Sunday, April 27, 2025

Trump’s First 100 Days: A Scorecard of Wins, Waits, and Wobbles


As President Donald Trump’s second term barrels past the 100-day mark (April 30th, 2025), conservatives across America are taking stock of a presidency that’s hit the ground running with bold moves, yet left some promises on the sidelines and sparked a few head-scratching moments. 

The Good: A Conservative Comeback in Full Swing

Trump’s return to the White House on January 20, 2025, kicked off with the same fire that got him elected. He’s unleashed a wave of executive actions -- 130 executive orders, 35 proclamations, and 36 memorandums by mid-April -- that show he’s serious about reshaping the out-of-control federal government and keeping one of his core campaign promises. 

First, immigration enforcement is back with a vengeance. The Laken Riley Act, signed into law on January 29, 2025, requires ICE to detain illegal immigrants accused of theft-related crimes or assaulting police officers. It also lets states sue the Department of Homeland Security for failing to enforce immigration laws -- a big win for state rights and accountability. ICE arrests have surged 627% compared to the Biden years, with over 20,000 illegal migrants detained in February alone, and border crossings have dropped by 95%. Trump has gone after high-priority targets, including suspected members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua under the Alien Enemies Act. Despite critics like Ezra Klein claiming Trump is “disappearing” people, the reality is he’s lawfully deporting illegal immigrant-criminals to their home countries, others to nations willing to accept them -- often with safer, more dignified transportation than the dangerous routes they took to get here. 

On the economic front, Trump’s fight to extend the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has conservatives fired up. With the TCJA set to expire at the end of 2025, Trump’s team is pushing to keep lower tax rates, bigger deductions, and the child tax credit -- policies that let working families and businesses hold onto more of their hard-earned cash. 

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), spearheaded by Elon Musk and his team, is a standout victory, delivering on Trump’s promise to gut the federal bureaucracy. DOGE has slashed tens of thousands of federal jobs. On top of that, around 75,000 employees, including over 20,000 at the IRS, have taken deferred resignation offers, opting for paid leave through September in exchange for leaving their posts. These cuts, targeting probationary workers and agencies seen as bloated, are a conservative dream come true, trimming waste and reining in a government conservatives view as out of control. 

Trump’s foreign policy has also scored points with the America First crowd. His brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, led by special envoy Steve Witkoff, shows he can still close tough deals on the world stage. 

Perhaps the most powerful win is Trump’s pardon of January 6 defendants. Keeping a campaign promise, he granted clemency to those convicted for their actions at the Capitol, a move that’s energized conservatives who see these prosecutions as politically motivated attacks. Pair that with the firing of federal prosecutors and FBI agents tied to those cases, and it’s obvious Trump is committed to dismantling what many conservatives view as a biased justice system.

The Bad: Promises Still in the Works

Despite the successes, conservatives are still waiting on some major promises Trump made on the campaign trail. The mass deportation operation, hyped as the largest in U.S. history, hasn’t yet reached the scale Trump promised. While ICE arrests are up with a goal of 1,200 to 1,500 per day -- which is still short of the “millions” he talked about. Border Czar Tom Homan has pointed to funding shortages, saying it’ll take $86 billion to ramp up operations. Without action from Congress, conservatives are wondering when Trump’s deportation plan will fully take off.

The gutting of the Department of Education -- over 1,300 workers fired -- is a strong step toward dismantling an agency conservatives can’t stand. But completely shutting it down needs Congress’s approval, and while Republicans control both chambers and the White House, some moderate senators might slow things down. 

Trump’s pledge to pause refugee admissions and cut Biden’s annual cap of 125,000 hasn’t fully come together yet. While his team has hinted at tougher rules, no firm cap has been set, leaving conservatives hungry for a stronger stance on resettlement programs they see as a security concern.

The Challenges: Roadblocks from the Outside

Then there are the moments that have conservatives frustrated -- not because Trump’s lacking commitment, but because bureaucrats, activist judges, and liberal holdouts keep throwing up obstacles. These setbacks only make conservatives more determined to see Trump’s agenda through, but they’re hard to swallow.

