Cross-Examination

• Trump turns the lawfare tables: Donald Trump is well known for having introduced the term “fake news” into the political lexicon, but there’s another term that, while perhaps less catchy, is equally important to the future of American Liberty. The word is “lawfare,” and it refers to the Democrats’ despicable practice of siccing their deep state actors and their legions of lawyers on whomever they deem to be politically inconvenient. Chief among their targets, of course, has been Trump, as evidenced by the four indictments and the 91 criminal charges and the mountain of legal work that a suitable defense requires. But now Trump is turning the tables. As the New York Post reports: “Former President Donald Trump has filed a defamation lawsuit against ABC News and George Stephanopoulos, claiming his reputation was tarnished by the anchor saying multiple times on-air that Trump had been found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump filed the lawsuit in federal court in Miami on Monday over a viral interview between US Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Stephanopoulos on ‘This Week’ on March 10.” Stephanopoulos should certainly know better. He claimed Trump had been found “liable for rape,” but in a dubiously brought civil case, a Manhattan jury only found Trump liable for “sexual abuse.” The smarmy Stephanopoulos once defended Bill Clinton amidst rape accusations. Maybe he’ll now be held to account for the smear.

• More panicky Dems call for Sotomayor to step down: Last month, we called attention to the dimmest bulb on the Supreme Court, Barack Obama quota-hire Sonia Sotomayor, a 69-year-old leftist who has had Type 1 diabetes since childhood and is in poor health. We also noted that newly released U.S. Marshals Service records reveal that she’s the only sitting justice to request medical assistance during travel in recent years. All this has only amplified the calls from the Left for her to step down most ricky-tick lest she become RBG v 2.0. We’re referring, of course, to the once-iconic and now-reviled old-school lefty Ruth Bader Ginsberg, a longtime pancreatic cancer sufferer who simply refused to retire while Obama was president. Her stubbornness allowed Donald Trump to replace her by fast-tracking the nomination and confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett upon Ginsberg’s death late in his term, and that accounts for the High Court’s 5-3-1 conservative makeup. Exhibit A of the Left’s growing alarm would be a new column at The Atlantic by Josh Barrow. Its five-alarm title? “Sonia Sotomayor Should Retire Now.” So much for subtlety. As Hot Air’s Jazz Shaw writes: “I’m not going to call out Josh Barrow for stating the obvious because he’s at least being transparent about his motives. But it’s also worth asking a very obvious question of him. Who or what is he really hoping to benefit by offering this unsolicited career advice to a member of the highest court? Is this what’s best for Sotomayor’s personal career and legacy? Is it what’s best for the country? Or is it what’s best for the Democratic Party? The answer seems rather obvious.”

• Dems are on defense in 2024 Senate races: If Donald Trump regains the White House in November, and if Republicans retain their razor-thin majority in the House, they’ll still have a confounding obstacle to effective Republican governance: the Democrats’ equally tenuous control of the Senate. This makes it imperative that the GOP flip a couple of Senate seats, one of which took center stage yesterday in Ohio, where upstart Bernie Moreno pulled off something of a stunner over the Republican establishment’s favored candidate, State Senator Matt Dolan. Moreno, a Colombian immigrant and car dealership executive, parlayed endorsements from Trump and Ohio’s junior senator, J.D. Vance, into just over 50% of the vote to Dolan’s 33%, while Secretary of State Frank LaRose took 18%. Moreno thanked his fellow Ohioans for their support, and he credited the historically “powerful” Trump endorsement for the resounding win. This sets up what should be a winnable contest with three-term incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown, who’s managed to hang onto his Senate seat since 2007 despite Ohio’s increasingly red hue. Ohio isn’t the only opportunity for a Republican flip, however. In October, CNN published a list of the 10 seats most likely to flip in 2024, and the list looks really promising for Republicans. In order, the eight most vulnerable seats are West Virginia, Montana, the aforementioned Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan. All of these seats are being defended by the Democrats. Only the bottom two on the list, Texas and Florida, belong to Republican incumbents, Ted Cruz and Rick Scott, respectively, and flipping even one of them would be difficult for Democrats, especially with Joe Biden appearing to be such a drag on the ticket.

• Kamala’s “pride” goeth before a faceplant: It’s unclear whether the Biden administration will pay a political price for its unbending and often embarrassing allegiance to the Rainbow Mafia, but a litany of charges against a member of the protected class won’t help matters any. As The Daily Wire reports: “Former ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ contestant and actor ‘Shangela’ has reportedly been accused of multiple sexual assaults after recently settling a civil lawsuit accusing the star of rape. Rolling Stone detailed the accusations against 42-year-old Darius Jeremy Pierce from five individuals, including allegations that the drag performer attempted to get them inebriated beyond the ability to give consent.” Classy dude, this Shangela guy. Somewhat buried in this story, however, is the fact that this particular drag queen was invited by VP Kamala Harris to her home in order to help celebrate Pride Month. We’re sure there’s nothing to the charges, however, and that we’ll be expected to move along. But is it too much to ask that a sitting vice president do a better job of vetting her guests?

