Let’s savor some sweet victories with our Afternoon Tea:
Florida Supreme Court Upholds State’s 15-Week Ban on Abortion
On Monday, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks. This means another ban on abortions after six weeks will soon take effect. The six-week ban, passed in 2023, was written to take effect one month after the 15-week ban is upheld.
The potential downside: The Florida Supreme Court also allowed an “abortion access” measure to go on the ballot this fall. Abortion advocates and their legislative allies have been using such measures to scare women into going to the polls — and, in some cases they’ve even managed to cement abortion “rights” into the constitutions of pro-life states.
The Illegal Immigrant Who Was Touting Squatting Has Been Captured
Remember the illegal immigrant who went viral for his TikTok message instructing his fellow Venezuelans how to take advantage of U.S. squatting laws to get housing? He’s been nabbed (finally) by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s fugitive ops team in Gahanna, Ohio.
“I have thought about invading a house in the United States,” Leonel Moreno said in his infamous TikTok video. “I found out that there is a law that says that if a house is not inhabited, we can seize it.” He also mocked Americans who work “like slaves” and boasted about making a thousand dollars a day as a TikTok influencer while getting $350 a week in government benefits.
Mocking Americans, teaching people how to steal the hard-earned property of legal citizens, making money off of American taxpayers. This guy might as well be a member of The Squad.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government continues to mock God. This time, it takes the form of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services adding a third gender option, “Another Gender Identity,” to its nationalization application form. Right there with Male and Female is now “Another Gender Identity.”
Salvage Crews Lift Away First Chunks of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge
Hard-hats off to the salvage crews working on the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. Workers have managed to start cutting away and lifting out the first 200-ton pieces of the bridge from the Patapsco River, along with opening the first of three temporary channels to allow essential shipping to get out of Baltimore. It’s amazing to get that done within a week of the bridge’s collapse.
Without Superman around, crews have to slice the bridge’s remains into pieces small enough for massive cranes to handle — very dangerous and complex work, but crucial if there’s to be any hope of reopening the channel to vital shipping and beginning the long task of rebuilding the bridge.
Gov. Wes Moore summarized to CNN the situation facing the workers. “We have a ship that is nearly the size of the Eiffel Tower that is now stuck within the channel that has the Key Bridge sitting on top of it.”
Transitioning from the Francis Scott Key Bridge to the song that made Key famous …
NCAA Women’s Basketball Team That Skipped National Anthem Gets Stomped
On Monday night, Americans tuned in for a much-anticipated rematch between the defending national women’s college basketball champs, Louisana State University, and Iowa in the Final Eight. At the beginning of the game, one team stood and held hands for the national anthem while the other walked off the court.
Wanna guess who won? The team that stood for the anthem: Iowa. Led by Caitlin Clark, the Hawkeyes defeated the Tigers 94-87, decisively avenging their loss in last year’s finals.
LSU women’s basketball team left the court as the national anthem was being played…
Iowa women’s basketball team stayed, stood and joined hands. pic.twitter.com/x8YE4ljk7j
— Jon Root (@JonnyRoot_) April 2, 2024
LSU coach Kim Mulkey says snubbing the anthem was “nothing intentionally done.” Just part of the team’s “routine.”
“Honestly, I don’t even know when the anthem was played,” Mulkey told reporters in response to the uproar. “We kind of have a routine when they’re on the floor and they come off at the 12-minute mark. I don’t know, we come in and we do our pregame stuff. I’m sorry, listen, that’s nothing intentionally done.”
A coach who doesn’t know or even notice when the national anthem is played, which it is before all big sporting events. Sure. And I’m going to beat Caitlin Clark in a three-point shooting contest.
Online pundit Benny Johnson noted that the crowd was with Iowa the whole game. “Let this be a lesson to all players,” he wrote on X, “the cringy, selfish woke athlete moment is OVER.”
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.