Kelsey Grammer’s ‘Jesus Revolution’ Stuns Box Office w/ $30M Open

Jacob Bruns
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Kelsey Grammer’s ‘Jesus Revolution’ Stuns Box Office w/ $30M Open

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Jesus Revolution, a movie about a Protestant church that begins catering to hippies in the 1970s, shocked the totally secularized Hollywood box office gurus by turning in a solid performance in its first two weekends.

The movie, which features Kelsey Grammer as a pastor in southern California, grossed $15.5 million in its first weekend after being projected to only earn $7 million, the Washington Examiner reported.

In its opening weekend, the film took third place at the box offices, behind only big-box movies Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and Cocaine Bear. It continued strong into its second weekend, grossing a cumulative $30 million through Sunday.

Producer Kevin Downes commented on his surprising hit, noting that he was glad to see that it reached millions.

“While the runaway hit is exciting, it translates to over 1 million people who have watched and been inspired by the movie,” Downes wrote. “That’s why we made it, and what we’re thrilled to see.”

The film features a story of a pastor at a church inviting hippies into a languishing church in order to convert them and bring the church new life. It sneers at the judgmental, older middle-class churchgoers who refuse to acquiesce to the young radical leftists, and praises those who show more tolerance.

The church is eventually revived, and the story ends with an uneasy union between far-left hippies and middle class geriatrics.

Despite its Left-leaning story line, critics have slammed the movie as “narrow”, with it scoring a fairly low 61% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Though there are reasons to be concerned about the movie and its message, its box office success does indicate clearly one important message: Americans still have an appetite for Christianity and Christian stories.

Alaska Dems, Native Groups Beg Biden to Bring Back Drilling

Jacob Bruns
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Alaska Dems, Native Groups Beg Biden to Bring Back Drilling

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Members from the Alaska state legislature joined their Washington, D.C. representatives in the swamp last week to beg President Joe Biden to bring back oil drilling to the state.

Even leaders of Indian tribes across the state asked for Biden to press for the allowance of the Willow Project permit for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the Daily Caller reported.

Biden’s administration is expected to decide on the permit this week. According to the Daily Caller, the Willow Project would produce approximately 188,000 barrels of oil per day.

While opponents have called the project a potential “carbon bomb,” the project would only supply a small portion of the nation’s needs. Further, it would still be dwarfed by the likes of the New Mexico oil industry, which produces approximately 1.4 million barrels per day.

The pending decision has reportedly caused rifts within the Biden administration to grow.

The president’s Interior Secretary Deb Haaland opposes Willow, while insiders report that the decision also has major supporters within the administration.

John Podesta, Biden’s climate advisor who served in the former Clinton and Obama administrations, even led the way in driving Shell out of the state.

But Republicans are pushing back.

Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, former commissioner of the state’s Department of Natural Resources, presented a map to the president last week showing the numerous actions–46, to be precise–that the Biden administration has taken to slow or stop economic development in Alaska.

Sullivan was joined by fellow Alaska Republicans Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Mary Peltola.

“Where’s the racial justice and racial equity for the Indigenous people of Alaska? They’re the biggest proponents of this project,” Sullivan said.

“If they go with Greenpeace and Center for Biological Diversity and Lower 48 radicals and tell the Native people of my state, ‘sorry, we’re going to listen to lower 48 radicals, not you,’ all of their talk of racial justice and racial equity is, quite frankly, bulls—.”

POLL: Biden’s Support among Dems Has Plunged 15% SINCE Midterms

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POLL: Biden’s Support among Dems Has Plunged 15% SINCE Midterms

(Headline USA) Steve Shurtleff was at Joe Biden’s side in 2019 when he filed papers in the New Hampshire State House to run for president.

He repeatedly trekked across the state with Biden to court primary voters. And when Biden ultimately won the presidency, it was Shurtleff, then the Democratic state House speaker, who proudly sealed the envelope that carried New Hampshire’s four electoral votes—including his own name—to the U.S. Senate.

