Joe Biden Lied about Gun-Manufacturer Immunity. He Wasn’t Close to the Truth.By Dan McLaughlin

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/joe-biden-lied-about-gun-manufacturer-immunity-he-wasnt-close-to-the-truth/?utm_

I know this will be hard to believe, but Joe Biden lied in last night’s speech to the nation. Here is one especially egregious example:

We should repeal the liability shield that often protects gun manufacturers from being sued for the death and destruction caused by their weapons. They’re the only industry in this country that has that kind of immunity. Imagine. Imagine if the tobacco industry had been immune from being sued, where we’d be today. The gun industry’s special protections are outrageous. It must end.

Biden has made this claim before, as did Hillary Clinton. Politifact rated it false in 2015. As Biden knows perfectly well, or should know unless his mind is completely shot, there are multiple industries that enjoy federal statutory immunity from lawsuits over the use of their products.

Biden refers to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed by President George W. Bush in 2005. (Biden opposed it at the time.) Under the ordinary principles of tort law, product-liability lawsuits are for defective products that malfunction; the manufacturer of a legal product cannot be held responsible for the product working as designed, unless it has somehow failed to warn users of a risk of use. This is why Biden’s analogy to cigarettes is flawed: The theory of many product-liability lawsuits against cigarette manufacturers was either that cigarettes were marketed with false assurances of their safety or that the manufacturers concealed dangers of the product. That is obviously not true of guns: Everybody knows that guns are lethal weapons if used as designed.

Why Trump Is the Loser in a Georgia Election Rematch The former president managed to alienate Peach State Republicans by making common cause with Stacey Abrams against Gov. Brian Kemp. Barton Swaim

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-trump-is-the-loser-in-a-georgia-rematch-kemp-abrams-raffensperger-primary-voters-11654283552?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Ordinarily it’s a bad idea to search for national political significance in state primary elections, but these are not ordinary times.

The data points: On May 24 Republican Gov. Brian Kemp defeated former Sen. David Perdue by 52 points, and Secretary of State Brian Raffensperger bested his nearest opponent, Rep. Jody Hice, by 18 points. Both men were incumbents, but their challengers are accomplished politicians in their own right.

The remarkable thing about both races is Donald Trump’s assertive role in them. He carried on one-sided feuds with both winners and endorsed the losers. Mr. Raffensperger had insisted that Mr. Trump’s allegations about widespread voter fraud in Georgia were false, and in a 2020 postelection phone call with the president flatly rejected the idea that the secretary of state could “find” the 11,780 votes needed to deliver Georgia. Mr. Kemp later certified the election, moving Mr. Trump to call for the governor’s resignation and to say he was “ashamed” to have endorsed him in 2018. The former president’s hostility to both incumbents seemed to indicate electoral trouble for them, but they had none.

Covid Vindication for Ron DeSantis A Florida Inspector General report debunks the charge that the state manipulated case and death counts.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/florida-ron-desantis-governor-covid-data-manipulation-rebekah-jones-ig-report-11654292011?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

A frequent phenomenon of our times is the flurry over an alleged scandal that on examination turns out to be false. The latest case is the claim that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis manipulated Covid data.

Mr. DeSantis became public-health enemy number one by defying the left’s lockdown consensus early in the pandemic. When former state health department employee Rebekah Jones claimed she was fired for refusing to fudge state Covid data to support the state’s reopening in spring 2020, national and local media outlets reported her allegations as fact.

“Florida Dismisses A Scientist For Her Refusal To Manipulate State’s Coronavirus Data,” NPR reported. After the Florida Department of Law Enforcement executed a search warrant of her home, Ms. Jones claimed Mr. DeSantis had “sent the gestapo” to silence her. “FDLE raid dramatizes Florida’s COVID-19 coverup” the South Florida Sun Sentinel editorialized.

But according to the Governor’s office, Ms. Jones was fired for repeated “insubordination” and making “unilateral decisions to modify the Department’s COVID-19 dashboard without input or approval from the epidemiological team or her supervisors.”

