Cross-Examination

• SCOTUS blocks Biden’s student debt cancellation gambit: In a 6-3 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court shot down Joe Biden’s student loan debt cancellation program. Chief Justice John Roberts noted that the Court agreed with the six states that raised the suit against the Biden administration, stating that “the HEROES Act does not authorize the loan cancellation plan.” Biden’s student loan debt cancellation was based upon a precarious rationale that even he had acknowledged was outside the purview of the executive’s power months before he reversed course and did it anyway. Thankfully, American taxpayers will not be on the hook for paying back loans belonging to someone else. That being said, if it had been upheld you could have insisted your mortgage “identifies” as a student loan! Biden fully anticipated this reversal and he is lining these SCOTUS decisions up, as was the case with Roe v Wade, as election platform key points – this one specifically to firm up support among young voters.

• Big wins for religious freedom: A Christian United States Postal Service mail carrier’s objection to being required to work on Sunday was supported by the U.S. Supreme Court in a unanimous ruling. Gerald Groff sued the USPS for religious discrimination after he was required to deliver Amazon packages on Sundays, widely observed by Christians as their Sabbath day. In Groff v. DeJoy, the justices ruled that the USPS violated the “reasonable accommodation” clause under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which requires employers to “reasonably accommodate … an employee’s or prospective employee’s religious observance or practice” unless it causes the employer “undue hardship on the conduct of the employer’s business.” The issue the justices focused on was the definition of “undue hardship,” which they observed has been effectively used to infringe on religious rights. The Court also handed down a 6-3 ruling in favor of graphic designer Lorie Smith regarding a Colorado law that compelled businesses to provide services for people based upon their sexual orientation irrespective of their personal or religious objection. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote, “In this case, Colorado seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance.” He further noted that “tolerance, not coercion, is our Nation’s answer. The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands. Because Colorado seeks to deny that promise, the judgment is reversed.”

• More trouble for military recruiting: The U.S. military’s recruiting struggles over the last couple of years have been repeatedly reported on. Most of those reports have focused on a shrinking pool of fit and eligible American youth. However, another significant element leading to the recruiting struggles are the shrinking numbers of children of veterans signing up to serve. The Wall Street Journal reports: “The children of military families make up the majority of new recruits in the U.S. military. That pipeline is now under threat, which is bad news for the Pentagon’s already acute recruitment problems, as well as America’s military readiness.” Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen observed: “Influencers are not telling them to go into the military. Moms and dads, uncles, coaches and pastors don’t see it as a good choice.” Much of this is due to disillusionment over the hard-leftist ideology that has been increasingly injected into the military, beginning under Barack Obama and continuing today with Joe Biden.

• Thousands stranded due to flight cancellations: Since Monday, over 9,000 flights have been canceled and almost 116,000 have been delayed, leaving thousands of travelers stranded at airports across the nation and causing much frustration. That frustration has boiled over in instances of unruly passengers, which an apparently obtuse Federal Aviation Administration responded to by issuing “joking warnings” against such behavior. Of course, this only caused more frustration among travelers, who blasted the FAA for the cancellations for failing to get its act together. The cause of the cancellations and delays has been attributed to bad weather. However, the FAA’s new 5G regulation mandate that goes into effect on July 1 has likely contributed to the problem. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg admitted last week that with roughly 20% of domestic airlines yet to be equipped for preventing 5G interference, “there’s a risk of delays or cancelations.”

• Sanctuary city mess… New York City is now housing over 100,000 people in its homeless shelters, with over 50,000 of those people being illegal immigrants. Since Democrat Mayor Eric Adams came into office earlier this year, the city has spent over a billion taxpayer dollars on housing these illegal aliens, and estimates are that over $4 billion will be spent next year as more migrants come into the city. Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom, noting that 2,500 migrants entered last week alone, bemoaned that “if there was a national coordination of this, then the burden wouldn’t be so much on New York City.” Tell that to the residents of El Paso and other border cities that have been overrun with migrants thanks to Joe Biden’s border malfeasance. It is indeed rich that officials of these self-declared “sanctuary cities” like New York immediately begin moaning and demanding help as soon as they experience just the slightest bit of inconvenience they have explicitly invited.

• Is Canadian smoke racist? Given the fact that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a well-documented history of dressing up in blackface, the question of whether smoke from massive wildfires currently consuming swaths of America’s northern neighbor and blanketing much of the eastern U.S. is racist might be deserved. But that is not why the Associated Press has posited such a ridiculous question. In a recently released video, the AP asserts that the Canadian smoke disproportionally affects poor blacks living in the inner city, particular in Detroit. A black man in the video states: “Many communities face this way too often, right? While this wildfire smoke allows unfortunately many people to feel this burden. This is a burden that far too long communities have faced day in and day out.” The video effectively amounts to anti-white and anti-suburban propaganda.

Headlines

• Thomas blasts Jackson’s dissent in affirmative action decision: “Cancerous to young minds” (Washington Examiner)

• Harvard’s most famous Native American scholar Elizabeth Warren rages at Supreme Court decision to strike down affirmative action (PM)

• President bizarrely wanders off set as MSNBC host wraps up interview (Fox News)

• Hunter Biden business partner given cold shoulder on offer to testify to grand jury (Daily Wire)

• Hunter Biden prevails in effort to deprive daughter of last name (National Review)

• First-quarter economic growth was actually 2%, up from 1.3% first reported in major GDP revision (CNBC)

• A $100 billion wealth migration tilts U.S. economy’s center of gravity south (Bloomberg)

• Biden regulations have cost Americans almost $10,000 per household: study (Fox News)

• U.S. adults “extremely proud” to be American near record low (Daily Wire)

• Dylan Mulvaney explodes on Bud Light after controversy (Daily Wire)

• Humor: Awkward: Supreme Court rules against affirmative action with affirmative action hire sitting right there (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.