to begin with. If you intentionally limit your options for investing based on a shaky philosophy of woke totemism, you will likely find it handcuffs you and your firm to an ever-changing chimera of values and taboos that may or may not align with financial success for your clients. It appears some of the world’s largest financial institutions found this out the hard way and decided to make a hasty exit—after all, one cannot deny the age-old truth that money talks.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – Elon Musk has confirmed that the Trump administration is shutting down USAID, the international agency that provides financial aid for nations worldwide. It has come under criticism over the years for promoting abortion in other countries… Musk, leading the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, announced plans to shut down the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In an audio conversation on X Spaces, Musk stated, “We’re shutting it down. With regards to the USAID stuff, I went over it with [the president] in detail and he agreed that we should shut it down.”

By Fr Richard Heilman, US Grace Force – The Time is Now to Unite in Prayer! We MUST NOT relax our prayer efforts! Exorcist Fr Chad Ripperger is reminding and asking all of us to step up our prayer, adoration, and more for the protection and guidance of President Trump and the rest of our government. Fr. Ripperger has written a specific prayer to help shield those in the government and consecrate our country to Our Lady. It is imperative that we unite in prayer and stand strong!

By Steve Bannon, Warroom, (Complicit Clergy) – Liz Yore was interviewed this morning by Steve Bannon regarding a new letter from Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò to American Catholics.

By Anne Hendershott, American Spectator – The truth is that the border crisis itself has threatened the very fabric of our society. The Catholic Charities and US Bishops should acknowledge this… And although we are called as Catholics to “welcome the stranger,” our resources have become overwhelmed, and our cities can no longer provide the necessary shelter and assistance that these immigrants need.  It is time for a new solution and most people understand that. It is time that the bishops of the Catholic Church acknowledged this also.

By Almudena Martínez-Bordiú, ACI Prensa and EWTN – The Vatican City State has toughened sanctions for those who try to illegally enter its territory in areas where free access is not allowed… In a decree issued last month by the Holy See, the monetary sanctions and prison sentences for those who violate the strict security regulations of Vatican City have been considerably increased… The document… provides for monetary fines ranging from 10,000 to 25,000 euros (about $10,200 to $25,700) and prison sentences ranging from one to four years. …

By Complicit Clergy by Staff – Notice Archbishop Thomas Wenski’s slight-of-hand: he claims that the millions of migrants who illegally crossed our borders were not, in fact, “illegal aliens” but, instead, were “refugees”, simply because the Biden administration handed these people a piece of paper at the border. Wenski, along with most of the U.S. bishops, were willing accomplices in this ruse because they received billions of taxpayer dollars in exchange for trafficking these illegal aliens throughout our nation.

By Theresa Farnan, Eric Kniffin, Mary Rice Hasson, First Things – Trump’s ban on gender transitioning has turned the tide on an indefensible cult,” writes Telegraph columnist Suzanne Moore. “The pretense that sex can be changed is over.” In just ten days, President Trump has worked a stunning reversal of ten years of federal policy. From the Obama years to the Biden era, progressives sought to “eradicate the biological reality of sex” and replace it with “an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity.” They largely succeeded.

By Anthony Iafrate, CatholicVote – Two weeks into his second term, President Donald Trump’s newfound popularity has stunned many observers in the media… “This is a very different Donald Trump. He’s leading a very different administration,” CNN Senior Writer and Political Analyst Harry Enten said during a Jan. 26th broadcast. “And the American public is very much more in line with him than they were at any point during his entire first term.”

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – The Planned Parenthood abortion business is opening its largest abortion business ever. The massive facility will be located in Oakland, California and could kill babies in abortions up to birth… Planned Parenthood officials expect it will be able to kill thousands of babies. The opening of the Oakland center is seen as a strategic move to attract more abortion customers coming to the Bay Area on flights from pro-life states for abortions.

By William M Briggs, The Stream – You’ll do yourself and the world a tremendous service if every time you see or hear the term “AI” you substitute the phrase “computer model.”… This is because so-called artificial intelligence (AI) is a computer model — or more specifically, a collection of many such models. When you hear “computer model” instead of “AI,” you’re much less apt to become excited or nervous, and when you speak the substitution it becomes much less easy to boast or to have the boast taken overly seriously… With that in mind, let’s look at the buzz around the government’s new Stargate Project.

By Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, LifeSiteNews – Abp. Carlo Maria Viganò has written a stunning letter celebrating the re-election of Donald J. Trump as the President of the United States, seeing it as a triumph against the globalist agenda… In this letter, released on Sunday, February 2, 2025, Abp. Viganò warns of the Deep State and Deep Church, which he believes collude to undermine sovereignty and Catholic teachings through woke ideology, mass immigration, and engineered crises. He condemns the UN, WHO, and WEF for promoting population control and accuses Catholic bishops of financial and moral corruption. He urges Catholics to reject false obedience, defend truth, and resist evil forces aiming to dismantle natural and divine law.

By Thaddeus G. McCotter, Chronicles Magazine – Consider the president’s recent executive order offering 2 million federal employees buyouts covering approximately eight months of salary and benefits. Per the New York Post: The ‘golden age’ of America now comes with a golden parachute… White House aides expect between 5% and 10% of federal workers to take the deal—which is projected to save taxpayers $100 billion a year, according to Axios, which first reported on the plan. …

By Matthew Continetti, Patriot Post – I haven’t seen Chuck Schumer so happy in months. There he was Wednesday, practically ready to burst into song while celebrating the Trump administration’s withdrawal of a memo ordering a federal spending freeze… “Americans made their voices heard,” Schumer crowed. “Donald Trump rescinded the OMB order.”… The snafu over the OMB memo was a reminder that de-wokeifying the government isn’t a matter of snapping one’s fingers. The federal workforce backs Democrats both politically and financially. …

By M.D. Kittle, The Federalist – House Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries on resistance movement against MAGA: ‘We’re going to fight it in the streets.’ We’ve seen this movie… At a Brooklyn press conference Friday morning, House Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries was back to inciting his followers to “fight” President Donald Trump and the MAGA “agenda” in “the streets.”… “We are going to fight it legislatively, we are going to fight it in the courts, and we’re going to fight it in the streets,” the New York Democrat said. ….

By Moira Gleason, Daily Signal – Homeschool families in Virginia celebrated a victory Thursday after the Virginia state Senate backed away from a bill that threatened religious exemptions for homeschoolers… SB 1031 sought to get rid of an exemption that permits families in the state to homeschool their children because of their religious convictions. After initially voting to pass the bill, the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee acted on a motion to reconsider and voted 13-2 to pass by indefinitely on the bill, meaning the bill will not go to the Senate floor unless the committee takes the bill up again.

By Jaryn Crouson, Daily Caller, (Complicit Clergy) – Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington signaled Friday that Catholic teachings support President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement… Pope Francis and several bishops have previously taken stances against the president, calling Trump’s mass deportation plans a “disgrace” and stating that Catholic teaching requires countries to be open to migrants. Burbidge stated that although Catholics should affirm the dignity of migrants, nations also have a duty to uphold the rule of law and common good for its citizens.

By Jorge Vela, NBC News, (Complicit Clergy) – Others, like McAllen Resident Timothy Wilkins, feel a freeze in federal funding is necessary… “I think Catholic Charities had a noble purpose on its inception, but again, you know, they, they streamlined the illegal immigration process and incentivized it to the degree we had millions of people stream across our borders,” Wilkins said.

By Katy Christian Magazine, by Staff – “We all suspected that the Biden-Harris administration was allowing this invasion on purpose,” French said. “But now we know they are doing much more to enable illegals to get on the taxpayer-funded cash train. It’s beyond outrageous.”… Catholic Charities of Fort Worth (CCFW), a local chapter affiliated with the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth, is facing allegations of facilitating illegal immigration by partnering with Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD) and distributing federal funds to assist illegal immigrants… CCFW has reportedly received nearly $1 billion in federal funding from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) since 2022.

By Scott McKay, American Spectator – Donald Trump and his team are overwhelming (Jamie Raskin, Democrat congressman from Maryland) and the rest of the discredited Democrat political class with what Trump called a revolution of common sense… Those executive orders and directives are the meat of it, of course, but it’s more than that. The entire culture of the American government is being ripped out at the root and rebooted, and it’s so fresh and overdue that it’s even having an effect on the culture at large… I could give you a million examples, but unlike in Raskin’s case, I’d rather not drop some overwhelming sensory overload on our readers. So, as is customary for these entries, I’ll just limit these examples to five.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – During a Senate hearing today, FBI Director nominee Kash Patel has confirmed that he will put an end to all targeting of pro-life Americans, marking a significant shift in federal law enforcement priorities… Under the Biden regime, pro-life activists and organizations have faced increased scrutiny, with some rightly alleging that the FBI unfairly targeted them for their beliefs. Patel’s commitment to ending such practices signals a move toward ensuring that law enforcement remains neutral and does not discriminate based on political or ideological perspectives.

