It’s Good Friday. And you know The Stream has you covered with plenty of thoughts to ponder over this most holy of weekends: AnneMarie McLean shares how “Jesus Overcame Betrayal. You Can Too.” Jason Jones puts “The Passion of the Christ Against the Great Reset,” while Alan Shlemon explains “Why the Cross is Good News for Muslims.”

At 9 a.m. Eastern on The Stream, Jules Gomes drops a wonderful reflection titled “Jesus Christ Superscar: Why the Wounds of Christ Deserve Our Prayerful Devotion.”

Plus all weekend long, The Stream will be featuring all manner of Easter reflection and celebration. Not to spoil the surprise, but He is Risen!

Baltimore Mayor Plays the Race Card in Wake of Bridge Collapse

Tragedy can turn local mayors into national figures overnight. Dianne Feinstein rose to power in San Francisco upon the assassination of Mayor George Moscone, soothed the stricken city, and ended up the Grand Dame of the U.S. Senate. Rudy Giuliani guided New York City — and the nation — through 9/11 to become “America’s Mayor.”

This week offered Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott an opportunity to shine on the national stage. The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge focused everyone’s eyes and heart on his city. Scott has been in office less than a year, his predecessor forced to resign over corruption charges. This was his moment to shine.

But instead of rising to the occasion, he used it to trash and threaten white people.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott claims White people use the term DEI hire because they don't have the courage to say the N-word. pic.twitter.com/VVrvpCizz1

— D. Michael Tripi (@DMichaelTripi) March 28, 2024

With bodies still lying at the bottom of the Patapsco River, the young black mayor told MSNBC host Joy Reid that critics attack him and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies because they think “only straight wealthy white men should have a say in anything” and they “don’t have the courage to say the N-word.”

“Me being in this position means that their way of thinking, their way of life of being comfortable while everyone else suffers, is at risk,” he said. “And they should be afraid because that’s my purpose in life.”

And here we were thinking only the hazardous materials leaking from the cargo ship were toxic.

Responded Matt Walsh on X, “Not only is he issuing threats to his own constituents, but he’s taking the time to do this right in the middle of one of the worst catastrophes Baltimore has suffered in years. Looks like Baltimoreans elected yet another ridiculous, petty, racist buffoon to run their city.”

Even worse, Scott instantly dissipated the goodwill that had been coming his way from heartland America, whose support he will need to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Baltimore didn’t fall into decay through the efforts of white conservatives who understand the destructiveness of DEI’s inherent bigotry and proven pitfalls; he needs to look closer to home for the cause of that.

Sadly, Mayor Scott seems to be another politician who is more into grievance than governance, yet another hustler in a city that needs a hero. The only race that should matter in Baltimore right now is the race to get the channel open and the bridge back up. Here’s hoping Maryland Gov. Wes Moore proves wiser and rises to the occasion.

Tall Tales and Campaign Fails

While we’re at the Francis Scott Key Bridge, Joe Biden managed to fudge his bio even about that. The president claimed he had traveled across it “many, many times commuting from the state of Delaware either by train or car.” However, the bridge doesn’t have a rail line. Then again, Biden once boasted of his plans to build a railroad across the Indian Ocean.

Much more seriously, and way further under the radar, it appears Biden told a whopper to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s team. Lying to federal agents is a crime. The Washington Free Beacon uncovered the story, detailing Biden’s verbal detour from Hur’s questioning to tell the oft-repeated tale of how he decided to go into politics: He was working for the law firm Prickett, Ward, Burt & Sanders when they represented a construction firm being sued by a welder who lost part of his genitalia in a work-related fire. Biden says he wrote a legal memo that won the case for the construction firm.

“I wrote this memo. And son of a b****, it prevailed,” Biden told Hur on Oct. 8. “And I looked over to that kid … and I thought, ‘Son of a b****, I’m in the wrong business, I’m not made for this.’”

Biden said he was so wracked with guilt that he concocted an excuse to avoid a celebrity lunch with one of the firm’s named partners and walked into the public defender’s office to ask for a job that very day.

He went onto to say the excuse he made to his boss is the “only lie” he’s ever told.