George Washington, George Jarkesy, and the Administrative State’s Lack of Fundamental Justice John Berlau

https://cei.org/blog/george-washington-george-jarkesy-and-the-administrative-states-lack-of-fundamental-justice/

The recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Jarkesy v. SEC is a victory for limited constitutional government on many levels. As Mario Loyola, professor at Florida International University and senior fellow here at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, writes in The Wall Street Journal, the court “has taken what could be a historic step toward restoring the Constitution’s checks and balances.”

The case involved the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) seeking penalties for alleged fraud against hedge fund manager George Jarkesy. Utilizing a provision of the Dodd-Frank “financial reform” of 2010, the SEC chose to pursue Jarkesy in an internal proceeding before an administrative law judge (ALJ) rather than a normal federal court that is part of the judicial branch created by the Constitution’s Article III. As Loyola points out, in Jarkesy’s and other cases, the SEC “acts as rulemaker, prosecutor, and judge for America’s securities laws.”

On multiple grounds, the Fifth Circuit majority found the SEC’s denying Jarkesy the venue of a federal court in which to defend himself to be in violation of the Constitution. The court ruled that, because fraud has been a common-law offense to which jury trial right attaches, and the SEC in-house proceeding lacked a jury of his peers, Jarkesy was denied his Seventh Amendment guarantee of trial by jury.

A Wake-Up Call for Public Education

https://news13now.com/2022/06/02/a-wake-up-call-for-public-education/

A recent national analysis contained a deeply disturbing finding that has generated little public discussion when it should be causing an outcry: Nearly 1.3 million students have left public schools since the pandemic began. Most states have seen enrollment declines for two straight years. In New York City, K-12 enrollment has dropped by an astounding 9%.

Given that state education funding formulas rely on student population numbers, a large reduction in students will lead to a corresponding reduction in school budgets. That’s the law of supply and demand. Otherwise, at this rate, the public will soon be paying teachers to lead half-empty classrooms.

The message to educators and elected officials could hardly be clearer: Too many public schools are failing, parents are voting with their feet, and urgent and bold action is needed. Until now, however, the only governmental response has been to spend more money — too much of which has gone to everyone but our children.

Since 2020, Congress has sent an additional $190 billion to schools, in part to help them reopen safely and stave off layoffs. But in many districts, union leaders resisted a return to in-classroom instruction long after it was clear that classrooms were safe. And by and large, remote instruction was a disaster. By one analysis, the first year of the pandemic left students an average of five months behind in math and four months behind in reading, with much larger gaps for low-income schools.

McCormick concedes to Oz in Pennsylvania Senate GOP primary by Tal Axelrod and Caroline Vakil

https://thehill.com/news/campaign/3511563-mccormick-concedes-to-oz-in-pennsylvania-senate-gop-primary/

Businessman David McCormick has conceded to rival Mehmet Oz in the Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania, capping off a confusing and narrowly divided process.

McCormick said during a media availability on Friday that he had “came so close” on election night and had spent more than two weeks “making sure that every Republican vote was counted in a way that would result in the will of Pennsylvanian voters being fulfilled” after a recount was called with Oz leading by fewer than 1,000 votes.

“But it’s now clear to me, with the recount largely complete, that we have a nominee. And today I called Mehmet Oz to congratulate him on his victory,” he said. “And I told him what I always said to you — that I will do my part to try to unite Republicans and Pennsylvanians behind his candidacy, behind his nomination for the Senate.”

In a brief Twitter thread, Oz confirmed that McCormick had called him and said he was “tremendously grateful” for his support.

Sussmann’s cozy relationship with the FBI revealed by Jerry Dunleavy

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/sussmanns-cozy-relationship-with-the-fbi-revealed

Michael Sussmann’s cozy relationship with the FBI was revealed during his two-week trial and in a new letter by congressional Republicans, shedding new light on the Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer’s close ties to the bureau as he pushed since-debunked Trump-Russia claims.

Sussmann, a former Perkins Coie lawyer who represented the Democratic National Committee when it was hacked in 2016, was acquitted by a jury this week after being charged with lying to the FBI about whom he was representing when, in September 2016, he pushed false allegations of a secret back channel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa-Bank.