But on the eve of a new election season, Shurtleff, like a majority of Democrats across the country, feels that one term is enough.

“In my heart of hearts, no,” Shurtleff said when asked if he wants Biden to run again. “I think a lot of people just don’t want to say it.”

Democrats across New Hampshire are upset with the Democratic president for trying to end the state’s status as home to the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

But their concerns about Biden run much deeper, in line with a majority of Democratic voters nationwide, who question the 80-year-old president’s plans to soon launch his reelection campaign.

Just 37% of Democrats nationwide want the president to seek a second term, according to a poll released last month by the Associated Press–NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

That was down from 52% in the weeks before last year’s midterm elections, after which Biden did a victory lap and vowed not to change a thing about his radical policies—despite losing the U.S. House of Representatives.

Many worry about Biden’s age. Others, like Shurtleff, are upset about the administration’s messy withdrawal from Afghanistan. And the party’s progressive wing has never been enthusiastic about Biden, notwithstanding his lengthy list of priorities that capitulated to their agenda.

The White House cast Biden’s perceived weakness within his own party as an exaggerated narrative that he has repeatedly proven wrong.

“We’re aware pundits’ attitude toward President Biden is unchanged from before he earned the nomination faster than anyone since 2004, won the most votes in American history, built the strongest legislative record in generations and led the best midterm outcome for a new Democratic president in 60 years,” Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said. “Based on comparing the accuracy of our predictions versus theirs, we are happy for this dynamic to continue.”

Still, there’s a risk of a disconnect between rank-and-file Democrats and the party’s establishment. While voters are signaling unease about the prospect of another Biden campaign, Democratic governors, senators and congressional representatives are virtually unanimous in supporting Biden’s reelection.

One exception may be New Hampshire, a small swing state whose electoral votes could be critical in a tight general election. The state has challenged Biden before.

Voters here served Biden an embarrassing fifth-place finish in the 2020 Democratic primary. New Hampshire polls were still open when he decamped to South Carolina, where his presidential ambitions were revived by a decisive win. That state is now Biden’s pick to lead the 2024 presidential primary calendar.

Interviews with angry New Hampshire Democrats across state government and local Democratic committees suggest there is some appetite for a serious primary challenger in 2024. But top-tier prospects don’t seem to be interested.

So far, only Democratic activist and author Marianne Williamson has entered the 2024 primary field. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the late New York senator and known for railing against vaccines, met with New Hampshire voters on Friday. He’s also leaning toward a bid.

But the likes of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Biden’s fiercest primary challenger in 2020, has vowed to back the president in 2024. So has Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, whose appearance at last year’s New Hampshire’s Democratic convention still comes up in conversation even as his state has continuously failed on his watch.

California Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive favorite, has also said he would not challenge Biden, although he has been a vocal advocate for New Hampshire’s place atop the primary calendar.

In an interview, Khanna said it was “political malpractice” for the Democratic National Committee, under Biden’s direction, to threaten New Hampshire’s status.

“New Hampshire is a state where retail politics still matter and where voters have an independence that can’t be controlled by the party establishment in DC,” Khanna said.

The primary shakeup “could cost us four electoral votes and hurt our chances to win in the 2024 election,” he added.

Meanwhile, Biden’s allies privately believe the primary dispute will be long forgotten by the time voters cast ballots in November 2024.

Biden supporters also note that some of the nation’s most popular two-term presidents confronted opposition from within their own parties ahead of their reelection.

President Ronald Reagan faced grumbling from dissatisfied Republicans leading up to the 1984 contest, which turned out to be the most lopsided general election victory in U.S. history.

Democrats openly encouraged a primary challenge against President Bill Clinton after the disastrous 1994 midterms. He went on to a commanding reelection win in 1996.

And President Barack Obama’s campaign worried about losing support from his political base—especially black voters—before he cruised to victory in 2012.

“We had a lot of work to do, but the fundamentals were there,” said Stephanie Cutter, who helped managed Obama’s 2012 reelection.

