Cross-Examination

• “Open Borders Joe” returns to form: We knew he was lying all along. And now that the smoke has cleared from the fire and feistiness of Ritalin-charged Joe Biden’s State of the Union harangue; now that he’s been reprimanded for the high crime of having called a murdering dog “an illegal;” now that the hard-left focus groups have weighed in, Biden is decidedly less enthusiastic about securing our nation’s southern border via executive action. Never mind that he’s been vowing to do just that for a month now. Never mind that at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing just yesterday, pencil-pushing, corruption-absolving FBI Director Chris Wray once again warned lawmakers about a wide array of “dangerous threats coming from the U.S. border, including drug trafficking, violent gangs and smugglers with ties to ISIS.” Never mind all that. On the tarmac yesterday, a decidedly less loquacious Biden fumbled his way through a flip-flop on taking executive action to stop the illegal immigration of the next would-be murderer to waltz across our southern border. “I’m counting on the border action happening by itself,” he said, referring to the godawful border bill currently stuck in the Senate. In other words, he’s content to politicize the open border between now and Election Day. Let’s hope a majority of our low-information electorate isn’t gullible enough to let him get away with it.

• Disgraced former governor opines on government blunders: Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the handsy love gov and worst-selling author who absolutely killed it during the COVID-19 crisis, was pulling no punches on Sunday during an address to congregants at Union Grove Missionary Baptist Church in the Bronx. There, he criticized Joe Biden’s inept response to New York City’s ongoing illegal immigration crisis, calling it “the worst government blunder I have seen in my entire life.” But is Cuomo really the guy who ought to be pointing fingers at other Democrats’ government blunders? Mind you, this is the same guy who sentenced countless of his state’s elderly citizens to death by returning its coronavirus-positive nursing home residents back into the ultra-vulnerable nursing homes from which they came. And if we’re to believe his top aide at the time, Cuomo then tried to cover up the true death toll — all while cashing in on lucrative book deal about his stellar pandemic management. But, hey, Biden’s New York City fiasco is “the worst government blunder” he’s ever seen in his entire life.

• Inflation goes back up: Cumulative inflation since Joe Biden took office is 18%. That’s always worth keeping in mind with monthly reports of 3% inflation or when Biden claims as he did in his State of the Union that “inflation keeps coming down.” Actually, CNBC reports, “Inflation rose again in February.” Oops. Yes, the annual rate was once 9.1% before dropping to around 3%, but it hit 3.2% annualized in February. According to The Wall Street Journal, other numbers are worse: “Core prices, which exclude food and energy items in an effort to better track inflation’s underlying trend … were up 3.8% from a year earlier.” All of those numbers are well above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2% inflation. Oh well, at least, as Biden said, “Wages keep going up.” Except that, too, is slowing. February’s jobs report indicated that wage gains have slowed to a crawl. Oh, and 11 of the last 13 jobs reports have been revised down. Oops. Maybe Biden’s $7.3 trillion budget plan will fix it.

• Florida settles Rainbow Mafia lawsuit: Florida has settled a lawsuit raised by pro-LGBTQ groups against the state’s Parental Rights in Education law. The law, passed in 2022, was designed to protect children from being groomed by teachers promoting sexually deviant ideology in the classroom. It was falsely smeared as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by Leftmedia outlets and others promoting the societal normalization of sexual deviancy. The law prohibited public school teachers from kindergarten through the third grade from discussing and instructing students on any sexual ideology. With the settlement, teachers will be allowed to speak about their personal lives but will still be barred from promoting and instructing their students on any sexual ideology in the classroom. Governor Ron DeSantis called the settlement a “major win,” as the law will remain in place ensuring that parents and not woke activists determine when and what is appropriate for their children’s instruction when it comes to sexual ideology. “Woke gender ideology injected into the curriculum … is inappropriate,” DeSantis argues. “That’s not what we want in our school system.”