Topping my list is the troubling news that FBI Director Kash Patel has let agents opt out of joining ICE raids. For conservatives, ICE operations targeting criminal illegal immigrants are a fundamental duty of federal law enforcement. It’s maddening to hear some FBI agents are allowed to skip these raids because they’re uncomfortable. 

The Guantanamo Bay migrant detention plan is another sore spot. Trump’s order to expand the facility to hold thousands of high-priority detainees was a smart move to show criminal illegal immigrants will face real consequences. But bureaucratic delays and logistical holdups have slowed things down, with only 20 migrants detained by early March and construction stuck in neutral. This isn’t a lack of conservative resolve; it’s sluggish contractors and outdated infrastructure blocking a policy that embodies America First. 

The firing of nearly 25,000 recently hired federal workers was a conservative favorite, aimed at cutting down a bloated bureaucracy. But an activist judge’s ruling, steeped in judicial overreach, called these firings likely illegal, forcing the administration to bring the workers back. This isn’t a conservative mistake; it’s a clear case of unelected judges ignoring the will of the American people to protect the swamp. 

The slow progress on defunding sanctuary cities has conservatives restless. Trump campaigned hard on cutting federal funds to cities like San Francisco and Chicago that protect illegal immigrants -- a policy conservatives see as critical for law and order. 

Before we get too frustrated, let’s not forget: Trump’s a sharp dealmaker, and what seems like a delay might just be him laying the groundwork for something big. We don’t always see his full plan, and he’s got a track record of pulling off surprises. 

Looking Ahead: Can Trump Keep the Momentum?

Trump’s first 100 days have been packed with conservative victories, from immigration crackdowns to tax and deregulation pushes that put America First. The unfinished business -- mass deportations, dismantling the education department, and keeping the deficit in check -- reminds us that governing is harder than campaigning. 

Conservatives are fired up, but they’re also keeping a close watch. Will Trump deliver everything he promised, or will bureaucratic pushback and logistical snags slow him down? As we head toward the next 100 days, one thing’s certain: Trump’s at the helm, and the road ahead is rough. Here’s hoping he keeps his foot on the gas and his focus on the prize.



X22 and Badlands Media- April 27

 



A new ‘spur-of-the-moment’ leftist protest planned for May Day!


You’ve seen them out on the streets and in the cities where Democrats dominate the landscape.  Anti-liberty leftists these days have devolved back down to kvetching about nothing, with a variety of signs, hoping something will stick.  But none of their chants makes any sense, and none of their complaints are catching the imagination.  They’re down to referring to an illegal-alien MS-13 gang member as a “Maryland man” or “Maryland father” because nothing they’ve thrown up against the wall has stuck.

And they wouldn’t be leftists if they didn’t project the Hitler slur in every other news story.  Everyone should know by now that leftists never apologize or account for their old lies; they merely make up something new and move on.  That’s their version of “progress.”

Naturally, they’ve been out in force, nonsensically referring to a man reducing the size and scope of the government as a “dictator” and the new Hitler.  

That brings us to May Day:

With every meeting the size of the audience increased and by the time Hitler appeared at the Clou restaurant center there were 5000 present.

The occasion was a closed celebration of the Marxist holiday, May Day, and the Fuhrer began like a Lenin: “We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.”

The many quotations on that same subject obliterate one of the left’s biggest lies, and their widespread existence is one reason the leftists’ lies are running on fumes these days.

Curiously, the Nazis also voiced a slogan that is perfectly at home with the left.  This was a new labor code inaugurated in connection with the May Day observance.  From the New York Times:

NAZIS INAUGURATE LABOR CODE TODAY; “The Common Good Before the Good of the Individual” Is Slogan of New System. STATUS OF JEWS AN ISSUE Law Says They May Be “Leaders” in Their Businesses, but Public Opinion Protests

Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES. May 1, 1934

BERLIN, April 30. — The new Nazi labor code with its system of “leaders and followers, confidential shop councils, courts of honor and labor trustees” goes into effect tomorrow. In connection with the May Day observance, the “leaders and followers” will take an oath to serve loyally under the slogan, “The Common Good Before the Good of the Individual.”