By Justine Brooke Murray, MRC TV – How scary to think that up until now, civilized society allowed pseudo-doctors to chemically castrate and sexually mutilate children in the name of a cult-like ideology… It’s a barbaric practice widely condemned by the West when it’s carried out by the backward societies of the Middle East that remain stuck in the 7th century. But when our own children become the victims of that same barbarism, our virtue-signaling pop culture has not only normalized but encouraged the act in the name of “gender affirming care.”

By Jim Hᴏft, Gateway Pundit – President Donald Trump has set a Saturday deadline to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada… The administration asserts that these tariffs will remain until both neighboring countries take substantial measures to curb the flow of unauthorized migrants and illicit drugs into the United States… This announcement follows a recent agreement with Colombia, where the threat of similar tariffs led the Marxist president to fold like a cheap suit and begin accepting deported migrants…

By Father Raymond J. de Souza, National Catholic Register – ice President Vance’s speech at the March for Life was noteworthy for indicating a shift from the legal front toward a cultural and economic pro-life agenda… Pro-life Americans welcomed some early initiatives from the new Trump administration, including a restoration of the Mexico City Policy prohibiting American funding of abortion overseas, the granting of pardons to pro-life protestors convicted under the FACE Act, and canceling a Biden-Harris administration policy of considering abortion as “health care,” which permitted taxpayer funding of abortion.

By Jules Gomes, The Stream – Javier Milei challenges the WEF to take a “mea culpa” for its misdeeds and “make the West great again”… Argentinian President Javier Milei has sparked protests from LGBTQ+ activists after a fierce attack on the “wokeness” of the World Economic Forum, in which he condemned gender ideology as child abuse and its promoters as pedophiles… Milei’s invective last Thursday unequivocally demanding the “defense of life, liberty, and private property”…

By Beth Brelje, The Federalist – In a Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday, feckless Democrat senators grilled Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI director, trying to paint him as a Trump henchman hellbent on seeking revenge for all the crap the FBI put Trump and American citizens through… It’s no wonder they are worried; the nation has seen how the FBI has been turned into a political weapon, and Democrats don’t want it pointed at them.

By Emily Mangiaracina, LifeSiteNews – Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is President Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, pledged to reinstate the first Trump administration’s ban on federal research with tissue from babies killed in elective abortions… Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri asked Kennedy during his Senate confirmation hearing, “Will you reinstate President Trump’s policy that ensures that no federal research and no federal tax dollars is conducted on fetal tissue taken from elective abortions?”… “Yes,” he responded. 

By James Hankins, First Things – Cardinal McElroy is hailed in the New York Times as a Good Catholic because he has been known to speak out “on the inclusion of migrants, women and L.G.B.T.Q. people in the Catholic church.” The Bad Catholics include JD Vance, who has “advanced a hard-line anti-immigrant agenda,” and Brian Burch, whom President Trump nominated as ambassador to the Holy See, rewarding him for his help in harvesting the conservative Catholic vote.

By Sandy Fitzgerald, Newsmax – Vice President J.D. Vance’s accusations that Catholic bishops have criticized President Donald Trump’s stance on immigration because they’re concerned about losing money were disappointing and harmful, according to Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York… “I was really disappointed with what he said on ‘Face the Nation’ the other day, and I don’t mind telling you, somewhat hurt,” Dolan said on his SiriusXM program, “Conversation with Cardinal Dolan,” on Tuesday. “This was not only harmful, this was inaccurate.”

By Nick Kangadis, MRC TV – Talk about a heartbreaking and heartwarming moment all rolled into one… On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law in front of Republican politicians that championed the bill and in front of Laken Riley’s family… In a press conference where Riley’s mother, Allyson Phillips, made remarks, she thanked multiple senators, as well as Trump. Phillips even went so far as to praise the president for quickly fulfilling the promises he made to them.

