Cross-Examination

• Maine dictator disqualifies Trump: Not even partisan Democrats are buying this one. Whereas a recent Colorado Supreme Court decision booted Donald Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot on the deeply dubious 14th Amendment grounds that he’d incited an insurrection had at least a fig leaf of legal argument behind it, a recent decision by Maine’s Trump-deranged secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, to kick Trump off that state’s primary ballot is nothing more than a bizarre and desperate act of individual tyranny. “Until he is actually found guilty of the crime of insurrection,” said Maine Democrat Congressman Jared Golden, “he should be allowed on the ballot.” Indeed, even in California, the home of one-party politics and the shadow Democrat presidential campaign of Gavin Newsom, they’re rejecting this “insurrection” rubbish. As Newsom put it: “In California, we defeat candidates at the polls. Everything else is a political distraction.” What Colorado and Maine have in common, though, is that they’re on the lunatic fringe. At least so far. As constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley told Fox News this morning: “This has been rejected in state after state. … This theory is wrong. It’s wrong historically, it’s wrong textually, it’s just dead wrong.” We think what Turley is trying to say is that it’s wrong. And we think he’s right. Let’s hope the Supreme Court agrees.

• Harvard students turn on Gay: It would be culturally and historically insensitive to say that the noose is tightening around the neck of Harvard’s Jew-hating, plagiaristic president, Claudine Gay, so we won’t say it. Instead, we’ll just note that even some members of the school’s largely leftist student body are now calling for her resignation. An op-ed appearing in the school’s student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, begins bluntly and rightly enough: “University President Claudine Gay should resign.” But then its authors succumb to one of the illnesses of academia — an inability to get to the point. “It has been less than half a year since Gay assumed one of the most prestigious posts in all of academia. Since then, scandal after scandal has plagued our beloved university. The president of Harvard must be a formidable leader, capable of managing thousands of the brightest minds on the planet, a widely revered international brand, and a multi-billion-dollar bureaucratic behemoth.” Just say it, kids: Gay is a Jew-hating plagiarist. Done. The piece, titled “Dissent: For Harvard’s Sake, It’s Time to Let Gay Go,” says Gay has failed in her basic duties, engaged in “explicit plagiarism,” and “botched” the university’s response to the barbaric October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. And they’re right about these things. To this point, though, Harvard’s all-powerful board of trustees has gutlessly kept Gay in place for no other reason than the color of her skin. Perhaps this blistering op-ed will give them enough cover to do the right thing.

Update: Just after we published, Harvard announced Gay’s resignation.

• Groomers win in two red states: Last week saw two wins for the Rainbow Mafia. In Idaho, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill granted a stay against the state’s recently passed law banning gender-bending treatments on minors. At the behest of the ACLU, the judge granted a preliminary injunction against the law, House Bill 71, pending the lawsuit outcome. Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador blasted Winmill’s decision by noting: “The federal judiciary once endorsed the eugenics movement and forced sterilization of intellectually disabled people. Similarly, Judge Winmill’s ruling places children at risk of irreversible harm. History will not look kindly at this decision.” He vowed to appeal the decision. In Ohio, Republican Governor Mike DeWine vetoed House Bill 68, legislation that both banned gender-bending procedures on minors and barred biological males from competing in girls’ school sports. DeWine’s rationale for vetoing the bill was his view that the state should not dictate decisions between parents and their children. The Ohio legislature could override DeWine’s veto since the bill passed with enough votes.

• NY lawmaker targets Chick-fil-A: Democrat New York state lawmaker Tony Simone recently introduced a bill dubbed the Rest Stop Restaurant Act, which would require all food and beverage service companies that contract with the state to remain open seven days a week. According to Simone’s legislation: “Publicly owned service areas should use their space to maximally benefit the public. Allowing for retail space to go unused one seventh of the week or more is a disservice and unnecessary inconvenience to travelers who rely on these service areas." Simone’s obvious target is the Christian-owned Chick-fil-A, which famously closes all its restaurants on Sundays. Simone clearly has little concern for adhering to the First Amendment and its protection of religious liberty. Furthermore, Simone’s argument that the state is funding these restaurants is also entirely false. Far from costing New York taxpayers, Chick-fil-A does the opposite, as it produces revenue for the Empire State. Either Simone holds bigotry against Christianity or he’s such a huge fan of the fast-food chain’s crispy chicken sandwich that he can’t stand to go a single day without enjoying one.

