Cross-Examination

• Another Team Biden Big Lie: If Joe Biden’s biggest reelection obstacle can be boiled down to one word, that word would be “age.” A whopping 86% of Americans think he’s too old to run for a second term. But a close second to “age” would be “immigration.” Not only is this the single most important issue to American voters, but it’s also the issue on which Donald Trump owns the greatest advantage over our decrepit president — an eye-popping 28 points, according to one recent poll. So we shouldn’t be surprised that Team Biden is trotting out another Big Lie to try to cut into Trump’s big lead on this issue. This time, they deceptively edited a video of Trump’s remarks at a recent rally to make it seem like he called all immigrants “animals.” He didn’t. Here’s the necessary context preceding the remark. As it makes clear, Trump was talking about one specific immigrant — the 26-year-old Venezuelan dog who murdered Laken Riley. As Trump put it: “The 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia who was barbarically murdered by an illegal alien animal — the Democrats say, ‘Please don’t call them animals, they’re humans.’ I said, ‘No, they’re not humans, they’re animals,’” adding, “Nancy Pelosi told me that. She said, ‘Please don’t use the word animals when you’re talking about these people.’ I said, ‘I’ll use the word animal because that’s what they are.’” It’s funny, not funny, how what’s good for the Trump goose isn’t good for the Biden gander. On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre lectured a reporter who asked about Biden’s reference to a “bloodbath” back in 2020. Recall that Team Biden and their mainstream media brethren pounced on Trump when he used the word recently in reference to the auto industry, dishonestly asserting that Trump was referring to a nationwide bloodbath should he lose the 2024 election. As KJP pathetically said Tuesday, “You’ve got to read what he said in context.” Oh.

• Ashley Biden’s “classified” diary sentencing saga: In August 2022, Aimee Harris pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property. That stolen property was the diary of Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden. Since that guilty plea, Harris has repeatedly failed to show up to court for sentencing. The Justice Department had originally sought a sentence of a six-month home confinement. However, due to the court having rescheduled Harris’s sentencing hearing 12 times over questionable excuses, the DOJ is now requesting a harsher sentence of four to 10 months in prison. “At bottom, the defendant’s flagrant disrespect for the law, including the orders of this Court — even after pleading guilty in this case — demonstrates an abdication of responsibility for her conduct and strongly militates for an incarceratory sentence,” DOJ prosecutors argued. “Probation will not be sufficient to deter the defendant from continuing to flout the law.” This is arguably yet another episode of two-tiered justice for the Biden family. Hunter Biden has delayed for years whatever punishment, if any, he’ll receive for tax evasion and lying on a gun application. And, of course, Joe Biden’s special counsel found him not liable for stealing classified documents by reason of age and dementia. But swipe Ashley’s diary and hoo boy…

• Good news: Zuckerbucks banned in Wisconsin: We’ve spilled plenty of ink on these pages on the topic of Zuckerbucks — that nearly half-billion-dollar infusion of targeted cash from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg into the big-city Democrat precincts of the swing states that helped Democrats win not only the 2020 presidential election but also that crucial pair of Georgia Senate seats two years later. Against this backdrop, then, we have some good news to report out of the swing state of Wisconsin: On Tuesday, the Dairy State’s voters approved two Republican-backed referenda that would bar outside meddlers like Zuckerberg from funding state elections while requiring only designated election officials to manage those elections. As National Review reports: “During the 2020 presidential election, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, donated nearly $420 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) and the Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR) in order to support election infrastructure across the country. CTCL disbursed $6.3 million in grant funds to five major Wisconsin cities — Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha, and Racine. However, CEIR did not disburse funding from the grants to any Wisconsin municipalities in 2020.” The $6.3 million share of Zuckerbucks that went to Wisconsin might seem relatively small, but consider that Biden won the state by fewer than 21,000 votes, or just under 0.5%. Now consider how much damage those millions could’ve done to ensure nearly 100% voter turnout in nursing homes all around the greater Milwaukee area. That’s the electoral power of Zuckerbucks. And good riddance, at least in Wisconsin.

• Good news: DEI dies at University of Texas: On Tuesday, the University of Texas announced that it was shuttering its diversity, equity, and inclusion division, which was part of the school’s Division of Campus and Community Engagement. The reason for this action, according to the school, is Texas’s passage of Senate Bill 17 last year. That law mandated that all state-funded universities close their DEI offices, and it further banned companies from requiring DEI training for employees. “Additionally, funding used to support DEI across campus prior to SB17’s effective date will be redeployed to support teaching and research,” UT’s announcement stated. “As part of this reallocation, associate or assistant deans who were formerly focused on DEI will return to their full-time faculty positions. The positions that provided support for those associate and assistant deans and a small number of staff roles across campus that were formerly focused on DEI will no longer be funded.” Both Florida and Texas have led the way in fighting against the promulgation of the inherently racist ideology of DEI across state-run institutions.