By John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist – We’re never going to have peace and security on our southern border until we deal with the corrupt and criminal elements that run Mexico… Earlier this week, suspected Mexican drug cartel gunmen fired on U.S. Border Patrol agents in Texas, who fired back. This took place on a strip of land in the middle of the Rio Grande called Fronton Island, also known as “Cartel Island” because it was previously used as a staging area for cartel smuggling operations. Texas authorities took over the island as part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star and declared it Texas territory in November 2023.

By Catholic Charities by Staff – Outraged erupted earlier this week when an internet video from a Catholic Charities immigration attorney from the diocese of Milwaukee went viral, exposing how Catholic Charities is trying to obstruct President Trump’s deportation of illegal aliens… Catholic Charities of Milwaukee is not the only office providing this type of advice to illegal aliens. Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa has begun issuing “Red Cards” to illegal aliens to help them know “their rights” under the U.S. Constitution. We did not realize that illegal aliens have U.S. Constitutional rights!

By: Ben Weingarten, The Federalist – The Capitol riot fueled the war on wrongthink. Clemency for Capitol rioters should represent the start of the end of that war… In the four years since the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, Democrats have crushed and disenfranchised their political opponents in a bid to achieve total power by waging a whole-of-society war on wrongthink. This war encompassed, among other elements, the lawfare apparatus, the broader weaponized administrative state, and the Censorship-Industrial Complex.

By Jules Gomes, The Stream – Jules Gomes: The cardinal rule of preaching is to revere the pulpit and never to use it for a political agenda — or even worse, use it to attack a member of the congregation. The Reverend Lorenzo Sewell, who prayed at President Trump’s inauguration, called it “theological malpractice.” As a bishop who oversees preachers, do you think Bishop Budde violated this rule? …. Bishop Orji: Yes, Bishop Budde misused the pulpit for her personal and social justice agenda rather than using it for preaching the Gospel and teaching the Word of God. The Church is the pillar of Truth in the sense that we are called to live and proclaim Christ and His Truth to the world. ….

By Fr. Kevin Drew, Catholic Exchange – “Pregnant Cow That Broke Free on New Jersey Highway Inspires New Legislation.”… was the headline on January 22, 2019, from a CBS news affiliate in New Jersey. A cow had jumped off a truck which was ten minutes from the slaughter house… this “daring escape” by the cow inspired a new bill that would make transporting pregnant livestock for killing a crime under New Jersey’s animal cruelty laws… The giant abortion company Planned Parenthood, which received $700 million of our tax dollars last year and has made billions since the Supreme Court greenlighted abortion in 1973, was caught selling baby parts in 2015. …

By Daniel McCarthy, Patriot Post – The Trump-Vance approach has given pro-lifers victories that would have been impossible if abortion had remained a national issue… Nebraska wouldn’t have been able to pass an amendment to the state constitution prohibiting abortion after the first trimester, and Florida voters wouldn’t have been able to uphold their state’s ban on the procedure after six weeks — to name just two recent successes… The most hardline supporters of abortion, meanwhile, have been thwarted: Not only did they lose the showdown over Roe, they risk losing all their political momentum as Americans become more used to settling this most contentious of issues at the state level.

CatholicVote – “President Trump is back and the golden age of America has most definitely begun,” Leavitt declared at the opening of the press conference, echoing a remark Trump made in his inauguration speech last week… “Since taking the oath of office, President Trump has taken more than 300 executive actions,” Leavitt said, “secured nearly one trillion dollars in U.S. investments, deported illegal alien rapists, gang members, and suspected terrorists from our homeland, and restored common sense to the federal government.” ….

By Karoline Leavitt, via Complicit Clergy – WATCH: Karoline Leavitt holds her very first White House press briefing, answering a question about Catholic Charities and their aid to immigration.

By Michael Hichborn,  LifeSite News, (Complicit Clergy) – The average budget for the US bishops’ pro-life office is just around $2 million, compared to $134 million in 2023 for ‘migration and refugee services.’ Even worse, the USCCB is giving parishioners’ money to pro-abortion groups through its Catholic Campaign for Human Development and Catholic Relief Services… 63 million. It’s a number so large the human mind can scarcely comprehend what it means.

By Tom Gantert, Daily Signal – Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action for America, said it will require 12,000 more agents, 4,000 more attorneys, 1,000 more judges, and 1,000 more support staff to deport the 20 million illegal aliens that voters elected President Donald Trump to evict… Roberts wrote in a Monday op-ed published in Fox News that Trump’s immigration agenda will require funding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on a “historic scale” and require at least 100,000 detention beds.

