A ghastly reality    

"Here in the United States, the share of left-wing terrorist attacks and plots has risen to levels not seen in decades," Secretary of State Marco Rubio told attendees to his July 16 conference on 'Far-Left Terrorism.'

"In Germany, far-left violence has jumped by more than 40% in just the last year alone," he continued. "In Greece, more than 80% of radical violence is now driven by far-left and anarchist actors."

A recent YouGov poll revealed 25% of "very liberal" U.S. Democrats believe political violence is justifiable. (Polling also found only a meager percentage of Democrats are even proud to be Americans.)

An online meme presently circulating depicts a grave marker bearing the name Trump. 

Ignoring the accelerated spread of politically inspired brutality -- and that it arrives most frequently from the spectrum's left end -- only emboldens criminals.

A July 16 Gateway Pundit article related that Florida former marine, prosecutor, and write-in congressional candidate William Upham had been arrested for declaring President Trump "must be killed" in an online video.

In the same video, Upham charged "Our country is broken," and encouraged viewers to operate in pairs with AK 15s.

"Our country must overthrow President Trump by the violent use of force and kill him," Upham emailed to a journalist.

Last month, a Rochester, New York man was arrested for making numerous online murderous threats against Donald Trump Jr, and members of his family.

Other fresh illustrations include Democrats and other leftists imitating Charlie Kirk's assassination and threatening to "Kirk" political adversaries; celebrations of the anti-Trump gunman who invaded the White House Correspondents Dinner; and subversive medical personnel posting videos calling for Trump's demise and encouraging witholding care from suspected MAGA patients to speed their deaths.

More: Efforts by politicians and activists to forestall deportations of violently criminal illegals; the torrent of sympathetic messages sent toward Luigi Mangioni, the 'alleged' murderer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson; mobs of professional anti-ICE protesters raining bricks and explosives on police phalanxes; and physical assaults and even murders of law enforcement officers and any citizen perceived to support the President of our United States.

Referring to the numbers regarding international left-wing violence he'd cited, Rubio was adamant. "These are not abstract statistics. Americans have seen what those numbers mean: an all-out assault on our immigration officers, sniper attacks, explosives, armed ambushes, a transgender shooter opening fire on Catholic elementary school students as they pray, his gun marked with slogans like ‘Where is your God now?'”

At this writing, there have been three known attempts on President Trump's own life. And as evidenced above, additional plottings are contrived. 

And that's only American leftists; an Iranian scheme was recently revealed. 

In response to malevolence issuing from grotty precincts, Trump wrote on X that smears hurled his way had "taken politics in our Country to a whole new level of Hatred, Abuse, and Distrust. Because of the Communist Left rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!"

After years of hearing "Trump is Hitler, MAGA are nazis" slander from numerous media mouthpieces, it's logical that uncritical recipients would think violent actions noble and even of historic import.

Of course, leftists sanctioning morbidness has precedent. For decades, the Democrat Party has championed abortions with absolutely no restrictions on time or reasons. 

Clear-visioned critics term the Democrat Party a "party of death." The ghastly sobriquet is accurate.

America wins bigly               

                                                    

"Two major wins define this week," began a new White House briefing document. "First, jobless levels fell to their lowest level since 1969, a 57-year record that puts the full force of the Trump economic agenda on display."

Further gilding that success is the Trump administration's determination to ensure employment opportunities are exclusively available to American citizens. That's how it should be.

Paychecks legitimately earned by American citizens benefit our economy not only through taxes paid, but by healthy consumer spending. It's what made American businesses thrive, and is a major factor in securing this nation's rank above other world powers. 

The president has steadfastly endorsed e-verify. The practice of verifying job applicants' legal rights to be in this nation -- let alone enjoy employment and profit thereby -- is one Trump supports, as well as levying stiff penalties against unscrupulous employers who would flout American laws and encourage illegality by cultivating lower-paid scofflaw workforces.

(Iowa's elected congressional officials -- all Republicans -- also back e-verify.) 

The White House briefing document also noted: "President Trump secured the Ratepayer Protection Pledge -- a landmark agreement guaranteeing that America's AI dominance is built without sticking consumers with the bill."

By that crucial exercise, our president did away with a major kvetch voiced by AI critics: that related costs would burden tax-payers. Trump now guarantees they won't.

As important as protecting jobs for real Americans and ensuring technological advancement are, the two are hardly lonely on the list of positive moves forward realized by the Trump White House. 

