Cross-Examination

• COVID “emergency” finally over: Joe Biden finally made it official Monday by signing H.J.Res. 7, which recognized what everyone else has known for well over a year — the COVID pandemic is long over. Yet it took Congress passing a bipartisan bill to get Biden to relinquish the temporary executive emergency powers that had been afforded back in early 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. It was last September that Biden publicly stated that “the pandemic is over.” Of course, that admission didn’t stop the Biden administration from then arguing against any immediate ending of temporary executive powers; the White House just earlier this year maintained that ending the emergency powers “would create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system.” Really? The more important question is whether the federal government’s use and abuse of emergency powers actually resulted in more harm than good.

• Tennessee expulsion undone already: Two Tennessee Democrat lawmakers were expelled from their seats in the state legislature due to their having led an “insurrection” protest in the state house chamber. One of them was already unsurprisingly reinstated by the Metro Nashville Council, and the other “will receive a similar vote by the Shelby County Commission on Wednesday that could potentially reinstate him as well,” according to Fox News. The Reverend Mark Thompson, who rallied in support of the two lawmakers prior to the vote to expel them, responded by referencing the Easter Sunday holiday celebration. “The word is right,” he said. “It’s jubilant. Last week, they sent these two gentlemen home, but it’s Easter weekend. So they’ve been resurrected. They’re back in their seats. And whatever the Republicans here were up to has been thwarted for now.” So, two lawless lawmakers were justly ejected from the state legislature for their unprecedentedly unruly and (ironically) undemocratic behavior, and now they’re being likened to Christ. Is it Christ or the Democrat Party that Thompson worships?

• TikTok’s White House briefing room: In the midst of Congress holding hearings over whether to ban the Chinese-owned spyware social media app TikTok, the White House is looking to create a new special press briefing room for social media influencers, many of whom are TikTokers. The Biden administration views social media as a road to winning over more young voters irrespective of the demonstrable social damage and national security threat TikTok holds. Indeed, Team Biden has briefed TikTokers before. Talk about placing party politics over and against protecting the nation.

• The fed-to-Big Tech pipeline: On a related note, the growing number of former federal government employees who now work for Big Tech companies explains why censorship has increasingly become a problem on these social media platforms. Furthermore, these former federal employees are coming from the intelligence agencies. For example, Google from 2017 to 2022 has hired 130 former CIA, FBI, DHS, and DOJ employees. Meta has hired 47, and TikTok has hired 25. Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and the subsequent release of the Twitter Files have demonstrated just how deep the federal government is effectively embedded within Big Tech. What better way to get privately owned companies to bend to the leftist political desires of the Washington establishment than to infiltrate Silicon Valley with former members of the intelligence community?

Headlines

• Federal investigation into classified docs leak heats up as U.S., allies race to contain fallout (Washington Times)

• Louisville bank shooter ID’d as a portfolio banker (Breitbart)

• Legal fight over abortion drug could quickly hit Supreme Court (Roll Call)

• U.S. designates Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained” by Russia (Fox News)

• Hunter Biden’s business partners, assistants visited White House over 80 times when Biden was VP (Fox News)

• New Biden rule would force automakers to ditch gas, sell electric vehicles (Free Beacon)

• FBI hatched plan to surveil Catholics, Weaponization Committee says (Free Beacon)

• Black children five times more likely to die from gunfire than white children (Daily Wire)

• Whole Foods is shuttering its flagship store in San Francisco just a year after it opened (RedState)

• Riley Gaines slams SF State for praising “peaceful” protest where swimmer claims she was assaulted by trans-rights activists (NY Post)

• Megan Rapinoe, Sue Bird among athletes who sign letter opposing Protection of Girls and Women in Sports Act (Fox News)

• In reversal, Netanyahu says he’s keeping Gallant as Israel’s defense minister (Axios)

• North Korean nuclear arsenal nearly doubled since 2017 (Free Beacon)

• Taiwan warns Chinese misstep could lead to “uncontrollable” world war outbreak (Fox News)

• Policy: Ten things the U.S. can start doing right now to counter China’s dominance  (The Federalist)

• Humor: Historic intel leak traced back to Biden hitting “Reply All” on email (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.