• Title IX rewrite strategically delayed: It’s an election year, and thus, the Biden administration wants to avoid moving forward on implementing any policy issue that would be politically damaging. One such issue is the Biden administration’s aim to rewrite Title IX regulations, a law that was designed to protect women against sex-based discrimination in school, most notably in college athletics, to now include “transgender”-identifying individuals. According to the Department of Education, “The proposed rule affirms that students benefit from the chance to join a school sports team to learn about teamwork, leadership, and physical fitness.” However, that statement avoids the actual issue at play, which is the attempt to codify within the law the inclusion of males who identify as “female” into women’s sports. Robert Eitel, president of the Defense of Freedom Institute for Family Studies, contends: “Don’t believe the spin that its proposed Title IX regulations won’t harm athletics for women and girls. The stakes are high. Female athletes face unfair competition, reduced participation, and the loss of championships, awards, prizes, scholarships, and other recognition, as well as possible injury or worse.” This is why the Biden administration is hitting pause on implementing this drastic change to Title IX. As an unnamed source privy to the administration’s thinking noted, his team “made the political decision to not move on the athletics [regulation] pre-election” because it’s “too much of a hot topic.” To put it another way, it’s a losing topic for Joe Biden and Democrats, and they know it. But just because the vast majority of the American public opposes this extreme ideology doesn’t mean Biden won’t move forward on this if he wins reelection.

• Trump wisely suggests fighting Medicare fraud: The Democrats haven’t yet started running TV ads of Donald Trump pushing wheelchair-bound granny off the Medicare cliff, but give ‘em time. In a recent CNBC interview, Trump said, “First of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements — in terms of cutting — and also in terms of the theft and the bad management of entitlements.” Clearly, he was talking about fraud, waste, and abuse, which account for a massive amount of misspent taxpayer funds each year. As The Federalist’s Christopher Jacobs reports: “In fiscal year 2023, the Medicare program reported a total of $51.1 billion in improper payments. A total of $31 billion in improper payments came from the traditional fee-for-service program, while $17 billion came from Medicare Advantage, in which private insurance companies contract with the federal government to provide Medicare benefits to seniors.” This is target-rich territory for improving our fiscal responsibility. But speaking of Medicare cuts, the Biden administration announced on Monday that it would cut government payments to the popular Medicare Part C subsidy, also known as Medicare Advantage. As Breitbart reports, “The Biden administration on Monday will cut base payments for Medicare Advantage plans by an average of .16 percent despite pressure from Republicans and healthcare experts.” Florida Senator Rick Scott, himself a former healthcare executive, put these cuts in terms his constituents can easily understand: “2.8 MILLION Florida seniors use Medicare Advantage & Biden’s cuts will cost them an extra $400 per year. Biden’s war on seniors is devastating & I’m fighting like hell to reverse this terrible decision.”

• Special persecutor Smith whines about Trump judge’s jury instructions: Pardon us while we break out the world’s smallest Stradivarius for poor Jack Smith, the overzealous and unscrupulous Trump special counsel who was dealt a bit of a setback this week when the judge in his classified documents case against the former president gave some unfavorable instructions to the jury. As The Washington Times reports: “Smith says a recent order from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, which sought draft language on jury instructions, seemed to embrace Mr. Trump’s claim that records could fall into 'personal’ or ‘presidential’ categories under the Presidential Records Act. A second scenario in her order would advise the jury to weigh whether Mr. Trump had complete authority as president to take whatever records he wanted from the White House.” According to Smith and his fellow Trump hunters, “Both scenarios rest on an unstated and fundamentally flawed legal premise — namely, that the Presidential Records Act, and in particular its distinction between ‘personal’ and ‘Presidential’ records, determines whether a former President is ‘authorized,’ under the Espionage Act, to possess highly classified documents and store them in an unsecure facility.” Strange, but we don’t remember this level of outrage concerning Joe Biden’s storage of classified documents in that “unsecure facility” in Wilmington that houses his ‘67 Corvette.

• Don’t groom kids: A recent study published in Archives of Sexual Behavior has confirmed what leading psychologists like Dr. Jordan Peterson have long argued — that the vast majority of gender-confused children grow out of that confusion when they reach adulthood. The study’s authors note, “We found that gender non-contentedness is most common around the age of 11 and that the prevalence decreases with age.” The study found that 98% of gender-confused children grow out of it by young adulthood, regardless of the circumstances of their youth. This study directly contradicts the gender-bender lobby that asserts “gender-affirming care” is necessary to “help” these kids and prevent them from committing suicide. Well, according to science, allowing children to simply grow up naturally without any medical intervention results in the best outcome for both their physical health and mental well-being.

Headlines

• Biden administration cancels purchase for Strategic Petroleum Reserve, citing high prices (Washington Examiner)

• Biden trailing Trump in six of seven battleground states (Daily Wire) | “No he’s not”: Jill Biden snaps at suggestion husband Joe is behind in swing states (Daily Mail)

• Sage Steele says ESPN bosses made her follow “every word” of carefully planned Q&A with Biden (Daily Wire)

• A million simulations show U.S. debt is on an “unsustainable” path (Fox Business)

• Mexican illegal alien arrested for aggravated murder in Ohio; was previously deported seven times (Daily Wire)

• Texas defends its anti-illegal immigration law in court against the Biden admin (Townhall)

• Blinken appoints chief diversity and inclusion officer 10 months after the role became vacant (NBC News)

• UCLA med students forced to pray to “Mother Earth” (Hot Air)

• Campus anti-Semitism driving Jewish families to reject schools (Washington Examiner)

• Dawkins: I like the world Christianity created even though I don’t believe it (Hot Air)

• Humor: “I didn’t do that,” insists Biden after aides ask him who colored on the wall of the Lincoln Bedroom (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.