Other wins have been pocketed in police and fire departments' hiring; military recruitment; foreign investments now totaling astronomically; and new factories being built here by formerly internationally located corporations that have returned to these shores.

In concluding his White House Correspondents' Dinner speech, President Trump noted both the progress our country has so far made as a result of America First policies, and world leaders' awestruck recognition: "The King of Saudi Arabia said it. Everyone said almost the same words. 'We thought you were a dead country. We never thought you had a chance. You were never gonna make it back.'

"'And in a period of a year, a period of one year, you made it the hottest country anywhere in the world!'

"We did that together," Trump proclaimed. "It's not just me. We all did it together. We have made America great again, and it's gonna get a lot greater!"

Ed Markey: Call him comrade

In an episode of 1960s TV's Lost in Space, buffoon Dr. Smith sought to ingratiate himself with a planet's eternally teenaged population by donning a fright wig.

"Let's all freak out together, man!"

A recent Gateway Pundit article noted of Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey: "Markey’s obvious strategy is to try to appeal to the far left, radical base of his party. He has been doing this for months."

The senator, news accounts relate, has striven to cultivate the extreme left. That ragtag insurgency has elected the notorious Squad and Zohran Mamdani, as well as endorsing similarly subversive oddities elsewhere. 

Its ambitions include erasing national borders, granting citizenship to millions of illegals who've already invaded our country, abolishing ICE and defunding law enforcement, killing off the electoral college, and tearing away our constitutionally mandated Supreme Court and Senate.

(Among other things.)

Markey apparently saw President Trump's recent speech decrying foreign interference in America's elections as an opportunity to cultivate approbation among bomb throwers.

“Trump must be impeached for undermining and subverting our free and fair elections,” The Hill reported Markey wrote on X.

"And when he sends ICE agents to the polls," the Democrat went on. "We must turn civic action into civil disobedience and take to the streets. Sit in. Protest. Withhold our labor. Everything must be on the table."

(One imagines cheering rising from irregulars sporting keffiyahs and hammer/sickle t-shirts.)

"Abolish ICE," Markey added in another post.

Don't be surprised when he turns up wearing a wig.

The lie they embrace

As president, Donald Trump wields the greatest political authority in the world. His predeccessor, Joe Biden, merely wields an oversized, wooden oatmeal spoon.

Does that comment strike you as mean?

If so, do you have the same reaction when our president's attackers call him pedophile?

Pedophilia is thoroughly despicable. And remember, here in the real world, Trump has never been arrested for it, charged with it, tried on the charge, nor so convicted. 

But those inconvenient facts don't give pause to self-sainted partisans happily free of principle.

All of this points up the degree to which some are eager to shove through windows even the most rudimentary of honesty and fairness standards when they do not serve grubby political prejudices.

In an 1819 letter to Congressman Nathaniel Macon, Thomas Jefferson (by then having already served as America's 3rd president) wrote "honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom." He expressed hope that future citizens would understand the importance of truthfulness.

America, Jefferson, and integrity raise gloves in one corner. Trump's conscienceless decriers scowl across canvas from the opposite one.

In whose corner are you?

Democrats heft anti-Americanism

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, as quoted by CBS News: "The old America…the America that believed capitalism was inevitable and socialism was evil…is dying."

Our great nation stands tall on the precipice of its 250th anniversary. But the foul shadow of an old global disease -- one historically responsible for some 100 million global deaths -- has already claimed domestic regions here and threatens nationwide spread.

Polling just in found a mere 27% of Democrat repondents were proud to be Americans. It gets worse: A late-June Economist/YouGov poll registered that only 8% of Democrats believe America is the greatest country in the world.

Contrast those percentages with historical reports of record numbers of volunteers for U.S. military service following Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. 

Communism is despoiling America, promoted by amoral subversives whose wicked advance is encouraged by warhorse left Democrats terrified by approaching obsolescence.

Democrat office holders Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth "Pocohantas" Warren and more (perhaps grasping for career survival) are busy on a reprehensible radicalism cheerleading tour. 

Another establishment Democrat seeking favor with bug-brained uprisers is Sen. Adam Schiff. After praising Mamdani and AOC during a 6/29 CNN interview, the California clip artist stretched out a hand: "So, I’m not afraid of new members or new ideas in the party. I welcome it."