Raise your hand if you could easily imagine leftists parroting that pablum without knowing that it was originally in German.  Both cadres of leftists pulled out all the stops in celebrating their socialist “holiday.”

Coincidently, the nation’s socialists are also going to be out on the streets next Thursday and Saturday in their next “spur-of-the-moment” pre-planned protest.  Yes, nothing says spontaneity quite like events that are planned out behind closed doors and then communicated to the astroturf in advance.  You might ask, how can they afford to do this on a weekday?  Don’t they have jobs?  We’ll let you think that over for yourself, because their main unvoiced complaint is that taxpayer dollars are no longer flowing to organizations that fund such extravaganzas.

It’s relatively easy to trace back the preparation and planning for these ever so spontaneous protest marches.  That’s the beauty of the Wayback Machine: It even color-codes what has taken place in the weeks and sometimes months leading up to these “spur-of-the-moment” events.  The initial links will usually be restricted to a select few — an oligarchy, to coin a phrase — and then, later on, when they need to get the word out to as many as possible, the pages will be opened up for all to see.  This can be pretty useful because it will give everyone a heads-up on places to avoid.

At this point, it’s almost become comical to see how tattered the left’s National Socialist lie has become.  You’ll find that leftists will usually drop this little stink bomb on social media as their parting distraction shot, much like a skunk raising its tail and letting loose.  They won’t stick around to defend their lie, because they have nothing to back it up, and they never actually had a case — it was just a bunch of half-baked opinions and bloviation.

So, as they keep this up, we’ll just do more research and add more similarities to the list, because the nation’s left is far more like that other nation’s socialists than the pro-freedom right.  The Original Social Justice Warriorwasn’t known for his humor, and in general, leftists suffer the same malady, especially in the sense that they can’t seem to meme.  But Joseph Goebbelspraised FDR and the New Deal.  The left has pushed price controls and politics into every aspect of life, just like the National Socialists, so they should be cautious in continuing their constant lies.  People are waking up to the fact that National Socialism and leftism are very similar.



The entire Democrat party says leftist judges are above the law


Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested based on allegations that she deliberately thwarted ICE’s efforts to capture an illegal alien. Today, the Democrat party has closed ranks to protect a judge who allegedly committed a blatantly criminal act.

Monica Showalter has detailed the allegations against Judge Dugan. If correct, they show a judge who intentionally violated federal immigration law in the most public way possible.

What we’re also seeing is a major political party that sees that type of behavior as a virtue. Indeed, it wants and expects to be treated as above the law.

As a reminder, this is the same major party that threw in prison grandmothers who saw no signage barring them from entry into the US Capitol, were welcomed by Capitol police, and walked reverently between the rope lines. This is also the party that cheered when an American president was arrested for alleged felonies predicated on literally made-up charges.

However, in Dugan’s case, the Democrats have their theme: America under Trump is a police state because it arrested a judge.

The fringe started protesting very quickly, signs at the ready, practically within minutes of Dugan’s arrest: But that’s the fringe. There’ll always be a fringe, right? What’s different here is that the fringe goes right to the top. Everyone in the Democrat party is piling on to say that it’s “undemocratic” to arrest a judge, as if there’s no difference between arresting a judge for statements that oppose the government (that’s bad) or arresting a judge for allegedly violating the law, just as she would be arrested if she ran a red light and killed someone (that’s good). Naturally, Bernie is on the case: Jamie Raskin came up with a convoluted claim that the entire Trump administration needs to be arrested because it didn’t instantly fall in line with Judge Boasberg’s statement from the bench that Venezuelan gangbangers needed to stay in America: Raskin, a typical product of Harvard Law School, which has rarely turned out either competent or ethical lawyers since 1984, seemingly doesn’t distinguish between blatantly violating legislation versus finding gaping loopholes in a judge’s procedurally incorrect order. And there’s Amy Klobuchar, another former Democrat presidential candidate: People with good memories reminded Klobuchar that she once thought differently:

In fact, it’s very normal for judges to be arrested for violating the law:

It’s easy to find dozens, probably hundreds, of these stories, just by searching “judge arrested.”