• Airstrikes in Iraq: Joe Biden’s abject failure to protect American troops in the Middle East ought to be an impeachable offense, but he continues to get away with it. As of today, there have been at least 115 attacks on our forces in Iraq and Syria and elsewhere since October 17. But perhaps he’s finally coming around. Our military launched airstrikes last week against an Islamic terrorist group in Iraq after a Christmas Day drone strike there injured three American warriors, one of them critically. As The Daily Wire reports: "In response to the attacks, the U.S. conducted airstrikes against multiple facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, and affiliated groups in Iraq late on Monday night, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. ‘Early assessments indicate that these U.S. airstrikes destroyed the targeted facilities and likely killed a number of Kataib Hezbollah militants,’ the statement said. ‘There are no indications that any civilian lives were affected. The U.S. military will continue to evaluate the effectiveness of these strikes.’” Joe Biden’s weakness as commander-in-chief has been provocative. Perhaps he’s finally getting the message.

• Christianity Today defends preferred pronouns: Christianity Today, the once-flagship publication for evangelicals founded by the late Billy Graham, is continuing its leftward drift away from biblically sound doctrine. The publication effectively took the side of two now-former employees of Houghton University who were fired after they defied the Wesleyan school’s directive against including preferred pronouns with their email signatures. Rather than recognizing that and upholding the sound and fundamentally Christian and biblical perspective that God created humanity as male and female — that there is no such thing as “transgender” — CT sought to instead blur the issue. In a CT article, Kara Bettis Carvalho argues, “Using others’ requested pronouns can demonstrate that Christians care for them, whether or not they hold the same positions on questions around gender and sexuality.” Carvalho adds, “One can believe in the inherent truths of maleness and femaleness and also that God loves and cares for every person.” How is affirming someone’s sinful delusion showing them love? Or to put it another way: How does lying to someone comport with the ninth commandment against bearing false witness against your neighbor?

• Opposing global warmists: Going against the globalists’ climate change agenda has effectively cost a former Washington state employee his job. Scott Smith was a transportation planner for the Washington State Department of Transportation and has turned into a whistleblower. Last year he left the post he had served at for five years after he was essentially forced out by Democrat Governor Jay Inslee’s administration for refusing to lie about the impact Inslee’s Climate Commitment Act would have on gas prices. Smith, who has served as an economist for over 35 years, calculated that the legislation would negatively affect prices at the pump, increasing them by 45 to 50 cents per gallon. This is what happens when an agenda trumps truth.

Headlines

• Texas has arrested thousands at the U.S.-Mexico border as state expands powers to arrest migrants (Fox News) | Texas wants to jail and deport illegal immigrants so the Biden administration is threatening to … well, you know (Not the Bee)

• Record set for southern border encounters in one month as nearly 250,000 cross into U.S. (Daily Wire) | Chinese nationals are flooding across southern border at record pace (Daily Wire) | A migrant caravan is coming and it is spectacular (Hot Air)

• Bill Clinton to be unmasked as “Doe 36” and identified more than 50 times in Jeffrey Epstein doc dump (New York Post)

• Obama-appointed judge rules in favor of Republicans in Georgia (Daily Wire)

• Biden scolds media for negative coverage of economy: “Start reporting it the right way” (Fox News)

• Marjorie Taylor Greene targeted by failed Christmas swatting attempt (AP)

• Prosecutors say Sam Bankman-Fried will not face a second trial (ABC News)

• Illegal immigrants take trains into NYC after Eric Adams restricts bus arrivals (Daily Wire)

• Beginning this week, illegal immigrants will qualify for free healthcare in California (New York Post)

• Libs of TikTok says account was suspended from Facebook (Daily Wire)

• Washington Post shedding hundreds of staff from payroll after Trump presidency (The Federalist)

• Second American hostage confirmed dead one week after her husband died in Hamas captivity (Daily Wire) | Freed Israeli hostage shares harrowing details about captivity in Gaza (National Review)

• Israel kills Hamas commander who helped lead October 7 attacks (New York Post) | Israel withdrawing thousands of troops from Gaza (National Review)

• Christmas Eve attack in Nigeria leaves at least 140 people dead, homes burned (Fox News)

• California schools push kids to watch films on transgenderism that showcase puberty blockers (Daily Wire)

• Judge blocks Iowa law keeping sexually explicit books out of schools (Daily Wire)

• Nation’s capital recorded more homicides in 2023 than any year since 1997 (Breitbart)

• More EVs lose tax credits including Tesla, Nissan, GM vehicles (Reuters)

• Twenty-two states just increased their minimum wage (Washington Examiner)

• Another Confederate statue bites the dust, and no one should be applauding (PJ Media)

• Too few good men: Pentagon hopes grim recruiting numbers will rebound in 2024 (Washington Times)

• Obama tops list of overrated political figures; Coolidge most underrated (Washington Times)

• Policy: Four ways struggling Americans would bear brutal impact of $17 minimum wage (Daily Signal)

• Humor: The Biden administration’s top 10 accomplishments of 2023 (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.