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Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Trump Gives Rousing Speech Marking 100 Days: “We've just gotten started. You haven't seen anything yet”

Sarah Arnold of Townhall: President Donald Trump took the stage on Tuesday night at a Michigan rally to celebrate the “most successful” first 100 days of his second term. He energized the crowd, declaring that his first 100 days were the most groundbreaking in U.S. presidential history. He noted that “many, many people” agree with his assessment and called it the best start to a presidency. “We’ve just gotten started. You haven’t seen anything yet. It’s just kicking off,” the president said…. Trump told the crowd that he is taking back the United States from a “sick political class” after a lifetime of unelected bureaucrats stealing Americans’ hard-earned paychecks, attacking the nation’s values, and trampling its freedoms. “We’re stopping their gravy train, ending their power trip, and telling thousands of corrupt, incompetent, and unnecessary deep state bureaucrats, you’re fired!” He told the crowd (Townhall). Fox News (quoting Trump): “I read an editorial today that this is the most consequential presidency in history, and it wasn’t even by a group that would normally be supporting us,” Trump added during his address to supporters, without clarifying where the editorial originated. “It was a group of people that I think tend to be on the liberal side, but they said it’s the most important election” (Fox News).

Yes: There’s a Method to Trump’s Madness; “My Bet’s on Trump the Builder”

Paul Dans, previously with Heritage and architect of Project 2025: We might be able to agree on one thing at least. The past 100 days have been the most consequential in modern American presidential history, save perhaps those of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term. The very idea of 100 days as a presidential metric comes from Roosevelt’s whirlwind enactment of New Deal legislation. The first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term are the appropriate coda to FDR’s. Mr Trump closed the book on FDR’s 90-year progressive era and ushered in the “Golden Age” of populism: out with New Deal and in with the Real Deal…. America’s constitution envisions three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial. FDR created a fourth, the administrative state. The constitution provides “[t]he executive Power shall be vested in a President”. The investiture is exclusive to the president, not reposited in a committee of presidents, nor an agency “independent” of presidential control. The buck is supposed to stop on the president’s desk. An agency independent of the president is one independent of the people—that is, unaccountable. That’s not democracy… How does this all play out? Will Mr Trump rebuild an America First skyline or will the malaise of the status quo win out? My bet’s on Trump the builder (Economist).

Expect More Ugly Dilemmas and Dangerous Skirmishes as World Launches Towards Cold War II

That’s the warning from Walter Russell Mead: The cascade of events sometimes feels overwhelming, but 100 days into the second Trump administration, some patterns are becoming clear. The Indo-Pacific region has emerged as the most important arena in world politics. The multidimensional competition between the U.S. and China is the dominant force in the unfolding politics of the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. is responding more vigorously but also more chaotically to Chinese competition than ever before, and China is working harder than ever to secure its economic and geopolitical position in the region and beyond. World tensions are rising, not falling. The danger that escalating tensions between the two superpowers and their associates could trigger a war that nobody wants is more prevalent than ever….Ugly dilemmas like that were commonplace in the Cold War. We must expect more of them as the world lurches toward Cold War II (WSJ). If you’re skeptical, note the warning from a report in the Financial Times: China’s military is building a massive complex in western Beijing that US intelligence believes will serve as a wartime command centre far larger than the Pentagon, according to current and former American officials…. a roughly 1,500-acre construction site 30km south-west of Beijing with deep holes that military experts assess will house large, hardened bunkers to protect Chinese military leaders during any conflict — including potentially a nuclear war (Financial Times). China’s behind skirmishes between India and Pakistan. Also behind the Houthi targeting of U.S. assets in Yemen. Brandon Weichert: This is especially worrying when one considers that many of the targets for the Houthis’ ASBMs are warships belonging to the United States Navy. Not even the mighty American nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, which have had several close encounters with the missiles, are immune to them (National Interest).

Trump Eases Tariffs on Auto Industry

Detroit Free Press: The executive orders signed April 29 put in place a complicated system of breaks on certain imports of auto parts and components for the next two years, but it gives Detroit’s automakers some relief from what Trump earlier had ordered, which were 25% tariffs on all imported autos which began in April and another 25% on all auto parts set to begin by May 3. “In my judgment, it is necessary and appropriate to modify the system … one executive order signed by Trump read (FreeP). From the White House: To more effectively eliminate the threat to impair national security posed by imports of automobiles and automobile parts, I find that it is necessary to modify the system imposed in Proclamation 10908 by reducing duties assessed on automobile parts accounting for 15 percent of the value of an automobile assembled in the United States for 1 year and equivalent to 10 percent of that value for an additional year as follows…. (White House).

