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Fifty-five years after Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals landed on shelves in 1971, I am applying to it the only framework that matters: a performance audit. The question is not whether Alinsky's thirteen tactics are morally defensible. The question is whether they worked for the constituencies they claimed to champion. The answer is no — and the data are not subtle. This is not merely a conservative grievance. It is a portfolio performance review. And the returns are dismal.

Iran flexed its leverage in the Strait of Hormuz this week, forcing President Trump to lean on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to scale back deadly strikes in Lebanon ahead of ceasefire negotiations planned in Pakistan this weekend. However, Israeli attacks on Lebanon continued into Friday, and there’s still almost no shipping traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz — raising major doubts about the ceasefire as Vice President Vance heads to Islamabad. Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the Speaker of Iran’s Parliament, who will lead Tehran in the talks, said Friday there will be no negotiations without a ceasefire in Lebanon and a release of blocked Iranian assets.

As is so often the case, the greatest threat to any institution comes from within. Currently, a Groyper movement—that is, a movement built on mindless isolationism, hardcore antisemitism, coy pro-Naziism and Islamism, huge pockets of misogyny, and a barely hidden dislike for America—is trying to co-opt MAGA and the Republican Party. Its leaders are podcast hosts Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones, all of whom once claimed to be straight-talking conservatives. Now, they just engage in crazy talk.

new American Energy Institute report shows that foreign billionaires have provided funding upwards of $39 million to the anti-AI data center movement in the United States, with experts saying AI infrastructure must be advanced in order to assert American tech dominance over communist China. Founder, CEO and Chairman of State Armor as well as expert on Chinese influence in America Michael Lucci told The Center Square: “Either the United States or communist China will dominate artificial intelligence, and therefore, likely dominate the leading technologies of the 21st-century.” “China is actively executing strategies to win this competition,” Lucci said.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday participated in groundbreaking ceremonies highlighting Texas’ energy expansion in both oil and gas and semiconductor manufacturing. In Port Arthur, Abbott joined Entergy Corporation CEO Drew Marsh and Entergy Texas President and CEO Eli Viamontes and others at a groundbreaking ceremony for Entergy Legend and Lone Star power stations. The new power stations will expand Texas’ energy capacity by adding 1,200 MW of power to supply electricity to more than 300,000 homes. In 2023, Abbott broke ground with Marsh and Viamontes at its Orange County Advanced Power Station, a combined-cycle power plant, built near Bridge City next to Entergy Texas’ Sabine Power Plant, The Center Square reported.

Virginia Democrats are swooning over the prospect of wiping out congressional representation for the overwhelming majority of Republicans in the state if voters pass their April 21 gerrymandering referendum. As I wrote here at The Federalist, that ballot question drips with contempt for rural voters as well as the “democracy” Democrats pretend to care about. How did things change so fast? What’s behind Democrats’ cockiness to behave with impunity like Soviet apparatchiks? Normal Americans are still scratching their heads over the outcome of Virginia’s 2025 election that handed over the governorship and a massive statehouse majority to the Democrats.