Cross-Examination

• April malaise brings May spinsters: “With [Friday’s] report of 175,000 new jobs, the great American comeback continues.” So said Joe Biden, the architect of that woefully underwhelming April jobs report, whose numbers came in well below the 240,000 estimate of the Dow Jones consensus and which caused the nation’s deceptively low unemployment rate to tick up slightly to 3.9%. Biden continued: “When I took office, I inherited an economy on the brink, with the worst economic crisis in a century. I had a plan to turn our country around and build our economy from the middle out and the bottom up. Now, we are seeing that plan in action, with well over 15 million jobs created since I took office, working-age women employed at a record-high rate, wages rising faster than prices, and unemployment below 4% for a record 27 months in a row.” Gosh, with economic news this great, it’s a wonder the president and his staffers haven’t absolutely leaned into and embraced the derisive “Bidenomics” moniker that those pouncing Republicans have been using against him. Oh, wait. Oh, oh, wait, wait. Not content to let the hard numbers get in the way of a good fairy tale, former Obama economic adviser Jason Furman said the numbers are “close to ideal” given our current predicament. “Pretty much a goldilocks job report,” Furman pirouetted. Not surprisingly, Donald Trump saw things differently. “The job numbers just came out, and they’re horrible,” he said Friday morning during a breather from his show trial. “Our economy’s bad, and now it’s starting to show. So you’ll see, and it’ll only get worse.” Biden keeps saying we’re better off now than we were four years ago. Why is no one buying it?

• Columbia cancels commencement: After allowing weeks of anti-Semitic/pro-Hamas protests to rile its campus — including protesters taking over one of the school’s buildings — Columbia University’s administration has canceled its main commencement ceremony for this year’s graduates. The Ivy League school announced today, “Based on feedback from our students, we have decided to focus attention on our Class Days and school-level graduation ceremonies, where students are honored individually alongside their peers, and to forego the university-wide ceremony that is scheduled for May 15.” This decision comes as little surprise given the fact that Columbia has already capitulated so much to these leftist anti-Semitic rabble-rousers. For example, in-person classes were canceled weeks ago, as the school administration, rather than stand against the blatant hatred and threats being promulgated on its campus, chose instead to cower in fear of offending anti-Semites. Now, the university is cowering in fear over the potential for anti-Semites to disrupt its graduation commencement ceremony, so the administration has chosen to cancel it. With “bravery” like this, it’s no wonder the school struggles to stand for any convictions.

• Biden’s Vietnam: “I am thinking back, and other people are making this reference that this may be [Joe] Biden’s Vietnam,” said the socialist Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, in a recent CNN interview. Sanders, who infamously dodged the Vietnam War draft, added: “Lyndon Johnson, in many respects, was a very, very good president. Domestically, he brought forth some major pieces of legislation. He chose not to run in ‘68 because of opposition to his views on Vietnam, and I worry very much that President Biden is putting himself in a position where he has alienated not just young people but a lot of the Democratic base in terms of his views on Israel and this war.” Sanders was equating the current anti-Israel/pro-Hamas protests raging on college campuses to the anti-Vietnam War protests in 1968. Biden’s reelection campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu dismissed Sanders’s Vietnam comparison as an “over-exaggeration,” saying: “This is a very different circumstance. I think that people who actually lived through that very difficult time — they would say that this isn’t comparable.”

• Jewish groups boycott Biden’s “education” meeting: Joe Biden’s insults to the American Jewish community continued apace last week, as a bunch of Jewish organizations abruptly declined to attend a meeting with his Department of Education after learning that representatives from a self-hating Jewish organization would be there too. As Townhall’s Sarah Arnold reports, “At least five Jewish organizations boycotted a high-profile meeting with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Friday because they refused to be involved with left-wing groups, including the Jewish activist group IfNotNow.” If the decision seems extreme, the alternative would seem even worse. Why on earth lend legitimacy to a Jewish group that accuses Israel of perpetuating an “apartheid system,” claims that Israel is massacring “Palestinians in Gaza,” and praises the filthy leftist Jew-hating rabble running roughshod over our nation’s, ahem, elite universities as “brave” students? As the boycotting groups wrote in a joint statement, “By sharing specific recommendations, we urged the Administration to do more to protect Jewish students and the broader student community from intimidation, harassment, and violence.” We’re sure Joe Biden and his fellow-traveling anti-Semites will take this under advisement.

