Top of the Fold

• Cassidy Hutchinson’s texts decimate her own J6 testimony: With much fanfare, the House Democrats’ purely politically motivated January 6 Committee held a special public hearing on July 1 in which former White House top aide Cassidy Hutchinson alleged that Donald Trump demanded to go to the Capitol building during the infamous riot. Hutchinson painted herself as someone who was appalled by Trump’s comments and response to the Capitol riot. While aspects of her testimony almost immediately fell apart, Democrats and the mainstream media championed her as a truth-teller. Well, thanks to recently unearthed text messages, it now appears that Hutchinson was far from fearful and appalled by the J6 riot and in fact was still singing Trump’s praises months afterwards. “I would rather shoot myself dead into the Potomac than see marine one flying around this city without 45 again,” she wrote in a message nearly three months after the Capitol riot. In another text, Hutchinson describes a brief sidewalk exchange with a stranger over a sweatshirt she was wearing that was emblazoned with the number “45.” According to her text, the individual asked if the number was a reference to Trump, to which she responds “yes” and then adds, “I’m an insurrectionist.” So what led to Hutchinson’s about-face? Evidently, it was Trump’s former staffer Alyssa Farah who convinced Hutchinson to work with anti-Trump Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY). After this latest revelation, Hutchinson has proven herself to be a liar and her testimony to be entirely unreliable.

• Murder hornets no more: Popular monikers for a recent invasive species that hails from Asia have been declared to be racist and therefore will no longer be used by the Entomological Society of America and the Entomological Society of Canada. The offending names for the insect are the “murder hornet” and the less common “Asian giant hornet.” In a demonstration of its woke bonafides, the ESA ridiculously asserted, “Amid a rise in hate crimes and discrimination against people of Asian descent, usage of ‘Asian’ in the name of a pest insect can unintentionally bolster anti-Asian sentiment.” Using this logic, the bald-faced hornet must bolster anti-bald-person sentiments. ESA President Jessica Ware further explained, “I don’t want my Asian American or Pacific Islander colleagues, friends and family to have any negative connotations with invasive or pest species that might be used against them in a negative way.” In 2021, the ESA updated its naming guide to ban names associated with geopolitical regions or ethnic groups. The ESA’s newly approved name for the murder hornet is the “northern giant hornet.”

• Ivy League rejects Lia Thomas for NCAA “Woman of the Year” award: “Transgender” swimmer Lia Thomas, a male who self-identifies as a woman, was nominated by the University of Pennsylvania for the NCAA’s annual “Woman of the Year” award earlier this month. The award is designated for “female student-athletes who have exhausted their eligibility and distinguished themselves in their community, in athletics and in academics throughout their college careers.” However, the other Ivy League schools rejected Thomas’s nomination and instead chose 2019 national fencing champion and three-time all-American Sylvie Binder of Columbia University. Binder also sports an impressive academic résumé with a GPA of 3.91. Of course, what should have been the most obvious disqualification for Thomas to have even been nominated for the “Woman of the Year” award is the fact that he is not a woman. Indeed, back in February, 16 of his female teammates sent a letter to the NCAA highlighting that, “biologically, Lia holds an unfair advantage over competition in the women’s category, as evidenced by her [sic] rankings that have bounced from #462 as a male to #1 as a female.” Thankfully, this year at least, an actual woman will represent the Ivy League for the NCAA’s “Woman of the Year” award.

• What to do about falling Army recruitment: The U.S. military has failed to meet its recruitment goals in 2022, with the Army falling the furthest behind. The U.S. Army has currently met just 40% of its recruitment goals. As has been recently noted, much of this slide in recruitment has to do with the Biden administration’s injection of woke ideology into our military. So what can be done to reverse this trend? Retired Army Lieutenant General Thomas W. Spoehr and The Heritage Foundation’s Grace Hermanson have several suggestions, the first of which is to expand JROTC programs. JROTC is responsible for 49% of new recruits who have no family connection with the military. The military also needs to support after-school programs to help ensure greater health eligibility of young Americans. Furthermore, Americans must foster a culture that values and encourages military service, which can only come about by cultivating a greater appreciation of and love for America. The more young people believe in and love their country, the more willing they will be to step up and defend her.

Headlines

• Justice Department investigating Trump’s actions in J6 criminal probe (WaPo)

• Trump and Pence present competing visions to conservative youth (National Review)

• Top Federal Reserve officials with known links to China still have their jobs (Daily Wire)

• Biden considers new pause on paying back student loans, $10,000 relief (Bloomberg)

• Justice Roberts aimed to persuade Kavanaugh to save abortion precedent before Supreme Court leak (Washington Examiner)

• Democrats push bill that would impose term limits on Supreme Court justices (Blaze Media)

• U.S. to sell additional 20 million barrels of oil from Strategic Petroleum Reserve (Reuters) | Biden won’t restock oil reserves until late 2023 (Washington Times)

• Natural gas hits highest level since 2008 (CNBC) | EU nations back 15% gas-cut target as Russia reduces flows (Bloomberg)

• Consumer confidence, new home sales falling in new signs of weak economy (Washington Times)

• Five economic forces behind the Fed’s next rate-hike decision (Washington Post)

• CDC promotes teen chat platform to discuss LGBT topics and witchcraft without parental oversight (Just the News)

• New diversity standards for medical schools fuel “woke health care” debate (Washington Times)

• Imagine that: FDA officials warn of brain swelling and vision loss in minors using puberty blockers (Daily Wire)

• Criminal investigation launched into maker of Alzheimer’s drug (Daily Wire)

• Paul Pelosi’s notable history of buying stocks right before they skyrocket (Fox Business)

• Chris Cuomo gets new anchor gig at NewsNation (NY Post) | “It’s in the past”: Cuomo shrugs off sexual assault allegations (NY Post)

• Two teenagers charged with hate crimes after allegedly making “anti-white” statements, assaulting white woman in New York (Daily Wire)

• Chicago mayor proposes $2.2 billion plan to entice NFL team to stay; Bears moving on to safer suburb (Daily Wire)

• Policy: Farcical “assault weapons” ban mark-up showed contempt for facts, law, and dignity (NRA-ILA)

• Humor: Man hangs “Straight Pride” flag on doorposts so monkeypox will pass over (Babylon Bee)

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