CONGRESS MUST COME CLEAN: Swalwell scandal spotlights the depth of hidden corruption that has plagued Congress for decades. It’s time to shine the cleansing light of transparency, beginning with making public all of the heretofore secret settlements and associated hush fund protecting others like Swalwell, past and present. Check out my new column on PJ Media.

CALIFORNIA DEMS LOVE MEDIA CENSORSHIP: And just days after indy Internet journo David Delaiden won his 11-year battle against multiple spurious charges filed by then-Attorney General Kamala Harris, Democrats in the California Assembly filed legislation that is clearly aimed at giving state officials media censorship tools. But Democrats using government to censor pro-life/Conservative/Evangelical media and researchers is nothing new. Check out my report today for The Washington Stand.

A MODEST TAX-DAY PROPOSAL: There they go again, those rebellious minds behind Issues & Insights, thinking thoughts contrary to the accepted wisdom on just about any and every issue of which you can think. Today’s thoughts concern getting rid of the current tax code, lock, stock and barrel, and replacing it with either a Flat Tax or a Fair Tax (i.e. a national sales tax on consumption).

WHO LOST THE WAR ON POVERTY: A sharp young research associate at the Cato Institute, a sharp somewhat older econ prof at George Mason University and others marshal a massive data-driven case for concluding Washington’s “War on Poverty” was a bust, compared to the benefits of economic freedom beforehand.

DATA SHOWS RED STATES BEST FOR FAMILIES: Nine out of the top 10 states for healthy, intact families are Red, compared to eight out of the bottom 10 being Blue states, according to new analysis. Ya think there might be a connection there?

COVID DRIP, DRIP, DRIP: The evidence of how much federal health officials kept from the American public regarding the COVID-19 vaccine’s side effects keeps piling up, with the latest spotlighted by Dr. Robert Moffit of the Heritage Foundation:

“Consider the latest. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the indefatigable chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, recently notified Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, that records show that Biden officials failed to notify the public about “significant safety signals for ischemic stroke” (a blockage of blood to the brain) among patients aged 65 and older who had received the Pfizer Corporation’s COVID-19 bivalent booster,” Moffit writes on the Daily Signal.

And so on and so on and …

10 RULES TO SAVE OLD-SCHOOL JOURNALISM: Learned over many years experience in the school of hard knocks. My latest PJ Media column.

BUT WILL THEY VOTE RED: That’s the question whenever the topic of folks leaving blue states and moving red states enters the conversation. Usually, the source data for such talks is state-to-state moves, but the sharp minds at Issues & Insights (I&I) dug deeper in the Census Bureau data and found some things that may put the whole issue into clearer focus.

“What we found was that millions aren’t just moving out of blue states, but are moving out of blue counties within states. Trump won 2,589 counties in each of the past three elections.

“From 2020 to 2025, those counties gained 5.4 million people due to net migration — which measures how many people move into and out of an area. The 433 counties where Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris carried the day saw a net loss of 5.43 million people. And the 121 counties in which Trump won at least one of the past three elections saw a net gain of 29,000 people over those years.”

Be sure and check out the top 10 population gaining counties and the top 10 loser counties.

COUNTER-INTUITIVE SHOCKER: Institute for Energy Research (IER) dug deep into the data on the impact of the AI-driven explosion in demand for electricity to power new data centers to see if there is a connection of that phenomena with increases in electricity rates, as claimed by lots of folks on the Left and some on the Right as well. Verdict here and it’s likely not what you expect.

PEGGY NIENABER, RIP: Washington, D.C. has many unsung heroes, but my friend, close adviser and sister-in-Christ Peggy Nienaber was one of a kind.

RENEWED EVANGELICAL GIVING? For decades, evangelical Protestants have been the most generous among Americas multiple denomination in terms of financial contributions and volunteering time to churches and charities. But that generosity began to decline in 2020 and continued annually through 2024. Now, a new survey appears to show the decline leveled out in 2025. Does it go up again in 2026 or resume the downward trend?

TWO GUYS WHO DESERVE JOURNALISM MEDAL OF HONOR: David Delaiden and Jan Jekielek. Here’s why.