A Vibe Shift in Corporate America

Conservatives are showing up on shareholder calls, offering initiatives and making sure the voices of the “silent majority” are finally heard. Behind it all is a relatively small cadre of convictional conservatives—including Jerry and Susan Bowyer. Bloomberg: Conservative-leaning groups like the Bowyer’s want to match the sway that progressives have historically had. Currently, resolutions opposing diversity, equity and inclusion programs struggle to attract more than 2% support from shareholders. From Bowyer’s standpoint, that’s because liberal causes have dominated the annual proxy season for most of the past 40 years. There have been few options for conservative investors to vote their beliefs, he said. The election of President Donald Trump is almost certain to change the equation…. “We’re talking to companies and we’re seeing a vibe shift from a thorough commitment to ESG and DEI standards — at least in public — to a real willingness to reconsider these positions,” Bowyer said. “They now know they are under a lot of scrutiny from the administration on ESG and DEI stuff” (Bloomberg).

Woke Lawyers in Justice Department Taking to the Exit Doors

In our Civil Rights Division as Harmeet Dhillon focuses on real civil rights violations. Washington Post: The division changed mission statements across its sections to focus less on racial discrimination and more on fighting diversity initiatives. And department officials reassigned more than a dozen career staffers — including section chiefs overseeing police brutality, disability and voting rights cases — to areas outside their legal expertise… More than 100 division attorneys have already said they will leave their jobs… (Washington Post). Ron DeSantis: That a bureaucrat is not a political appointee does not mean the bureaucrat is nonpartisan. Some of the most partisan bureaucrats are so-called “career” employees who pursue an ideological agenda regardless of the policies of the incumbent administration. That has certainly been true regarding DOJ’s Civil Rights division (X).

Los Angeles County Approves $4 Billion Child Sex Abuse Settlement; “It angers and sickens me”

The largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history. Los Angeles Times: The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history on Tuesday, agreeing to pay $4 billion to victims abused as children in county-run juvenile facilities and foster homes. The vote is the culmination of years of fighting by victims, who argued that no one had paid the price for the rampant sexual abuse they said they suffered in county custody. The settlement includes nearly 7,000 claims, most of which involve alleged abuse from the 1980s through the 2000s. “I never would have imagined persons hired to be the safety net and care for the most vulnerable could or would abuse their position and power in this way,” said Supervisor Kathryn Barger. “It angers and sickens me” (Los Angeles Times).

Report on Harvard Reveals Pervasive Antisemitism

The report was released on Tuesday: It provides a scathing account of life at the Ivy League institution in the wake of Oct. 7, finding that “politicized instruction” in four Harvard schools “mainstreamed and normalized what many Jewish and Israeli students experience as antisemitism.” The report raises particular concerns with the Graduate School of Education, T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Divinity School, and Medical School, four schools that the Trump administration also targeted for “egregious records of antisemitism or other bias.” At those schools, Jewish and Israeli students were routinely ostracized and subject to instruction “that effectively made a specific view on the Israel-Hamas conflict a litmus test for full classroom participation,” according to the report (Free Beacon). Also notable is the fact Harvard allowed teaching things that were simply not true: They found that the school includes departments that taught classes that denied historical facts in service to a political agenda. One professor denied Jews have any kind of historical connection to the land of Israel. The reports trace problems back decades, describing years of compromised scholarship, diminished intellectual standards on campus and biased curriculum that led to the campus devolving … (Wall Street Journal).

Wisconsin Supreme Court Suspends Judge Who Shielded Illegal Immigrant

Bod Hoge of Red State: Dugan violated the law by helping an illegal alien escape from her courthouse to avoid ICE. She was arrested by the FBI for that specific crime, not because they were trying to “silence” her… “No is above the law,” isn’t that what the Democrats say? Well, reality has caught up with the rogue jurist as the Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended her Tuesday… The court said her removal was “temporary,” although it’s hard to see how she comes back from this one: … “Dugan was arrested and charged with obstruction of an official proceeding on Friday after evidence came to light that she had shielded the migrant from ICE agents, according to a criminal complaint. She was also charged with concealing an individual to prevent discovery and arrest. The order on Tuesday reads that Dugan ‘is temporarily prohibited from exercising the powers of a circuit court judge in the State of Wisconsin’” (Red State).

10.

RIP: David Horowitz; Dies at 86

Conservative firebrand, intellect, author, activist and founder of Front Page Magazine. Robert Spencer: Over the years, David became something of a Saul Alinsky for the conservative movement, shaking a complacent Right out of its sleep and reinventing it as a war machine, laying out the strategies and principles for defeating the Left in too many bestselling books, articles, and pamphlets to count. David’s message to the conservative movement was that it needed to abandon its habit of embracing noble failure and instead fight to win. Indeed, Donald Trump’s MAGA movement was shaped and guided by David and his disciples like Stephen Miller (Front Page). Charlie Kirk: David understood the Left—not just its surface slogans, but its underlying motivations, its tactics, and most importantly, how to effectively confront and defeat it. His life was a testament to courage, intellectual clarity, and unwavering moral conviction. He showed that truth—once found—demands action, no matter the personal cost…. David Horowitz was a lion. A fighter. A father of modern conservatism. He was a teacher to me, a mentor, and a friend. Turning Point USA will continue its successful movement in your honor, and thanks to your help. We miss you David, god bless you (X).

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