Cross-Examination

• Alleged mad dog double murderer dies before finding Nicole’s real killer: “On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer.” So says an X post on O.J. Simpson’s page that added: “He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren. During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace.” And with that, humanity rids itself of the man who roiled racial tensions and stirred strong sentiments about domestic abuse and legal privilege upon his arrest in June 1994, at age 46, for the double murder of his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and a friend, Ron Goldman. As Fox News reports, “His ‘trial of the century’ ended on October 3, 1995, when he was acquitted in the 1994 murders,” but that didn’t stop the American people from rightly convicting him in the court of public opinion, as both the circumstantial and DNA evidence were overwhelming, and the cherry-picked jury simply engaged in jury nullification. As Fox News continues, “The acquittal came nine months after the trial began — and about 16 months after Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman, were found brutally murdered outside her home in Los Angeles.” As for O.J., the (ahem) alleged double-murderer whom People magazine once called “the first black athlete to become a bona fide lovable media superstar,” we say, good riddance.

• An illuminating fight over FISA renewal: If you don’t understand the conservative case against renewing the federal government’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, then you might need a refresher course on how our nation’s grotesquely politicized intelligence services used it to create the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. Or perhaps you could simply review the Durham Report or the case of deep-stater Kevin Clinesmith. In any case, as Fox News reports, “More than a dozen House GOP privacy hawks have blocked the House of Representatives from advancing a Speaker Mike Johnson-backed bill to renew a controversial federal government surveillance tool known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).” It comes hours after former President Trump posted on Truth Social, “KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME AND MANY OTHERS.” He’s right. It was illegally used against him. The final vote was 193 to 228, with 19 Republicans joining the Democrats to tank the procedural vote. But, as Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie observed: “Many people have been misled today. There was not a vote on the FISA bill. There was a vote on a resolution that would have allowed FISA, as well as 6 amendments to it, including a warrant requirement amendment, and three other pieces of legislation, to come to the floor.” FISA’s Section 702 is at issue. As The Wall Street Journal reports: “The concern is that Federal Bureau of Investigation officials have on occasion abused their access to search for American names that aren’t plausibly linked to terrorism. The Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, championed by Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner, imposes new guardrails as well as criminal penalties for abuse. But it also preserves the ability to surveil and act with dispatch without introducing onerous bureaucratic barriers.” Reform to FISA is clearly needed. We’ll wait to see what’s next.

• This just in: Mayorkas says the border IS a crisis: Roughly nine million illegal immigrants have poured across our southern border on Joe Biden’s “watch,” and, as was made clear yesterday during testimony by Homeland “Security” Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, roughly 85% of all those who are detained by the Border Patrol are ultimately released into the United States. Is this any way to run a country? Of course not. And yet. If there was a bright spot to Mayorkas’s testimony yesterday before the House Appropriations Committee, it’s that we finally got a dose of honesty out of him. “Would you call it a crisis at the southern border?” asked Iowa Republican Congresswoman Ashley Hinson. To which Mayorkas responded, “Yes, I would,” before quickly reverting to lying form: “And as a matter of fact, I work every single day with the men and women in the Department of Homeland Security to only strengthen the security of our southern border, as well as the northern border.” As National Review reports, the impeachment-worthy Mayorkas “made the admission after repeatedly refusing in previous appearances before Congress to acknowledge the scale of the problems caused by the record surge in illegal immigration that he’s presided over. Wednesday’s hearing marked the embattled Cabinet official’s first congressional testimony since he was impeached by the House in February.” If anyone besides Joe Biden ever deserved impeachment for failure to protect our nation’s borders, it’s this guy.

• Iowa migrant arrest law: Iowa has taken a page out of Texas’s playbook, as Republican Governor Kim Reynolds on Wednesday signed SF 2340 into law permitting state authorities to arrest illegal aliens who either have been denied entry into the U.S. or previously deported. Reynolds argued that the new law is needed because “the Biden administration has failed to enforce our nation’s immigration laws, putting the protection and safety of Iowans at risk.” She added: “Those who come into our country illegally have broken the law, yet Biden refuses to deport them. This bill gives Iowa law enforcement the power to do what he is unwilling to do: enforce immigration laws already on the books.” The Biden administration has been wrangling with Texas over its illegal immigration enforcement law, which is currently blocked pending litigation. It’s a good bet the Biden administration will now also challenge Iowa’s law, as Joe Biden is committed to keeping the border wide open.

• Michigan Dems refuse to condemn “Death to America” chants: This week, as we noted yesterday, the White House tepidly denounced the “Death to America” chants that emanated loudly and clearly last Friday from the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, the long-ago home of Henry Ford, who — with apologies to Calypso Louie Farrakhan — was our nation’s most famous Jew-hater. Yet despite the White House’s forced denunciation, there are a few Michigan Democrats still too cowardly to speak out against the vile chant. As PJ Media’s Robert Spencer writes: “Reps. Debbie Dingell, Haley Stevens, Debbie Stabenow, Gary Peters and (what did you expect?) Rashida Tlaib ‘refused to share their stance on the matter.’ Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer likewise ‘did not respond to a request for comment.’” The failure of Whitmer is especially cowardly and despicable, as she represents every Michigander rather than just a uniquely anti-Jew constituency. Tlaib, at least, has the courage of her convictions, which are decidedly pro-Hamas and anti-Israel. Or perhaps she’s not so courageous after all. Yesterday on Capitol Hill, Fox News’s Hillary Vaughn asked Tlaib, “Do you condemn people chanting ‘Death to America’?” It seemed a simple and straightforward question, but Tlaib choked on it like a chicken bone, replying, “I don’t talk to Fox News.” Tlaib, infamously, displays both the U.S. flag and the Palestinian flag outside her DC office as if there were any doubt about her dual loyalties. Let’s contrast this reprehensible behavior with that of one of her fellow Democrats, Congressman Shri Thanedar, who said: “I love America; I immigrated to the USA in 1979 and became a proud citizen in 1988. Any hate towards this great country must be condemned with the strongest words. I am deeply saddened by such attacks on American soil.”