Obama’s outlook changed as his team worked to remind voters what they liked best about him compared to a Republican opponent.

“Elections are about two people,” Cutter said. “Once Republicans start hitting the campaign trail and that craziness begins, the contrast between that crazy train and Joe Biden’s steady leadership and even hand fixing some of the nation’s biggest problems become clear as day.”

But he is grappling with acute challenges related to inflation, illegal immigration, crime and foreign affairs.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, attributed Biden’s political challenges to Democratic leaders who haven’t done enough to promote his accomplishments.

“The real disconnect right now is communication,” Cooper claimed in an interview. “President Biden has accomplished in two years what many presidents would only hope to do in eight.”

Despite such optimism, Democrats across New Hampshire believe it will be difficult for Biden to match his 2020 victory of 7 percentage points in the state in 2024.

Former Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat, declined to say whether he wanted Biden to seek reelection when asked directly.

Biden’s push to change the primary calendar, Lynch said, has created such anti-Biden furor that it puts New Hampshire’s four electoral votes at risk in the 2024 general election. He was quick to note that four electoral votes would have tipped the 2000 presidential election in Al Gore’s favor.

“It could cost Democrats the presidency,” Lynch said. “Republicans won’t let voters forget. They’ll hammer the Democrats on this.”

Indeed, New Hampshire’s current governor, Republican Chris Sununu, called the primary calendar shift “a horrible miscalculation” for Biden that exposes him to a legitimate primary challenge.

“He’s made it harder to win in November ’24—if he’s the nominee,” Sununu said in an interview. “But because of what he did here, he very well may not be the nominee.”

The Democratic concerns were easy to see inside the monthly meeting of Laconia Democrats on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee late last week, where just a half-dozen people gathered to discuss party business.

Most of the participants, especially older ones, said they favored Biden’s reelection, even if they weren’t passionate about it.

Lois Kessin, a 73-year-old Laconia resident, has been volunteering for Biden in New Hampshire since Obama first tapped him as his running mate. She has a picture of herself and Biden hanging in her hallway.

“I am very happy with Joe Biden,” she said, acknowledging that some Democrats are worried about his age—a concern she said was offensive.

“Perhaps there’s somebody as brilliant as he and as compassionate and as knowledgeable out there,” she said. “But until that person shows up, I’m happy with Joe Biden.”

The Laconia committee chairman, 43-year-old Eric Hoffman, was less enthusiastic.

“The party kind of lined up because he was the nominee, but he obviously wasn’t our first four choices,” Hoffman said, referring to Biden’s finish in the 2020 primary. “People would prefer to see a change.”

But like many Democrats, he said he would vote for Biden in the 2024 general election to ensure Republicans don’t retake the White House.

Just don’t expect him to be excited about it.

“I wasn’t a big fan of his, but I’ve been pretty impressed with his abilities and the things he’s gotten accomplished,” Hoffman said. “So, it’s not the worst thing in the world.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Chris Rock’s New Stand-Up Special Targets Woke Victimhood

Molly Bruns
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Chris Rock’s New Stand-Up Special Targets Woke Victimhood

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) In his brand-new Netflix stand-up special, comedian Chris Rock went after woke ideology and icons, calling out Meghan Markle and discussing the incident with actor Will Smith at the 2022 Oscars.

The special, titled “Selective Outrage,” targeted some of the many inconsistencies littered throughout the woke movement, including Meghan Markle’s accusations of racism against the British Royal Family.

According to the Daily Caller, Rock brought up Markle’s infamous interview with Oprah Winfrey, where she and her husband, Prince Harry, attacked the royal family for alleged racism. The comedian accused her of winning the “light skinned lottery,” and told her to stop “complaining.”

“Some of that s**t she went through was not racism. It was just some in-law s**t,” Rock said.

Rock argued that the royals’ interest in the skin tone of Markle’s baby was not racist, because black families also wondered about whether they would have a “Steph Curry baby” or a “Draymond Green baby,” making reference to the two Golden State Warriors basketball players.