• Kristi has Noem more chance to be Trump’s VP: We’re confused. Is Kristi Noem auditioning for a spot as Joe Biden’s veep? We ask because not only did she share a sad old story about having shot the family dog in order to burnish her credentials as a maker of tough decisions, but it appears that the South Dakota Republican governor engaged in autobiographical fabulism that would make ol’ Scranton Joe blush. As the Washington Examiner reports, the publisher of Noem’s new book, No Going Back, “has announced it is removing a passage regarding her meeting North Korea leader Kim Jong Un ‘as soon as technically possible.’” So, there is going back. On Sunday, Center Street, the publisher behind the book, confirmed in a statement posted on X: “At the request of Governor Noem, we are removing a passage regarding Kim Jong Un from her book No Going Back, upon reprint of the print edition and as soon as technically possible on the audio and ebook editions. Further questions about the passage should be referred to the author.” On “Face the Nation” yesterday, Noem mustered a weak defense. “As soon as this was brought to my attention,” she said, “I certainly made some changes and looked at this passage, and I’ve met with many, many world leaders. I’ve traveled around the world. As soon as it was brought to my attention, we went forward and have made some edits, so I’m glad that this book is being released in a couple of days and that those edits will be in place and they will have the updated version.” We know it’s her own memoir, but still we wonder: Does she think she’s been misquoted?

• No sanctuary for kids in Austin: The city of Austin prides itself in being a spot of deep blue in the otherwise red state of Texas. A recent example of this political dynamic at play was the Austin City Council’s 9-1 vote to declare itself a “sanctuary city” for the practice of gender mutilation of children. The city council adopted this “transgender sanctuary city” resolution from the city’s LGBTQ Quality of Life Advisory Commission. The resolution stands against Texas’s recently passed law SB14, which bans gender-bending medical interference in a minor’s natural physical development. With the resolution, Austin will allow neither city personnel nor funding to go toward the investigation or criminal prosecution of individuals seeking to medically transition minors. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the resolution was “an empty political statement,” but he promised to enforce SB14 across the state, including in Austin. “If the City of Austin refuses to follow the law and protect children,” Paxton stated, “my office will consider every possible response to ensure compliance. Texas municipalities do not have the authority to pick and choose which state laws they will or will not abide by. The people of Texas have spoken, and Austin City Council must listen.”

• Moderna’s big loss: The pharmaceutical company Moderna was one of three in the U.S. to develop a novel mRNA vaccine against COVID in near-record time at the end of 2020. Moderna has continued to develop its COVID vaccine, recently announcing its Phase 3 clinical trials for its “next generation” mRNA-1283 vaccine, which promises greater immunity than the original vaccine. The trouble is that fewer people are receiving Moderna’s COVID vaccines, and the drug developer announced a $1.2 billion loss in the first quarter of 2024. Moderna blamed the loss on a 94% drop in the number of COVID vaccine sales from the previous quarter. But it is not just Moderna that is losing money on its vaccine. Over its first quarter in 2024, Pfizer saw a 40% drop in sales from the prior year. Pfizer also blamed a dropoff in sales, with the purchase of its vaccine dropping by 64% in the U.S. and 91% worldwide. There are likely two reasons for the drop in COVID vaccine sales. The first is that COVID long ago became endemic, with a mortality rate on par with the flu, so most people who get it get over it. I.e., the fear of COVID has dissipated. Secondly, controversies surrounding mRNA vaccines have eroded the public’s trust.

• American Spirit, Frat Boy Edition: While it may seem that no good deed goes unpunished in Joe Biden’s America, perhaps the patriotic actions of a group of University of North Carolina fraternity brothers will buck the trend. Recall that last week, the students defended an American flag on the UNC campus from a filthy leftist mob of Jew-hating protesters. And, as Fox News reports, a certain beer company has since taken notice. “The conservative, ‘woke-free’ beer company that launched last year hoping to rival Bud Light will host an event Tuesday at a University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill fraternity house to celebrate the actions of the students who defended the American flag from anti-Israel protesters on campus… Dubbed the ‘Frat Boy Summer Kickoff,’ the event will be held at the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity house and will be hosted by the Ultra Right Beer Company. … ‘We’re making it really simple — show up, you got free beer. We’re bringing half a tractor trailer load of beer for this thing just in anticipation of the kind of crowd it sounds like we’re going to have.’” Of course the beer company is trying to gain publicity and strengthen its brand awareness. But, hey, right or wrong, it’s still Ultra Right.

Headlines

• Judge threatens jail time for “possibly the next president” for future gag order violations (Fox News)

• U.S. put a hold on an ammunition shipment to Israel (Axios)

• Gaza Health Ministry cannot provide names for more than 10,000 it says have died (FDD)

• Schumer plans to join Johnson in inviting Netanyahu to address Congress (Washington Examiner)

• Netanyahu is determined to run for reelection (Times of Israel)

• Harvard commencement speaker published editorial likening Israel to Hitler (Washington Free Beacon)

• White House economic adviser struggles with question on monetary policy (Fox Business)

• California’s minimum wage wipes out thousands of jobs (National Review)

• Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Arkansas won’t comply with federal transgender student protections (Washington Examiner)

• Policy: Biden’s capital gains tax hike would cripple innovation and economic growth (Washington Examiner)

• Humor: New York DA indicts Trump for bringing firefighters pizza but no salad or cheesy bread (Babylon Bee)

For the Executive Summary archive, click here.