Top of the Fold

• Gas hits $5 per gallon: For the first time in U.S. history, the national average price of gas at the pump hit $5/gallon, according to GasBuddy. (AAA has the current average price at $4.986). This threshold represents the latest in a series of record highs that have been set during 2022 — and the bad news is there’s little indication that the trend will be changing anytime soon. Indeed, as GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan observes, “It’s been one kink after another this year, and worst of all, demand doesn’t seem to be responding to the surge in gas prices, meaning there is a high probability that prices could go even higher in the weeks ahead.” Over just the last month, the average price at the pump has risen 66 cents. One of the primary factors for the surge in gas prices has been falling inventory. “U.S. gasoline inventories have fallen over 25 million barrels, or over one billion gallons, since the start of March amidst a global decline in refining capacity due to the Covid-19 pandemic and accelerated demand going into the summer,” GasBuddy reports. Of course, Joe Biden’s “solution” of investing in the production of more solar panels doesn’t actually address the gas inventory problem. But killing the fossil fuel industry was what he promised to do. And now Americans are feeling the pain of that foolish agenda.

• FBI arrests Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate: In an arrest clearly timed to coincide with the Democrats’ January 6 Committee televised hearings charade, a Republican candidate for Michigan’s gubernatorial election, Ryan Kelley, was arrested Thursday morning at his house by FBI agents. His crime? He was at the January 6, 2021, rally and was charged with misdemeanors related to his being on the Capitol grounds during the riot. He never entered the Capitol building. That the FBI would be sent to arrest an individual charged with misdemeanors demonstrates just how politicized the agency has become. The obvious reason for this arrest has everything to do with Michigan Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who has been steadily working to eliminate as many of the more politically threatening potential Republican candidates as possible. Last month, five GOP candidates, including two of the leading candidates, were eliminated by election officials over dubious claims of forged signatures. Kelley’s arrest appears to be just the latest effort by Whitmer and Co. to eliminate any threat to her reelection.

• Biden’s Disinformation Board lied: A whistleblower within the Department of Homeland Security recently provided documents revealing that the Biden administration’s now-defunct Disinformation Governance Board was indeed intended to be an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth” despite the administration’s repeated public denials. The documents reveal that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas conceived of the DGB as working with private social media platforms to effectively squelch debate on hot topic issues such as COVID vaccine efficacy and “conspiracy theories about the validity and security of elections.” Mayorkas’s plan for the board was to essentially police information, which included the development of public-private partnerships in order to inform social media platforms as to what constituted “disinformation.” In other words, Mayorkas wanted DGB to act as the “truth police” for social media. Republican Senators Chuck Grassley (IA) and Josh Hawley (MO) released the documents and demanded answers from Mayorkas, saying, “DHS should not in any way seek to enlist the private sector to curb or silence opposing viewpoints.” Mayorkas previously told Congress that the board, which he referred to as a “working group,” was focused on policing the DHS itself to supposedly “make sure there are polices in place, standards in place, to protect the very rights” of freedom of speech. These documents expose that explanation as a lie. The senators further observe that the former head of the board, Nina Jankowicz, was herself “a known trafficker of foreign disinformation and liberal conspiracies.” “If the (former) executive director of the DGB is incapable of determining what is and is not disinformation, how could the DGB ever [have] expected to function properly under her leadership?” The short answer is that it never was intended to confront disinformation, but rather to suppress opposing information.

Headlines

• Inflation rose 8.6% in May, highest since 1981 (CNBC)

• Explosion at Texas LNG plant puts added strain on global energy market (Washington Post)

• Every single business leader surveyed in new poll thinks a recession is coming (Daily Wire)

• Biden’s average approval rating hits disastrous new low: 39.7% (National Review)

• Democrats use prime-time hearing to blame Trump for J6 attack on U.S. Capitol (Washington Times) | Kevin McCarthy hits back with “Democrat Party is the Party of Crime" video (Daily Wire)

• House approves "red flag” gun bill that’s unlikely to pass the Senate (AP)

• A disturbing poll in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Brett Kavanaugh (PJ Media) | New York Times buries assassination attempt on page A20 (National Review)

• PGA Tour suspends players who jumped to Saudi-backed LIV tournament (Daily Wire)

• U.S. to drop COVID testing requirements for international air travel (CNBC)

• NYC mayor announces end of toddler mask mandate (National Review)

• Policy: Eleven ways Republican Study Committee budget is blueprint to save America (Daily Signal)

• Satire: Miley Cyrus to perform halftime show at J6 Committee hearings (Babylon Bee)

For more of today’s editors’ choice headlines, visit Headline Report.