• Two very different candidates: “Let me give you a hug!” So said former President Donald Trump yesterday to a young black woman, an employee at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta, who had a moment earlier endeared herself to Trump when she said: “I don’t care what the media tells you, Mr. Trump. We support you.” Trump went on to order milkshakes for everyone in the building. And what a contrast this moment presented between our 45th president and our 46th. Former Bush strategist Karl Rove, who’s anything but a Trump fan, grudgingly put it this way on Fox News this morning: “Think about the image that we had. We’ve got the current president, standing in the aviator glasses at a Rose Garden ceremony, stiff, can’t make eye contact with him, seemingly aloof, formal; and then the former president visiting Chick-fil-A — who doesn’t like Chick-fil-A? — and getting a very warm welcome. Campaigns are based on lots of things. Images matter a lot in those considerations, and yesterday’s image war was won by Donald Trump easily.”

• State Department DEI loyalty test: Embracing wokeness is a requirement for anyone working in Joe Biden’s State Department — at least if they have any aspirations of moving up the career ladder. A policy created by former chief diversity officer at State, Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, who served in the position from April 2021 through June 2023, mandates that any employee seeking promotion “must be able to document what you are doing to support diversity, equity and inclusion and accessibility.” If that wasn’t clear enough, Abercrombie-Winstanley added, “This is how you are judged for promotion.” She defends her policy by pointing to Biden’s directive that all government agencies document their engagement in DEI. Reiterating that Abercrombie-Winstanley’s policy was indeed State policy, the department noted that it was working on “establishing the advancement of [DEI] as an element for all employees as part of their job performance criteria, career advancement opportunities, and senior performance pay." The State Department is supposed to be the face of America to the world, but it has increasingly become little other than the face of a hard-left political agenda that expresses anti-American values.

• The BIG Lie of the tax burden: Democrats have long been the party preaching increasing taxes on the wealthy. Indeed, "Tax the Rich” is effectively a Democrat Party slogan. New York Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez infamously wore a gown emblazoned with the slogan when she attended the Met Gala back in 2021. Democrats repeatedly justify calls for raising taxes by falsely claiming that the wealthy don’t pay their “fair share.” The truth is the wealthy have long paid their “fair share” and then some. The top 1% of wealth earners paid 42% of the nation’s income tax burden in 2020. Yet, when voters were recently polled on the question “How much do you think the top 1% of taxpayers by income account for in terms of share of total federal income taxes paid: 1%, 12%, 42%, or 64%?” a third of Democrats answered “1%.” Among Democrats and Republicans polled, 25% of them believed it was 12%, and 19% had no idea. The vast majority of Americans have no idea who is paying taxes or the tax load that is being borne by the wealthy. When asked, “What do you think would be a fair top tax rate on income: 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, or higher?” 72% picked “30% or less” as a “fair share.” The current top margin tax rate is 37%. When state income taxes are added to that in places like California and New York, that rises to 50.3% and 51.8%, respectively. Democrats and their cohorts in the Leftmedia have long engaged in a disinformation campaign against the American people, all because they believe that the government should have more of Americans’ hard-earned dollars.

• DOJ’s dismal COVID fraud recovery: Speaking of government and taxpayer money, the Justice Department has a COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force, which was created by Attorney General Merrick Garland three years ago to address the massive fraud problem associated with the federal government handing out COVID cash to help people recover from pandemic shutdowns. An estimated $1 trillion in COVID relief funding was lost to criminal fraud. So, after three years, what does the DOJ’s COVID fraud task force have to show for its efforts? Well, a total of $1.4 billion has been recovered, which equates to less than 1% of taxpayer dollars lost to criminal fraud. Thus far, 3,500 people have been charged, accounting for a total of $2 billion in losses. In other words, Garland’s task force has hardly made a dent in the total fraud. But this result is predictable, as it is always harder to get back what is given out. As Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions, observed, “Pay and chase doesn’t work.” OpenTheBooks founder Adam Andrzejewski blamed the federal government: “From inefficiency to widespread fraud and unintended consequences, it’s clear that Congress rushed to flood the economy with cash without enough forethought. States with budget surpluses received billions. Small business loans went to tens of thousands of recipients on Treasury’s ‘Do Not Pay’ list. Rushed processes left all manner of programs open to criminals looking to game the system.”

Headlines

• Biden to close “gun-show loophole” and expand background checks for firearms (Politico)

• Three sons of Hamas leader Haniyeh killed in Israeli airstrike (Jerusalem Post) | Biden: It’s “now up to Hamas” to agree to ceasefire proposal (Washington Examiner)

• Biden admin pressured Snopes to change its fact-check rating on rumored gas stove ban, internal emails show (Fox News)

• Texas Dem suggests black people shouldn’t pay taxes as form of reparations (Fox News)

• DeSantis signs slew of new laws cracking down on sex crimes, protects kids from sex predators (Daily Wire)

• No wonder Gavin Newsom didn’t want an audit to track $24 billion in homeless spending (PJ Media)

• U.S. Navy warship commander mocked for holding rifle with scope mounted backward (NY Post)

• Humor: White House announces inflation doing great if you hold the chart upside down (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.