Cross-Examination

• Key Bridge collapse update: There are six people unaccounted for and now presumed dead following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge into the Patapsco River in Baltimore after it was struck by a large container ship. The good news is that the bridge was closed to traffic at the time of the collapse with only a maintenance crew of eight workers on it. No cars with persons in them are believed to be in the water. For several minutes prior to hitting the bridge support, the ship had strayed off course, apparently struggling with some kind of mechanical failure. The Key Bridge had no known safety issues or maintenance problems and was inspected last year by the Federal Highway Administration and given a satisfactory rating. The immediate and long-term impact of the bridge collapse will affect commuter traffic as well as shipping at the Port of Baltimore, a disruption that will likely be felt for weeks. Meanwhile, speculation has run rampant, with blame being assigned to everything from terrorism to DEI to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. But maybe worst of all was the Associated Press pointing out that the bridge’s namesake, Francis Scott Key, was a slave owner. How is that relevant? Of course, when any massive catastrophic event occurs, people naturally question how and why it happened. But in the internet age, with the expectation of instant gratification, patience has become a lost commodity. However, patience is needed, as the National Transportation Safety Board, which has an impressive track record when it comes to conducting thorough investigations, will eventually issue a report on its findings. Until then, one would do well to ignore the myriad of conspiracy theories that have and will arise.

• Truth Social goes public: On Monday, Donald Trump’s social media company Truth Social went public, as Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) approved a merger with Truth Social’s parent company. The newly combined company will be dubbed Trump Media & Technology Group and will begin trading on the Nasdaq under the initials DJT. The deal could net Trump $3 billion or more in stock value with his 80 million shares in the company. Given his current legal issues, such as the unprecedented and massive $454 million $175 million civil fraud judgment against him, this is a timely windfall. However, Trump would not be able to immediately sell off stock for the first six months unless the board were to approve it. Following the merger, TMTG CEO Devin Nunes stated: “As a public company, we will passionately pursue our vision to build a movement to reclaim the Internet from Big Tech censors. We will continue to fulfill our commitment to Americans to serve as a safe harbor for free expression and to stand up to the ever-growing army of speech suppressors.”

• Team Biden pushes a Big “Defund the Police” Lie: Quick: When it comes to defunding the police, which political party comes to mind? That’s what we thought. And that’s the monumental challenge faced by Joe Biden’s paid liars as they try to turn recent history on its head. “Joe Biden won’t let Congressional Republicans defund the police, abolish law enforcement agencies like the FBI, gut crime prevention, or rollback landmark legislation critical to the fight against gun crime.” So said White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates, who added, “Violent crime surged under President Biden’s predecessor, but this president immediately fought back and has now reversed that trend with a historic reduction in crime.” We have to give the guy credit. He’s audacious if nothing else. So audacious, in fact, that he delays and discombobulates his critics by making them clean the spume of coffee off their laptops and cellphones before responding. Nonetheless, RedState’s Mike Miller gives it a go: “Buck-passing, which embattled Joe Biden has honed to a tee throughout his miserably failed presidency, is one thing,” he says. “Flipping the script on the ‘Defund the Police’ movement and now trying to blame it on the Republicans — and vowing to stop the GOP from doing so — is off-the-charts Looney Tunes.”

• Michigan woman, 25, murdered by an illegal immigrant: Thanks to the cascading disaster of Joe Biden’s open border and his surreptitious shipping of illegal immigrants all over the country, every American state is now a border state. And nowhere was this grim reality more apparent than in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is some 1,400 miles from our southern border and yet now mourns the loss of Ruby Garcia, apparently at the hands of a murdering Mexican illegal. Michigan State Police began investigating Garcia’s murder when her body was discovered on a well-traveled highway Friday night with apparent gunshot wounds. As Just the News reports: “An illegal immigrant, who once lived in the country as a DACA recipient before he was deported in 2020, was arrested over the weekend as a suspect in the slaying of a 25-year old Michigan woman. … According to local TV stations, Kent County records show the suspect, Brandon Ortiz-Vite, a Mexican citizen, was booked on March 24 by Michigan State Police, two days after the murder, and was charged with operating a motor vehicle with a suspended or revoked license and operating a vehicle while intoxicated.” Ruby Garcia thus joins Mollie Tibbetts, Melissa and Riordan Powell, Laken Riley, and an infuriatingly expanding list of Americans who would be alive today were it not for Biden’s willful refusal to perform his most fundamental duty as the American president: enforcing our nation’s borders. Say her name, Democrats. She’s Ruby Garcia, and her blood is on your hands.