They and other leftists exhort addle-pated grassroots zealots to embrace hatred of the very nation that guarantees them enviable life quality, upward mobility, and in whose defense millions have shed blood around the globe since America's grand founding.

Common in households are portraits of relatives in military uniforms, often posed before our star-spangled banner. What might the tragically lost think of currently voguish America hating?

Did those courageous American patriots die for nothing? Are their sacrifices to be forgotten, that the horrible scourge of communism against which they fought can now be granted power by wild-eyed bomb-throwers whose hatred of America is equalled only by their contempt for the Judeo-Christian values that are endemic to our Constitution?

"This week, three candidates backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani swept to an upset victory in New York’s congressional primaries," Promethean Action's Barbara Boyd said in a recent video. "At victory parties, audiences chanted, 'You are next!' as House Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on the TV screen."

One of those electoral victors, congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier quipped: "I forgot a knapkin, so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me!"

Asked about socialist militants now steamrolling the old, declining Democrat party, New York Sen. Kristin Gillibrand was effusive: "A very good trend for nationwide elections,” she gushed nonsensically.

Only days ago, Newsweek quoted Democrat Rep. AOC as braying that Democratic Socialists alone offer an "affirmative vision" within her party.

"The idea that we have to apologize for, like, a terror attack that, like, a couple people did, and then there's no apologies for genocide or slavery, etc, is something that I kind of find, like, reprehensible," was how New York state senate hopeful Aber Kawas pooh-poohed the 9/11 Al Queda attack that killed nearly 3000 innocent Americans.

Kawas' feeble words recall Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar's "Some people did something" notorious euphemization. 

"The Democrats are really playing with fire by endorsing these kind of candidates," Republican strategist T.W. Arrighi told CNN viewers only nights ago. 

Nor is the political sphere alone in breeding freedom haters. Movie, music, and television quislings by the score decry goodness in screaming headlines. Larry David and Joy Behar are but two of that rank who've asserted they are "ashamed" to be citizens of world history's finest nation. 

At this writing, numerous states have announced refusals to participate in non-partisan, patriotic recognition of our country's singular character and accomplishments. 

At least some, I suspect, would gleefully steal candles from her cake.

Consider that our nation has, over its history, defeated Nazi fascism and Russian communism; advanced peoples' liberty the world over; built the strongest economic engine operating; and shown the globe's aching aspirants just how successful a free nation can be when it rolls up its sleeves and sets about living in its own way - taking orders from absolutely no one.

That's what American enemies overseas and home-harbored are "ashamed" of?

President Trump recently termed this "a time when there is a powerful communist movement taking place in our country, one more dangerous than World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or September 11th..." 

In these starkly perilous days, when many have surrendered themselves to utopian imbecility, America very much needs a lucid, common-sense president of Trump's unshakable conviction. The fight is on.

Democrats will forever cast swastika shadows      

No phenomenon better illustrates howling phoniness: Democrats who falsely smeared President Trump as Hitler, and defamed patriotic MAGA Americans as Nazis, buoyed Maine senatorial candidate Graham Platner atop their shoulders on primary election night.

Recent months' news accounts detailed the execrable Platner's foulness: the SS Deathshead 'Totenkopf' tattoo he proudly wore for some 19 years (until investigative lights began shining); his history of violent domestic abuse; habit of referring to women with gutter vulgarian verbiage; vow to rape home invaders as a means of establishing dominance; and wishing death upon a bullets-wounded U.S. military veteran.

As former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer observed while a Hannity guest on primary election night: Democrats today won't support longtime ally Israel, but they will endorse a Nazi-tattoo guy.

Platner will now face RINO Susan Collins in November. Even if party elders eventually switch out Platner for a generally palatable candidate, the damning stain is set.

Never again can Democrats plausibly claim to oppose fascism. Nor that they support women. Not even that they back soldiers who risk lives in defense of America.

But they undoubtedly will. Style over substance is the Democrat way. 

Democrats from Bernie Sanders to Chuck Schumer, from Ro Khanna to Elizabeth Warren, and from James Carville to Ruben Gallego have peddled a multi-rider bicycle in Platner's defense. 

Their current mantra: Democrats must retake control of the senate 'By any means necessary' being the unuttered subtext.

Sometimes people look back at the horrible Nazi Holocaust with incredulity. 'How could ordinary German citizens have gone along with that?'

Consider everyone who supported Democrat Graham Platner.