Over the years, I’ve worked on cases involving judges who were alcoholics arrested for drunk driving, who took bribes, who slept with attorneys on the case...you name it. Being a judge doesn’t mean you’re lawful. Often, bad people use it as a cover for their lawless instincts.

That Dugan might be liable to corruption on immigration matters was suggested long before she went on the bench. She was the  executive director of Catholic Charities of Southeastern Wisconsin Inc., a branch of the umbrella USAID-funded organization that made millions facilitating illegal alien entry and settlement in the United States:

Judicial corruption has been a problem as long as there have been judges. That’s why, when Moses was overwhelmed by the task of resolving disputes among the Israelites, his father-in-law, Jethro, didn’t just tell him to delegate the task to judges. Instead, he counseled him to be very careful about the people he selected: “But you should choose from among all the people competent men who are God-fearing, honest and incorruptible to be their leaders, in charge of thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.” (Exodus 18:21.)

The hypocrisy here is stunning. On the left, arresting a former president and current political candidate because he holds views the left opposes is fine. However, a judge who holds the correct views is above the law, no matter how blatant her alleged crime has been.



🎭 π–πŸ‘π π““π“π“˜π“›π“¨ 𝓗𝓾𝓢𝓸𝓻, π“œπ“Ύπ“Όπ“²π“¬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, π“žπ“Ÿπ“”π“ 𝓣𝓗𝓑𝓔𝓐𝓓

 


Welcome to 

The π–πŸ‘π π““π“π“˜π“›π“¨ 𝓗𝓾𝓢𝓸𝓻, π“œπ“Ύπ“Όπ“²π“¬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, π“žπ“Ÿπ“”π“ 𝓣𝓗𝓑𝓔𝓐𝓓 

Here’s a place to share cartoons, jokes, music, art, nature, 
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CO2 Is Greening the Earth, and That's a Good Thing


This just in: Carbon dioxide (CO2) is good for plants. In fact, plants can't live without it; the process of photosynthesis is how plants turn carbon and sunlight into sugars and carbohydrates - food. Whenever you eat a carrot, a potato, or a mess of collard greens, make sure to thank photosynthesis!

Now, there is a level of CO2 that we don't want. CO2 is a greenhouse gas; it's not as serious as methane or even water vapor, but runaway CO2 (from non-biological sources) is why Venus is a pressure cooker. But Earth is nowhere near that, and while through much of the planet's history it'd been warmer than now - sometimes a lot warmer - CO2 is, generally, a good thing. A little bit more CO2, according to some recent studies, is actually greening the planet. Watts Up With That's H. Sterling Burnett has the news.

New research published in the journal Remote Sensing of the Environmentconfirms, yet again, what regular readers of Climate Change Weekly and Heartland’s other climate change products have long known: the Earth is greening in general, and increased carbon dioxide levels and better moisture conditions are responsible.

The study, from a team of 17 researchers at various universities and research facilities in the United States and China, reports that in 2020 the Earth’s “greenness”—its vegetation coverage and mass—reached its highest levels since the early 2000s and probably longer.

Using remote sensing devices and indicators supplemented by machine learning, the researchers determined the greening was “largely linked to continuous growth in boreal and temperate vegetation” and “[c]omplemented by a transient tropical vegetation boost due to increased rainfall.”

This won't be covered by the American legacy media, either. It doesn't fit the narrative. But it is a study worth consideration, whether the climate scolds like it or not. And note that this data set stops at 2020; the trend may well have continued since.

