Cross-Examination

• Doubling down on democracy: It’s no secret that Joe Biden’s key selling point over Donald Trump is his oft-repeated claim about the danger that Le Bête Orange poses to “our democracy.” Indeed, longtime Biden stooge Mike Donilon says that in the weeks and months ahead, the campaign’s focus “will become overwhelming on democracy.” (It’s a republic, but whatever.) But a funny thing seems to be happening on the way to November: Biden and Trump are now in a statistical tie as to which of them will safeguard “democracy and rule of law.” According to a new poll of registered voters from CBS News and YouGov, 34% believe that these two institutions will be safe “only if Biden wins,” while 33% believe the same will be true only if Trump wins. In perhaps a sign of the deep divisions within our country, 20% of respondents said democracy and rule of law won’t be safe regardless of which man wins. Bringing up the rear of the sample, only 13% of voters expressed confidence that these institutions will be safe no matter who wins. It’s a bleak picture, to be sure, but what are we to expect when one party engages in endless lawfare against the other party’s leading presidential candidate and tries to deny the American people the right to vote for the candidate of their choice by unconstitutionally removing that same candidate from the ballot?

• Texas illegal immigration law stymied: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday issued a temporary stay on Texas’s anti-illegal immigration law, SB 4, that extends authority to local and state law enforcement to arrest migrants for being in the state illegally. The Court issued its block following a request from the Biden administration after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday granted a stay of a judge’s decision to halt the law. With the action of SCOTUS, Texas will be prevented from enforcing its law until the High Court weighs in. And that decision will likely be coming sooner rather than later. The crux of the case is whether Texas’s law infringes on the federal government’s authority to enforce the nation’s immigration laws. If only the federal government would enforce the laws.

• Florida loses a DEI battle: The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that Florida’s anti-DEI bill, which Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law, is unconstitutional. The law forbids private employers from subjecting “any individual, as a condition of employment” to engage in “training, instruction, or any other required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels” DEI ideology. The court ruled that the law violated the First Amendment by claiming the state was attempting to “control speech by recharacterizing it as conduct.” Florida’s lawyers argued that the state was not engaged in controlling speech but rather that the law aimed to protect employees from being compelled to engage in “certain speech against their will.”

• Trump wallops Haley in Super Tuesday preview: To no one’s surprise, Donald Trump smoked Nikki Haley 85-14 yesterday in North Dakota’s presidential primary — a primary that may well be a preview to what transpires today, Super Tuesday, in 15 more contests. The win continues Trump’s primary dominance, marking his ninth win in 10 events, with the only blemish being this past weekend’s win for Haley in Washington, DC. The North Dakota win, as Fox News reports, “comes as Trump’s campaign has largely shifted its attention to the general election and an all-but-certain rematch of 2020’s matchup against President Biden.” As for today, Republican voters across the land are heading to the polls in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia. Collectively, these states make up a full third of all available delegates, and the result will almost certainly be an avalanche of wins for Trump and ever greater pressure for Haley to end her quixotic campaign. Reminded of her poor electoral performance so far and asked whether she’d drop out and throw her support behind Donald Trump if (read: when) things go poorly for her today, Haley dodged with a non sequitur followed by a word salad: “If I were to get out of the race, it would still be the longest presidential general election in history. I don’t know why everybody’s so adamant that they have to follow Trump’s lead to get me out of this race. You know, all of these people deserve to vote. Sixteen states want to have their voices heard. Let’s let their voices get heard. We’re a democracy [sic].”

• France makes abortion a constitutional right: France has become the first nation to make abortion a constitutional right. On Monday, French legislators voted 780-72 to codify the right to abortion in the country’s constitution. Back in 1974, France first legalized abortion up to 12 weeks gestation. This new constitutional right expands legal abortion up to 14 weeks gestation. An advocate for enshrining abortion as a constitutional right, leftist Green Party Senator Melanie Vogel ridiculously asserted that “the French Republic will no longer remain democratic without the right to abortion.” What of the democratic rights of preborn babies? Meanwhile, it is telling that even as France has sadly enshrined abortion into its constitution, it still limits it to 14 weeks. Here in the States, even 16 weeks is too limiting for Democrats and their pro-abortion cadres; they demand no limits. The U.S. has no federal ban on abortion at any point in pregnancy, making our nation just one of seven other countries with no such limit on abortion. These countries include the likes of North Korea and China.