And not just rank and file voters. Think about major Democrat Party players who endorsed him. Like Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.

Schumer and Sanders are Jewish men who lost relatives in the terrible Nazi Holocaust. It is not inconcievable that their poor murdered relatives saw SS Deathshead Totenkopf tattoos - the one Platner had tattooed on his chest and wore for some 18 years, sometimes boasting of it, per contemporaries - on camp guards in wicked days leading to their chamber deaths.

What would those poor souls say to Schumer and Sanders? 

Maybe not everything can be morally justified in the name of politics. Democrats have shown themselves to be counterfeits of the lowest order.

Made undeniably plain by Democrats' backing of Platner is that theirs is a party with neither conscience nor decent principles. They will forever cast swastika shadows.

Waterloo's DC Larson is the author of That a Man Can Again Stand Up and Ideas Afoot. He counts among freelance credits the Western Journal, Daily Caller, Yahoo News, American Thinker, Iowa Standard, and numerous heartland papers.

The bloodlusting tolerant

In days that immediately followed (yet another) attempt to assassinate President Trump, numerous famed Democrat officials and show business flakes either blamed the intended victim, disputed the crime's factualness, or twirled noisemakers.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler spat that America's president is the "chief insurrectionist."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called for "Maximum warfare - everywhere, all the time!" Slurs Jeffries has slammed our chief executive's way include "fascist, "liar," "hater," and "Hitler."

All-but-forgotten Star Wars actor Mark Hamill posted an AI photo of America's duly-elected president lying, eyes closed, before a tombstone. "If only" was the gruesome wish Luke Skywalker added.

At this writing, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer - historically, an indefatigable source of hysterical and unfounded Trump smearings - has yet to condemn the extreme left shooter.

Steve Schmidt, co-founder of the odious Lincoln Project, spoke to Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire in the aftermath. “He’s a poisonous, venomous man,” Schmidt said of Americans' chosen president.
“He’s an insurrectionist, the foremost domestic enemy of the Constitution in American history. He is a vile and disgusting man, a convicted sex predator, and likely a pedophile."

(Schmidt reportedly left the Lincoln Project in 2021, following revelations that fellow group co-founder, John Weaver, had exploited his status to entice numerous youthful males, including a boy of only 14.)

Thoroughly despicable? Of course. But smears squeaked by high-profile leftists are not the sole indicators of Democrats' moral degradation. Abundant detritus can also be found among the grassroots faithful.

Social media has been lousy with lousiness. "Racist" and "rapist," were common (albeit baseless) epithets, as was "orange MFer."
Scores of personally unpleasant liberals moaned, because President Trump's latest aspiring assassin was not successful. Roaringly repulsive bar and restaurant proprietors sought to cultivate profits by scrambling atop the anti-American poison-vehicle.

Radical rabble have elevated Luigi Mangioni - whose murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was captured on surveillance video - to a folk-hero echelon normally restricted to persons of noble accomplishments.

"Luigi Mangioni murdered a healthcare CEO, and the left fell in love," said Fox News' Jesse Watters in a recent broadcast.

Proudly horrible Democrat Hasan Piker cast Mangioni's murderous crime as justified, per lunatic Marxist "social murder" theory.
Rand Paul's neighbor tackled the Republican senator to the dirt, and cracked Paul's ribs. BLM burned city blocks; physically attacked law enforcement, store owners, and innocent passersby; wrought an estimated $20 billion in nationwide vandalism damage; perpetrated arson; and thronged streets, calling for policemen's mass deaths.

Antifa ragings include thousands of malicious subversives stalking through boulevards - blocking unrelated traffic that might include ambulances - hurling bricks and firebombs at police. Too, they perpetrated last year's shooting outside a Texas ICE facility, violence that wounded one federal agent.

"Any time, any place, punch a Nazi in the face!," runs a popular leftist street chant. Marauders spray paint ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) on unmanned patrol cars.

Longtime Democrat voters may not hold such vile views, but they might as well. They'll damn near break a leg dashing to the ballot booth to pull the lever for anyone with a D after their name.
Vote blue, no matter who. Regardless of anything they've said. Anything. (Even if they wear a Nazi tattoo.)

That's how Democrat candidates who spew hateful slime, and who respond to political brutalities and rioting by donning party hats, remain in office. Not because all grassroots supporters are themselves vermin, but because they elect those who are, and do so without compunctions.