By Sheryl Collmer, Crisis Magazine – This world is not the same as it was two weeks ago. Technicolor has arrived in Oz. The sense of dread I’ve had for several years now is slowly receding. I can hardly wait to get out of bed in the morning (metaphorically, anyway)… Accustomed as we are to the glacial pace of anything institutional, we’re panting to keep up with Trump’s actions over the past week. I’m chronicling all these accomplishments, but I can’t keep up. I go to bed thinking the day is over and wake up to ten new things. Big things.

By Al Perrotta, The Stream – Holocaust Remembrance Day: 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp… Yesterday marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Between 1940 and 1945, an estimated 1.1 million people were murdered there — predominantly Jews, but also Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, and others.

By Jordan Boyd, The Federalist – Americans who overwhelmingly oppose taxpayer-funded abortions will no longer be forced to pay for overseas baby-killing after President Donald Trump signed an executive order reinstating prohibitions on the unpopular practice… In a January 24 memorandum, Trump ordered the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the secretary of health and human services, and the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development to immediately cease by reinstating the Mexico City policy first implemented by President Ronald Reagan.

By Thomas Gallatin, Patriot Post – A just future is a color-blind future. The evil of racism is that it pits ethnic groups against each other. A society with diverse racial groups cannot cohesively exist in unity if these ethnic differences are elevated as primary identity delimiters that are to be held above all else. A truly unified and just society would view racial differences as insignificantly as it views differences in eye color. It recognizes that people look different, but they are still people like everyone else.

By Tim Goeglein, The Federalist – In his classic The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote: The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an unuprooted small corner of evil.

By Tyler O’Neil, Daily Signal – President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Monday to build an American version of the Israeli “Iron Dome” missile defense system. An expert in national security—and in the Iron Dome, in particular—praised Trump’s action as the fulfillment of President Ronald Reagan’s strategic defense plan… According to a news release provided early to The Daily Signal, Trump’s executive order “directs the implementation of a next generation missile defense shield for the United States against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next generation aerial attacks.” …

By M. V. Dougherty, Catholic World Report – Prelates of the Roman Catholic Church have not been silent on the general dangers posed by the misuse of AI. On several occasions last year, Pope Francis offered remarks about the potential misapplication of various AI technologies. More recently, the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, revealed that his department of the Roman Curia is working with the Dicastery for Education and Culture to produce a document on the ethical use of AI.

By Pam Key, Breitbart – Vice President JD Vance said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has “not been a good partner in common sense immigration enforcement.”… the US Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line? We’re going to enforce immigration law. We’re going to protect the American people.

By National Catholic Register Staff – Now the task of our movement is to protect innocent life. It’s to defend the unborn and it’s also to be pro-family and pro-life in the fullest sense of that word possible. Now, across my own lifetime, I can’t tell you the number of friends and other acquaintances I’ve had who, facing a pregnancy or the prospect of one, react not with joy but with concern. They wonder how can they afford it; what will it mean for their education, their career, their relationship or their family? …

By Victor Davis Hanson, Daily Signal – And so there was a sin of omission: what we didn’t do because we were spending on DEI and commission. We were discriminating against people and robbing ourselves of talent. Bottom line is the corrective… The remedy for this malady is going to be expensive, and that’s what the Left is glomming onto, but they’re forgetting that the malady itself that they cause was far more expensive than the cure.

By  John M. Grondelski, Ph.D., Catholic World Report – At one time, “birth” was supposedly a bright line that separated and differentiated a “clump of tissue” from a “person.” But that line has been eroding, as evidenced by the failure of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors’ Protection Act to pass this last week… On January 22nd, the United States Senate could not find 60 senators to vote to overcome a filibuster and pass the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors’ Protection Act. Although S.6 garnered a majority–52-47–it needed 60 votes to pass. Every Republican voted for it (except Tennessee Sen. Bill Haggerty, who was absent); every Democrat voted against it.

By Peter Wolfgang, Catholic Culture – Trump was reelected to stand up to the establishment folks sitting right there during his inauguration and I was glad that he called them out to their faces, even more than last time. My impression is that Trump is very ticked off. He didn’t shy from references to what was done to him, including the bullet to the head. I initially did not understand why the Left went the “fear and trembling” route in response to Trump’s 2024 victory instead of the “rage and resistance” route they chose in 2016. I understand it now. They are right to be afraid. The whole “drain the swamp” thing is real this time in a way that it was not last time.