NEW WAYS TO BOOST DHS DEPORTATIONS: Official claims of 600,000 deportations to date by Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration lack credible backup, but new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has multiple new tactics at hand for speeding things up, according to experts interviewed by The Washington Stand’s S.A. McCarthy.

WHY ARE YOU HERE?: That’s likely the first question the thief on the cross was asked when he arrived at Heaven’s Gate. Pastor Alistair Begg masterfully answers the serious question in a wonderfully humorous manner.

UNBELIEVABLE: If you want to know why generation after generation of American college graduates leave campus full of historic myths, distortions and outright lies, Hans Bader reports on the new professor heading Howard University’s Institute for Advanced Studies.

WHAT ‘IT IS FINISHED’ MEANT: Chris Queen is managing editor over at PJ Media and something of a Greek scholar. His column today is an excellent explication of the meaning of “tetelestai,” as well as the prophecy behind the sour wine given Jesus just before He said “it is finished” and died. Chris also includes a great video by his pastor, Kurt Petersheim, on Good Friday 2020 during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

REAGAN ON GOOD FRIDAY: Former President Ronald Reagan was from the generation of American men who didn’t often speak publicly about their Christian faith. That was a private matter for them. But Reagan did after becoming the nation’s Chief Executive occasionally did speak of his faith. Here’s what he said on one Good Friday like today.

WHAT MATTERS MOST: There are six things that matter most when pondering how to heal all that afflicts America, and long-time evangelical conservative insider operative Tim Goeglein documents each of them in his new book bearing that title. Actually, he wrote my book. Find out here what I mean.

COLLAPSING IRAN: Signs are everywhere that the Mullahs and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are at loggerheads amid the steadily growing piles of rubble creating at will by American and Israeli aircraft and missiles. Richard Pollock surveys the wreckage and looks ahead.

NO DIVERSITY IN ‘NO KINGS’ CROWDS: Did you notice the paucity of non-white faces among those “No Kings” protests over the weekend. Apparently “Diversity for Thee, But Not For Me.”  Issues & Insights noticed.

AMERICA’S ‘WRONG-TRACK MAJORITY:’ What is that? Writing for Real Clear Polling, J.T. Young examines the Right Track/Wrong Track survey data and finds national elections being easily won by candidates supported by coalitions of voters who see the country going the wrong way.

But once the opposition-based majority gets elected, it starts falling apart because its constituent elements can’t agree on much of anything, including how to get where the candidates promised to take the country. Intriguing hypothesis that you should read more about here.

ENDOWED BY OUR CREATOR: That’s the title of a landmark new analysis by the Discovery Institute’s John G. West that I review today in The Washington Stand. West presents massive documentation that the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 were unanimous in thinking the Christian God (or for a few of them a Supreme Being confirmed by natural reason) equally endows every man with inalienable rights.

West also presents a thorough documentation of how Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens’ 1861 repudiation of the Declaration’s fundamental principle was indicative of the early influence of what we know today as the evolutionary scientific materialism that has so corroded the influence of that founding document. West has produced a hugely important and wonderfully accessible scholarly work.

TERM LIMITS NOW: Fifty-seven Members of the House of Representatives are either not seeking re-election in November or leaving Congress to pursue another elective office. That’s the highest total for departing representatives in recent memory (as I report in The Washington Stand).

The average tenure of the 36 Republicans is 9 nine years (four terms plus a year), while the average tenure of the 21 Democrats is 14 years (seven terms). The re-election rate for the current Congress is 95 percent. The average tenure of a representative prior to the Civil War was less than two terms.

THE JESUS DISCOVERIES: Dr. Jeremiah Johnston’s handy new book describes the 10 most significant archeological discoveries of recent decades that “bring us face-to-face with Jesus.” Among the top 10 are selections from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Palantine Graffito and the Pontius Pilate Affirmations. Lots of obscure facts and challenging analysis here that is perfect for an Easter week read.

DID YOU KNOW: That China and Russia are rearming Iran, even as the bombs and missiles from the U.s. and Israel are on a week-long pause implemented by President Donald Trump in the hope of a successful deal being negotiated? Richard Pollock has the details and much more that hasn’t been reported in the MSM.