Perhaps they delude themselves that they're remaining loyal to "the JFK party." The reality they refuse to accept: that party is forever past tense.

Would today's liberals have hopped on the donkey wagon back then, if that party had trumpeted transgenderism, subservience to foreign terrorists, organized harassment of Christians, drag monstrosities reading to toddlers, illegal immigration that takes jobs from American workers, green boondoggles, teachers indoctrinating students with wacky ideologies, and nationwide fraud schemes costing untold millions?

America-despisers have now made three attempts to assassinate President Trump. They shot Reagan. They murdered Charlie Kirk. They shot Steve Scalise. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavenaugh was an intended killer's target.

Elected Democrat Party officials demand law enforcement be defunded. Liberals' pastime is sabotaging ICE enforcement of American laws, including driving into brave agents, lashed by homicidal intent.

Millions of unvetted illegals invaded our country, with Democrat officials' holding open the door. Rapes, child molestation, killings, and other stomach-turning crimes ensued.

Dwarfing all that blood-letting chaos, are Democrats' cheers for tens of millions of healthy babies to be aborted, annually.

Again, rank-and-file liberals may not endorse each act of barbarity, but they undeniably enable them with their votes. When next a woke official panders to violently-rioting simple-wits, blame your neighbor who still has a Hillary sticker on his electric Nissan.

"The 'tolerant bunch,' it turns out, are the most intolerant folks on the planet," Fox News host Laura Ingraham observed, as these words were being typed.

Fish may rot from the head, as goes the axiom, but it's the nether region that ensures decay perpetuation.

Democrat fault at ground level

In days immediately following (yet another) attempt to assassinate President Trump, numerous famed Democrat officials and show business flakes either blamed the intended victim, disputed the crime's factualness, or twirled noisemakers. 

Rep. Jerrold Nadler spat that America's president is the "chief insurrectionist."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffrey called for "Maximum warfare - everywhere, all the time!"

At this writing, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer - historically, an indefatigable source of Trump smearings  - has yet to condemn the radical left shooter.

Steve Schmidt, co-founder of the odious Lincoln Project, spoke to Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire in the aftermath. “He’s a poisonous, venomous man,” Schmidt said, of Americans' chosen president. “He’s an insurrectionist, the foremost domestic enemy of the Constitution in American history. He is a vile and disgusting man, a convicted sex predator, and likely a pedophile."

(Schmidt reportedly left the Lincoln Project in 2021, following revelations that fellow group co-founder, John Weaver, had exploited his status to entice numerous youthful males, including a boy of only 14.)

Though thoroughly despicable, smears squeaked by high-profile leftists are not prime indicators of Democrats' moral degradation. That detritus can be found among the grassroots faithful.

Social media has been lousy with lousiness. "Racist" and "rapist," were common (albeit baseless) epithets, as was "orange MFer."

Scores of personally unpleasant liberals moaned that the shooter had not been successful. Roaringly repulsive bar and restaurant proprieters sought to cultivate profits by scrambling atop the anti-American garbage-vehicle.

The average, longtime Democrat voter may sincerely not hold such vile views, but they might as well - they'll damn near break a leg dashing to the ballot booth to pull the lever for anyone with a D after their name.

Vote blue, no matter who. Regardless of anything they've said. Anything.

That's how Democrat candidates who spew hateful slime, and who respond to political brutalities and rioting by donning party hats, remain in office. Not because grassroots supporters are themselves vermin, but because they are without standards.

(Perhaps they delude themselves that they're remaining loyal to "the JFK party." The reality they refuse to accept: that party is forever past tense.)

They've now made three attempts to assassinate President Trump. They shot Reagan. They killed Charlie Kirk. They shot Steve Scalise. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavenaugh was a would-be killer's target.

Rand Paul's neighbor tackled the Republican senator to the dirt, cracking his ribs. BLM burned city blocks; physically attacked law enforcement, store owners, and innocent passersby; wrought billions in nationwide vandalism damage; perpetrated arson; and thronged streets, calling for policemen's mass deaths. 

Violent Antifa ragings include last year's shooting outside a Texas ICE facility. One federal agent was wounded.

"Any time, any place, punch a Nazi in the face!," runs a popular leftist street chant. Marauders spray paint ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) on patrol cars. Elected Democrat Party officials demand law enforcement be defunded. Liberals' pastime is sabotaging ICE enforcement of American laws, including driving into brave agents.