• Biden raises home prices: Just in time to ensure that home affordability continues to remain a problem, Joe Biden recently rolled out his latest government “fix.” During his State of the Union speech last week, Biden addressed the high cost of homes — due almost entirely to Bidenflation, he didn’t say — and he promised to get mortgage rates down. “I know the cost of housing is so important to you,” Biden said. “If inflation keeps coming down, mortgage rates will come down as well. But I’m not waiting.” Correction: inflation is not coming down; rather, the rate of inflationary growth has slowed. So, what is Biden’s proposed “fix” that will supposedly bring down mortgage rates faster than merely waiting? Why, it’s a $5,000 tax credit to middle-class first-time homebuyers. However, as low-interest college loans have helped to make the price of higher education exponentially higher, so too, these tax credits would have a similar impact on home prices. As the former director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Mark Calabria, observed, “There’s very little on this that is actually going to fix the problem.” That’s because “fundamentally, the problem is supply.” He adds, “Econ 101. If you juice up demand, you’re not going [to] increase sales. You’re just going to increase prices. You’re not helping anybody.” So, it’s just another bad idea to add to the growing mountain of Biden’s bad policy decisions. The truth is that this is an attempt to buy more votes.

• Russia, Russia, Russia, Part III: If election season is nigh, then that hardy perennial of Russian interference must be bubbling up to the surface somewhere. After all, Hillary Clinton couldn’t possibly have lost to Donald Trump due to her status as one of the least likable, least inspiring presidential candidates in our nation’s history. No, no, it must’ve been those dastardly Russkies that artificially colluded the Orange Guy into the Oval Office. And sure enough. In a friendly MSNBC interview with former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki, John “I Spent Christmas in Cambodia and I Have the Hat to Prove It” Kerry claimed that the Russians are already interfering in the 2024 election. As the Washington Examiner reports, Psaki “asked Kerry if he believes that Russia will interfere with the presidential election ‘again,’ as Democrats have repeatedly claimed that the country interfered with the 2016 election between then-candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.” To which Kerry replied, apparently without a scintilla of evidence to support his claim, that Russia is “already intervening” and that “others” are “probably” already engaged in this. But Kerry isn’t the only Chicken Little Democrat. Notice that Psaki started from a false premise: She said “interfere … again,” in order to perpetuate the Big Lie that Trump colluded with Russia to win in 2016. Psadly, Psaki is late to the game. A couple of weeks ago, her own NBC News colleagues reported that Russia “is already spreading disinformation in advance of the 2024 election, using fake online accounts and bots to damage President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, according to former U.S. officials and cyber experts.” What would we do without “experts”?

• Evangelical group pledges $62 million toward Trump’s election: Yesterday, in reporting on Joe Biden’s not-so-secret secret plan to whip Donald Trump in November by making him lose his temper, we noted that the far more serious threat to Trump and the Republicans between now and Election Day is an avalanche of Democrat campaign cash. As Politico reports: “An estimated $2.7 billion is expected to be spent just on presidential campaign advertising this cycle,” with a pair of pro-Biden super PACs already committing $250 million and $200 million in ad spending respectively, and with the Biden campaign acknowledging that “groups allied with it had committed to spending more than $700 million to help defeat Trump.” Given all this, it’s welcome news indeed that not all conservatives are content to sit back and watch the avalanche. Longtime evangelical conservative leader Ralph Reed is putting his organization’s money where the GOP’s mouth is. As Politico reports: “Faith & Freedom, a conservative-leaning organization, intends to spend $62 million registering and turning out evangelical voters, texting and calling supporters, and door-knocking — $10 million more than it spent four years ago. The group is expected to, among other things, hand out 30 million pieces of literature in 125,000 churches — many of them in battleground states.” To be sure, $62 million is a far cry from $700 million. But it’s a start.