• Majority of British scientists still hold to the science on sex: A recent survey of some 200 scientists in British universities found that 58% still hold a binary view on the classification of human sex. Furthermore, 29% of those scientists endorsed the concept of sex being nonbinary, while 13% refused to respond. Following the poll, Dr. Wolfgang Goymann, a professor of biology at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, stated, “To me, this just means that at least 29 percent of the academics that filled out this questionnaire do not understand the biological concept of sex, and at least 22 percent of them do not know what gender means.” Indeed, any scientist being true to science should have endorsed the binary nature of sex. The evidence and the science have not changed. However, what has changed is the West’s embrace of relativism. As Goymann further observed, “Leading science journals have been adopting this relativist view, thereby opposing fundamental biological facts.” Helen Joyce, director of advocacy at Sex Matters, noted: “This survey has two remarkable findings. The first is that 29 percent of academics are apparently unaware of the obvious fact that sex is binary. The second is that nearly two-thirds of academics say that ‘gender is fluid.’ That is a strikingly confident statement about a nebulous concept. Most ordinary people think ‘gender’ is just a polite alternative to ‘sex,’ so are these academics talking about personal style — masculinity or femininity; or assertions about; ‘identity’ — that is, states of mind?”

• San Francisco Giants players must stand for national anthem: In a development that’s equal parts good news and bold news, the grizzled skipper of Major League Baseball’s San Fransicko Giants, Bob Melvin, has declared that his ballplayers will come out of the dugout and stand for the national anthem. Just a decade ago, such non-news would’ve been met with puzzlement, but these are strange days indeed. As RedState’s Bob Hoge writes, “Well here’s a breath of fresh air — after we’ve seen former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and friends kneel for the national anthem and the US Women’s Soccer Team refusing to sing along, now we get a baseball manager who’s apparently had enough of such shenanigans and is requiring his players to be on the field for The Star-Spangled Banner.” As for Melvin, his rationale was as follows: “It’s all about the perception that we’re out there ready to play,” he told The Athletic. “That’s it. You want your team ready to play, and I want the other team to notice it, too. It’s really as simple as that.” We’ll venture a guess that Melvin is also a patriot, but we’d fully understand his desire to keep such a dirty little secret under wraps over there in Pelosiville.

• DEI is on the ropes everywhere: During the past year, we’ve written extensively about the racist ills of the so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that now infect institutions across America both public and private. But it seems clear that the tide is finally turning. One powerful case in point is the recent decision by the University of Florida to Gator-chomp DEI right off its campus, and other indications are chronicled in a new City Journal piece by anti-DEI warrior Chris Rufo. As he writes: “Corporate America is following suit. Firms including Google, Meta, and Zoom have quietly cut back DEI departments and laid off employees. I have recently spoken with a number of Fortune 500 executives, who explained that, following the summer of George Floyd, companies felt immense pressure to ‘do something’ about racial disparities. But four years later, they have realized that DEI programs undermine productivity, destroy merit-based systems, and poison corporate culture. Because of our successful campaign to expose the true nature of DEI, they now have the political space — in essence, the social permission — to wind down these programs.”

Headlines

• Michelle Obama’s office says the former first lady “will not be running for president” in 2024 (NBC News)

• John Thune enters race to become Senate GOP leader (Daily Wire)

• Russia hoax lawyer Marc Elias admits Trump can’t get an impartial jury in DC trial (The Federalist)

• AOC chased out of Brooklyn movie theatre by leftist protesters demanding she accuse Israel of “genocide” (PM)

• UN: “Convincing information” sexual violence committed against hostages in Gaza (BBC)

• Governor Newsom announces new Hate Hotline so informants can report their neighbors to the state (Not the Bee)

• California demolished dam to save salmon, killed the salmon instead (FrontPage Mag)

• Federal judge rules that Christian employers do not have to pay for transgender surgeries (Daily Wire)

• Bud Light may have lost $1.4 billion (Townhall)

• Humor: Cast of “The View” unanimously overturns SCOTUS decision (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.