Millions of unvetted illegals invaded our country, with Democrat officials' holding open the door. Rapes, child molestation, homicides, and other stomach-turning crimes ensued.

"Luigi Mangioni murdered a healthcare CEO, and the left fell in love," said Fox News' Jesse Watters, as these words were being typed.

Dwarfing all that blood-letting chaos, Democrats cheers for tens of millions of healthy babies to be aborted, annually.

Again, rank-and-file liberals may not endorse each act of barbarity, but they undeniably enable them with their votes.

So, when next a woke office-holder panders to the simple-wits, blame your neighbor who still has a Hillary sticker on his electric Nissan. Because fish may rot from the head, as goes the axiom, but it's the nether region that ensures decay perpetuation.

SPLC walls tumbling down

Grifters piling bounty by exploiting others' decent passions merit merciless condemnation. As do fake news mongers who enable dirty crimes.

An Alabama grand jury considered evidence presented by the government against the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC is alleged to have funneled millions of donor dollars to the very hate groups it claims to fight.

Per a DOJ press release, the SPLC "secretly funneled more than $3 million to individuals who'd been associated with violent extremist groups like the KKK, National Socialist Party of America [Nazis], and Aryan Nations."

“As the indictment describes, the SPLC was not dismantling these groups, it was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said during a press conference.

(The SPLC's position is that payments were made exclusively to "informants" within racist groups, not to perpetuate reasons for the progressive 'champions' to exist.)

Alabama grand jurors returned an indictment; among 11 counts are wire fraud, lying to a financial institution, and money laundering.

During an April 22 Hannity appearance, FBI Director Kash Patel said: "The Southern Poverty Law Center ran a methodical, calculated scheme to defraud their donor base of $3 million and lied to them and used an illicit banking structure system to create shell companies to hide their money and who it was being sent to, specifically for the reason to sow discord and hate into our society."

“They lied to their donors, vowing to dismantle violent extremist groups, and actually turned around and paid the leaders of these very extremist groups – even utilizing the funds to have these groups facilitate the commission of state and federal crimes," the director added.

Since its 1971 founding, the Alabama-based SPLC has postured as a noble battler of repugnant hate groups. But from the organization's genesis, profits and not principles were the game.

In his 1991 book, Shades of Grey (Louisiana State University Press), John Egerton quoted SPLC founder Morris Dees: "A lot of groups we work with in litigation on social issues are poor, themselves, living hand to mouth. Sometimes they're a little envious of us. I'm sorry they feel that way, but I can't do anything about it. We just run our business like a business."

Dees, who had marketed cakes while in college, added: "Whether it's cakes or causes, it's all the same thing."

Dees was in 1998 inducted into the Direct Marketing Association's Hall of Fame. Discover The Networks recorded his boast: "I learned everything I knew about hustling from the Baptist Church. Spending Sundays on those hard benches listening to the preacher pitch salvation -- why, it was like getting a PHD in selling."

The SPLC's board fired Dees in 2019, for alleged sexual harassment and racial discrimination. His office was filled by Margaret Huang.

In its April 23 report, the New York Post charged: "Huang’s tenure saw the SPLC take a much more partisan tone, accusing conservative and religious groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom, Moms for Liberty, and the Family Research Council of fomenting 'hate' or 'extremism.'"

The SPLC later listed Turning Point USA on its 'Hatewatch' list. One day after, TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Trans-loving leftist Tyler Robinson is alleged to have murdered Kirk.

Mainstream news media has long embraced the private and unaccountable group. Talking heads cited the organization's pronouncements as if they were sacrosanct.

So timepiece-certain was reporters' resort to the SPLC that whenever alleged hate crimes were in the news, one was certain an SPLC spokesman would within moments appear on camera to spout boilerplate.

Fake news hacks have long discounted conservative, Christian speakers and organizations, by observing they had been 'listed by the SPLC as a hate group.' (Who had decided judgments issued by that organization were of the same beyond-skepticism quality as, say, Newton's law of gravity?)

In coverage of the new indictment, left media venues strove to protect the SPLC - the group so frequently a source of anti-Trump brickbats legacy press bannered without question.

MSNBC/MSNOW's online writer, Ja'han Jones, ensured the leftist channel's checks kept coming his way, by painting the Trump administration's pursuit of rightness as wrong.