• Economic disconnect and interest rates: The Biden administration and its Leftmedia cohorts keep insisting that the economy is going gangbusters and yet seem mystified as to why the vast majority of the American public sees the exact opposite. Well, according to Larry Summers, former treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, economic adviser to Barack Obama, and former president of Harvard, it’s because they are missing a very significant data metric: the cost of money. Years ago, economists jettisoned accounting for the impact of the cost of money on consumers. Beyond the headline interest rate is the cost associated with borrowing money, which economic calculations today are failing to account for. Thus, Summers argues that applying the metrics of the 1970s and 1980s for the “Misery Index” suddenly reveals the “missing” data point and shows why Americans see the economy as bad. It’s a matter of measuring the right data and not just the preferred data. This certainly makes a whole lot more sense than what the Biden administration and Leftmedia pundits have effectively been claiming: that Americans are being duped by conservatives into believing the economy is bad when it’s really not.

• Intel better served by cross-dressing? In a recently obtained internal newsletter shared across the U.S. intelligence community, including the CIA and FBI, it was claimed that cross-dressing makes for better intelligence officers. The newsletter, named “The Dive,” featured an article titled “My Gender Identity and Expression Make Me a Better Intelligence Officer.” In the article, the author writes, “I am an intelligence officer, and I am a man who likes to wear women’s clothes sometimes.” He further claims that his cross-dressing “merits attention given the climate of discussion around the topic and where it sits in the larger conversation about gender identity and expression and professional appearance.” He then argues, “I think my experiences as someone who crossdresses have sharpened the skills I use as an intelligence officer,” making him “more aware of, and hopefully more supportive of, my women colleagues.” How so? Well, he says it has given him a “better appreciation for how it can be uncomfortable to wear women’s clothes sometimes.” Was this intended as a joke, a bit of humor to share with those working within the clandestine community, an Operation Mrs. Doubtfire? Sadly, no. This article is a result of DEI infiltration of the federal government. It was justified by the Intelligence Community Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Office to “enlighten readers.”

• Lloyd Austin commits the U.S. to support Ukraine: On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin committed the U.S. to ensure that Ukraine will not fall to the Russians. Austin made his pledge while preparing to head off to the 20th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contract Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. “We remain determined to provide Ukraine with the resources that it needs to resist the Kremlin’s aggression,” Austin stated. “The United States will not let Ukraine fail. This coalition will not let Ukraine fail. And the free world will not let Ukraine fail.” Last week, the Pentagon announced that it was sending another $300 million security assistance package to Ukraine following “some unanticipated contract savings.” Austin’s comments are getting ahead of Congress, as lawmakers have yet to agree upon another multibillion-dollar military aid package for Ukraine. The $60 billion figure in Ukraine aid that the Biden administration wants may not come anytime soon.

• Another Hamas hospital base: On Monday, Israeli Defense Forces raided the largest hospital in Gaza City, known as Al-Shifa Hospital. The IDF captured some 300 Hamas terrorists hiding within the building, killing several Hamas fighters in the process. The IDF uncovered a weapons cache in the hospital and killed Hamas’s head of internal security. “Faiq Mabhouh was eliminated in an encounter with the troops while armed and hiding in a compound at the Shifa hospital, from which he operated and advanced terrorist activity," the IDF said. While Hamas has denied that it is using Gaza’s few functioning hospitals as bases, this is now the second time IDF forces have proven otherwise. Hamas has repeatedly demonstrated that it will use innocent Palestinians as human shields, a war crime under international law. Meanwhile, Hamas continues to spin narratives of Israel being guilty of indiscriminately killing Palestinians, a false claim that far too many Leftmedia outlets in the West believe and perpetuate.

Headlines

• Texas immigration law blocked again, just hours after Supreme Court allowed state to arrest migrants (CBS News) | Mexico says it won’t accept immigrants back to its territory from Texas "under any circumstances” (Washington Examiner)

• Illegal immigrant arrested for stabbing two at Missouri laundromat (National Review)

• Obama-appointed judge dismisses gun charges, says illegal immigrant should not “be deprived of his Second Amendment right” (Daily Wire)

• Charges dropped against Gold Star father arrested during State of the Union address (National Review)

• As electric vehicle sales slow, U.S. relaxes plans for stricter auto emissions standards for a while (AP)

• Former Google insiders: Woke AI was no mistake — it was intentional (Hot Air)

• Woke Davidson College redefines racism: Minorities can be bigots, but all whites are racist (PJ Media)

• New Guttmacher data purportedly show increasing abortion rates in 2023 (National Review)

• Humor: Kate Middleton tweets out selfie of her and her kids on the moon; crazy conspiracy theorists doubt its legitimacy (Genesius Times)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.