'No Kings' wasn't no thing                  

During one episode of AMC's Mad Men, advertising savant Don Draper reassured a client worried about anti-construction protests and press naysayers. The client's project had proceeded on schedule despite loud critics, Don pointed out. Fret not. Because as annoying as the clatter seemed, it had zero practical consequence.

That TV moment was brought to thought by nationwide No Kings protests. They, too, were ear and eye abrasive, but ultimately impotent. All the corporate-churned placards, robotic call-and-response chantings, and subversive spectacles were as nothing.

President Trump remains in the White House; America is (and will always be) the world's leading superpower; domestic and international policies will still be determined by wise heads, rather than noisome brats of all ages and silly descriptions; law enforcement officers (including ICE) continue to enforce duly-passed statutes and safeguard the citizenry; and common sense yet prevails.

Most importantly, God's authority remains America's North Star.

No Kings lackwits would have observers believe our nation's founders were wicked, our culture and legal system irredeemably stained by long-passed and eternally dead injustices, and that President Trump is deceitful and ruinous to American interests.

(Ronald Reagan was a noble chief executive, but he did err in deinstitutionalizing the mad.)

A March 14 Economist report noted "GDP grew at 0.7% in the fourth quarter." Inflation was 3.0%, unemployment just 4.4%. The S&P 500 has risen to 9.6%. And a February CAPS/Harris poll reported 51% of respondents were confident our economy is strong.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt recently cited new IRS and Treasury Department data, that showed the average refund for 2026 tax-filers will be higher than in 2025. Newsweek cited "3, 700.00."

In February, the White House stated "President Donald J. Trump is delivering real, immediate relief to American families struggling with high housing costs as the national median rent falls to its lowest level since 2022."

Also: "This welcome news for renters comes as President Trump's agenda delivers falling mortgage rates (NBC News), record-breaking tax refunds (USA Today, CBS News, the Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, and CNBC), wage increases, and more - with much more relief on the way to make sure all Americans benefit."

Vehicle costs have also declined, giving auto manufacturers their best sales year since 2019 (Bloomberg).

Again, the White House: "Overall, goods-producing workers - the backbone of American industry - are on track to see their real annual earnings rise by $1,300 in President Trump's first full year in office. Mining and logging workers are on track for an increase of $2,000, construction workers are on track for an extra $1,400, and manufacturing workers are on track to gain $1,300."

The Redfin real estate brokerage firm reported mortgage rates dropped down to 6% in February and early March, the lowest rate in three and a half years.

Last December, the Trump administration announced agreements with nine major pharmaceutical companies. Drug companies will now charge U.S. purchasers the same low prices they have charged in foreign nations.

Iranian efforts to cultivate nuclear arms, with which to destroy entire lands of innocents, begged for scorched-earth demolishment. Commander Trump had the sand. And then some.

Of course, the new, grand bloom of patriotism in men's hearts cannot be mechanically gauged. The American mood, though, is now one of bristling pride in our Constitution, ideals, traditions, culture, and global preeminence.

Indications included the roaring throngs that packed candidate Trump's stadium rallies way past overflow, as well as his overwhelming victories in both electoral and popular votes.

Too, our commander in chief maintains impressive support, as verified by CNN and others' polling.

CAPS/Harris turned up 58% of respondents who endorse the principle of requiring proof of citizenship to vote. Other polling companies that registered support for voter ID include The Center Square (71%), Rasmussen (75%), McLaughlin and Associates (77%), Napolitan News Service (81%), Pew (83%), and Gallup (84%).

And reflect upon the return to sanity of President Trump's slamming tight the border and launching long-needed mass-deportations. Benefiting greatly are national security, safe neighborhoods, and efforts to crush drug and sex trafficking into America.

Cultural cohesivness, crucial for the survival of all nations, is again prized in our epic land.

So, ignore the circusy oddballs that milled through boulevards. Organizers claimed 8 million participants - a figure that might impress, except that some 77 million patriots made Trump's victory possible. 

The world still turns, and America will be just fine. Take it from Don Draper.

Iowa's Republican U.S. reps share mattress with donkeys 

"Them GOPs and Democrats, each hates the other one / They's always criticizing how the country should be run / But neither tell the public what the other's gone and done"

("The Country's in the Very Best of Hands," by Johnny Mercer and Gene de Paul, from 1950s Broadway musical and movie Li'l Abner.)

That condemnation is as spot-on today, as when icon Mercer first put pen to lyrical paper. And it now seems to describe Iowa U.S. Representatives Ashley Hinson, Marionette Miller-Meeks, Randy Feenstra, and Zach Nunn; all abetted the nastiness detailed below.

Recent reports revealed that 357 House chair warmers -- 182 Democrats and 175 Republicans -- voted against an absolutely just bill offered by South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace. It would have made public the names of officials who've withdrawn taxpayer monies from a behind-the-curtain slush fund, to pay off/silence alleged victims of members' sexual harrassment and abuse.

Hinson, Miller-Meeks, Feenstra, and Nunn all lodged terrible votes in defense of protecting credentialed wrongdoers.

A House Ethics Committee statement that sought to rationalize stabbing voters in the backs was issued by chairmen from both major parties. The phrase "partners in crime" leaps to mind.

Some 18 million of your and my tax dollars are said to have been so squandered. Even the severely allergic don't find that amount anything to sneeze at.

(Observers might wonder how Democrats who took up arms in opposition to openness, can turn about and shout over Epstein files. But, of course, hypocrisy is a Washington river that runs deep.)