• Why are teachers unions suddenly funding GOP candidates? Just as the sun rises in the east, it’s a commonly understood matter of fact that teachers unions are vile and self-interested vehicles of the Left. But if this is an iron-clad fact — and it is — then why have the teachers unions quietly spent millions of dollars on Republican state legislature candidates in the past six years? In three words: to make mischief. As The Daily Signal reports: “According to databases maintained by Open Secrets and Follow the Money, the largest teachers unions in 32 states have drastically increased donations to Republican state house, assembly, and senate candidates since 2018 — donating up to $117,700 to individual candidates in a Republican primary.” (For comparison, the Signal adds that only 12 states’ teachers unions donated to Republican primary candidates for state legislatures during the 2012 and 2016 election cycles, and the donated sums were considerably lower.) As the Heritage Foundation’s Jason Bedrick explains, this union spending is a dirty trick. “It’s obvious what’s going on here,” he writes. “The unions are terrified that parents are clamoring for more education choice, so they’re doing everything they can to stop it. In red states, or even red areas of blue states, that means supporting candidates who might disagree with them on other issues but who can be relied upon to oppose policies that expand education freedom for families.”

• Women’s pro golf bans male players: Some good news for women’s pro golf came last Friday when NXXT Golf announced a rule change. The league would only allow actual women players to compete in its tour. A statement from NXXT Golf read: “Effective immediately, competitors must be a biological female at birth to participate. This decision underscores the organization’s commitment to maintaining the integrity of women’s professional golf and ensuring fair competition.” NXXT Golf faced controversy earlier this year when the gender-bending male golfer Hailey Davidson won the NXXT Women’s Classic tournament, setting him up to possibly qualify for the LPGA tour. Independent Women’s Law Center director May Mailman praised NXXT Golf’s decision, stating, “This is what standing up for women looks like.” LPGA veteran Amy Olson seconded Mailman’s sentiment, calling the decision “incredible progress to prevent the replacement of hardworking female athletes.” Now that Davidson will no longer be allowed to compete against women on the NXXT Golf tour, maybe he can go back to competing against other men.

• Deadspin is dead: In another apparent example of “get woke, go broke,” the Leftmedia sports outfit Deadspin is effectively no more. On Monday, all of Deadspin’s staff were suddenly handed their walking papers after they were informed that the media outlet had been sold to a new European-based startup known as Lineup Publishing. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch. Recall that Deadspin created controversy last year by publishing an article falsely labeling a young Kansas City Chiefs fan a racist. The article featured a profile image of the young fan wearing black face paint, which Deadspin labeled “black face.” The article ridiculously claimed that the fan was perpetuating racism. However, when more photos of the young man came out showing his full face and that he was wearing red paint on the other side of his face, Deadspin sought to spin it as more evidence of the kid’s supposed racism. However, after the family of the boy, who happens to be of Native American ancestry, sued Deadspin for defamation last month, the rag appended a note to the article claiming it had no intention of attacking the young man or his family.

Headlines

• Special counsel to defend report calling out Biden’s memory problems in congressional testimony (National Review)

• FBI director warns of “very dangerous threats” at border, smuggling network with “ISIS ties” (Fox News)

• Jim Jordan threatens to hold FBI director in contempt over Hunter Biden laptop story (National Review)

• New Trump-picked RNC leadership team begins purging staff: ‘Absolute bloodbath’ (Washington Examiner)

• Cassidy Hutchinson’s ‘sensational story’ about Trump undercut by House GOP Jan. 6 report (Washington Examiner)

• Trump says one of his first actions would be freeing imprisoned Jan. 6 rioters (The Hill)

• Boeing whistleblower found dead in hotel parking lot just days after testifying against airplane giant (New York Post)

• Democrats and activists demand blackouts over nuclear power in California (National Review)

• Daily marijuana users 25% more likely to have a heart attack (Washington Post)

• Middlebury students tried to host a vigil for victims of Oct. 7 attack. Administrators told them to remove the word “Jewish.” (Washington Free Beacon)

• Indiana high school student speaks out after going viral for refusing to remove US flag from his truck (Fox News)

• Investigation Reveals Gender, Abortion Services Masquerading as Health Centers in K-12 Schools (Daily Signal)

• Humor: Jan 6 protesters request to be called “undocumented tourists” (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.