By Complicit Clergy, (LifeSiteNews) – An analysis of government spending found the Biden administration granted Catholic NGOs nearly $2.9 billion in immigration-related funding over the past four years, more than triple the level of funding under Trump’s first administration… For the past four years, many Catholics have been perplexed as to why most Catholic bishops have refused to condemn Joe Biden’s heinous anti-Catholic policies. … For those who continue to be astonished by our shepherds’ silence, we may have discovered the answer. Complicit Clergy just completed updating its previous analysis on migration-related federal funding awarded to Catholic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to include all four years of the Biden administration.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – In his first week of the new term, President Donald Trump took several significant actions to advance pro-life policies… Trump started his incredible pro-life week with removing Joe Biden’s web site that promoted abortion. He followed that up with an executive order that confirmed human beings begin their lives at conception. …

By Craig Bannister, MRC TV – Democrats attended a retreat last week where psychologists counseled them on how to cope with the new administration of Donald Trump… House Judiciary ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) brought in what he called “social psychologists” to advise the Democrats about how to deal with “authoritarian styles of speech during the Trump era,” Punchbowl News reports… The psychologists reportedly specialize in issues like “emotion regulation” …

By Kate Quiñones, CNA, (Catholic World Report) – Following President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders on immigration, Colorado’s Catholic bishops on Friday encouraged the U.S. to balance justice and mercy in its regulation of immigration to the country… The bishops noted that the country’s immigration system has “grown more unlawful” since 2020… “The Catholic Church teaches that while individuals and their families have the right to migrate, no country has the duty to receive so many immigrants that its social and economic life is jeopardized,” the bishops indicated.

By John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist – On his first day in office, President Trump did the country a great service by issuing an executive order rejecting birthright citizenship as a requirement of the 14th Amendment… Whether Trump’s order will withstand the legal challenges remains to be seen (a federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked the order on Thursday). But the challenges themselves will force a reckoning on this issue, perhaps even at the Supreme Court… Such a reckoning is overdue. For far too long we have accepted without question the outlandish idea that every single person born on U.S. soil automatically becomes an American citizen, and that the 14th Amendment somehow mandates this suicidal policy.

By National Catholic Register Staff – As you know, this annual march started 52 years ago, on the first anniversary of the disastrous ruling known as Roe v. Wade. That unconstitutional decision took power away from the states and the voters, kicking off 50 years of division and anger. But thanks to your tireless work and devotion across five decades, that historic wrong was set right three years ago. I was so proud to be a participant. Six courageous justices of the Supreme Court of the United States returned the issue to the state legislatures and to the people, where it belongs. It became a vote of the people.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – Today, Trump revoked Biden’s executive order canceling the Mexico City Policy: I hereby revoke the Presidential Memorandum of January 28, 2021, for the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (Protecting Women’s Health at Home and Abroad), and reinstate the Presidential Memorandum of January 23, 2017, for the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (The Mexico City Policy).

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – President Donald Trump has signed an executive order pardoning the 23 pro-life Americans Joe Biden imprisoned for protesting abortion… “This is a great honor to sign this,” Trump said, condemning Biden’s lawfare, especially targeted at “elderly people.”… Trump granted pardons for 23 pro-life advocates who faced weaponized prosecutions brought against them by the Biden Department of Justice under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

By Douglas Andrews, Patriot Post – After what had undoubtedly been the busiest and most earth-shaking first few days in American presidential history, Donald Trump wisely phoned it in at the World Economic Forum… In a 45-minute Trumpian address followed by a wide-ranging Q-and-A, the American president made clear to Klaus Schwab and his fellow Great Resetters what they already knew: There’s a new sheriff in town… Trump began his remarks as only Trump can: by noting that it’s been “a truly historic week in the United States” and that we’ve begun “the Golden Age of America.” Oh, and by reminding those in attendance that he won all seven swing states.

