Cross-Examination

• Martha’s Vineyard illegals get “crime victim” visas: Remember when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis masterfully dispatched two planeloads of poor migrants to tony Martha’s Vineyard, there to spook Barack Obama and his fellow super-wealthy leftists and to expose them for their rank open-border hypocrisy? We certainly do. NIMBY! they shrieked. Political pawns! they wailed. And the unwashed Venezuelan have-nots were quickly hustled away. But that wasn’t the end of it. As it turns out, some of those illegals have since been granted what are called “crime-victim visas” because, you know, the crime of ignoring our nation’s borders wasn’t the real crime. The real crime was perpetrated by that knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing Republican governor who booked their passage to Martha’s Vineyard in the first place. As National Review reports: “At least three of the 49 immigrants applied for U-visas last year, claiming to be victims of a crime. They allege DeSantis and other Florida officials tricked them into taking part in the flight operation two years ago with false promises of work and housing. The two charter flights took off from San Antonio, Texas, and made a pit stop in Florida before reaching their final destination at Martha’s Vineyard. … More determinations will likely be issued since all 49 immigrants were caught up in the same scheme.” Talk about ungrateful. These lawbreakers now have our permission to hang around without the threat of being deported while waiting for their special visas to come through. Is this a great country or what?

• Judge dismisses riot charges against 140 border-rushing illegals: In yet another story about the breakdown of the Rule of Law under this open-borders administration, an El Paso County Court judge, the rather-less-than-honorable Ruben Morales, has dismissed 140 cases of misdemeanor rioting against the illegal immigrants who were charged for the March 21 storming of the U.S.-Mexico border (such as it is), breaking through razor wire and knocking over Texas National Guardsmen in the process. Judge Morales apparently determined that there was no probable cause for their mass arrests by Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star forces earlier this month. Said Morales, “After reviewing the affidavit … I don’t believe there is probable cause for these individuals to continue to be detained for the offense of riot participation.” Perhaps Morales never saw this clear-as-day video of the violent breach. What we have here, then, is an irresolute judiciary — a judiciary whose magistrates don’t have the guts to enforce our nation’s border laws. Or, perhaps worse, we have magistrates who are sympathetic to these illegal border crossers and are therefore actively undermining our nation’s sovereignty. On top of this unwillingness to hold lawbreakers accountable, we have a federal government telling the Texas governor that he doesn’t have the authority to protect his state’s own borders. This puts those law enforcement personnel on the border at greater risk because as word gets around that our nation is unwilling to enforce its borders or protect its Border Patrol personnel, these illegals will naturally become more and more brazen. And for this we can thank Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats.

• FTC bans noncompetes: On Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted 3-2 to ban noncompete agreements. According to Democrat FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, “It is so profoundly unfree and unfair for people to be stuck in jobs they want to leave, not because they lacked better alternatives, but because noncompetes preclude another firm from fairly competing for their labor, requiring workers instead to leave their industries or their homes to make ends.” An estimated 30 million workers are under noncompete agreements. The FTC’s new rule will go into effect in 120 days, though questions have been raised as to whether the FTC has the authority to make such a sweeping rule change. U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Suzanne Clark blasted the decision as “a blatant power grab that will undermine American businesses’ ability to remain competitive.” She further promised, “The Chamber will sue the FTC to block this unnecessary and unlawful rule and put other agencies on notice that such overreach will not go unchecked.” Republican FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson agreed with Clark on the issue of the FTC overstepping its authority. “Beginning with policy puts the cart before the horse,” he stated. “No matter how important, conspicuous, and controversial the issue, and no matter how wise the administrative solution, an administrative agency’s power to regulate must always be grounded in the valid grant of authority from Congress. Because we lacked that authority, the final rule is unlawful.” Objection to noncompetes is a bipartisan issue, as lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have introduced legislation seeking to reform them.

• TN arms teachers: On Tuesday, Tennessee House lawmakers passed a bill that allows for teachers to carry concealed firearms in school. The bill, which passed the state Senate earlier this month, will head to Republican Governor Bill Lee for an expected signature. This law, which was introduced in response to the murderous attack on The Covenant School in Nashville last year that left six people dead, will afford greater protection to students in the Volunteer State. While Democrat lawmakers and anti-Second Amendment activists protested and nonsensically derided the law as making schools more dangerous, the opposite is the case. Under the law, any teacher or school staff member who wishes to carry a gun must first obtain an enhanced concealed carry permit, receive written authorization from school leadership and local law enforcement, complete a 40-hour training course on school policing and a 40-hour course on Peace Officer’s Standards and Training at the educator’s expense, pass a background check, and get a psychological exam from a Tennessee licensed provider. With this commonsense law, Tennessee is seeking to harden previously soft targets.

