Cross-Examination

• McCarthy’s win on debt ceiling On Wednesday, House Republicans passed HR 2811, a bill dubbed the Limit, Save, Grow Act that raises the debt ceiling to prevent the federal government from defaulting on debt. Joe Biden has refused to negotiate with Republicans and predictably rejected the plan almost immediately, with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stating, “The president has made clear this bill has no chance of becoming law.” However, irrespective of the White House response, Speaker Kevin McCarthy now has leverage to use against Biden and the Democrats for refusing to negotiate as they sat on their hands gambling that Republicans would fail to come together and pass anything. While the bill is anything but austere, it does cut back some on Biden’s out-of-control spending and includes work requirements for Medicaid and food stamp recipients. This will force Biden and Democrats to come to the negotiating table.

• DeSantis is running: The Florida Senate passed legislation Wednesday that will allow the governor to run for president without having to resign the office. Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the bill, putting the final piece in place for his impending entry into the Republican presidential primary. DeSantis has long batted the question away, always responding by saying he is focused on governing Florida, though his recent travels both across the country and the globe belie such sentiments. Indeed, it now looks like DeSantis will be officially jumping into the race no later than the middle of May after the state’s legislative session has ended.

• Hutchinson makes it official: Speaking of presidential candidates, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson officially announced his bid for the Republican nomination. Hutchinson touted his political and governmental record: “I stand alone in terms of my experience, record, and leadership. From Congress to DEA to Homeland Security, I have served our country in times of crisis. As governor of Arkansas, we cut taxes and created record surpluses.” The 72-year-old aspirant insists that he has a record of being a “consistent conservative.” Hutchinson dismisses not having the name recognition of several of the other current and presumptive candidates in the field. “I’m not worried about where we are now,” he argued. “This is a long runway. We’ve got time to build the name identification and I look forward to the opportunity to engage in retail politics that means so much here in Iowa.” Well, time will tell.

• Tucker speaks: As the media pontification over Tucker Carlson’s surprising firing from Fox News continues, the man in question finally spoke via a two-minute video posted on Twitter. Carlson largely avoided any reference to his firing and instead focused on the number of good people who have reached out to and encouraged him. He then hinted that he will soon be active in the media space again. While stories circulate as to why he was suddenly fired, Fox News is actively running damage control in an effort to set the narrative surrounding Carlson’s firing ahead of his inevitable return to the media spotlight. Eventually, Carlson will give his side of the story, which may be what worries Fox News.

• Make Earth Day a religious holiday: Here’s an idea on which we agree with a couple of loons writing in Time magazine. In an article titled “The Case For Making Earth Day a Religious Holiday,” the authors argued, “On this 53rd Earth Day we thought it useful to pose what a real Earth Day should represent and how it could form a central time for a new approach to worship.” The story’s conclusion: “In short, we must make nature central to our belief system with Earth Day or any number of earth-focused ceremonial days serving as regular reminders of what we owe our home planet.” We have long observed that environmental activism is more an expression of religious faith than science, and in a way we’d welcome this reality being officially recognized. Furthermore, as Power Line’s Steven Hayward insightfully observes, “If we start making Earth Day and the theology of this article officially recognized religious holidays, we can go to federal court to invalidate environmentalism as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.” Precisely.

• San Fran red state boycott fails: Conservatives have long lamented that boycotts seemingly never work for conservatives pushing against an objectionable leftist social issue. Well, it turns out they also don’t always work for leftist politicians. Case in point is the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ 2016 travel ban for city employees doing official business in Republican-controlled states. On Tuesday, the board voted 7-4 to repeal the boycott, with Supervisor Rafael Mandelman noting, “It’s not achieving the goal we want to achieve.” Worse, he added, “It is making our government less efficient.” San Francisco’s leftist virtue signal proved to be too expensive, costing the city upwards of $475,000 to implement and maintain. Talk about a waste of taxpayer money.

Headlines

• West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice is running for Joe Manchin’s pivotal Senate seat (CNBC)

• Biden cheat sheet shows he had advance knowledge of journalist’s question (NY Post)

• Disney sues Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, alleges political effort to hurt its business (CNBC)

• Nikki Haley invites Disney to move to South Carolina amid feud with DeSantis (National Review)

• Teacher union boss Randi Weingarten denies group delayed school openings or wrongly meddled with CDC guidelines (Daily Wire)

• Ex-producer suing Tucker Carlson has never even met him (PM)

• Senate votes to overturn Biden’s truck pollution rule (National Review)

• “Blatantly unconstitutional”: Gun rights groups sue Washington over assault weapons ban (Daily Wire)

• DOJ sues Tennessee to reverse ban on trans treatments for minors (Daily Wire)

• Consumers outraged after Maybelline pays Dylan Mulvaney to model its makeup (Fox News)

• Satire: Fauci says he never locked anything down and has never heard of COVID (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.