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The Runaway Scrape

Terror, Mud, and the Flight for Life, 190 Years On Imagine the panic sweeping across Texas settlements in late March and early April 1836. News of the Alamo’s fall and the Goliad Massacre traveled faster than any courier. “Santa Anna is coming — he will show no mercy!” Families abandoned homes in haste, loading wagons with whatever they could carry while burning crops and cabins to deny supplies to the enemy. Rain turned roads into rivers of mud. Children cried. Women drove oxen through flooded crossings. Disease stalked every camp. This was the Runaway Scrape — the desperate eastward exodus of…

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A Texas Tanker Convoy

How Iranian Mines and American Realpolitik Made the Spice Flow Again A wave of empty VLCCs heading for Corpus Christi and Houston isn’t just a dramatic map—it’s living proof that pragmatic Hemisphere-first statecraft turned a Persian Gulf crisis into U.S. energy strength, cheaper domestic natural gas for our factories, and a cautionary tale about choosing politics over production. That map stopped me cold the first time I saw it. Dozens of empty supertankers streaming westward across the Atlantic and Caribbean like a disciplined blue-water convoy, all making straight for the loading terminals at Corpus Christi, Freeport, and Houston. It’s not random…

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Why the DIGNIDAD Act Must Die

From Lies and Loopholes to Chattel Management In my column, “Lies, Loopholes, and Legalization,” I went through H.R. 4393 — Rep. María Elvira Salazar’s so-called DIGNIDAD Act — section by section. I called it what it is: an awful amnesty bill full of lies, slicker and roughly four times larger than the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli scam. It grants protected legal status and work authorization to roughly 11–12 million people who were here illegally before 2021, offers Dreamers a clear path to green cards and citizenship, waters down criminal and gang bars, accelerates chain migration through hardship presumptions, and sells the whole thing…

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Lies, Loopholes, and Legalization

Why the DIGNIDAD Act is a Worse Amnesty Than 1986 A couple of months ago, I wrote about the recurring trap of so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” — the same old song where tough-sounding border talk gets paired with large-scale legalization that functions as backdoor amnesty. Well, here it is in black and white: H.R. 4393, the “DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act of 2025.” Introduced last July by Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) and Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX), this 261-page bill is still sitting in committee. It has picked up around 39 cosponsors — roughly split between Republicans and Democrats — and endorsements from…

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Antithesis in the Persian Gulf

Transactional Sovereignty in the Strait "The spice must flow." In Frank Herbert’s Dune, that iron law sustained an interstellar empire. In April 2026, it governs the real world. The Strait of Hormuz — the narrow chokepoint through which roughly one-fifth of global oil and LNG supplies have historically passed — stands severely restricted amid the ongoing U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran. Tanker traffic has plummeted. Brent crude has surged past $100–$110 per barrel, with spikes higher in recent weeks. Gas prices are climbing in the United States and far more painfully elsewhere. Thousands of vessels sit idle or reroute at enormous cost.…

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Good Friday, 2026

It’s Friday… But Sunday’s Comin’ The sky darkened over Golgotha as the weight of the world pressed down on a single wooden cross. Nails had pierced hands and feet. Blood and sweat mingled with dust. A crown of thorns pressed into a brow that once rested in a manger. On this solemn day we call Good Friday, we stand in the quiet ache of Jesus’ crucifixion—the brutal culmination of His Passion. The air feels heavy. The silence, deafening. And yet, even in the deepest shadow, a whisper carries forward: It is finished. The Weight of the Cross Picture the scenes the…

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The Unifying Confirmation Fight We Need

Nominate Ron DeSantis for Attorney General Theodore Roosevelt captured it best: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” That’s the mindset that matters right now at the Department of Justice. On Thursday, President Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi. She’s heading to the private sector after months of frustration over the pace of key priorities and, most glaringly, the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Deputy AG Todd Blanche, Trump’s former defense attorney, steps in as acting AG. The move was abrupt but not surprising. The DOJ has a credibility problem that’s been festering for over a…

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Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday The evening shadows lengthened over Jerusalem as Jesus gathered His twelve in that upper room. The air carried the scent of roasted lamb and bitter herbs—the Passover meal they had shared so many times before. But this night was different. This was no ordinary Seder. On what we now call Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday, the Lord of all creation stooped low, breaking bread and pouring wine in ways that would echo through the centuries. It was the night love took on flesh in humble service… and the night the shadow of betrayal began to fall. “Maundy” comes from…

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Remember Goliad: Palm Sunday of Sorrow

The Goliad Massacre and the Battle of Coleto Creek, 190 Years On Imagine the cold gray dawn of Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836. Nearly 400 Texian prisoners—many still nursing wounds from battle—marched out of Presidio La Bahía in three columns, believing they were being paroled, exchanged, or sent home. The air was crisp, the grass wet with dew. Then, a half-mile from the fort, the guards halted. Commands rang out in Spanish. Muskets rose. In an instant, the prairie erupted in gunfire, smoke, and screams. This is the story of the Goliad Massacre — the darkest chapter of the Texas Revolution,…

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A Once-in-a-Generation Constitutional Trifecta

Three Supreme Court Cases That Could Restore the Foundations of Self-Government In most Supreme Court terms, we see important cases that refine doctrine or settle discrete disputes. But every so often—perhaps once in a generation—the docket aligns on questions that strike at the structural pillars of how Americans choose their representatives, conduct their elections, and define membership in the polity. The 2025–2026 term appears poised to deliver exactly that kind of moment with three pending cases: Louisiana v. Callais, Watson v. RNC, and Trump v. Barbara. In essence, these cases ask: May race predominate in drawing congressional districts to satisfy Section…

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