‘”They’re so racist, they’re so racist,”‘ Rock quipped, “That’s not racist, because even black people want to know how brown the baby going to be!”

Rock also took shots at woke ideology, calling it “selective outrage” and warning people against “fall[ing] into the woke trap.”

“Motherf***ers typing out woke a*s tweets on a phone made by child slaves,” he said. “Not only is everybody full of s***, every business is full of s***.”

He took shots at companies’ constant virtue-signaling as well.

“I was in the mall the other day, I went by the store Lululemon, I walk by and in the window of every Lululemon there’s a sign that says, ‘we don’t support racism, sexism, discrimination, or hate,’” he said. “And I’m like, ‘who gives a f***?’ You’re just selling yoga pants.”

Rock suggested most people would prefer a pair of $20 racist yoga pants to the company’s $100 nonracist ones, eliciting applause from a largely black audience in Baltimore, Md.

Rock concluded the roughly hourlong standup special by taking a shot at Smith, who infamously slapped him at the 2022 Oscars.

“Will Smith practices selective outrage because everyone that knows what happened,” Rock said.

“Everybody that really knows, knows I had nothing to do with that s***. I didn’t have any entanglements,” he  continued. “His wife was f***** her son’s friend.”

Peter Thiel-Backed Cybertech Firm Says Trump ‘Bots’ Swarming GOP Rivals

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Peter Thiel-Backed Cybertech Firm Says Trump ‘Bots’ Swarming GOP Rivals

(Headline USA) Over the past 11 months, someone created thousands of fake, automated Twitter accounts—perhaps hundreds of thousands of them—to offer a stream of praise for Donald Trump, an Israeli-based cybertech firm claims.

The sprawling bot network was uncovered by researchers at Cyabra, an Israeli tech firm that shared its findings with the Associated Press.

The firm has financial backing, in part, from conservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel, a one-time Trump ally who has tentatively signaled support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 GOP primary.

Thiel contributed in 2021 as part of a capital campaign the Tel Aviv-based company had launched to develop software tools that could measure online misinformation and disinformation, according to TechCrunch.

While the identify of those behind the network of fake accounts is unknown, Cyabra’s analysts determined that it was likely created within the U.S.

Besides posting adoring words about the former president, the fake accounts ridiculed Trump’s critics from both parties and attacked Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador who is challenging her onetime boss for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

When it came to DeSantis, the bots aggressively suggested that the Florida governor couldn’t beat Trump, but would be a great running mate.

“One account will say, ‘Biden is trying to take our guns; Trump was the best,’ and another will say, ‘Jan. 6 was a lie and Trump was innocent,'” said Jules Gross, the Cyabra engineer who first discovered the network. “Those voices are not people. For the sake of democracy I want people to know this is happening.”

The allegations are likely to raise further skepticism among Trump supporters, long jaded by the phony Russia collusion hoax which attributed Russian bots with the former president’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

That many of the so-called bots are expressing valid points of concern or criticism suggests that there may, in fact, be a counter-campaign to smear Twitter users as bots in order to promote more censorship or disinformation.

But the Cyabra allegations show it may no longer be simply a left-wing point of attack as conservative candidates prepare for a brutal, no-holds-barred primary to determine the party’s future under the direst of political circumstances.

The new pro-Trump network is actually three different networks of Twitter accounts, all created in huge batches in April, October and November 2022. In all, researchers believe hundreds of thousands of accounts could be involved.

The accounts all feature personal photos of the alleged account holder as well as a name. Some of the accounts posted their own content, often in reply to real users, while others reposted content from real users, helping to amplify it further.

“McConnell… Traitor!” wrote one of the accounts, in response to an article in a conservative publication about GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell, one of several Republican critics of Trump targeted by the network.

One way of gauging the impact of bots is to measure the percentage of posts about any given topic generated by accounts that appear to be fake. The percentage for typical online debates is often in the low single digits. Twitter itself has said that less than 5% of its active daily users are fake or spam accounts.

