Remembering
James Robison

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The Brew: Trump Cleans House, Firing Signal-Gate Culprits. Will He Hire True Loyalists Now?

By John Zmirak Published on May 2, 2025

A month ago, when the Signal-Gate fiasco broke out (which saw a leftist, Trump-hating smear merchant, Jeffrey Goldberg, included in a highly classified military planning call), I suggested the most likely culprits were National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong. Each of them is part of the interventionist, neocon wing of the GOP.

After that, proof emerged that they in fact were responsible, even as people like William Kristol lobbied to scapegoat Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (whom Kristol considers too much of a peacenik). Trump waited a decent interval to avoid seeming to hand scalps to his enemies, but yesterday he fired both Waltz and Wong. He’s now moving Waltz to be ambassador to the United Nations, a talking-shop spot that lets Waltz save face.

Hard-core America Firsters are celebrating this decision as a move that will help prevent a repeat of the chaos and futility of Trump’s first term in office, subverted as he was by incessant leaks, backstabs, and fake Deep State investigations. But will Trump go far enough in replacing establishment GOP obstructionists with those who genuinely support the platform he ran on? Fearless independent journalist Emerald Robinson is asking that question, and offering advice:

Some facts showing that Trump’s team should have known about Waltz, laid out in the X post below, suggest that stricter vetting will be in order when choosing his replacement:

Many of Trump’s most loyal, longtime supporters are calling on the president to hire General Mike Flynn — a decorated patriot who was fired as National Security Advisor in 2016 after just three weeks, thanks to a cabal of Deep State bad actors fronted by Vice President Mike Pence. With Flynn out of the way, the FBI could cooperate with a rogue Department of Justice (thanks to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s foolish recusal) in cooking up the Russiagate hoax and Trump’s first false impeachment.

Then Flynn was prosecuted on trumped-up charges of being a foreign agent, and bullied into pleading guilty in order to keep his equally innocent son out of prison. Even when Trump’s hijacked DOJ finally dropped those charges, an Obama-appointed judge refused to dismiss the case. It took the heroic efforts of attorney Sidney Powell and a presidential “pardon of innocence” to save Flynn from lawfare’s maw. In case you don’t know the story, check out the film that exposes this scandal.

Certainly it would be an act of reparative justice to hire Flynn again. Let the man the Deep State subversives feared so much lead the effort to root them out.

Trump Establishes Religious Liberty Commission

Remember Evangelicals for Biden and Catholics for Harris? Those supposed true believers supported an administration that infiltrated churches, labeled PTA moms who questioned transgender grooming in schools as “domestic extremists,” and put peaceful pro-lifers in prison. The Trump administration, by contrast, is acting decisively to protect our first freedom — the free exercise of religion.

Yesterday, at a White House ceremony celebrating the National Day of Prayer, President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating the President’s Religious Liberty Commission, and appointed First Liberty President Kelly Shackelford as a member. First Liberty is a Texas-based law firm that exists solely to protect religious freedom nationwide.

Said Shackelford, “I am incredibly honored to be selected to join such a prestigious group of leaders on the Commission in President Trump’s effort to protect religious liberty in our nation. For too long, government officials have been hostile to expressions of faith despite First Liberty’s numerous victories at the Supreme Court. It will be a privilege to do everything we can to protect religious liberty and restore our first freedom for all Americans.”

The Commission will be led by Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. Ben Carson.

According to the executive order, the Commission will “produce a comprehensive report on the foundations of religious liberty in America, the impact of religious liberty on American society, current threats to domestic religious liberty, strategies to preserve and enhance religious liberty protections for future generations and programs to increase awareness of and celebrate America’s peaceful religious pluralism.”

Also appointed to the Commission was Bishop Robert Barron, who led the National Day of Prayer ceremonies with a plea not to some generic “higher power,” but to the risen Jesus Christ:

Kids Won’t Be Banned from Singing About Jesus

In related news, First Liberty Institute announced today that students in Michigan’s West Ward Elementary School will be allowed to sing religious songs at a school talent show coming up later this month. Administrators were threatening to censor those songs, but granted permission within hours after First Liberty reminded them about children’s … well, first liberty.

“We are grateful for the school’s prompt attention to our letter and their recognition that the law is very clearly on the side of the students,” said First Liberty Counsel Kayla Toney. “Our clients look forward to singing their faith-based songs, as practiced and planned, at the talent show on May 23.”