By Clare Marie Merkowsky, LifeSiteNews – Arkansas has lowered its state flags to mourn the 65 million babies killed in abortion before the overturning of Roe v. Wade… On January 13, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders announced that the state would officially recognize January 22 as the “Day of Tears” to remember the tens of thousands of babies killed in Arkansas under Roe v. Wade… “Arkansas and its government acknowledge that we are all endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”

By Victor Davis Hanson, The Daily Signal – So, the people at Davos know that their socialist, globalist model doesn’t work. And they know that people don’t want to listen to them anymore because when people adopt these views, their economy slows, they get poorer, their borders are overrun. Illegal immigrants come and cannot be assimilated or integrated. And the people feel they have less security, prosperity, and freedom… Rather than addressing those concerns—and so having at Davos—why is Donald Trump being elected? Why was [Argentine President Javier] Milei? Maybe we can learn from these people because they represent elections and freedom.

By Matthew McDonald, National Catholic Register – Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to address the March for Life rally in Washington D.C. on Friday… Vance identifies as pro-life, though some pro-lifers have expressed disappointment by his compromises on the issue after President Donald Trump identified him as a potential running mate last year… But Vance maintains he is pro-life, and he has repeatedly suggested that pro-lifers need to become more politically savvy if they are to save the lives of unborn babies, given that most voters in the country support allowing abortion in the majority of cases.

By John M. Grondelski, The Catholic Thing – As the Pro-Life March takes place in Washington D.C. today, it’s good to remember that January 22, 2025 was the 52ndanniversary of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision imposing abortion-on-demand through birth on all the states.  Roe was the 20th century’s equivalent of the Dred Scott decision.  In 1857, the Supreme Court said Dred Scott – a black man taken by his owner to Illinois – could not be free because he was not a “person” and was thus subject to whatever choice his master made.  In 1973, the Supreme Court said unborn children were not “persons” and thus subject to whatever choice their mothers made.

By Nick Kangadis, MRC TV – t’s finally happened. The day so many people have been waiting for. Generations of Americans have just wanted to know the truth about the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr… On Thursday, President Donald Trump fulfilled a campaign promise by signing an Executive Order (EO) to declassify all remaining documents pertinent to the aforementioned assassinations. … “Lot of people waiting for this for years, for decades,” Trump said while signing the EO. “And everything will be revealed.”

By Emily Mangiaracina, LifeSiteNews – President Donald Trump’s new executive order affirming the immutable biological reality of sex includes language recognizing personhood from “conception.”… “‘Female’ means person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell,” the EO “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” (emphasis added) states… Ethics and Public Theology professor Andrew T. Walker on X called the language a “brilliantly stealth” move.

By Vicki Yamasaki, Corpus Christi for Unity and Peace – I always ask myself, “Why is this group advocating so fervently for its cause?” One should look to see if the group would profit from the advocacy.  If there is no profit motive, then perhaps they are taking a truly altruistic position.  In this case, the USCCB and its cohorts Catholic Charities and Catholic Social Services collectively stand to lose nearly $2.4 billion over the next four years, a sum that pew collections are unlikely to replace… Ultimately, the strident U.S. bishops who criticize President Trump and his team for deportations should rethink their actions. In business, their advocacy for the migrants is known as a conflict of interest—it occurs when someone’s advocacy for a cause (in this case, continued care of migrants) is influenced by their financial gain. …

By Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness – After a decade of this unhinged furor, it proved worthless in winning public support—and for two simple reasons… One, after years of Russian collusion hoaxes, the laptop disinformation farce, and the warped lies about the “suckers” and “fine people on both sides”—the shrill left became predictable… So, the bored public began tuning them out, switching channels, hitting the mute button, and pulling the plug… Like the deleterious effects of inflation that eventually render a currency worthless, nonstop hectoring, hysterics, pontification, and distortion finally made all such criticisms of Trump mostly as valueless as 1930s German marks.

By Elise DeGeeter, CatholicVote – The Trump State Department issued a “One Flag Policy” Monday, mandating that only the United States flag is authorized to be flown at all State Department buildings both at home and abroad… The new policy, implemented by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, effectively bans Pride and Black Lives Matter (BLM) flags from federal buildings… The order… states: “Starting immediately, only the United States of America flag is authorized to be flown or displayed at U.S. facilities, both domestic and abroad, and featured in U.S. government content.”