Here's the fun thing: We're seeing some local evidence of this right now, right here in the Great Land. Our growing seasons are lengthening, slowly, due to slightly warmer temperatures, and Alaskan agriculture is expanding, to the point where the state legislature was considering the formation of a state department of agriculture. That didn't happen, but the slight warming we are experiencing - and, yes, the climate has been on a gradual warming trend since the last glaciation - has the potential to open up even more northern lands for agricultural use.

As I mentioned above, the beneficial CO2-induced greening of the Earth, with longer growing seasons and improved rainfall and plant efficiency, is not news to my readers. Climate Realism has published nearly 60 stories citing different research papers and studies that document CO2-induced greening, and hundreds more examining how greening has improved crop yields and production and reduced starvation, hunger, and malnutrition.

In addition, Heartland discussed global greening with award-winning physicist Will Happer during the 78th episode of the Climate Realism show, and we have discussed global greening and its continuing agricultural boost on a number of panels at Heartland’s series of 15 International Conferences on Climate Change.

The summary of all this is that the Earth has feedback systems. Increased CO2 greens the earth, and plants, especially forests, are huge carbon sinks. Forget the rain forest, by the way; the real "lungs of the planet" are the forests of the great northern taiga. 

Mr. Burnett concludes:

Various analyses of the so-called “Social Cost of Carbon” calculations indicate global greening and its effects on agriculture alone may mean that the metric would be better labeled the Social Net Benefit of Carbon.

Global greening is an established fact, and this study is just one more data point of proof.

Our planet is a pretty amazing place.

The Earth has many systems, all interacting. As I'm continually pointing out on this topic, the planet's climate is a vast, chaotic, complex system that we can't completely understand. But our understanding does improve with each study, with each realization, with each new set of data uncovered and recorded. There's also a reason people refer to the "balance of nature," and that's because nature strikes a balance. In this case, we have several new studies - by all means, read them - that are showing the benefits of a small increase in CO2.

As the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan pointed out, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.



America's Second-Largest Grocery Chain Reportedly Isn't Stressing About Trump Tariffs


Becca Lower reporting for RedState 

Albertsons, America's second-largest grocery chain, is reportedly informing suppliers that will be affected by the new Trump administration tariffs that it's not the company's problem, according to a recent letter:

Albertsons, which owns 2,200 grocery stores across the U.S., sent a letter to suppliers in late March spelling out how it would deal with price hikes. 

“With few exceptions, we are not accepting cost increases due to tariffs,” the letter read (emphasis in the original). 

The letter laid out the grocer's reason for the policy was "maintaining the value propositions our customers expect.” In other words, to keep grocery prices low and customers coming back.

It continued: 

“Suppliers are not permitted to include tariff-related costs in invoices without prior authorization by Albertsons Companies. Any invoices that include such charges without prior authorization will be subject to dispute and may result in payment delays.”

You may have noticed that Albertsons used the phrase "with few exceptions." What does a supplier need to do if they think their products fall into that category?

[Any] suppliers hit by tariffs will be forced to go through a multistep process to “request a cost change” for the goods they supply to Albertsons, starting with giving the company 90 days’ advance notice. They will need to fill out cost-change forms, offer “a detailed explanation of the tariff impact” and hand over supporting documents, such as tariff notices or import duty receipts.

Once all documents are submitted, the supplier will need to wait another 30 days for Albertsons to review. And even then, approval “is not guaranteed,” the letter said. 

Ironically, this came to light because some progressive journal got its hands on the letter to the suppliers, and meant to make an example of Albertsons' decision--to show how evil corporations are. 

David Dayen, the executive editor of progressive magazine The American Prospect, who first uncovered the letter, held it up as a sign that big companies could pass on price hikes freely while smaller competitors would suffer or even go out of business.

Dayen wrote in his article, "How the Trump Tariffs Assist Monopoly": 

“Grocery suppliers whose sourcing or manufacturing is overseas have clearly incurred costs on its products, but hardball like this would mean they would have to compensate for losses with other retailers."

Unsurprisingly, Dayen had to tell his readers, "Albertsons did not respond to a request for comment" for his piece.