Woke Democrats and ostensibly MAGA Republicans, including all Iowa representatives, massed shoulder-to-shoulder to cover for predatory sexual deviants in official ranks, and spit contemptuously in the eye of John Q. Public.

Behind this unabashed betrayal of voters, why should any of us support a guilty politician's future electoral efforts? To do so would be tantamount to squeaking "Thank you, may I have another?"

On another hand, Ronald Reagan famously counseled "the person who agrees with you 80% of the time is a friend and ally, not a 20% traitor." 

There was wisdom in his words. Congresspeople who behaved abominably in this matter may do fine things in future days. A whiskered political axiom holds "Never say never."

Numerous weighty issues are currently prominent. And shrewdness dictates sometime acceptance of wrongs, that unrelated goals can be attained. (Which is a fancy way of saying holding your nose.)

Still, those who've cast themselves against letting folks back home know what banks-of-the-Potomac muckety-mucks have been up to (or down to), have demonstrated they put club welfare before interests of the public that elected them.

Hawkeye State voters' attitudes toward Hinson, Miller-Meeks, Nunn, and Feenstra should match that of a parent whose 15 year-old comes through the front door long after curfew: "You'd better have a damn good explanation!"

Mercer was on the money.

The below essay of mine was carried by the Wateroo Courier newspaper on 3/18/2026.

Remember mad doctors? Meet mad judges.     

"If you don't impeach the corrupt judges, you cannot fix the country. They will form a cartel and block all reforms, protecting the systemic corruption that put them in their seats."

El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele once uttered those words, in seconding Elon Musk's warning of ethically wayward jurists. President Trump agrees.

Mad judges contrive monstrousness, though not in cobwebbed and moldy-stoned laboratories. Rather, it is behind upraised judicial benches and in stately chambers' solitude, that they lurk.

Meet thirteen members of the ungainly kick line of black-robed quislings presently doing dirt to the American people. 

- The 2025 Charlotte, North Carolina train stabbing of Iryna Zarutska, allegedly by Decarlos Brown Jr, was made possible by Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes. Though Brown had some 14 prior arrests, including for violent crimes, Stokes threw wide the freedom door for him, accepting the multiple offender's pledge that he would return for further proceedings. Poor Iryna had fled Ukraine's warfare, and sought safety in the U.S. 

- Californian Nicholas Roske was convicted last year of attempting to kill Brett Kavanaugh. The West Coast evildoer had flown across the country, armed and intent on fatal crime. Justice.gov quoted AG Pam Bondi as remarking “The attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was a disgusting attack against our entire judicial system by a profoundly disturbed individual. Though  the Trump Department of Justice advocated the would-be assassin receive a 30-years-to-life sentence, Judge Deborah Boardman gave Roske a mere 97 months.

- In late January, Obama-appointed District Court Judge Richard Boulware II ordered the release of illegal alien and MS-13 miscreant Harvey Laureano Rosales. Critics charged Boulware hoped Rosales could then evade deportation. According to Las Vegas CBS affiliate 8 News Now, Rosales "was convicted of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder, use of a firearm, and possession of a firearm by an ex-felon, all deemed gang-related, in 1997. He received multiple life sentences, spent more than 25 years in prison, where he joined the Mexican Mafia prison gang, and was granted parole in November 2022, court documents show. Immigration authorities civilly detained Rosales by April 2023, according to court documents."

Others who've let down American justice, empathizing with society's vilest (now a part of Democrats' support base), and exploiting positions to forestall President Trump's common-sense initiatives, include James Boasberg, Jeffrey Sutton, Tanya Chutkan, Juan Merchan, Gonzalo Curiel, Beryl Howell, Jon Tigar, Berman Jackson, and James Robart.

And remember now-former Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan? She misused her authority by attempting to aid Eduardo Flores-Ruiz evade ICE apprehension - though he was an illegal alien, reputed MS-13 member, and wife-beater. (Ruiz already had a deportation history)

I don't mean to imply that principled judges haven't answered our country's call for fair-minded and wise arbiters of Constitutional propriety. Such exist nationwide, and we are all indebted to them for maintaining American founders' vision of equality under the law. (Great inspiration for which came from England's Magna Carta.)

They perform tasks crucial to the ideal of fairness, and mete out appropriate punishments for those proven to have violated standards to which all good men hold fast. There could be no civilized order without them.

But their cracked-mirror opposites act as agents of a larger dark effort. One that has as its motivation - indeed, raison d'être - impeding any progress the Trump administration might make. America's president ran on and is implementing fine goals; a roaring majority of American voters (myself included) endorsed Trump.

Corrupt jurists elevate Orange Man Bad prejudices above sacred ideals. They've turned their minds to devising manners in which the popular will might be kicked into the gutter.

Releasing repeatedly-apprehended violent criminals and sexual predators into innocent American neighborhoods poses great danger to the public. Plainly, judges who do so are indifferent to (and seemingly contemptuous of) the citizenry whose safety should be among their highest concerns.

The Constitution offers a judicial impeachment mechanism. And, were there enough congressional officials of honor, efforts would already populate headlines.

Some judges are elected. Others are appointed by office holders. In old Hollywood scare-cinema, mad doctors fell to torch-wielding villagers. Americans' November 2026 votes must be wielded toward identical end.

Iowan DC Larson's books include That a Man Can Again Stand Up and Ideas Afoot. His freelance political writings have appeared in Daily Caller, American Thinker, The Iowa Standard, Yahoo News, and numerous heartland newspapers.