Cross-Examination

• SCOTUS rules 9-0 in favor of Trump on Colorado ballot case: The Trump-hating Democrats (but we repeat ourselves) who’d prefer to keep the former president off the 2024 ballot were dealt a blow late this morning as the Supreme Court ruled in a “voice of the court” opinion that Colorado could not kick Donald Trump off its 2024 presidential primary ballot. As Fox News reports: “All nine justices ruled in favor of Trump in the case, which will impact the status of efforts in several other states to remove the likely GOP nominee from their respective ballots. The court considered for the first time the meaning and reach of Article 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars former officeholders who ‘engaged in insurrection’ from holding public office again. Challenges have been filed to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot in over 30 states.” As to whether the hopes of all those other Trump-banning states are still alive, still able to keep him off their ballots, constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley had this to say: “I think they’re all dead as Dillinger. When you read this opinion, there is no dissent that the states cannot enforce the 14th Amendment provision.” That Civil War-era provision, according to assorted lefties in high places across certain states, allows them to ban The Insurrectionist Trump™ from their presidential ballots. A few weeks ago, we suggested that this interpretation was Trump-deranged hogwash, and we wondered whether the Supreme Court would rule unanimously in declaring it so. And sure enough, they have, in what can only be called a great victory for Chief Justice John Roberts. “The only disagreement,” Turley added, “is whether the court should’ve gone even further to close off future arguments or challenges without an action from Congress.” And so, as The Babylon Bee quipped, “In Major Blow To Democracy, Supreme Court Rules Voters Can Vote For Favorite Candidate.” As Justice Amy Coney Barrett said in her concurrence: “The Court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a Presidential election. Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up. For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home.” Indeed, that is the message that all Americans should take home, but Trump derangement being what it is, we expect the Left’s caterwauling about the Supreme Court’s “illegitimacy” will only grow louder and more grating — ironically, even in the face of a 9-0 smackdown.

• No EO on the border: After Joe Biden toured a quiet part of the southern border in Texas, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre disingenuously claimed that “there is no executive action” Biden can take to secure the border. Evidently, KJP believes that reversing the 94 executive orders that Biden took within the first 100 days of his presidency to open up the border can’t be reversed. Here’s betting that should Donald Trump win in 2024, he’ll have little problem issuing a litany of executive orders to help secure the border. Meanwhile, as predicted, the Leftmedia has spun away from claiming there was no border crisis to now acknowledging it and ridiculously blaming Republican lawmakers for it because they blocked the lousy compromise put forward in Congress.

• 5,000 more hours of J6 footage released: On Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson applauded the work of his House GOP colleagues in releasing 5,000 more hours of Capitol security footage from January 6, 2021, for view by the American people. As House Administration Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Barry Loudermilk wrote: “My subcommittee’s investigation has always been about providing the American people with full transparency and complete accountability about what really happened on January 6, 2021. As such, we have been working tirelessly to make public all U.S. Capitol Police CCTV footage from that day. I appreciate Speaker Johnson’s continued support of our efforts and his resolute commitment to full transparency for the American people. Today’s decision will significantly expedite CCTV footage releases, all of which will be made available to the American public within the next few months, without blurring or editing. The first batch is already available on our Rumble page.” Transparency is a good thing, of course, and the more we learn about the events of that day, the better it’ll be for the health of our Republic. At the same time, a federal appeals court tossed out a portion of a January 6 defendant’s sentence — a decision that could affect the two-tiered-justice status of more than 100 other J6 cases.

• Haley wins DC primary: Yesterday, Nikki Haley notched her first presidential primary win in the non-state of Beltway, otherwise known as The Swamp, otherwise known as The Seat of Big Government, otherwise known as Washington, DC. She now has 43 delegates to Donald Trump’s 244, and her magic number for clinching the nomination is down to 1,172. Unfortunately for Haley, reality is a mother. Trump swept the real states of Michigan, Missouri, and Idaho over the weekend, and he’s expected to cruise to victory in North Dakota tonight and in every Super Tuesday contest tomorrow. The joke is apparently lost on the Leftmedia, though, which continues to promote Haley’s quixotic campaign. Indeed, Haley has unwittingly — or perhaps not — become the useful idiot of the Democrats. “If Donald Trump is the nominee,” she said on the campaign trail, “we will lose. It is that simple.” Is it really, though? Trump now leads Joe Biden by more than two points in the head-to-head RealClearPolitics average. That’s a four-point bump from where he was in the final RCP poll of 2016. In any case, the end should arrive soon enough for Haley, as delegates from 16 states will be up for grabs in the Super Tuesday primaries. In a single day, Republican voters across the land head 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 the once and future Republican nominee and an even more resounding chorus for Haley to drop out. Undaunted, Haley has picked up the endorsements of the Senate’s two most notorious RINOs, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Maine’s Susan Collins. So there’s that.