The writer is completely missing the point here. It does just the opposite, proving that, no, tariffs don't automatically raise prices for consumers. This is the free market/capitalist system, where business owners have choices on how they run their stores. Keep in mind that U.S. companies that partner with overseas suppliers have had time to plan for just this possibility, when the then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump ramped up talking about tariffs during the 2024 election. 

Playing hardball is what healthy companies that want to stay in business do. You might recall my story about Kroger, the top grocery chain in the country, seeking to merge with Albertsons in 2022. After lawsuits caused it to fall through, neither of them decided to just roll up in a ball and close up shop. 

That fact, possibly more than anything, is what really burns up these anti-capitalism leftists.



Susan Rice Throws a Tantrum


Dan Zoernig reporting for RedState 

Susan Rice got fired the other day by Pete Hegseth. As a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee for the last two years, she was canned along with a number of others because the DOD Director decided that their services were no longer needed.

Rice, a long-time government employee and ally of the Obama-Biden kabal, wasted no time in going on both social media and MSNBC to whine and stomp her feet. Calling Hegseth "dumb as a rock," Rice said:

Well, if you’re a white male Christian cisgender macho MAGA man, you can be as dumb as a rock and be deemed qualified to serve as secretary of Defense. That’s apparently what we’ve learned from this episode.

Rice had no problems demonstrating her racism, sexism, and anti-Christian bias while throwing a child's tantrum on national TV,  but these days, this is expected, and I've grown numb to the charges. This is what Democrats and progressives turn to when they get angry. It's a lot like the name-calling we were all either subjected to--or subjected others to--in the third grade. One would hope that a person who is 60 years old would have at least displayed a little more self-control and decorum. Like Rex Tillerson. 

In 2018, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson got fired for poor performance, etc., yet he managed to depart his position with a little bit of grace and style. You can love or hate him all that you want, but compared to Susan Rice, he behaved like a grown-up.

"To the 300-plus million Americans, thank you for your devotion to a free and open society, to acts of kindness toward one another, to honesty, and the quiet hard work that you do every day to support this government with your tax dollars...I'll now return to private life, as a private citizen, as a proud American, proud of the opportunity I've had to have serve my country." 

Contrast that with Rice's tweet, "Hegseth is a fat head. He's a racist. He's a woman hater. He's a (gak) Christian of the worst kind!!!!!"  

If you've ever had the pleasure of dropping off your child at day care for the very first time, you know well the cry of the desperate.

Again, this is not unexpected, but it is disappointing because it's obviously just an emotional outburst. And one would hope that people in the Pentagon who advise the DOD director, who advises the president, would be at least a little bit above the behavioral caliber of a toddler in a pack 'n play. A position that Rice got kicked out of is far too important for people who have failed to mature emotionally by the age of 60. 

Looking at this analytically, and while the DOD has not released the names of other former advisors on the council, I will go out on a limb and assume that they all weren't women and they all weren't white. Maybe they just got canned because the Director wanted to fill the seats with people who think as he does. It would have been interesting to see how Susan Rice's tantrum would look if he'd fired her specifically and replaced her in the seat with Condoleezza Rice. Or better yet, instigated a little in-party catfighting and replaced her with Maxine Waters. That would have been interesting.

When Barack Obama came into office, he fired everybody. Mostly white guys, but a few women and a few blacks, and nobody ever called him a racist or a woman hater. So when new leadership comes in, it cleans house. It's just the way of the world, and it has been for 5,000 years. Octavian fired Lepidus, Truman fired MacArthur, Hegseth fired Rice. It happens, and it's always based on performance or worldview. 

However, Susan Rice is special, and so with her gift of natural immunity from the tides of history, it must be something else. And really, it is a pathetic thing to watch a grown woman melt into a puddle of insecurity on TV, calling Hegseth a bunch of names as an act of public self-soothing. She should have probably done that in a private setting. But in our modern day of self-expression, we showcase our vulnerabilities, failures, and tantrums before the entire world. 