When Cyabra researchers examined negative posts about specific Trump critics, however, they found far higher levels of inauthenticity. Nearly three-fourths of the negative posts about Haley, for example, were traced back to fake accounts.

The network also helped popularize a call for DeSantis to join Trump as his vice presidential running mate—an outcome that would serve Trump well and allow him to avoid a potentially bitter matchup if DeSantis enters the race.

The same network of accounts shared overwhelmingly positive content about Trump and contributed to an overall false picture of his support online, researchers claimed.

“Our understanding of what is mainstream Republican sentiment for 2024 is being manipulated by the prevalence of bots online,” the Cyabra researchers insisted.

The triple network was discovered after Gross analyzed Tweets about different national political figures and noticed that many of the accounts posting the content were created on the same day. Most of the accounts remain active, though they have relatively modest numbers of followers.

A message left with a spokesman for Trump’s campaign was not immediately returned.

Most bots aren’t designed to persuade people, but to amplify certain content so more people see it, according to Samuel Woolley, a professor and misinformation researcher at the University of Texas whose most recent book focuses on automated propaganda.

When a human user sees a hashtag or piece of content from a bot and reposts it, they’re doing the network’s job for it, and also sending a signal to Twitter’s algorithms to boost the spread of the content further.

“Bots absolutely do impact the flow of information,” Woolley said. “They’re built to manufacture the illusion of popularity. Repetition is the core weapon of propaganda and bots are really good at repetition. They’re really good at getting information in front of people’s eyeballs.”

Until recently, most bots were easily identified thanks to their clumsy writing or account names that included nonsensical words or long strings of random numbers. As social media platforms got better at detecting these accounts, the bots became more sophisticated.

So-called cyborg accounts are one example: a bot that is periodically taken over by a human user who can post original content and respond to users in human-like ways, making them much harder to sniff out.

Bots could soon get much sneakier thanks to advances in artificial intelligence. New AI programs can create lifelike profile photos and posts that sound much more authentic.

Bots that sound like a real person and deploy deepfake video technology may challenge platforms and users alike in new ways, according to Katie Harbath, a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former Facebook public policy director.

“The platforms have gotten so much better at combating bots since 2016,” Harbath said. “But the types that we’re starting to see now, with AI, they can create fake people. Fake videos.”

These technological advances likely ensure that bots have a long future in American politics —as digital foot soldiers in online campaigns, and as potential problems for both voters and candidates trying to defend themselves against anonymous online attacks.

“There’s never been more noise online,” said Tyler Brown, a political consultant and former digital director for the Republican National Committee. “How much of it is malicious or even unintentionally unfactual? It’s easy to imagine people being able to manipulate that.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Manafort Settles Civil Case w/ DOJ over Offshore Bank Accounts for $3.15M

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Manafort Settles Civil Case w/ DOJ over Offshore Bank Accounts for $3.15M

(Headline USA) Paul Manafort, the former chairman of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, has agreed to pay $3.15 million to settle a civil case filed by the Justice Department over undeclared foreign bank accounts.

When the civil case was filed in April 2022, prosecutors alleged that Manafort had failed to disclose more than 20 offshore bank accounts he ordered opened in the United Kingdom, Cyprus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The government sought an order for Manafort to pay fines, penalties and interest, alleging he had failed to file federal tax documents detailing the accounts and failed to disclose the money on his income tax returns.

The government said false tax returns were filed from 2006-2015 and that the Treasury Department had notified Manafort of the fines and assessment in July 2020.

The settlement was detailed in court documents filed Feb. 22 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The case may be significant as conservative investigators and Hunter Biden’s own laptop have revealed that the Biden family itself may be using offshore accounts to conceal many of its foreign business entanglements.

Like Hunter Biden, who is currently under grand-jury investigation for a series of financial crimes and possibly criminal felonies, Manafort was accused of failing to register as a foreign agent when conducting business deals in Ukraine.

