Cross-Examination

• Trump and Britt respond: Joe Biden alluded to Donald Trump roughly a dozen times in last night’s State of the Union address, but he never once named him. Well, Trump took on his opponent last night in real time on his Truth Social platform and didn’t mince words. “He was angry, mentally disturbed, and misrepresenting a lot of the facts concerning almost every subject he discussed,” Trump said later on Fox News. “But he got through it. He is still breathing, and they didn’t have to carry him out in a straight jacket. Other than that, I think he did a terrible job.” We couldn’t agree more. Trump added that Biden’s unbridled anger is “also a symptom of a certain type of problem — senility.” Moreover, he joked, “He suffers from a terminal case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, which is only curable through impeachment.” Meanwhile, Alabama Republican Senator Katie Britt gave the official GOP response and aptly took on the president. For example: “We know that President Biden didn’t just create this border crisis — he invited it with 94 executive actions in his first 100 days.”

• Republicans remember Laken Riley: In his SOTU speech, Joe Biden sought to shift blame for Laken Riley’s murder by an illegal alien from Venezuela onto Republican lawmakers. Rather than avoiding mentioning her murder, Biden mispronounced her name, calling her “Lincoln,” before falsely claiming that Republican lawmakers’ refusal to pass a bad immigration bill was responsible for the massive number of illegal border crossings. Earlier on Thursday, House Republicans passed a bill named the Laken Riley Act that would require federal authorities to detain any illegal immigrant charged with theft and allow states to sue the federal government “if an immigration related action harms the state or its citizens." Directly prior to Biden’s speech, Republicans ran an ad featuring Biden in his own words promising back in 2019 not to deport illegal immigrants. "No one would be put in jail while waiting for their hearing,” he said then. The ad’s narrator observed of the illegal alien accused of murdering Riley: He “crossed into America illegally. He was not deported. He was not put in jail.” And when the illegal alien “was arrested in New York City for endangering a child, he was freed a second time.” He then “went to Georgia, where he beat Laken Riley to death.” The ad asks, "How many more killers has Biden set free?“ It’s a powerful ad that lays out the true record of who is primarily responsible for the illegal migration crisis: Joe Biden.

• Gold Star Dad gives Biden an earful: If ever a man deserved grace after having shouted down a U.S. president during a joint session of Congress, it would be Steve Nikoui. Nikoui’s son Kareem was one of the 13 American warriors who were murdered on August 23, 2021, in the Abbey Gate bombing at Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai International Airport. "Abbey Gate!” shouted Nikoui from the balcony of the House chamber down toward his son’s derelict commander-in-chief. “Second Battalion, First Marines!” As we wrote at the time, this was a massacre we saw coming. But only later did we learn just how infuriatingly avoidable that attack was. On the day of the attack, Sergeant Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a Marine Corps sniper, had the suicide bomber literally in his crosshairs, and he asked for clearance to do what he’d been trained to do: to protect his fellow warriors and the innocent civilians around them from an impending threat. He was denied. Twice. As a result, Lance Corporal Nikoui and 12 of his brothers and sisters lost their lives, and Vargas-Andrews lost his right arm, left leg, left kidney, and parts of his intestines and colon. And, near as we can tell, no one in Joe Biden’s military command has been held accountable. For what it’s worth, Steve Nikoui has been charged with crowding, obstructing, or incommoding Congress, a misdemeanor that typically results in the offender’s release after paying a $50 fine. All for trying to keep the memory of his son and his colleagues alive.

• Sunshine Protection Act: “We’ve always done it that way.” That, in a nutshell, seems to be the dubious rationale for Daylight Saving Time, or, as Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio puts it, “this stupid practice of changing our clocks back and forth.” Rubio, like a hardy perennial, was back at it again this week, resubmitting his highly acclaimed Sunshine Protection Act ahead of Sunday’s annual time change in an effort to make Daylight Saving Time permanent. “We’re ‘springing forward’ but should have never ‘fallen back,’” Rubio said in a statement that’s beginning to have a familiar ring. Regular readers of these pages will remember that we in our humble shop are four-square behind Rubio. As our Nate Jackson wrote back in 2022: “Acclimating to a new daylight schedule every March and again every November probably ranks among our least favorite things. That’s exponentially true if you’re raising kids. (Can we get an ‘amen’?) Totally disrupting the space-time continuum twice a year leads to sloppy work by sleepy people, car accidents and other injuries, hordes of zombie children, and a drastic increase in swearing. No rational human wants that to continue.” What does the future hold for Rubio’s legislation? As the Washington Examiner reports, “Nineteen states have passed legislation or resolutions supporting year-round daylight saving time, and last year, at least 29 states were considering related legislation.” Perhaps more permanent sunshine is something that transcends party affiliation.