Young Minds, Big Sound: Students Experience the Magic of Live Orchestral Music at the Kennedy Center

Young Minds, Big Sound: Students Experience the Magic of Live Orchestral Music at the Kennedy Center

Courtesy of The Kennedy Center

In a rare moment of unity and cultural celebration, nearly 11,500 children and educators poured into the Kennedy Center over three days to experience the power of classical music through the National Symphony Orchestra’s “Young People's Concerts.” While Washington is often consumed with dysfunction and political theater, this event reminded us that exposing young minds to the arts, primarily through affordable, accessible performances, can still uplift and inspire. At just $7 a ticket, the program shows that fostering a love of music and tradition doesn’t require bloated federal programs or ideological agendas—just a commitment to excellence and a respect for the next generation. 

For years, the Kennedy Center has strongly partnered with Fairfax County schools, allowing 4th graders to attend the concerts annually. Additional performances are set aside for DC Public and Public Charter schools, with free tickets and transportation covered by the Kimsey Initiative. Any remaining seats—usually enough to fill one full concert—are made available for purchase by any school, whether public, private, or homeschool. To enhance the experience, we also provide a digital learning guide ahead of time to help teachers prepare their students and offer post-concert activities.

“It is a joy to watch their faces light up with excitement as they enter the Kennedy Center Hall of Nations, see the red carpet and the tall ceilings, and are welcomed into a space to enjoy the arts – live. Their enthusiasm is palpable, and we love that we are the site for so many of them to enjoy their first performance at this scale,”  Jordan C LaSalle, Vice President of Education for The Kennedy Center, said in a statement. 

Guided by the whimsical Sprite character, students were taken on a journey through the world of orchestral music. Along the way, they were encouraged to identify the four key sections of the orchestra—strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion. They discovered how each group brings its own distinct sound, yet works together to create a unified and powerful musical performance. They explored the instruments' look, feel, and sound through hands-on learning, sparking a deeper understanding and appreciation of the orchestra and the art of music-making. 

The concert featured an exciting lineup of performances that held the students’ attention from start to finish. Highlights included the lively “Allegro” by Francesco Maria Veracini with a standout violin solo, the thrilling percussion-driven “Toybox Escape” by Keeghan Fountain, and the bold “La PΓ©ri – Fanfare” by Paul Dukas, spotlighting the brass. The woodwinds came to life with John Williams’ whimsical “Nimbus 2000,” while Jessie Montgomery’s “Starburst” beautifully showcased the strings. The journey culminated with Mason Bates’ “Philharmonia Fantastique,” a piece that brought the full orchestra together in a vibrant celebration of sound.

This wasn’t just a sit-and-listen kind of event—students were invited to move, dance, and cheer, transforming the concert into an immersive, hands-on experience that deepened their connection to music and made learning both fun and unforgettable.


Sunday Scripture

 



https://www.bibleref.com/Psalms/103/Psalm-103-12.html


What does Psalm 103:12 mean?


In love and mercy, the Lord has removed His people's sins from them. He doesn't simply move our sins onto our doorstep or a mile away; God moves them as far from us as the east is from the west. 


This is an especially profound analogy. North meets south at the South Pole, and south meets north at the North Pole. East and west never meet—there is neither an east pole nor a west pole. A person who follows a straight path north will eventually begin moving south. But no matter how far one travels east, they will always be moving east. North and south are definable points, but eastand west are indefinitely far from each other. To say that God separates our sins "as far as the east is from the west" speaks of the absolute, irrevocable measure by which God forgives us. 




Levin: This is what happens 'when eggheads in robes take over'

Fox News host Mark Levin explores how the Supreme Court has interpreted due process throughout the years and how it's applied to illegal migrants


♦️𝐖³π πƒπšπ’π₯𝐲 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧 π“π‘π«πžπšπ

 


W³P Daily News Open Thread. 

Welcome to the W³P Daily News Open Thread. 

Post whatever you got in the comments section below.

This feature will post every day at 6:30am Mountain time.