Two students had chosen songs by popular Christian artists Colton Dixon and Brandon Lake (both of whom appeared on American Idol’s “Songs of Faith” special on Easter Sunday). After reviewing the lyrics, a school official said the songs were too “Christian based.” In response to a demand letter from First Liberty Institute yesterday, the Allegan School Administration stated “that school staff were unfamiliar with the legal guidelines concerning religious expression in a public school setting,” and announced that the students will now be allowed to perform the songs at the talent show.

Texas Gun Rights Group Calls on Trump Not to Endorse Sen. John Cornyn

The First Amendment is a wonderful thing — in theory. But without the Second Amendment, it can’t be put into practice. That’s the thesis of my book, No Second Amendment, No First, and history has proven the sad fact true: An unarmed populace has no way to defend its rights against abusive governments, which is why the first thing would-be dictators try to do is to seize all the citizens’ guns. That happened in Bolshevik Russia, Nazi Germany, socialist Venezuela, and in blue states across the U.S. Citizens of one red state, Texas, are unsurprisingly vigilant about defending gun rights.

And one gun-rights group has a message for President Trump: Don’t interfere in the Texas U.S. Senate Republican primary by endorsing Swamp denizen John Cornyn, now being challenged by Attorney General Ken Paxton, a fiery election-fraud fighter. The Truth About Guns reports:

The organization Texas Gun Rights (TGR) last week penned a letter to President Trump in which it aired its grievances over what it believes to be Sen. Cornyn’s lack of support for the Second Amendment.

“Dear President Trump, We, the members and supporters of Texas Gun Rights, write to you as dedicated defenders of the Second Amendment,” the letter stated. “We urge you in the strongest terms not to endorse Senator John Cornyn in his bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate.”

The organization further stated that Sen. Cornyn has repeatedly betrayed the trust of gun owners in Texas and across the country.

“His authorship of the ‘Fix NICS’ gun control deal in 2017 flooded the federal ‘prohibited persons’ list with millions of Americans — including veterans — without due process,” the letter stated. “Worse, he was the lead Republican architect of the Biden-Cornyn Gun Control Bill — the so-called Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) — which Joe Biden himself celebrated as the most significant gun control legislation in 30 years.”

Former President Joe Biden later used the BSCA as cover to institute a number of executive actions limiting gun rights.

Mr. President, just sit this contest out. We Texans know our own business.

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RFK, Jr. Accuses Biden HHS of Complicity in Child Trafficking

In these pages, I have suggested using one litmus test for fake Christianity: Looking out for people who said absolutely nothing about the 300,000 immigrant children the Biden administration let go missing, likely into the hands of abusers and exploiters, rending their garments about a few foreign gang members finally getting deported. Now Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is applying that test in real time — and naming perpetrators whose guilt goes far beyond mere indifference. Gateway Pundit reports:

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has accused Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of being actively complicit in one of the most disturbing scandals in American history — the trafficking of vulnerable migrant children for sex, labor, and slavery.

The explosive accusation came as President Donald Trump marked the 100th day of his second term with a high-level Cabinet meeting that addressed the crisis head-on.

“We have ended HHS as the role as the factor, the principle factor in this country for child trafficking,” Kennedy said.

“During the Biden administration, HHS became a collaborator in child trafficking — for sex and for slavery. We have ended that. We’re now very aggressively going out and trying to find these children — the 300,000 children that were lost by the Biden administration.” …

An explosive investigation by independent outlet Muckraker peels back the curtain on this horrifying network. According to CEO Anthony Rubin, federal agencies under the Biden-Harris regime knowingly placed children into the hands of criminal gangs like MS-13 and sex trafficking rings.

“We discovered that while in federal government custody, some children asked to be sent back to their home country, but are instead taken away in the middle of the night and sent to sponsors who they do not know. It is also well documented that this program has placed children in the hands of criminal organizations such as MS-13, as well as labor and sex trafficking rings,” says Muckraker CEO Anthony Rubin.

Who Are the Worst Candidates for Pope?

Whether you’re fond of the Catholic Church or not, you’d probably rather not see that billion-member organization led by a crony of the Chinese Communist Party, an LGBTQ advocate, or someone steeped in squalid financial corruption. The traditionalist Catholic site Rorate Coeli offers a helpful, if depressing, list of the supposed frontrunners to replace the catastrophic Pope Francis most likely to continue his reign of error. Jules Gomes will have a report on this early next week for The Stream.

Along The Stream…

Later this morning, watch a fascinating speech Ayaan Hirsi Ali explaining why nation-states with borders aren’t an artifact of sin or the fruit of racial hatred, but part of God’s loving plan for mankind.

At noon, learn from Liberty Counsel how transgenderism is child abuse, full stop — and what you can do to help stop it.

 

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 14 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.