Cross-Examination

• Democrat Senator Bob Menendez indicted again: Things just went from bad to worse for Gold Bar Bob. We’re speaking of New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez, who, along with his wife, Nadine, was charged yesterday in Manhattan with lying to federal investigators. He thus ties Donald Trump for the most indictments, four, incurred by an American politician. This new indictment expands on the recent charges of having accepted gold bars and cash in exchange for favors to local businessmen and foreign governments. Menendez, 70, first appeared on our radar exactly nine years ago when he was first charged with corruption. Apparently, he never learned his lesson. As the New York Post reports, “The married couple, alongside co-defendants Wael Hana and Fred Daibes, are now charged with 18 counts — 16 of which involve the senator — as part of a ‘corrupt relationship’ to benefit the New Jersey businessmen, the Egyptian government and Qatar, the revised indictment shows.” We’ll say this about Menendez: He doesn’t come cheap. As the Post continues, “The alleged bribes included more than $566,000 in cash, roughly $100,000 in gold bars, home mortgage payments, payments for a ‘low-or-no-show job,’ a Mercedes-Benz convertible, and even exercise machines and an air purifier.” A “low-or-no-show job,” eh? Where have we heard that before? One wonders whether Gold Bar Bob ever offered friendly advice to Hunter Biden.

• Arizona Senator Sinema announces retirement: She’s technically an independent, but so is Bernie Sanders. Both, however, vote in near-lockstep with the Democrats, so yesterday’s announcement by Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema that she won’t seek reelection presents another good opportunity for Republicans to flip the balance within the 51-49 Democrat-controlled Senate. In addition to the near-certain flip of Joe Manchin’s West Virginia seat, the GOP can now focus its sights on Sinema’s seat as well as Sherrod Brown’s Ohio seat and Jon Tester’s Montana seat. “Because I choose civility, understanding, listening, working together to get stuff done, I will leave the Senate at the end of this year,” said Sinema via a video on X. “Compromise is a dirty word,” she added. “We’ve arrived at that crossroad, and we chose anger and division. I believe in my approach, but it’s not what America wants right now.” Sinema, a former Green Party organizer who was once famously stalked by radical leftists into the women’s bathroom after speaking at Arizona State University, has no doubt seen enough of Beltway politics. Sinema’s departure, though, might spell trouble for the Senate’s most important moderating device, the filibuster. Sinema, to her credit, wouldn’t budge when Democrats tried to do away with it. Should a more radical Democrat replace her in Arizona, we can be sure that the filibuster’s standing will be even more perilous. If only Republicans hadn’t blown those two Georgia seats in the last election cycle.

• Bigmouth rich guy Charles Barkley is offended by Trump’s outreach to blacks: Blowhard Charles Barkley, the NBA’s erstwhile Boy Gorge, its Round Mound of Rebound, said he would punch any black person he sees wearing former President Donald Trump’s now-iconic mugshot T-shirt. Apparently, Barkley’s sensibilities can’t handle the way Trump is reaching out to that most reliable voting bloc within the Democrat Party. As the Washington Examiner reports: “The comments Barkley took issue with were made by Trump at the Black Conservative Federation Honors Gala in South Carolina last month. During his speech, Trump claimed that he had been told his numerous indictments are why he is gaining support among black voters because they see him ‘being discriminated against.’” Well. The very nerve of the Orange Guy reaching out to black guys. “You know who embraced me more than anybody else?” asked Trump. “The black population. It’s incredible. You see black people walking around with my mugshot — you know they do shirts.” Barkley, like all other Democrat operatives, knows the existential threat posed by Trump to their hold on power. If the Democrats’ black support drops from 90% to just 80%, pop goes the presidency. Which is why Barkley said: “First of all, I’m just gonna say this. If I see a black person walking around with a Trump mugshot, I’m gonna punch him in the face.” Calling all Trump-supporting black MMA guys: Anybody want to put Chuck’s promise to the test?

• Mortgages for border hoppers: Welcome to California, the state where citizens’ tax dollars ensure that illegal aliens get free stuff like healthcare and zero-interest home mortgages. By what means do illegal aliens “qualify” for these zero-interest and zero-monthly-payment mortgages? Well, simply by their illegal status, of course. Meanwhile, California’s legal residents get the joy of not only living alongside people who are not supposed to be here in the first place, but they also get to see their tax dollars used to ensure these illegals stay. That is effectively what Democrat Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula’s recently introduced legislation Assembly Bill 1840 does. Arambula’s bill would expand California’s eligibility to qualify for the state’s first-time homebuyer loan program, dubbed the California Dream for All Shared Appreciation Loans, to include illegal immigrants. Under this program, illegal aliens would be included in a lottery system with other low-income Californians for an opportunity to “buy” a home with a zero-interest loan valued at 20% of the purchase price. The obvious question is, how are these illegal aliens, who are not legally permitted to work in the state in the first place, going to earn money to pay off these zero-interest loans? Furthermore, what incentive is there for them to pay at all? Once the bill came due, they could simply pick up and move to another part of the state.