• NPR puts “trigger warning” on Declaration of Independence: It’s not like we expected more from NPR, but still. In 2022, unbeknownst to most red-blooded patriots, the taxpayer-funded propaganda machine of the American Left placed — we kid you not — a trigger warning on our nation’s foundational document. As The Daily Fetched reports, “One example of anti-American wokeness is the ‘editor’s note’ NPR staff felt obliged to place on archived stories about its on-air reading every Independence Day of the Declaration of Independence in full, an honorable tradition apparently now consigned to the ash-heap of history.” What might the snowflakes at NPR and its dwindling listenership have found so emotionally upsetting about the Declaration of Independence? As NPR’s editor’s note from July 8, 2022, notes, “This story quotes the U.S. Declaration of Independence — a document that contains offensive language about Native Americans, including a racial slur.” Mind you, this is the same NPR that was exposed recently by a longtime editor for, among many other transgressions, refusing to report on the Hunter Biden laptop story because it would have helped the 2020 reelection campaign of President Donald Trump. So let’s interfere with a presidential election, but heaven forbid we let stand perfectly normal period language as-is.

• Trans thuggery invisibility: For too many people, protecting the gender-bending ideology is more important than protecting kids. In Lansdale, Pennsylvania, at a middle school, a 12-year-old girl was blindsided and attacked by a 13-year-old boy who identifies as a girl. He repeatedly hit the girl in the head with a Stanley thermos. To make matters worse, the school administration had been warned by other students hours before the attack of the boy’s “hit list.” “You could’ve stopped it,” one of those students testified during a school board meeting. “It was five hours from when I told you it was going to happen. I don’t get how you couldn’t have stopped that.” But why were the students’ warnings regarding the gender-confused boy ignored? Well, as one parent surmised: “Unfortunately, what most of us believe is that decisions are being made based out of a fear of lawsuits, and not what would be an appropriate consequence to the behavior. These instances continue to occur and occur more frequently because nothing is changing.” Meanwhile, in Montgomery County, Maryland, authorities fortunately arrested a would-be school attacker, who in this case was a woman who identified as a man. She had been inspired by the gender-confused Covenant School attacker. However, local officials avoided the blatant elephant in the room that she was a “transgender”-identifying individual.

• Disney still hasn’t learned its lesson: One might think, after such a dismal stretch in Disney’s once-proud, once-wholesome, once-family-friendly history, that executives would’ve gotten the message. But one would be wrong. As author and commentator Jon Del Arroz reports: “Disney is ramping up the grooming operations at their Walt Disney World park in Florida. In 2022, the company announced that it wouldn’t consider gender when casting for different characters in the park, which sparked backlash from responsible parents as they didn’t want Disney World to turn into a drag show for kids. According to a new report, parents’ fears have become a reality.” Alas, groomers gonna groom. As Del Arroz continues, Disney went all in on its culture war battle with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, “and its push of evil gender ideology onto children continues [because] nothing is more central to this war than Disney theme parks.” All we can say is what we’ve always said: Parents beware.

• Dumb and dumber in Europe: While some European countries have made progress in the right direction by banning the medical “transitioning” of minors, others have fallen further down the hole of gender-bending nonsense. Germany has just passed a law that allows parents to identify their children as whichever gender they prefer at birth, irrespective of the child’s biological sex. Germany has effectively erased sex and made everyone “trans.” Furthermore, the law criminalizes the so-called “deadnaming” or “misgendering” of a gender-confused individual, with fines of up to $10,800. Meanwhile, in Scotland, a man who is a double rapist is serving time in prison. He was initially placed in a women’s prison after he claimed to identify as a woman. Fortunately, he was eventually moved to a men’s prison. However, this hasn’t stopped the nonsense surrounding him, as a prison guard was forced to give him a written apology for calling him “son.”

Headlines

• Senate overwhelmingly passes aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan with big bipartisan vote (AP)

• Congress passes TikTok sell-or-ban bill, but legal battles loom (USA Today)

• Biden angers Catholics with sacrilegious motion, gross comment about the Bible at Florida abortion rally (RedState)

• Omar’s daughter decries “hypocrisy,” says anti-Israel students are “100% targeted” after suspension and arrest (Fox News)

• Anti-Israel agitators vow to stay put until administrators meet demands (Fox News)

• “Squad” member Summer Lee prevails in primary that drew attention to anti-Israel views (Washington Free Beacon)

• Ex-National Enquirer exec admits tabloid fabricated story, photo on Ted Cruz’s dad during 2016 election (Daily Wire)

• Facebook has interfered with U.S. elections 39 times since 2008 (Fox News)

• Officials from 13 states sign letter condemning Bank of America for “de-banking” Christian organizations (Not the Bee)

• Stacey Abrams: Attacks on DEI are attacks on “democracy,” “education,” and “our economy” (Daily Wire) | “DEI is garbage”: Pulitzer Prize winner delivers scathing takedown of woke Hollywood (Daily Wire)

• BBC apologizes to J.K. Rowling for misleading coverage of her transgender sex offender comments (National Review)

• Study: LGBT people are more likely to be rich coastal elites (Washington Examiner)

• Oracle CEO announces plans to move software giant’s world headquarters to red state (Fox Business)

• Argentina just had its first budget surplus in 16 years after gutting government bloat (Not the Bee)

• Satire: Columbia protestors clarify they only want death to America after America is done paying their student loans (Babylon Bee)

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