Cross-Examination

• Judge rules against Trump gag order request: Try as they might, the Lawfare Party can’t seem to make Donald Trump shut up. The former president has regularly defied contempt-of-court threats in a Manhattan courthouse to rail against both the corrupt proceedings and the conflicted Demo-donor judge, and yesterday, we learned that special persecutor Jack Smith’s request to gag Trump during his classified documents case has been shot down in flames by Judge Aileen Cannon, who said the request was denied “without prejudice,” which allows Smith to try, try again some other time. Cannon, who, much to Smith’s chagrin, was appointed by Trump in 2020 to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, also denied the prosecution’s attempt to confer with Trump’s counsel before filing the gag request, calling the request “wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy.” Said Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung: “Hacks and Thugs are obsessed with trying to deprive President Trump and all American voters of their First Amendment rights. Repeated attempts to silence President Trump during the presidential campaign are blatant attempts to interfere in the election.”

• Prepare for more pre-election censorship: Given his well-publicized penchant for Russian hookers and blow, and his equally well-publicized history as a deadbeat dad, it’s hard to believe that anything could further tarnish First Son Hunter Biden’s reputation. Lunden Roberts, though, may have something to say about that. Roberts, the former Arkansas stripper and the baby momma of Hunter’s five-year-old daughter Navy Joan, will soon release a tell-all memoir that its marketing-savvy publisher says will include “revelations that could well impact the outcome of the 2024 election.” As National Review reports: “The upcoming book, titled Out of the Shadows: My Life Inside the Wild World of Hunter Biden, will reveal key details about Roberts’s fraught relationship with President Joe Biden’s 54-year-old son. The memoir will notably be released on August 20, the week of the Democratic National Convention.” Deadbeat Grandpa Joe Biden can’t be happy about this news, given his repeated efforts to deny the existence of his seventh grandchild. Thus, we wouldn’t put it past him and First Lady Jill Biden to use every means at their disposal to keep this memoir from seeing the light of day between now and the November election.

• Schumer says Dems want to make illegals voters: Conservatives have long contended that the motivation behind Joe Biden’s de facto open border has everything to do with growing a voter base, even as Democrats feign concern over the border crisis. Now, with millions more illegal aliens residing in the U.S., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer finally said the quiet part out loud. Schumer told reporters, “Our ultimate goal is to … get a path to citizenship for all 11 million or however many undocumented [immigrants] there are here.” While Schumer never directly says he wants to give illegal aliens voting rights, his comment on giving them citizenship, of course, also means the right to vote. Schumer attempted to justify this outrageous goal by pointing to America’s lowering birth rate, which is rich given the fact that Democrats are directly contributing to this problem through their fanatical promotion of abortion without limits. Democrats want to kill preborn American babies and then make up for their loss by bringing in illegal aliens and surreptitiously conferring upon them citizenship in a bid for their votes.

• “Luxury” fast food: Purchasing a burger, fries, and a soda at a drive-thru used to be considered a low-cost and efficient way to get a filling and tasty, if medium-quality, meal. However, in Joe Biden’s America, what was once considered cheap fast food is now, for the vast majority of Americans, a “luxury.” A recent survey conducted by LendingTree found that 78% of consumers now view far more expensive fast food as a “luxury” purchase. While Americans’ love of fast food has not changed, purchasing it has — 62% said they buy fast food less frequently. Furthermore, 46% said that the cost of fast food meals is now the same as prices at their local sit-down restaurants, while another 22% claimed that a fast food meal now costs even more. Prices on “McDonald’s cheeseburgers and Chick-fil-A nuggets have risen as much as 200% in less than five years,” notes the Maclver Institute’s Dan O'Donnell. “When prices at these restaurants spike from $35-$40 for a family meal to $65-$70 in just a few years, those families either have to sacrifice a night out or extend themselves just a little further to afford it.”