"As Americans nationwide are being squeezed by Trump’s destructive economic agenda, House Republicans this week homed in on a top priority: attacking a civil rights group for monitoring hate speech," was Jones's opening.

Not only did he just plain lie, in front of the entire world, about the nature of charges brought, but Jones couldn't even make it beyond sentence one without assailing Americans' chosen president.

(An accurate idea of President Trump's opinion can be got by considering his post-Charlottesville words: "Racism is evil," he declared. "And those who cause violence in its name are criminals or thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups who are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.")

The Southern Poverty Law Center's guilt or innocence will be determined by a trial yet to be convened. But fake news operatives sympathetic to the previously-established-as-reprehensible organization have already, unashamedly, flaunted their own biases.

Waterloo's DC Larson is the author of That a Man Can Again Stand Up and Ideas Afoot. He counts among freelance credits the Daily Caller, American Thinker, Iowa Standard, and numerous heartland papers. His political blog is American Scene Magazine.

'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.

(The below essay of mine was recently published in the Marshalltown, Iowa Times-Republican.)

ICE means American safety                      

Anecdotes favorable to American law enforcement abound. They tell of neighborhood residents protected from criminality, businesses safeguarded, and of society's lowest being grabbed up and accorded the harsh justice their crimes merit.

(I love it when American justice lands hard on evildoers.)

And there are other stories: Lost children located. Homicides solved. Sex offenses punished. Robbers, con men, and violent attackers sealed away in the graybar hotel. Cooperative efforts with fire, medical, and other rescue personnel to rush to the aid of victims of accidents or natural disasters.

Indefatigable agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are no less heroic members of that noble body than any other uniformed friend of the innocent. They uphold laws duly passed by bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate. These laws were structured and enacted to advance legitimate public interests.

No citizen is well-served by hospital waiting rooms jammed wall-to-wall, schools awash in non-English speaking outsiders, or housing costs skyrocketing as the buyer-market expands. Additional ills that real citizens suffer include employment opportunities going to low-wage illegals, social services being overwhelmed, and the splintering of our cultural mileau. 

A February message from Prager U to supporters minced no words: "ICE is not the villain—it’s a law enforcement agency essential to our nation’s safety and sovereignty. These agents work every day to stop human trafficking, fight drug cartels, arrest violent criminals, and enforce our nation’s immigration laws."

Miseries suffered by illegals sneaking toward the United States turn good peoples' stomachs: A reported 31% of women on that path are raped, some repeatedly. Accounts tell of "rape trees" here and there along the way, in which shredded, silently screaming intimate garments wave in the breeze.

Too, one hears of foreign families giving birth control pills to minor females prior to the trek, knowing vile assaults are likely.

Children are smuggled for unspeakable horrors. Deadly fentanyl and other fatal substances are brought in, causing thousands of American deaths. Gang-affiliated, illegal gun-wielding miscreants laughingly swagger, chins high. 

And as other countries empty their prisons and asylums of 'undesirables,' as President Trump warns, vicious assaults are perpetrated on vulnerable American women like Mollie Tibbetts, Megan Bos, Rachel Morin, Dr. Linda Davis, Maria Pleitez and her daughter Dayanara, and Laken Riley.

Add to that sorrowing roster innocent American men, women, and children killed in highway traffic by illegal semi drivers (who can't decipher road signs), given licenses by "progressive" Democrat governors.

And still, there are voices advocating that the above terribleness be allowed to flourish, unchecked. The brain boggles, and the compassionate heart laments left-wing cruelty.

By rightly deporting illegals, ICE counters the Democrat magnet of 'Come one, come all - free everything!' Agents' deportation work is what protecting the public looks like. And since they enforce laws that resulted from established political processes, their activities are very much what democracy looks like.

If more news organizations reported the positive aspects and accomplishments of American law officers, interference in official acts might dwindle. (That's assuming pro-crime rioters aren't cashing checks.) 

Elementary schools once imparted the importance of officers maintaining law and order in civilized societies. And how we all benefit, when officers are allowed to do their jobs without being swarmed by jeering, cursing, doxxing mobs shoving cell-phones in their faces. 

During a recent Fox News interview, White House border czar Tom Homan made his and ICE's mission clear: "'Prioritize public safety threats and national security threats' doesn’t mean to forget about everybody else. I’ve said it from day one, if you’re in the country illegally, you’re not off the table. We’re looking for you, and we’ll remove you when we find you.”