As a result, the former Trump campaign adviser faced criminal charges stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, for which Trump himself was ultimately exonerated. He pardoned Manafort and other victims of the probe before leaving office.

A jury convicted Manafort in 2018 of eight financial crimes, including several related to his political consulting work in Ukraine, but the judge hearing the case declared a mistrial on 10 other counts when jurors could not reach a verdict.

Manafort was sentenced to more than seven years in prison prior to receiving his pardon in late 2020.

Manafort’s ties to Ukraine led to his ouster from Trump’s campaign in August 2016, less than a month after Trump accepted the Republican nomination.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Officials Claim No Cause for Concern in 2nd Ohio Derailment

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Officials Claim No Cause for Concern in 2nd Ohio Derailment

(Headline USA) Authorities in Ohio said there was no indication of any risk to public health from the derailment of a Norfolk Southern cargo train between Dayton and Columbus, the second derailment of a company train in the state in a month.

It is also the latest in a longer series of catastrophic episodes for the Buckeye State and surrounding Midwestern areas, including an explosion at a metal plant, which have prompted some to speculate that a coordinated campaign of industrial terrorism may be afoot.

Norfolk Southern and Clark County officials say 28 of the southbound train’s 212 cars, including four empty tankers, derailed at about 4:45 p.m. Saturday in Springfield Township near a business park and the county fairgrounds. Springfield is about 46 miles west of the state capital of Columbus.

As a precaution, residents living within 1,000 feet were asked to shelter in place and responding firefighters deployed the county hazmat team as a precaution, but officials early Sunday said there was “no indication of any injuries or risk to public health at this time.”

A crew from Norfolk Southern, the hazmat team and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency “each independently examined the crash site and verified there was no evidence of spillage at the site,” officials said.

Officials confirmed Sunday afternoon that no hazardous materials were involved in the derailment.

Norfolk Southern general manager Kraig Barner said, however, that a couple of other cars on the train heading from Bellevue, Ohio, to Birmingham, Alabama, were carrying liquid propane, and a couple more were carrying ethanol. The rest of the train was made up of mixed freight, such as steel and finished automobiles, he said.

“A lot of the cars that were actually derailed were empty boxcars,” Barner said.

Officials said two of the four empty tanker cars that derailed had previously carried diesel exhaust fluid and the other two had residual amounts of polyacrylamide water solution, which Barner said is an additive commonly used in wastewater treatment.

County officials say environmental officials have confirmed that the derailment is not near a protected water source, meaning there is no risk to public water systems or private wells. The shelter-in-place order affected only four or five homes, officials said.

No injuries to the public or to the train’s two-person crew were reported, he said. The cause of the derailment is under investigation and the findings will be turned over to the Federal Railroad Administration, Barner said.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said late Saturday night that President Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had called him “to offer help from the federal government.”

On Feb. 3, 38 cars of a Norfolk Southern freight train in East Palestine, in northeast Ohio near Pennsylvania, derailed and several of the train’s cars carrying hazardous materials burned.

Though no one was injured, nearby neighborhoods in both states were imperiled. The crash prompted an evacuation of about half the town’s roughly 5,000 residents, an ongoing multigovernmental emergency response and lingering worries among villagers of long-term health impacts.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Last Surviving Original Member of Lynyrd Skynyrd Dies

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Last Surviving Original Member of Lynyrd Skynyrd Dies

(Headline USA) Gary Rossington is as free as a bird now.

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s last surviving original member—who also helped to found the group—died Sunday at the age of 71. No cause of death was given.

“It is with our deepest sympathy and sadness that we have to advise, that we lost our brother, friend, family member, songwriter and guitarist, Gary Rossington, today,” the band wrote on Facebook.

“Gary is now with his Skynyrd brothers and family in heaven and playing it pretty, like he always does. Please keep Dale, Mary, Annie and the entire Rossington family in your prayers and respect the family’s privacy at this difficult time.”