• Pier-less construction: Joe Biden’s $320 million floating pier serves as a visual demonstration of his feckless leadership during Israel’s war against Hamas. Thanks to a recent storm in the region along the Mediterranean coast, part of the pier was damaged, disconnected, floated away, and eventually came to rest on the beach near the Israeli town of Ashdod. A U.S. Navy tugboat seeking to regain the pier piece also got beached. Biden’s pier has proven to be little other than an embarrassing and costly boondoggle. Beyond the foolhardy idea of constructing an offshore floating pier to avoid having U.S. military personnel enter Gaza has been the fact that almost all the hundreds of millions of tons of humanitarian aid has been stolen by Hamas as soon as it was delivered. So, rather than actually helping innocent Palestinians, Biden’s floating boondoggle has primarily provided a lifeline for Hamas.

• Hamas’s human shields: Yesterday, we reported on an errant Israel Defense Forces airstrike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that Hamas propagandists “local health officials” say killed “at least 45 people” in a tent camp near a pair of high-value Hamas terrorists. Since then, the IDF has released the results of its initial investigation, and its finding, as The Daily Wire reports, is that the munitions were “too small and were used too far away from where the people died to have been responsible for their deaths.” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said that the small-warhead strike landed some 200 yards away from the tent camp. “Our munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size,” he said, adding that Hamas’s operations in the area constitute a war crime due to their proximity to civilians. “We are also assessing footage documented by Gazans on the night of the strike, posted on social media, which appear to show secondary explosions, indicating that there may have been weapons in the area,” said Hagari. “Our signal intelligence [raises] the possibility that weapons stored in a nearby compound caught fire.”

• NPS bows to the Rainbow Mafia: Following backlash from the Rainbow Mafia, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland reversed her previous directive banning National Park Service rangers from participating in Pride events while wearing their uniforms. Haaland’s initial order stated that “requests from employees asking to participate in uniform in a variety of events and activities, including events not organized by the NPS” were denied because it violated official policy. LGBT activist Pattie Gonia, who is a drag queen, took to social media to blast Haaland’s directive. “National Park Service, this is not what allyship looks like,” he huffed, adding, “Queer park employees, keep sharing your stories with us, your identities will remain protected.” In her reversal and capitulation, Haaland groveled, stating, “I want to ensure that every employee has the opportunity to thrive in a safe, inclusive, and respectful environment.” She further noted that the department was committed to taking “affirmative steps to provide equal opportunity in all areas of employment.” She clarified that her policy reversal “would allow employees to participate in uniform representing their respective bureau.”

• Our “homophobic” pope: In an unguarded moment during a recent private meeting about the Catholic Church’s ban on homosexual priests, Pope Francis apparently uttered a “homophobic” slur. The pontiff’s unfortunate utterance apparently noted in Italian that there was already enough “frociaggine” in the air, which translates roughly into “f*****ry.” Apparently, the pontiff is human, after all. “The pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he extends his apologies to those who were offended by the use of a term that was reported by others,” said Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni yesterday. This particular pope isn’t alone, however. As National Review reports: “In 2005, Francis’s predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, ruled that those who ‘practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture’ cannot be admitted into seminary or the holy orders. The ban was reaffirmed by Francis in 2016.”

Headlines

• NY v. Trump: Judge Merchan to present jury with instructions ahead of deliberations (Fox News)

• Dems in full-blown “freakout” over Biden (Politico)

• Biden and Harris make a rare joint campaign appearance to shore up black voters’ support (NBC News)

• Hunter Biden offered Chinese exec a meeting with his VP father during Sandy Hook memorial trip (Daily Wire)

• NYC hotel rates reach record highs as city fills rooms with illegal immigrants (PM)

• Wikipedia “editors” caught making multiple changes to Pine Tree Flag page (Daily Wire)

• Harvard says it will refrain from statements on foreign, domestic policy (Daily Wire)

• Abbott declares victory after ousting anti-voucher GOP incumbents in heated primaries (National Review)

• School choice programs have been wildly successful under DeSantis. Now public schools might close. (Politico)

• As civil war consumes Black Lives Matter, $8.7 million goes missing (Washington Free Beacon)

• Humor: Biden administration stations circus clowns, jugglers, lion tamers outside Trump trial (Babylon Bee)

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