• Americans overwhelmingly approve of “illegal immigrant” as a descriptor: “Political language,” said George Orwell, “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Nowhere is this truth more balefully apparent than in the battle over the words we use to describe those who cross our borders illegally. It wasn’t always a battle. For most of our nation’s history, we called illegal immigrants illegal immigrants. But in recent years, as “progressives” and their Democrat fellow travelers have increasingly sought to disguise their border-enforcement failures and put a more human face on this illegal activity, the term “illegal immigrant” has morphed into the more benign “undocumented migrant” and even “new arrival.” The Left’s Orwellian campaign is so ingrained, in fact, that Joe Biden felt the need to apologize recently for having used the term “illegal” in reference to a murdering dog. But, as it turns out, the American people would much rather call a spade a spade. According to a new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, 73% of voters said it is “appropriate” to use the term “illegal immigrant,” while a slightly smaller 68% said the term “undocumented immigrants” is acceptable. Incidentally, the same poll found that nearly three-quarters of Hispanic respondents said the term “illegal” was appropriate.

• BlackRock’s Larry Fink is quietly shoving ESG under the bus: BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is a leftist, an elitist, and a globalist, but he didn’t get rich by ignoring the forces that move people’s minds. And that’s why this titan of the meddlesome Environmental-Social-Governmental business movement is now having second thoughts. As The Washington Times reports: “The climate change-focused investment strategy known as ESG suffered another blow Tuesday at the hands of someone who was once its biggest steward on Wall Street: Larry Fink. The BlackRock CEO called for ‘energy pragmatism’ in his annual letter to investors. He said that consists of using clean energy to reduce global warming emissions while relying on fossil fuels for energy security.” Translation: Fink doesn’t want to get run over by the fossil fuel freight train. This language, as the Times reports, is “a significant departure from his years of staunch advocacy for ESG.” As Fink explains: “Now, the demand for clean energy is being amplified by something else: a focus on energy security. I’m hearing more leaders talk about decarbonization and energy security together under the joint banner of what you might call ‘energy pragmatism.’” It seems one man’s “drill, baby, drill” is another man’s “energy pragmatism.”

• What the hail: Sometimes it takes an act of nature to poke holes in human hubris. Recently, a hail storm rolled through Damon, Texas. No big deal, right? Well, that may have been true, except for the 4,000-acre solar farm that just happens to have been put up there in the name of fighting climate change. Unfortunately, just one hail storm destroyed thousands of solar panels. Worse, these broken solar panels contained highly toxic chemicals that could potentially leak out and contaminate groundwater. These chemicals are known to be cancer-causing. So now, this solar farm is not only producing no energy, but it has effectively become a massive 4,000-acre toxic spill site. So much for going “green.”

• Fairfax County lionizes gender-bending: The Board of Supervisors of Fairfax County, Virginia, is bound and determined to push the cult of gender-bending onto the community. Just in time for Easter, the board voted to make it a day to officially observe “Transgender Day of Visibility.” According to board chairman Jeff McKay, a Democrat, the decision was the board’s “moral responsibility to stand up for all people, not just the people we like or the people we agree with.” Another Democrat, Jimmy Bierman, said, “I’m just very happy that we’re recognizing a community that has too often been pushed into the shadows and celebrating yet another community within our diverse tapestry here in Fairfax County, to make sure that everybody who’s a part of our community feels welcomed, feels loved, and feels empowered.” Sure, everybody except Christians who object to the celebration of this blatant immorality — on Easter, no less, the day Jesus rose from the dead. Indeed, Jesus died on the cross to pay the just penalty for sins, like the sin of “transgenderism,” and to free people from these sins. Easter is the celebration of Jesus conquering sin, not celebrating it.

Headlines

• NBC News ousts Ronna McDaniel after staff uproar (Hollywood Reporter)

• Supreme Court appears skeptical of challenge to abortion pill access (Reuters)

• Was retired Justice Breyer the Dobbs leaker? (Townhall)

• RFK Jr. picks radical leftist as running mate (PJ Media)

• Judge in hush money case hits Trump with partial gag order (NBC News)

• Jill Biden compares court decisions, bans on porn in school libraries to the rise of Nazi Germany (Not the Bee)

• Jamaal Bowman called reports of Hamas rapes “propaganda” (Washington Free Beacon)

• Suspect who killed NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller has 21 prior arrests (ABC 7)

• Appeals court extends hold on Texas law allowing police to arrest illegal immigrants (National Review)

• U.S. intel agency wants to ban terms “radical Islamists” and “jihadist” because they’re hurtful to Muslim Americans (Washington Free Beacon)

• Feds ordered Google to unmask certain YouTube users (Forbes)

• Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin vetoes dozens of gun control bills (Daily Wire)

• Humor: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg holds emergency press conference to announce he is taking three more months maternity leave (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.