Reps. Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray this week with details they had learned about the relationship between Perkins, Sussmann, and the bureau.

“We have learned that since March 2012, the FBI approved and facilitated a Secure Work Environment at Perkins Coie’s Washington, D.C., office, which continues to be operational. In a letter dated May 25, 2022, the law firm confirmed and acknowledged the arrangement,” Jordan and Gaetz told Wray.

“We have been informed that former Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann had access to this Secure Work Environment, and during the course of his recent trial, it was disclosed he had special badge access to FBI headquarters.”

US needs a strategy for a realigned Middle East by Lawrence Haas

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3510732-us-needs-a-strategy-for-a-realigned-middle-east/

As recent events make clear, the Middle East is increasingly becoming a bifurcated region, with Israel and its growing Sunni Arab allies on one side, and Iran and its state and terror-group allies on the other.

Gone are the days when the region was bifurcated in another way — between Israel and everyone else — and when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was considered the main obstacle to wider Arab-Israeli peace.

The realigned Middle East has major implications for efforts to resurrect the 2015 global nuclear agreement with Iran, which rested on naïve U.S. hopes that it would moderate the radical regime in Tehran and nourish warmer U.S.-Iranian relations. At this point, Washington, Jerusalem, and like-minded governments should prepare for life beyond that agreement — whether it ever comes back to life or not.

Consider what we’ve seen across the region just in recent days. For starters, Israel and the United Arab Emirates have just signed the first ever comprehensive free trade agreement between the Jewish state and any Arab nation, and it’s expected to greatly expand trade between these two nations in the coming years and also encourage Israeli companies to build manufacturing sites in the UAE.

The trade deal builds on the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords of 2020, which brought formal diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco — and (preceded by Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994) increased the number of Arab states with formal ties to Israel to six.

“Will He, or Won’t He?” Sydney Williams

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com/

The question in the title, of course, is aimed at Mr. Trump and the 2024 Presidential election. While I admire what Mr. Trump accomplished as President and for the way he battled media vilification, I find his ego, language and bullying offensive.

Obviously, no one knows the answer to the question, including, in all probability, Mr. Trump. The election is thirty months away, with midterms coming first. Mr. Trump will turn 76 on June 14 – granted he would be younger than was Mr. Biden in 2020, but no longer in the flower of youth, nor even in the comfort of middle age. Mr. Trump remains controversial and divisive – not the soothing, empathetic figure the nation needs when it is fraught with division as to who we are and what we stand for. (Is it really alright to let young men in high school who self-identify as women use girls’ showers? The condoning of deviant behavior in the name of social justice, no matter what the LBGTQ community may claim, is aberrant.)

Mr. Trump remains the dominant figure in Republican politics. A poll of potential Republican primary voters taken in March of this year by Morning Consult, a global decision intelligence company, gave Mr. Trump 55% of the vote, Ron DeSantis 12%, Mike Pence 10% and Nikki Haley 7%. Ohio’s J.D. Vance appeared to have been helped by Mr. Trump’s endorsement in the May 3rd Senatorial primary. Other Trump-endorsed candidates like Georgia’s Herschel Walker’s bid for the U.S. Senate and Arkansas’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s campaign for governor were successful. Yet Virginia’s gubernatorial election last November and Georgia’s primary on May 24th suggest Mr. Trump is not a fool-proof king maker. In fact, last week’s Harvard-Harris poll showed a preference for Mr. Trump had declined to 41% among Republican primary voters.

Harvey Weinstein Adviser Anita Dunn in Line To Become White House Chief of Staff

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/antia-dunn-weinstein-biden/

Damage Control: Harvey Weinstein Adviser in Line To Become White House Chief of Staff

Anita Dunn, the senior Biden aide best known for providing “damage control” advice to disgraced Hollywood rapist Harvey Weinstein, is in line to take over as White House chief of staff after the midterm elections, NBC News reports.

Dunn is widely considered to be a “potential successor” to Ron Klain, the current White House chief of staff who several people close to Biden told NBC News was planning to “depart at some point after the midterms.”