Inflation surged in March. The consumer price index (CPI) soared 1.2% last month. That brought the CPI for the last year to 8.5%. If March’s 1.2% increase is annualized going forward, inflation would jump to 14.4%!

The White House, as all administrations do, knew these numbers Monday. Biden Administration officials were warning reporters that the new numbers would be “extraordinarily elevated due to Putin’s price hike.”

But Joe Biden can’t blame all of this on Vladimir Putin. Inflation has been steadily getting worse since the day he took office.

At the beginning of 2021, gas prices were approximately $2.25 a gallon. They ended the year $1.00 higher, and they’ve continued to go up this year. It’s the same for food prices and just about everything else that you need to survive.

The latest CBS News poll shows why this is a huge problem for Joe Biden and his party.

Americans were asked to identify their top priorities. Respondents said:

• The economy (76%)

• Inflation (73%) and

• Crime (59%).

They were also asked about Joe Biden’s handling of each issue.

• Only 37% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the economy.

• Just 31% approve of Biden’s handling of inflation.

• And only 39% approve of Biden’s handling of crime.

Biden’s inflation crisis virtually guarantees that the Federal Reserve is likely to do the one thing it can to reduce inflation which is to put the country into a recession by aggressively raising interest rates.

And consumers are already cutting back. The CBS poll also found that two-thirds of Americans are cutting back on driving and entertainment activities, while more than half of Americans are cutting back on food purchases.

Because of Putin’s war in Ukraine, Biden is doing his best to destroy the Russian economy. I have confidence that he will succeed because he’s already had plenty of practice by destroying our economy.

The Shanghai Shutdown

When COVID-19 came roaring out of a Chinese lab and into America, we were not only infected with a new virus, we were also infected with communist China’s dictatorial methods for fighting the virus.

The Chinese communist regime would lockdown entire cities whenever a case of COVID emerged. Liberal governors, mayors and left-wing public health experts, as you remember, insisted that we lock down, too.

That’s not a normal reaction to a pandemic. We knew that before COVID-19 and it was proven after COVID-19. Pandemics are fought by quarantining the sick, not the healthy.

Some American political leaders actually bemoaned the fact that Americans were upset that we couldn’t go to work or go to church and had to follow strict rules about masking. The World Health Organization repeatedly praised communist China for its handling of the virus, even as it was lying to the world.

Through painful experience the world learned that lockdowns not only don’t work, they are in fact counterproductive. They destroy economies, cause terrible disruptions in learning and contribute to massive increases in mental illness.

But the Chinese communists love power, just like many of the left-wing politicians and bureaucrats who run our government. Lockdowns come naturally to them.

Yet, in spite of all the authoritarian actions taken to date, China appears to be in the midst of one of its worst outbreaks. The vaccine Beijing developed doesn’t appear to be very effective.

As a result, the city of Shanghai, with nearly 28 million people, has been locked down for days now. People have been locked into high rise buildings and not allowed to leave, subsisting on whatever food they had when the lockdown went into effect.

After escalating protests, the government just announced that it is easing lockdown provisions in Shanghai.

I can’t help but recall the video that emerged of Justin Trudeau saying how much he admired communist China’s “basic dictatorship” and its ability to “turn their economy around on a dime.”

It’s notable that throughout this massive violation of human rights taking place in Shanghai, the Biden White House has not uttered one word of condemnation. The State Department has been silent. The UN Human Rights Commission isn’t talking about it either.

Here’s a startling thought, which I absolutely believe is true:

If not for the Constitution our Founding Fathers wrote over 200 years ago, if not for the fact that millions of Americans cherish freedom and if not for the fact that millions of American households own firearms, what we’re seeing in Shanghai could have easily happened in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and New York City.

There’s no doubt what the impulse of our left-wing media and public health elites was (and remains) — Lock ‘em up and shut 'em up. That included our schools, our churches and our businesses.

No wonder left-wing elites and Big Media oligarchs hate our Founding Fathers so much. To this day, our founding principles remain an impediment to government oppression.

Baal Worship In America

Have you ever heard of Baal worship? It’s mentioned several times in the Bible, and it’s never a good thing. In biblical times, people worshiping Baal sacrificed their newborn children by throwing them on burning altars.

Why am I bringing this up now? Well, a shocking story recently broke in our nation’s capital. Big media and local politicians are doing their best to ignore it, and it is playing out in, sadly, predictable ways. Here are the basic facts.

Pro-life activists became increasingly concerned that an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C., was performing illegal late-term abortions. They confronted a truck driver who was seen removing large containers from the clinic. The driver allowed the activists to take one of the containers.

In it, they discovered the remains of more than 100 aborted babies, including several full-term baby bodies. There are indications some of the babies may have been born alive.

The truck belonged to a waste disposal company in Baltimore, Maryland. Until just a few days ago, the company advertised on its website that it “utilizes Waste-to-Energy incineration to safely convert biomedical waste … into useful energy.”

Not surprisingly, the company denies that it is burning aborted baby bodies to provide energy for the city of Baltimore.

Not surprisingly, authorities in Washington, D.C., are refusing to perform autopsies on the recovered bodies.

And, not surprisingly, the pro-life activists who uncovered these potential crimes are now facing charges themselves — just like the undercover activists who exposed Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in aborted baby body parts.

Shocked by the images of dead babies and the inaction of local officials, Rep. Chip Roy said, “These children’s voices were silenced before they could speak, but their memory cries out for justice… May God have mercy on this nation.”

This holy week, we celebrate the God who said, “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.”

We should ponder those words as we pray for a revival in America and for the restoration of the sanctity of life.

Easter In Ukraine

Reverend Franklin Graham and Samaritan’s Purse have been very active assisting civilians and refugees in Ukraine. Rev. Graham is returning to Ukraine and will deliver an Easter sermon this Sunday that will be broadcast on Fox News at 12:00 PM ET. I know Franklin Graham and I know this will be “must see TV.”