There’s just one problem: That never happened! According to the Free Beacon’s examination of legal records, Prickett did handle a case involving a welder and construction company, but the case had ended before Biden was hired.

It is extremely unlikely that Biden had any involvement in the case. He was 21 years old when Januszewski filed suit in May 1964. At the time, Biden was completing his junior year at the University of Delaware in Newark. He was finishing his law degree at Syracuse University when a federal jury ruled in Januszewski’s favor four years later, and didn’t start working for Prickett, Ward, Burt & Sanders until at least June 1968, according to his memoir. By then, records show, the case had concluded. No appeal was filed.

The Washington Free Beacon admits Biden could be talking about a similar case … “but if there is such a case no one can find any record of it.”

So much of Biden’s biography has been fictionalized or aggrandized that you wonder if the Commander-in-Chief is aware of the difference between fantasy and reality, between truth and a lie. Is that is why it is so easy for him to repeatedly deny what is demonstrably true and continue to peddle hoaxes without batting an eyelash? Just the other day, he resurrected the lie that Trump told people to pour bleach down their throats to combat COVID.

However, Trump did have his revenge this week. Within days of Biden dubbing him “Broke Don,” Trump scored a $3 billion windfall thanks to Truth Social and landed on the list of the world’s Top 500 richest people.

One City, Two Candidates: One for a Fallen Hero, One for the Dough

Meanwhile, both presidential candidates were in New York City Thursday. Biden was attending a ritzy fundraiser with Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and CBS Late Night host Stephen Colbert that was expected to raise $25 million. Trump was attending the wake of NYPD officer Jonathan Diller, who was murdered in the line of duty by a career criminal let free to stalk the city streets.

Trump: "The Diller family will never be the same … We have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently." pic.twitter.com/R7Y9vpyqtD

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) March 28, 2024

Dr. Jill Compares Keeping Porn Out of Children’s Hands to Nazism

Some of Joe’s aggrandizing and fictionalizing has rubbed off on his wife, Jill. Speaking at a Human Rights Campaign dinner last week, Dr. Jill declared that keeping porn out of hands of children is akin to Nazism.

“History teaches us that democracies don’t disappear overnight. They disappear slowly. Subtly. Silently,” the First Lady said. “A book ban. A court decision. A ‘don’t say gay’ law. Before World War II, I’m told, Berlin was the center of LGBTQ culture in Europe. One group of people loses their rights. And then another, and another. Until one morning you wake up — and you no longer live in a democracy.”

When you are married to a guy who is infamous for sniffing little girls’ hair, and two of the children you helped raised grew up to become sex- and drug addicts, you might want to stay out of arguments about what’s good for kids. Just sayin’.

Ron DeSantis’s Excellent, Amazing, Very Fine Day

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had quite a day Wednesday. First, he quickly moved to quash any effort to bring the surge of squatting into the Sunshine State by signing a new law making it much easier for homeowners to get rid of anyone who illegally takes up residence in their houses.

On so many issues, what New York does, what California does, we will do the opposite.

The squatters scam is over in Florida. pic.twitter.com/ohw8QS7Kml

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 28, 2024

Also Wednesday, DeSantis won a battle over who controls the area housing the Walt Disney World Resort. For decades Disney has enjoyed a special status that allowed it to be, in essence, its own government. When Disney started fighting DeSantis’ over the Parental Rights in Education Act, designed to keep porn and LGBT indoctrination out of schools, DeSantis revoked the House of Mouse’s special status, abolished the Disney-controlled Reedy Creek Improvement District, and created the new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District Board. Disney sued.

But on Wednesday, that suit ended in a settlement.

“We are glad that Disney has dropped its lawsuits against the new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District and conceded that their last-minute development agreements are null, void, and unenforceable,” DeSantis’s communications director, Bryan Griffin, said in a statement. “No corporation should be its own government. Moving forward, we stand ready to work with Disney and the District to help promote economic growth, family-friendly tourism, and accountable government in Central Florida.”

Now if only DeSantis could do something about Disney’s destruction of its own movie brand.

Have a Glorious Easter!

With that we head into Easter weekend. May you and yours have a glorious Resurrection Sunday!

 

Al Perrotta is managing editor of The Stream, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.