President Trump delivers a message from the White House celebrating the holiest of weeks, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

“As we rejoice in this Easter season, we are reminded that the life of Jesus Christ and the truths of the Gospel have inspired our way of life and our national identity for 250 years.  From the Christian patriots who won and secured our liberty on the battlefield and every generation since, the love of Christ has unfailingly guided our Nation through calm waters and dark storms.

We pray that this celebration of the Resurrection strengthens our faith, enriches our lives, and reawakens our souls.  We offer prayers of adoration and thanksgiving for the countless blessings God has bestowed upon our Nation.  We acknowledge that, through Christ’s redeeming sacrifice, in the words of Holy Scripture, “Death is swallowed up in victory.”  Above all, we echo with tremendous joy those sacred words that have given life, hope, and purpose to Christians for thousands of years:  He is risen.” (White House)

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett appears on Bloomberg News to discuss the US March jobs report and oil market supply disruptions related to the military action in Iran against the impact of oil prices on the US economy.

Director Hassett notes the continued goal of the Trump MAGAnomic plan is to build momentum, keep driving domestic investment and the short-term impact from Iran should mitigate quickly.  WATCH:

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ActBlue is to the Democrat party fundraising machine as WinRed is to the Republican side of the equation.

In a rather stunning outline by the New York Times [SEE HERE] the progressive outlet is reporting of serious concerns within the leadership of ActBlue related to their willfully blind reception of foreign sources of money to fund Democrat candidates.

The remarkable aspect is not just that ActBlue takes foreign funds, but rather the New York Times revealing internal legal discussions about it.  According to the Times reporting, the Eric Holder law firm Covington & Burling, the primary legal mechanism for the ActBlue/DNC machinery, lies at the heart of the matter.

(NYT) […] The firm concluded that ActBlue’s chief executive had given a potentially misleading response to congressional Republican investigators in a 2023 letter explaining how the organization vetted donations to ensure that they were not illegally coming from foreign citizens.

The letter from the chief executive, Regina Wallace-Jones, said ActBlue carried out “multilayered” screenings of contributions that helped “root out” those from overseas. In fact, the law firm found, some of the steps she had described were not always followed.

“This presents a substantial risk for ActBlue,” the law firm, Covington & Burling, wrote in one of two memos expressing legal concerns. One memo raised the specter of a criminal investigation if prosecutors believed that ActBlue had tried to conceal facts about its efforts to prevent foreign contributions. (source)

To really appreciate the scheme that seems to be outlined by the internal documents, it is worth remembering that James O’Keefe previously did some boots on the ground research into ActBlue [SEE HERE – 2023] and found that multiple, perhaps thousands, of “donor” names and addresses were assigned to contributions the donors said they never made.

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They say pictures are worth a thousand words.  Well, beyond that level, what does a picture of a headline say?

Think about how many actual people had to be involved in printing this?

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NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

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John 18:1—19:42

Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to where there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered. Judas his betrayer also knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples.

So Judas got a band of soldiers and guards from the chief priests and the Pharisees and went there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.

Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to him, went out and said to them, “Whom are you looking for?”

They answered him, “Jesus the Nazorean.”

He said to them, “I AM.”

Judas his betrayer was also with them. When he said to them, “I AM,” they turned away and fell to the ground.

So he again asked them, “Whom are you looking for?”

They said, “Jesus the Nazorean.”

Jesus answered, “I told you that I AM. So if you are looking for me, let these men go.”

This was to fulfill what he had said: “I have not lost any of those you gave me.”

Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus.

Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its scabbard. Shall I not drink the cup that the Father gave me?”

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The Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) has released the March employment report [DATA HERE] reflecting gains of 186,000 private sector jobs, with another 8,000 federal government jobs eliminated.  Net gain 178,000 jobs.

Forecasters had anticipated around 63,000 net jobs gained: the actual result triples expectations.

[BLS Report – Table B]

This is a challenging time to use data to estimate overall employment strength, mainly due to the repatriation efforts underway that are removing illegal alien workers from the labor force.

As deportation efforts continue against the black-market workforce, in combination with targeting efforts toward fraudulent ‘mismatched’ social security records used to gain unlawful -albeit visible- market employment, it becomes challenging to quantify net realized job gains.

The overall goal is to remove the illegal alien workers, reestablish organic job market pressures to increase wages and pull American workers from the sidelines back into the labor market.  Removing illegal workers drives up real wages, that should (re)incentivize the labor market.   As these efforts continue, we are seeing wide variances, upward and downward swings, depending on the collection timing.

One of the positive aspects during this employment cycle is the reduction in the overall federal labor force.  Overall, in the past year, President Trump has removed 271,000 federal jobs more than reversing all of the govt jobs added during Joe Biden’s term in office.  This trend should continue.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

(more…)

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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