In recent years, the band, even without its original lineup, had been a throwback to a simpler time when America’s values were less muddled. The band continued, unapologetically, to use the Confederate flag as a symbol to tout its Southern heritage.

It also appeared at a 2022 rally stop with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, even as other country artists feared cancelation for supporting the wildly popular Republican.

One of the band’s signature songs, “Sweet Home, Alabama” includes a harsh indictment of ’60s era carpet-baggers like Canadian folk-singer Neil Young. It was a direct response to Young’s songs like “Alabama” and “Southern Man” that painted the American South as backward and cruel.

“Well I hope Neil Young will remember, a Southern man don’t need him around anyhow,” replied Lynyrd Skynyrd in its now iconic lyrics.

Rossington cheated death more than once, Rolling Stone reported. He survived a car accident in 1976 in which he drove his Ford Torino into a tree, inspiring the band’s cautionary song “That Smell.”

A year later, he emerged from the 1977 plane crash that killed singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and backing vocalist Cassie Gaines, with two broken arms, a broken leg, and a punctured stomach and liver.

“It was a devastating thing,” he told Rolling Stone in 2006. “You can’t just talk about it real casual and not have feelings about it.”

In later years, Rossington underwent quintuple bypass surgery in 2003, suffered a heart attack in 2015, and had numerous subsequent heart surgeries, most recently leaving Lynyrd Skynyrd in July 2021 to recover from another procedure. At recent shows, Rossington would perform portions of the concert and sometimes sat out full gigs.

Rossington was born Dec. 4, 1951, in Jacksonville, Florida, and raised by his mother after his father died. Upon meeting drummer Bob Burns and bassist Larry Junstrom, Rossington and his new friends formed a band, which they tried to juggle amid their love of baseball.

According to Rolling Stone, it was during a fateful Little League game, Ronnie Van Zant hit a line drive into the shoulder blades of opposing player Bob Burns and met his future bandmates. Rossington, Burns, Van Zant, and guitarist Allen Collins gathered that afternoon at Burns’s Jacksonville home to jam the Rolling Stone’s “Time Is on My Side.”

Adopting Lynyrd Skynyrd as the group’s name—both a reference to a similarly named sports coach at Rossington’s high school and to a character in the 1963 novelty hit “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh”—the band released their debut album (Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-’nérd) in 1973.

A collection of country-tinged blues-rock and Southern soul, the album included now-classics like “Tuesday’s Gone,” “Simple Man” and “Gimme Three Steps,” but it was the closing track, the nearly 10-minute “Free Bird,” that became the group’s calling card, due in no small part to Rossington’s evocative slide playing on his Gibson SG.

Rossington told Rolling Stone that he never considered Skynyrd to be a tragic band, despite all the band’s drama and death.

“I don’t think of it as tragedy—I think of it as life,” he said upon the group’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2006. “I think the good outweighs the bad.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Trump Lays Out ‘Big Plans’ for His Next Term

Ezekiel Loseke
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Trump Lays Out ‘Big Plans’ for His Next Term

(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) President Donald Trump, in his great speech at CPAC, revealed some of his plans for his second term as president.

President Trump explained to CPAC that he intended to share how he would govern America with them.

“Today I want to go through some of our big plans [of things] that I will do as the 47th President of The United States,” he said.

His first stated goal was to kill the deep state.

“With you on my side, we will demolish the deep state,” he said. “We will expel the warmongers.”

“We will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, we will throw off the political class that hates our country.”

Trump’s second goal was to stop endless and stupid wars.

“We’re never going back to a party that wants to give unlimited money to fight foreign wars,” he said. “[Especially not one that] at the same time demands that we cut veterans benefits and retirement benefits at home.”

He also said he would take care of our troops.

“Illegal immigrants come in and we house them in the Waldorf-Astoria, the greatest hotels anywhere in the world, [while] our soldiers, we do nothing for them,” he said. “They sleep out at night and they freeze, they freeze in the cold.”

