Cross-Examination

• Big new climate rules: The Biden administration has declared that carbon dioxide, a naturally produced gas that all humans and most animals breathe out and plants depend upon for their very existence, is a pollutant. On Thursday, the EPA trotted out yet another climate change regulation that places severe requirements on coal-fire and natural gas-based energy plants. The reason for this new restrictive rule, according to the EPA, is that it “will significantly reduce climate, air, water, and land pollution from the power sector, delivering on the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to protect public health, advance environmental justice, and confront the climate crisis.” The EPA’s new rule orders fossil fuel-based energy plants to “control 90 percent of their carbon pollution.” In reality, the Biden administration is forcing the American public to bow to its climate cult, irrespective of scientific and economic reality. This move will cause energy costs for Americans to rise exponentially. Representatives Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Buddy Carter (R-GA) issued a joint statement blasting the EPA: “The EPA’s rush to dismantle our nation’s baseload electricity generation will harm people’s lives and well-being. These policies undermine American energy security by forcing states to fundamentally change how they generate electricity.” They added: “At a time when more than half the nation is at elevated risk of forced blackouts, the administration’s unrelenting rush-to-green agenda is shutting down the types of generation needed to keep the lights on and raising costs across the board. We should be strengthening and expanding reliable power generation to build on America’s legacy of energy security and leadership, rather than dismantling it.”

• Tesla layoffs illustrate the EV conundrum: Dennis Prager is fond of saying — and rightly so — that the Left ruins everything it touches. But perhaps the esteemed conservative commentator is casting too narrow a net. Take electric vehicles, for example, which have experienced a ruinous run that coincides almost perfectly with Joe Biden’s ongoing efforts to ram them down our throats. With EVs, there’s Tesla, and there’s everyone else, and Tesla recently told thousands of employees in California and Texas that their services would no longer be needed. As Fox Business reports: “In California, the planned Tesla headcount reductions will hit approximately 3,300 workers. … They will apparently occur at locations in a total of four different cities in the Golden State. Meanwhile, Texas will see almost 2,700 employees in Austin lose their jobs.” This constitutes a layoff of around 10% of Tesla’s worldwide headcount. In response, CEO Elon Musk said his company would speed up the launch of its newer and more affordable models. “His comments cap a dismal start to the year for the world’s most-valuable automaker, which saw its first-quarter profit plunge to its lowest level since 2021,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “Tesla’s operating margin narrowed significantly, dropping to 5.5% in the first three months, from 11.4% a year earlier.” The Journal adds, “Tesla is in a more precarious place than it has been in years, with its vehicle sales falling, demand cooling for electric vehicles industrywide and Musk’s placing greater emphasis on developing a fully autonomous car, a project many investors view as risky.” Perhaps if the government stopped meddling in the market and the Left stopped lying about these vehicles, EVs would settle into their rightful niche as a cool toy of the well-to-do. But until then, the American consumer will continue to express aversion to being told what to do.

• Most Americans want ‘em deported: Are the American people cooling to the flow of nine million (and counting) illegals across our southern border, or are they warming to the idea of rounding them up and sending them back from whence they came? These are, of course, two sides of the same illegal immigration coin, and a recent poll shows that both conditions have majority support. According to the findings of a new Axios Vibes survey by The Harris Poll, “Half of Americans — including 42% of Democrats — say they’d support mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.” The poll’s breakdown by race is also interesting, with 56% of whites, 45% of Latinos, and 42% of blacks approving mass deportation. Less popular but every bit as crucial in terms of incentivization is the poll’s finding that 30% of Democrats and 46% of Republicans say they’d end birthright citizenship, a concept that Axios and other left-leaners errantly believe is guaranteed by the Constitution’s 14th Amendment but that the amendment’s authors argued forcefully against. As the Trump-haters at Axios put it, “Americans are open to former President Trump’s harshest immigration plans.” Here, we wonder what Axios and its fellow travelers would suggest. Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned from our illegal immigration crisis, it’s that a nation can have either open borders or free stuff, but it can’t have both.

• Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction overturned: He was the Hollywood mogul and Democrat mega-donor who is the face that launched the #MeToo movement. Harvey Weinstein’s sexual predation eventually caught up to him, resulting in his being convicted of sexual assaults in both Los Angeles and New York. However, on Wednesday, the New York State Court of Appeals threw out Weinstein’s rape conviction, determining that testimony given during the trial from three women who were unconnected to the case should not have been permitted. The appeals court called these “egregious errors” that needed to be remedied with a new trial. Weinstein was serving a 23-year sentence, which has now been vacated. However, the 72-year-old Weinstein will remain in prison, as he is also serving a 16-year sentence for raping a woman in Los Angeles.