• Voter integrity law upheld in Arizona: In an important ruling for voting integrity, a federal judge has upheld a new Arizona law requiring registered voters to provide proof of American citizenship in order to cast a vote in Arizona. As such, it’s a crucial win for the sanctity of the ballot, and it comes in a crucial swing state. As Fox News reports, “Arizona legislators faced accusations of discrimination when they adopted the laws requiring counties to verify the status of registered voters but, in a ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled that such requirements were not discriminatory.” In an opinion replete with common sense, Judge Bolton wrote, “Considering the evidence as a whole, the court concludes that Arizona’s interests in preventing non-citizens from voting and promoting public confidence in Arizona’s elections outweighs the limited burden voters might encounter when required to provide [documentary proof of citizenship].”

• What recruiting crisis? It’s no secret the U.S. military is struggling to meet recruiting goals. And while the Pentagon points to an increasing lack of physical fitness among America’s youth as a primary reason for its difficulty finding qualified recruits, the woke DEI nonsense being pushed in the military seems to be the bigger factor. Space Force Lt. Col. Bree Fram is a prime example of this growing problem. Fram is a man who identifies as a “trans woman,” and rather than this space cadet getting Section 8 and being sent to the loony bin, he’s set up as a shining example of the military’s new “inclusivity.” In a recent speech, Fram ridiculously called for not just “dignity and respect” from military personnel but for everyone to embrace the LGBTQ+ propaganda. “We must focus on intentional inclusivity,” he said, “because there are far too many people out there, not just LGBTQ individuals, that feel marginalized, shut out, and discriminated against.” He then called on everyone to get on board the preferred pronoun train. “I ask you to set out your symbols of pride, share your pronouns in your email — particularly if you’re a person who doesn’t think they need to — initiate difficult conversations about racial and gender barriers, and share a bit of your vulnerability in a way that draws others in.” The message is clear: If you find Fram’s message offensive, then you are the problem and you should not be in this man’s military.

• Race-bending cop sues: Chicago police officer Mohammad Yusuf is suing the city after it refused his request to change his assigned race from caucasian to Egyptian African American. He launched his lawsuit in response to being denied the right to self-identify as a different race when the city allowed police officers the freedom to change their official gender to their preferred identity. In his suit, Yusuf observed that the department permitted an officer’s “gender identity [to be] corrected to match their lived experience." Yusuf wants to change his racial identity based on the same parameters established for gender-benders. He noted that the department’s promotional system "particularly” favors “minority candidates” irrespective of their promotional test scores, meaning that he would not have been passed over for promotion but for his being considered white.

• Race-obsessed UCLA med school: If all you see is race, you just might be a racist. The irony of the woke “anti-racism” movement is that it equates skin color to culture. And at UCLA’s medical school, this commitment to woke “anti-racism” is endangering sound medical practice. With classes like “Structural Racism and Health Equity,” which instructs students in the Left’s Marxist tenets of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” medical science is made subservient to promoting the woke agenda. Indeed, not only is UCLA racially obsessed, but it appears that the school has begun pushing full-on anti-white racism. According to recent internal emails from the school, medical students are being told to read anti-white books such as Our History is the Future, which talks of “settler colonialism and Indigenous resistance on a global scale.” “Blackness and Indigeneity” are being taught to students for them to “imagine a world in the aftermath of settler colonialism and white supremacy.” In short, UCLA Medical, which is considered one of the best medical schools in the nation, is preoccupied with pushing leftist cultural revolutionary ideology as medicine. As conservative commentator Ben Shapiro observes: “In the context of a medical school, these materials aren’t just irrelevant — they put lives at risk. Medical students are being taught to disregard science, and instead to build resentment towards many of their patients.” And that is a diagnosis of malpractice.

Headlines

• Hunter Biden met privately with “spy chief of China” during Hong Kong trip, James Biden testifies (Washington Free Beacon) | James Biden confirms Joe Biden received funds originating from Chinese firm (National Review) | Chinese doctor who paid Hunter Biden a million dollars for “legal services” wants refund (RedState)

• Congress unveils first appropriations package ahead of looming shutdown deadline (Washington Examiner)

• AG Merrick Garland tells black church that voter ID and bans on ballot drop boxes are “discriminatory” (Not the Bee)

• “Not nearly enough”: Biden promises more airdrops for Gaza (National Review) | Harris calls for “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza to end “humanitarian catastrophe” (Washington Examiner)

• ATF director displays ignorance about basic firearm topics during pro-gun control segment (Daily Wire)

• “No place in our public universities”: University of Florida fires all DEI employees (Daily Wire)

• Houthis sink first major merchant ship in Red Sea (Daily Wire)

• The world now has over one billion obese people (AFP)

• CDC drops its five-day COVID isolation guidelines (Fox News)

• Humor: CDC officially changes COVID guidelines to whatever your Uncle Frank said about it years ago (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.