“We were taking care of our soldiers just a short while ago … We will start doing it again. Our soldiers are very special.”

President Trump said he would end the war in the Ukraine.

“Before I even arrive at the Oval Office I will have the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” he said. “I know what to say to each of them.”

Trump, as expected, addressed illegal immigration.

“Under my leadership we will defend our borders first,” he vowed. “We will seal it [the border] up and expand that wall.”

“When I’m back in the White House, the very first reconciliation bill that I sign will be for a massive increase in border patrol and a colossal increase in the number of ICE deportation offices.”

He promised to close the border, but he also promised to fix the problem of illegal immigrants here already.

“Under my leadership we will ask all necessary state, federal, and legal resources to carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he promised. “I will ask every state and federal agency to identify every known or suspected gang member, the towns, the cities, and police [know who they are].”

“We will pick them up and we will throw them out of our country, there will be no questions asked.”

The President also vowed to protect children from the gender madness sweeping the country.

“I will revoke every Biden policy regarding the chemical castration and sexual mutilation” he said. “I will sign a bill prohibiting child sexual mutilation.”

“We will keep men out of women’s sports. That will take place from day one.”

Trump also promised to end the censorship regime, fix Biden’s economy, and address the anarchy created by homeless populations.

President Trump also vowed to fight the diversity, equity, and inclusion regime.

“I will work tirelessly to keep them from implementing this agenda,” he vowed.

President Trump also promised to fight for parents rights and educational freedom. He also said he would support parent’s rights to fire a principal failing to do their job. He also said he would encourage a patriotic education.

Trump also vowed to secure Americans from Chinese control of their necessary goods.

“I will have a four year plan to phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods and gain total independence from China,” he said.

President Trump also said he would support America becoming energy independent, congressional term limits, and election reform.

“I will move heaven and earth to secure our elections,” he said. “All Republican Governors should immediately go for … voter IDs, paper ballots, and same day voting.”

Trump also promised to rename our buildings and return to the classical architecture of Western Civilization.

“We will rename our schools and boulevards not after communists, but after great American patriots,” he said. “We will get rid of bad and ugly buildings and return to the magnificent classical style of Western civilization.”

Finally, the president promised to support procreation.

“We will support baby bonuses for a new baby boom.”

Trump Attacks The Legitimacy of the Pulitzer Prize

Ezekiel Loseke
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Trump Attacks The Legitimacy of the Pulitzer Prize

(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) President Donald Trump attacked the mainstream media and the fraudulent Pulitzer Prize while vindicating conservative media figures in his CPAC speech on Saturday.

Trump explained the hit job that was the Russia investigation. He exposed the role of crooked Hillary Clinton and Adam “shifty” Schiff in the fabrication of the story.

“They come up with this Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax,” he said. “They know it’s a hoax, I know it’s a hoax as well.”

Trump reported being relieved that the call was recorded so he could disprove the allegations by the dishonest Democrats and their friends in the mainstream media.

Though Russiagate was proven to be false, and admitted to be so by the Columbia Journalism Review, the ‘journalists’ who misled the American people were rewarded, according to Trump.

“When it was finally revealed, the Washington Post, they revealed it was a fake story, they [still] got Pulitzer Prizes,” Trump said. “You know what it says for concise and accurate reporting on the Russia, Russia, Russia event.”

“And they were exactly wrong. And now they’ve even admitted that it was a hoax. It was a total hoax, and they got the prize.”

Trump said that he was trying to correct the wrong.

“We’re trying to get their Pulitzer taken away,” he said.

Trump observed that though the mainstream media did not deserve to have an award, he did argue that there were several other media figures that did report the Russia story well.

“In fact, Mark Levin should get a prize,” he said. “If not him, Sean Hannity should get a prize.”

“You know who should get a prize? Tucker.”

As if on cue, CNN performed a fact check on this particular section of the speech.

Ironically, CNN ‘fact checks’ with Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for the New York Times. Of course, the Times and its spokesman stand with their reporting.

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