By Jim Tonkowich, The Stream – Just in time for the annual March for Life, several homes in my neighborhood have yard signs reading: “Pregnancy Is Personal, Not Political.”… That’s half right: Pregnancy is not political. Politics involves who we elect as president, governor, or mayor. It has to do with strategic energy reserves and borders, diplomacy, and national defense. Politics along with public policy and law are abstract and impersonal. Pregnancy is none of those things, and the countries that are attempting to make pregnancy a political issue are failing.

By CatholicVote – House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, told reporters Wednesday that the Republican-controlled chamber will investigate a series of controversial pre-emptive pardons former President Joe Biden made just hours before President Donald Trump took office… “There’s a lot of attention that’s going to be paid to this and I think that is appropriate and we will be looking at it as well,” Johnson stated… He called Biden’s pardons “shocking” and “breathtaking.” He specifically singled out the former president’s decision to pardon his three siblings and two of their spouses.

By Hannah Hiester, CatholicVote – Bishops from dioceses in Louisiana stated in a pastoral letter Jan. 17 that they will advocate for immigrants’ “just treatment and dignity within the framework of the law,” and they called for Louisiana politicians to do the same… headed by Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans, added that they are motivated to advocate for immigrants and stand in solidarity with them because of the “inherent dignity” that each person possesses.

By Andrea M. Picciotti-Bayer, National Catholic Register – As representatives for the Bayou State prepare for oral argument, they know the Constitution is on their side… As we enter into the first days of a new Trump administration, the founders offer good counsel for the nation and its leaders. For example, George Washington said in his Farewell Address that “Of all of the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” Lawmakers in Louisiana agree.

By Steven Ertelt, Life News – The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act requires that, when a baby is born alive following an abortion, health care practitioners must exercise the same degree of professional skill and care that would be offered to any other child born alive at the same gestational age. It also requires that, following appropriate care, health care workers must transport the living child immediately to a hospital… With 47 Democrats voting against ending debate on the common senate bil, a filibuster remains and the pro-life measure can’t go forward for a final vote.

By Patriot Post – “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” —Thomas Jefferson (1809)… January 22 marks the anniversary of the two most tragic Supreme Court decisions in American history, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. However, in light of the Supreme Court’s June 24, 2022, decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe and 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Sanctity of Life Day has a whole new and far more joyous meaning.

By Ken Oliver-Méndez, CNA – News that the country’s new president would kick off his administration by signing a tsunami of executive orders, including one that mandates adherence to the biological reality of two sexes, was particularly welcomed by Ethics and Public Policy Center President Ryan Anderson… Responding to Trump’s inaugural address declaration that “as of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,’” the author of the book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment posted “Thank you @realdonaldtrump” ….

By Elle Purnell, The Federalist – Trump promised to return America to normalcy and greatness. That the women in his orbit are doing so through their clothes makes the media furious… It was just four years ago that we suffered through the sartorial weirdness of the Biden inauguration. With no inaugural balls to attend because of Covid mania, the biggest fashion statements were made by Lady Gaga, whose ensemble looked like a Hunger Games version of those beehive-shaped Barbie cakes ….

By Heritage Foundation, Staff – President Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders his first day in office… President Donald Trump on Monday issued an executive order, “Clarifying the Military’s Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States,” to ensure that the U.S. armed forces prioritize the protection of U.S. sovereignty and territorial integrity along our national borders… The president ordered the U.S. Northern Command to deliver its plan to seal the borders and maintain U.S. sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security by repelling forms of invasion and mass migration, as well as narcotics and human smuggling and trafficking.

By Jacob Adams, Daily Signal – Mariann Edgar Budde, who holds one of the nation’s most prestigious clerical posts as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, curried controversy and drew pushback on Tuesday when she used a sermon to criticize President Donald Trump for some of his politics and policy prescriptions… The remarks came at a church service hosted by the bishop at her diocesan seat, the Washington National Cathedral. They were a stark contrast to the bipartisanship usually on display at the cathedral, where leaders from both parties are honored.

By Casey Chalk, Crisis Magazine – British evolutionary biologist and prominent atheist Richard Dawkins has regrets about describing himself as a “cultural Christian” last year in an interview. “I imprudently said I was a ‘cultural Christian,’ and I haven’t heard the end of it,” wrote Dawkins in a recent piece for The Spectator… Though standing by his earlier comments—in which he expressed appreciation for certain cultural elements of the Christian tradition—he quickly added: “but none of that undermines my conviction that what they believe about the nature of reality is nonsense.” …