• Biden DOJ hides Biden-Hur audio: Democrats used to be for transparency before they were against it, and such is the case with a no doubt illuminating conversation between Joe Biden and Special Counsel Rober Hur, which Biden’s crooked wing man, Attorney General Merrick Garland, is intent on keeping secret from the American people. Among the byproducts of that conversation was Hur’s devastating and entirely reasonable finding that our current president is “a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.” This finding, of course, caused Democrats to nod knowingly before manning the barricades when they realized that they had an election to win and that decrepit Joe Biden was the horse they rode in on. As Fox News reports, “The Justice Department said Thursday it will not produce subpoenaed audio recordings of former Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Biden to House Republicans, maintaining that its 'cooperation’ with the congressional investigation has been ‘extraordinary.’” This claim, we suppose, depends on what the definitions of the words “cooperation” and “extraordinary” are. Stalwart House Republican committee chairs James Comer and Jim Jordan are threatening to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for his intransigence, but that threat and $3 will get you a cup of Starbucks.

• USC bows to campus terrorists: With pro-Hamas anti-Semite activists having seemingly been allowed to take over the campus of the University of Southern California, the school administration has effectively caved to the racist mob, as it announced on Thursday that the main graduation ceremony has been canceled. “With the new safety measures in place this year, the time needed to process the large number of guests coming to campus will increase substantially,” read a statement on USC’s website. "As a result, we will not be able to host the main stage ceremony that traditionally brings 65,000 students, families, and friends to our campus all at the same time.“ Representative Rudy Yakym (R-IN) responded to the announcement by observing: "Students, family, and friends all look forward to celebrating graduation. Now, because of the pro-Hamas mob, they can’t. This shouldn’t be happening in America.” Fox News reporter Bill Melugin noted: “USC announces it is canceling its main stage commencement ceremony. … Brutal for the class of ‘24. Likely didn’t get a high school graduation during COVID in 2020, and now won’t get a traditional college graduation.” This is what results when upholding law and order is demonized as “unjust.”

• CNN rehabs former talkinghead pervies: We hate to send our readers into the weekend with a creeper alert, but we’re duty-bound to report that CNN appears to be getting its reprobate band back together again. As Fox News reports, “Some of CNN’s biggest liberal stars who were pushed out under previous leadership have been making their return on-air in recent weeks, marking another shift away from a [short-lived] mission to make the network less partisan.” Former CEO Chris Licht had been brought in by the bottom-dwelling cable “news” network to repair its reputation as hard-left MSNBC’s handmaiden, but it didn’t take long before Licht was defenestrated. (If rust never sleeps, then neither does the Left.) The three aforementioned personalities are Jeffrey “Spanky” Toobin, Don “Sniffy” Lemon, and Brian “Uncle Fester” Stelter, all of whom appeared on their erstwhile network recently despite having disgraced themselves with various and sundry sexual peccadillos. As Fox News gleefully continues: “Toobin, who was CNN’s chief legal analyst, 'decided’ to exit CNN after 20 years in August 2022, though it was widely believed he was forced out by the Licht regime. Toobin is perhaps best known for being caught masturbating during a Zoom meeting with his New Yorker colleagues in October 2020.” Lemon’s alleged behavior was perhaps even more revolting, if that’s possible, while it appears that Chris Cuomo was merely a rump squeezer and a wartime consigliere for his big brother. All we can say is, Yuck.

• American Spirit: Teen fulfills a dying wish: Cameron Blasek, the patriotic 17-year-old high school student who refused to bow to school administrators’ demand that he remove the American flag from his truck, recently found out he had deeply impacted a 13-year-old in Oklahoma. So much so that the young teen, Jaxon, who was dying of cancer, asked as his dying wish that his body be transported to his grave in Cameron’s American flag-emblazoned truck. When Cameron learned of the request, he and his father drove 16 hours to Hollis, Oklahoma, to honor Jaxon and transport his casket through the town and to the gravesite. “I never expected any of this from the beginning,” Cameron said. “All I wanted was to fly the flag on the back of my truck, and I’m happy that’s what I got. But I’m also happy to help out other people. Like I said from day one, the flag is a symbol of unity. It’s something that everybody can come together on, no matter who you are, what you look like, or where you come from.” RIP, Jaxon.

Headlines

• Gorsuch steers Supreme Court in Trump immunity case: “We’re writing a rule for the ages” (Washington Examiner)

• George Soros is paying student radicals who are fueling nationwide explosion of Israel-hating protests (NY Post)

• Inside the failed White House coup to oust Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (NY Post)

• Is this the first AI hate hoax? White principal accused of racism based on fake audio (Hot Air)

• Moms of young Taylor Swift fans upset about new album’s many explicit songs (Daily Wire)

• U.S. pier attacked during construction work off Gaza coast (i24 News)

• Policy: The cost-benefit analysis of having a baby (The Federalist)

• Satire: Hamas thanks college student supporters by promising them a quick death during global intifada (Babylon Bee)

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