• February jobs numbers: Roughly 275,000 jobs were added in February, exceeding the expected total of 198,000. However, one might want to take that figure with a grain of salt since the prior two months’ numbers were revised down by a total of 167,000 jobs. In other words, the job growth was not as hot as economists had thought. To add more disappointment, the headline unemployment rate rose to 3.9%. Wage increases of 0.1% also came in one-tenth of a percent under expectations, as total hourly wages are up 4.3% from a year ago but below the estimated 4.4%. The number of full-time jobs has also decreased even as part-time jobs have risen. The good news is that job growth remains steady.

• Kerry the climate cult peabrain: In his final press conference before stepping down as Joe Biden’s climate czar, John Kerry revealed that his highest priority is the climate change cult. In an apparently unsolicited offer of advice to Russia, Kerry suggested that people would feel a lot better about Vladimir Putin’s war with Ukraine if Russia took serious steps to reduce its carbon emissions. Referencing Russia’s war with Ukraine, Kerry stated, “If Russia wanted to show good faith, they could go out and announce what their reductions are going to be and make a greater effort to reduce emissions now.” He added, “Maybe that would open up the door for people to feel better about what Russia is choosing to do at this point in time.” So, in Kerry’s world, if Putin would just get on board the climate cult, then his war against Ukraine would be okay because reducing one’s carbon footprint completely excuses the waging of an illegal war.

• TikTok mobilizes users to fight Congress: The Chinese-owned and Beijing-subservient popular social media company TikTok is facing the possibility of being banned in the U.S. The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday pushed forward a bill that would crack down on TikTok over its massive accumulation of user data and its effort to spread subversive anti-American ideology. As committee chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) explained, “TikTok’s access to 170 million American users makes it a valuable propaganda tool for the [Chinese Communist Party] to exploit and use for nefarious purposes.” Evidencing this nefarious power, TikTok users received messages from the Chinese-owned company calling on them to mobilize against the bill. The message read, “This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States.” It added: “TikTok is at risk of being shut down in the U.S. Call your representative now.” Furthermore, Casey Lewis, who heads a venture capital firm, reported, “When I opened TikTok today, I got this pop-up that gives you no option to exit or swipe away, the only action is to ‘Call now.’” Chairwoman Rodgers observed, “TikTok will do anything they can — including manipulating and exploiting American users — in order to prevent CCP-controlled ByteDance from being banned from the U.S.”

• Drag queen who blasted “book bans” bans books: The famous drag queen RuPaul recently launched a new online bookstore he cofounded named Allstora. RuPaul claimed that he was motivated to create his bookstore in response to “book bans,” stating that Allstora would be “all-inclusive” and would “carry all books” to “support all voices everywhere.” On its website, Allstora had initially stated, “We’re a marketplace for all books and all stories, with a focus on elevating marginalized voices.” Yet just three days after opening the “no censorship” bookstore, Allstora began removing books from its store. And the books that just happened to be removed were works written by those with right-wing views such as Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Riley Gaines, and Matt Walsh. Why the sudden change? After all, Allstora had previously defended its all-inclusive book offerings by stating: “We cannot fight the ideologies of hate if we lack the ability to study, understand, and react to them. We do that by reading books.” Ah, but that was before some leftists got offended by the presence of books written by conservatives. So, by declaring certain books “offensive,” Allstora justified its viewpoint discrimination and banned books from its store. Of course, as a private company, it’s free to sell or not sell whatever books it wants, but that doesn’t free Allstora from being guilty of abject hypocrisy.

Headlines

• State of the Union 2024: Five key takeaways as Biden makes his case for a second term (Washington Examiner)

• Progressives furious at Biden for describing Laken Riley’s murder suspect as “illegal” (National Review)

• Biden scolds Supreme Court justices to their faces over Dobbs decision (National Review)

• Biden wants to raise the minimum corporate tax rate by a whopping 40% (Daily Wire)

• Biden to seek 1% increase in 2025 defense budget under cap (Bloomberg)

• Biden announces new Gaza port for aid (Jerusalem Post)

• Trump calls for debates with Biden “anytime, anywhere, anyplace” (Fox News)

• Alabama is the first state in 2024 to pass school choice, governor signs bill (Daily Caller)

• South Carolina governor signs “constitutional carry” measure (Just the News)

• Sweden officially joins NATO, ending decades of neutrality as fears of Russian aggression mount (New York Post)

• Humor: Biden opens State of the Union by saying hello to Dianne Feinstein (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.