• Doritos and North Face — woke faceplants: One would think corporations would be wary of going all in on wokeness following Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney debacle, but evidently there are some companies that are bound and determined to keep riding that woke train. The latest two examples are Doritos and The North Face. In Doritos’ case, it hired a “transgender”-identifying man to help sell its product in Spain. That gender-bending man, who goes by the name Samantha Hudson, was quickly fired by Doritos after tweets he posted years ago came to light. In these tweets, Hudson not only expressed militant anti-traditional family and pro-Marxist sentiments but he also wrote of sick, violent pedophilic fantasies. Maybe Hudson’s gender-bending proclivity should have been a giveaway that he was not okay. Meanwhile, The North Face is leaning hard into woke racism. The outdoor apparel company is offering a 20% discount for customers who take a one-hour online DEI course. That course ridiculously asserts the racist narrative that people of color face race-based challenges due to “white privilege” when attempting to “access the outdoors.” Evidently, North Face thinks black people only live in cities, and they don’t get out to the countryside to go hiking or camping or something because of white people. So, who is actually being racist here?

• Good news for Christian employers: In North Dakota, U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor ruled that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Health and Human Services had violated the Christian Employers Alliance’s (CEA) constitutional right to religious freedom. At issue was the Biden administration’s effort to force employers to hold health insurance that covers gender-“transition” treatments for their employees. The EEOC and DHS expanded the definition of sex to include gender identity to claim that CEA violated employment anti-discrimination protections for refusing to cover gender “transitions” for its employees. In his decision, Traynor wrote, “CEA must either comply with the EEOC and HHS mandates by violating their sincerely held religious beliefs or else face harsh consequences like paying fines and facing civil liability.” He then observed, “[But] religious freedom cannot be encumbered on a case-by-case basis.” CEA lead counsel Matt Bowman welcomed the decision, arguing that Traynor’s ruling was “on firm ground to stop the administration from enforcing these unlawful mandates that disrespect people of faith.”

• UAW learns economics 101: Whooda thunk it? Just a few months after United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain emerged victorious in his contract shakedown negotiations with those greedy Big Three penny pinchers, the nation’s automakers are now laying off union employees. National Review’s Dominic Pino provides a longish list of recent layoffs across the industry, from Ford to GM to Stellantis. So much for Big Labor’s Big Win at the collective bargaining table. As Pino writes: “The United Auto Workers union doesn’t really exist to represent autoworkers. Its biggest organizing successes in recent years have been in higher education, and there are now as many UAW members in the University of California system as there are at General Motors. … You’d think it was a huge win for autoworkers. UAW president Shawn Fain was still getting hagiographical treatment from CBS News two weeks ago and was just named MotorTrend person of the year.” The reality, though, is that the Big Three have been laying off blue-collar workers ever since the strike ended last October 30. Were we to venture a guess, we’d add that the Biden administration deserves some opprobrium for its nonstop demonization of the internal combustion engine and its accompanying obsession with promoting expensive and range-limited EVs that the American consumer isn’t interested in buying.

• California’s salmon kill: In an effort touted to save chinook salmon, California officials ended up killing hundreds of thousands of the fish when the first of four hydroelectric dams slated for removal was breached. Environmentalists have pushed the dam removal program as a means of restoring the Klamath River to its original status, thereby allowing the salmon to return to their historic natural spanning beds up the river. The massive salmon die-off is blamed on fish being forced through a bypass tunnel where water pressure was higher while the dam was being breached. The CEO of Klamath River Renewal Corp., the environmental group spearheading the dam removal project, responded to criticism by arguing, “People are suggesting that this is an environmental disaster without acknowledging that we’ve had an environmental disaster for the past 100 years.” One wonders about the environmental impact in the future when Californians remove those bird-killing solar and wind farms.

Headlines

• Trump, Biden dominate Super Tuesday races (Daily Wire) | Haley drops out of presidential race, challenges Trump to earn her supporters’ votes (National Review) | McConnell endorses Trump for president (The Hill)

• Adam Schiff and Republican Garvey advance in California U.S. Senate race (NPR)

• Alabama Republican becomes the first House incumbent to lose a 2024 primary (NBC News)

• Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki mock voter concerns about illegal immigration during Super Tuesday panel (National Review)

• “Father of Fake News” Dan Rather demands media end “both-sides-ism” when covering Trump (RedState)

• Fani Willis warned Nathan Wade’s lawyer to stay quiet about affair, court filing claims (New York Post)

• San Franciscans pass ballot measures requiring drug testing for welfare, expanding police surveillance (National Review)

• Biden admin admits it secretly flew 320,000 “asylum seekers” into U.S. (in 2023 alone) to reduce numbers at the border (Not the Bee)

• White House announces “strike force” on unfair and illegal prices ahead of State of the Union (Politico) | Credit card late fees to be capped at $8 under Biden campaign against “junk fees” (CBS News)

• Liberty University fined $14 million for federal crime reporting violations (NPR)

• Louisiana becomes nation’s 28th state with constitutional carry law on the books (Fox News)

• “MLB The Show” video game introduces women players (Daily Wire)

• Veterans Affairs rescinds memo banning V-J Day kiss photo (Daily Wire)

• Humor: Dems quietly ask SCOTUS if they can ban Biden from ballot (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.